Peach Pies and Alibis (32 page)

The fireflies were drifting away. The handful that remained formed a circle around
Ella Mae’s head. She felt the blinking creatures place something in her hair before
disappearing into the silver and lilac sky.

Dee came up to her, her face red and mottled from crying. “It’s a wreath of roses.”

“No,” Sissy said, joining her sister. “It’s a crown.”

Ella Mae touched the velvety roses and the petals released a burst of fragrance that
smelled of her mother. Her throat tightened, but she was too spent to cry another
tear.

Verena, who’d been a pace behind Sissy, put her arms around the slim waists of her
younger siblings and drew them close. She fixed her gaze on the Lady. “You fool, Adelaide!
You were always so headstrong!”

“And the bravest of us all,” Sissy added. “I should have
known
. You wouldn’t let our magic fade. And you’d never let Ella Mae go back to being the
girl she was before. You wanted to show her how much she meant to you.”

The LeFayes each put a hand on the Lady’s trunk. They stood like sentinels as the
rest of their people celebrated. Most of the others came close to pay their respects.
When Kelly and Noel approached, Ella Mae had to turn away. Seeing the young couple
made her think of Partridge Hill
and how someone else would have to tend to her mother’s roses.

Only the Gaynors kept their distance, and though Ella Mae searched every face, she
didn’t see Hugh Dylan among her people. Somehow, this disappointment mattered little
now. She couldn’t imagine seeking him out after this. What would she have to say to
him?

Here, in the midst of her kind, she felt destroyed by loneliness. Magic had taken
everything from her. All she had left now was sorrow. And anger. And yet, there was
one person she desperately wanted to see.

“If Tilda was attacked, there’s still a threat out there. Beyond this grove,” Ella
Mae said quietly. “I feel like I’ve been torn in two. I don’t want to leave my mom,
but I need to make sure Reba’s okay.” She examined her aunts’ faces beseechingly.
“I’m going back to the hospital. I’ve had enough of this place.” She gestured around
the grove. “This is what an enchanted life means? It doesn’t feel like a gift. More
like a curse. A burden.”

Dee hugged her tightly. “You made an unwilling sacrifice tonight, sweetheart. We all
did. But she’s not gone. She’s not lost to us. She’s just…changed.”

Ella Mae pulled away. “She won’t ever come back to Partridge Hill! It’ll be empty!
What about the roses? The Luna ceremonies? What about
me
?” Tears pricked her eyes. “I need to get out of here. I can’t sit here with all this
pain and watch people eat grapes and dance!”

Sissy was about to protest but Verena stopped her with a look. “Let her go.”

The only person who tried to speak to her as she fled the grove was Suzy, but Ella
Mae couldn’t talk to anyone. She could see the concern and sympathy on her friend’s
face as she hurried past. It was a relief to step through the wall of boulders into
the real night.

The first thing that struck her was the darkness. It was thick and impenetrable—layers
of black shadows stacked from ground to sky. If there was a moon, a bank of smoky
clouds had blotted it out. There wasn’t so much as a single star to light Ella Mae’s
way to the parking area.

She could feel the path under her feet easily enough however, and she was unafraid
of the spiky silhouettes of the bushes and pine trees. Too numb to feel much of anything,
she walked in a stupor down the curving slope of the mountain, concentrating on one
thing: getting to Reba.

When she reached the parking lot, she walked over to her mother’s Suburban and slumped
against the hood. Letting out a groan, she cursed in the darkness. She didn’t have
the keys.

“You’re an idiot,” she mumbled aloud.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said a voice from behind her.

Ella Mae whirled. The shadowy figure of a woman appeared around the rear of the SUV.
The whites of her eyes glittered, and Ella Mae caught the flash of teeth as she smiled.
The woman’s outline was strangely familiar.

As she drew closer, Ella Mae instinctively retreated.

The woman paused and leaned casually against the Suburban’s side. Suddenly, the flame
from a lighter blazed through the darkness, and Maurelle put the flame to the cigarette
dangling from her mouth. She had threads of gray in her hair and lines etched into
the skin around her mouth and the corner of her eyes. Ella Mae gasped.

“You’re…”

“Older?” Maurelle scoffed. “Yep. And I’ve got about ten more years to add before the
night is through.” She inhaled deeply and then blew a stream of smoke into the air,
all the while studying Ella Mae with the cold, predatory gaze of a serpent. “You don’t
look so hot yourself.”

Ella Mae couldn’t take her eyes from Maurelle’s middle-aged face. “You’re a Shadow
Child. You’re the killer we’ve been trying to find.”

Tucking her cigarette between her first two fingers, Maurelle clapped once, twice.
“Took you long enough.” She snorted. “And they say you’re special. I don’t know why.
I don’t see anything remarkable about you.”

A fiery rage took hold of Ella Mae. It pulsed through her, as if her blood ran white-hot
beneath her skin. “You failed. Even though you killed Melissa and Freda and poisoned
Reba and Tilda, you failed. There’s a new Lady, and she’s stronger, wiser, and more
powerful than you could have expected.”

Maurelle arched her thin brows. “Must be a LeFaye for you to be acting so high and
mighty. I’d say it hurt you pretty bad too, seeing as you look like someone just died.
I mean, it’s not like you can have a deep, meaningful relationship with a tree.”

Ella Mae’s rage grew. If not for Maurelle, Melissa Carlisle would be the Lady of the
Ash and Ella Mae’s mother wouldn’t have needed to sacrifice herself. Ella Mae wanted
nothing more than to curl her hands around Maurelle’s throat and squeeze the breath
out of her, but she couldn’t fight an assassin one-on-one. She had to find another
way.

I’ve got to keep her talking until the others come out of the grove
.

“Go on,” Maurelle said as if she’d heard Ella Mae’s thought. “Ask what you want to
ask while you can still talk. You’re my last mark. After tonight, I retire in style.”

“Someone’s paying you to do this?”

Maurelle shrugged. “The Children have money. We pool our resources to finance our
operations. When they’re successful, we’re rewarded very nicely. If your kind could
stop squabbling long enough to work together, you’d be as well off as we are. But
you’re as shallow and petty as you’ve always been.”

Ella Mae glared at her. “And you’re evil. Not only did you kill two good women, but
you also ruined the lives of innocent people.”

“No one’s innocent.” Maurelle tossed her spent butt on the ground and crushed it with
the toe of her black boot.

“Candis is,” Ella Mae shot back. “And what about the Shermans? Was the soil of their
farm contaminated when they starting the cheese-making venture or did you just happen
to see to that?”

Lighting another cigarette, Maurelle moved toward Ella Mae until they were only a
foot apart. Ella Mae didn’t step back this time, but Maurelle didn’t even look at
her. She pulled herself onto the Suburban’s hood and sat cross-legged, as if she and
Ella Mae were two friends having a chat over coffee and scones. “Ah, that’s better.
I’ve been on my feet way too much lately. I don’t see how people can wait tables.
What a crap job.”

“The Shermans?” Ella Mae prompted irritably. Maurelle’s relaxed detachment incensed
her more and more with every passing second.

“Lynn and Vaughn Sherman could have had it worse. I injected
Listeria
into
one
batch of cheese. If I’d had my way, I would have infected the entire water supply.
Sure, some regular people, the ones I call sheep, would’ve gotten sick, but a few
of your pathetic kind might have been wiped out too. Kids and old folks mostly, and
what good are they to anyone? I always think the death of a few sheep is worth the
risk if it means I can kill some of your people. Unfortunately, my brethren disagreed.”
She made a noise of derision. “They are way too paranoid about the media.”

Ella Mae remembered what she’d been told about the Shadow Children. “You can’t afford
to strike at us like that. There are too few of you. Isn’t that right?” She let her
anger take control. “So you sneak around in the darkness. You stick syringes into
cheese and make sure the tainted food gets on the right plates. If you ask me, that’s
far more pathetic than anything my kind does. It’s downright cowardly.”

Maurelle was off the hood in a heartbeat. “You must be really eager to die,” she growled,
standing on her tiptoes and pointing her finger within an inch of Ella Mae’s throat.
Then, she suddenly smiled. “Oh, I get it now. It was your mama, wasn’t it? She jumped
on the grenade when no one else would. That’s why you’re so mad.” She began to laugh.
“Man, that is rich. She probably did it to protect you. Did someone call you the Clover
Queen? One of the glorious Gaynors perhaps?”

Though she said nothing, the answer must have shown on Ella Mae’s face.

“Ha! They did call you queen!” Maurelle cried triumphantly. Her voice sounded older
than it had before, but everything about Maurelle was now unfamiliar. Ella Mae had
known her as a quiet, reserved, and private young woman. Now she stood in front of
a mature and confident killer.

“I don’t even know what the Clover Queen is.” Ella Mae tried to feign indifference.
“And it doesn’t matter. We have a Lady and our magic’s been renewed.”

Repositioning herself on the hood of the SUV, Maurelle flicked the remainder of her
cigarette onto the windshield of another car. “It totally matters. You’re the second
part of my mission.” She raised two fingers. “First, eliminate all known candidates
for the next Lady of the Ash.” She dropped her middle finger. “Second, if there’s
any sign that Ella Mae LeFaye has come into her powers, eliminate her.”

The anger seeped out of Ella Mae. A hard knot of fear took its place, lodging itself
in the pit of her stomach. “Well, I’m not going to voluntarily eat a hunk of contaminated
cheese, so your last assignment won’t be easy.”

Maurelle laughed heartily. “Good for you! I like it when my victims show a little
spunk. And I don’t have any cheese. Just like I don’t have and have never had cancer.”

“You just pretended to be sick so you could befriend
Candis?” Ella Mae asked in revulsion. “How long were you planning this…mission?”

“For a year. And it wasn’t any cakewalk either. Do you think I enjoyed sitting through
those cancer meetings? What a downer. I only made it through because I knew half of
the people in there would die before I’d have to listen to their griping again.” She
released another twisted laugh.

“But why Candis? Freda hadn’t even volunteered to be the Lady at that point.”

Maurelle shrugged. “Candis was my in with you people. She was my age. She was moving
back to Havenwood and invited me to come along. She even asked if I wanted to live
with her and Rudy until I found my own place. Gross.” She shuddered. “And most important
of all, she wasn’t magical. She was the perfect little sheep. I knew I could use my
fake cancer to get her to trust me, want to help me, and to listen to me when I made
subtle little suggestions like visiting Sherman Farms to sample cheese on the same
day you were coming to the farm to buy that dumb old Jeep.” She held up her hand.
“I knew you were going. I bugged your phone while you were at work.”

Despite this disturbing revelation, Ella Mae was relieved to hear that the Shermans
were truly innocent. No matter what else happened, at least two people could continue
to live their dream. “So you delivered the tainted cheese to Freda?”

“I sure did. That’s why Candis doesn’t remember giving it to her. And I delivered
a little gift box to Melissa Carlisle too. Wrote a note from the Shermans saying they
wanted to compliment her for producing such fine honey. A few days later, I stopped
by to pay her a visit. Good thing too, since she was writing a thank-you note for
the cheese. You people are too damn polite.”

“But Melissa was perfectly healthy. How could the bacteria kill her? Unless…” An image
of the brown recluse
lying dead in the pie shop’s front yard surfaced in Ella Mae’s mind.

“Yessssss?” Maurelle hissed. “Would you like to see what my skin disease really looks
like? The real reason I keep my arms covered is to hide my beautiful weapons.” She
unzipped her black sweatshirt with agonizing slowness, her mouth curved into a crooked
smile. “Of course, I’m missing a few of my pets. I had to send them out into the world.
I needed them to weaken Melissa, Reba, and Tilda. Freda got sick without my help.
All that wedding stress did her in. That was so thoughtful of her. She kept me from
aging for a little while longer.”

And then, the sweatshirt was off. Maurelle balled it up and threw it on the ground.
From a pocket in her jeans, she withdrew a slim flashlight and switched it on. Propping
it under one of the Suburban’s wiper blades, she aimed the beam at her torso and held
her right arm close to the yellow light. From wrist to bicep, the skin was covered
with tattoos of spiders. Specifically, black widow spiders. She then turned to show
off her left arm, which showcased half a dozen brown recluse spiders.

“You can see where I’ve lost three of my little darlings,” she said ruefully, pointing
to a blank spot near her elbow on one arm and a larger patch of bare skin near the
wrist of her other arm. “And now, I’ll have to say good-bye to two more. I can’t take
any chances with you, Clover Queen.”

Ella Mae tried to fuel herself with anger once more. She felt sparks of it inside
her and tried to fan them into a fire. Fear couldn’t save her now, but fury just might.
“Why didn’t you just kill me at the shop? Why all the drama?”