The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

by Jennifer Crusie

  And if she did, Dee could save them all a lot of time and grief and just rip her eyes out and feed them to her on a plate.

  ‘Let me give you a ride down there,’ Danny suggested. ‘It’ll be faster’

  That took the starch out of her. He was trying to protect her, to help her, and it hurt. Because for the first time in her life, that was what she wanted.

  So he could take her to Xan, whom he’d seen.

  ‘Dee? Honey, you okay?’

  Dee just nodded, her eyes closed. God, how could she smell him over the overwhelming scent of wisteria and lilac? She did, though, a bracing hint of wind and the sea in this claustrophobic little garden. That awful temptation of freedom and flight. He still had her by the arm, but his hold was gentle. It made Dee want to cry all over again.

  ‘Before we go,’ he was saying, ‘I really need to know something.’ Dee didn’t move. Danny hesitated. ‘Last night…’

  Oh, no. Not last night. Not when she had to fortify herself for Xan.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’

  Dee’s eyes snapped open. ‘What?’

  His eyes were soft and uncertain. Vulnerable. As if he’d thought what had happened had been somehow his fault.

  ‘You’re the bravest woman I know,’ he said. ‘Good God, Dee, you’ve raised your sisters alone since you were sixteen. I just couldn’t imagine you running unless I’d done something terrible. I wanted to follow you, but… I stood outside your house for hours. I saw your sister’s friend show up and almost knocked then…’

  Well, this certainly was the end. Dee was as lost as a romance heroine. How could she not love Danny James?

  ‘Oh, Danny,’ she said, unable to resist the urge to cup that strong face in her hand. ‘How could you think you could ever hurt anybody?’

  ‘Then you…’

  The wind caught the flowers and sent some of them spinning, a shower of purple and magenta that rained around them like fireworks. ‘The problem is mine,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I would never want to make you feel responsible.’

  ‘You promise.’

  Tears she allowed for no one pooled in her eyes. ‘On my honor. And the girls can tell you I’m tough on that kind of stuff.’

  He took her hand in both of his and raised it for a kiss. ‘I’ve never met anybody like you, Deirdre Dolores O’Brien.’

  He’d met Xan. Dee came so close to asking him if she was more. More beautiful, more compelling, more everything a good man wanted.

  ‘You sure you want to go see her?’ he asked, again echoing her thoughts.

  ‘Yeah. But I have a question for you first.’ She found herself holding tight to those work-roughened hands, really afraid now. ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Had the wind died? It sounded so suddenly still, as if breath were being held.

  ‘How would you describe her? Sophia Loren? Susan Sarandon?’

  He considered, her hand still captive. ‘Delilah.’ And Dee had thought she’d lost the capacity for surprise. ‘Delilah?’

  He grinned. ‘I see what you mean about how she gets people to do what she wants. But there’s something… sad about her. Empty, I guess.’

  Dee couldn’t move. She couldn’t look away from him. How do you answer a statement like that? He was wrong, of course. Xan wasn’t sad. She was evil. But she was empty. Just a shell fabricated from manipulation and cupidity.

  ‘Do you trust me?’ she asked.

  It was his turn to reach out, running his fingers down her cheek. ‘Yeah, oddly enough. I seem to have a taste for sharp-tongued shrews.’

  Dee stiffened, until she saw that sly gleam in his eyes. ‘Nobody’s called me that and lived to tell the tale, mister’

  ‘But I like sharp-tongued shrews. Or weren’t you listening?’

  She wasn’t breathing. The wind must have risen, because she swore she had dust in her eyes. And the dust carried that brief, bright sight of Danny James smiling at her. At her. She ached to live that moment, even knowing that by facing off with Xan she was probably tossing out her last chance for it.

  There will be disaster.

  She hadn’t hurt this hard since she’d shoved her sisters onto a bus at three a.m. and made off with them and her mother’s jewels.

  ‘Well,’ she said, as if it were all a game, ‘this sharp-tongued shrew needs to see her aunt. You wanna come?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be anywhere else.’

  Dee climbed on the bike, much easier in jeans and sweater, and wrapped her arms around Danny. Beyond the trees, the sky had gone sulky again, and the burgeoning foliage hung limp. The air was thick as molasses, with that faint promise of lightning and rain. A storm, huh? She’d sure give Xan a storm.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Danny said five minutes later as they stood with Verna on the porch of the Light-horse. ‘She was in room 2A this morning. I know.’

  ‘No, dear,’ the little woman protested. ‘We’ve had that room closed for redecoration. You’re sure it wasn’t a dream?’

  ‘No. She was wearing a white dress, and…’

  White. Ah, Xan, such delusions. Dee grabbed Danny by the arm and steered him for the steps. ‘Jet lag,’ she said brightly. ‘Thanks, Verna.’

  Danny turned on her. ‘But I saw her.’

  ‘I know you did. Now, we’re going to find out where she’s gone to ground and take her out before she wreaks havoc.’

  Two feet from his bike, he stopped and turned on her. ‘Dee, she’s only a woman. Just let her go. I mean, what can she really do to you?’

  Dee looked up at that dear, honest face and struggled again with the truth. She had no choice, now. She had to at least try to make him understand, no matter that it would send him screaming for the hills by sundown. Oh, well, he would have run screaming eventually anyway. Why not get it over with?

  ‘No, Danny,’ she said, holding on to his hand. ‘She’s not only a woman. She’s far more powerful than that.’

  ‘Now, Dee…’ He was already trying to turn away. She couldn’t let him. Not anymore.

  ‘She killed my parents, Danny’

  He froze. ‘You said they died of hypothermia.’

  ‘I lied.’ She shook her head, so frustrated with what she knew, what she realized he wouldn’t want to hear. Hell, Mare didn’t want to hear it. ‘The official report was hypothermia. It matched the findings. Cold. They were so cold…’ Like wax dolls tossed aside by an impatient child. She thought she’d never get warm again after holding her mother. ‘I found Xan bent over them and I screamed and everybody came running, but there was nothing they could do. She convinced the authorities that she’d been trying to save them, but I know better. I don’t know how she did it, but she…’ Dee laughed, knowing perfectly well how outrageous her words sounded. Even so, she straightened and faced Danny. ‘Somehow I think she sucked the life out of them.’

  ‘You can’t believe that.’

  ‘And now she’s come after us.’

  Danny stiffened like an outraged minister. ‘Now, Dee…’

  There was nothing for it. She had to show him. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re going someplace to really talk.’

  She directed him to a nondescript field at the north edge of town, where Old Church Street crossed a vague path that had once been an Indian track. Weeds littered the vacant lot nobody liked to use, and a straggly cottonwood struggled to leaf. The sky seemed darker of a sudden, the clouds full-bellied and the breeze fetid. Dee hated this place. She walked Danny straight up to it and stood him in the center, right where the paths crossed.

  ‘What?’ he asked, looking around. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘What do you hear?’ she asked, standing carefully away.

  Danny shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. He opened his mouth. He shook his head as if to clear it.

  ‘Screams.’

  He tried to walk away, but Dee grabbed him. ‘What else?’

  ‘This is-’

  ‘What else, Danny?’

  ‘J
eering. Shouts. And those… screams.’ He’d lost some of his color, and his eyes looked stark. Dee knew.

  ‘You know those witches who danced on the mountain?’ she asked, her voice gentle, her hand holding him still.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This is where they were burned.’

  Danny gaped like a landed fish. He threw off her hand as if it scalded him and stalked over to his bike. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  Dee didn’t move. ‘There is power out there, Danny. My mother had a great amount of it. My father didn’t have so much, but Xan made him believe he did. Xan can make you believe anything. She impressed you so much with her whispers you named your damn bike after her without ever even meeting her. She whispers, and what she whispers is believed. My sisters and I have power, and I think she wants it.’

  ‘Don’t be-’

  ‘Ridiculous? Xan wasn’t there this morning, Danny. Not in the room. But she made you see her. And believe her.’ Dee smiled, shaking her head. Although it seems she couldn’t do a complete job of it. She’ll use you to get to us. And then she’ll try and sap our power to strengthen hers. She’s a predator. A carnivore. A psychic vampire.’

  ‘There are no-’

  ‘Psychics? Yes there are. And you’d better start believing it, because you are one.’

  For the first time she saw Danny James truly angry. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what they told my mother. Every goddamn one of them. “Just believe. There is great power, and I have it. I’m a psychic. I can tell you… I can-”‘

  Dee thought her heart would break. ‘“Communicate with your husband.” It was your mother who fell prey to the con artists.’

  ‘And they took every dime she had. It’s bullshit, Dee, and the sooner you get that through your head the sooner you might join the real world again and stop jumping at phantasms. That woman you’re so afraid of is nothing more than a standard-issue drama queen.’

  She kept her voice so gentle. ‘And the voices you just heard in your head?’

  ‘My imagination! I told you. It’s very good.’

  ‘Danny, if you’d just listen…’

  And then Danny James did the first rude thing Dee had seen. He simply turned away from her and climbed on his bike. ‘No,’ he said, kicking it into gear. ‘I won’t.’

  And then, as she stood alone in a bare field that rustled with an incoming storm, he left.

  ‘Are you just going to let him go?’ Dee heard from behind her.

  She didn’t even bother to turn. She knew that voice. It had haunted her nightmares for years.

  ‘Hello, Xan,’ she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her. She suddenly felt like she was twelve again. ‘I was wondering when you’d show up.’

  Right there in the middle of the Burning Field. How appropriate.

  ‘Darling, aren’t you even going to look at me?’

  Dee couldn’t see Danny anymore. The sound of his bike had faded into traffic noise. All that was left was Xan. ‘I don’t look at snakes.’

  For a moment there was silence, then a sigh. ‘Oh, Dee.’

  Dee had to turn around. She had to face her worst nightmare, or she was never going to get past it: She just hoped Xan couldn’t see how shaken she was.

  Ready or not…

  Xan didn’t look a day different. Elegant and sleek, her thick raven hair caught in an effortless chignon, her maroon suit a Chanel, her ears hung with chunky gold earrings that gleamed in the sullen light. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of a salon on Madison Avenue – or from backstage at the Fortune Hour of Psychic Power. Dee wanted to run. She wanted to fight. She wanted, God help her, for her aunt to approve of her.

  ‘A little overdressed for the occasion, aren’t you?’ she said instead.

  Xan held out her perfectly manicured hands with their bloodred nails, and all Dee could think of was talons. ‘Style is never out of place.’ She smiled. ‘You look lovely as ever. Always appropriate.’

  Tilting her head, Dee motioned to the severe lines of her aunt’s attire. ‘Is that how you think I see myself? Appropriate? Like you?’ She shook her head. ‘I need to toss out some gray suits.’

  Oddly enough, Xan looked as if she were amused. ‘I should have looked harder for you. I’m going to enjoy getting to know you again.’

  ‘Don’t put yourself out,’ Dee said. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.’ People to warn, pitch-forks and torches to collect…

  Pretending she felt nothing but disinterest no matter how hard her heart was beating, Dee turned and walked away.

  ‘You’re not going to make this easy, are you?’ Xan asked.

  ‘Any reason I should?’ Xan didn’t need to know that her palms were sweating.

  ‘You really have nothing to say to me, Deirdre?’

  Dee stopped, her focus firmly on the steeple of the Third Baptist Church that thrust through the trees down the block. ‘Besides “you two-faced, venomous murdering bitch,” no. I really don’t.’

  ‘You don’t want to know why I’m here?’

  ‘Nope.’

  God, she could hear Xan smiling behind her. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve come to tell you that you won.’

  Okay, that got Dee to turn around, if only to gauge the look on Xan’s face. ‘It wasn’t a game,’ she said.

  Xan took a step toward her. The grass didn’t even seem to bend beneath her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t. It was a sincere difference of opinion. You never understood that I would never have hurt you, and I couldn’t believe you would shatter your family the way you did. But I can’t discount the fact that you did keep your sisters safe all these years. You did a good job, Dee. They’re exceptional women.’

  Dee couldn’t even find the breath to answer. How did she do it? How, after all these years, did she know just where Dee’s weakness was? She was saying everything Dee had yearned to hear all these years, in those moments when she felt small and selfish and put-upon. Just to have one person appreciate what she’d done.

  And it had to be Xan. Damn, damn, damn.

  ‘They are,’ Dee said. And without you.’

  ‘And whether you believe it or not, I want to say thank you. I love them, too.’ Xan considered her a minute, obviously gauging back. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by trying to convince you there was never any animosity between the two of us, Dee. You do have a legitimate case against my behavior all those years ago.’

  Dee couldn’t move, mesmerized. ‘You mean the part about your murdering my parents?’

  Xan waved an elegant hand, as if discounting bad grammar. ‘No, dear. I didn’t murder anyone. They simply didn’t have the stamina for what they asked. They wanted their powers gone. They had misused them and thought it would be an appropriate penance. I… obliged them.’

  And they died.’

  ‘Well…’ Xan sighed, actually frowning. ‘Yes. I’m afraid I wasn’t as proficient then. I couldn’t pull away in time. They surprised me. I learned a terrible lesson that day.’

  ‘Yes. How to cover up a crime.’

  ‘The verdict was death by accident, Deirdre.’ Her voice was so gentle, so understanding. Dee wanted to break something. And it was just that. I’m sorry. And I hope you’ll be able to accept my gift in the spirit it was intended, as a gesture of reconciliation.’

  ‘Gift?’ Dee demanded. ‘Like a fruit basket?’

  She got Xan to smile again. ‘If you’re getting fruit baskets that are nearly as delicious as Danny James, I need to stop in for the holidays more often.’ She looked down the street in the direction Danny James had just disappeared. ‘I looked all over the world for him. I wanted to find someone who would help you free yourself from all your responsibilities, and every search led to Danny James. He’s your true love, Dee.’

  Again, a thrust straight through the heart. ‘He can’t be. He doesn’t even believe in what we are.’

  Xan actually looked a bit regretful. ‘I know. I didn’t realize that until I saw him here wit
h you. I talked to him this morning, but I just don’t think that’s going to change. He’s been too hurt.’

  ‘Then how can he be…?’

  ‘Your true love?’ Xan shrugged, looking disconcerted. ‘Truly? I don’t know. I just know that this chance comes along once in a lifetime, and that you can’t throw him away.’

  Dee wanted to close her eyes, to stick her fingers in her ears. God, Xan was good. Satan in Chanel.

  She shoved her hands in her pockets. ‘Why should I listen to a word you say?’

  ‘Because you know I’m telling the truth.’

  ‘A lovely thought. But what if I feel I can’t accept such a generous gift?’

  Xan walked right up to her. ‘Do you really want to find yourself my age and all alone?’

  ‘Like you?’

  Xan’s eyes sparked red, betraying her frustration. She looked away a second, and then faced Dee head-on. ‘Yes. Like me. I chose power, Dee. It’s too late for me to change that. It’s not too late for you.’ Dee could smell the cinnamon and sulfur that was Xan’s power signature. It made Dee want to sneeze. Even so, she couldn’t look away from those mesmerizing black eyes.

  ‘Why am I seeing a Trojan horse in my head?’ she asked.

  Xan laughed and shook her head. ‘You don’t have to trust me. Go to him and you’ll know. I’m just hoping you don’t throw away the best thing that ever happened to you because I brought him to you. I hope you know just what he’s worth.’

  ‘Because he’s my true love.’

  ‘Yes.’ Xan took Dee’s hand before she could stop her, twining their fingers together until Dee could feel the warmth of Xan’s skin. ‘Get out of this town, Dee. Go travel the world and find out who Danny James is. Love him. Have babies with him. And if you have to compromise to get him, you should. I promise you, there isn’t anything too great to sacrifice for this chance.’

  Dee was shaken to her toes. Shed never heard Xan sound so sincere. So passionate about anything. She’d never seen ghosts of any kind in her aunt’s eyes. She saw them now. She felt such warmth spread through her, as if Xan had poured it from her fingers.