Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (30 page)

I stood there as he held me, and tried. “I—” But the quick rush of oxygen obliterated my words, and I sagged forward, coughing.

“Don’t try to talk.”

I looked up at him standing against the fire consuming the church, and felt the loss slice in places I’d never felt before. His hand came up, as if to ease the hair from my face, but fell back before contact.

“You need to sit down,” he said, easing me back to the grass. It was cool and damp, should have been refreshing. “I’m going to get you some help—”

I reached for him, again lifting a hand to his face, this time to slide that dark fall of hair from his eyes.

Wincing, he stepped away.

“Need a medic!” he shouted, as I absolutely refused to let another tear fall. And then he was backing away as I sat there, not looking away but not stopping, either, shouting until his voice registered over the insanity, and a figure ran from the parking area.

Everything switched to slow motion as the woman recalled me and dropped to her knees, lifting her hands to my face. “Oh, sweet girl—are you okay?”

I blinked short blond hair and kind brown eyes into focus. “I—I think so.”

She leaned closer, sliding the hair from my face. “Oh, just look at you, you sweet thing.” Glancing over her shoulder, she waved at a uniformed man running toward us.

Dylan was gone.

“Twice in one day,” she said. “It’s too much.”

I didn’t understand. “Twice in one day?”

Her eyes were so kind, but so incredibly sad. “I can’t believe you were even able to get out of bed, not after the way you were this morning.”

“W-what?”

“After accidents like that, it’s usually a good day or two before you’re able to get up and around.”

I tried to swallow again. This time it didn’t work. “Y-you … were there?”

Her smile was gentle. “
Mais petite chat,
you don’t remember?”

I shook my head and sent the world spinning all over again.

“
Mais non,
me, I’m not surprised,” she said. “You were pretty out of it when I got you cleaned up.”

“You … cleaned me up?”

She smiled. “Someone had to,
cher
. You were like a drowned rat when Little Jim carried you in, all soaked to the bone and shaking, mumbling…”

Little Jim?

Dylan hadn’t mentioned a word about anyone else. “W-who are you?” I asked, lifting a hand to finger my temple.

I would have sworn it didn’t hurt anymore.

“Lena Mae,” she said as if that explained everything. “Lena Mae Robichaud. I run the hotel. My husband Oscar is the sheriff.” Then her eyes warmed, and the illusion of anonymity crumbled. “I’ve known Little Jim’s daddy …
forever
.”

*   *   *

The paramedics gave me oxygen. While I sat they examined me, checking my heart and my lungs, making sure I had no burns, until finally they released me to the sheriff.

He questioned me. A lot. He wanted to know who I was and what I was doing in Belle Terre, why I’d been at the gallery in the middle of the night.

I was pretty sure he didn’t like my answers.

By the time his wife brought me back to the hotel for a shower, the sun was about to rise.

And Dylan had never returned.

After mixing a pouch of cocoa powder with hot water, Lena Mae crossed to where I sat on a small old sofa. “Here, drink this.”

I curled my hands around the mug, savoring the warmth—but when I brought the liquid to my mouth, I still tasted the aftermath of smoke.

I wanted to go to my room. I wanted to be alone. But Jim Fourcade’s friend had insisted I come eat at her continental breakfast.

It was pretty obvious she’d been instructed not to leave me alone.

“You’re exhausted,” she said, piling apples and bananas and grapes onto a plate next to pastries. “As soon as Little Jim gets back, I want you back in that room—”

“He’s not coming back.”

She stopped and turned. “Of course he is,” she said as the desk phone rang. “He asked me to keep an eye on you while he took care of something.”

I put down the mug as she answered, looking away when she turned her back to speak in hushed tones.

Beyond the picture window, the sun was beginning to rise, and the town of Belle Terre was coming awake to the news that the historic church that had withstood two centuries, countless hurricanes, even the ultimate insult of desecration, was gone.

Just like Dylan.

I’m not sure how I knew, a feeling mostly, something raw inside me. I’d seen the way he looked at me and backed away—exactly like that night at Big Charity.

History, I knew. It repeated itself over and over again.

Until what? I wanted to scream.
Until what?

“There’s more, isn’t there?” I asked when Lena Mae set the phone down next to a pitcher of orange juice. Perched up against the wall, news played from a New Orleans station, but the volume was too low to make out words.

“It’s Philippe,” she said. “He was found at his house.”

“Found? Is he—”

She knotted her hands. “No—no. They’re transporting him to New Orleans.”

“But … how?”

“His house was ransacked. Looks like he walked in at the wrong time.”

But I knew that wasn’t true, just as I knew the fire had been neither random nor accidental. Someone had been there first. Someone had removed the portraits. Someone had—

The memory came with a blur of movement from the parking lot. The sketchbook …

I blinked and tried to remember. I’d had it in my hands when I’d spun around to find the door closed. I’d tucked it under my arm when I’d dropped to my knees and started to crawl. But after that …

The bell on the door jangled.

Absently I looked up—and—the rest of the thought fell away.

TWENTY-NINE

“Trinity!”

Before I could breathe, Chase was at my side and dropping to his knees in front of me, pulling me into his arms. “T,” he muttered, running his hands along my back.
“You’re okay
.
”

So much hit me at once. I was vaguely aware of sinking against him as Detective LaSalle strode into the lobby, of the way Lena Mae was looking at me like I was doing something very wrong, of the numbness spreading deeper.

“God.”
Chase pulled back to frame my face. “What happened?”

“There was a fire,” I whispered, even though I was pretty sure he already knew that.

The blue of his eyes was so dark. “What were you doing—”

“Trinity,” Detective LaSalle said, crossing to us. “Does this have anything to do with Grace?”

How like a cop to cut right to the chase. “How did you know? How are you even here?”

“Got a call after you were pulled from the fire,” he said. “Told me I’d better come down and get you.”

It was all so very anonymous.

Someday the spinning would stop, I told myself. Someday the ride would end and I would climb off, stand firm on ground that did not rock, in a world that did not tilt, with trees that did not laugh, and a sun that did not strobe.

Until then, I rocked back, looking from LaSalle, to Chase. And my eyes filled. “Take me home,” I whispered, diving back into his arms. “Please take me home.”

*   *   *

I undid the locks. Chase opened the door. I walked inside the condo and deactivated the security system.

Chase closed the door behind us.

“Delphi?” I called, pretending everything was normal. “Kitty, kitty…”

“Trinity.”

I stood with my back to him, staring dry-eyed through the window at the blanket of gray covering the city. The sun had risen, but thick clouds obscured the light.

An hour had passed since he and LaSalle ushered me inside the plain white sedan. He’d refused to let me drive, saying he would send someone for my car. I hadn’t yet told him about the accident.

On the way home we’d covered the basics about the gallery and the portraits, the window I’d crawled through, the fire. But I’d held onto the details until Chase and I could be alone.

He was so not going to like the details.

“Are you sure you aren’t hungry?” he asked, coming up behind me to put his hands on my shoulders and draw me back.

It took everything I had not to stiffen.

And that made me start crying all over again, silently. Inside.

This was Chase.
Chase.
He was the best part of my life. His touch shouldn’t make me cry.

But that had been before my world went up in flames, and I’d cried out for someone else.

“I’m so tired,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself. Of everything. Of the questions and the answers, the dreams.
The details
. And they just kept coming.

I didn’t know how to make them stop.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” I murmured, fingering the leather curled around my wrist. It had survived, the accident, the fire … it had survived. It was still there.

He turned into me, brushing the softest of kisses against my temple—my temple that no longer hurt. “Then let’s get you to bed.”

I tensed.

He felt it. “Trinity—”

I cut off his words with two fingers to his mouth. “Hold me,” I whispered. “Please.”
And don’t let go.

He was tired, too. I could see it in his eyes. I could see everything else, too, the hurt and confusion from what he’d heard in Julian’s room, the residue from our call last night … all the questions that still needed answers. But glittering darkest was the same need that burned through me, to push the world away, to step back from everything that wedged between us, and just … be.

Be us.

My eyes stung as he took my hand and led me to the sofa, easing me down against the funky, fringed pillows in pinks and purples and leopard prints. “The party,” I whispered.

“You have all day to rest,” he said, and while his voice was quiet, it was tight, too, contained. “Just close your eyes.”

He sat next to me, brushing the hair back from my face. “It’s okay to let go,” he promised as lethargy thrummed and swirled, pulled. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The edges of my vision grew fuzzy. Blinking, I glanced toward the velvet drapes and would have sworn they stirred. “Delphi…”

“I’ll find her.”

“But…” I tried to bring the edges into focus. There was something there, something I needed to see.
Feel
.

“Close your eyes,” Chase murmured, and then he was there, stretching out next to me and easing me against him.

“I … can’t…” But even as I fought, my body grew heavier, and my eyes slid closed.

*   *   *

Running. I was running so fast. And I didn’t understand. Only a heartbeat before flames had licked around me, and I’d known there was no way out. I’d cried out, started to pray.

Now I ran through the cold fog, and I could see the stream of long dark hair ahead of me, see
her
stumbling through tangled vines. She was afraid, so afraid. I could feel it—taste it. I had to get to her, fast, before—

She was gone.

I lay there, trying to catch my breath. But I knew there wasn’t time. My body told me that. There wasn’t time to stop and breathe, wasn’t time to wait, not when everything inside me knew. I had to reach her—

The light blinded. I blinked against the sting—and saw the silhouette against the window. He was tall, his legs long and his shoulders wide, his body deceptively lean, and when he turned and the hawkish eyes gleamed, the rush started all over again, deeper this time.
“Dylan
.
”

And I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand how he was there—and why Chase wasn’t. Chase had been there when I fell asleep. He’d been holding me.

But now he was gone and Dylan was crossing to me—

“Welcome back, cricket.”

The silly endearment punched through the fog and finally I saw, not dark hair, but silver. Not the son—but the father.

“Detective Fourcade,”
I murmured, struggling to sit. I glanced around, saw the big grandfather clock, the little hand between the two and the three.

The last time I’d looked, it hadn’t yet been nine.

“Was wondering when you were going to join me,” Dylan’s father said. “I’ve got some po-boys if you’re hungry—”

My mind blanked. “Where’s Chase?” I stood. The room tilted. “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”

His eyes warmed as he came to put a hand on my shoulder. “Chase is at the shop. He called and asked if I could come stay with you while he—”

“Worked my shift,” I breathed. I’d forgotten. With all the craziness of the fire, I’d forgotten all about Fleurish!

But Chase had remembered.

“He didn’t want you alone.”

Hugging myself, I sat back down. “You know, don’t you?” His eyes, so concentrated and worried, made that obvious. “About the fire.”

“I do.”

I swallowed. “And the portraits.”

“Dylan told me.”

Something inside me squeezed, but I didn’t ask where he was—wouldn’t
let
myself ask.

I felt more than saw him sit beside me. “And I think I have a few answers for you.”

Through a tangle of hair, I looked up at him, at the deep lines time and pain had carved into his face, and knew he’d lived this before. With my mother. “About the portraits—or the guy who tried to kill me?”

“Maybe both.” His mouth flattened. “According to the sheriff, those pictures were painted several years ago by a teenage girl who lived a few miles outside of town.”

The girl I’d seen painting … “Where is she now? Can I talk to her?”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Detective Fourcade said, so, so gently. “She drowned last year.”

It was like getting punched in the gut. “But I saw her…” The second the words left my mouth, I realized my mistake. The people in my dreams, there was no rule that said they had to be alive. “But I don’t understand—why would someone who died years ago paint pictures of me?” When I’d still been in Colorado.
“How?”

He sucked in a sharp breath, let it out slowly. “She had precognition,” he said quietly. “Just like you.”

Everything flashed, and a whole new door opened. “She saw things before they happened, too?”