Last Fairytale, The (24 page)

Bree wiped blood from the cut on her cheek and watched Gen’s body on the hillside deck grow smaller. She dragged in a lungful of salt air, then leaned back and looked at the sky.

The sun was as warm as her mother’s smile. The sea spray felt as it had years ago on that last trip to Angel Island. With her face tipped toward the clouds, she could pretend she was on the ferry with her mom’s hand clasped around her own.

Bree had seared the image of Lilia Butler into her memory. She wouldn’t forget again.

But when she lowered her eyes, the woman she saw bore no resemblance to the mother who had cherished her. Bree squeezed her lids shut and begged Lilia to give her strength, the kind she’d shown when she was dying. She found what she needed.

“Where are you taking me?”

Patience shot a dismissive glance over her shoulder, then looked forward again without a word.

Bree gazed at the water and gauged her options. She could jump in the ocean and swim like last time, but it was full daylight. Patience might not hesitate to use the gun.

She could wait to discover their destination. But out here it was just the two of them, and the odds might not be so good when they got wherever they were going.

If they were going anywhere together. The woman might just be planning to kill her and dump her overboard.

If Mack and Garcia were with Genny, they’d try to find a way to stop her. But if they boarded another boat and ditched this one, the police would have no way to know where she’d been taken. If Patience had a plan, she might be able to make this boat disappear, and her along with it.

There was only one thing Bree could do.

She rose to her feet and stepped forward, then dropped her bound hands over Patience Vonnegon’s head and shoulders. She pulled her arms tight.

The gun clattered to the deck.

Bree pitched sideways and took an enormous breath of air just before they hit the water.

Bree held tight as they descended. Patience began to struggle right away, but despite her efforts, the pair dropped into the depths. She soon grew frantic, tearing at Bree with her fingers, until Bree lifted her arms and pushed off of Patience with a foot in the small of the other woman’s back.

Then she kicked out of her shoes and slipped off her jeans, watching from below as Patience whipped her hands toward the sky and scrabbled upward.

Bree made for the surface. As soon as her head broke water she could tell Patience was in trouble. She was panicked, grunting and gasping for air and flailing her arms like a child.

Patience Vonnegon couldn’t swim.

The boat was gone. Bree pivoted in a circle in time to see a helicopter rise from the cliff and swing out toward them. She ignored Patience’s senseless windmilling and stretched an arm over her own head to signal they were there. The pilot didn’t see her. The empty cabin cruiser was speeding away into the bay, and the chopper followed its wake toward deep water.

A gurgling sound came from behind and Bree swung back in time to see Patience’s head go under. She dove and caught her by the hair, then hauled her back to the surface. Patience sucked in a lungful of air and grabbed at Bree, then tried to climb up her body to safety.

“If you kill me, Patience, you’ll die, too,” Bree cried, then fought free and moved away to tread water. “Do what I say and you won’t drown.”

“Help me!” Patience gasped, then swallowed a mouthful of ocean and went under again.

When her face popped up, Bree said, “Turn over and stop thrashing. Put your head back and look at the sky. You’ll float. You just need a little help from your arms.”

Patience ignored her and continued to gasp and bob and dunk and rise above the swells. Bree swam over and grabbed her by the hair, careful to keep out of reach. She began to kick hard, towing Patience along on her back. The woman pulled in deep, shuddering breaths and slowed the hysterical movement of her arms.

“You see?” Bree swam a few more yards. “I’ll keep you alive in exchange for answers. Why did you bring me up here to Tiburon?”

Patience was silent.

Bree released her hair.

The woman immediately resumed the fight to stay afloat. “Don’t let me go,” she begged, then went under once again.

Bree grasped her hair and towed her to the surface. Patience went still and tried to regulate her breathing. The frigid water was taking its toll by then, and they were both shivering like trapped mice.

“Where were you taking me?”

“To another boat.”

“What made you think you’d get away with it, that no one would find out it was you?”

“It didn’t matter. I was leaving the country.”

“How? With the men who took me before?”

“Something like that.”

“The grow room up there. You were making poison, weren’t you? For those men.”

Patience didn’t reply. Bree released her and she gasped, “Yes! Yes, I was. I used Ducane’s grow system to perfect my own method, then distilled the poison. I sold it to an interested party.”

“How would you know the kind of people who would buy something like that?”

“I work at Elergene. Our government contracts put us in contact with counterintelligence. I was approached by someone who knew what we were doing and paid me for my skills.”

“Taylor knows, doesn’t he?”

Patience shook her head a little too fast. “He’s not involved.”

“He knows, Patience. I think he fell just a little bit in love with me and started to have second thoughts. Why did you do it?”

“Because I could.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Abraham and I were together from the age of fifteen. We used to talk about how we’d get even.”

“With who? You were kids, you couldn’t mean it.”

“I wanted to kill my father.” Patience heaved a half dozen breaths in and out. “We grew up in the woods. We knew the plants. And we thought about how we could use what we knew to get ahead.”

“And did you?”

“We had s strategy before Abraham got the job at Elergene. But then he met Nadine, and he saw an easier way.”

“And that way didn’t include you.”

Patience began to cry. “So I carried out our plan.”

“And you used it to kill Abraham, didn’t you? But he was old enough that nobody suspected, so you got away with it.”

“That’s right, I killed him. He deserved it, he abandoned me,” she shrieked. “So I found people who needed my talents, and I used them. I did it for my son. And then my son met you, and it began all over again. He was going to abandon me, too.”

The helicopter dipped low in the sky beyond them, hovering above the water. It soon skipped higher and turned sharply back, executing a slow zig-zag pattern as it rumbled toward the houses on the cliff. They’d discovered the boat was empty, and the pilot was doubling back to find them.

“What about the book of poisonous plants?”

“Russell suspected. He was grabbing at straws, that’s all. He didn’t know for sure.”

“How could he stay at the house up there and not know?”

“The system is fully automated. The doors are impenetrable. I made sure we never crossed paths.”

“So you set it up to look like he was involved. So he would take the fall.”

Bree raised an arm and flapped like a madwoman as the helo traced a path overhead. It slowed and descended. Eric was in the passenger seat. His expression was frightening, but it eased when she gave him a thumbs up. He reciprocated, then turned his head and spoke to the pilot.

His window opened and he yelled above the scream of the rotors, “Coast Guard is on their way.”

Bree nodded that she understood.

Once again, Patience began to cry. This time her sobs where laced with anger, and they wracked her body as though she was being shaken like a tree in the grip of a high wind.

The Coast Guard picked them up fifteen minutes later, gave them blankets and dry clothes, then delivered Patience straight into the back of a waiting black-and-white.

Bree was released. They made sure she was all right, then boarded the chopper and headed for the city. Mack was quiet on the return trip. Gen wondered what was on his mind, but she didn’t ask him to share.

When they got back to the station they heard Vonnegon was downtown with his lawyer and a pack of government officials, giving a statement.

Bree put Patience’s confession on record, verifying that Vonnegon’s mother had admitted to killing Ducane. “She told me she added the poison to his drink that afternoon. He must have taken the glass back to his office, and it ended up on the floor. Patience disposed of it before the police showed up.”

After that, things got ugly.

It didn’t take more than an hour for Garcia to call them all into a conference room and report that he and Hackett had been pushed out. Somebody higher up in the food chain had intervened. The detectives had been told to turn over the file and stop working the case. The Elergene incident would be handed off, and the new custodians had already thrown up an impenetrable wall.

Patience was in jail and would be charged with at least two murders, but her son was off limits.

“Before they shut us down,” Garcia said, “Vonnegon’s handlers admitted that Elergene was manufacturing a fungi-based super poison for the U.S. government, then they clammed up. They wouldn’t speculate who Patience was working for, but my best guess would be the Middle East, or the Ukrainians, or the Chinese. No one would verify whether Vonnegon knew about his mother’s actions, or if he was actually part of it.”

“He’s going to let his mother take the fall,” Bree replied. “How sad.”

“That may have been his plan all along,” Gen added. “I’m sorry I ever pushed you in his direction, Bree. I mean about the article, and getting to know him so you could get information. It was my idea, and I was wrong.”

“If she hadn’t put herself in harm’s way, we might not have known about any of this.” Mack stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Garcia and I weren’t turning much up. We owe you.”

“There’s something else.” Garcia rose, as if he needed to stand to deliver the news. “Someone got wind of Bree’s story. They’re going to put a lid on it. They’re saying that if this information got out, it might endanger the case against Patience. Sounds like bull, but that’s how it is. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I’m already working on another piece.” Bree went over to Garcia, and he put his arms around her and held her tight for five beats.

“I hope it’s not about the San Francisco Police Department.”

“No.” Bree stood back and regarded him. “It’s about something I can change. But if I do write about SFPD and I need a consultant, I know who to ask.”

Mack dipped his head toward the door and Gen nodded and walked toward it. “Bree, I’ll be outside. I’m ready to take off whenever you are.”

“Five minutes, Genny.”

The pair was out on the street before anyone spoke. Mack turned to her and smiled. “No time for a coffee?”

“Not today,” she replied. “Thanks, though. I feel like I want to crawl into bed and sleep for about a week.”

He raised a hand to the dog tags around his neck. “Another time.”

She nodded, then stuck out her palm. “I’m glad I met you, Mackenzie Hackett.”

“Same here, Genny. I hope I see you around.”

The airport was a madhouse. Gen rolled her luggage to a bank of seats as far as possible from the mayhem and eased into one, then propped the bag beside her and settled in.

Throngs of travelers ebbed and flowed around her, flooding the rack of gates with emotion and brightly-colored gear. The place was a slice of life. Laughter. Tears. Sorrow. Joy.

Loved ones said final good-byes and left forever, while a few of the long-lost returned to the fold. Couples embarking on the trip of a lifetime trembled with the anticipation of the adventure to come.

A pair of lovers clung to one another near the food court, wrapped in an embrace that made it clear they’d be apart for a while. The young man’s chin rested on his sweetheart’s head. He rocked her slowly back and forth, perhaps to the tune of their favorite song, which only they could hear.

The girl’s eyes were closed, but Gen could see the sheen of tears across her cheeks. She wondered if their connection would survive time and distance. Love was an enigma; sometimes people cared and still ended up alone, just as she had by the time the Elergene fiasco was over. She wondered if that would happen to these two, as well.

Gen’s cell rang and the display announced a call from Mack. She held up the phone and covered the other ear with her free hand to block out the background noise. “Hey you.”

“Hey yourself. You busy? Sounds like a commotion going on wherever you are.”

“I’m at the airport.”

“Off to someplace fun?”

“I’m headed down to L.A. to see my family. It’s been too long.”

“So much for sleeping for a week. Genny?”

“Yeah.”

“It was great. Working with you, I mean.”

Her heart beat a little faster but she tamped it down. All he’d said was that it was nice to know her. It was too soon to go anywhere but there.

“Yeah,” she replied. “And it looks like Eric and Bree have taken their working relationship a little past professional.”

Mack chuckled. “Good for them. When will you be back?”

“A week or so.”

“You did good on this case. You turned up more than we did, that’s for sure. Ducane’s parents are going to send you a check. They offered a reward, remember? And I might be able to send a gig your way once in a while, if you’re interested.”

“Sure. Thanks, I appreciate it. Maybe I can return the favor and send a couple of bad guys your way.”

“Call me when you get back,” he said. “Like I said, I’d like to see you around. Friends?”

“We’ll see.”

He laughed at that. Gen imagined his lips turning up into that enigmatic little smile she’d seen a dozen times.

“I have a request, Mack.”

“What’s that?”

“Buy yourself a new pair of sunglasses.”

He was still laughing when she thumbed off the phone.

# # #

Thank you so much for reading my book!

I hope you enjoyed
The Last Fairytale,
Book 2 in the Gen Delacourt Mystery series! I explore Gen and Mack’s relationship in Book 3,
Paint Me Gone (
an excerpt starts on the next screen!), and I’ll drum up some sort of mystery with Madison and Cole (from
Mark of the Loon
), and Bree and Garcia in the future. The question is, what kind of trouble should they get in down the road?

Email [email protected] and tell me what you liked, what you want to happen in upcoming books, even what you didn’t enjoy so much. I’d love to hear from you! And now that you’ve finished
Fairytale
, please write a review. Reviews make a difference. It doesn’t matter whether you loved it, liked it, or it wasn’t your favorite read, I welcome your feedback. Please take a moment to post a few words.

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Chapter one of
Paint Me Gone
is next!