“Violet says that’ll stop if she gets a man of her own. She says Ophelia projects too much if she’s not getting any. So when Ophelia called, naturally the first person I thought of was you.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to be flattered.”

  “Oh, no,” Jeanie laughed. “You may look like a romance hero, but you’re actually a pain in the patootie. We want you defeated. Roped and tied and helpless.”

  “I doubt if Ms. Beliveau’s into bondage,” Gideon said. “Listen, babe, did anybody follow Willy Wyler around?”

  Jeanie switched gears briefly. “Nope. He never showed up on the road to town, but I found out he has a gig at the Chamber tonight. Maybe he turned off through the golf course they’re building or one of the ritzy new subdivisions out there. That’s real close to Ophelia’s. You’re interested in her, huh?”

  “I’m sure every man who sees her is interested,” Gideon said discouragingly. “She has a ton of sex appeal. Well, gotta go.”

  “She won’t give you the time of day, right? Fabulous. You’ll have to go through hardship to win her. I can hardly wait to tell Art. Which reminds me.”

  Here we go. He closed his eyes and held the phone away from his ear, picked up his fork, and turned the steak. Women. He looked at the three female dogs gazing patiently and adoringly up at him. No nagging, and so easily satisfied. On the other hand, no sex appeal whatsoever.

  “If she does give you the time of day,” Jeanie was saying, “which she probably will sooner or later—although God knows why, because you’re so arrogant and obnoxious, and you’d better help that poor woman who’s being blackmailed—”

  “You are going somewhere with this, I hope?”

  “If she falls for you, Gideon, you’d better treat her right. Violet says she’s had bad experiences with men. Real bad.”

  “Jeanie, don’t think I don’t appreciate your efforts, but I’m comfortable being arrogant and obnoxious. Go find Ophelia some guy who’s in touch with his feminine side. I’m not the therapist type. I can’t even get through a phone call with my sister, much less a relationship with a woman who’s sworn off men.”

  “If you knew what she’d been through, you’d be more understanding,” Jeanie urged. “You keep saying you’ve lost your instincts for people, but it’s your own lazy fault. How can you relate to people if you never have relationships? It must be so lonely out there with just a bunch of dogs. Tell you what. I’ll find out all about her and let you know.”

  Gideon sighed. “Suit yourself, Jeanie. Gotta go.” He hung up and put the perfectly seared meat on a plate, and the three dogs clustered close, tongues hanging out. “No way I’m lonely.” He proceeded to share his steak.

  An hour later, he left the two old German shepherds, Daisy and Belle, to sleep off their meal in the shade of the river birch that dominated his back yard, and whistled Gretchen into the car. She was a good companion on patrol, pretty patient if left in the vehicle, friendly with kids, disarming to most adults.

  He turned out of his driveway onto the road and addressed his canine companion. “So, Gretchen, you’re the closest I have to a feminine side. How should I play this?”

  Gretchen turned her shaggy blonde face away and stared out the window.

  “It’s got to be a game. She played me the whole time. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy some of it, but still…it was definitely a game. The thing I don’t get is why. If she wanted me, she could have had me. If she didn’t, why suck me back in?”

  Gretchen lolled her tongue out the window.

  “She didn’t have to offer me a Coke,” he continued. “She didn’t have to tell me about the dead cat.”

  Gretchen brought her head inside and nipped at her matted flank.

  “Nervous as hell, too, but it’s not like I tried to jump her. Pretty much all I did was smile.” Gretchen snorted, and he said, “Most women like my smile. Should I try and impress her? And if so, how?”

  Gretchen hunched a shoulder and returned to the window.

  “What about the vandalism? Willy or his wife?”

  It doesn’t matter. You need to show Ophelia your caring, compassionate side. Unless you want to end up like your old man.

  Gideon squelched this thought as he did any suggestion, by himself or anyone else, that he resembled his father in anything other than build and hair color. He made a right off Highway 43, musing, “Lep says Willy’s been cheating on his wife since day one, and she doesn’t care as long as she’s got her house, her fancy car, and designer clothes for herself and her preppy kids. It’s not as if Ophelia’s interested in the jackass.”

  As he neared Ophelia’s place, Gideon’s pulse quickened—dumb, since she probably wouldn’t be home yet. He’d just drop by to see if the plaster cast was still there. Not that it mattered much, but if a woman could shake his composure to the extent that he forgot evidence, he needed to do some serious personal reevaluation. Or just have sex with her and get it over with.

  “Lep usually knows what he’s talking about,” he told Gretchen. “He also told me if I do anything to hurt Ophelia, Constantine will kill me slowly while he cheers him on.”

  Gretchen yawned.

  “And here I thought you cared. I guess that means I can’t just have sex with her and get it over with.” He scratched behind Gretchen’s right ear. “I wonder what she is to Constantine. I don’t like the idea of her having anything to do with him.”

  He slowed the Mercedes and turned into Ophelia’s driveway. A girl of twelve or thirteen, dressed in a chartreuse tank and cutoffs uncannily like Zelda’s but on a far more mature figure, whirled from a crouch in the wasted garden. A smaller girl cast in the same mold of creamy skin and blonde curls stood beside her. Trying his damnedest to look unthreatening, Gideon parked and got out. Gretchen lolloped over to the mud patch to say hello.

  “Meet Gretchen,” Gideon said.

  The younger Wyler sister smiled angelically and threw her arms around the dog’s neck, but the elder stared at Gideon, her lip wobbling. Jeez. The last thing he wanted was to scare her.

  “You want the plaster cast?” he asked. “Hold on, I’ll get a box for it out of my trunk so it won’t get broken.”

  Tears welled in the older girl’s eyes. “You don’t want it? You’re not gonna arrest my dad?”

  “Nah.” Gideon fetched a cardboard box, giving her time, praying she wouldn’t cry.

  “But…why not?”

  He smiled. “Ms. Beliveau doesn’t want me to.”

  The girl let out a shuddering sigh and fiddled with a pentagram on a gold chain against her chest. “Are you going to see Ophelia again?” The girl’s moist eyes pleaded with him.

  Hell, yes. “Sure.” Just don’t cry. “What’s your name?”

  “Joanna Wyler. That’s my sister.” Joanna fished a grubby tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. She scowled at the younger girl. “Connie, don’t rub your face all over that dog. That’s gross.”

  “Is not,” Connie retorted. “Come on, Gretchen. Come meet Psyche.”

  “Dummy,” Joanna said. “Psyche’s a cat. Dogs and cats don’t mix.”

  “Do too.” Connie skipped toward the trailer, and Gretchen trotted cheerfully beside her.

  Joanna said, “I’m not allowed to speak to Ophelia anymore. Tell her I’m really, really sorry, and can you give her this?” She fingered the delicate chain but didn’t remove it. “It’s Zelda’s. I found it in the driveway.” Her fingers gripped the pentagram, and she took a deep, longing breath. “I wish I could be Zelda. She’s so lucky. She’s so cool.”

  “Psyche!” Connie cooed at the edge of the house.

  The gray cat picked her way daintily from beneath the trailer, her yellow eyes lit on Gretchen, and she came to a complete stop. Stared. Took a few more steps, and Gretchen stretched forward, nostrils quivering. Elegantly, the two female animals touched noses. Psyche sidled past Gretchen’s leg and meowed at Connie.

  “Told you,” the child said. “Gretchen’s a girl. Psyche only hates boys.”

  Joanna’s chin wobbled. “See, I’m wrong again. I’m such a failure. Zelda’s never wrong. And her mom owns a club. I’ll never get to go to a club.”

  God help me, Gideon thought, she’s going to blubber.

  “And she doesn’t have these awful boobs,” Joanna wailed. “My life is so over.”

  Jesus. Gideon blinked at Joanna’s chest, which he had tried not to notice bulging in her too-small tank top. What the hell did you say to a kid? Nice rack? This was why he wasn’t a therapist. “There’s nothing wrong with your breasts.”

  The girl blushed. “I can’t do gymnastics anymore. They bounce too much, and the boys stare at me at school.” She blushed even more. Why had she picked him to unload on?

  Joanna hurried on, unstoppable. “It absolutely sucks. I wish I was skinny like Zelda. She can wear anything she wants. She can do anything she wants.”

  “Give Zelda time,” Gideon said. “Look at her mom and Ophelia.” Very nice racks. “Genetics will catch up with Zelda sooner or later.”

  “She won’t have to dress all preppy and boring,” Joanna continued bitterly. “How old is old enough to have sex?”

  Christ. Where were the girl’s parents? “When you’re grown up,” Gideon said sternly. “When you find some guy you love. You shouldn’t even be thinking about it now. Ignore the boys. They’re gonna look, ’cause that’s what boys do, but that’s all they should be doing for several more years.”

  “That’s what Ophelia said.” Tears glistened in the kid’s eyes. “She probably hates me now. Zelda hates me, too. Not that she was ever my friend, but now she’ll never speak to me again.” Resolutely, she pulled the necklace over her head. “Please take this to Ophelia. She can give it back to Zelda.”

  Gideon ignored her outstretched hand. “Why not give it to Zelda yourself when you see her at school? It’s not your fault your dad vandalized Ophelia’s place.”

  Joanna shook her head, lip wobbling. The tears rolled down her cheeks. Gideon dug in the side pocket of his Mercedes and handed Joanna a napkin. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

  “Listen,” Gideon said. “Ophelia doesn’t hate you, and Zelda won’t hold it against you.” Memory thwacked him with inspiration. “She understands what a bore it is to be a prep. Go talk to her.” Go cry all over her. This is why I avoid domestic calls. Give me a nice clean homicide any day. “You’ll see.”

  Joanna clutched the pendant dramatically to her chest as if it linked her to Zelda’s magic. Words tumbled out. “My dad didn’t do the cat thing, I promise. That was really creepy. He’d never do anything like that. Please make sure Ophelia knows.”

  “I’ll tell her,” said Gideon gently. “Any idea who might have done it?”

  Joanna shook her head. “No. No way. People like Ophelia. She’s so nice.” A spasm of misery crossed her face.

  Gideon squatted in the mud, picked up the now-dry plaster cast, and turned it upside down into the box. “Did your mom send you to get this?”

  Joanna nodded. “She’s all mad ’cause my dad went to buy tires we can’t afford. You’re not gonna arrest Ophelia either, huh? Because of the marijuana, I mean. My dumb dad planted it. He figured if she called the cops, they’d see it and arrest her. My mom told him that was stupid.”

  Yep, thought Gideon. “Ophelia might not be so forgiving if this happens again. Can we get your parents and Ophelia together to discuss it?”

  Panic flashed across Joanna’s face. “No! We gotta go.” A battered white van turned into the driveway two doors down. “Oh, no!” she moaned. “Did they have to show up now? I look awful when I’ve been crying!”

  Yep, thought Gideon again, eyeing the vaguely familiar young man emerging from the passenger door.

  “Joanna’s got a boyfriend,” Connie sang.

  “I do not.” Joanna scowled.

  A second man, several years older and with daggers tattooed on each arm, appeared around the front of the van. “That’s Burton Tate,” Gideon said.

  “You know him and his brother?” Joanna clasped her hands ecstatically in front of her breasts. “Aren’t they fabulous?”

  Nope. “I went to school with Burton,” Gideon said. “The kid’s his baby brother?”

  “Gabe,” Connie said. “Gabe’s a babe.”

  Joanna rounded on her sister. “Shut up!” She blew her nose fiercely. “Our dad has a gig with their band. At a club. It’s not fair!”

  The younger man noticed Joanna, waved, and grinned. Joanna turned brilliant red and waved shyly in return. The older brother stared for a second, then whacked Gabe on the shoulder and led him toward the house. A few seconds later the brothers returned carrying a guitar case and a battered cardboard box. That idiot Wyler had clearly forgotten his equipment.

  Gideon raised a hand to Burton, who nodded and swung back into the van. They drove off and Joanna said, “We better go home. Connie has gym class. Thanks for the plaster cast. It’ll calm my mom down. She’s a bit of a wreck right now.”

  Pathetic, thought Gideon, as he let Gretchen into the car and got in himself. He backed into the turnaround. Perfectly good kids stuck covering for stupid parents, trying to navigate puberty with no guidance at all. There were drugs involved, probably, but no way would he harass the children to find out.

  He took a right onto the road and an immediate left into the gravel drive of the only other neighbor for a good quarter mile. He watched in his rearview mirror as the Wyler girls trooped home, Joanna cradling the box, Connie running back to pet Psyche three times before finally catching up. At the end of the long drive, which led into the woods, Gideon pulled up before a single-wide trailer of the same vintage as Ophelia’s but in far worse repair. “You don’t need to go across there,” Donnie Donaldson had told him earlier. “Plato’s real weird, and he can’t see nothing from his place.”

  No vehicle stood before the house. Plato must have left already for the evening job Donnie had mentioned. Gideon strode up the steps to peer through the front door and knock. When no one answered, he turned his Mercedes around and rolled slowly back the way he had come.

  About thirty feet before the end of the drive, invisible from the road but in full view from where he sat, was a deer stand high up in an oak. Gideon put on the emergency brake and followed a well-used path to the base of the tree. A rope ladder lay coiled on a branch twelve feet over his head. Gideon circled the oak, found the end of a single rope a foot above his head, and reached up to pull it. The rope ladder tumbled obligingly down.

  The platform was tidy and bare but for a pair of rusty shears hanging on a nail. Thanks to careful pruning, the view of Ophelia’s place was damn near perfect.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Art paled. “How do you know about the blackmail?” Her dark eyes and strong features, familiar yet different on a female face, hardened with hostility.

  “Wow,” Ophelia blurted. “You are so obviously Gideon’s sister.”

  “Unbelievable!” Art fumed. “He’s been blabbing to one of his bimbo girlfriends!”

  Bimbo girlfriends? This was the kind of man who had finally caught her fancy? “I am not one of your stupid brother’s girlfriends,” Ophelia gritted out.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “My brother’s not stupid! The bimbos are.”

  Ophelia fought annoyance. “I only met him this afternoon.”

  “So what?” Art said. “I’ve been told he moves fast.”

  Ophelia could imagine. “Whatever he may have done with any number of bimbos, he didn’t blab anything to me.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “My garden got vandalized today, and they sent Gideon to check it out. I overheard him talking to you about someone being blackmailed.”

  “Wonderful.” Art threw up her hands and stomped across the lawn toward Andrea’s house.

  Ophelia gave chase. “What are you going to do about it?”

  Art whirled. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t help, so forget it.” She took the stairs two at a time, scooped a stray photo off the porch, and went inside.

  Ophelia followed. “Of course I can help. Lord, what a mess.”

  “I promised I’d clean up,” Art said. “It about killed Andrea to leave an untidy house.”

  “I’ll do the bedrooms.”

  Ophelia set to work without giving Art a chance to object. Sooner or later, she would feel compelled to get whatever it was off her chest. Women with screwed-up love lives couldn’t help confiding in vamps; it was one of the perks of the vampire gene. Not that Ophelia felt the least bit qualified to dispense advice, but blackmail she could deal with.

  Art banged and clattered at the kitchen sink, but gradually the clamor lessened and the aroma of coffee wafted through the house. Ophelia put a load of towels in the washer and went to the kitchen. Gideon’s sister slumped at the table over a mug of coffee, moodily gazing at a bowl of fruit. “It’s not fair.” She rearranged the apples and pears. “It’s not illegal to pose nude.”

  “No,” Ophelia encouraged her. “It isn’t.”

  “I modeled for the art school to make extra money, and some creep took pictures without me knowing.”

  Ophelia poured herself coffee. “Icky.”

  “I’m a high-school art teacher. He threatened to tell the principal.”

  “The principal can’t fire you for that.”

  “And send copies to all the male students at Bayou Gavotte High.”

  “Holy shit,” Ophelia said, and dropped into a chair.

  Art posed bunches of grapes over the apples. She took a long swallow of coffee and draped a banana along the side of the bowl.

  “Did Andrea pose, too?”

  “No!” A solitary apple remained on the table. Art took it in one hand and the stem in the other, and twisted until the stem came off. “Big Simon took a picture of her nursing little Simon. She’s naked and so is the baby. The blackmailer’s threatening to report her to Children’s Services.”

  “For what?”

  “Using her baby for sexual gratification.”

  “That’s crap!” Ophelia said. “They can’t take her kids away because of one perfectly innocent picture.”