Tears of torment and rage stung Laura’s eyes. She blinked them back, refusing to let these women see how badly they had hurt her.
“Please, Laura, believe me,” her mother pleaded. “I would have come after you if I could have. But I had to live in hiding, in a shack in the swamp. I didn’t want you to have to live that way, never being able to go to school, never being able to make friends. You were so much better off in the city with Jeanne taking care of you.”
“How do you know how much better off I was? How do you know anything about me? You weren’t there.” The air whooshed from Laura’s chest. She couldn’t take any more. She had to get out of there. She turned toward the door.
“Wait!” Jeanne commanded. “Laura, you can’t go.”
“Oh, now someone wants me to stay!” She whirled back on them. “Tell me, why should I? You haven’t said anything that has made any sense.” She turned to her mother. “You could have left this place,” she accused her. “We could have gone anywhere.”
“I couldn’t let her find us. She knows things. I had to stay and watch her.”
Disbelief filled Laura as she stared at her. “No, you didn’t. What you had to do was take care of me. I was your responsibility. Your child.”
Her mother crossed the room until she was standing only a few inches in front of her. She reached out and touched the moonstone pendant hanging from Laura’s neck. Laura stiffened, but didn’t move.
“Why do you think you’re here now?” her mother said softly. “She has never let you go. You are the key to her plans for getting what she wants. She won’t stop until you’re dead.”
A chill seeped down to her core. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
“My mother was the one who called you, Laura,” Drew stated from the corner of the room. “She was the one who brought you here.”
“Why?” And why was he just telling her this now? She stared at him, a worm of wariness moving through her. What else had he been keeping from her?
“Martha needed you here to complete the ceremony,” Jeanne added.
“Does she know you’re still alive?” Drew asked Delilah.
“I’m sure she suspected. I disappeared. And like I said, she knows things.”
Knows things. Laura could have laughed out loud if she wasn’t so furious. She fixed her eyes on the door. She wanted out—out of this house, this state, this madness. The mother she’d been wishing for all these years was a crazy woman.
“The ceremony has been moved up to tonight,” Drew said. “They know Laura is leaving in the morning.”
“Tell me you’re not buying into all this?” Laura demanded.
“This is the truth you’ve been searching for, Laura. It wasn’t Randal that wanted you dead that night. It was my mother. We need to get you out of here tonight.”
Laura stared at him. This couldn’t be true. “Are you saying it was your mother all along? She’s the one who tried to run me down? And the note? The snake? I don’t understand. Why would she want to hurt me?”
Drew’s gaze hardened before it shifted away.
Suddenly he looked guilty.
How stupid was she? Was he in on it all along?
“No, I’m afraid that was me,” her mother said, and at least had the good grace to look ashamed. She dropped into the nearest chair. “I’m sorry. I wanted you to go home. I was trying to scare you into leaving. You don’t scare easily.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Drew said. “How was Charlie Wallis involved in all this?”
Laura’s head was spinning. She stared back and forth between them, trying to understand how she’d gotten so far off track. All she’d come here for was to find out if her mother was dead or alive, and somehow she’d gotten sucked up into some weird conspiracy. Her mother, who she’d hoped was alive, had been doing everything she could to scare her into going home.
Laura’s stomach turned.
“Charlie and I live together,” her mother explained. “He’s been trying for years to find proof that Martha was behind his daughter’s death. He’s cultivated and maintained the image of an old derelict, hoping people would let their guard down around him and speak freely without thought to his presence.”
“Has it worked?”
“Well enough to discover their plan to bring Laura back.”
Laura cringed, realizing how easily she’d been manipulated. “And Mary? Was she in on it, too?”
“Yes.”
Laura shook her head. “I should have known. You can tell her for me that she’s a very convincing liar.”
“It wasn’t like that,” her mother insisted. “No one wanted to deceive you. We just wanted you to be safe.”
Laura’s hard gaze met hers. “The only person who has tried to hurt me, Mom, is you.”
Chapter 16
His awakening.
It was all becoming clear to Drew now. The ceremony tonight was a re-creation of the night when Laura almost died. This was all about him being awakened to some voodoo spirit. The Great Spirit Kafu talks to me through the water, and after tonight he will talk to you, too.
Paul stood in the corner, glaring at him with frustration. All these years, Drew had blocked him and the other bothersome spirits, but perhaps they had been trying to tell him something he needed to know.
Something that could have stopped what was happening now.
He hadn’t listened. He’d turned his back on them and now it was too late. Try as he might, he could not hear them.
“It’s not me who wants to hurt you, Laura,” Delilah insisted. “It’s Martha.”
Laura’s lips thinned as she pressed them together. “Fine. What does Miss Martha want from me?” she asked through a clenched jaw.
“Your blood,” Delilah said softly.
Drew cringed. Why couldn’t Delilah leave well enough alone? Nothing was going well, tonight. And nothing would until Laura went back home. She should do now what she should have done then, put her daughter in the car and drive away.
Far away.
“This is ridiculous. You all are ridiculous,” Laura said.
“My mother is a voodoo priestess,” Drew explained, and plowed a hand through his hair. Maybe if he could just get it all out, get this conversation over with then she’d go. “The real deal. That’s why you need to get out of here. Right now.”
“Oh, please,” Laura said. “Do you take me for a complete fool?”
“When I followed her earlier, I saw her getting her face painted blue, and then I remembered what had happened the last time I saw her like that.”
“Yes, I saw her, too, with funny blue lines on her face. But that hardly means—”
“You mean you saw her when you were young?” Jeanne asked, alarm ringing in her voice.
“No, tonight. In the doorway of my mother’s room.”
“What?” Drew said, suddenly as alarmed as Jeanne had sounded. “Did she say anything to you?” Why hadn’t his mother grabbed her right then and there?
“No. One minute she was there, and the next I heard you calling for me.”
“She must have hid when she heard me. She was probably coming for you.”
Laura stared at him, her eyes hard. She didn’t want to hear any more, he could tell. She was shutting down, pushing it all away.
“She needs you to complete the ritual,” he said, trying to make her understand.
“What ritual? For what?”
“For Drew’s awakening,” Jeanne answered.
Drew clenched his fists. He was the reason for everything that had been happening, and yet he’d been unable to stop to it. He’d known about the awakening. His mother had told him, but he hadn’t listened. He hadn’t cared.
He hadn’t tried to understand.
“Twenty years ago, Martha started a ritual, inviting the spirit of darkness, Kafu, into Drew’s body,” Jeanne explained, and tapped two fingers against her chest. “His essence lives there now, Drew. A fine thread that
connects you to him and has since that night. He needs the sacrifice of a child, not just any child, but one with a mystical lineage. Then he becomes you. And you become him.”
“Your power will be absolute,” Delilah said softly, her eyes haunted. “Unfortunately, Laura has that lineage through her father.”
“I never even knew my father,” Laura whispered.
“I think I’d know if I had some evil spirit’s essence living inside me,” Drew said through a rigid jaw.
“He’s dormant. Blocked. You wouldn’t know of his presence until after the ritual has been completed,” Jeanne explained.
“Paul found out from Charlie’s daughter, Georgette, who had been a part of Martha’s clan, about how the ritual would work the first time,” Delilah said.
“They drove to Lionsheart to warn us. Afterward, they were rushing to tell the sheriff when Paul’s car went off Devil’s Walk Bridge. To this day we don’t know if it was a horrible accident or if somehow Martha had killed them. But Paul and Georgette died trying to protect you both,” Jeanne said, a look of deep sadness etched onto her face.
“Laura, that night I was planning to take you and disappear,” Delilah continued. “We were on our way out of the house when Randal caught us. I’m so sorry, baby. Sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
Silent angry tears trickled down Laura’s cheeks.
“Drew, it’s because you can see,” Delilah said. “Like your mother, it’s your gift and the reason Kafu has chosen you. And why he chose your mother before you.”
Suddenly Paul was standing in front of him, yelling in his face, silent, soundless screams with nothing to betray them but the gentle lift of Drew’s hair.
Drew turned away from him toward the windows, staring out into the night, into nothing. All of this death and pain because he was cursed.
“Drew, do you see something?” Delilah asked, watching him intently.
“It’s Paul,” he whispered, finally admitting to them what he’d never wanted anyone to know.
He heard a small cry and peered at Jeanne through the reflection in the glass. She was staring at him wide-eyed, a fist pushed against her mouth.
He turned around. “Merde, Jeanne. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Why is he here?” she asked, her voice high-pitched and squeaky.
“He’s always been here.”
“What is he saying?” Delilah’s skin had turned the color of ash.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I can’t hear him.”
“What are you talking about?” Laura asked, clearly confused.
“Drew has visions,” Jeanne said. “He has the gift to see those touched by death.”
“And those who have died,” Delilah added. “Like Paul.”
His biggest fear realized, he watched as revulsion twisted Laura’s face.
Anger soured Drew’s stomach. He didn’t ask for this. Didn’t want it. Any of it.
Laura shook her head and backed away from him.
“You’re saying Papa Paul’s been with us, with me, this whole time?” She brought her fingers to her cheek.
“And all those times you told me I was in danger. You told me I was going to die. Was this how you knew? Did you see it? Did you see me die?” Her voice trembled.
He stepped toward her, wanting to tell her that it was okay. But it wasn’t and she knew it.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
She moved toward the door, her eyes wide with disbelief, her mouth twisted with anger. “You are all part of some sick delusion. You’ve obviously lived in the swamp too long. I don’t know what’s wrong with any of you, but I want you to stay away from me. Do you understand me?”
Drew stepped toward her. “Laura.”
“Especially you. Stay away from me.”
With tears blurring her vision, Laura ran out into the night. All these years she’d longed for her mother, longed to know what happened to make her mother abandon her. And now that she knew, she wished she didn’t.
What kind of mother gave up her only child to “watch” a lunatic? And what about Drew? For all she knew he was in on this whole scheme. His story of seeing dead people and predicting death was crazy.
Perhaps he was the one who lured her back here.
So the sacrifice could be complete and he could become all-powerful.
What a bunch of hooey.
All of it. She was surrounded by woo-woo people who were disillusioned and a bunch of liars. Crazy, demented liars who had put a snake in her bed and tried to run her down in the street. What else would her mother have done to scare her into leaving? How far would she have gone? Deep pain sliced through Laura’s heart.
And her mother had said she loved her.
Toxic, deadly love that could get her killed.
Her head was spinning. She stopped beside the Cupid fountain and stared up at the sky. Black clouds rolled in, boiling across the first stars daring to show themselves. Another storm was coming. And from the look of things, it would be a doozy.
All the more reason for her to get out of there.
She continued walking down the path. Could Martha really be trying to kill her? Ridiculous. If that was true, Martha had had ample opportunity and hadn’t taken it. Something else was going on here, something Laura no longer cared to find out about.
She tried to still her racing thoughts and control the emotions ping-ponging through her, but couldn’t. She needed an escape plan. She sat on a bench and dropped her head in her hands.
Good God. Her mother was alive. After all these years. Her mother was alive.
And she’d thrown Laura away as if she were…disposable.
Fresh tears filled her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. She should have stayed in San Francisco and never have come back to this godforsaken place.
A large spider scurried up onto the bench next to her. She jumped to her feet. A shudder rocked through her. All this time, and her mother had chosen to live in some shack in this disgusting smelly place rather than live anywhere with her.
All so she could watch Martha.
A cold hand brushed Laura’s cheek. She stiffened. How many times had she felt that sensation since she’d been here?
Drew can see the dead.
Papa Paul?
Her eyes darted to the shadows in the garden. Was it true? Were there spirits all around her? Suddenly, she could no longer tell what was real and what wasn’t. She shook her head and shivered as she walked down winding flagstone paths illuminated by copper garden lights.
None of this is true, she thought. But it didn’t matter. They believed it was real. They believed that spirits and voodoo priestesses were out to get her. It was crazy. All of it. Her mother was insane. She was the one Laura needed to get away from.
Jeanne and Mary both bought into her mother’s delusions, feeding them. And Randal? She could still feel the terror racing through her as his hand fell over her face. He hadn’t killed her mother after all.
It wasn’t me he wanted. It was you.
Laura shivered and thought of Drew. Her heart broke as she pictured his face. She had let herself get too close to him, and now she’d pay the price. He was misguided or at the very least delusional. And he’d been the one she’d thought she could count on.
But she was wrong. There was no one here for her. No one left she could trust. All these years hoping, waiting…wasted.
She’d let the mystery surrounding her mother infect her entire life. She’d grown up feeling tainted, abandoned, unloved. No wonder she had never been able to find love, to let herself be loved. She’d shut down anytime anyone got too close. And then she’d blamed them for leaving.
Boy, was she messed up. And it was her own damn fault for buying into the lie of motherly love—that all mothers love their children unselfishly, unconditionally. It was time she stood on her own and took back the power she’d given her mother over her life.
Laura made her way to the front of the house and to Drew�
�s car, moving quicker as the wind picked up and rustled the trees. She needed to get back to the hotel and then to San Francisco so she could put this mess behind her. She opened the driver’s door and climbed inside, hoping Drew had left the keys in the ignition.
No such luck.
She should go back in the house and demand them. But she didn’t want to see him again. Not now. Not ever. She needed a cab. Worse, she needed a phone. She stared back at the house. The front door lay in darkness. If it was open, she could slip in, use a phone then slip out again without anyone noticing.
Another gust of wind beat at the car. If she was going to do this, she needed to do it now before the storm hit. She rushed toward the front door, thankful that the porch light wasn’t on, and pressed down on the latch. The door opened. Letting loose a sigh of relief, she slipped in and eased the door closed behind her.
Through the first door on the right, she saw the corner of a desk from the dim light of the moon shining through French doors. An office.
She crept inside and shut the door quietly. She clicked on a Tiffany lamp sitting on the corner of the desk. A jumbled pattern of red, yellow and green light reflected eerily across the desk’s surface, but didn’t reach into the far corners of the room.
Taking a deep breath, she gazed into the darkness, trying to penetrate it. An eight-by-ten picture of Randal and Paul sat on the desk. She stared at their faces, and, once again, wondered how things could have gone so terribly wrong.
A deep ache settled inside her as she thought of the picture of her, Paul and her mother. Her “perfect” family had been an illusion that had never existed. What was real were the people who lived in this house. The man who’d hurt her twenty years ago. And the people in the garden room who’d tried to hurt her now. A shiver cascaded down her back as she realized she was standing in the den of the lion. She was in Randal’s office. What would he do if he caught her there now?
She reached for the phone, her fingers trembling above the receiver. She closed her eyes and took a breath to steady her nerves, then dialed Information for the number of the cab company that had brought her out here.
Black Magic Lover Page 16
