Kiss of Fate

by Deirdre Dore

  He continued talking to Jessop. “They think she’s crazy, though. Some people think she killed everyone in that pond. Other people think she did some kind of voodoo curse or something. They’re talking about drugs and money, but no one knows anything for sure.”

  “That bitch is crazy. What about your nephew? You said he’s been nosing around trying to find out what happened to that stupid niece of yours.”

  George’s heart slowed down a little. He retrieved a canister of high-pressure air from the drawer of his desk and carefully sprayed out the crumbs of food in his keyboard. He liked his nephew. Brent had always noticed him, had always been nice to him. Brent was the only one to ever see his uncle clearly. It made him special. And dangerous. Brent noticed too many things.

  “He’s still looking into it. He and Gloria Belle’s daughter, Raquel.”

  “I expect you to keep them looking somewhere else, George, you got that? I’m sending someone down to get the operation moved, and when it’s done I expect you to take care of that problem before they figure out that you and I are connected. You understand me, Georgie?”

  “Yes, Jessop,” George agreed, because he knew better than to disagree, at least out loud.

  “Good. And since that crazy woman is locked up, I expect you to get the goods she’s holding out of that damn shop of hers. Without getting caught, George.”

  George had known this was coming. Jane helped them with shipments sometimes—because George knew her secret and she knew his, but the drugs were still in her shop in the center of Fate. He’d have to break in to retrieve them, or find someone else to get them for him.

  “All right, Jessop. I’ll get it.”

  “Damn right you will,” the old man muttered, and hung up.

  12

  THE BODY LAY facedown, half in, half out of the stream, legs stretched toward the bank, like a diver who had missed the water, the dark skin grayish with mottled patches of orange-red where red clay had run and then dried like a crust. The afternoon sun blazed down on the water gently sliding past, the overgrown weeds that hung over the banks, and the body below. Flies buzzed incessantly, and there was an occasional splash as the fish—usually not so active at this hour—feasted on the insects that had made their home in Gloria Belle’s body.

  Raquel noticed that Gloria Belle had been wrapped in something, a sheet that had once been white, but the water had pulled it partly free so that the end of it floated in the current past her mother’s outstretched arms. She was wearing the short dress that she’d had on when Raquel had last seen her. The blond wig she’d been wearing was missing—Raquel had an idea where that was—and her short gray hair was cut close to her head and thinning in places.

  “Here. Drink this.”

  Raquel glanced over at Brent. She’d told him to go home and sleep at his uncle’s house, but he’d insisted on following her to the river. She wanted to deny it, but part of her was glad that he had come, glad that he was there when the call had come in.

  He held out a bottle of water.

  “Thanks.” Raquel took it and drank deeply. She hadn’t planned on standing outside in the heat this long, especially not in her motorcycle leathers, but it had taken some time before she’d gotten a hold of Investigator Coopershawk, and the officers working the perimeter of the scene had refused to let her through even with her badge.

  “Have they found any evidence that would indicate who did this?” he asked her, reaching out to push her sweaty hair off her forehead. She brushed his hand aside. She didn’t need support. Or coddling. She needed to get some answers.

  “I don’t know. The investigator in charge is supposed to talk to me in a few minutes,” she explained, and, because she felt like he was seeing her too intently, she asked, “Can you get me some more water?”

  He studied her again, suspicion narrowing his eyes. Too smart for his own good, that’s what her grandmother had said about him. Bessie had liked him, though, Raquel thought, with a pang for the woman she’d adored, the woman who’d raised her while her mother drank, caroused, and got high. Her grandmother had never said so, but Raquel could tell. He was an easy person to like: steady, capable, charming. A little sly. Stubborn. Arrogant.

  He finally nodded and headed back to his Jeep with the restrained ferocity of a soccer player about to kick a goal. When he forgot to amble like a man without a care in the world, he moved quickly and with definite purpose. For all that he acted as unthreatening as apple pie, that walk gave him away as a predator.

  She waited until he was at the Jeep to walk over to the edge of the creek where the detective on the case, a woman with bright red hair, was making notes on a tablet.

  “Anything?” Raquel asked simply but without much expectation. Odds were that any evidence had been washed away.

  The detective regarded her with interest and some sympathy. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Officer Weaver. Tyler talks about you.”

  “Call me Raquel.” Raquel was a little surprised that Tyler talked about her. They’d known each other, of course, because of Tavey, because they’d gone to high school together, but she hadn’t thought he’d talked about her.

  “All right, Raquel. I’m Shari. I admire your work. I heard about that sleaze you arrested a couple months ago, the one preying on young boys. Think they’ll convict him?”

  “I think so.” Raquel’s eyebrows drew together as she thought about that case. The man had been using a video game chat room to entice boys into chatting and then meeting with him. Raquel had learned how to play Zombie Apocalypse with Bimbos—or whatever it had been called—in order to trap the pervert. “The prosecutor is pretty confident.”

  Shari nodded and shifted gears. “Well, there’s not much I can tell you yet about this case, but we’re fairly confident about the ID, even though the body’s been in the water for at least a week.”

  Raquel nodded. “The sheet seems weird,” she ventured.

  “It does,” Shari agreed, pursing her lips and nodding. “It’s almost like he cared for her maybe, or didn’t want her seen in those clothes.”

  “Why put her facedown, then?” Raquel wondered aloud.

  “She may not have been that way,” she explained in a clear, concise tone. “It looks like she might have been wrapped up and laid down in those tree roots and the current caught at that sheet and pulled her forward. She’s been here awhile. Probably since right after she was taken.”

  “You think he knew her?”

  Shari took a moment, her dark eyes thoughtful. She didn’t know, of course, but Raquel wasn’t one of the boys. She could say what she felt without being mocked. “I do, but I don’t have a good reason. Not yet.”

  Raquel nodded. It was good enough for her.

  Brent returned with her water in hand. It was icy cold; he kept a cooler in the back of his Jeep. Tavey did the same thing. Probably because they both tended to live out of their cars—Tavey when she was helping to locate a missing person, and Brent all the time. He’d told her that he hadn’t even had an actual apartment in his name in years.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “Thanks”—she waved to indicate the water—“and no,” she answered his question shortly, pissed that it seemed like this was going to be another dead end. “And you shouldn’t be here anyway.” She’d been forced to cooperate with him on the investigation into Gloria Belle because he’d known the woman better. He’d known the people she talked to, the people she liked. Raquel had neither wanted nor been afforded that opportunity.

  He shrugged his massive shoulders as if to say, I don’t see anyone trying to stop me. They weren’t, because Raquel had told the officers that it was okay.

  Raquel headed back toward her motorcycle, letting him follow as he would. She had to get out of here. She had to get to the station and get ready for work. She didn’t actually intend to work, though, at least not at her usual
job. After today, Jane was the last person who’d actually been there in ’86, might have known what happened that fall day the night after Charlie Collins decided to steal almost five million dollars from his employer. Raquel intended to talk to her again, one way or another.

  BRENT WASN’T SURE why he was following Raquel back to the station. She’d made it more than clear that she didn’t want his help, but he wasn’t about to let her get rid of him. For one thing, he needed her. The answers to nearly thirty years of questions were about to come to light—he could feel it in his damn bones—and her sudden intense dislike wasn’t going to put him off. To be fair, she’d never gone so far as to say she’d liked him, but she’d slept with him a few times, so he felt he was justified in being a little confused on the matter. For another thing, he wasn’t entirely certain he could stop thinking about her if he tried.

  The image of her last night, her face fierce as they’d broken into that house, both thrilled and worried him. She seemed even more determined now, like the dead body of Gloria Belle was the last straw. He wondered if she realized that she was actually upset about the death of Gloria Belle for its own sake, not just because it meant they had one fewer link to what happened to Summer. Like it or not, the woman had been her mother.

  Brent remembered asking Gloria Belle about her daughter when he’d filmed her for the documentary all those years ago. It was one of the rare moments when the woman had actually been sober and coherent.

  “Raquel,” she’d said simply, and a strange emotion, something like guilt, had passed over her face.

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” she’d said finally, and for once Brent thought that she meant it.

  Last week, when Raquel had been ignoring him, he’d asked Tavey about Raquel’s relationship with her mother because Raquel wouldn’t speak about it herself, but Tavey hadn’t known much, either.

  “Sometimes when we were little, before Summer disappeared, Gloria Belle would show up wasted at the house, and my grandpa and Bessie would handle her. She’d be there, insisting she was taking Raquel, that they were going to have a real family, but they always managed to send her away again.”

  “Was Raquel aware that this was going on?”

  Tavey, already uncomfortable talking about her friend, shook her head. “I’m not sure, she really never talked about Gloria Belle much except to Summer. You should ask Raquel about this.”

  Brent wished he’d been able to talk to Raquel, but she’d refused to talk to him in ’99 when he’d done the documentary about her mother, and she was refusing to talk to him now, at least about anything that didn’t pertain to the case.

  He launched himself into his Jeep and turned the key with one motion, wishing he’d thought to grab himself a water out of the cooler.

  No time for it now, he thought, glancing in the rearview mirror as Raquel sped by up a dirt road that ran down to the creek, entirely covered in black leather and a shiny black helmet. She was going too fast for the churt that had been spread to make the road; one big chunk of rock, and she’d likely spin out and get hurt. He didn’t think that would stop her. If he took the time to get a Coke, she’d be long gone. He knew where she was going, but he felt this absurd, completely irrational need to make sure she got there safely. She didn’t need his help, but by God, she was going to get it anyway.

  13

  JANE PERCHED ON the end of her bed and waited, her long dark hair hanging forward into her face. Her hands lay limply in her lap, pale fingers still.

  She heard the door open, heard her nurse talking to the visitor, and then a man’s voice—and it was the voice she had been dreading. She retreated, hoping that she could hide, just a little, but Circe wasn’t there, wouldn’t come forward.

  She kept her head down.

  “Jane, honey, your lawyer’s here to talk to you.”

  He’s not my lawyer, she wanted to scream, but knew better.

  Keisha didn’t wait for her to respond. She spoke to the man directly. “She’s lucid for the moment, but if she gets out of control, just ring this bell or shout. The guards outside will hear you.”

  “Thank you.” The man’s voice was awkward, a little too formal sounding.

  “You got it,” Keisha answered, and Jane knew that she thought George was weird. Everyone did, but then they forgot about him. Jane knew why. He was one of theirs—mostly ignored, but nevertheless one of them. One of Jane’s uncles who had disappeared long ago had fathered a son with Abraham’s sad wife and had given him away. Ninny had told her the tale much later. Jane hadn’t known right away that he was one of theirs. She’d met him with Mark and Gloria Belle and Charles, at the place where they’d kept the girl and the drugs. In the woods.

  “Jane, look up, please.” He sounded frustrated, like a kid who wanted a particular toy but knew he would be denied.

  Jane swallowed and looked up, her eyes pleading. “George. Mark made me.”

  His lips pruned up, but he didn’t disagree. “You should have called and told me he’d come back.”

  Jane bit her lip. She hadn’t even thought about it . . . or Circe hadn’t. She’d just wanted to be with Mark again, her husband. It hadn’t been fair that he’d been gone so long.

  “Did you have Jessop send him away?” She’d been pondering this question since Mark had returned and told her where he’d been. Mark had left about a year after they’d killed Charlie at the paper mill, but he hadn’t returned until this past spring. He’d explained to her that Jessop had sent him to Mexico to help with the drugs there.

  “I did.” George nodded enthusiastically. “He would have ruined the plan, Jane; he would have taken the money. Jessop was already suspicious.”

  “The money wasn’t where we left it,” Jane stated. “I knew it wasn’t there. I looked. We looked. He made me get in the basement with Robert.” The horror of that, the look on her husband’s face as he’d pointed the gun at her, made her shrink inside herself and duck her head again. He shouldn’t have done that, Circe whispered to her.

  “I know,” he agreed shortly. “Gloria Belle thought her mother found Charlie. She probably found the money as well.” He shook his head. “I don’t care about this, Jane.”

  “Bessie knew where the money was?” Circe whispered. Bessie hadn’t said anything, not even when Mark hurt her, but then he hadn’t been asking her about the money.

  “Gloria Belle had told her what happened to Charlie.” George sounded vaguely curious now. “Was that why Mark took her mother? Because he thought Bessie knew where the money was?”

  “No.” Jane shook her head. “He wanted to know where he could find Gloria Belle.”

  George grunted, as if he thought that was stupid. “Gloria Belle could have been found easily. He simply had to ask me. There was no need for this.”

  “No. He was sure that when the bodies were found in the millpond, Jessop would start asking questions. He wanted to get the money and go before you figured out he’d lied all those years ago and punished him.”

  “Ahh.” George nodded and scratched his chin. “But I already knew he’d lied. I forgot we kept that a secret from him.”

  “Yes,” Jane whispered. So many secrets. She kept them for Circe, for herself, so she could forget. Jane was good with secrets.

  “You didn’t tell him we’ve been working together all this time, then?”

  “No.” Jane swallowed. “It’s all still there,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked: Where are the drugs we gave you to keep for us?

  “Good, Jessop wants it back.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “You know the code.”

  “I have another question for you, Jane.”

  Jane knew what was coming and wished, more than ever, that she could retreat into Circe and forget all the dark secrets of her heart, the lies she told herself over and over again.

  George shuffled
a little closer. He was wearing a suit and a blue button-down shirt. The fabric looked expensive, but the buttons strained around his big belly.

  “Where is Summer?” he asked her, just as he’d asked her a thousand times before.

  Jane wet her lips. “I don’t know. The solstice—”

  “How are you going to perform the rituals in here, Jane?” he asked, his voice almost a whine. “You say you need the solstice to see her, but you’re in here!”

  He keeps saying my name, she thought. Because he knew. He knew Circe was there, that sometimes she slipped and Jane couldn’t come back. “I can get out,” Jane promised. “I’ll get out and perform the ritual and tell you where she is.”

  “You have more of her things?”

  Every year on the eve of the solstice, Jane had held the big celebration in the center of Fate, but she’d also performed the ritual in different places in the woods, trying to see where Summer had gone. She’d used things belonging to Summer: ribbons, a book, a shoe. She’d drawn her own blood and used sacred herbs in the ceremonies, but they hadn’t found Summer. George had watched each time, his face eager, to see if Summer appeared. Jane understood his obsession and was afraid to tell him that she didn’t think she had enough magic, that it would take someone with more magic to reveal her little sister.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “I have more of her things.”

  “Good.” George nodded. “Then you’ll escape and perform the ceremony. I have a new place for you to try.”

  “But,” Jane protested, “the ceremony in town? That has to be part of it.”

  “That was just to make money, Jane, just to cover up the transfer of the drugs.”

  Jane frowned. Had that been why they’d started the celebration in town? She couldn’t remember.

  “I’ll help you get out, Jane. As your attorney, I’ll be able to speak for you.”