by Jenna Ryan
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Night bled slowly into a sweltering sunrise. Fifteen more minutes, Tanner figured, and the sky would turn blood orange, the remnants of yesterday’s storm would vanish, and with any luck, the answers he’d been searching for in every aspect of his damn life would miraculously come to him.
One stroke of a magician’s wand, and there they’d be. Revelation. Resolution. A return to the normalcy he craved. Balance would be restored in his far-from-fairy-tale-perfect world.
He didn’t love her. That was a fact. A wishful one, but a fact if he wanted it to be.
She didn’t love him. She couldn’t. Women only loved when they were loved in return. Wasn’t that how it worked?
At the moment, he wasn’t sure. He only knew that last night’s sex had been spectacular, all three rounds of it. Unfortunately, he also knew that while the storm had left the bayou en route to New Orleans, the Reaper hadn’t died in the antique shop, and Grimes remained a very large question mark. As for Skeeter’s status, well, he’d have to sweat that one out a bit longer before he got an acceptable answer.
* * *
With so much on his mind, it annoyed him that he kept going back to Rosemary, sleeping in the room behind him like the dead person he swore he’d never let her be. Not for a long, long time and never by the Reaper’s hand.
Great. Perfect. Vow made. Where the hell did he go from here?
For the moment, he lounged in an old wicker chair, his bare feet propped on a rusty balcony rail as he stared out over the swamp and brooded. Thankfully, though, not for long. The scent of French roast coffee stopped his moody musings before he got in too deep. Laying his head on the chair, he closed his eyes and worked up a faint smile. “You move quietly, Rosemary. I didn’t hear you leave or come back.”
She lingered in the balcony doorway. “That’s because I didn’t do either. I woke up and, wonder of wonders, saw a coffee carafe on the nightstand, probably courtesy of a Papa Lucien vapor. It seems we forgot to lock the door last night.”
“Can’t imagine why.” Holding out a hand for her cup, he watched the sky go from burnt orange to crimson fire. “Sailor take warning,” he murmured. “Temp’s gonna hit a hundred today. And looking at that sky, I’m not convinced the rain and thunder are done with us.”
“There’s news worth waking up for. Anything on the Grimes or Reaper fronts?”
“Not yet.” Taking several long sips, Tanner watched her stroll past and set her forearms on top of the rail. “Is that your idea of appropriate daywear, angel?”
She’d tied the ends of her filmy top under her breasts, leaving a dangerous amount of skin visible between there and her waistband.
“This little blue chemise cost me upward of eighty dollars in a Boston boutique. I’m not ready for it to be a rag.” Concern slipped in as she turned. “At the risk of destroying a mood I’d love to keep stirring up, have you called the hospital to check on Desdemona?”
“Thirty minutes ago. I discovered this balcony’s not part of the infamous Hotel Marie dead zone. I also learned that Desdemona’s condition’s been upgraded from critical to stable. She’s in a heavy sleep at this point.”
“Oh, that is such good news.”
“Agreed. Can we go back to the stirring-up-a-mood thing?”
She smiled, sashayed toward him. “I’m not sensing any human auras at this end of the hotel. Do you know if the swamp-view rooms are occupied?”
His libido took a hard left from dicey control to pure lust. “If you’re thinking we should have sex on this balcony at this moment, then no, the rooms aren’t occupied.”
“Works for me.” Eyes glimmering, she wriggled out of her capris, released the knot on her top, and crossing to where he sat, unzipped his jeans. “I’m glad to see you’re an early riser,” she remarked.
And laughed when he yanked her onto his lap.
* * *
Given the right circumstances, Rosemary thought she could become a morning person herself. Not that the current inducement was likely to sustain once the Reaper had been caught and dealt with. But for the moment, dawn had never looked, or felt, so good.
Assuming, of course, she didn’t add in the very unpleasant fact that wherever she went, whatever she did, the safety of the people around her was severely compromised. That Desdemona, who’d only ever wanted to help her, was lying injured in a hospital. That Papa Lucien would have no one to defend him once she and Tanner left here. And that less than ten minutes ago, she’d seen Skeeter creeping in the rear door, carrying a lumpy burlap sack on his back.
Together, those things posed a major threat to the sexual high she’d been riding since dawn. But then what did she expect with Ben dead, a hired killer chasing her and still no clear sense, beyond her relationship to Twila, why Leshad believed she was someone who needed to be eliminated?
Since Tanner was off somewhere, doing something he hadn’t deemed it necessary to share, Rosemary opted to make a foray into the hotel garden. Her goal was fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs. Tanner had a point. Tofu, except perhaps in the hands of a culinary genius, tasted like foam rubber. Surely there must be something more palatable than that in the tangled acre of greenery behind the Marie.
It came as no real surprise that yet another witch’s garden greeted her when she stepped through the side door. “Scarlet bells,” she noted, picking her way past a twisted nightmare of vines and creepers. “Again. Either you got around, Madeleine, or swamp people have a propensity for toxic plants.”
“My great-great-grandmother was a healer. She planted this garden. Many toxic plants also possess curative qualities.”
Steeling herself, Rosemary pivoted to regard Madeleine Lessard’s gruesome form.
“Your mind was otherwise occupied,” Madeleine noted. “Or you would have sensed my presence much sooner. The air’s heavy this afternoon, don’t you agree?”
“It is a little. Tanner thinks the rain’s coming back. I’m leaning toward straight heat lightning. Madeleine, why is Leshad afraid of me? I can’t see his face, and I’ve been trying very hard to do it.”
“Which is precisely what he fears. You can’t see him now, but tomorrow, who knows?”
“So, no tomorrow, no threat. Makes sense. Okay, new question. What’s Tanner hiding?”
“You overheard our conversation.”
“Only the last part of it.”
The apparition that was Madeleine drifted away and back, as if she were pacing. “I told Tanner he needs to trust. I’ll tell you the same thing.”
“That’s telling me nothing. Essentially.” Rosemary plucked a drooping foxglove. “I want to trust him,” she said finally. “I do trust him. I’m just not big on blind faith.”
“You don’t like seeing others pay a price for what you believe is your cross to bear.”
“That, too. Twila used to say her gift came at a cost. Gift or curse, I’m the one Leshad wants. How do I know he didn’t order the Reaper to go after Desdemona as a warning to me? Either I present myself to him, or he’ll go on hurting, maybe even killing people I know and care about.”
“Such a thing is possible, certainly, but warnings of that nature are often a waste of time, energy and resources. Leshad has no conscience, Rosemary. Why would he credit you with one? You’re the person he wants. It’s my belief that the Reaper acted with abandon. And what purpose did his action serve in the end? He wound up injured himself.” The small curve of Madeleine’s lips hinted at several brown and broken teeth. “It’s never wise to incite vindictive anger.”
Rosemary wondered why a picture of Billy the doll should scuttle quickly in and out of her mind. Because she was losing it?
“Stop doubting your senses.” Madeleine’s voice took on a hollow echo as she faded out. “We are each of us in our own way victims of Leshad’s insanity.”
The sun that had been streaming through the garden trellises slipped behind a cloud. It caused the chill, already slithering in Rosemary’s bloodstream, to shi
ver outward. Still holding the foxglove, she willed it away. Always more questions than answers, she thought, frowning.
She started to walk, but halted abruptly. With her gaze locked on the path, she made a slow mental sweep.
Something wanted in. A word or words. A far-off cry.
Turning from the hotel, she pressed on her forehead. She shut out the chirps and hums and rustles around her. She blocked Tanner’s face, the memory of his touch, and limited herself to that single distant sound.
A face formed, fuzzy at first, then marginally clearer. Was it a man? She couldn’t tell. Until it called out again.
“Help me…”
She inhaled carefully, held it, forced the words to break apart from the plodding beat of a dying heart. And still the man’s face remained unclear. “Hell!” Frustrated, she spun to try again.
She spotted a movement and realized Tanner had come into the garden.
“What are you doing?” His unexpected question jarred the image. He touched her neck. “Are you sick?”
“Searching,” she said shortly. “Don’t talk. Don’t move. Someone’s—damn! No, wait, I see him.” Bringing her head up, she narrowed her eyes. “It’s Grimes, or whatever his name really is.” She spread the fingers of one hand. “The features are cloudy, but he’s covered with blood, and he’s very weak.”
The crease between Tanner’s eyes deepened. “Where is he, Rosemary? Give me something.”
“Blue Bayou,” she said.
Trapping her chin, he brought her eyes up to his. “There’s no Blue Bayou in the bayou. Unless you’re referring to the song.”
She tested the idea. “No, I’m not. It might be a childhood memory distracting me. Never mind. I’m getting a shack. It backs onto the water. It’s really run down. The front part’s mostly hidden by low branches and Spanish moss. There’s a sign, hand painted, peeling, old. It’s nailed to the porch rail post. It says Cumin. Wil Cumin. I don’t think it’s nearby. Could Papa Lucien help?”
“Maybe. He’s watching the road.”
She kept her mind on Grimes as Tanner pulled her through the hotel, past a vapor who was smiling and Skeeter, who wasn’t. “Is dragging your feet part and parcel of holding on to a vision?” he asked.
“Yes. Now please stop trying to yank my arm out of its socket.”
“Rosemary, if what you want is for me to shut up and let you concentrate, just say so.”
“What I want is for you to get inside my head and help me figure this out. Actually,” she said, considering the idea, “I wonder if that could work?”
He cast her a skeptical look. “Nothing personal, but I’ll pass. Getting into people’s heads isn’t my favorite thing.”
“Such a telling statement. Oh, no.” She slowed, steadied herself. “No, come on, don’t do that.” She made a vexed sound. “It’s disassembling.” When Tanner regarded her, she tapped her forehead. “No formal training, remember? I’m lucky I got as much as I did.”
“It might be enough.” He ushered her through the front door to where Lucien sat catlike in his wheelchair.
His arthritic fingers played with a small drawstring bag. What were they called? Gris-gris? Well, why not? A little extra luck couldn’t hurt.
She endeavored to recapture Grimes’s image while Tanner crouched to ask, “Shack on the water, Lucien. Probably deserted. Sign outside says Wil Cumin. Do you know it?”
A smile split the old man’s face. She heard him chuckle in her mind. “Guess I should. I grew up there. It was my granddaddy’s place. Lived there his whole life. Two years of learning’s all he ever had, so the sign’s not bad, all in all. What you’re taking to be Wil Cumin is really Welcome In. Granddaddy always was a neighborly sort. Shack’s ten miles from here, but it’s a tricky drive. I can do a map if you like.”
“Directions’ll work.” Tanner stood. “Shoot them into Rosemary’s head while I grab some supplies. What?” he said when she widened exasperated eyes at him.
“I don’t like taking orders.”
“I don’t like raw oysters.” He started into the hotel. “Get the directions, Rosemary, and make sure you keep them straight.”
When he was gone, Papa Lucien offered her a serene smile. “He means well, but of course you know that.”
“Do I?” She fired a visual dagger at the door. However, since that made her feel bitchy, she exhaled and turned away. “Whenever I get irritated, like now, I remind myself that he didn’t have to do this. Help me get away from the Reaper, I mean. So, yes, I agree, he does mean well.” She sent a last narrow glance at the door. “He just has a pushy way of showing it.”
After committing Lucien’s directions to memory, she went inside to pack some supplies of her own. Within ten minutes, she and Tanner were on a twisting mud road heading even deeper into the swamp.
They probably could have covered the distance faster on foot, but the mosquitoes and blackflies would have eaten them alive, to say nothing of the sidewinding snakes and sleeping alligators they passed. Led Zeppelin at full blast might not interrupt the reptiles’ slumber, but Rosemary had a feeling fresh human would get their full attention.
“Why do you live here?” she asked Tanner during a lull in the music.
He moved a shoulder. “I got tired of being jerked around. Something—no idea what—lured Traynor to the dark side after we left the navy. I didn’t want whatever had screwed him up to screw me up, too. No one’s immune to every temptation, Rosemary. Leshad found Traynor’s weakness. He worked it to his advantage. End of story.”
She fanned her face with her ball cap. “Are you absolutely certain Traynor switched sides?”
“I’m certain Crucible was livid. As soon as the report was confirmed, he wanted me to go in and kill Traynor. Crucible’s got faults, but he also has scruples. He wouldn’t have done that to one of his own. Not without complete conviction.”
“Ben didn’t go in to kill anyone, although the ‘going in’ part was definitely sanctioned by Crucible. He wanted to find out why my great-grandmother and my great-great-aunt were killed. Why Leshad wanted them dead.”
“And what that might mean in terms of you.”
She fought back the pain that wrapped around her heart like a velvet glove and squeezed. “He was the best brother ever, Tanner. I want the Reaper and Leshad to pay for what they did. To Ben, to Twila and Tallulah, to Madeleine and her sister, and now to Desdemona, as well. I want to be part of making them pay. I’m sorry about your friend, but if he killed Ben, I’d love nothing better than to hang him upside down by his balls in the middle of the swamp and walk away.”
Tanner slanted her a look. “Ben was my friend, too, Rosemary.”
And with that, they let the music take over.
Rosemary heard the first peals of thunder as they passed a scattering of shacks and outbuildings, most of which were situated on the far side of a lazy waterway.
“There’s no rain in those clouds,” she said when Tanner glanced through the mud-splattered windshield. “For what it’s worth,” she added, shrugging.
“Help…me…please…”
The words, little more than wisps of smoke, drifted through her mind.
Sitting forward, she pushed her own thoughts aside. “I can see the shack. There are leaves all over the floor inside.”
“And my truck’s sitting in the mud outside.” Tanner nodded at a vehicle coming into view ahead of them. “I’ve been wondering about that since we got caught in the crossfire. There’s the Welcome In sign. Is Grimes still alive?”
“Barely. There’s more blood than before.”
She would have hopped out if he hadn’t caught her arm and stopped the movement.
“Always look down first, angel. Gators like to forage, and blood has a primal scent.”
She stared at the muddy ground. “That’s sick.”
“That’s nature.”
“No, I mean what you said. It sounded almost sexual.”
His slight smile told her nothing and
everything as he leaned past her to scope the weeds. “Looks clear, but keep moving.”
Sheet lightning flashed bright white against bruised black. The shack was dark and riddled with shadows, but Rosemary spotted Grimes immediately. He was half seated, half sprawled on a pallet of rusty springs that had once been a cot.
Blood soaked his blue shirt and when he breathed, his lungs gurgled. From what she glimpsed, she knew his skin had a sickly, gray pallor.
“Grimes?” Tanner shook him. Ignoring Rosemary’s wince of empathy, he turned the injured man’s head to feel for a pulse in his neck. “Thready,” he said. “And slow. He’s almost gone.”
She could understand why. One look at his gaping chest wound said it all.
She thought briefly about the bandages she’d packed, yet even as she did, something dimmed in her head. “He’s dying.”
“Got that. Grimes.” Tanner tried again, loud enough this time to make the man’s eyelids twitch. “You need to tune in, Rosemary.”
She hesitated, then for Ben and Desdemona and everyone, opened her mind.
“Did Leshad send you?” Tanner asked him.
When his hand jerked, Rosemary took it in both of hers. “Please tell us who you are,” she said softly.
Another twitch, another jerk, and his mind cracked open.
She saw vast amounts of blood swirling in his brain. Cold, she realized. Death was cold and empty and so very lonely. She tightened her grip. “Show me what you know, Ethan.”
A head began to take shape, but it dissolved before the features became defined.
She caught the words “steel wool” as Grimes rattled out a long, stuttering breath. The last thing she heard was little more than an echo, but it caused her to draw back. “What?”
“What?” Tanner glanced at Grimes, then at her. When she didn’t answer, he eased the man’s frozen hand free. “He’s dead, Rosemary. What did he say that surprised you?”
She made herself disconnect and zone back in. “I’m not sure. Something about steel wool.” Still trying to think, she met Tanner’s dark eyes. “The very last thought in his mind was ‘Ben.’”
