Eden's Shadow

Chapter Three

Eden hadn’t made it through dental college without a great deal of self-discipline. She regrouped on the drive home and told herself she would hold together until the investigation into Maxwell Burgoyne’s death was behind her.

She spied bluish headlights twice in her rearview mirror before she dropped Mary and Lisa off, but not again after that. Determined, she put the sightings down to imagination and tried to concentrate on molar extractions until she reached her apartment.

Someone close by was humming a song. The voice slid through the darkness like a vapor. Listening was almost as effective as yoga for mental relaxation.

Armand LaMorte’s face hovered on the edge of her mind. It was 2:30 a.m. If she went straight to bed, she could squeeze in six hours of sleep. A good dentist could drill and fill just fine with six hours under her belt. Of course, that precluded any worry time for Lisa, and she absolutely could not let herself delve into the paradox that was Maxwell Burgoyne.

He was an X chromosome, she reminded herself as she unlocked the gate, nothing more. Well, except he was also dead, and that was both unfortunate and problematic.

With the exception of the distant singer, the complex was silent. If she listened hard, she could hear remnants of thunder, but the rain had long since departed. Only the humidity remained, air so heavy with moisture she might have been walking underwater.

Street lamps guided her. Her neighbors were either asleep or out. Two of them had left New Orleans for the summer.

Eden gave the front door a bump with her hip while she twisted on the key. To her surprise, it opened. She switched on the table lamp and, picking up her mail, headed for the kitchen to check Amorin’s food dish.

“Bills and junk. What else is new?” She tossed the envelopes on the staircase and called, “I’m home, Ammie.”

The sound of shattering glass halted her.

Before she could call Amorin again, a man hurtled out of the darkness. He knocked her sideways with his shoulder and kept running. In his haste, he slipped on the wooden floor, collided with the hall table and sent her lamp crashing to the ground.

Once the initial jolt subsided, Eden scrambled to her feet and rushed after him.

He couldn’t open the door. The knob kept slipping out of his hands. He resorted to kicking it and grunting like a pig.

Eden caught him easily—at least she caught his shirt. “You broke my lamp…” she began, but got no further. The door burst open and both of them were flung backward into the wall.

The intruder’s elbow plunged into her ribs. Panicked, he took off in search of an alternate exit. Eden knew he hadn’t found one when she heard a thump followed by a howl of pain.

Careful not to get kicked by flailing feet, she eased her arm up the wall and located the light switch. When she saw the man pinned on his stomach, she breathed out a disbelieving, “This night can’t be happening,” and sank back to the floor. “What,” she demanded with as much energy as she could muster, “are you doing here, Detective LaMorte?”

Armand had his right knee lodged in the intruder’s back, and his wrists held fast. He didn’t answer right away, and she didn’t repeat the question. “You’re an idiot, Kenny,” she said instead. “One of these days, someone’s going to forget how nice your mother is and press charges.”

In the process of handcuffing his prisoner, Armand stared at her. “You know this guy?”

“I know his mother. She lives across the courtyard. I only know Kenny in passing.”

Armand flipped the intruder over and studied his face. “How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

The young man swore at him.

“He looks sixteen,” Eden agreed. “He acts five. He’s really twenty-one.”

“Drugs?”

“For some reason he’s convinced I keep a supply of painkillers here. This is the fourth time in two months he’s broken in while I’ve been out. Before that, he was…” She stopped as the reality of the situation struck her. “Wait a minute, it’s two-thirty in the morning. What are you doing in my home, or anywhere near it for that matter?”

Wincing, she climbed to her feet.

Armand immediately abandoned his prisoner. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” She didn’t want him to touch her. However, he did, and in doing so, pinned her as effectively as he had Kenny.

“Don’t move,” he said. His fingers slid over her ribs with aggravating thoroughness. “You might have broken something.”

“I’m fine.” It took a huge effort not to grind her teeth. “Really.” She stopped his probing hands with her own. “I’d know if anything was broken. But thank you.”

“Going blind here,” Kenny wailed from the floor. “Light’s too bright.”

“Close your eyes,” Eden suggested. She concentrated on her own breathing. Why did sexy cops always have stubble? She nodded at the floor. “Worry about him, Armand. He’s photosensitive.”

He didn’t back off. “You could have a fracture and not know it.”

“Doctor first thing tomorrow—today—whatever. I promise.” When he ran his hands along her rib cage one last time and made her shiver, Eden finally took the initiative and stepped out of reach. “You haven’t answered my question, Detective.”

A smile curved his lips. “You called me Armand a minute ago.”

“I was in shock.” Because Kenny was whimpering, she took pity on him and dimmed the lights. Big mistake, she realized. It bathed the hallway in shadows and gave Armand back that air of mystery she’d been endeavoring to block out all evening.

He was taller than her and very lean. His hair fell past the collar of his shirt, curling just enough to make her fingers long to run through it.

Not going there, she promised herself and, tucking her hands behind her back, leaned against the stairwell wall.

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

He crouched to inspect Kenny’s eyes. “I had questions. When I realized you weren’t home, I waited.”

Disengaging her left hand, Eden massaged her aching ribs. “So you were on the street while Kenny was ransacking my apartment?”

“The plan was to ask questions, Eden, not anticipate a break and enter.”

“Fell asleep, huh?”

He sent her a wary look and didn’t respond.

Eden breathed in and out, decided it didn’t hurt too much, then stopped and raised her head. Where was Amorin?

“You can’t manhandle me,” Kenny snarled. “I’ll say you did if you jerk me around.”

“I’ll say he didn’t if you’ve let my cat out,” Eden retorted. “Where is she, Kenny?”

“Is she small and white?” Armand asked.

Eden followed his gaze—and pretty much gave up on the night. Her cat sat on the stairs, watching the scene below through unblinking eyes.

Setting Kenny aside, Armand reached up a finger to stroke the cat’s chest. “You don’t look much like Eden, do you, sweetheart?”

“We both scratch,” Eden remarked with mild asperity. “And, if necessary, bite.”

“Are you going to bite me?” he asked the cat.

Amorin stared for several more seconds, then rubbed her head against his hand.

“Like seeks out like.” Eden echoed Mary’s earlier sentiment. Exasperated, she glanced at Armand’s prisoner who was now on his feet. “For God’s sake, Kenny, make up your mind. Either whimper or snarl, but choose one and stick to it.”

Armand gave him a shove. “Do you want to press charges?”

“No, take him home and let his mother deal with him.”

She felt Armand’s eyes on her face. “I still have questions, Eden.”

“You won’t get coherent answers at this time of the morning, Detective. Kenny’s mother lives across the courtyard. It’s the patio with the rose arbor.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m not hurt if that’s what you mean.” There was another lamp beside her, but for some reason Eden didn’t turn it on. “Lisa’s innocent. If you’re a good cop, you’ll prove that.”

He held Kenny back as he bridged a portion of the gap between them. Even with the AC unit off and the air swirling like dark liquid around them, Eden felt the heat of his skin.

“What if I can’t prove it?” he countered softly.

She kept her head up and her eyes on his. “If you can’t,” she said, “then I will.”

“WE MADE IT THROUGH the salad course, and one drink. Maxwell ordered a glass of bourbon, and I had iced tea. He went to the men’s room while we were eating. Maybe he made a phone call then, but he didn’t call anyone from the table. He made me uncomfortable with the things he said. He swore a lot, and he had a loud voice, so everyone around us heard him. The cruder he got, the more I wanted to leave. I guess he knew that, because he laughed at me. Finally I was so embarrassed, I put my money on the table and left. He must have paid his part of the bill, too, because I’m told he came out right after me. Maybe people thought we were together, but we weren’t, Eden. I came straight home. He went on to Concordia, the plantation where the auction was going to be held…”

Eden recognized the name. She’d dated a boy in high school whose grandfather had worked there.

“It had a lopsided roof,” she said out loud in her office.

Her dental assistant, Phoebe, smiled. “You’re thinking about Concordia, am I right?”

Eden examined an X ray. “Made the morning paper, huh?”

“The whole gruesome tale. Murder at Concordia. Witness on-scene. No charges made. Police have spoken to the last person known to have seen the victim alive, one Elizabeth Jocelyn Mayne of Lanyon-Mayne fame. You okay there, Henry?” She patted the arm of their eleven-year-old patient whose eyes were glued to the overhead television. Spider-Man had him all the way.

Eden smiled. “If his eyes get any bigger, they’ll pop right out of his skull.” She returned to her work. “I didn’t read the article, Phoebe. How detailed was it?”

“Not so much. It mostly described the guy who died. Don’t get offended, okay, but I thought it was kind of cool in a morbid sort of way. I’ve never known anyone who was associated with anyone who was associated with a dead man. And a dead man with clout to boot.”

“So you’ve heard of Maxwell Burgoyne?”

“Not specifically, but they listed several of his holdings. I recognized about six of them. MamaDees Molasses and MamaDees Golden, Brown and Demerara Sugar, the LoBo record label, the FM radio station and the Pro-Max line of tools. They also mentioned a factory that makes hand-painted tiles, but I think it’s out of state. The guy had major bucks.”

“He also had a heart condition,” Roland, their receptionist, called through the open door. “He took pills for it.”

“His heart didn’t kill him, Roland,” Eden pointed out.

“No, something metal did that.” He shook a folded newspaper. “It says there were flecks of rust found in the head wound.”

“Are you hearing any of this, Henry?” Eden asked.

The boy’s eyes remained on the screen. He wore headphones in any case, but she wanted to be sure. The topic of murder wasn’t likely to rate high on his parents’ list of suitable dental office conversations.

Never one to linger on a topic, Phoebe began talking about her daughters, and Eden was able to finish her work in silence.

She’d been toying with an idea all day, but she didn’t know if it was a good one or not. What she wanted to do was drive out to Concordia where Maxwell had died. What she should do, however, was drive over to Lisa and Mary’s place and coax Lisa into going through the story again. She’d gone over it on the phone earlier today, but Lisa had been preoccupied. She’d been using her trowel as they’d talked.

“Mary talked about doing a photo shoot tonight, north of here,” Lisa had remarked. “It involves the last rays of light. Some magazine in Massachusetts that wants to do a spread on vampires and witches. She says they’ve got the witch part covered, but they’re looking for ruins where vampires might live, or unlive, or whatever it is vampires do.”

“You sound down, Lisa. Do you want to go out to Dolores’s for dinner?”

“No.” Lisa had been firm. “I’m not ready for Dolores yet. She’s the second closest person I know to a witch, and she’ll make me relive the whole nightmare again. The police have already asked me a million questions. I can’t tell them anything, and it’s frustrating. I mean, I didn’t like the man, Eden, but I swear I didn’t hit him. How many ways can I say it so they’ll understand?”

Eden understood. After all, she’d had a cop waiting outside her apartment last night with questions. True, he hadn’t been able to ask them, but only because he’d been sidetracked by an addict looking for painkillers. And then she’d been tied up at work today and she’d told Roland not to disturb her with anything except emergency calls.

Her conversation with Lisa played on while she finished Henry’s fillings, gave him the lollipop her young patients expected and stretched her cramped arm and back muscles.

“I wanted to talk to Lucille, Eden, I really did. But when we got there last night, suddenly I couldn’t face her. Mary thinks I’m flipping out, but I’m not. It’s just easier for me when I’m in a garden. Mine mostly, but any garden will do. I love the elements. They’re magical. You mix earth, water and light, a little seed, and suddenly, there’s life. Plants don’t ask questions, they simply exist and, with the proper care, thrive. I can’t imagine my life without them.”

That much Eden had realized the day she’d met Lisa. “Can I ask one more question?” she’d pressed.

“Why did I go looking for our natural father ten years after Lucille told us he was dead?”

“Right.”

“I heard her talking one night out at Dolores’s. I’d walked in from the road. They didn’t know I was there. I was passing under the window when Dolores up and asked Lucille what she would do if we ever learned the truth. Lucille wanted to know what truth, and Dolores said about our biological father being alive. I was stunned, Eden, so stunned I couldn’t go in. I turned around, drove home and went straight to my garden to think. The next day, I hired a private investigator. It took him eleven weeks. He started with Lucille and worked backward until he came up with a name.”

“Maxwell Burgoyne.” Eden thought for a minute. She’d never understood Lisa’s need to discover her birth relatives. “Maybe you should have left it alone, Lisa,” she’d said, “for all our sakes…”

Lisa hadn’t, however, and the rest couldn’t be undone with a wish.

Wishing also wouldn’t help Eden avoid Armand LaMorte for much longer. Roland said he’d called an hour ago. He’d tried again while she’d been ushering Henry out the door. There would be no more reprieves, she thought, glancing at the wall clock. Avoidance was in her hands now. If she was fast and lucky, she could make it home unobserved. Then she’d be free to do—well, whatever seemed most appropriate.

Her cell phone rang as she was unlocking her car. The display read Mary so she answered.

Her sister sounded testy. “Lisa said you wanted to talk to me, Eden.”

With her free hand, Eden unfastened her hair. “Don’t start with me, Mary. I got less than four hours of sleep last night, and I had to pull a mouthful of teeth this morning. Do you know how difficult that is?”

“I know it’s gross.”

“The before picture kind of was. The after will be good in a few days. Where are you right now?”

“En route to Montesse House. And don’t say it’s dangerous there. That’s the whole point of my trip.”

“Vampires, huh?”

“Feel flattered, Eden. Lisa told me you two had a long chat this morning. All I’ve gotten from her today is the brush.”

“Your battery’s dying,” Eden said. “Look, I’m going home for a few minutes. I’ll pick up some food and bring it to Montesse, okay?”

Mary’s response was lost in a blank spot which Eden took as a yes.

Twenty minutes later, she’d changed into drab army pants and a white T-shirt, ignored her answering machine, left a message for Lisa, fed Amorin and purchased dinner. Dusk had begun to settle by the time she reached the outskirts of the city. She noticed black clouds stacked in an angry bunch to the north and wondered if Mary’s battery had in fact been dying. An electrical storm might have disrupted the signal.

For highway driving, she turned her headlights on full and mapped out the route to Montesse in her head. She needed to leave the highway, and the road leading to the Mississippi was anything but smooth. This trip would be hard on her tires.

Her phone rang again a mile past the plantation exit. With no other cars in sight and the potholes readily visible in the thickening twilight, she read the screen, smiled and answered. “Hey, Dolores.”

“Don’t you hey me, pretty girl. You lied to the police. I’m not happy about that, not one bit.”