Dark Lily: Shadows, Book 4 (3 page)

Gusting wind blew rain and sharp pebbles at his windshield. Ahead of him, wicked slashes of lightning speared from roiling sky to heaving water. Hard on its heels, thunder rattled the ground and his Jeep. The force of the storm made the riverboat ride seem tame by comparison.

Another spectacular bolt of lightning shot from the clouds. Angry bursts of wind grabbed his vehicle like claws and tossed him across the road. He avoided sideswiping a sycamore tree, narrowed his eyes at the challenge and upped the speed of his wipers. He was considering getting into the spirit and adding some Deep Purple to the mix when he saw it. Or thought he did. Just for a moment. A face in the teeming blackness directly ahead of him.

Mitchell hit the brakes, hard. Controlling the resulting spin that sent him into a patch of mud, he blew out a breath, leaned forward and squinted at…nothing. Not a damn thing. Only interminable darkness and more pitchfork lightning than he’d ever seen in his life.

“Okay, that was weird.” He scanned and rescanned what was visible in the Jeep’s headlights—not much—before easing back onto the road.

His grandfather would say this was what he got for abandoning his family obligations and becoming a cop. Favors begged that sent him to Voodoo Island where ugly faces popped up out of—

“Shit!”

The face appeared again in the next lightning strike. It had a body attached to it this time. But the real shock came when he realized both things were suspended three feet above the pavement.

Mitchell jerked the steering wheel to the right. Lightning shot through the sky, momentarily blinding him. He glimpsed another shape coming toward him on the passenger side. Glimpsed it, but couldn’t do a damn thing to avoid it as the driver’s side of his vehicle rammed into the trunk of an enormous live oak.

It took him several moments to rejig his brain. Black moss covered half the windshield. As Deep Purple kicked in, he told himself no way had what he thought he’d seen been out there. No fucking way.

He had himself mostly convinced when lighting illuminated the swamp again. And there it was. A wooden doll with a painted face. And wild, gleaming eyes that bored straight into his.

Chapter Four

Gaby had no idea what had just taken place, or how she’d wound up with her two back tires in a ditch. One minute she’d been approaching a fork in the road, the next, a vehicle coming toward her from the left had spun out and slammed into a live oak.

Her own Land Rover stalled—which was bound to do it for the temperamental engine tonight. Pushing away from the steering wheel, she waited until her head stopped reeling, and then she launched herself into the rain.

However, her temper died as quickly as it had surged. She knew these roads. The other driver, whose door was currently piled into a tree trunk, must have arrived on the last riverboat of the night. He or she would have been concentrating on navigating deep ruts, not watching for oncoming traffic.

The passenger door was open by the time she slogged her way to the impressive black Jeep. She spied a movement but didn’t see the driver until she literally plowed into him.

“Jesus!” Halting abruptly, she stared up into a face that might be even more impressive than the Jeep. “Are you all right?” She had to shout to be heard above the howling wind. “Please say yes. We don’t have much in the way of medical assistance on Bokur Island.”

“I’ll live,” he shouted back.

She noticed he was looking around and followed his gaze. “Did you lose something?”

“What? No.” He regarded her briefly before scanning the area again. “No.”

“So you’re well enough to carry on?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Did you see someone or something on the road?”

“In this weather? That’s not very likely, Mr.…”

“Stone. Mitchell. Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. But I can see you’re not. Maybe we should…” She pointed at his Jeep.

“Yeah. Right. Let’s do that.”

Long fingers curled around her arm. He was still searching as he climbed in and brought her with him.

“My name’s Gaby.” Shielded from the storm, she raked long, wet strands of hair from her face. “Gaby Jordan.”

A distracted smile touched his lips. “Well, I guess that’s handy.”

As opening lines went, it struck her as odd, but then so was her life most days. Gaby let her own smile appear and tried to make out the planes and angles of his face. “You’d be about thirty-three, maybe thirty-four, I think.” A comment that probably sounded as strange to him as his had to her.

However, he merely shrugged. “Thirty-four last month.”

“You’re a cop. That could be handy too.”

She got his full attention with that remark. “How do you figure cop?” he asked.

Gaby nodded at the dash. “Supersize handgun, police radio. You’re either a cop or a criminal looking for a place to hide. No halfway smart criminal would seek sanctuary on Bokur Island.” She smiled at him. “You can stop scanning the road. If it eases your mind, I don’t think you saw a ghost.”

“Then what did I see?”

“Depends. What was what you saw doing?”

“It was floating in the air, staring at me.”

“Ah, well, he does that sometimes.” She shrugged. “You get used to it. He probably just wanted to slow you down.”

“I wasn’t speeding.”

“I didn’t mean literally.”

His brows came together. “Okay, this is getting really strange. I’ll bite. Who’s
he
?”

“Did he have a painted face?”

“Yes.”

“Then
he
was Billy. And as Billy was on a road near a fork we both happened to be approaching, I’d say his intention was for us to meet.”

Mitchell’s gaze had a diamond-sharp edge. But then his eyes appeared to be almost black in the glow from the dash. “Why would Billy want a thing like that?”

She could have evaded the question. If evasion had been her goal, she’d have told Mitchell he’d seen things and left it there. “Billy’s my friend,” she replied instead. “Has been since I was very young. He doesn’t reveal himself to many people, and when he does, it isn’t usually by way of a friendly introduction. Unless you came to Bokur Island to harm someone Billy cares about, then he corporealizes for another purpose. I say he wanted us to meet.”

Mitchell gave a disbelieving laugh. “I was a cop for twelve years. I made detective in my mid-twenties, and lieutenant before I hit thirty. Bizarre’s just another word for normal in cop speak. But, lady, what I saw tonight was never alive. It was a puppet made of wood. And it was floating three feet off the ground, right in front of my front fender.”

“What you saw,” she clarified, “but would prefer not to believe.”

“Would you believe a thing like that in my position?”

“I can’t say. I have no idea what your position is. All I know is that you were a cop—past tense—you came to the island on the last riverboat of the day, and your uber cool AWD has several more bumps and bruises than it did a few minutes ago.”

He assessed her for a long moment. She imagined he was contemplating whether to toss her into the rain or continue a conversation he absolutely didn’t want to be having. In the end, he leaned back against the mangled door. “I’d like to think none of this is happening, but since I’m not prone to hallucinations, I’m going to accept that it is. You’re telling me a doll named Billy caused our near collision.”

Because simple seemed to be the best approach, Gaby nodded. “Yes.”

“A doll wanted us to meet.”

“Apparently.”

“Why?”

She played with a delicate silver chain around her neck. “Not sure. I live here. I drive these roads all the time. You’re fresh off the boat, so to speak. I suspect the why’s really on you, Mr. Stone.”

“Mitchell. Fine. You want my take, straight up?”

Her lips curved. “I’m not easily shocked, if that helps.”

“Neither was I until the damn doll appeared. Your mother sent me.”

Gaby opened her mouth, closed it again. Carefully. “No, she didn’t.” Muted streaks of pain raced through her chest. “My mother died two years ago, six months after my father passed away from a massive coronary.”

“I meant your biological mother, Gaby.”

“I know who you meant. She doesn’t exist anymore.” Gaby kept her tone neutral and her expression calm. “I have a vague memory of a face, red hair and some kind of exotic perfume that smelled like lilies.”

“Are you angry with her for sending you away?”

“No. I understand why she did what she did. I’m angry that she never contacted me. Never called, never wrote, never emailed. Never sent a birthday or Christmas card. I buried her when I was sixteen and finally gave up trying to convince myself that one day I’d hear from her. If anything about me mattered to her, I figured she’d have sent a hey-kid, how’re-you-doing message somewhere along the line.”

Mitchell’s dark eyes glinted. “Consider me your hey-kid message.”

“I’ll do that. Would you like to hear my message back, or should I write it down and order it to spontaneously combust after she reads it? Unless it combusts while I’m writing it. Some messages can be that hot.”

“She’s worried about you.”

“How nice. Tell her thank you for the thought.” She looked out over the hood. “No part of your front end hit the tree, Mitchell. Your engine will start just fine. Hotel in town’s crap, but they’ll find a room for you. Riverboat leaves at eleven am. That’s noon by Captain Morgan’s watch.”

“I knew that guy was a pirate. Hang on.” Mitchell trapped Gaby’s wrist before she could slide into the lashing rain. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about her?”

She regarded his hand, then his shadowed face. “I remember she was beautiful and tall. I think of her whenever I see a Fat Boy ice cream bar, which is seldom. You’re going to want to take your hand off me, Mitchell.”

“Right, so, is this where it gets interesting?”

“This is where it could get painful. Don’t you think someone who’s friends with a doll that can come and go in the wink of an eye might be capable of sending a jolt of electricity all the way up a man’s arm to his shoulder?”

She knew he felt it by the way his grip tightened. But he still didn’t release her.

“Lady, that shot went to my shoulder, across my collarbone and down the other arm.”

“Sorry.” She imagined her smile rang as false as her apology. “Guess I’m a little more pissed off than I realized.” It intrigued and oddly amused her that his grip didn’t falter even after she shoved the door open. “Playing with fire,” she warned.

“I need a few more minutes. Do you know the name Leshad? Have you heard it? Sensed it?”

Lowering her lashes, she regarded him. “I’ve dreamed it,” she conceded with reluctance. “The name and a card with an obscure sketch of a man on it. I’ve also read about the calling-card serial killings.”

“Honey, you’ve read a vague and cleverly controlled spin on what those killings entail.”

Mildly intrigued, she closed the door, shutting out the worst of the storm. “We’ll do this your way then. Straight talk. Leshad’s second victim was a woman named Twila Black. After he killed her, he had her sister, Tallulah, murdered. In a more roundabout way, but still. I was three years old when my biological mother put me in the care of a woman I was told to call Auntie Tallulah. She was very kind and very gentle. Twila was the same, but I knew Tallulah better, so her death hurt more. So far so clear?”

“Keep talking.”

“I see more than dolls that have the ability to manifest and float, Mitchell. I see what you’d call ghosts as clearly as I’m seeing you right now. It’s their choice whether they take actual form or not, but even if they don’t, I can feel their presence.”

“Is that why you came to Bokur Island? Because it’s rumored to be highly haunted?”

“No. But you’re right, it is haunted. And not every spirit here is open to having his or her privacy invaded. Some of them get a little testy from time to time.”

“Yeah, I got the memo from Captain Morgan.”

“You also delivered your message, or enough of it that you can leave with a clear conscience. Leshad’s invisible, he’s homicidal and he’s murdered two people I love very much. Why? No idea. However, logic suggests that since I’m connected to them, maybe I’m on his hit list. I’m guessing, mind you. No one, ghost or mortal, has said anything specific. Still, you know how it works. Those who are directly affected are often the last to know.”

Mitchell kept his compelling gaze on her face. “Your biological mother is Phoebe Lessard. Does the name sound familiar?”

“Yes. It also confirms what a friend of mine told me this afternoon about a sketch I drew of an old woman with empty eye sockets. Phoebe Lessard is Madeleine Lessard’s daughter or granddaughter.”

“Daughter,” he said. “You’re Madeleine’s granddaughter.”

Her tone grew deliberately sly. “And what are you, Mitchell? Besides not a cop anymore? How do you know Phoebe?”

His grin surprised her. “We met when I was fifteen and wild as hell.”

“Is this going to make me feel sick or want to jolt you again?”

His grin widened. “You decide. Phoebe and my father had a red-hot, two-month affair that didn’t always unfold behind closed doors. I grew up fast in those two months.”

Gaby hesitated for a moment and then laughed. Couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help visualizing the situation either, both from Mitchell’s perspective and from her own. From his struck her as vastly more amusing.

She wiped her eyes with the back of a finger. “That was really good,” she said. “Obviously you and Phoebe kept in touch. I’ll try not to resent that and thank you again, seriously this time, for coming as far as you did, I assume to warn me that Leshad might have reason to want me dead.”

“I hate to tell you this, Gaby, but I don’t think that’s quite what Leshad wants. I promise you it’s not what Phoebe thinks. She didn’t inherit her mother’s second sight, or many of her other abilities, but she believes you did. She’s been trying to keep Leshad from coming after you for quite some time.”

Gaby studied him across the console. “If you expect me to change my opinion of her just like that, you’re going to be extremely disappointed. I’ll think about what you’ve said, but I’m not going to promise you, or her, anything more.”

“Fair enough.” To her relief, he let her go and returned to his own side of the Jeep. “I wouldn’t think too long, if I were you. She’s not going to be able to maintain the façade indefinitely.”

The suspicion that slipped in tightened around Gaby’s heart. She ventured a cautious, “Why?”

“Phoebe has a tumor, an inoperable one, only recently discovered. She’s got three weeks left, if that. Whether Leshad kills her or the tumor does, the woman who gave you life is going to die.”

* * * * *

Caleb Josiah Best had envisioned being in a position of power ever since the bully next door had peed on his one-eyed teddy bear. He’d been too small to strike back then, but one day, he’d promised himself, he’d call the shots. And when that day arrived, the bullies of the world would need to watch their teddy bears very closely.

Sadly, there’d always been more bullies, bigger threats and crueler minds, with the money, manpower and weaponry to make anything he or she wanted come to pass. In CJ Best’s case, his current and cruelest threat went by the name Leshad.

Seven question marks filled the computer screen on CJ’s desk. That alone was a daunting prospect. When he added in the distorted voice with its elongated vowels and velvety undertone, every inch of flesh on his well-toned body crawled.

“Let me get this straight, Caleb. You’re telling me, after all this time, that you and Phoebe Lessard made a child together.” Leshad reiterated the pertinent phrase. “After all this time.”

Excuses wouldn’t work. And lies? Forget it. As for apologies—well, there wasn’t much chance of success there either, but what else did he have?

“Phoebe and I did make a child, Leshad. A girl. Gabrielle. Phoebe said she died shortly after her third birthday. I believed her all the way. I’m sorry.” Copious amounts of sweat trickled down CJ’s spine. “It wasn’t a deliberate omission. If you hadn’t searched and discovered Gaby, I would have gone on thinking she was dead. When I thought about her at all, that is. I’m not a sentimental man.”

“In that, and only that area, we’re very much alike, you and I.” Controlled fury marked Leshad’s distorted tone. “I’m not pleased about the manner in which this knowledge reached me, Caleb. Fortunately, I have a great number of sources in both high and low places. What matters at present is that your child’s existence was in fact brought to my attention. So, I suppose all is as well as it can be. On my end, at least. Not so much on yours, I’m afraid.”