by Jenna Ryan
“That wasn’t a question,” Tanner told her.
“It never is. I don’t want it,” Rosemary said back to Desdemona.
“Fiddlesticks.” The woman flapped a large hand. “You only think that ‘cause no one’s ever made clear to you how truly wonderful a gift it can be. That Twila, she was too soft-hearted for her own good.”
Rosemary’s brows went up. “You knew my great-grandmother?”
“Course I did.” Desdemona gave an emphatic nod. “You don’t favor her in looks, thank the Almighty, but you surely do in ability. I expect that’s why Billy was drawn to you.”
“Billy.” Rosemary glanced at Tanner. “Billy the doll?”
“That’s him.” Desdemona used the rifle to rock the small chair. “Madeleine created him more years ago than I care to recall. Now I’m not saying he’s got any special talent, but you gotta figure the maker of such a fine little being as he is would put some part of herself into him.”
“You gotta figure,” Rosemary echoed. “Desdemona, it was you who shot the rifle, wasn’t it?”
The older woman’s smile grew placid. “Tonight I shot it, and that’s a fact. Another night, it might get shot and I’ll be snoring in my bed.”
Tanner rested a casual forearm on Rosemary’s shoulder. “I think you’re scaring her, Des.” He swallowed a chuckle at the look Rosemary tossed him. “Okay, then, she’s scaring me.”
Desdemona jabbed the rifle into his hip. “Don’t you listen to this sack of bad-ass sexy, Rosemary. There’s always more going on in his head than he leads a body to believe.”
Tanner grinned. “Translation—Des likes me, but she doesn’t trust me.”
Rosemary sighed, almost laughing. “No offense, but that’s not the most reassuring thing you could have said. On the other hand, this whole situation’s so surreal, I’m not sure it matters what anyone says.” She motioned behind them. “Are you planning to leave Desdemona’s uninvited guest tied to an anvil bleeding for the rest of the night, or is there somewhere he can be taken and patched up.”
“There’s a clinic in Nightshade.” Tanner shrugged. “And a jail. I’ll drive him in. You can stay here and have a nice long chat with Desdemona. I need a truck, Des.” He ignored the slight twitch of Rosemary’s lips. “Mine doesn’t seem to like Snake Scream Swamp.”
“You can take my son’s Land Rover. It’ll get you to town and back.” Taking Rosemary by the shoulders, Desdemona turned her away and made a shooing motion at him. “Go on now. And don’t you fret about your pretty companion. I’ll let her know what’s what.”
Tanner glanced at Rosemary, then cast a dubious look at the doll in the rocking chair. And thought, just for a moment, one of its wooden eyes winked at him.
* * *
It took Tanner less than forty-five minutes to haul the intruder to the Nightshade Medical Clinic and file a complaint with the town’s Deputy Dawg police chief. Unwilling to rush back to the antique shop for reasons he refused to acknowledge, he picked up a six-pack from the local bar, tuned the Land Rover’s radio to a country station and kicked back in the driver’s seat to brood.
Halfway through his first beer, he thought about Rosemary lying on Des’s floor. With the vision coiling like a wet snake in his gut, he pulled out his iPhone, stuck it on the steering wheel and stared at the blank screen.
He didn’t want to be involved in this whatever-the-hell-it-was. The drama unfolding now was precisely the reason he’d walked from Crucible’s arena in the first place. When someone you thought you could trust destroyed your faith in him, to Tanner’s mind, he destroyed your faith in pretty much everything.
He and Ben and Traynor had been a unit of sorts. Friends during the best and worst of times, back in the days when they’d been SEALS. They’d faced death a dozen times over, and then a dozen times more. They’d had each other’s backs and saved each other’s necks. They’d done it all and seen far too much.
After their navy stint was finished, it was understood they’d remain friends. Keep in touch. Stay connected.
He and Ben had followed through. Traynor hadn’t. He drifted off, gone his own way.
Ben believed Traynor had been seduced by money and power. He’d gone to work for a madman, and that madman had a name. Leshad.
“Fuck.” Angered by his thoughts, Tanner polished off the beer, cracked another and guzzled half of it before allowing his mind to reengage.
They’d wound up on opposite sides of the criminal fence, he and Traynor, and Tanner knew, because some things in life were inevitable, that as matters had stood, sooner or later they’d have wound up squaring off in a face-to-face that would undoubtedly have ended with both of them dead.
So he’d left, turned his back on all of it, and gone his own way.
Tanner pictured the faces of his navy buddies. When the one in the rear glowed subtly brighter, he knew what he had to do. Didn’t like it, but he’d shied away from the truth long enough. It was time to confront the demon bastard from his past. And there was only one way to do it.
Deep into his third beer now and feeling strangely simpatico with Steve Earle, he grunted out a breath, unlocked his phone and speed-dialed Barry Hobart’s number.
He answered, his voice rough and groggy. “Shit, Tanner. What do you mean by calling me in the middle of Wheel and a glass of very fine French wine? You know I put my smoothest moves on Vanna during my after-dinner naps.”
Tanner removed his headband, shook his hair loose. “You need to get out more, Hobby, stop feeling around under chickens’ asses and get your hands on a real woman’s.”
The roughness deepened. “Damn you, boy. You better not have interrupted my Vanna moment just to brag.”
Reluctant amusement kindled. “I stopped bragging ten years ago. This is a bona fide thing.”
“What’s her name, and why didn’t you use a condom?”
“I always use condoms. No one’s pregnant, and her name’s Rosemary.”
“Listen, Tanner, this is the second time tonight you’ve called me after not calling for the better part of six months. Whoever this Rosemary is—”
“Sayer,” Tanner finished, and took another long drink while he envisioned Hobby processing the information.
“You don’t mean Ben Sayer’s stepsister. That Rosemary?”
“She’s the one, and you can lose the disapproving tone. I told you, no one’s pregnant, least of all Ben’s step.”
“Then why—”
“Ben’s dead, Hobby. Signal went out or I’d have mentioned it earlier. A shooter calling himself the Reaper offed him in Boston a week ago.”
He could almost see, in the silence that followed, the look in Hobby’s eyes.
But Hobby only replied, “Why?”
“I’m guessing he got into something big, discovered more than he bargained for and either blew his cover or, for whatever reason, decided to ditch.”
Hobby fell silent for a moment before saying wearily, “This goes back to Crucible, doesn’t it?”
Tanner stopped the beer bottle halfway to his mouth. “You know about him?”
A humorless chuckle reached him above the still-falling rain. “Tanner, a person such as yourself, who deals in highly sensitive areas of criminal investigation, can’t just drop off the map, no questions asked. Crucible came to me all by his lonesome and grilled me until we were both too hoarse to talk. He knew I knew where you’d gone, and he knew I knew he knew. What he doesn’t know, but I do, is that my gut warned me loud and clear after your call earlier tonight that something I wanted no part of was brewing in the bayou. Send me whiskey to quiet my nerves, but don’t send me problems. I’m in no fit state these days to deal with anything more taxing than where in my dreams me and Vanna should have sex.”
“I need a favor, Hobby.”
“Crissakes, Tanner, did you hear anything I just said?”
“I’m not deaf, old man. The favor I want doesn’t involve Crucible or anyone on his team. I need you to do some digging
for me. My guess is you’re still in possession of a few major access codes. I want to know everything there is to know about a man named Ethan Grimes.”
“Well…” Hobby drew the word out with great doubt. “Is that his real name?”
“Probably not. The person he cited as his attorney doesn’t exist.”
“Do you have a photo?”
“On my phone. I’ll shoot it to you tonight.”
His old friend released a ragged breath. “Ben was a good kid, Tanner, a good man. He knew better than you or Traynor how to get in and out of tight spots. If he was caught and killed, whoever did it must be one hell of a dangerous bastard. You keep a sharp eye over your shoulder, you hear me?”
“Don’t sweat it, Hob.” Tanner tipped the bottle back for a final swig. “I haven’t forgotten what you taught me. I play to my strength.” His expression hardened. “It’s Ben’s killer who needs to watch his back. Unless he likes the idea of turning around and finding me standing right behind him.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Wake up, pretty girl.” Desdemona’s cheerful summons shattered the only dream Rosemary had enjoyed all night. Something to do with Tanner, oozing mud and a cramp of desire in her belly that had her flipping onto her stomach and willing her host’s voice away.
A firm hand shook her until she lifted her head. “Rain’s taking a break, but the clouds hanging over the swamp say it’s gonna be a short one. I got grits and blueberry flapjacks waiting downstairs. Coffee, too. Tanner’s already up and gone.” She gave Rosemary’s shoulder a firm tap. “Twenty minutes, mind, or I’ll send Billy up to fetch you.”
The threat, absurd as it sounded, did the trick. One five-minute shower later, Rosemary was dressed in army-green shorts, a white tank and sneakers. She scooped her damp hair into a ponytail, and stuck a 49ers baseball cap on her head. How on earth, she wondered as she made her way down the steep staircase, did people in the swamp cope with ninety-degree heat and the kind of oppressive humidity that added ten pounds to every limb?
Desdemona shouted to her through the open kitchen window. “No dawdling, Rosemary. There’s things you need to know, if you already don’t, about your great-grandmother and Madeleine.”
The subject, Rosemary decided, would be a welcome relief, since for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to get Tanner out of her head.
Coffee mug in hand, she stepped through the kitchen door and into a witch’s dark garden. “Whoa.” She pivoted from side to side under brilliant sunshine rimmed with evil-looking clouds. “I see henbane and hawthorn, monkshood, hellebore, mandrake root…”
“Lavender, primrose, thorn apple and belladonna, too.” Beaming broadly, Desdemona climbed with some difficulty from her knees to her feet. “And ain’t it a good, hard kick at the roots of your family tree that you’d recognize all those flowers and herbs and make no mention about the climbing roses or the verbena or those great big happy-faced dahlias.”
“Right.” Holding her position, Rosemary gestured backward. “Can I go inside and come out again, please?”
“No such thing.” Sweeping an arm around her, Desdemona propelled her along an overgrown rock path. “You push down what’s yours by birth, and you might as well join Leshad’s legion of death.”
Rosemary avoided stepping on a thick black vine that crawled over the stones. “What do you know about Leshad, Desdemona?”
“Not enough to get him caught. But I know bad’s bad, and it needs to be stopped.”
“You must have some ideas about him. If not who he is, at least why he’s doing what he’s doing. My great-grandmother and my great-great-aunt were the kindest, gentlest people I’ve ever known. I can’t say what Madeleine was…” Halting there, she tipped her head, considering. “But you can.”
“We’ll do a little weeding.” Desdemona nodded at a bed of scarlet foxgloves. “Scarlet bells,” the older woman stated as Rosemary ran a finger over the delicate bell-shaped petals.
“I saw a woman, Desdemona, or something that used to be a woman, at Tanner’s place. She talked about false truths and Leshad’s beliefs and how her scarlet bells would one day lure him to the pit of Hell. She said the beauty she grew deceived, but so did many of the people who answer to Leshad. She told me the day would come when he’d see everything and nothing, and that’s when her scarlet bells—these flowers, obviously—would ring him to Hell. Very little of that made sense to me then or now, except I’ve learned another name for foxglove.”
“The plants are beautiful, it’s true, but they’re also deadly.” Desdemona began to weed the adjacent bed, motioned for Rosemary to do the same in hers. “Did you know, child, that it was your great-grandmother Twila who taught Madeleine how to harness and use her talent?”
Rosemary stared for a moment, then, reaching over, raised the brim of Desdemona’s floppy straw hat to regard the woman’s profile. “Are you serious? Flora said they were connected, but I had no idea the link was that close.”
“Oh, yes.” Desdemona chuckled. “Baffles me to this day how they met up, seeing as neither one of them ever left the state of her birth, but somehow their minds got in touch.”
Stunned, Rosemary sat back. “How could they do that with so much physical distance between them?”
Desdemona swatted a bumblebee away. “Seems like I should be the one asking you that question.”
“I have no idea.” Too perplexed to think clearly, Rosemary began tugging weeds. “I mean, apparently they both had the ability to reach out with their minds. But over an entire continent?” She used a limp thistle to indicate the shop. “I couldn’t tell you from this garden if someone was walking through your front door right now.”
“Could be that’s because you never wanted to know before, same as you never wanted to hone your natural-born skills.”
Rosemary curled her wrist and the thistle back. “No, I never did. I’ll have to think about that.” She gnawed on her lip. “Tell me, was this knowing each other a lifetime thing, or did it take them many years to link up?”
“Oh, lordy, the two of them went way back, eighty years at least.” Desdemona shook her garden claw like a stern finger. “People investigating might believe there’s no connection between Madeleine’s death and Twila’s, or it’s only because they both had the sight that they were murdered, but I say horse feathers to that. Leshad, he found out it was Twila who taught Madeleine how to use her sight. He feared the pupil, so it only stood to reason, he’d fear the teacher.” A big laugh escaped, and she slapped her thigh. “Lemme tell you, though, that man surely is a fool if he thinks he can kill what scares him and that’ll end it.”
“You mean he only made things worse for himself when he murdered Twila or had her murdered.”
“First Madeleine, then Twila, then Madeline’s sister who didn’t have the sight, and finally Twila’s sister, Tallulah, who was gifted, but not as strong as Twila.”
Rosemary frowned. “I think I actually understood that. But, Desdemona, a lot of other people have died and received silhouette calling cards. People with no particular psychic ability.”
Desdemona gave her claw an impatient wave. “Well, now you’re talking police matters. Let them explain those ‘other people.’ Me, I got no skills, no power, no insight. All I know is what I just finished telling you.”
Although Rosemary doubted that was true, she let it go. Her mind was jumbled up enough as it was. She didn’t need to toss more questions into the mix.
When a single black cloud stole across the sun, she took her cue from Desdemona and stopped weeding. “Are we done here?” she asked.
“We may pick it up again by and by.” Desdemona sent her a toothy smile. “Could be next time we’ll talk about how Billy came to be. For now, thunder’s coming back.”
Standing, Rosemary surveyed the rectangular bed of foxgloves. “Is this normal weather for the time of year, Desdemona? All this thunder and lightning?”
The older woman shrugged. “It happens from time to time when the
conflicting energies in the area get stirred up. Madeleine, she died right on that very spot where you’re standing, tending the flowers she could only see in her mind.”
Rosemary looked down at her feet. “Really. Huh. So Madeleine was blind?”
“It happened when she was much younger, and only her eyes were affected, not her mind.”
“The apparition I saw had no eyes, only empty, blackened sockets.”
Desdemona brushed dirt from a flat stone with her garden glove. “What you saw, pretty girl, was how Leshad left her. How he killed her, or part of it. Among other atrocities, he stabbed poor Madeleine’s eyes out. He left a voodoo doll on her person, then left her lying among the flowers she loved. I expect he thought he’d crushed the life out of them as well, but those scarlet bells, they’ll always come back.” She patted the stone. “You rest easy now, Madeleine. Girl knows a whole lot more than she did last night.”
Rosemary closed her eyes. “I’m standing on her grave, aren’t I?”
“You are, and that’s a fact.” A huge smile blossomed. “Me, I never do, because as soon as I set foot in that bed, I right away see her wagging a bony finger at me. Did she wag a finger at you?”
“I don’t—not that I noticed.”
Desdemona laughed. “Oh, you’d have noticed if she had all right. Madeleine, she let you in there for a purpose. By and by, time’ll come when you might even discover what that purpose is.”
* * *
Rosemary hadn’t expected to be sad. But when Tanner showed up while she and Desdemona were going through a trunk filled with Madeleine Lessard’s belongings and told her they had to leave now, she found herself dragging her feet.
“No dillydallying. You scoot, and do what Tanner says.” Desdemona set three fingers in the center of Rosemary’s forehead. “Always remember, pretty girl, to keep your wits about you.”
“And a gun within easy reach.” Tanner shot Desdemona a grin as he tossed Rosemary’s pack in his truck. “Thanks for the replacement engine parts. I’ll send you a big jug of Weezer’s whiskey next week.” His eyes settled on her face. “Stay safe, old woman.”
