Heaven in a Wildflower (51 page)

He chuckled, hiccupped, then reached in his pocket for his flask and took a long swallow before replying, “Don’t worry, my dear. I’m quite adept at dodging Claudia now, but oh, sweet Jesus, I wish I’d learned how to do so long ago. I’d have waited on you to come back, because”—he closed his eyes momentarily, swayed, then looked at her and grinned to vow—“you’re the only woman I could ever love, Anjele.”

“Thank you for saving me, Raymond,” was all she could think of to say. She stepped from his embrace and watched with pity as he staggered to a chair and sat down and lifted his flask to take another drink. She turned to Mammy and explained, “I’ve got to get out of here. Fast. They’ll be here soon. Take care of him, please, and yourself, too.” She hugged her, biting back the sorrow of having to leave them, but a glance out the window told her it was nearly twilight. There was not a moment to spare.

Bleary eyed, Raymond held out a beseeching hand, calling, “Wait, Anjele. We’ll run away together, you and I, and we’ll make a new life. I’ve always loved you, Anjele…I always will…”

She winced with regret to have to hurt him by leaving him behind, but there was no way they could travel together. She had a mission to complete, and only when it was done could she even begin to think about a new life. And, sadly, it did not include Raymond…or any man. She would go to her destiny alone.

She hurried to the cemetery. The first clutches of night did battle with the clinging gray vestige of the gloomy day, and the mausoleum struggled to rise above the shadows. In the months she’d been away, vines had begun to cover it but had turned brown and now drooped toward the ground. From the way the weeds had grown up in the past month, it was obvious no one had been around.

She started for the gate but paused as something in the bushes nearby caught her eye. With a stab of bitter anger, she saw it was the cane she’d dropped that fateful morning and went to pick it up. She did not see the man rushing up behind her, did not realize what was happening till he grabbed her and threw her roughly to the ground. With a cry of terror, her hands closed about the cane, swinging it wildly as she twisted about to face her attacker.

Leo was crouched over her, reaching for her throat, but the cane struck him on the side of his head, just above his ear. With a yelp of pain, he staggered backward, struggling to regain his balance.

Anjele bounced to her feet and swung again, just as he ducked, taking the blow on his shoulder. At the same instant, she saw his face, and the nightmare came flooding back with the petrifying realization that it was the same face she’d seen that night in the study. “You!” She choked out the words. “You killed my father, and I know you—I saw you that day in the field. You’re Gator’s father. Oh, dear God…”

Leo took advantage of her shock and reached out to jerk the cane from her hand. “Yes, it was me,” he gloated, “and it’s too bad I didn’t finish you off that night, ‘cause now it’s gonna be real messy…”

Anjele watched in frozen horror as Leo slipped the knife from his boot and started toward her.

Suddenly Brett stepped out of the shadows, gun in hand, his voice cracking through the silence like a death knell. “That’s far enough, Pa.”

Anjele gasped, reeled in disbelief, could not speak.

With his free hand, Brett beckoned to her, but she was too stunned to move.

Leo, mouth agape, struggled from his own stupor to cry, “Get the hell outta here, boy. I got no quarrel with you.”

Brett kept the gun pointed straight at him as he attempted to convince Anjele. “You’ve nothing to fear from me. I was waiting outside, and when you came out of the house, I was going to follow you, but I saw him and held back. I won’t hurt you,” he assured her, keeping an eye on his father. “I love you. That’s why I followed you from Mississippi, to tell you that, to tell you everything.”

Anjele was starting to recover and rage was fast overcoming fright. “Bastard,” she said, fists clenched at her sides. “Do you really think I’d believe anything you said? I know now it was all a scheme to get your hands on the plates, you goddamn traitor! Get away from me, and take your murdering father with you.”

“Listen to me, damn it.” Brett knew there wasn’t time to argue but tried to make her understand. “Don’t you see? If my father was the one out to kill you, he had orders. He wouldn’t have done it on his own, and whoever is behind all this won’t stop till you’re dead. We’ve got to get out of here.”

With a wild shake of her head, Anjele snapped, “No. I’m not going anywhere with you, and he’s going to tell me why he killed my father…why he tried to kill me…” She turned blazing eyes on Leo, hot tears of fury streaming down her cheeks. “Why, you devil? Why did you do it?”

Leo snickered. “He paid me. Damn good, too. But I didn’t mean to kill your pa, though it don’t bother me that I did. He made me do it, tried to jump me. All I wanted was them goddamn plates he stole. Then you came along, and I had to take care of you, ‘cause I was afraid you’d remember me.”

“And that’s why you went to Ship Island to make another attempt?” Brett slowly, evenly asked. “She was blind then, remember? And she’d lost her memory. Why didn’t you just leave town and forget about it?”

Leo said that’s what he’d intended to do but was told that if he tried to run away without finishing the job, he’d be turned in for murdering Elton Sinclair. “And I told you, I got paid good. And I’ll get paid even more when I take care of her. So get on out of my way, ‘cause I’m gonna finish this job once and for all.” His eyes narrowed to evil slits as he went on to taunt, “And what do you care, anyhow? You ain’t so stupid as to really be in love with a little bitch who’d scream rape, are you? She made me lose the best damn job I ever had, got us both chased off, and—”

“What are you talking about?” Anjele said, whirling on Brett to admonish, “You even lied to your father? You told him you ran away, because I accused you of rape? Didn’t he know you were running from a husband out to kill you for bedding his wife? You blamed
me
?”

Brett was looking at her quietly, calmly, as though peering into her very soul. After all their months together, he felt he knew her well, and he knew, somehow, in that shattering moment, she wasn’t making anything up. He continued to study her in impassive silence, then turned contemptuous eyes on his father. “Tell her, damn you, tell her everything her father said to you that day.”

Leo obliged, enjoying himself, sure that Brett was going to be riled when he heard it again and would go on and get out of his way.

With each word, Anjele felt the chill of abhorrence creeping. With a vicious shake of her head, she turned to Brett once more and cried, “No! That’s a lie. All a lie. I never told my parents you raped me. I found out later Claudia spied on us, but at the time, I thought she’d just tattled on me for sneaking down the trellis. When they asked me who I went to meet, I wouldn’t tell them.”

Brett was bewildered. “Then why did your father say you claimed I raped you?”

Miserably blinking back fresh tears as the pieces all began to come together, Anjele could only whisper, “I don’t know, unless he and my mother wanted to get rid of you, to keep us apart.” She swallowed hard before daring to ask, “You weren’t trifling with me? You weren’t bedding a married woman?”

Brett had to laugh at that. “No. Where’d you get that ridiculous idea?”

She told him. About Simona and Emalee. And how she was so crushed she’d agreed to go away to England, hating him with every beat of her heart.

“Dear God,” Brett whispered, realizing they had been the victims of such treachery. “All this time, I was thinking you got caught and claimed it was rape to save yourself, because I meant nothing to you.”

“Oh, that’s not true.” Anjele was overcome with feelings she’d tried to bury, then remembered and was stung with bitterness again as she challenged, “But why did you trick me and not let me know who you were?”

“Would you have gone away with me?” His lips curved in a teasing smile. “No, you wouldn’t. The truth is, I was a Union soldier, sent to New Orleans to be a bayou scout, but I was given the assignment to get you out of prison and make you think I was a spy, so you’d lead me to the plates. Somehow, they found out we’d once known each other.”

“Claudia!” Anjele said. “Somehow, she was involved.”

“So there was no way I could tell you who I was. After all, you haven’t held me in fond memory all these years.”

She started toward him then, but Leo sliced the air with his knife in menace and roared, “I told you, I aim to kill the bitch—”

“No.” There was an ominous click as Brett pulled the hammer back on his gun. “I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

“And you’re going to hang for murdering my father, damn you,” Anjele avowed.

Leo’s eyes widened. “No, I ain’t. It wasn’t my fault, and The Voice told me to do it, anyhow.”

“The Voice?” Brett echoed. “What are you talking about? Who told you to do all this?”

Nervously, daring to hope that by confiding everything he might be allowed just to take his leave and get out of their lives forever, Leo told of his mysterious encounters with the man hiding inside the crypt. “He gave me all my orders, left money for me above the door, left a glove in the closet this morning,” he babbled on. “I knew to go to the grave right then, and he was waitin’ inside, and he told me to get out here as fast as I could. Said she was back. Even had a horse hid out for me to ride. Said for me to kill her.”

Anjele had slowly moved to stand beside Brett, all fears dissolving at the feel of his strong arm pulling her close against him. She sensed Leo was going to try to bargain for his freedom, and she listened carefully, anxious to learn the identity of the fiend who had sentenced her father to death, and her, as well.

Brett, making his voice soft and coaxing, continued, “Then nobody can really blame you, Pa. But who was it? Who was hiding inside that crypt? Did you ever see him?”

Leo realized how he didn’t really want to kill the girl, and if what she’d said was so, that she hadn’t accused Brett of raping her, and Brett really did love her, then maybe they deserved to be together. He would just have to forget about the money The Voice had promised him when the job was done. He would get out of town and never look back. “I never knew till today. I never dared hang around to wait for him to come out, but I figured today would be my last chance, and I wanted to find out who it was, anyway, in case I went back and my money wasn’t there. I wanted to know who to go lookin’ for, so I hid and waited for him to come out, and he did.”

Brett tensed, felt Anjele also stiffen. “Go on. Who was it?”

“Don’t know his name,” Leo said nervously, the hand holding the knife dropping to his side. “But I’ve seen him before. I know who he is. He—”

A shot rang out, and with a look of panic frozen on his face, Leo fell to the ground. Blood poured from the bullet hole in the back of his head.

Instinctively, at the sound of gunfire, Brett had shoved Anjele to the ground, intending to fall on top of her to shield her. At the same instant, terrified, she had lunged for him, knocking the gun from his hand without meaning to. As he reached out for it, a voice warned, “Don’t try it.”

Anjele whipped her head about, astounded to see Dr. Duval. “No,” she whispered in denial, “it can’t be. Not you…”

“Now you both have to die,” he said, eyes cold with resolve. “I didn’t mean for it to end this way, but I was afraid Leo would make another blunder, so I decided to follow him in case I had to take over. A good thing, too. I had no idea he had hidden to watch me leave the crypt.”

Fright was dominated by the anguish of discovering a lifelong friend was responsible for such tragedy. “Why?” she could only ask. “Why, Dr. Duval?”

“Simple. Your father, and myself, along with some of our other friends, were involved in the takeover of the Mint. Your father took the plates, but I believe he must have become suspicious of me, because he didn’t let anyone in our group know he had them.

“What he didn’t know,” he continued with a gloating smile, “was that I saw him take them. I knew he was just waiting for the right time to get them to the Confederacy. I made it my business to get my hands on them, and you know the rest of the story.”

“You’re a traitor,” Anjele breathed in wonder, thinking he looked like a demon from hell, face bathed in the strange grayish glow of the creeping night shadows. “The whole time, you were actually working for the Yankees.”

“I’m no fool. I made sure when New Orleans fell, I didn’t fall with it. I’m not poor and starving like all those too ignorant and stubborn to act in their own best interest.

“But now it’s over. All of it,” he declared, raising the gun.

“Daddy, don’t!” Raymond yelled, suddenly stepping from the shadows behind his father. He sounded sad, defeated, spirit broken as he pleaded, “Don’t make it worse. I heard it all. I followed Anjele and saw you and heard the shot, and oh, God, don’t kill them…” He collapsed to his knees sobbing, covered his face in his hands so he wouldn’t have to watch.

Anjele had time for one quick glimpse of Dr. Duval’s stricken face before he turned the gun on himself.

For long, seemingly endless moments, no one moved or made a sound. And then Raymond began to crawl toward his father’s body. Reaching him, he pulled him into his arms and began to croon, “Oh, Daddy, you didn’t have to do it. I would’ve loved you just the same. And so would Momma. We would’ve forgiven you…”