Garden of Bone: Book 6, page 16
To have the woman show up now with a wolf in tow—and one not related to Cabot in any way—was so strange. The entire week had been strange, and Darcelle did not like it. It seemed the whole mess had started the first moment this Eleri had set foot into her shop. Was Eleri Eames to blame for everything that was going wrong?
Turning now, seeing that Eleri and Donovan had followed her and that they still looked at her strangely, Darcelle put her back to the front door and crossed her arms and stared at the two of them. Then, she turned her focus to the smaller one.
"Why did you come into my shop?" she asked, anger simmering at the back of her words. They had messed up all of her plans.
The woman started to shrug, a far too casual gesture for the conversation at hand. Then she replied, "I truly don't know. I was walking down the street. I saw your sign. So I came in to see what you had."
"You crossed the street to come into my shop. You jay-walked to come in here," Darcelle pointed out.
She remembered seeing the woman beeline for her front door. Her first thought had been, Excellent. A dedicated customer! But as soon as the door had swung open, she'd seen something else in Eleri's face, something she couldn't define. She’d politely said, "Hello," and waited, knowing that this one was different. She still said none of this to the two standing in front of her, but once again merely waited for the winds of this conversation to shift without her. When neither of her visitors spoke, she had to turn the sails herself.
"What you are suggesting," she said, jabbing a finger to make her point, "is that you came into my shop on a whim and then turned around and went down the street to my home, also on a whim. Once there, you passed a secured gate with ease, walked into my protected space in the courtyard, and dug a human bone out. And then got yourself spelled."
Eleri looked at her and blinked. "That's pretty much the order of it," she agreed, still far too casually for Darcelle’s boiling anger.
"Did you walk straight to my home when you left here?" she asked.
"Pretty much," Eleri said.
Darcelle wondered if the woman had walked the same path as she. Had she connected with Darcelle in the shop and then followed directly along that line? It was plausible, if the two had connected, that Eleri would feel the thing that pulled Darcelle home every day. Plausible, she thought—but that didn't mean she liked it. She felt her eyes narrow again and could not stop the sweep of emotion that she felt cross her face.
"What led you there?" she demanded again, fighting the urge to pace or yell or even breathe too heavily. Though the woman did not respond openly, this time, Darcelle caught the slightest flare. Interestingly enough, the same flare caught light in the wolf's eyes, too.
Donovan reacted to that question—though, apparently, he had not been with Eleri Eames that day. Darcelle had not seen him. Though the Eleri woman shook her head back and forth, she lied. She would not tell Darcelle what had taken her to the home, but something had. She'd followed the path or someone had led her there.
Had Lafae or Gisele come near the shop and picked this Eleri out for some purpose? They likely would not have told her if they had. Darcelle didn’t like that idea either, but she also didn’t like throwing her lot in with her sisters. Perhaps they had recognized the Eames woman the same way that Darcelle did on some deep, inner level. Darcelle still had no idea what that was about.
Another option that came to mind was that this whole mess had something to do with Alesse. Alesse had still been home that day. Maybe she’d stalked the Eames woman and sparked something, something that got the house tossed and made Alesse disappear. Darcelle changed her direction. "What do you know of Alesse?"
Eleri shook her head. The Donovan man was not speaking at all. The wolf stood still, sniffing at her, holding court, and offering backup for his small friend.
"I don't know anything of Alesse," Eleri said. "I didn't know she existed until you mentioned her. Who is she?"
"My older sister," Darcelle said.
Once again, Eleri shook her head and shrugged. She was clearly trying not to offer up anything she didn't have to.
"Why did you react?" Darcelle pushed, for the Eleri woman and Donovan man had both reacted to her statement. This time, it appeared Eleri thought for just a moment—but when she answered, it was not what Darcelle expected.
"Darcelle, you have to understand. You, and now your sisters, are tied to some very strange things."
She pointed back over her shoulder into the other room.
"The knife on the counter back there is made from human bone. Did you know that?"
Darcelle did know that. She didn't blink, though, and as she stood her ground, she realized perhaps she should have. Perhaps she should have played dumb, but she wasn't fast enough on her feet to make that happen.
Eleri used that lack of reaction to move forward into Darcelle’s space. But Darcelle didn’t give ground. Eleri Eames did not want to go up against her. She might be in this shop and she might be stuck under her Momma’s thumb still, but she was not one to be trifled with.
Eleri spoke evenly. "Your sisters put spells on me. I don't know why I went from your shop to your home," though, again, something in Eleri's eyes told of the lie behind the words. Whether it was true or not, her explanation wasn't complete.
Eleri spoke one more time. "You say your sister is missing. Well, so is mine."
That grabbed Darcelle. Had Eleri's sister gone missing the same time as Alesse? Did the two know each other? Was that perhaps what had brought Eleri into the shop, and then all the way down the street through the several turns that would lead her to the courthouse home? She started to ask the question, but Eleri interrupted.
"My sister has been missing for twenty-one years."
Darcelle felt the impact of those words. She felt it hit her, pass right through her skin, and shock her to her very bones. She wanted to ask more questions. Why had Eleri come with a wolf this time? She had no idea, but she did know one thing. She turned to the two, putting the force of all nature behind her voice.
"You need to leave my shop right now."
32
Though outwardly he was calm, inside his chest, Donovan's heart pounded. What appeared to be a casual conversation was scaring the shit out of him.
The shop with the human bone had seemed an anomaly, the house was weird—but the connection between the two was stunning.
When Eleri had commented about her missing sister, Darcelle had turned pale and ordered the two of them to leave immediately. They’d complied, Eleri holding her head high. Donovan hadn’t aimed for decorum, but to keep his hand close to his gun and be ready for any sudden change in the air.
He’d seen Eleri in action before and he had no doubt that Darcelle could do as much as—if not much, much more than—his partner could. Darcelle Dauphine worked in a shop called Mystic Vudu. Though he couldn’t feel whatever vibes the dolls and spells gave off like Eleri could, he could feel that they were creepy. He could also tell that the shop didn’t cater to idiots. Tourists, maybe, but the woman didn’t sell crap on her shelves. That scared him maybe a little more than the rest of it. If Darcelle wanted to try anything, she was sitting on a powder keg.
He and Eleri sat in the car for a moment before Eleri turned the key. She was the one to drive, being more familiar with the city than he. She turned down the street and, without addressing his major concern, she said, "I'm going to head to the Dauphine home now."
He put his hand on hers, effectively stopping her from turning the steering wheel before they started down a path they weren’t ready for. "No. Not right now."
Eleri blinked.
He said what he could to sway her from her plans. "One, there's every possibility that Darcelle is on the phone to her sisters right now, warning them that you are on the way. Two, she also now knows that you are bringing someone like me. Apparently, her family is involved with others of my kind here. Three, given the percentage of wolves in New Orleans, versus the percentage of Lobomau, it's more likely than not that the wolves they're with are Lobomau. I am not prepared to deal with any of that. Are you?”
He waited just a heartbeat, and then dove in again. “What if there's more than one? You already said there are two sisters, and now with Darcelle, there are three. With Alesse, there are four. Are there more? Darcelle is strong. I cannot imagine ticking off four of her."
Eleri shook her head, not to answer his questions, but because she didn’t know the answers. He removed his hand from hers, now allowing her to make turns and to drive where she wished. He still hoped that, with his input, she would make a different decision.
"We don't know enough to go there. Not yet." He said it softly this time. If he went to the Dauphine home, he wanted to be as ready as he could be, though he doubted that would even be possible.
"So, where do we go?" she asked.
"Somewhere new. Somewhere neither of us has been before. We talk and we regroup."
Eleri nodded. She drove the car out of the French Quarter, away from the Lower Ninth Ward and into more residential areas. She drove through the neighborhoods and out the other side. It was a bit of a challenge, with the roads bumped and buckled from the damage of Hurricane Katrina. In other places, they were smoothed as though brand new. It felt almost as if there was nothing in between the extremes.
They drove past stately homes that showed almost no damage and poorer ones that still showed some, though few houses stood as obvious testaments to the hurricane, the way some did in her Grandmere's neighborhood.
Eventually, Eleri came to an area with a small bodega next to a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop and she parked the car.
"I don't know about you," she said, "but I could go for a soda."
“Me, too. It’s hotter than blazes,” Donovan agreed. Perhaps they could walk the street and make a decision. They were far away from everything associated with the Dauphines, and he hoped they could speak freely here.
The streets appeared relatively empty; no one should be picking up on their conversation. Still, they stayed quiet as they stepped inside, ordered large drinks, and took them out where they inhaled them quickly as the outsides of the plastic cups sweated down their hands.
Donovan spoke first. "There are thousands of Lobomau in this city, Eleri. It's insane, but there are literally thousands of them." He thought about the overall population and wondered if that number was really a cause for concern.
Eleri, having met Cabot, made him think it probably was.
Eleri started them off with a long-suffering sigh and the two launched into their usual co-brainstorming, where they each just threw facts onto the table.
Eleri threw the first one. "Darcelle clearly knows that the knife has a human bone handle. She knows what's in her shop. She's not a random curator getting these things from other people. There's a reasonable possibility she and her sisters make her wares themselves."
Donovan agreed. "They're also Dauphines, and that's one of the names your grandmother used."
"Actually," Eleri said "it's the only name my grandmother used, aside from our own. And the sisters recognized me as a Remy yesterday."
Seeming to think more like the agent he now was, Donovan offered up, "Well, we can arrest Darcelle Dauphine for trafficking in human artifacts."
Eleri smiled. "I suspect there's more than just that knife, though that was the only human artifact I found in the shop."
Donovan switched the subject and threw out another fact. "You are closely related to the other young woman who was missing."
"Second cousins," Eleri said.
"Close enough," he replied. They walked further down the street, having moved several blocks away from the car.
"We need to learn everything we can about the Dauphine family," Eleri said.
"Yes." Donovan nodded. "We need two major sources. One, we need Grandmere. She knows a lot, and two, we need the FBI database just in case Grandmere is misinformed."
Eleri nodded slowly but her eyebrows rose, indicating that she had not really considered that. Clearly, she was glad Donovan had. Grandmere knew the Remy family history. Apparently, she knew it from being a Hatfield to the Dauphines’ McCoys.
According to Eleri, it was entirely plausible—as Grandmere had once pointed out—that the family stories were wrong. Still, the stories, whatever they were—whatever myths or legends the two sides were operating from—were just as important.
"I'm curious as to where this Alesse has disappeared to as well," Eleri said. "Apparently, she just didn’t come home the other night. From what little I gathered, the house was ransacked or something."
She asked if Donovan had gotten the same impression, and he nodded that he had. So perhaps looking into Alesse Dauphine's history might yield a little something more. He added it to the mental list he was tallying.
"I want to go back to the courtyard," she said. "I'm curious about what the two of us can dig up, literally."
"Not today," he said, this time not suggesting any more. He still didn’t like the thought, but the more ideas the two of them tossed around, the more he realized visiting the home was an inevitable necessity. "They're expecting us today. In fact, they’re expecting us at any moment. We need to wait, at least until tomorrow, or maybe even a few days. And we need to plan on going when none of them are home—if we can figure out when that might be."
Eleri seemed to think on that for a moment, Donovan could tell she was considering everything from spells to tear gas to drive them out. Perhaps even a warrant, but that seemed a little extreme. So far, he hadn’t seen the need to pull his badge. According to Eleri, she’d not let that little tidbit about her occupation slip, either. So, unless Darcelle Dauphine had some other method of looking into online databases that he wasn't aware of, she did not yet know the two people in her shop were federal agents. Official capacity or not, Donovan was quite certain it was something Darcelle would find interesting.
As they turned and headed back to the car, Donovan suggested putting a wireless hot spot in Grandmere's house. Eleri merely raised one eyebrow. "Grandmere is not a fan of wireless."
"Well," he shrugged, not liking the alternatives. "I suggest we ask, because our other option is to go somewhere like the library, or a café, and you know how easily those connections can be hacked by proximity."
Eleri was starting to agree that they should at least ask Grandmere—obviously, they wouldn't do it without her permission—when someone bumped her shoulder on the sidewalk. Something in her eyes changed, and as Donavan watched the exchange almost in slow motion, his brain caught up. His nostrils had flared. He’d not gotten a good glimpse at the guy, but he suddenly felt things fall into place. The man had been following the two of them.
Why hadn’t he noticed it before? How had he let it slide so badly? He could smell the man! He had been behind them. Donovan had known that, but he'd brushed it off. Obviously, so had Eleri.
Whatever hunches they had—whatever sense of scent he possessed or intuition Eleri might have had—it had all been disregarded, and so had their standard Quantico training. Now, with the shoulder bump, it all came into play, suddenly blooming in his mind as an obvious conclusion.
Donovan turned and whispered down at her as he sniffed the air one last time. "Lobomau."
33
Eleri and Donovan returned to Grandmere's to find Eleri's great-grandmother flinging the door open wide to meet them, a worried expression on her face.
Eleri wondered if maybe this visit hadn't put that fold in Grandmere’s brows permanently. She had not planned on involving her great-grandmother in this hunt. In fact, she’d barely even mentioned it, saying only that she wanted to visit and stay at her house. She'd known she'd be welcome. Now she almost wished Grandmere hadn't been so ready to open her doors. Look what Eleri had brought to her doorstep.
Grandmere had even looked left and right before closing the door behind them, as though she were checking for some kind of threat coming down the street.
This case had gotten away from her, Eleri thought. It was so much bigger than she had intended it to be. She sat back on the couch as a loud sigh escaped her. A second later, Donovan plopped down next to her. They looked like wayward teenagers who’d been out too late, even though it was only four in the afternoon.
Grandmere came and sat in front of her, nearly staring her great-grandchild down and then looking the two over as if for cuts and bruises.
"Grandmere, I'm sorry," Eleri started, but she got no further.
Grandmere interrupted her. "Were you followed?" Grandmere was paying no attention to Eleri's apology.
"No," Donovan spoke up confidently. "You have no idea the circles we drove in to make sure that didn't happen, but we were not followed."
Eleri noticed, even if Donovan didn't, that while he was confident they had not been followed, he was also conveying the information that he was confident someone was trying.
Grandmere nodded, looking back and forth between the two of them, and Eleri tried for her apology again, "Grandmere, perhaps Donovan and I should leave."
"No." Again, the woman wouldn’t even listen to the suggestion, but Eleri held her hand up.
"Hear me out. I did not intend to bring this to your doorstep. I thought when I came—" She was surprised that her throat clogged up a little bit. The words were harder to get out than she'd imagined. "I thought when I came that I would go to the branch office, and that the DNA testing would tell me the bones that I had followed to New Orleans belonged to Emmaline. I thought I would go to where they'd been found and dig up whatever information I could."
Grandmere nodded slowly, this time seeming to absorb the words.
“Did you know that's why I came, Grandmere?"
Grandmere nodded again, though her words were slightly different than her acquiescence. "Yes, though I know you've come several times over the years. And that you've gone around the city looking for clues. But as I understand it, in the past, you never truly found anything."
