Dark Destiny: Book One of the Destiny Novella Series (Destiny Novellas 1) (9 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Has she texted again? If she doesn’t hurry, we’ll be late.” Lily frowned as she attempted to zip Dahlia’s dress; her sister kept pacing around Lily’s bedroom in Bennett’s house. They had been shopping for the bulk of the day while Poppy scoured records both digital and paper at the city county building and the town’s oldest library. She put her speed reading skills and photographic memory to work but hadn’t yet been able to locate Lady Chamonix’ family mausoleum, and nobody seemed to know where the lady herself was buried. Ronnie probably knew, but she was still unresponsive, even though her doctors had decided to try and bring her out of the medically induced coma.

Dahlia checked her phone and shook her head. “Nothing else from Poppy. But listen! Mimi says she thinks Ronnie moved her fingers.” Her eyes were bright, and Lily knew they were a reflection of her own desperate hope. She exhaled and nodded, turning Dahlia back around to cinch up the ornamental ties on the bodice that was a mixture of oranges, reds and a deep burgundy.

“Be still for a minute! Ok, there. Oh Dahlia, look at you,” Lily breathed as she steered her sister toward the full length mirror.

“Hmm,” Dahlia said as she examined her reflection, and there was a sparkle in her eyes despite her shrug. “I guess it’ll do.”

“Shut up, it’s stunning.” Lily finger-combed Dahlia’s long, chestnut brown curls and tousled them so they fell down her back and across her shoulders in cascades. “Hang on a minute, don’t move.” She retrieved the matching demi-mask and reached around Dahlia to secure it into place, and finished it off with matching elbow-length gloves.

Lily placed her hands at Dahlia’s waist and turned her to the right and then the left. “I’m totally bummed this isn’t a real party. You look amazing. Too bad we’ll be scoping out a sociopath instead of finding you someone hot to dance with.”

“Psh,” Dahlia said, but she smiled a little, probably in spite of herself.

“I feel like your fairy godmother,” Lily said, injecting mock tears into her voice and fanning herself with her hand.

“Oh my hell.” Dahlia laughed, and removed the mask. “Ok, your turn.” She moved to the bed where they’d spread out the clothing. Poppy’s ensemble included a gown graced in a beautiful pink that shimmered with light gold when the light shifted. Dahlia moved past the pink dress to Lily’s and gathered it in her hands.

“Ok,” Dahlia said. “Strip down.”

Lily eyed the dress with distaste. “This makes me want to puke. Some man eyeballed me in my sleep so throughly he got my dimensions just right. I don’t even want to put it on.”

“You don’t have a choice now, do you?” Dahlia draped the dress over one arm and held out her hand for Lily’s robe, which she reluctantly shrugged out of. She’d had to buy a new bra to work with the dress, and it was one more thing to add to her list of grievances against Othello.

“I guess I should be glad he didn’t buy me underwear,” Lily muttered as she turned and let Dahlia help her step into the gown. It settled over her skin like cool silk, the short sleeves resting just off her shoulders and fitting itself like a second skin as Dahlia zipped up the back.

“Wow.” Dahlia walked Lily over to the mirror. “Your turn.”

It was absolutely beautiful. And she hated it. It felt like an unwanted caress and she shuddered. “My first time at a ball and prince charming is a creeper who wants to turn the world into a zombie army.”

“Don’t pout.” Dahlia deftly twisted the hair at the sides of Lily’s face, pulling the two ropes she created around to the back of Lily’s head and securing it with pins. The rest of the hair hung down in curls that matched Dahlia’s own, except Lily’s were a deep black. “We’ll go to another party, a real one, and you can dance with your true prince charming. Who is, might I add, remarkably hot.”

Lily tried to smile and looked at Dahlia in the mirror. The stress on her sister’s face—that Dahlia was undoubtedly doing her best to hide—hit Lily hard and she bit her lip. The ordeal wasn’t terrifying for her alone, her sisters had also been dragged into it and none of them faced any guarantees of successfully coming out of it alive. The very fact that the girls were accompanying her flew in the face of Othello’s explicit instructions and Lily could only hope he’d see it as something to his advantage. Lily’s collateral, her “insurance” that she comply with his demands would be right there with her. She knew she should insist that she go alone, but she was freaked out just enough that when Poppy had made her proclamation that they all go, she’d felt a surge of relief. Bennett was really the most likely choice to go with her, but even he knew that it wouldn’t be wise for him to tempt fate with the voodoo king. Three women appeared much less threatening; he would have to watch from a distance, and Lily knew he wasn’t happy about it.

Lily frowned. “Dahlia, be honest. Have you seen anything? About tonight?”

Dahlia winced and shook her head as she retrieved Lily’s elbow-length gloves. “I keep trying, but I got nothin’.”

“It’s ok,” Lily said as Dahlia slipped the glove onto her left hand and up her arm. “It’s all going to be ok.”

Dahlia chuckled and reached for Lily’s right hand. “You keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll start believing it. Ok, you sure you want to take off the splint?”

Lily looked at her right wrist, which still ached. “Yeah. The swelling has gone down, it just hurts. But it hurts with the splint on, so it doesn’t matter. And I can’t wear just one glove, it looks weird.”

Dahlia removed the splint, slipped the other glove over Lily’s fingers, and Lily bit down on her lip to keep from crying out.

“You ok?” Dahlia asked as she tugged the glove into place just over Lily’s elbow.

Lily nodded and blinked back the moisture that gathered in her eyes. It was more than just pain, it was terror that lurked below the surface and Lily knew if she gave into it, she’d crumble to the floor in a pathetic heap. She slipped into her shoes, also a purchase she’d had to make and one she’d like very much to charge to the
bokor
.

A knock sounded at the door and she crossed the room, opening it to find Bennett, phone to his ear and a small bag in his hand, which he was looking into as though taking inventory of the contents.

“Yeah, get into position, I’ll call you as soon as she has it on…” Bennett looked up at Lily and his mouth went slack, the hand that held the phone slowly pulling away from his ear. “Holy shit.” He dropped the bag.

“Yeah, I know.” Lily scowled, feeling a sense of anger that such an awesome reaction from the man she loved came because of a dress from a really creepy giver. “I look amazing. He must have sized me up quite well.”

“Call you back,” Bennett said and stuffed his phone into his pocket. “Oh, Lil. I know, baby doll, but holy shit.”

Lily exhaled slowly and attempted a smile. “Thanks.”

“Hey, come here.” Bennett placed his hands at her waist and pulled her into the hall. She drew her arms in as he gathered her close, resting her hands against his chest as he enfolded her. She wanted to curl up into a ball and just stay there.

“I’m scared,” she whispered and this time, the tears escaped.

“Listen, I’m going to wire all three of you, ok? It’s really thin, won’t even show beneath the dress, which is really…wow. Well-fitting.” He placed a hand at her neck under her hair and tilted her face toward his. “I’ve been working with Jeremy all day, trying to figure out the best way to do this. See if you can get ‘Othello’ talking, to admit he was behind the bomb. Then we’ll have something to get him on.”

“He said as much in the phone call to me, why isn’t that enough?”

“It becomes a matter of he said/she said. The part I recorded isn’t incriminating and we need something solid that will stick. A good defense attorney will be able to shoot all kinds of holes in your story and he’ll be out again in no time. We’ll give Dahlia and Poppy ear pieces as well, then Jeremy can give instructions. The other girls probably won’t be close enough to the
bokor
that he’d notice their ear pieces, but he might see it in you.”

She closed her eyes.

“It’s ok,” he whispered. He lay the gentlest of kisses on her lips and thumbed away a tear. “I’ll be right outside, we’ll finish this tonight. I feel better knowing your sisters will be in there with you.”

Lily opened her eyes and looked at him, nodding. She appreciated the fact that he was trying to be so reassuring. His entire body was tense, agitated. She knew he was angry about all of it, about how little control he had over
any
of it. It was weird; if someone had told her a month ago that the shop and her home would be destroyed, her aunt would be lying in a coma, and she would be going to a masquerade ball because of a voodoo king, and—maybe the most shocking of all—that she would be kissing Bennett Duschesne, she would have laughed herself silly.

“Come on,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirked in a smile. “Let’s get you wired.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Bennett secured the wires to Lily’s abdomen and tucked the microphone in place in her bra, but it wasn’t nearly the sensual experience it might have been—for one, she was being wired for reasons she didn’t even want to contemplate, and two, her sister was helping him.

“Wait.” Dahlia examined Lily, whose gown was pushed down to her waist. “If you’re dancing with him, like this, he’ll feel that wire on your back.” Dahlia pulled Lily into a traditional stance and glanced at Bennett, brows raised high.

Bennett swore under his breath and repositioned the wire farther down on Lily’s waistline. “If he has his hands any lower than this, I’ll kill him.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lily said as Dahlia helped her reposition the dress and zip her back into it. “It’s a house full of people, right?”

“I don’t like this.” Bennett ran his hand along the back of his neck and rotated his head as though easing tension.

“I’ll watch her the whole time,” Dahlia said. “Plus, I’ll have this. And I know how to use it.” Dahlia crossed the room to a chair that held a pile of her belongings. From her purse, she withdrew a knife in a sheath, which she then proceeded to strap to her thigh.

Lily bit the inside of her cheeks and looked at Bennett, who watched Dahlia with his mouth slack. He shook his head once and blinked, and glanced at Lily. “Can we get you one of those?”

Lily laughed, glad to feel the tension in the room ease just a bit. “She’s actually trained with that stuff. I’d just end up slicing open a vein or something. It’s why I majored in business.”

They heard the front door open and close, followed by footsteps bounding up the front stairs and down the hall. Poppy entered in a flurry and paused as she assessed her sisters in their ball gowns. “Wow. Lookin’ good, ladies.” She moved over to the bed and dumped her backpack onto it with a tired sigh, shrugging out of her shoes as she looked at the dress meant for her. “Pink, huh?”

Dahlia scowled at her. “What’s wrong with pink? Lily chose it. Suits your coloring.”

“Awfully sweet, isn’t it?”

Lily tipped her head to one side. “You’re not sweet?”

“In your mind, I’m perpetually 12, Lil. But the dress is beautiful. Really.”

“What did you learn today?” Dahlia asked, straightening her dress and shaking the skirts over her armed thigh, and bringing the subject at hand back to the fore. Lily felt the pit settle into her stomach again.

Poppy grasped the hem of her shirt, glancing at Bennett seconds before she moved to begin undressing.

He held his hands up. “I’ll leave.”

“No, just turn around. You’ll need to hear this. In fact, where is your friend, the cop?”

Bennett turned his back to Poppy. “He’s setting up the surveillance van. You’ll all be wired, but Lily won’t have an ear piece. You’ll be able to hear everything we say, and everything Lily says.”

“Well,” Poppy said as she kicked off her jeans, “I have a lot of little tidbits that don’t add up to much, but I think our best bet is that the talisman is indeed hidden in Lady Chamonix’ family mausoleum. There’s an old graveyard outside of town, closer to the bayou where her house is, and I came across an obscure journal reference in the archives that tells of her spending hours there. It’s pretty flimsy, but I think it’s all we’ve got. She was apparently fond of her great grandmother and used the mausoleum as a place to conduct rituals and rites.”

“So since we can’t get there in time to search before the party,” Lily said, “I either have to make Othello give us more time, or we have him meet us there to look for it.”

“Why don’t we just tell him where it is and leave it at that?” Poppy asked.

Lily moved to her side and helped her step into the ball gown. “Because somehow, we have to keep him from actually getting his hands on it. You heard Mimi.”

Bennett groaned. “Lily. How are you going to keep him from it? I don’t want you doing anything at all, we’ll be there right behind you.”