[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine (17 page)

On that faint hope, she fell asleep.

She shot toward wakefulness a couple of hours later, as the dark van of her nightmares visited her again, enormous and evil and more appalling than ever before.
I’m coming for you. You’re next!
It slammed into her, and she woke choking
on a sob. After the first few heart-thundering moments, she slumped back on her pillow.

And immediately sat up again. No way would she let herself fall back into that stupid nightmare. If she were going to end up right back in dreamland, she’d far prefer Constantine’s variety.

Oh, God. Was she already in the nightmare again? She could still hear the deadly, inexorable rumble of the van.

She heaved herself off the bed and listened hard. This was no dream. The sound came from a real engine, close by outside. Then another sound penetrated—a low growl from Lawless.

She found him crouched in the kitchen by the doggie door, bristles up, growling, whimpering, growling again. The well-lit porch contrasted with the intense darkness of the yard, and she hurried to the front to see only the empty road stretching away under the streetlights. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw what she was looking for: a dark mass under an oak tree just past the edge of the woods next door. A van like the one in her nightmare.

She got out her phone and dialed without a second thought. Constantine didn’t answer. She left a message: “There’s a van idling outside my house. There’s no time to explain, but I’ve been having nightmares about this van. Hurry, or it’ll be too late.”

She turned the phone over and over in her hand. She couldn’t just wait and hope he would call. He might be asleep. He might be miles away, and she didn’t know which bodyguard he’d sent or where to find him. Lawless’s growl rose to a crescendo. She scurried into the kitchen again, pulled him close, and muffled him. “Shush. Hush. Don’t
bark.
Please
don’t bark.” She locked the doggie door so he couldn’t get out the back. What good would it be if Lawless scared away the intruder before Constantine arrived?

Hurriedly, she dressed in jeans, a dark T-shirt, and running shoes. She could call 911, but she didn’t want another kerfuffle, not with all the other crap going on.
Cradle Robber Scared of the Dark
. Maybe she should call Gideon O’Toole. She dug into her wallet for his card but didn’t find it, and she couldn’t risk turning on a light to search properly.

Meanwhile, Lawless moved to the front door, still growling. Marguerite peeked through a crack in the curtains. A light came on inside the van. A few seconds later, the car door slammed shut and the engine slipped into gear.

Too late! He was leaving. She had to at least get the tag number of the van. If they could identify it, and therefore its owner, Constantine might leave Zeb alone. Shutting Lawless firmly indoors, she crept out into the back garden. Lawless’s frantic howls pursued her. She reached the corner of the house just as the van purred slowly down the street in the still, heavy air. Marguerite pushed her bike through to the street and followed.

Constantine Dufray had hoped to talk with Eaton Wilson, but according to discreet inquiries made by one of Lep’s people, the professor had gone to visit some mounds in Mississippi and wouldn’t be back till past midnight. Gideon had reported that two vehicles were registered in his name—a Volvo and a black van—but neither was parked at his house. Constantine set someone to watch for the return of Wilson
and either or both vehicles. Another of Lep’s people confirmed that Zeb had left the Merkin with his father and gone home, so he at least was accounted for.

Constantine had spent most of the evening in the roof garden of the Impractical Cat working on some songs, but now, hanging out by the bayou with no distractions, he couldn’t stop thinking about Marguerite. For once, he didn’t feel like playing his guitar, and his guide had gone to roost in a tree down the bayou and was utterly silent. After Tony had dropped Marguerite at home, he’d called to tell Constantine about the sex dream she’d had that afternoon. “Not saying you shouldn’t send her more, kid, but it’s not polite to get a woman stirred up and then not follow through.”

He hadn’t meant to send that dream—more proof that he’d lost control of his mind. If he didn’t rein in his thoughts, he would send her another one, which she didn’t want. It wasn’t fair to either of them to feed an attraction that could never go anywhere. The best he could do for now was cool himself down.

He stripped and made a polite request of the water-dwelling creatures to excuse the intrusion, with a particularly respectful nod to any water moccasins that might be lurking under the bank. In all his unworthiness, the animal world hadn’t deserted him so far. He dove in and swam.

The animals might tolerate him, but the fates were laughing at him tonight. He swam across the bayou and lazed in the water’s caress for a couple of minutes, and then, from the pocket of his jeans on the far bank, his cell phone rang. Cursing, he struck out across the bayou, but the call had gone to message before he got to the other side. He hauled
himself up by a convenient root and glanced at the display: Honey and Eyes. He dried off in a hurry and scrambled into his clothes and shoes. As he took off running through the woods, all hell broke loose: the screech of a hawk, the urgent swoop of a bat, and the distant sound of Lawless, howling fit to bust.

Within two minutes he was on Marguerite’s back porch. He banged on the back door, calling her name, and Lawless whimpered in response. Using the spare key he’d abstracted from a kitchen drawer that morning while putting away her groceries, he went inside, but Marguerite was nowhere to be found. Her little Honda stood in the driveway. The chain was on the front door, so she must have gone out the back. But where? And why?

Lawless scrabbled frantically at the locked doggie door. Constantine’s phone vibrated. He dialed voice mail and listened in growing dismay. If she’d been kidnapped… at gunpoint, maybe, so she’d been forced outdoors without the dog. Or maybe she’d just gone to investigate, crazy fool! The dog might show him. He opened the door and called desperately on his guide for help. Lawless tore around the side of the house, sniffing at the fence where this morning Marguerite’s bike had been stashed, and lunged through the gate. He snuffled across the front yard and bounded away down the road.

She’d followed the van on her
bike
?

Relief and hope stirred in him. With luck she wouldn’t get far before the van sped up and she lost it. But no reassurance came from his guide, only urgent cries for haste. He went inside for her keys, started up the little Honda, and took off after the dog.

After the first burst of speed down the street and around the corner, Marguerite kept up easily with the van, which rolled contemplatively through the neighborhood from one stop sign to another. She left her headlight off and coasted directly behind the vehicle, out of view of both side mirrors. The driver might still see her in the center mirror, but that was a risk she had to take. Hopefully he would have no reason to check behind him until they reached a major artery, by which time she should have his license plate number and be on her way back home.

But the license plate proved damnably hard to read. Mud plastered the sides and rear of the van, obscuring much of the plate, and one of its little sidelights had burned out. At the fourth unsuccessful attempt to get close enough to read the plate, it dawned on Marguerite that the van was trundling along far too slowly. Slowly enough, she realized, to make it easy for her to keep up.

A dreadful coldness crept into the pit of her stomach. She hung back a little, telling herself not to be silly. There was no reason to think he had seen her, or that he even knew of her existence. He might even be some random person looking for an address, but she had to make sure. The van might be headed for a nearby gas station or an all-night supermarket; it might be going only as far as the next street or miles into the country. As long as the driver didn’t know she was following him, she would be okay.

Actually, she felt downright stupid following a dream. It was one thing to believe that Constantine could send her dreams and another entirely to believe that a recurring
nightmare had anything to do with real life or with a real van that happened to idle at the side of a road at night.

Ahead of her the van approached a corner, veered a little to the right, and stopped. If Marguerite had been squinting at the license plate instead of pondering her next move, she would have collided with him. She skidded to a stop, heart skittering in her breast. The driver’s door opened, and a figure began slowly to emerge.

His aura flared, its message clear. The man in the black van intended to kill her.

Faster than thought, Marguerite flew around the passenger side of the van, teetering along the edge of the ditch, where there was scarcely room to pass, in terror that he would run around the front of the van and grab her.

But no… He was supposed to run her down, wasn’t he, according to the dream? He had left just enough room for her to pass, and he climbed leisurely back into the driver’s seat and put the van into gear.

Marguerite tore off down the street, thoughts racing. The closest well-lit area was several blocks away. He could catch up and hit her at any time. She shifted up onto the sidewalk, where the curb and the trees lining the road offered a little protection, and whipped around a corner. The van driver hung behind, not driving dangerously, just keeping up, waiting for his chance.

Marguerite rounded another corner, and the sidewalk ended abruptly at a drainage ditch. In this old quarter of town, trees had uprooted the sidewalks, and there were new ones under construction everywhere. She skirted the ditch and crossed the street before the van reappeared. A new sidewalk had been completed on the other side, which took
her for another two blocks. But twisting and turning, running out of breath, Marguerite knew she couldn’t keep it up for long enough. Following this erratic course, it would take two, three times as long to get to the main drag. Straight ahead of her, maybe five more blocks…

But of course the driver of the van knew this, too. The engine picked up speed and roared behind her. Again the sidewalk came to an end. She fought the onslaught of panic, slipped, and an oak tree loomed out of nowhere. She skidded sideways and crashed, landing hard in a mess of weeds and grass.

Constantine caught up with Lawless, who followed a fairly straight course for several blocks and then a progressively more twisted one. He covered the same street twice and plunged forward again, nose to the ground, around another corner.

And stopped, nosing in the ditch, whimpering. Half in the ditch, its wheel bent against a huge oak tree, lay Marguerite’s bike.

Constantine jumped out of the car. “Marguerite?” he called, and then again louder, but his answer came from the dog, who bounded into a vacant lot. He raised his hands, invoking the creatures of the sky to his aid.
Find her,
he pleaded.
Save her.
A bat wheeled and dipped in an erratic course ahead of the dog. An owl beat past on frantic wings. Constantine took off in pursuit.