Before the Dawn (37 page)

A fairly howling Sam disagreed, “Oh, yes it is. You told the King to run, Leah? Oh, Lord. I think I'm going to hurt myself.”

Leah had tears of mirth in her own eyes, mainly because of the thunderous look in Ryder's as he observed Sam's hysterics. She reached over and squeezed Ryder's hand sympathetically. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. Leaning close, he whispered in her ear. “Eight years.”

Leah smiled delightedly.

Leah and Ryder were both so tired from the journey home that when they finally climbed the stairs to his room, they shared a shower, donned clean night clothes, and slid between the bed's fresh, crisp sheets. He pulled her against him, kissed the back of her neck, and, moments later, they were both asleep.

T
he next morning, Leah hitched a ride to town with Ryder. She wanted to let Eloise know that Ryder had proposed. She also needed to vacate the little cabin and get her trunks and things gathered up so they could be moved to Sunrise.

“I'll be back to pick you up later this afternoon,” Ryder told Leah, as she stood by the wagon in front of Eloise's white picket gate.

“Okay,” Leah said. She leaned up for a kiss, then stepped back.

“Tell Eloise I'll visit with her when I come and get you.”

“I will,” Leah responded.

He drove off and she headed up the flower-choked walk. The screened front door was unlocked as always so she went on in. “Eloise?” she called out cheerily.

No answer.

Figuring she was probably sequestered in the studio, Leah headed down the hall. “Eloise?”

Silence.

The studio door appeared to be closed, but as Leah knocked, it slowly swung open. Leah hesitated. She'd been warned by Eloise not to peek in, but a natural curiosity called temptingly. She looked back over her shoulder, guilty that she might be found out, then took a few hesitant steps in. Sunlight filled the room through the two large windows, but what it illuminated amazed her, shocked her, and froze her with a cold fear. Every inch of every wall held framed, twisted images of what appeared to be Louis Montague in his youth.

One portrayed him as a red-horned Lucifer. The yellow eyes gleamed with an evil glee, and in the bloody, fang-filled mouth, lay the limp body of a lifeless child.

Another showed Monty's severed head, swimming in blood. The eyes in the decapitated head looked terrified, the mouth appeared to be uttering a scream.

Trembling, Leah turned and saw a painting of woman who bore a great resemblance to Helene; Bernice maybe? Leah wondered. The painting showed her as a gaunt corpse, her eyes, black unseeing holes, the skin of her face covered with leeches. Leah tasted bile in her throat. There were others on the walls depicting the same woman; all done with hate and skill.

Heart beating fast, Leah scanned a painting of an Indian woman copulating with three drunken men. Ryder's mother, Songbird? The scene was so raw and vile, she had to turn away, but her eyes spied something else that made her blood run cold. A partially finished painting of Cecil rested on one of the worktables. His lips were smiling, but his face, as bloated as a drowned corpse, had fat white maggots feasting upon it.

Leah knew then that she had to get out of there, but when she turned to the door, there stood Eloise. She held a long-bladed hunting knife in her hand.

“See what happens when you trespass? Now you know,” Eloise said casually. “Or at least you should.”

Leah swallowed in a fear-dry throat. She didn't want to believe the evidence she'd uncovered or the conclusion she'd come to, but there seemed to be no other explanation.

Eloise readily admitted, “Yes, I killed them all. Had good reason to.”

Leah wondered how she could get past Eloise to freedom.

As if reading her mind, Eloise smiled and quietly pushed the door closed. She then threw the bolt on the inside. “Now, we won't be disturbed.”

Shakes claimed Leah, but she forced herself to take deep breaths so she could think.

“Have a seat, dear,” Eloise invited politely, “I want to tell you a story.”

Leah didn't want to sit, but knew the longer Eloise talked, the longer she'd have to come up with a way to escape that knife. Leah sat on a nearby wooden bench.

Eloise smiled. “Good. Now, let's start at the beginning. Once, a very long time ago, my little Alice was a real girl.”

Leah tried to hide her skepticism but failed.

Eloise paused and then remarked, “You look doubtful.”

“I admit I am.”

“Well, she was. I was looking forward to buying her prams and lacy dresses, and living happily with her and her father.”

“What happened?”

“The father didn't want the child. Me either as it turned out. He used me for one night, then offered me money to go away.” She paused again and stared unseeing off into the distance. Her eyes were sad. “He didn't want either of us,”
she whispered. “I took the money, but I'd given him my innocence because I thought I meant as much to him as he did to me…”

Eloise's eyes reflected a terrible pain.

Leah knew where this was leading, and it felt like a rock on her heart, but she had to ask. “Monty fathered your child, didn't he?”

Eloise nodded stonily. “Yes, he did, and he paid me off himself. Probably didn't want that little worm, Cecil Lee, to know he'd made sure me and Alice went to California so we wouldn't be around when that fancy, Creole bitch came to town to be his wife.”

So that was why Cecil hadn't had reason to worry that Eloise was one of Monty's castoffs. He hadn't known. No one had. Eloise's quick slide from pain to hatred scared Leah back to the reality of whom and what she faced. Eloise was a murderess, one so clever her victims went back over thirty years. Leah couldn't afford to lose sight of that if she wanted to survive. “How did you kill him?”

“Monkshood.”

“What's monkshood?”

“A flower. Comes in purple and blue, sometimes white and yellow. Back in the old days it was called wolfsbane. Healers used it to lower fevers. Grows fairly common in these parts.”

Leah'd never heard of it. “And it's poisonous?”

“Deadly.”

“When did you poison him?”

“The day Ryder first took you up to Sunrise. Cecil Lee came to my house late that next night to talk to me about how Ryder might treat you. He was very worried, it seemed.” Eloise paused for a moment, and then explained, “You see, the day I heard you two had come to town, I made a cake especially for Cecil, hoping I'd have a chance to of
fer him a piece. Got the idea for it from reading about a doctor over in England who poisoned his brother-in-law with some cake that had monkshood in it. Satan's Butler thought it was pretty tasty. I never had a chance to kill Louis, so I killed his lackey instead. It was almost as satisfying.”

Leah shook her head sadly.
Poor Cecil. The past had come back to extract a terrible toll
. “So what happened to your daughter Alice? Did she take ill and die?”

Eloise's eyes went cold. “No, when I realized she wouldn't have a father, I went to an old midwife who lived here at the time. She gave me a mixture of herbs to sweep my child from me.”

Leah stared, horrified.

Eloise shrugged. “I was a churchgoing woman—had been my whole life, even during slave times. I couldn't have an out-of-wedlock child, not and see Heaven.”

Leah thought about her mother, Reba. When Leah's father died at sea, she'd faced a similar dilemma, but she'd cherished the tiny life forming in her womb. Eloise seemed to have cherished hers also but felt forced to make a different choice. Had that experience hurt her so terribly that it twisted her into the murderess she'd become?

Eloise went on, “So I created that statue. Dedicated it to my unborn child, and the rest of my life to destroying everything Louis Montague loved. Bernice was easy to poison. She was a hypochondriac, complained about one mythical malaise after another, and she always came to me to give her something. Well, I did. Poisoned her over a few months and made sure she took a long time to die. Creole bitch.”

Leah shivered. “What about Ryder's mother?”

Eloise cackled. “She and Louis had just had a fight. I found her crying, right near the mine where Louis had sent her husband to his death. I offered to drive her home, and when she turned her back, I clubbed her, tossed her body down the shaft, and went home.”

The silence that fell over the room was as chilling as the triumph in Eloise's eyes.

“You placed that note on my door, didn't you?”

“Yes. Remember when I went back into the house for the Sunday school books and to hitch Ol' Tom?”

Leah did.

“It only took me a moment to tack up the letter and then meet you out front. I hoped it would scare you enough to make you go back East. Alice and I knew you had to die, but we didn't want to do it. Unlike Bernice and Songbird, we liked you.”

Leah remembered how concerned Eloise had been when they found the threatening missive upon returning from church. She'd even driven her into town to see the sheriff. Sadly, it had all been an act, a well-performed sham. “But Monty's dead. You can't hurt him anymore.”

“No, I can't, but you're the last woman he loved—you said so yourself in court. After I kill you, I can finally rest.”

Leah took a discreet look around the room for some type of weapon. She was fairly sure she was carrying Ryder's child, and she had no intentions of letting that joy be snuffed out by a deranged woman from Monty's past. “I thought you cared for Ryder. We're going to be married, and I think I'm carrying his child. You'd hurt him that way?”

“I do love him, always considered him mine in a way, but he's known pain before—he'll survive.”

Leah didn't think he would, but then neither would she if she didn't leave this room. “Eloise, I'm not going to my death willingly.”

“I don't expect you to, dear.” She smiled. “But die you will.” And she pounced.

Leah scrambled off the bench just in time to miss being sliced by the wicked knife. Eloise kicked over the bench and some easels in an effort to get at Leah. Leah stayed one
step ahead of her, throwing easels and paints in her path while Eloise stabbed and slashed the air. Placing herself behind a table, a heavily breathing Leah evaluated her opponent, all the while searching for a way out. Eloise lunged again, but Leah darted away. Anger in her eyes, Eloise tipped over the table, sending paints, brushes, and jars of water crashing to the floor.

Desperate now, Leah picked up a clay pot and sent it sailing through the windowpane. The shattered glass surprised Eloise just long enough for Leah to launch herself through the jagged opening. Eloise's scream of rage blended with Leah's scream of pain as the points of glass dragged across her arms and shoulders. She was free.

Leah ran for her life. Her pounding heart echoed with each step. Blood was pouring down her arms, but she didn't stop; nor did she look back. Thinking it might be best if she ran under cover of the trees and shrubs bordering the road, she tried that for a few yards, but kept being snagged by the foliage. Roots twice sent her sprawling to ground. When she righted herself she ran back to the center of the road, where the footing was more sure.

She could taste the coppery flavor of her own blood in the corner of her mouth. Wiping at her cheek, she drew back red-stained fingers. She hadn't known until then that she'd been cut on her face, but she paid it little mind. She had to get away.

From behind her on the road, she heard the ominous churn of a wagon's wheels. Turning, she saw Eloise whipping Ol' Tom up to a full gallop. Leah darted back into the trees. She could hear herself crashing through the silent surroundings. Fat roots and snagging branches slowed her pace, but she kept moving. A large, aboveground root caught her foot, and she went down with a scream of pain. She tried to scramble to her feet, but her right ankle refused to hold her weight. It was either broken or very badly
sprained. Tears of hurt and frustration filled Leah's eyes. Hobbling back to the edge of the road, she braced herself against a tree in hopes that Eloise might have missed her and driven on by. She hadn't; she must have spotted Leah fleeing into the trees, because she was driving slowly, peering closely for signs of her prey.

Leah drew herself up and remained perfectly still, praying Eloise would move on, but she didn't. Breathing hard, Leah watched her climb down from the wagon and begin to search the bushes bordering the road. Eloise then wiped a finger across the tree trunk where Leah'd fled into the woods. She surveyed the red staining her fingers, and smiled.

Looking around Eloise called out, “Your blood's leaving a trail, Leah. Come on out and stop this foolishness. I'm going to find you. It'll just be a matter of time.”

Leah held her breath. She didn't move.

“Okay then, dear. Let's see if we can flush you out.”

Going back to the wagon, Eloise lifted out a rifle. She fed in some shells, primed it, and began firing random shots into the trees. One bullet whizzed so close by Leah's head she could smell its scent. Fear pumping her heart, and grimacing from the body-shaking pain in her ankle, Leah tried to decide what to do. She couldn't run anymore, not with her injury, but if she stayed there, Eloise would surely find her.

Eloise continued to shoot, the bullets sounding loud against the silence. It was as if she knew exactly where Leah was hiding because more and more shots kept coming her way. Leah ducked in terror.

Suddenly the shooting stopped. Leah stiffened, wondering why, until the sound of approaching wheels gave her the answer. Someone was coming down the road! Leah didn't care who it might be, but this was possibly her salvation, so she hobbled out of the trees. It was Helene!

However before Leah could flag her down, Eloise began shooting, more rapidly this time. Bullets bounced off the dirt road, trying to take Leah's life, but she desperately moved on down the road as fast as the injury would allow. “Helene!” she screamed.

Helene had stopped her wagon upon hearing all the shooting, but upon seeing the bloody Leah waving in the middle of the road, slapped the reins and came toward her at full gallop. Eloise tried to warn her off with a shot or two, but she kept coming and didn't stop until she was abreast of Leah.

“Get in!” Helene yelled. Leah scrambled into the bed. Helene let the reins fall and quickly snatched up her own rifle.

The woods were silent. Eloise's wagon and Ol' Tom were still beside the road, but Eloise had apparently hidden herself among the trees. She was nowhere in sight. Leah was flat on her back in the bed of the wagon trying to catch her breath and giving thanks for being rescued.