by Sylvie Kurtz
Turning around and facing the monster took all of Melinda's courage. It stood in the doorway, frowning at her, both hands extended forward, the muzzle of a gun pointed straight at her heart.
With a simple squeeze of the trigger, she would die.
Like her mother.
Like her father.
"I didn't want to do it, but you left me no choice. I tried so hard to make up for everything. Why didn't you just let things stand as they were?"
Chapter 15
Grady tried to concentrate on the road, but his worry for Melinda constantly pulled at his attention. In his mind's eye he saw her face as she relived her nightmares under hypnosis, so vulnerable, in so much pain. He'd failed her just as everyone else in her life had. He swallowed hard. How would she react to the knowledge that the one person she'd trusted was the monster of her dreams?
The truck screeched to a halt in front of The Essential Gardener. Leaving the engine rumbling, he raced for the door.
Black. Everything inside was black. Rain dripping into his eyes, he pounded on the door. "Melinda!"
Forcing himself to calm down, he doused his runaway emotions. With his mind once again still, he searched for the thread of her presence, for the feeling that came over him whenever she was close. An echo of emptiness returned to him, cold and dark.
She wasn't there.
Once more in his truck, he searched his mind for clues. Where had she gone? To her home? To his? Then remembered the picture she'd drawn—was it only this morning?—and panicked. Had she gone to face her past alone? Or worse, had her monster caught up to her?
"Why should she have trusted you with her plan? You certainly did your best imitation of someone who couldn't care less," he said, bitterness making his voice tight.
Morning seemed like a lifetime ago. But the ghostly whiteness of her skin and the pleading of her soulful eyes had nearly undone him. Walking away from her had taken every ounce of strength he possessed. He'd thought he was doing the right thing, but now he wished he'd gone to her, held her, loved her instead. Maybe things would have turned out differently.
He'd made her only one promise—to keep her safe. And he was blowing it royally.
Mistakes—would he ever stop making them? He turned into his ranch-house road.
Finding Melinda's drawing still on the bedroom floor took no time. Seeing the form beneath the lines took a little longer. Understanding them brought a sense of relief. If she'd gone to face her father, she'd stay safe enough. He reached for the phone.
* * *
Melinda hadn't expected to feel this scared. But she hadn't counted on the rain or the thunder or the shadows, or on the way they played with the remnants of her nightmare fears like costumed ghouls on Halloween. As a child, she'd retreated, but she couldn't now. Not with her father dying. Not after she'd tasted what life could be without black dreams and monsters. She wasn't ready to give up without a fight.
"Dolores?" She couldn't believe that the woman who, for all intents, had taken over the role of her mother, now stood before her, eyes wild and gun in hand.
Her father gave a weak gasp beside her. Reflexively, she leaned toward him, reaching for the red stain spreading on his chest.
"Don't move," Dolores warned.
"H-he needs help."
"He's dead."
"No." Melinda pressed her hands to his chest, desperately trying to stop the flow of blood. He wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. "Daddy?" Tears streamed down he cheeks. He couldn't die. Not now. Not when they were just starting to understand each other. "Why?"
"It didn't have to end this way." Anger glittered in Dolores's light-blue eyes.
Slowly, Melinda released her hold on the bloody shirt. Her father was dead, and she would be next. The sharpness of Dolores's gaze told her so in no uncertain terms. How could she have loved someone with such cold eyes? Why hadn't she noticed their soulless surface before? How could she have trusted her with all of her secrets? She peered at the weathered face and found no trace of warmth, no trace of the friend she'd known—only icy determination. Panic replaced grief.
"Dolores, why?"
"Because he betrayed me—not once, but three times. This was one time too many." Dolores strode toward her. "If you hadn't been stupid, if you hadn't gone and fished in those damned memories of yours, all this could have been avoided."
As the lens through which Melinda viewed the world twisted, the sound of rain became more acute, the shrill of the phone painful, the reds and golds of the room too vivid.
"Don't you see? I couldn't let you remember."
Watching the woman she'd trusted like a mother approach her, Melinda had no doubt Dolores meant to kill her. And the bitter taste of anger etched her throat. She scanned the room for a possible weapon. Dolores had killed her mother. She'd killed her father. Melinda had to stop her before she became the next victim. She lunged forward. On the table stood her father's glass, a crystal ashtray, a vase of dahlias. She launched each in close succession. They bounced off Dolores as if she were made of rubber and crashed on the carpet.
Dolores grabbed Melinda's arm and twisted it back, then butted the gun's muzzle against Melinda's temple. "Stop squirming. I'm not quite ready for you to die."
Strangely, in the steely grip of her dreaded monster, Melinda's panic ebbed. The real monster, she realized, had been her own fear.
If she could keep Dolores talking, Melinda decided, she'd give herself half a chance to escape.
"This doesn't make sense," she said, mind churning for threads that would give her the truth without provoking Dolores into a premature execution.
"Doesn't it?" Dolores said in a high-pitched voice. "Think, hon, think back to twenty years ago. You were in bed. I know you were. Your mother and I tucked you in together. Your father was working late."
Melinda twisted in Dolores's grip, hoping for weakness in the wiry steel of her arms. Dolores tightened her hold and pressed the gun's cold muzzle flush against her temple.
"But you weren't in the greenhouse when I went downstairs again," Melinda said, swallowing to lubricate her parched throat.
"We'd had an argument. I'd left. Then I came back to apologize." Dolores gripped her tighter, pulling her once again toward the couch. "I was always the one apologizing. It wasn't right for the pretty little Miss Perfect to lower herself to such a level."
"But why, Dolores, why did you kill her?" Melinda forced herself to relax and become dead weight in Dolores's arms.
"Don't make this harder than it is, hon." Dolores kneed her in the kidneys. Melinda staggered forward, hoping to unbalance Dolores, but the older woman was prepared for the move and yanked her back up. Pain shot through Melinda's bent arm. "Owww!"
"Ely said he loved me, but he married her. Then he poisoned her mind, slowly turning her against me."
"It doesn't make sense, Dolores. She was your friend—"
Dolores whirled Melinda around and pushed her down next to her father's body. With her knee across Melinda's lap, the gun at her head, and a hand gripping her throat, Dolores pinned her captive to the couch.
"I loved your mother, you know," Dolores said, the truth of it carving deep lines of regret around her mouth, a scowl of sorrow on her brow. "But to her I was nothing more than the gardener's daughter, then the gardener. I never realized. And him." She jerked her chin in Ely's direction. "After all I'd done for him, he still told her all those lies."
"What could he have said to turn her against you? She was your friend." At first Dolores didn't respond. She seemed caught in her own memories of that awful September night twenty years ago.
"And she believed him," Dolores continued. "All those years we'd shared secrets like sisters. She still believed him. When she told me to leave, not to come back, something happened. She'd taken Ely from me. And now she was turning her back on me. I'd lost him. Now I was losing everything else—my job, my friend, my goddaughter. Before I knew it, her work knife was embedded in her chest—"
H
eld prisoner by the rosebush's sticky arms, Melinda heard the monster screech in pain. Dolores, eyes wild, face red and contorted with hatred, plunged the knife into her mother's heart. "I won't let you. I won't let you!" Her mother's hand rose up in a protective gesture. The golden heart at her wrist winked in the light. The A scrolled in surface rocked back and forth against her skin. Her mother fell to the ground in a dull thump. Blood spread black over her dark green apron. Her head rolled. Her frightened gaze caught Melinda's. "Run, Lindy, run!"
"I knew that I'd just ruined my life."
"You ran away."
"But then I realized I had to make the mistake disappear."
"So you set the fire."
"I had to. I had no choice."
Hot tears burned the backs of Melinda's eyes. "And all those years you pretended to be my friend, they were lies."
"I tried to protect you," Dolores said, her mouth drooping at the corners, the frown deepening on her forehead. "I loved you. Like a daughter. But did you ever love me? No. Just like that, you're ready to condemn me, too."
"You weren't trying to protect me," Melinda said, her voice fading away. Dolores had done her best to confuse the images of Melinda's nightmares, to keep her from remembering what she wasn't supposed to have witnessed. "You were trying to protect yourself."
With surprising force, Dolores curled Melinda's reluctant fist around the gun's handle. "I tried to be the mother you'd lost."
Melinda strained and fought. She tried to kick. Dolores's tough grip kept unerringly on its deadly track, pointing the gun back toward Melinda's head.
"And now I have to lose you, too." Dolores's finger tightened against the trigger.
* * *
He shouldn't have made love with her last night. By doing so, she'd become a part of him as essential as breathing. Letting her go this morning had been one of the hardest thing he'd done. Now the chance of losing her permanently was more than Grady could bear. When had she stopped being Ely Amery's daughter? When had she wrangled his heart? His soul? He'd give up his chances of promotion. He'd give up his career? Anything to see her safe.
"Concentrate on what you want, son," Seth had told him more times than he cared to recall. "If you concentrate on trouble, that's what you'll get."
He wanted Melinda safe, and for that he needed a cool head. Assessing the situation, he spotted three vehicles parked in front of the house. He recognized Melinda's Volvo and her father's Cadillac. The third must belong to Dolores—a truck, rusted like the one that had sped away from him near his ranch.
Weapon in hand, he circled the house, peeking into every window. When he reached the tall French doors, the scene inside chilled him more thoroughly than the rain. The great Ely Amery lay in a helpless heap, blood pooling around him. Dolores held a handgun to Melinda's head.
One wrong move and Melinda was dead.
No help. No backup. No radio. He was out of his territory. He'd have a lot of explaining to do, but Melinda's safety came first. If Dolores killed her, she would eclipse the sun from his life.
Seth's voice reverberated in his mind, "You do what you gotta do, the rest takes care of itself."
Through the rain-slicked door, he caught Melinda's gaze, and prayed she understood and could buy him the time he needed.
* * *
In Grady's eyes, Melinda saw life, love and despair. And hope. She wasn't alone. Grady was here. She'd never give up fighting as long as she had breath in her body. She couldn't die—not when she'd just found life.
Screaming the scream of terror she'd repressed as a child, she startled Dolores. In that moment of surprise, Grady burst through the French doors; Melinda pushed against the monster, throwing her back. The gun fired and missed, sinking into the ceiling.
"No!" As Dolores fell, her head cracked against one of the wing chair's wooden claws. On her back, on the golden carpet, she gripped the gun with two hands, pointed it at Grady and squeezed the trigger. The shot went wide, plowing into the wall. She swiveled her grip to aim at Melinda. Before she could fire, Grady's bullet felled her.
In the next moment, Melinda was in Grady's wet arms. His strength held her up despite her buckling knees. He kicked the gun away from Dolores's reach, and shielded Melinda from the grizzly view. He kissed her hair, her eyes, her mouth.
"My father … he's dead." She couldn't deal with this right now. It was too much. Later. She'd let the full impact of what had happened here sink in later.
"Dolores." Her chest hurt and the words came out in sobs. "She killed my mother. She killed my father."
Sirens screamed in the distance. "I know."
"I loved her. I trusted her." The feeling of betrayal cut through her, scalpel sharp.
"I know."
Melinda raised her head from Grady's shoulder. His face swam in the blur of her tears. As he held her, strong and warm, the final horror burst into her mind. She gasped. Her fingers curled into fists around the sleeves of his shirt. "That's what I saw that night at Angela's. It's all coming back, Grady. Kerry—she's the one who killed Angela. She killed her own best friend!"
"I know. We found her bloody clothes near the river."
Melinda's head fell forward once more against his shoulder. "It was just like the night my mother died."
"It's okay," he said in a choked voice and kissed her again. "You'll be okay."
Tense laughter bubbled in her chest at his use of her old mantra. She was alive. She was here. Holding his face between her hands, she kissed him back with all the fervor of a woman who'd cheated death and won. "I know."
* * *
After dealing with the police and the media, after the ordeal of burying her father and Dolores, Melinda sought solace in her garden. The waterfall gurgled over the rocks and splashed into the small pool where a pair of koi swam. The bird feeder swayed gently in the breeze, on the lowest branch of the pecan tree. Pipe wind chimes tinkled from the corner of the porch not far from the single hammock chair where Rusty lay curled in a tight ball.
She remembered those afternoon teas with Grady and how he'd asked her what she buried in her garden. He'd seen through a coping mechanism she hadn't even known she'd used. With every bulb she'd planted, she'd tried to bring her mother back to life; with every seed she'd sown, she'd repented for leaving her mother alone in the flames; with the beautiful haven she'd created, she'd tried to mask the ugly darkness of a little girl's guilt.
But she had no need for that now.
She'd had no more dark dreams. Rain no longer set her on edge. Thunderstorms no longer caught her holding her breath, waiting for something awful to happen. She would miss her father's forceful presence. He might not have fathered her, but he had been her father. In spite of his faults, she had loved him. His actions might not have been the right ones, but he'd based his intentions on love.
As for Dolores, Melinda wasn't sure what to think. She doubted the woman had ever truly understood the meaning of love—of what she'd had and destroyed. With time, the pain of her betrayal would surely dull.
Raindrops puckered the pond's surface, creating circles of ripples. The truth was out. No more ghosts would come to haunt Melinda, no more memories would hide in the fury of a storm.
With a sigh she rose. But as beautiful as her garden was, something was missing.
Grady and their afternoon teas. Grady's arms around her. Grady's love shining down at her from those intense blue eyes. She wanted him—not to lean on, but to love, and to create a blooming future richer than any she could build on her own.
Without him, she was … incomplete.
* * *
Grady rang Melinda's doorbell. He'd had a lot of explaining to do in the past week. But the explanations had been nothing compared to the paperwork. And the paperwork paled in comparison to the mental gymnastics he'd put himself through.
In the end, not only Set, but Brasswell, had stood one hundred percent behind him. Grady chuckled. That was Brasswell for you—town image first and foremost. In the wake of t
he positive press he'd generated, what else could she do but stand by him?
Ely Amery, in spite of his appearance of invincibility had fallen prey to the type of monster he'd freed with his glib tongue and persuasive politics.
Defending Jamie had not been wrong; distrusting his instincts had proved his mistake.
He'd done his best in the past, and his best was all he could give—to anyone.
He loved Fargate. He loved the people he served. And most of all, he loved Melinda.
"Hi!" Grady said when she opened the door. Genuine pleasure shone in her eyes. Small ripples of joy fluttered all the way to the soles of his feet.
"Hi!"
He hesitated at the threshold. "Can I come in?"
"Oh, please do." He walked into the room that was an extension of the outside, and she closed the door behind him. "Can I offer you some tea?"
"Please." His gaze trailed her every movement as she went to the kitchen and came back with a tray. He wanted to run his fingers through her hair, hold her tightly in his arms, make love with her until neither of them could move.
"It's over," Grady said. Melinda sat in the lone chair. He sat on the ottoman. Their knees touched, and warmth spread through his limbs. "All of it, except Kerry's trial. They found the knife she used in the river near where we found the gym bag. The lab tests proved the commingled blood on the clothes we found in the bag belonged to Kerry Merrill and Angela. We arrested her and she spilled her guts."
"Why did she do it?"
"She was having an affair with Mike. He kept putting off marrying her because of the band. She tried to persuade Angie to quit singing and honor the reverend's wishes. She thought that would settle Mike down. Even when she confessed her true motive, Angie refused, and Kerry snapped. She hadn't planned on killing Angie. She felt betrayed. It just happened. Then she had to make it go away."