Midnight in Ruby Bayou (51 page)

Tiga stepped over the Blessing Chest and went to her skiff. “Watch these souls for me, precious baby. I'll be getting yours.”

“It's safe, Tiga. It's with me. Walker kept us safe.”

The old woman hesitated in the act of untying the skiff. “Walker? Is he the young man who likes my gravy?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Tiga looked at the line as though wondering what it was doing in her hand. “You sure, precious? I can't rest if you're unhappy.”

“I'm sure, Tiga. Go rest. I have everything I need. Thank you.”

Tiga let out a long sigh. “I'm tired. I haven't slept for a long, long time.”

“Then go up to the house and sleep. No one will ever harm you again. You're safe, and so am I.”

A slow, warm smile spread over Tiga's face. “Thank you for coming back, Ruby darling. Seeing you eased my mind. I know you can't stay long. God has other things for his angels to do. But you be sure to say good-bye to me before you go, so I won't be roaming the marsh and crying for you.”

“I will, Tiga. Good night.”

“Good night, precious.”

Farnsworth watched the old woman merge with the darkness on the path back to the house. He shook his head, wondering what that had all been about. When he turned to ask Faith, she was putting the lid back on the chest. He saw the gleam and slide of tears on her face and decided not to ask any questions after all. He simply stood close by, watching the night.

Finally, slowly, a skiff separated from the marsh grasses and headed for the dock. Farnsworth watched intently for several moments, wanting to be sure. Then he was.

“Dry your tears,” he said softly. “Your man is back.”

“He's not mine.”

“Then he's a damn fool.”

“He wouldn't be the first,” Faith said.

The skiff slid up to the dock. “You calling me names, Farnsworth?”

“Just the ones you earn,” the agent retorted.

“There you go.”

Faith knew her tears showed. She didn't care. “Where is Ivanovitch?”

Walker pulled the night goggles off and rubbed at the sweat that was stinging his eyes. “I lost him.”

“He must be a hell of a swimmer,” Farnsworth said neutrally.

“Like a fish,” Walker said. “Just like a fish.”

One look at Walker's weary, grim eyes told Farnsworth that the Russian was indeed swimming with the fish. “April Joy is going to be one irritated lady.”

“Not when I show her this,” Walker said, reaching into his pants.

When he pulled out his hand again, the Heart of Midnight gleamed on his palm, a baby's fist surrounded by angel tears.

April Joy came out of cover and walked onto the dock, where she could hear what was being said. The lethal-looking pistol in her hand was a gleaming piece of night. “Where's Ivanovitch?”

“He got away,” Walker said.

“Bloody hell. Farnsworth, go help Peel guard the Montegeaus. They're in the library.”

Farnsworth gave her a long look before he headed for the library, taking the shotgun with him.

Walker pulled Faith closer to his side with one hand. The other was clenched around the Heart of Midnight. Faith put her arm around his waist and held him as hard as he was holding her. On either side of the dock, the bayou shifted in response to hidden tidal rhythms.

“Don't think you need to be worrying about Ivanovitch,” he drawled softly. “He'll have his hands full just swimming out of the marsh. Doubt he'll make it, if you're wanting the truth. That mud covers better marsh rats than him.”

“Does he have the Heart of Midnight?”

Walker shook his head. “I do.”

April measured him for a few seconds, then accepted the inevitable. Whatever really had happened tonight in the marsh, Walker had taken Ivanovitch out of the game. Permanently. Too bad from her point of view; he could have given her a lot of information about Tarasov. But given the choice between the ruby and Ivanovitch, she would have killed him and fed him to the bayou crabs herself.

April put the pistol on safe and stashed the gun beneath her jacket at the small of her back. She had never found a shoulder harness in size four. She looked at her watch, calculated the time in St. Petersburg, and smiled. They would make it with a few hours to spare.

“Hand it over, slick,” she said. “There's a Gulfstream G-5 on standby at Savannah International, flight plan in place for dear old Mother Russia.”

“Slick, huh?” Walker said. “Thought that was Archer's nickname, or Kyle's.”

“Any man who can go for a boat ride with Ivanovitch and come back smiling is slick in my book. The ruby,” she said, holding out her hand. “We're on a short clock.”

“Why?” Faith asked.

April narrowed her beautiful black eyes, weighed Faith thoughtfully, and shrugged. The Donovans had their faults, but talking out of school wasn't one of them. Besides, it was hardly a state secret. “The Hermitage is opening a new wing of its museum dedicated to the czars' possessions. Specifically jewelry.”

“Always a crowd pleaser,” Faith said.

“That's the whole point. Getting crowds in, pleasing them, having them walk away proud of being Russian.”

“There's a lot to be proud of,” Walker said.

“Slick, they could be descended from angels or mud balls and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference in the here and now, where all that matters is that I get the ruby back in time for the opening.”

“So that Tarasov doesn't get his tit in a wringer?” Walker drawled.

“More like his cock.”

“Is Solokov really that much worse than Tarasov?” Walker asked.

“Tarasov is ours. Solokov isn't. Do I have to connect the dots for you?”

Walker shrugged, then feinted as though to toss the stone in her direction and to hell with the chance of losing it in the bayou.

For what was perhaps the first time in her life, April Joy flinched.

Walker smiled almost gently, then held out his hand.

April looked at him like he was a copperhead. Slowly she reached out, still expecting a trick.

Walker passed the gem over. “That's one you owe the Donovans. A big one. Consider letting Mel keep the necklace as kind of a down payment.”

“I've already made a down payment,” April said dryly. “All of Tarasov's future jewelry sales will go to Donovan Gems and Minerals on a first refusal basis.”

“Sales?” Faith asked. “As in stolen goods?”

“Marat Borisovitch Tarasov is a high government official with responsibilities that include overseeing the ‘deacquisition' of museum goods,” April said neutrally. “Russia needs hard cash. Culling museum basements is one way to get it. If he takes a cut for himself, nobody's shocked.”

“It ain't stealing if the government does it,” Walker said. “That what you're saying?”

“I didn't make the rules, slick. I'd rather live in a world where a revolution yielded more than starvation, torture, executions, and a new herd of swine sucking at the public trough. But this is the only world I've got. I take care of it the best way I can.”

“Do you really need to take Faith's design apart?” Walker asked.

April thought about it, then thought about how little she liked dancing to the tune of a Russian
mafiya
lordling. “All the bastard asked for was the big ruby. That's all I'm taking back to him.”

April Joy turned and walked into the night. A minute later the sound of a powerful engine drowned out the wind. Wheels spat gravel and a car headed swiftly down the long drive leading out of Ruby Bayou.

When Walker could no longer hear the engine, he turned to Faith. She was watching the night where April had disappeared.

“What are you thinking, sugar?”

“I'm designing spoons with really, really long handles.”

He took her face between his hands and tipped it, as though to see it better in the light. “I'd rather you design matching leg shackles—”

“I told you how I feel about—”

“—but seeing as you don't like them, I'll settle for rings. How would you feel about getting a ruby instead of a diamond engagement ring?”

She went very still. “Depends on who's giving it to me.”

“I am.”

She tried to make out his expression. She couldn't. “You said you didn't want that kind of burden.”

“I thought about that a lot tonight on my way back to you. I decided it isn't a burden if you choose the right partner to share it.”

Her arms tightened around him. “Then, partner, I don't care if it's diamonds, rubies, or dirt.”

Walker laughed. “I'm thinking a ruby. A very, very special one. Like you.”

“No fair. Where will I find one like you?”

“We'll go looking for them.”

“When?”

“Right after you design those spoons.”

Edited for HarperCollins e-books—excerpts from a 2000 interview with Elizabeth Lowell by
Claire E. White
for
The Internet Writing Journal
®, http://www.writerswrite.com

What was your inspiration for
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
?

Our daughter, who happens to be an excellent linguist, was living in Atlanta at the time. She was always telling us about some wonderful regionalism, whether it was an idiom, an accent, or part of the cuisine. Evan [the author's husband] and I had moved to the Pacific Northwest years before, and the gray winters were wearing on us. I decided to set my next book in an interesting, warm, sunny place. We spent about a month in Hilton Head, getting the feel of the South, its rhythms and myths, skeletons and celebrations. (We also returned several times while I was writing the book.) That was my inspiration as to setting.

How about the characters?

One of the major characters in
Midnight in Ruby Bayou,
Owen Walker, was introduced briefly in
Jade Island.
I decided then and there that this soft-smiling, slow-talking, supposedly shy Southern boy needed his own book. It was just a matter of coming up with the right story. That took a few years, but I wouldn't have rushed a minute of it. Walker was worth the wait.

Faith Donovan is a fascinating heroine. She's been really burned before in the romance department, and brings a lot of baggage to a new relationship. What was the greatest challenge you faced in writing Faith?

Faith was a wonderful character to work with. She was a smart woman who had made a really dumb choice in a relationship because she felt lonely and left behind after her twin married. Like most people, admitting that she had made a mistake came hard to her; not because she was afraid of looking foolish, but because admitting the mistake meant (to her) that she couldn't trust her own judgment about men in the same way in the future. Then, along comes Walker, with his own baggage and doubts. How they work out their individual and mutual problems — while simultaneously staying alive and solving the dangerous enigma of the Heart of Midnight — is, of course, the story of
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
.

Owen Walker has a different background from the Donovan brothers featured in
Pearl Cove
and
Jade Island
; he doesn't have access to the rich family life that they do, for one thing. How did you approach writing Owen?

I wrote Walker the same way I write every major character. First, I create a background, and then I think about the ramifications of that background. For example, a person who has always been loved will approach life differently than a person who has had to fight for everything. A person who was raised to be self-sufficient at an early age will be different from someone who went to prep school in a flashy car. Extreme examples, but you get the idea. Once I create the background for a character, I think about what kind of watersheds the character might have had in his life, and how those watersheds would affect future choices. I bring the character up to the opening moment of the book, complete with his own life history. That way, the choices and actions of the character will be consistent throughout a book. Motivated, in a word.

Your books have such wonderful, detailed settings. How do you go about picking the location for a new book?

I have always loved wild lands more than cities, so my first choice of setting is a place where the cities (the home of so much wealth and culture) are close to unfenced lands (the home of my soul). Cities of the West are like that, which is why the majority of my books have been set somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains. Yet there are free and wild places everywhere, including east of the Mississippi. They're just harder to find. The South has many of those places, plus the kind of steamy summer climate that makes every day an adventure in survival, and the mild, dreamy winter climate that makes everyone who doesn't have it envious.

Tell us more about your research in Hilton Head.

After I decided to set
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
in the South, I wanted to find a place that had old history, new money, and the kind of land that alligators love. Hilton Head was the perfect backdrop. Evan and I spent a chunk of winter there, plus trips at other times of the year. While we were there, we hiked, kayaked, played tourist, drove on every back road we could find, bought regional books by the carton, and took hundreds of pictures.

When I finally sat down to write
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
, I had all the tangible items — books, photos, notes, etc. — plus the more intangible memory of the feel of the sun and the taste of the air. I used these things not to recreate the South I had seen, but to create a fictional piece of that South. Thus, the plantation house I describe in
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
isn't taken from a specific house in a specific place; rather, the house is something that could have been built but exists only in my own mind. The same is true of the area surrounding the house; nothing in the book is impossible given the natural and social history of the South, but everything in the book is the result of my using facts to create a convincing fiction.