[Bayou Gavotte 00.0] Back to Bite You (7 page)

Gerry had come indoors for ice water for him and his workers. “What?”

“I hoped this chest would contain something more interesting. I heard Arthur shifting boxes around one night. This one wasn’t anywhere near as dusty as some of the others, so I thought it might hold something special.” She clasped the packet of letters, remembering Arthur. “Maybe these letters mattered a lot to him. Do you mind if I read them?”

“I already gave you carte blanche. Go ahead.”

“They may be very private and personal.”

“He’s dead, Mirabel. Read whatever you like.” He scooped ice cubes into a plastic jug.

“Maybe these letters will provide some illumination,” she said, still needing to justify it to herself, if not to Gerry. “He opened them recently. I’m sure of it.”

Gerry filled the jug with water and headed for the back door.

She couldn’t keep it in anymore. “Don’t you wonder what went wrong?”

He had that war-weary look again. “Honey, I’ve spent most of my life bouncing between Grandpa and my aunts, doing my best to get along with everyone. Now that Grandpa’s dead, their feud is over. Not worth thinking about. Finished, done, and gone.”

He pushed the door open. “What I’d
like
to know is why you don’t want us to be seen together.”

He left before she could decide whether this was a plea or a threat.
Finished, done, and gone
. Guys didn’t usually dump her, but this one just might.

She went straight for her phone and called a friend in New Orleans. “Any news about Sergio?”

“He’s stopped asking everyone where you’ve gone,” her friend said, “but last I saw, he’s still hopping pitifully from one girl to the next.”

It might be weeks yet. She couldn’t string Gerry along. She had to tell him the truth. If he turned tail and ran, she’d just have to live with it.

Gloomily, she untied the velvet ribbon. The top letter was written on the thin paper people used way back when for airmail.
Dear, darling Arthur
, it began,
I already miss you
. A love letter from a girl to her man, written with an old-fashioned fountain pen, judging by the ink smeared here and there. Tears? Probably, because the girl said she
would love Arthur forever, but she was marrying another man.
It will be safer for both of us
, she wrote.

Safer? Why?

She signed it
Your ever-loving Dee
.

Inside the letter was a dance card from a Mardi Gras ball in 1941. More than half the dances had been bestowed on Arthur. The owner of the dance card was Dorinda Darblay.

Wow. The glamorous Dorinda had cut a swath through the social world of New Orleans. She’d been made queen of one of the more prominent krewes, ousting all the debutantes who had more right to that honor. A picture of Dorinda in her gown and parure graced the hall of the State Museum. Officially, she was just another beautiful Mardi Gras queen, but if you peered closely enough at her slightly parted lips, you saw the tip of one sharp, tiny fang.

Rumor in the vampire community had it she’d fallen in love with a military man at that ball, but soon afterward she’d married a millionaire oilman and had several children with him. She’d divorced him after forty-odd years but was shot to death not long afterward. There were a number of suspects, but the murderer was never found.

Another letter, on regular paper with ballpoint pen, had been crumpled more than once and flattened again by the looks of it. Dated in 1985 and also from Dorinda to Arthur, it was short and to the point:
I don’t know who had you beaten. It wasn’t anyone in the vampire community, I can swear to that. I don’t think it was my ex, because he’s jet-setting around the world with his new girl, and I’d be surprised if he has a thought to spare for me. All I can say is I’m sorry, but in the long run, it’s better this way. Here’s
something to remember me by. I love you, but I’m trouble, darling—always have been, always will be
.

Several months later, according to the newspaper clipping inside the letter, Dorinda was dead.

* * *

Gerry called it a day at four. He sent his crew home and went indoors to shower. He had retrieved his truck at lunchtime, and he refused to move it again tonight without a good reason. He’d lived for years surrounded by festering secrets about which he didn’t give a damn. He couldn’t live a single day with a secret estranging him from the woman he loved.

Getting way ahead of himself again, but it was too late for that. He’d fallen for her lock, stock, and barrel, and if this wasn’t love, then love didn’t exist. This time, April and June’s interference had backfired on them. They had separated him from one vampire; they wouldn’t get to do it again.

He sobered. The more he saw of Mirabel, the less he suspected her of being a gold digger, much less a murderess. But if she didn’t have ulterior motives, why was she so determined not to be seen with him? He couldn’t let their relationship go any further until he knew.

He went upstairs. The door to the ruined bedroom was wide open, and the light was on. What was she doing in there? The room held nothing of interest or value. The chest of drawers sagged, and the beds were rubbish. What pictures remained on the walls hung askew. Not only that, the hole in the middle of the slippery, mildewed floor was mighty dangerous.

Across the room, the closet door stood open as well. Some old coats hung on the rack. Mothballs were scattered all over the floor, stinking up the room. Gerry eased his way along the wall. From the depths of the closet came a muffled wail. “Damn it, I was so sure.”

He stuck his head into the closet. Mirabel had gone through the little door in the closet wall, which led to the plumbing access for the bathroom between this room and Arthur’s. “What are you doing in there?”

She squatted inside the cramped space by the pipes and peered at him. “The day Arthur almost fell through the floor, he had opened the door to this access. There was something for the museum in here, he said. He wasn’t ready to give it away yet, but he wanted to show me. Later, when I offered to get it for him, he said it could wait until we fixed the floor.” She flicked off her flashlight. “I read those letters, and it suddenly hit me, and I thought I knew, but there’s nothing in here. Nothing at all.”

He had no clue what she was talking about, and he didn’t much care. “That’s too bad,” he said. He was filthy and he stank. He loved her, and he was afraid he would lose her. If she didn’t tell him why they couldn’t be seen together, he would have no choice but to leave. “Mirabel, I—”

No, he couldn’t bring up their relationship, such as it was, until he’d cleaned up. At least, that was his excuse to be with her one more time if he had to end it. “I’m going to take a shower. Want to join me?”

“Sure,” she said, brushing off cobwebs as she emerged.

They melted into each other under the hot water, steam and passion enveloping them. Afterward, wrapped in a towel and luminous with satisfied desire—God, she was
beautiful, before, during, and after—Mirabel said, “I’ve decided to tell you what you want to know.”

He felt as if he’d been holding his breath all day long, but this moment of truth was worse.

“I dumped a boyfriend a couple of months ago. Guys often get fixated on me, and Sergio has some really violent tendencies.” She reddened. “I didn’t do such a great job of evaluating him.”

“We all make mistakes,” Gerry said, letting out that bated breath, feeling totally lame. And fixated as all get out.

“I came to Bayou Gavotte because I figured ‘out of sight, out of mind’ might work, but if he learns I’m here while he’s still obsessing, he’ll beat up any man who comes near me.” She paused. “I called a friend in New Orleans today, and she says he’s getting over me, but we’re not out of the woods yet. That’s why you can’t stay here. Why you can’t even be seen with me. I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt because of me.”

That’s what was eating her? “I won’t get hurt,” Gerry said. “More to the point,
you
won’t with me here to protect you.”

“Gerry,
no
,” she moaned. “Sergio’s big and mean and dangerous.”

“Meh,” Gerry said. “I could use a beer.”

She threw up her hands.

On the way to the kitchen, he detoured to the disaster that was the dining room. “I found this in the corner. I think it belongs to the attic door.” He indicated a pole with a hook on the end of it.

She nodded. “Arthur had it that day he slipped and almost went through the floor. It fell through the hole, and I put it in the corner and forgot about it. Oh! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Of what?” Gerry said, but Mirabel had already grabbed the pole and was halfway up the stairs. Shaking his head, he followed her to the ruined bedroom. Once again, she was in the plumbing access, this time aiming the flashlight above her head. If she wanted to get covered in cobwebs and rinse off in the shower again, he certainly had no objection.

Mirabel shrieked. “Up there!”

Christ. What now? He was bored to tears with Grandpa Arthur’s stuff. He wanted to dwell on what the future might bring for him and Mirabel.

“Hold the flashlight for me. Shine it up. Oh, I hope, I hope, I
hope!
” Mirabel fumbled briefly with the hook and a minute later slowly lowered a garment bag. She passed it to Gerry through the opening in the wall. “Take it to my bedroom and lay it on the carpet. Be very, very gentle with it. It may be valuable.”

She followed him into the bedroom. More mothballs tumbled out when she opened the garment bag.

“It’s the gown,” she whispered, glancing up at him, her eyes aglow with tears. “The one Dorinda Darblay wore to the Mardi Gras ball in 1941.” She took it out and spread it lovingly on the bed. From a velvet sack suspended from a second hanger, she removed a set of jewels: tiara, necklace, earrings, bracelet, stomacher, and scepter. She laid the jewelry on the bed in all its glory: brilliants in ruby red and emerald green, gilding and pearls, with pearls adorning the gown as well.

Good Lord
. “
The
Dorinda Darblay?”

“It’s in the letters I found earlier today. Arthur was in love with her.”

He blinked at the dazzling array on the bed. “From what I’ve heard,
everybody
was in love with her. This dress and jewelry have been missing for years, right?”

Mirabel nodded. “Nobody knew they were gone until after she died. Her will mentioned that she had given them to a former lover, but no one admitted to having them.”

“Nobody was surprised at that. Anyone who did would have been suspected of murdering her because she’d shown interest in some other man. Not only that, there might have been a huge lawsuit over who really owned them.”

“Yes, but that’s not why Arthur kept them a secret.” Mirabel wiped away a tear. “This was all he had left of Dorinda. He wanted to keep it until he died.”

Gerry couldn’t help but grimace. He’d loved his grandfather dearly, but this was too much. “Definitely on the creepy side of nostalgia.” He ran his hands through his still-damp hair, pondering his own growing obsession with Mirabel. Maybe he wasn’t so very different from Arthur. “To each his own insanity, I guess.”

“I can’t wait to see the curators’ faces when I bring this stuff to the museum,” Mirabel said.

Gerry grunted, not caring one way or the other about the curators. Was it too soon to ask Mirabel to marry him?

In the kitchen, she read him two letters and a newspaper clipping. It reeked of bad soap opera, but it did clarify a few things.

“So the fabulous Dorinda was a vampire. As kids, we used to joke that the thing in her mouth in the museum photo was a fang,” Gerry said. “Turns out it really was―and Grandpa had a fling with her. Two flings, actually. The first one explains his emergency posting to the South Seas. Somebody wanted him out of the way.”

“And the second time, he got beaten up because of her,” Mirabel said. “That could happen to you if you stay with me!”

“Nah, I can take care of myself.”

She didn’t believe him; maybe a trip to the dojo would convince her. He was in good shape, unlike Arthur, who had lived a sedentary life.

Gerry popped open a can of beer. “There’s no reason to believe it was anything but a mugging. Why would anyone beat up an over-the-hill guy for having a fling with an equally aging vampire?”

“It’s too much of a coincidence for me,” Mirabel said, “and as if that wasn’t weird enough, somebody murdered Dorinda several months later.”

Gerry took a long swallow, thinking about it all. Uneasiness stole over him. “Mirabel, what’s the date of that newspaper clipping?”

She dug it out of the pile. “May 14, 1986.”

“The beating took place the previous August. April and June took me to the hospital to visit both him and my mom. It stuck in my memory because Mom was dying, and I was scared I would lose Grandpa Arthur, too. That was before he stopped speaking to April and June.” His uneasiness increased as he tried to piece the dates together. “I’m pretty sure the feud started when I was eleven. Mom was dead, and I was stuck between my grandfather and my aunts, always trying to keep the peace.”

“That must have been rough.”

“I got used to it.” He’d never questioned it, either. “If I thought about it at all, I assumed he disagreed with their parenting methods and hated not being able to do anything about it. According to the terms of my mom’s will, I lived with them while school was on and with Grandpa during the holidays. They were always placing restrictions on me, while Grandpa wanted to give me responsibility and freedom. He threw a fit when April and June made me spend my senior year at the military academy. It took a lot of work to convince him I didn’t mind.”

Her brows drew together. “Did you? Mind, I mean?”

He’d hated the idea, but as usual, he’d done whatever it took to keep everyone happy. “It got me out from under April’s and June’s thumbs for a while, and I made some good friends there.” He’d learned some useful skills, and although he’d been separated from the vampire he’d been sleeping with, they’d just been friends with benefits, not madly in love, so no one’s heart had been broken.