by C. J. Parker
Good question. What was it a man needed from a woman? A warm smile when the world turned cold? A tender touch when life became hard? To hear the words I love you?
“Just to be there,” he said under his breath.
“I see. You want me to hang around until you decide if I’m worth your attention?
Okay, he deserved that. He guided the car toward the garage and turned off the engine. Rhonda and Bobbie quietly stepped out of the car and made their way to the house. When Tabatha reached for the handle, Derek grasped her arm. “Wait.”
“I think we’ve said enough tonight, Derek.” She looked down at his hand. “Don’t you?”
He dropped his hand away. “I didn’t ask you to resurrect Elizabeth. You’re the one who offered. I need to know who killed her, but I’ll do it on my own. I don’t want you to raise her, Tabatha. Not if it will come between us.”
“She’s already between us. You kiss me, you think you’re being disloyal to Elizabeth. You touch my hand and feel her disapproval.” She looked away and shook her head. “No. If we have any future at all, Derek, I have to do this. You’ll never let her go otherwise. I’ll give you the closure you need. Then you’re going to have to decide. If you choose me, you have to be sure you’re ready to give all of yourself to me. When.., if we’re together, I will not share you. I will not play second fiddle to a dead woman.”
Is that what he’d done, put Tabatha second place? Deep down he knew the answer to that question. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d done it since Elizabeth’s death. Everything and everyone came second. Including his own needs. He cupped her cheek in his palm and turned her to face him. “Maybe Frank’s right.”
Her mouth turned down hard. “I can’t imagine Frank being right about anything where I’m concerned.”
“He said I’ve spent so much time living with Elizabeth’s ghost that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a real woman love me.”
“I’m real. I’m here, and I love you. But it doesn’t mean a thing, does it?” Tabatha leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Tomorrow night we’ll raise Elizabeth, and then you’ll have your answers.” She stepped out of the car, closed the door and walked away.
Derek watched as she entered the house without him. “It means everything,” he whispered, the sound hollow in the empty car.
Tabatha came face to face with Bertha, arms crossed, looking down her nose at Tabatha.
“Where is Mr. Derek going?” Bertha’s accusatory tone was like a slap to Tabatha’s ego.
“Home.” Tabatha wanted to cry, could feel the tears pressing against her bottom lids.
“Sit down, baby girl. We need to talk.”
Tabatha wanted to scream. The last thing she needed right now was to talk. “Whatever it is, can it wait? I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”
Bertha pulled out a chair and waited until Tabatha plopped onto it, then took the one next to her. She pushed a cup of tea into Tabatha’s hand.
“Your grandpa..” Bertha paused as if searching for the right words. Tabatha used the time to piece together what Derek’s going home and her grandfather had in common. “He wanted to tell you about your abilities when you were older, but someone got in the way of that. So, I’m gonna to tell you.”
Bertha had her full attention now. Maybe now she could understand why she was the way she was, and if anything could be done about it. Bertha took a deep breath and began again. “You’re the first daughter to be born in the Gray family in many generations. The gift has always been passed from father to son. When you’re momma found out she was going to have a baby, she was afraid you would be like your daddy and grandpa. Raoul told her you were a girl, and it wouldn’t pass to you.”
Her mother must have been awfully disappointed when Tabatha was born. “That’s why she didn’t have an abortion?”
Bertha shook her head. “No, baby girl. She didn’t have it because your daddy told her if she did, he’d leave her without a penny. Your momma was terrified of being poor again. Still is.”
Money. If Tabatha could hand it over to her mother she would. But would her love be given in return? “So, why am I the way I am if it can’t pass from father to daughter?”
Bertha patted her on the arm. “Oh, your grandpa knew the truth of it. You see if you’d been a boy, you would’ve gained one power. But being the first girl in hundreds of years, you gained them all. That’s not happened since before Jesus, baby girl.”
All of what? She didn’t think she wanted to hear this. Tabatha’s heart skipped a beat. “All?”
“You are a true sorceress, Tabatha Gray. There isn’t an ability you can’t call upon. If your grandpa had lived, he would have taught you. What he didn’t know, he’d have found out from someone who did. Child, if you could have seen the way he cried the day you were born. He knew what a hard life you’d have.”
Tabatha discovered early on that she could do things other doctors couldn’t—calm with a touch, lessen pain with the right words—but she’d accepted it as part of returning a bit of life to the dead. That maybe she could give back a part that had been taken to the living. Could there be more to it than that? “What do you mean any ability? Rhonda’s a firestarter. Are you saying I could draw on that power as well? Or shapeshift like Bobbie?”
A thoughtful expression stilled the old woman’s face. “I don’t think so. I think he meant all the Gray family abilities. Your grandfather’s, your father’s and so on back up the line. He said his great-grandfather had power over the weather and another could call animals to him and charm snakes.” Cold fingers of fear and doubt did a jig up Tabatha’s spine. “Mr. Raoul said you could be the most powerful sorceress in the family, and it was our job to make sure you grew into a good person and used your powers for good not evil. He had a set of family journals he was going to leave to you, but they’ve vanished. Said they would explain everything.”
Her heart sped up, a mixture of joy and disappointment stirred in her stomach. “What do you think happened to them?”
Bertha looked away, saying nothing.
“Bertha, you told Derek you thought-”
The old woman’s back stiffened. “Thought ain’t proof. I ain’t saying nothin’ about nobody with no way to back it up.”
Tabatha never thought she’d be disappointed by Bertha’s morals. Now how could she get around them? “Then tell me what you think, and I’ll try to find proof. What is it you’re hiding from me?”
“Baby girl, your momma didn’t kill your grandpa or your daddy. She had to force them to take their medicines by putting it in food or a drink. Someone tainted their medicines, I think. Someone who thought they had something to gain from their deaths.”
Guilt-fueled heat rushed into Tabatha’s cheeks. “What kind of medicines?”
“Your grandpa and daddy both had been sick for a while. Your grandpa had a bleeding ulcer and your daddy was well on his way to having one. I don’t remember what they were takin’ now. Some kind of powders.”
“Who switched the meds?” When she saw Bertha’s reluctance to answer, Tabatha reworded her question. “Who do you think switched them?”
Bertha stared down at the table and fidgeted with the salt and pepper shakers. “She loved him, but when he didn’t marry her, she got mad.”
Marry? Her thoughts scattered in so many directions they started to sound like a conglomerate of radio stations competing for the same frequency. “Stop beating around the bush. Who?”
Bertha raised her soulful black eyes to stare unblinkingly into Tabatha’s. Suddenly, Tabatha didn’t want to know the answer.
“Nyssa.”
Tabatha wanted to run—to go anywhere but where she was. The air thickened, making breathing difficult. Why was Bertha doing this? Tabatha had so few people who loved her. She couldn’t lose Nyssa. Tears trailed down her cheeks and washed her face in a rush of moisture. “No.” She shook her head. “You’re wrong. She’s my friend.”
“No, baby girl, Nyssa is no on
e’s friend. Has she ever talked to you about makin’ out a will?”
Tabatha had received letter after letter from Nyssa in the beginning beseeching her to make a will making her executor. She fought to talk past the growing lump in her throat. “All of her letters were filled with her worry about what would happen to the estate if something happened to me. She thinks Momma would squander everything.”
“I bet she said you should put her in charge of the money to keep your momma from blowing it all, right?”
“Yeah,” was all she could manage to utter. Tabatha looked up when Bertha took a depth breath, and wanted to tell Bertha she couldn’t bear to hear more.
“She said the same thing to Raoul. He told her he’d changed his will, and two weeks later he was dead. Only problem was he’d only told Nyssa that so she’d hush about it. He had no intention of leavin’ her in charge of his family or his money. So when the will was read, she was fit to be tied. Started in on tryin’ to convince you that your momma killed them both.”
Tabatha remembered her grandfather’s last words. She rid herself of your father and now me. She will not stop until she has it all. It was Nyssa at her side. Nyssa who’d tried to comfort her.
A choked sob escaped before Tabatha could censor the sound. “No. I don’t believe it. It can’t be.”
Bertha drew Tabatha into her arms, making her feel safe if only for this one moment. “I know, baby girl. I didn’t want to hurt you, but you needed to be warned. She won’t be satisfied until she gets what she wants.” She lifted Tabatha away, placed her hands on Tabatha’s shoulders. “Don’t eat or drink anything she brings here. Do you understand what I’m tellin’ you?”
Tabatha’s emotions did an elevator drop. Fear soared to the top floor, her stomach plummeted to the basement. “Are you sure, Bertha? Could you be wrong?”
“Could be, but I ain’t. I’ve known Nyssa all my life. We grew up in the same neighborhood. Her house was the one that ended the white neighborhood and mine the first of the blacks’. She was a little shit even back then. Used to throw poisoned meat over the fence just to kill my dogs. When I cried, she called me a ninny nigger.”
The first cold encroachment of belief began to touch Tabatha’s mind. “Your man knows. He sensed it from the beginning. Ever notice how he watches her like a hawk?”
Derek’s suspicions of Nyssa did a rerun through her memory. But Tabatha waved her hand in dismissal. “That’s because she pulled a gun on him.”
“No. Mr. Derek may not have the gift, but he’s a smart man.” Bertha lowered her gaze to her hands. “One more thing. He loves you, he just don’t know it yet. Men, they slow about these things. He carries this weight on his shoulders. Guilt and grief are heavy loads, baby girl. He needs an end to it. Only you can give that to him.”
Tabatha knew Bertha was right but couldn’t help but think it was like using evil to gain a good. “I’m going to. Tomorrow night he’ll know who killed Elizabeth. Then it’s in his corner. He can walk away or choose to be with me. But I’ll not make the next step. He has to reach out to me.”
Bertha smiled so big every tooth in her mouth glistened in the bright kitchen lights. “Baby girl, just be there for him. He’ll reach out.”
Tabatha stood to leave, but faced her friend instead. “Bertha, do you have the gift?”
Bertha laughed. “Child, I’m just a simple cook.”
Somehow, Tabatha didn’t believe that.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Derek stood at the back door watching Tabatha though the window. She sat at the kitchen table toying with a bowl of cereal. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face swollen. The sight tore at his heart. He rapped on the window a couple of times and smiled when she waved him in. He strode across the room to sit beside her. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve…”
“I lost my blouse.” She choked on a sob.
Relief flooded his whole body. “Blouse? What’s it look like? There’s some outside on the clothesline.”
“It’s pink, with embroidered flowers on the collar. Bertha made it for me.”
There was something in her manor, the fear that emanated from her eyes that told him there was more to this than a piece of missing clothing.
“Tabatha, you’re not crying over a blouse. What’s wrong?”
She drew a deep breath and straightened her spine, but the breath rushed out in another sob. “Bertha thinks Nyssa killed Daddy and Paw-Paw.”
Her statement was blunt, but filled with emotion. The cold, analytical cop inside him took control, turning the world to black and white. “Why does she think that?”
Tabatha returned her attention to her bowl of cereal, lifting one “O” at a time, as if counting them. In a slow, deliberate tone she repeated what Bertha told her the night before. “Nyssa took care of me when Bertha wasn’t here. She taught me to control the power. She cried when Momma sent me away.”
Nyssa. He’d had a feeling about that woman from the get go. Let Tabatha talk. Don’t push her away with questions. He leaned back, stretched his legs out under the table and folded his hands over his stomach. The memory of that morning by the garage ran through his mind. He remembered Nyssa’s strange reaction to his looking around the back yard and the fear and rage when Tabatha told her he was a cop.
“What do you make of it, Tabatha? Do you think there could be any truth to it?”
She shrugged and dabbed her eyes with a paper towel. “Why would Bertha lie to me? She honestly believes what she said. But why would Nyssa kill them? Why would she want to harm me?”
Derek took her hand in his. “Money. Sounds like she thinks you stole what she considers hers. People have killed for much less than what you have, Tabatha.” He leaned forward in his chair and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Did you know she was a pharmacist before she came to work for your grandfather?”
“You ran a check on her?” She sounded incredulous.
He wished he could turn back time and not ask that question. But Tabatha knew he was a cop. Running checks on suspects was his job. “Yes. I did checks on all of you.”
“All of us? Me?”
“It’s my job, Tabatha. I’m neck deep into a murder investigation. And I’ve had reservations about Nyssa from day one. Now that I think about it, all the while she was stacking up mowers and coolers against the back wall, she was mumbling about something being hers. I thought at the time she believed I was going to take her tools.”
“What else did you find? I mean if she’s in the system at all, it had to be more than her being a pharmacist.” Tabatha pulled her hand from his and lifted her face to look at him.
His heart skipped a beat. Her eyes were filled with unspoken accusations. Did Tabatha think he liked finding out things about people he cared about? He wanted to tell her it was a cop’s worst heartbreak to find anything about anyone they loved.
“She was arrested for killing animals when she was seven and again at nine. In high school she was convicted of breaking into lockers, stealing money, clothes and jewelry. She got into a fight with another girl in her senior year and pulled a knife. If a teacher hadn’t forced her off the girl, Nyssa would probably have killed her. When she left for college, she seemed to straighten out. Didn’t have any more brushes with the law. Her record was sealed once she turned eighteen.”
“If her records were sealed, how did you get them?”
He slouched down his chair and thought about his answer, then decided to be blunt and truthful. “I’m a cop in the middle of a murder investigation. That overrides any damn judge’s rule to seal a person’s record.”
Tabatha pushed the bowl of cereal away. “I’m sick of this, Derek. I don’t know who to trust.”
Her simple statement cut through his heart like a double-edged sword. “You can trust me.”
Tabatha offered a thin smile. “I know.” She rose from her chair and went to the sink, filling a glass with water. “What time do you want to go to the cemetery tonight?”
He sat against the chair and tried to gather the facts into a coherent stream of thought. The Guardians were trying to kill Tabatha because she was different. Nyssa might want her dead because of greed. But what did Tabatha focus on? Helping him find a child killer and Elizabeth’s murderer. And he’d let her, knowing it was the last thing he should do. But she’d been right last night. If they had any future at all, he had to solve this case, bring an end to his hunt.
His cell phone rang, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Yeah?” “Bainbridge?”
“Who else would it be, Lieutenant? It’s my damned phone. What ya got for me?” Tabatha picked up her cereal bowl and dumped the remains into the garbage disposal, rinsed the dish and placed it in the dishwasher.
“I don’t know who it was at the warehouse last night, but it wasn’t Phelps.”
“If Tabatha says it was Phelps, then it was. What’s this about?” Tabatha came to stand at his side.
“Phelps is in ICU at Ochsner Hospital. He was in a one-car accident ten minutes before he was allegedly in the warehouse with the girls. He says he swerved to miss hitting someone on a bike. Hit a pole on the driver’s side.”
“Was his face covered with broken glass?” Tabatha sat in the chair next to him and leaned forward.
“His face, hands, and his chest were cut up. The window blew out when he hit the light pole. Compound fracture of his leg, a few bumps and bruises, but he’ll live. And before you ask, there were several witnesses.”
Derek let that run through a process of reasoning. “Car windows are safety glass, Lieutenant. It doesn’t shatter.”
“Yeah, but the side windows do, Detective. The driver side window blew out. I’m not a rookie, Bainbridge.” Mason’s voice held an edge of anger.
“I wasn’t implying you were.” There had to be answers to all this. Tabatha wouldn’t lie about who had taken Rhonda and it was light enough in that warehouse to get a good look at the man. “How did the girls know his face would be cut up?” Derek ran his fingers though his hair as he tried to think what to do next. “I don’t like this, Lieutenant. Where was the wreck?”
