It should have been over long ago—Carlo Mustov would be dead now, but for the appeals process. Then no one would be prying and poking and stirring up things best left alone. Do-gooders—their numbers kept increasing, if not their sense of self-preservation.
If Andrei Sobatka and Elizabeth Granville thought they’d been discreet discussing their bargain to find her mother’s real killer here on carnival grounds, they’d been sadly mistaken.
Whatever information they hoped to find, they were bound to be disappointed.
No one knew anything that would clear Carlo.
At least no one who would tell.
Why couldn’t they all just back off? Why start digging now, after all these years? Why make themselves targets—and for what?
Carlo Mustov was going to die and soon.
The question was, how many would have to join him?
Chapter Four
“Elizabeth, dear, it’s such a pleasure to have you for a visit. It’s been far too long. Since the last election, if I remember correctly.”
Miss Ina remembered exactly, Elizabeth thought with satisfaction, counting on that memory going back even further. They sat in the elderly woman’s front parlor, a tea service laid out on the spindly-legged table. Elizabeth had wedged herself in one corner of the ancient couch with its faded flowered upholstery, while Miss Ina sat in a rose-colored wing-backed chair and poured tea.
Taking the porcelain cup from the frail hand heavy with rings, Elizabeth said, “I have to admit to an ulterior motive in coming to see you today, Miss Ina.”
The silver-haired octogenarian looked at her through eyes that were still sharp behind frameless glasses. “What office does your daddy intend to run for this time?”
“It’s not about Daddy. It’s Mama.”
“Theresa? But she’s been dead for…let me think a moment…about ten years, I believe.”
Elizabeth nodded. “And Carlo Mustov is still on death row for her murder.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“I’m no longer convinced that he’s guilty.”
“Oh, my.”
“But I can’t figure out who else might have killed Mama, either.”
Miss Ina stared down into her teacup. “I don’t know how I can I help you.”
“You knew Mama pretty well.”
“Yes, she was such a dear girl. She used to make a point of coming to see me when I couldn’t get out.”
“The two of you talked, then.”
“Of course.”
“About her? Her problems, I mean.”
Miss Ina frowned. “Theresa wasn’t much on volunteering that kind of information.”
“Oh.” Disappointment flooded Elizabeth, making her wonder why she was on this fool’s mission.
“But then, I’ve always had a way of getting things out of people when they were troubled,” the old woman admitted. “What exactly might you want to know?”
“Whether anyone had reason to hate Mama…enough to kill her.”
“Oh, my, no! Everyone loved her.”
Elizabeth remembered saying the very same thing to Andrei. And she in turn echoed him. “Not everyone.”
“Well, I don’t think her being too pretty or too well dressed or too involved with the community was her downfall.”
“You think it was Carlo, then.”
“I’m not sure.” Miss Ina put down her cup. “She told me she was having an affair with Carlo. I wasn’t shocked, you understand. I’m old. I’ve seen and heard it all. I was merely concerned for her. And for you. I felt she needed some perspective on her situation, so I told her to break it off with him, because he wasn’t worth losing everything over. She agreed. That was the day before she died. Too bad I didn’t speak up sooner. Then, I had no idea that ‘everything’ included her life.”
“When you spoke to her so frankly, did Mama say anything about being afraid of Carlo?”
“No. But she admitted to being uncomfortable in her situation with him. She said she felt someone was watching them. It gave her…I believe she said it gave her the creeps. Yes. And that she feared the person would either blackmail her or go to your daddy and tell him everything.”
Wondering if her mother had been right, Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “Well, thank you, Miss Ina. I appreciate your being so frank with me.”
If only the information hadn’t pointed potential guilt back to her father.
JUSTICE IS BLIND. Love is death. The law is impotent.
And he was living proof, Andrei thought as he spoke to his mother long distance on the phone in the trailer office.
“I wish I could tell you that I’ve remembered something in addition to what I testified,” his mother said, “but I can’t. Believe me, I’ve gone over their argument in my head more times than I can count. I so hate that Carlo was convicted on my testimony.”
“Do you believe he could be innocent, Maman?”
“I simply don’t know. ‘You can’t think I’ll simply step aside. You’ll never be free of me, Theresa.’ That is what he said. His exact words. They haunt me still.”
He was getting nowhere fast, Andrei thought. All he’d managed to do was get himself involved with the one woman he should have avoided. The one woman who’d had it in her power to tempt him into making a fool of himself.
As if his mother knew what he was thinking, she asked, “Andrei, how are you?”
“The same.”
“You don’t sound the same. I hear tension in your voice.”
“Well, trying to clear Carlo is every bit as stressful as I thought it would be.”
“No, it’s something else.”
“No. There’s nothing.”
He heard her sigh before she said, “I am your mother. Any time you want to talk, you know I’m here for you.”
“I know that and I love you for it.”
But his mother was the last person in the world he could talk to about this particular problem. And he certainly wouldn’t discuss it here, where anyone could walk in and overhear. Not liking the whole idea of cell phones, he refused to buy one for himself. So he wound up the conversation and rang off before his mother could probe more deeply or someone walked in.
But he couldn’t forget about it. Couldn’t forget Valonia’s curse that would undoubtedly shadow him for the rest of his natural life.
Mood dark, he left the office and headed for the midway.
“Andrei, there you are!”
Recognizing Alessandra’s voice, he turned as his cousin caught up to him.
He hugged her and gave her a worried look. “You shouldn’t be here, not by yourself. Where’s Wyatt?”
“At home, where he needs to be. He’s better, though. And itching to finish what he started before the carnival picks up and moves to the next town. He’s hoping the doctor will clear him for less restricted activity at his follow-up appointment tomorrow.”
Andrei moved off toward his trailer, Alessandra at his side. He said, “Don’t let him rush into anything he shouldn’t.”
“I don’t want him to. On the other hand, he’s an experienced investigator and we don’t have much time. Rather, Carlo doesn’t. Barely a week before the execution.”
A truly grim reality, Andrei thought. “Sabina and Garner and Elizabeth and I are all on it.”
Arriving at his trailer, she put a hand on his arm and stopped him from going in. “Elizabeth?”
“Elizabeth Granville.”
Alessandra’s eyes went wide. “You mean the victim’s daughter?”
“The same.”
“But why would she want to help us?”
“Because she doesn’t want the wrong man to die. Because she wants justice for her mother’s sake. Because I convinced her that your aunt’s murder and the attacks on all of you gave her reasonable doubt.”
In deference to Alessandra’s respect for Rom tradition, he didn’t speak the dead woman’s name.
“Hmm, why do I get the feeling there’s more g
oing on here than her being reasonable?”
“Nothing is going on.” Only in his own mind.
Alessandra took his hand and studied it for a moment. It was a superstition that Rom fortune-tellers never read the palms of their own. But Alessandra had a true gift.
And so when she said, “But not because you don’t want more…. Andrei, this Elizabeth, she wouldn’t be the Lizzie you used to moon over when we were young, would she?” Andrei got nervous and pulled his hand away.
He shook his head. “She’s not Lizzie anymore.”
“Aha.” She gave him a knowing look. “Semantics, Andrei. So what isn’t going on?”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you can be annoying, little cousin?”
Alessandra gave him a sad smile. “So a woman finally has your heart and she doesn’t want it? In a way, that serves you right for all those women you loved and left.”
Thinking of the women who couldn’t fill the void left by Lizzie, Andrei said, “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I’m not an innocent. I know about your women.”
“Past tense,” he insisted. “Very past.”
Her expression disbelieving, she said, “Oh, please—”
“Wyatt and Garner weren’t the only ones cursed, remember.”
He didn’t know what made him bring that up. They hadn’t discussed it. He’d never before admitted his problem to anyone but Sabina, who’d explained the curse.
A number of emotions crossed her features. And then, quietly, Alessandra said, “The law is impotent. Oh, Andrei, I just hadn’t thought about it, I guess.”
“No pity, please.”
“Not pity. Sorrow, perhaps. For how long?”
“Long enough that I’ve felt cursed.” He barked a laugh. “Which, indeed, I was!”
“Surely it’s reversible.”
“Right, go ask your aunt how to do that. Oh, no, you can’t. She’s dead and has taken her secrets to the grave.”
“But Wyatt got his sight back and my aunt did nothing to help him,” Alessandra said. “And Garner didn’t lose Sabina. Somehow, something intervened…. Maybe truelove.”
“Well, that doesn’t give me much hope.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve always done that, ever since we were kids.”
“I was just realistic about being Gypsy in a gadje world.”
She shook her head. “You were always so defiant. It was as if you wanted to point to yourself and say, ‘Look at me, because I’m different than you.’”
“I was. I am. We both are.”
“All children feel that way. Most teenagers, too. But you always wanted to fight about it. Andrei, haven’t you learned that when people get to know you, they forget what you’re supposed to be and see who you really are? Maybe Elizabeth—your Lizzie—will do the same.”
For the longest time, Andrei had hoped so.
Year after year, the carnival had stopped at Les Baux, and Andrei had watched Lizzie grow from a snooty little girl into a society belle with a cool, aloof facade. Even so, he’d recognized the fire that burned deep inside her, for it burned in him, as well.
That she’d been no easy town girl had earned his grudging respect. The night of her debutante ball, he had watched hungrily from the hotel veranda as she’d completed her dance card with awkward teenage boys of her own social class.
He’d never felt more of an outsider, and yet, for a brief shining moment, he’d dared to hope that he could be more.
With her.
Andrei couldn’t tell Alessandra all that. Recognizing they were entering dangerous waters, he decided to turn the conversation back around to her.
“You never did tell me what you’re doing here.”
“Looking for you.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I’m told the medical examiner will probably release my aunt’s body in the next day or two, so I’m going to start making arrangements for the burial. I know this is a lot to ask, but…will you be a pallbearer?”
“Of course.” Not for the woman who had cursed him, but for Alessandra and Sabina.
“Thank you, Andrei. You haven’t seen Tony, have you?”
Figuring she wanted to ask Carlo’s best friend, as well, he shook his head. “No one has seen him for over a week—he seems to have taken off.”
Alessandra frowned. “I don’t understand. He’s been with the carnival ever since I can remember. He wouldn’t just leave without telling someone.”
“Unless he had good reason.”
“As in?”
“A lot of bad things have happened in the short time we’ve been here…”
“You think Tony’s involved?”
“I don’t like to think so, but why else would he have disappeared?” He shrugged, then asked, “What about the contents of your aunt’s trailer and tent?”
“Anything that isn’t considered evidence is released as of now.”
They both fell silent for a moment, and Andrei figured they were thinking along the same lines. Valonia’s private possessions would be burned or destroyed in Romany tradition.
“When?” he asked.
“Tonight. Midnight.”
AS MIDNIGHT APPROACHED, the rides were shut down, the tents closed, and tension filled the air.
Word had gotten round, and the carnies were steeling themselves for what was about to happen. Some of the men were stacking wood for a bonfire in the parking lot. The area had been cleared of brush, so that it would be unlikely the fire could spread if the wind picked up. Under Alessandra’s directions, the women were going through Valonia’s things and carrying them to the area where the ritual would be performed.
Andrei planned to join Alessandra shortly. Wyatt couldn’t be there, and Sabina and Garner were still in Baton Rouge, and this observance couldn’t wait. Valonia’s possessions should have been destroyed immediately after her death, and if not for the police investigation, they would have been.
But at the moment Andrei was preoccupied with wondering where the devil Lizzie was and trying to fix the blasted Tilt-a-Whirl before he had to pack it up the next day and move on to the next town.
All night, the ride had limped along with few thrills for anyone. The mechanism was old of course, and though Andrei was an engineer in his real life—or had been until he’d quit his job to rejoin the carnival and his clan—he was having a hell of a time figuring out what was wrong in his life, whether it was a woman or a piece of faulty equipment. Thinking about the imminent move, he knew he didn’t have much time to fix things with Lizzie, either. Or to find a murderer.
Andrei stepped into one of the cars and leaned against the cushioned seat.
As he bent over the outside of the car to run his flashlight beam around the equipment, a low keening in the distance raised the short hairs at the back of his neck. Mourners were beginning to express their grief, and he couldn’t do anything but listen and close his eyes in a brief prayer for the woman who had cursed him.
The moment’s inattention served him poorly, for when the ride suddenly and mysteriously started with a jerk, Andrei dropped the flashlight, lost his balance and took a nosedive straight over the side.
Chapter Five
The late-night activity and low keen of voices put an edge on the night and a pebble to her skin as Elizabeth searched through the crowd in vain for Andrei. She should have been here some time ago, but after talking to Miss Ina, she’d tried to reach her father in Baton Rouge to ask him how he found out about Mama and Carlo.
He wasn’t home, wasn’t, apparently, even in the capital city.
It was as if he had vanished.
Coming in sight of the moving Tilt-a-Whirl, she straightened the skirt of her sundress and called out to him.
Andrei’s name turned into a gasp lost in the sound of the ride when she spotted him hanging half-off one of the cars and by sheer will, it seemed, clinging to the metal bars with both hands and one leg as the car whipped around faster and faster.
A
s Andrei fought the centrifugal force, Elizabeth ran toward him, looking around wildly for help. She thought she saw a shadow move behind the ride, but she blinked and the shadow was gone.
Somehow Andrei pulled himself back into the car and managed to right himself, but he was still off balance as the Tilt-a-Whirl careered faster than she’d ever seen it work.
“Andrei, how do I stop it?” she yelled, but she doubted he heard her over the screech of machinery.
Despite the movement of the car, Andrei stared steadily at the operator’s panel to the side of the ride. Elizabeth’s gaze followed his and she saw the levers. That was it! But before she could get to them, one of them began to tremble and then move by itself!
Nearly tripping over her own feet, Elizabeth flashed a wide-eyed look at Andrei—who seemed to be concentrating hard—then back to the magically lifting metal rod. Immediately she was reminded of the other day when he’d given those teenage girls such a thrill ride.
Could Andrei somehow be making the lever move without touching it?
Suddenly the lever flipped up flat against the board, and the Tilt-a-Whirl shuddered to a dead stop. Andrei jumped to the ground and she flew into his arms.
“My Lord, I thought you were going to be hurt!” she cried, throwing her arms around him and wildly covering his face with kisses. “Thank God you’re all right!”
And then she couldn’t talk at all because Andrei was kissing her in return. This wasn’t a sweet, seductive kiss but one filled with desperation and long-denied feelings. Before she knew it, Elizabeth was lost in emotion.
Reminded of a similar kiss from her youth, she reveled in the memory…
Uninspired by the boys she danced with at her debutante ball, put off by the fight between her parents, which ruined the evening for her, she imagined being in Andrei’s arms on the dance floor as she walked home alone along the bayou.
Then suddenly he was there.
Beneath a full moon, the most exciting boy she’d ever met had spun her in his arms across the dew-laden ground to music only they could hear. Thoroughly beguiled by him, she gave him hot kisses. Her virginity. Her love.
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