Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evie (24 page)

“Oh, Max,” she whispered, the words so soft as to be barely audible. “Don’t.”

Reaching past his shoulder, she fumbled for his pants. Digging into the pocket, she found the coin his mother had given him. It was cold, so she curled her fingers around it, holding it tightly in her palm. “Look,” she said, and opened her hand.

By the light of the moon, she studied the image on the metal disk. A beautiful woman in an ancient headdress, frozen in a lovely pose for all time. Turning the coin to the other side, silvery light caught the tips of the horse’s crudely carved wings as the creature took flight.

Raising her gaze to Max, she said, “You love this
coin, carry it with you always, both for what it is and what it represents.”

He nodded. His gaze darted to the object she held in her hand then lifted to her eyes.

With her free hand, she reached up and cupped his jaw in her palm. “People are like coins, Max. You
…
are like this coin. It has two distinctly different sides, and when it’s tossed, it falls haphazardly to either one side or the other. But it’s not like that for you. You have a choice. You can choose which side of yourself to show the world.”

He took in a deep breath, let it out. She felt the rise and fall of his ch
est against her breast, and com
mitted every nuance of this moment to memory. This was as close as she had ever felt to another human being. Whatever else life might throw her way, she had this moment in the arms of the man she loved, and she knew that would carry her for a long, long time.

Max’s lips slowly curved into a smile. His eyes held a look in them she didn’t think she’d ever seen in a man’s eyes before.

“You’re a pretty smart cookie,” he whispered. But because of those eyes, the softness of his voice, the quirk of his mouth, Evie swore she heard,
I love you.

“I’m a
very
smart cookie,” she replied. And with her eyes, and with the whisper of her voice, and with the curve of her smile, she made sure he heard,
I love you, too.

Chapter 23

Dear D
iary:

I
hav
e been thinking about boys a lo
t lately. Some of the g
irls in
my class have boyfriends, but I
don’t.
I wish I did sometimes. D
oes that mean I’m a free
s
pirit?
I remember my mom, and I g
et
worried that I’ll be like her i
f I
got a boyfriend.
W
ould I
like him so much so that when I
have a daughter, I’
ll forget all about her? Maybe I shouldn’t fall in love for a long
time
just in case.

Evangeline—ag
e
13

S
ometime during the wee hours, Evie brought Max up to her room, and they actually managed to get a little shut-eye. She woke just before dawn, wrapped snugly in his arms. Contentment and satisfaction relaxing every bone in her body, she melded into him as though they had been designed to fit together.

Even though it was going to be a busy day, they took their time getting out of bed and down to breakfast. First, they had to make love just one last time, then shower together and help each other dress, which involved much kissing and many caresses. Somehow, her simple morning ro
utine ex
panded, with Max’s help, from thirty minutes to nearly two hours.

By the time they arrived downstairs for breakfast, the others were already assembled, chatting and munching, except for the poet, who appeared decidedly glum. As she and Max took their seats, Dabney tossed his napkin on the table, adjusted his glasses, and leaned back in his chair, a scowl on his handsome face.

Not for the first time, Evie wondered how such a hunky, athletic-lo
oking man ended up a poet, espe
cially a reclusive one. Immediately, she felt guilty at imposing an unfair stereotype on him, as though poets couldn’t be young and studly. It was just that he seemed so utterly unpoetlike.

“We’ve hit a wall,” he grumbled, running his fingers through his hair. “Finding our next clue has been a bust. Looks like we’re out of the race.”

Madame Grovda shook her head in sympathy and reached over, patting his hand. “Not to worry,” she comforted. “As you Americans say, it is not over until the plus-sized lady does the singing.” Her cheeks flushed as she grinned shyly at Dabney. “Politically correct,
da?
”

His shoulders relaxed a bit and he smiled at the psychic. “Thank you, madame. I’ll keep that in mind.”

The ten thousand gold bangles on Madame Grovda’s wrist clanged together as she waved her hand at Lorna. “Besides, one treasure you have found already, yes?”

Lorna lowered her lashes and mumbled something under her breath. When she lifted her gaze, it was to look at Dabney, who looked back at her with a predatory glint in his eye.

Evie swallowed a smile, trying to ignore what was obviously going on between the secretary and the poet, since the same thing was apparently going on between the schoolteacher and the detective.

Adding cream to her coffee, she said, “So you’re saying you can’t find your fifth clue?”

“It’s like the trail just dried up,” Lorna offered. “And unless we can find it, locating six and seven, not to mention the jackpot, will be out of the question.”

“There are still several days left,” Evie insisted. “You never know what will happen.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Max and Dabney exchange quick glances, but before she could say anything else, Edmunds entered the dining room with a decanter of orange juice and a tray of chilled glasses. As he began to serve each guest, Max said, “How’s it going with you two, Edmunds?”

The butler set a glass in front of Evie, then tapped her on the tip of her nose with his finger.

“Good morning,” she said.

He returned her smile, then said to Max, “Though we continue to study our Clue Number Five, nothing about it leads us to Clue Number Six. We are all at sea, sir. If nothing pops soon, as the
saying goes, Madame and I will be out of the running as well.”

Max took a gulp of his orange juice. “Lorna,” he said. “You only worked for Heyworth a couple of weeks before he was killed, right?”

Raising her juice glass to her lips, she took a sip. “That’s right.”

“Why were you invited to the treasure hunt? Six months ago, Heyworth didn’t even know you.”

She took another sip of juice, then set her glass on the table. “That’s
simple. Six months ago, Mr. Hey
worth was apparently between secretaries, I guess you’d say.”

“That’s a diplomatic way of putting it,” Evie contributed, remembering how several of the poor souls had fled in fits of hysteria after trying to deal with their formidable employer. “Not long after I’d come to the island, one lady burst from the office, screaming she’d swim to shore and risk drowning rather than spend one more minute in Thomas’s employ. I distinctly remember Thoma
s shrugging and chalk
ing it up to PMS.”

“How did he know she had PMS?” Max said.

“Not hers, his. ‘Post Manuscript Shit.’ Whenever he received a revision letter from his editor, he would rant and rave for days, drink a lot, yell at people on the phone, slam doors. It was very tense.”

“Did he make the revisions?”

“Oh, heavens no. His solution was
to buy the publishing company.
” She smiled wryly. “If Thomas didn’t like the rules, he changed them.”

“Well,” he said with a shrug, “I guess the old guy had his moments.”

“Does that mean you’re coming to appreciate Thomas? See him in a whole new light?” She arched her brow, sending him an I-told-you-so smile.

“No,” he growled. “Not unless today’s the day hell freezes over. I’m only saying that he may not have been as bad as I’d originally thought.
May
not. The jury’s still out.”

He polished off his juice, then set the glass down on the table. “There’s a copy of
Door-to-Door Death
in the library, right?”

She nodded. “As I recall, the story is about an encyclopedia salesman who killed the women to whom he didn’t make a sale.”

“What, he conked them on the head with Volume Ten, Sadism Through Sybarite?”

“Actually, I think it was Volume Seven, Mayhem Through Murder.”

Max smiled. “How imaginative.”

As Evie set her untouched orange juice away from her, Max teased, “You have an emotional aversion to oranges, too? Is it because they’re
naval
oranges? Reminds you of those marine crabs that—”

“Dear God,” she said, holding up her hands. “Will you never let me forger that dumb crab story?”

“I liked it.” He grinned at her while she stood and slipped her hands into her pockets.

“Well, I need to go check on the llamas, but I won’t be gone very long. You go get that book from the library. When I return, we can read through it, okay?”

E
vie picked up the grooming brush and called to Fernando. She needed to do some thinking, and
when she was close to Max, all she
could
think about was kissin
g him and touching him, and sim
ply breathing the same air he breathed. He was so distracting, she’d never decipher their next clue if she couldn’t get her brain into gear.

Though she didn’t have a lot of experience, she had enough to kno
w that Max was an attentive, in
ventive, caring lover. The clever things he did, the way he made her feel, the tende
r look in his eyes…
when she was with him, the outside world ceased to exist. He made her feel passionate and beautiful, as though she could make love with him with abandon and
never feel embarrassed or self-
conscious.

But more than that, more than being in love with him, she liked him. When they were together, he let his guard down, allowed her to see a part of him that was vulnerable. Such trust attracted her like a bee to wild honeysuckle. She’d only been away from him for fifteen minutes, and already she missed him.

Smiling to herself, she knew she was probably being silly, but she didn’t care. She was in love, and the world was lovely.

She swept the brush through Fernando’s wool, loosening as much debris as she could. He’d picked up bits of hay and alfalfa in his fleece and it was a tangled mess.

“Been pronking again, handsome?” she said. “Now the
re’s a suggestive word if ever I’ve heard one.
”

“Does it mean having sex?” At the sound of the woman’s voice, Evie turned. It was Lorna.

Evie laughed. “No, not sex. Around dusk, sometimes, llamas get f
risky and do this running, danc
ing, hopping, bounding dance. They just sort of go a little nuts. It’s called pronking.”

Lorna smiled, making her brown eyes sparkle. “Pronking sounds like a sex word.”

Evie narrowed one eye on Fernando. “Hey, babeeee. Care for a good pronk?”

Lorna laughed. “God knows, I’m ready for one.” Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.

She was dressed as she had been at breakfast, in jeans and a floral print blouse. Her brown hair hung in a thick braid down her back and she was wearing little pearl earrings. With her arms crossed on the top rail of the fence, she looked like a pretty milkmaid. Meeting Dabney James seemed to have had a magical, transforming effect on her. Apparently, the magic hadn’t progressed as far as the bedroom yet, but if the look in the poet’s eye was any indication, it was simply a matter of time.

Lorna moved away from the fence and walked over to where Evie was grooming the llama. Picking up a curry comb, she thrummed it with her fingers, seemingly deep in thought. Then she said, “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to get to know you better, Evie. What with arriving only two weeks before Mr. Heyworth left on his tour, and then his murder, well, everything’s been so confusing.” She looked into Evie’s eyes. “I’m too used to keeping to myself, I suppose. Guess that’ll all change now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I moved here specifically to take this job. Mr. Heyworth’s agent
made me an offer I couldn’t re
fuse. Now that he’s gone, as soon as the
estate paperwork is settled, I’ll
be out of work. What with our latest clue being so difficult, I don’t think I can count on buried t
reasure as a solid source of in
come.” She gave a dry laugh and plucked at the comb’s teeth again.

Evie stopped what she was doing, set the brush on the bench and turned her attention on Lorna. “Lorna, did you like Thomas?”

“He was nice to me.”

“That sounds evasive.”

“I wanted to like him, but I found myself angry at him a lot of the time.”

“Did you kill him?”

If Lorna was offended by the question, she didn’t show it. “No.”

“You said you came to Washington specifically to take the job with Thomas? How did that happen?”

She pursed her lips, looked at Evie, then looked away. “I got a letter from an agency offering me the position. A great salary—twice what I was making—with relocation expenses included, and room and board at Mayhem.” With a small shrug, she said, “I grew up very poor in California. When I was little, my mom worked two jobs to support us. She died eight months ago, so there was nothing keeping me there, and Mr. Heyworth’s offer seemed like a fabulous opportunity.”

“What happened to your father?”

“I never knew him.”

Evie ran her fingers through her hair, slipping a stray strand behind her ear. “Seems like we have
something in common,” she said sympathetically. “My mother never told m
e who my father was, ei
ther.”

“All my life,” Lorna said, “I thought my father had abandoned us, but I found out recently he’d never known I existed. She hadn’t told him about me. I’ve never been a
ble to figure out if she was be
ing independent or just plain stupid.”

The two women smiled weakly at each other, their common pain uniting them on some basic level.

Evie leaned back against the fence rail. “I don’t know for sure who my father was, but I have my suspicions.”

“Really?” Lorna said. “Are you going to contact him?”

Evie’s heart sank the way it always did when she thought about Thomas and realized he was gone from her forever.

“Lorna,” she said, “I—I think, well, I’m almost certain, that when my mother worked at Mayhem nearly thirty years ago, she had an affair with Thomas Heyworth. In fact, I think Thomas was my father.”

Lorna’s face blanched. It was as though all the blood had drained from her body, leaving just skin and muscle and bone. Her brown eyes widened and she made a soft gasping sound.

“That can’t b-be,” she stuttered. “That just can’t be. Thomas Heyworth
can’t
have been your father
…
”

Evie blinked. “Why not?”

“Because,”
Lorna choked. “Well, because…”

“Because
why
?” Evie demanded.

Lorna shook her head, her brow furrowed, her eyes dull with confusion. Locking gazes with Evie, she whispered, “Because he was mine.”

E
vie stood at the library window, her arms wrapped around he
r waist, her eyes on the clouds
moving swiftly across the sky. Another summer storm was fast approaching, and it promised to be a doozy. Violent winds were already bending the treetops. At the dock, the Hatteras and the runabout were swaying from side to side, straining their moorings.

Her gaze fell to Max, standing outside, his body braced against the wind as he talked with Dabney. They were both big men, but each struggled to maintain his balance against the violent gusts. As she looked on, the two men turned and walked around the side of the house, out of sight. Evie rubbed her sore eyes and went to one of the chairs by the fireplace.