by Deborah Camp
Perchance and Sunshine giggled and Rhema shook a finger at her friend.
“Quintara, you are a vamp,” Rhema declared.
Levi stepped closer and flung his arm around Quintara’s shoulders. “Come on. It’s this raging bull’s turn to be seduced by your considerable charms.”
After a dinner of wood-fired steaks, fluffy baked potatoes, Cesar salads, and a couple bottles of wine, they separated into their various modes of transportation and headed for Eureka Springs.
Alan, the designated sober driver, chauffeured his wife and daughter. Perchance had taken only a sip or two of wine because she intended to drive her and Sunshine back home. Quintara rode with Levi and Trudy and commanded the conversation, as usual. Thompson drove their car, followed by two other black automobiles containing the rest of the team.
“How is your other work going, Levi?” she asked “I believe you told me something about increasing your restoration contracts?”
“That’s right. We’re hiring a crew of builders now who are already trained in restoring masonry, terra cotta, wood, stone, tile, paint, wallpaper, marble, and every other type of surface found in buildings constructed at least one hundred years ago. We have the architects and interior designers on staff already. We’ve been using contract laborers. Now we’re hiring them as full-time employees.”
“That’s fascinating work. I would rather save the lovely, older buildings than see them bulldozed to make way for a parking garage,” Quintara said. “And I’m glad you’re working more with Levi’s charity, Trudy.”
“I’m enjoying it,” Trudy admitted, surprising even herself. She tucked one leg under her, getting more comfortable in the middle of the back seat with Levi and Quintara bookending her. “I like meeting and talking to the applicants. It’s been eye-opening. Most of the people I’ve met need simple things that many of us take for granted. Things like an air conditioner, to have their oven or refrigerator repaired or replaced, or to have the holes in the roof boarded up. It’s gratifying to be able to help them.”
“She’s doing a great job,” Levi said to Quintara. “And she’s taking a lot of work off my desk, which I appreciate.”
“But you won’t give up your psychic work, will you?” Quintara asked, worry knitting her brows.
“No, we won’t,” Trudy answered for them. “Mainly because we can’t. It’d be like saying we were too busy to sleep. It’s going to happen, no matter what.”
“I’m so glad you understand that now, dear. Fighting the inevitable is a waste of your time and talent.” Quintara beamed at Trudy, but then her smile faded. “Do either of you have any notion of who is killing our friends?”
“Not really,” Trudy said. “Although I believe it’s a woman.”
“Really? I’m fixated on Chason being the culprit,” Quintara said.
“Chason? Why? What’s his motive?”
“He’s eliminating the competition. I never believed that someone tried to run him down. I think he made that up to make people see him as a victim instead of the perpetrator.”
“Why would he want to kill Billy? Billy’s not psychic.”
“No, but he’s flirted with Perchance and Sunshine. Chason has shown an interest in both of them.”
Trudy scoffed at that. “I can’t imagine that Chason would give two hoots about that. He has plenty of women. But, hey, you could be on the right track. The police could be preparing to arrest him this very moment for all we know.”
“It’s not Chason. Unfortunately,” Levi said, nudging Trudy and grinning. “These crimes have a woman’s touch. And I’m sure that whoever killed Glenn and the others also tried to kill Billy.”
Trudy gazed at the pasture land passing by the windows. Holstein cattle grazed in patches of shade provided by spreading elms. Dandelions, Black-eyed Susans, and purple thistle grew abundantly along the roadside. “I agree,” she murmured and the validity of it sat comfortably within her. Besides, Ethel had confirmed it for her.
By the time they reached the outskirts of Eureka Springs, Levi wore a dark scowl and seemed tense, even grumpy. They dropped Quintara off at Alan and Rhema’s house. The two men hired to shadow Quintara parked in the driveway, settling in for the night. The other car, bearing Levi and Trudy’s security team, followed them to the Belladonna Cottage.
The cottage, named for the hundreds of “naked lady” or belladonna amaryllis surrounding it, was only a few minutes from the center of Eureka Springs, but it seemed rural. A Zen garden created a serene atmosphere. Inside, bright, rich hues of teal and brick red greeted them. Handwoven rugs spread across the polished, wood floors and original oils decorated the walls. White furniture gave the décor a light, casual feeling. The suite included a full kitchen and a deep, claw-footed tub in the bathroom with a handheld “European” shower head.
“You’ve outdone yourself,” Trudy said, dropping her overnight satchel so that she could loop her arms around Levi’s neck. She kissed his lips, trying to urge them into a smile. “This place is wonderful. I think I like it even better than the treehouse.”
“I’m glad.” He kissed her nose, then moved away from her to set their luggage on the rack beside the four-poster, double bed with its sheer white curtains that could be drawn around it like mosquito netting. “Very girly.”
“Very romantic,” Trudy corrected him. She carried her overnight satchel into the adjoining bathroom. “We should both get into this tub. It’ll be fun.”
“Don’t you mean, it will be cramped?”
“No. Fun.” She set cosmetics, hair brushes, toothbrushes, Levi’s razor and shaving cream, and some other odds and ends on the vanity. “You’re brooding. Why?”
He leaned a shoulder against the door frame. “I’m not brooding. I’ve told you before. This isn’t my favorite place to be. We’ll have to drive back to Fayetteville. I think that’s where we should have stayed. Not here.”
While his argument was sound, she wasn’t buying it. “There’s more to it.” Tipping her head to one side, she examined him more carefully, noting the shadows in his eyes and the tense set of his mouth and jaw. “What is it, Levi? Why can’t we talk about it?”
He stared down at his shoes for what seemed like a full minute before he shoved away from the door. “I need to pee. Do you mind?”
She edged past him, giving him his privacy. Touring the cottage and reading the pamphlet about it, she learned that it consisted of two private suites. The one they were in was called the “garden level” and the one above them was “street level.” Theirs had a patio that overlooked the gardens and an outdoor Jacuzzi that she doubted she and Levi would use. Included was an “organic” Continental breakfast with coffee and tea in the morning. She checked out the kitchen. The refrigerator had a bucket of chipped and cubed ice, water bottles, and a pitcher of orange juice. There were dishes in the cupboards, but nothing to eat except for a basket on the table filled with apples, oranges, a couple of bananas and pears.
She selected one of the pears and went out to the patio. The guards’ car was parked on the street, but within view of the cottage. She pointedly ignored them to concentrate on the lightning bugs that were putting on a show. Sitting on the comfortable glider, she propped her feet on the wooden coffee table and enjoyed the spectacle and her pear. It had been ages since she’d watched lightning bugs and it made her feel like a kid again. She and Sadie had made a game of capturing the glowing insects and carefully placing them in glass jars, topped with metal caps that had “breathing” holes punched into them. Once they had a dozen or so bugs, they’d watch them light up the jar before letting them all fly free again and disappear into the night sky.
“Glow worms. Fireflies. They are neither, actually. They’re beetles,” Levi said, coming outside and sitting beside her on the glider.
She smiled. “I’m not the least bit surprised that you would know that. The amount of stuff you keep in your brain staggers me.” She handed him the rest of her pear and he finished it off in three bites
before dropping the core into a small waste basket near him.
“There was a boy in one of the places I was at as a kid who would catch them and rip off their backends.”
“Oh, my God!” Trudy edged away from him, horror-struck. “Why?”
“Because he was an evil, twisted, little shithead.” Levi gave an indolent shrug. “Did you know that the chemical in them that creates the light is called luciferin? That’s from the Latin for Lucifer. The kid said they were devil lights and he mauled every one he could catch. I guess he thought he was doing God’s work.”
“Good Lord.” Trudy shuddered. “And they thought you were the devil child?” She turned sideways a little to fling an arm over his middle and rest her cheek against his shoulder. Almost automatically, he ran his palm up and down her back. Breathing in the bracing, lemony-lime scent she associated with him, she wrestled with her tender emotions. When she thought of him as a child, tossed from one hellish place to the next by heartless parents, she couldn’t get close enough to him. She wanted to hug him tightly and kiss the scars on his soul. “Being here, stirs up bad memories for you. I’m just not sure why.”
“Here? You mean, this cottage?”
“No. This town.”
“Oh.” He fell quiet, letting the night music overtake them as they watched the glowing dance against the deep purple backdrop. Crickets, cicadas, tree frogs, even the hoot of an owl serenaded them.
“Levi?” she ventured as she glanced up to be sure he hadn’t dozed off. He stared straight ahead, but she wasn’t sure he was seeing the garden. Blinking away whatever had shrouded his mind, he met her gaze briefly.
“My mother was from this area.”
Her breathing shallowed as more pieces of the puzzle that was Levi Wolfe slid into place. “She lived in Eureka Springs?”
“No. Her people were from War Eagle. Not far from here. Her father had a saw mill.”
“Did you know them?”
“No. I heard about them, though. I don’t recall how or when, but at some point she must have told me about growing up in the wilds of the Ozarks.”
“You feel her presence strongly when you’re here?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
He sighed, his chest rising and falling under her cheek. “Yes.”
“That’s why you felt her at the séance when we were here before.”
“I suppose that’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” When he didn’t answer her, she glanced up through her lashes and could swear that she saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes. She sat up, confirming that he was, indeed, emotional. Shocked to see him coming apart, she rested her hand against his cheek and stared into his glimmering eyes. “You squared your feelings about your mother in that session with Dr. McClain, right?”
A self-deprecating laugh tumbled from him. “I squared my feelings about my mother? I wish it were that easy.” He clasped her hand and brought it away from his face and back to his chest. “I’ve told you, Trudy, that just because I’m working through all these . . . these issues dealing with my past, it doesn’t mean I’m cured. I’ll always have some degree of PTSD.”
“I understand that. But I thought you’d made progress where your mother is concerned and that you’d come to grips with her inability to love you the way you deserved to be loved.”
“I have.” He nodded, lost in his thoughts for a few moments. “But it’s not easy to accept, you know?” He laughed again and this time it was full of irony. “No, you wouldn’t.” He patted her hand. “You, who are adored by your mother and father. Their love for you is so obvious that, at times, I don’t know how to take it all in.” He closed his red-rimmed eyes for a moment. “How being loved like that must feel . . .”
“You know how it feels because that’s how much I love you.” She wrapped her arms around him and held him fast. “I love you with all my heart, Levi, with everything I have in me.”
He embraced her and kissed the top of her head. “Oh, baby.” He sounded a little choked up. “You exalt me and I don’t think that I’ll never feel worthy of your love.”
She enjoyed being close to him and listening to the steady thrum of his heart. The stars burned brightly in the indigo sky. They seemed so near, so sharp, like bits of glass. His hold on her loosened, little by little. Finally, he drew in a deep breath, and she held hers because she knew he was finally going to speak from the tortured part of him.
“All these years, I’ve held onto wisps of memories. Tiny, tracts of time of being with her. Good times. Normal times. Coming home from school and having milk and cookies waiting for me. Her reading to me before I went to sleep each night.”
“What books did she read to you?”
“I don’t remember . . . oh, wait. The Bible. That’s the only book she ever read, I bet. Her voice was whispery soft. I fell asleep with her voice in my ears. Those are the little pieces I clung to like a junkie clutching the last of his dime bag. Pathetic, really.”
“No,” she cooed, smoothing the flat of her hand across his chest. “Of course, you’d hold on to those memories.”
“It wasn’t healthy. I used them as shields against all of the times when she turned away from me, refused to hear me or see me. They were my blinders to who she actually was – a woman who abandoned me to please her husband.”
Anger and pity shoved up through her and clutched her throat with a cold hand. Trudy swallowed the knot forming there and felt tears burn her eyes.
“The bad memories bombard me when I’m here. I’m usually successful at not allowing them to creep back into my mind.”
“Which bad memories?” Trudy ventured, hoping he’d open up more to her.
He pushed out a sigh of frustration. “When I’d call home. Those calls hurt the worst. Worse than being beaten or shoved into a hole with rats or being pissed on and kicked. Worse than all the rest of it. My father would usually answer the phone and I’d ask him to put Mother on. Sometimes he would. I knew I’d get nowhere with him, but I always held out hope that I’d be able to reach Mother and that she’d insist that I be allowed to come home.”
“But she never relented when you asked to come home,” she noted, her heart aching for him.
“Asked? I fucking begged. I pleaded. I cried. I told them about the abuse being meted out to me and that I was scared and hated being there. Then I’d end up screaming and cussing and throwing a fit because I knew it was useless. I wasn’t going anywhere. Other than maybe a different hellhole they’d found to put me in.”
“What did she say when you begged and cried?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She’d listen, I guess, and then she’d hang up. Or she’d give the phone to my father and he’d say something like, ‘May God have mercy on your soul,’ and then he’d hang up.”
She gritted her teeth against the scream building inside of her. “Frankly, I think it’s remarkable that you held onto any good thoughts about her. She was as monstrous as your father.”
He breathed deeply and his heart picked up its pace. “The thing is, Tru, a child wants to love his or her parents. It’s embedded in our DNA. No matter what happens, no matter how we’re treated by them, we make excuses and cling to the hope that they will change and that they’ll love us back. Even when a child declares hatred for his parents. What he’s saying is that he hates that his parents aren’t who he needs them to be. But he still harbors love for them. That flame, however tiny, never dies.”
“You still love them?” Trudy closed her eyes and tears leaked from the corners. Her heart swelled painfully with remorse for his lost childhood.
“I suppose, in a warped way, I do. That insatiable need to be loved by the people who brought you into this world is hard to shake. I accepted by father’s renunciation, but it’s been more difficult with her. I painted her as being a victim who couldn’t help me, although she wanted to.” His sigh shook with emotion. “When I’m here where she grew up, where her parents raised her and, I assume, loved her,
I’m haunted by her callous abandonment of me. It’s like I’m wearing a ten-ton cloak.”
“She wasn’t a victim. She made choices. The wrong choices. A coward’s choice.” She pushed up from his embrace to focus on his broken, lost-boy expression. “She could have done something to help you. She should have. But she chose not to. She’s as complicit as your father is in the horrors you endured and how they’ve affected you.”
A lightning bug flew close to them, inches from Levi’s nose. He smiled, flinched, and the insect soared away into the night. Levi hummed a tune.
“Hey!” Trudy sat up to look at him. “That’s the song about lightning bugs, isn’t it?”
He nodded, and sang some of it to her. “See how the shadows deepen and darken? You and your chick should get to sparkin’.” He kissed her nose and finished singing the verse. “I got a gal that I love so. Glow little glow-worm, glow.”
She grinned. She loved her Mister Moody Blues – the way he could sail from wallowing in horrible memories to making her laugh in the space of a minute. “See? The breadth of your knowledge is staggering.”
His next kiss was on her lips, taking her breath and making her achy heart trip over itself. His mouth moved to her temple, her cheek, back to her lips. “Let’s get to sparkin’,” he murmured, then moved her aside so that he could stand. Without another word, but with a look that sent fiery need blazing through her, he gathered her up into his arms and carried her inside to the four-poster bed.
That night they made sparks fly.
Chapter 16
Joshua Longfeather lived in a cabin deep in the woods outside of Eureka Springs. When he called to ask them to join him for a fish fry dinner at his place, he emailed Levi detailed directions of how to find it.
Sitting in the front seat of their rented car, Trudy read off the directions as Levi drove. Behind them, their security guards, Thompson and Beckell, followed in another car. Levi turned off the main highway to a paved road that snaked through a tract of land where a dozen or so modern houses had been built before giving way again to pasture land and dense woods. The directions told them to look for a mailbox made out of an “old slop bucket.” Trudy wasn’t sure what that would be, but when they approached a splotchy blue tin bucket with a lid, stuck on top of a post, she told Levi to slow down. Someone had painted P.O. Box in red on the side of the bucket. Under that were the numbers 48221, and under that, “Old Post Road.”