That’s what was eating her? “I won’t get hurt,” Gerry said. “More to the point, you won’t with me here to protect you.”
“Gerry, no,” she moaned. “Sergio’s big and mean and dangerous.”
“Meh,” Gerry said. “I could use a beer.”
She threw up her hands.
On the way to the kitchen, he detoured to the disaster that was the dining room. “I found this in the corner. I think it belongs to the attic door.” He indicated a pole with a hook on the end of it.
She nodded. “Arthur had it that day he slipped and almost went through the floor. It fell through the hole, and I put it in the corner and forgot about it. Oh! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Of what?” Gerry said, but Mirabel had already grabbed the pole and was halfway up the stairs. Shaking his head, he followed her to the ruined bedroom. Once again, she was in the plumbing access, this time aiming the flashlight above her head. If she wanted to get covered in cobwebs and rinse off in the shower again, he certainly had no objection.
Mirabel shrieked. “Up there!”
Christ. What now? He was bored to tears with Grandpa Arthur’s stuff. He wanted to dwell on what the future might bring for him and Mirabel.
“Hold the flashlight for me. Shine it up. Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope!” Mirabel fumbled briefly with the hook and a minute later slowly lowered a garment bag. She passed it to Gerry through the opening in the wall. “Take it to my bedroom and lay it on the carpet. Be very, very gentle with it. It may be valuable.”
She followed him into the bedroom. More mothballs tumbled out when she opened the garment bag.
“It’s the gown,” she whispered, glancing up at him, her eyes aglow with tears. “The one Dorinda Darblay wore to the Mardi Gras ball in 1941.” She took it out and spread it lovingly on the bed. From a velvet sack suspended from a second hanger, she removed a set of jewels: tiara, necklace, earrings, bracelet, stomacher, and scepter. She laid the jewelry on the bed in all its glory: brilliants in ruby red and emerald green, gilding and pearls, with pearls adorning the gown as well.
Good Lord. “The Dorinda Darblay?”
“It’s in the letters I found earlier today. Arthur was in love with her.”
He blinked at the dazzling array on the bed. “From what I’ve heard, everybody was in love with her. This dress and jewelry have been missing for years, right?”
Mirabel nodded. “Nobody knew they were gone until after she died. Her will mentioned that she had given them to a former lover, but no one admitted to having them.”
“Nobody was surprised at that. Anyone who did would have been suspected of murdering her because she’d shown interest in some other man. Not only that, there might have been a huge lawsuit over who really owned them.”
“Yes, but that’s not why Arthur kept them a secret.” Mirabel wiped away a tear. “This was all he had left of Dorinda. He wanted to keep it until he died.”
Gerry couldn’t help but grimace. He’d loved his grandfather dearly, but this was too much. “Definitely on the creepy side of nostalgia.” He ran his hands through his still-damp hair, pondering his own growing obsession with Mirabel. Maybe he wasn’t so very different from Arthur. “To each his own insanity, I guess.”
“I can’t wait to see the curators’ faces when I bring this stuff to the museum,” Mirabel said.
Gerry grunted, not caring one way or the other about the curators. Was it too soon to ask Mirabel to marry him?
In the kitchen, she read him two letters and a newspaper clipping. It reeked of bad soap opera, but it did clarify a few things.
“So the fabulous Dorinda was a vampire. As kids, we used to joke that the thing in her mouth in the museum photo was a fang,” Gerry said. “Turns out it really was―and Grandpa had a fling with her. Two flings, actually. The first one explains his emergency posting to the South Seas. Somebody wanted him out of the way.”
“And the second time, he got beaten up because of her,” Mirabel said. “That could happen to you if you stay with me!”
“Nah, I can take care of myself.”
She didn’t believe him; maybe a trip to the dojo would convince her. He was in good shape, unlike Arthur, who had lived a sedentary life.
Gerry popped open a can of beer. “There’s no reason to believe it was anything but a mugging. Why would anyone beat up an over-the-hill guy for having a fling with an equally aging vampire?”
“It’s too much of a coincidence for me,” Mirabel said, “and as if that wasn’t weird enough, somebody murdered Dorinda several months later.”
Gerry took a long swallow, thinking about it all. Uneasiness stole over him. “Mirabel, what’s the date of that newspaper clipping?”
She dug it out of the pile. “May 14, 1986.”
“The beating took place the previous August. April and June took me to the hospital to visit both him and my mom. It stuck in my memory because Mom was dying, and I was scared I would lose Grandpa Arthur, too. That was before he stopped speaking to April and June.” His uneasiness increased as he tried to piece the dates together. “I’m pretty sure the feud started when I was eleven. Mom was dead, and I was stuck between my grandfather and my aunts, always trying to keep the peace.”
“That must have been rough.”
“I got used to it.” He’d never questioned it, either. “If I thought about it at all, I assumed he disagreed with their parenting methods and hated not being able to do anything about it. According to the terms of my mom’s will, I lived with them while school was on and with Grandpa during the holidays. They were always placing restrictions on me, while Grandpa wanted to give me responsibility and freedom. He threw a fit when April and June made me spend my senior year at the military academy. It took a lot of work to convince him I didn’t mind.”
Her brows drew together. “Did you? Mind, I mean?”
He’d hated the idea, but as usual, he’d done whatever it took to keep everyone happy. “It got me out from under April’s and June’s thumbs for a while, and I made some good friends there.” He’d learned some useful skills, and although he’d been separated from the vampire he’d been sleeping with, they’d just been friends with benefits, not madly in love, so no one’s heart had been broken.
Now, all those secrets he’d been happy to ignore fell suddenly and horribly into place.
* * *
“What?” Mirabel asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
His stony expression told her otherwise. “Gerry, if you could see your face . . .” She put her hands on her hips. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Or like maybe you’re about to puke. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m fine.” His voice was harsh, his eyes hard. He’d seemed angry yesterday, but nothing like this. “I have some . . . family responsibilities to take care of. Shouldn’t you be baking pies?”
Something had upset him, so now she was being relegated to the kitchen. Men were impossible, but she knew pestering Gerry wouldn’t get her anywhere.
“Not today.” She swung out of the kitchen, nose in the air, and went upstairs to the bedroom. A minute later, she heard him make a call and leave a message.
“Aunt April, I need to talk to you right away. Call me on my cell as soon as you get home.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. He banged out into the backyard with a can of beer and prowled around the property like a caged tiger. She watched as he took out his cell phone, punched in a number, and walked through the gate and down the alley. Even with vampire hearing, she couldn’t eavesdrop on someone that far away. Not that he didn’t have every right to talk to his aunts.
A chill inched its way into her heart. Sure, he didn’t get on well with April and June, but they had brought him up. They were his family—the ones he’d spent years trying to keep happy. Maybe he felt obliged to tell them about the items she had found. Maybe he believed the dress and parure should have gone to Arthur’s family, not to her. Even if he didn’t t
hink so, April and June probably would.
To hell with that. She had known Arthur for only a short time, but he had trusted that she would find the dress and parure and donate them to the museum—never, ever give them to April and June.
She had a responsibility to discharge, too, and she would damn well do it now. She looked longingly at Dorinda’s jewelry and gown. Duty could wait ten minutes.
* * *
Nosy old Mrs. Dodge was watching Gerry from her upstairs window. He’d waved at her and she’d moved out of view, but even though he couldn’t see her, he still felt her eyes on him, just like when he was a kid. She had never run out of ways to get Gerry in trouble, even when he hadn’t done anything wrong.
By the time he’d made his second phone call and finished his beer, he was more or less composed. Slowly, he returned to the house. Mirabel’s guess hadn’t been far off—the whole business made him feel a bit sick. He would explain it all to her later, once he knew for sure. Once he had his still-raw emotions under control. Tonight, with her arms around him and her warmth enveloping him . . .
As he reached the back steps, the doorbell rang. Before he got indoors, it rang again. And again.
“Don’t answer that!” Mirabel cried from upstairs. “It might be Sergio!”
“It’s not Sergio.” He recognized that persistent ring as if it were a voice. Mrs. Dodge had been tattling again; there was no way April and June could have arrived in Bayou Gavotte so soon after his phone call unless they’d already been most of the way here. “Stay upstairs.” Please. He didn’t want his aunts anywhere near Mirabel. “I’ll handle it.”
He opened the front door, but before he could get a word out, his aunts charged into the house. First came April. “Where is the gold-digging little bitch?”
Then came June, trembling all over. “Gerry, darling, are you all right?” June’s soft, moist hand patted his arm, while her bleary blue eyes peered at his neck.
As if he needed any more proof.
“Mrs. Dodge saw you sneaking in the back door last night,” June lamented. “Then she saw you kissing Mirabel this morning. Did you stay here? With that . . . that . . . ?”
“Vampire?” He nodded. “Sure I did. What red-blooded man wouldn’t?”
June whimpered. “Gerry, how could you?”
“Stop staring at me, Auntie June. There’s nothing to see. Vampire bites heal right away.” With monumental restraint, he didn’t add, That’s not the only place she bit me.
June shrieked, swaying perilously, but he ignored her.
“Stop fussing, June!” rapped April. “I thought better of him, but he’s a tomfool man like any other, so of course he succumbed. But he loved Daddy, and he’ll do his duty.” Ominous pause. “Won’t you, Gerry?”
“No doubt about that,” Gerry said grimly.
“Well? Did you find any proof?”
The fury he’d been so firmly tamping down welled up again. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
“Of murder?” April gloated. June clasped her hands together beseechingly.
“I believe so,” he said, and then Mirabel came downstairs.
* * *
If she hadn’t felt so betrayed, Mirabel would have enjoyed making her entrance in that marvelous jewelry and gown. If not for the hurt and chagrin at what she’d just overheard, she might have reveled in the way her roiling allure made Gerry stagger, the way it frightened April and June.
Usually she kept her vampire temper in check, but this time rage was called for—although she wasn’t sure who made her more furious: Gerry for making a fool of her or herself for believing she had fallen in love.
She glided into the front hall, parting the aunts with a flick of the scepter and a tornado of allure. Gerry clutched the sofa as he had last night, but she knew he fought the allure for an entirely different reason this time. She dragged her eyes away from him. She wouldn’t give him or his aunts the satisfaction of seeing her burst into tears.
“The gown!” The short, rotund aunt shrieked, hands upraised to ward off some imagined evil. “It was here! I knew it!”
“The parure!” The taller aunt’s talons clenched and unclenched. “That belongs to us! Take it off, you murdering bitch!”
“Why ever would I do that?” Mirabel simpered. “Don’t you think it becomes me?” She poked a foot out from under the flowing skirt of the gown. “Well, except for the flip-flops. I’ll have shoes custom made to match.” She didn’t need to look at Gerry to know he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
Good. Let him suffer, the traitor. How could he put the wishes of his aunts ahead of darling old Arthur?
“You’ll never get away with this,” the taller aunt hissed.
“Oh, yes, I will.” Mirabel might think sultry was boring, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it just fine. She lowered her voice to a purr and put a provocative sway in her stride. “Nothing you do will make any difference. Everyone is on my side. The lawyer, the accountant, the club manager, the police . . .” She laughed—not easy, the way she felt—and waved the scepter like a wand. She might have enjoyed that, too, except that Gerry stood utterly still to the side, doing nothing.
He gives in to those bitches too often, Arthur had said. That’s his one great character flaw.
“Get off my property, or I’ll call the cops.” Mirabel sashayed past them through the front door and down the steps. “In fact, I’ll call them right now to make sure you leave.” She hitched the long train of the gown over her arm, flipped open her cell phone, and kept walking.
“Thief!” the taller aunt cried. “Go after her!”
“She’s getting away!” lamented the shorter one. “Stop her, Gerry!”
Gerry’s voice was calm. “Ms. Lane inherited the house and its contents. They’re legally hers.”
“Not for long!” hollered the taller aunt, clattering down the stairs.
“Maybe so, but I’m not letting you chase after her in your car,” Gerry said in that same even voice. “This is a matter for the lawyers, Aunt April. We’ll go there now.”
How could he? Mirabel whirled, still moving, shaking the dust of her association with Gerry Kingsley from her feet with every step. He wasn’t even looking her way, merely prying the car keys from his protesting aunt’s claw, saying, “You won’t win your case by attacking Ms. Lane now.”
Mirabel shouted, “You won’t win anything by suing me. I’ll burn the place down before I let you have one single thing that belonged to Arthur.”
Her voice gave way. She fought back tears as she called the police and then strode away down the street, head high, brandishing the scepter like a sword.
* * *
Gerry watched until Mirabel went around the corner and out of sight. She hadn’t even looked at him while she’d marched through the house and out the door. Hopefully she didn’t think he was siding with his aunts.
Yeah, he was pretty sure she did. He should have explained the situation to her when he’d had the chance. Now she believed the worst of him.
Judging by the following she was attracting with that incredible outfit, coupled with her allure, Mirabel would make it where she was going—hopefully to the university museum―unscathed. Nobody could kidnap, rob, or murder someone so damned noticeable without attracting a lot of attention.
But he’d better make sure. He pulled out his phone and called the police. He identified himself and said, “Did Mirabel Lane just call you?”
“Yep,” the dispatcher said. “She wants me to send someone to throw you and your nasty aunts out of her house.”
“You don’t need to send anyone,” Gerry said. “We’re leaving now. More important, Mirabel is walking toward Hellebore University wearing a valuable costume and jewels. Can you spare someone to make sure she gets there safely?”
“Anything for Mirabel,” the dispatcher said. “But I’m still sending someone to check on you. If you don’t leave her house right now, you’ll be sorry.”
He might be sorry a
nyway, if Mirabel refused to listen to his explanation. He tried not to think about that.
“I knew you’d do your duty, Gerry,” April said. “Now the cops won’t bother us, but they’ll keep track of that thief.” She hurried up the steps of the house with June in tow. “Let’s see what else he left behind.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Gerry stopped her in the doorway and blocked June with a hand. “If I remember correctly, Grandpa told you never to darken his doorstep again.”
“He’s dead,” April huffed. “What he wanted doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I’m afraid it does,” Gerry said. “It’s my duty to uphold his wishes.”
April tried to push past him. “Do as I say.”
“No.” Gerry took her by the arm and moved her gently but insistently away from the door. “Never again.”
He locked the house, drove the bitterly scolding April and the querulous June to the lawyer’s office, and parked them in the waiting room under the watchful eye of Stan’s receptionist.
Stan laid out the documents he had prepared for Gerry to sign. “You’re sure about all this?”
“Absolutely,” Gerry said.
“Crazy bastard. Or maybe I should say ‘lucky duck.’ Not many guys get to have a vampire.”
Gerry hoped like hell he hadn’t already lost her. “How did you know Mirabel was one?”
“My assistant’s cousin is a vampire. He recognized the signs.” Stan sighed. “I’ve done the best I could in no time at all, but I’d like to redraft it later so as to better protect your interests.”
“This should give me what I need for now,” Gerry said. “But I’d also like you to record our conversation with my aunts. And since your assistant knows everything, you might ask him to take notes, too.”
Stan goggled. “You’re going to tell those old biddies Mirabel’s a vampire?”
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