Fool's Journey Read online

  She maintained her composure with an effort. God, she hated the man!

  "I'll give you a schedule," she said and returned his smile.

  "Don't worry about it, little Emily." He paused a moment before continuing. "I know your schedule. I know it by heart."

  IX.

  Deirdre allowed herself the luxury of a cab ride home, partially because she was unusually tired, but mainly out of a shuddering desire to put herself at a distance from the university and Freemont Willard as quickly as possible. The insinuation in his tone had panicked her momentarily. It was his nature to unnerve women, but tonight she was almost afraid. She had told no one at the university about yesterday's incident at the market, yet Willard must have sensed the remnants of her alarm like a shark sensing blood in the water.

  The twilight city flickered by the cab's windows. How many sat huddled behind their doors, wondering how long their security would last?

  When the cab drew up in front of her apartment, she paid the driver and stepped out into the night. Glancing at the darkened windows as she climbed the stairs, it crossed her mind that this was one more place to be left behind.

  No. She was through running. Whatever happened, she'd stay.

  She shut the apartment door behind her and slid the security chain into place. She had left her manager a note that morning asking him to install a deadbolt, but it looked as if nothing had been done about it yet. She switched on a light and examined her surroundings cautiously before taking even a step.

  Everything she'd managed to forget today in the midst of the university's particular brand of sinister events came flooding back to her. The box containing the dried flower wreath still sat on the coffee table exactly as she'd left it. She wished she had a fireplace so she could burn the wretched thing and remember only flames and rising smoke. The thought came and went. How frustrating, how futile, that only symbolic actions came to mind.

  Passing footsteps rang on the sidewalk below, then faded into the night sounds of the neighborhood. Her scalp prickled, as if a hand had run its fingers through her hair.

  "Shit!" she whispered. It was appalling that even innocent sounds should strike her now as menacing. She'd never before felt threatened here—until now. It made her angry that her home had lost its power to comfort. It wasn't fair.

  The rest of the evening stretched bleakly before her. It was barely nine o'clock, but she felt exhausted. It seemed too early to go to bed, though. Maybe she'd put on her nightgown anyway and relax. Maybe even have a drink. A big one. She wanted to fall straight to sleep tonight, not lie in bed turning the day over and over in her head as she had the night before.

  She switched on her computer as she passed by her desk on the way to the bedroom. Not bothering to turn on the light, she took a long nightgown from the chest of drawers. Her Jane Austen nightgown, Panda called it. White and virginal. Part of the costume, she thought grimly. She undressed quickly in the darkness and pulled the gown over her head. It felt secure and familiar.

  Passing by the computer again, she opened her email connection and continued back toward the kitchen. A bottle of brandy, a gift last Christmas, was still almost half full. Drinking alone made her feel self-indulgent, but this seemed a good night for self-indulgence. She poured an inch of golden liquid into a snifter and carried it back out to the living room.

  Selecting a CD and setting it to play, she turned off the living room lights. Then she took her drink and stood at the window, her head full of thoughts. She let the night and the music wash over her. The brandy was strong and fiery. Good medicine.

  There had been no more links in the chain of yesterday's incidents, she reminded herself. Even so, today's events had taken on their own ominous shape, as if she were looking at everything through a warped lens—her encounter with Willard, Bess Seymour's veiled allusions, the oddly sexual discussion in class. She felt as if she were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or worse.

  Or my mind misgives, there seems to be some consequence yet hanging in the stars.

  Shakespeare always had something that fit.

  Was she being overly dramatic? Could it be that everything that was going to happen had already taken place? Had yesterday's events been random? Of course. They must be. She was just the victim of some psychotic trick-or-treater who skipped from life to life to see what havoc he could wreak, and then moved on.

  The tarot, too, could be wrong, or at least misinterpreted. Over interpreted. Hate, love, madness, Mrs. Ruiz had said. But that could mean almost anything these days. God knew she had felt surrounded, fenced in, by a perilous world long before yesterday. Those cards would have been true for her through most of her life.

  She remembered the long ago flash of the cameras in her face as she was whisked away, out of sight. Years later, she had finally seen the headlines. The stories with their speculation and idiotic theories. They had called her Little Lizzie Borden, the beautiful child with a chip of ice for a heart. Had she been drug-crazed? Jealous? A vicious bad seed?

  They had no idea of the sacrifice she'd made in that one moment. Or if they did, it hadn't made good enough copy for the tabloids.

  Stop it. She had been through this endless loop of thought so often it had become a dark mantra. Now, when life offered a bright alternative, banishing fear was more than duty. It was vital.

  As she sipped away at her brandy, her face slowly went numb. Her hands and feet were getting cold. She wasn't used to drinking hard liquor straight and that was probably a good thing. Numb was just fine tonight.

  Holding her glass up to the dim light filtering in from the street, she could see there was still a bit to go. She took a deep breath and downed the rest in one shuddering gulp.

  Now she'd try to sleep. There is no sweeter thing, nor fate more blessed than to sleep.

  Who wrote that? Robinson? No. Masters? Maybe.

  This was crazy. She'd been teaching English too long.

  She turned away from the window into the blue-gray glow from her computer monitor. The message window had come up. You have mail, it read.

  She sat down at the desk and scanned the screen. Five new messages. One was from Panda:

  Hey, kiddo! Hope your day went ok. Lock the door, curl up with some mace and say your prayers! TTYL! Panda

  Three others were from acquaintances. She yawned as she clicked them open. One was a petition; the other two were long-winded academic jokes, not terribly funny. The last message was an address she didn't recognize. She'd probably gotten onto some list-serve without knowing it. She opened it.

  That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

  Perfectly pure and good: I found

  A thing to do, and all her hair

  In one long copper string I wound

  Three times her little throat around,

  And strangled her And strangled her And strangled her And strangled her And strangled her And strangled her And strangled her And strangled her And strangled her...

  The poem was so familiar it took a moment for her to see the change: The color of hair in this quote had been changed from gold to copper, like her own.

  The words danced before her as fear shot through her heart. With one quick motion, she deleted the message and switched off the computer, as if that would protect her.

  The lines were from “Porphyria’s Lover,” the story of a man who strangled a woman with her own hair to keep her his alone. It was the focus of her upcoming book, Porphyria's Revenge, the Dovinger prizewinner.

  The implications washed over her. Not only had this person, this other, violated her physically, then followed her home, but he knew her well enough to follow her intellectually as well.

  There was nothing a new deadbolt could do about that.

  She took a deep breath and held it, releasing it after a count of seven. That was better. Nothing had gotten any worse. Not really.

  Then, three sharp raps came at the door, shattering the nighttime silence.

  Deirdre's heart stopped for a spl
it second. Damn, she was sick of fear, of quivering like a rabbit. She had a gun —she'd never been without one since she'd been back in the world. She opened a drawer and slipped it in her pocket.

  Logically, she knew it must be her landlord. He must have waited until she'd returned home to make his repairs. The network connection must have been up when he'd tried to call and an hour-long busy signal told him she wasn’t going anywhere. Alarmist, she thought as she went to the door.

  She threw it open to the night, then froze where she stood. A man, a stranger, stood on the landing. Deirdre slid her hand into her pocket as the he stepped slowly toward her.

  His long, black hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail and his black eyes glittered at her from above high cheekbones. In the dim light from the street, she could see a thin scar trailing down from the edge of his left eyebrow to his jaw line.

  Deirdre froze to the spot, but her fingers closed around the gun. She didn't want to use it, but the man stood between her and the only possible exit. She swallowed hard and stepped back, putting a small table between them.

  The man stopped in his tracks and stood before her in the doorway. Slowly, he smiled at her.

  "Deirdre Kildeer?"

  She nodded mutely.

  "Hi," he said. "I'm Manny Ruiz – Rosa Ruiz' nephew. Looks like I scared you. Sorry."

  X.

  Later, as Deirdre stole a glance at Manny Ruiz over a cup of steaming coffee in her kitchen, she decided she wasn't crazy. Manny Ruiz actually did look like he’d stepped out of a gang movie. The panic she’d felt earlier wasn't entirely a product of her strained nerves. With the collar of his leather jacket pulled up, he reminded her of a hooded cobra about to strike.

  But it was different when he spoke. Or smiled. Very different.

  "Have you been to the police yet?" He glanced up and caught her studying him.

  She felt a sudden

  "Too busy today?"

  "Not really.” She paused a moment and looked down into her cup. “A little, I guess."

  Panic had set in again as soon as he'd said the word police, and she waited for her pulse to stop racing. Manny wasn't going to be easy to lie to. He seemed the type to just bundle her into the car and drive her down to the precinct office. She was glad she'd already changed into her nightgown. Being ready for bed was the best excuse in the world to put something off. Finally, she looked back at Manny. He sat silently, waiting for her to talk to him. Instead, she asked a question.

  "What has your aunt told you?"

  Manny stirred some sugar into his cup. "She's talked a lot about you before this. Professor, poet and all that. Then last night she told me about the funny stuff at the Market and later with the wreath."

  He looked up at her, his dark eyes narrowing. "She said your cards looked pretty bad, too."

  Deirdre liked to think she wasn't one to stereotype, but still, she hadn't expected this sort of comment from a man. Usually they scoffed at anything even vaguely intuitive, let alone occult. She heard no hint of sarcasm in his voice, though. How refreshing. It was good to have someone to talk to, after all.

  "It's a funny thing," she said, relaxing a little. "I could tell the reading scared her. I'm sure she didn't tell me everything she saw there."

  "She never does." He shook his head and laughed softly. "My Auntie Rosa saves up secrets like other women clip coupons."

  "There's something she doesn't know about, though," Deirdre said after a moment.

  Manny blew into his coffee and took a sip. "I wouldn't count on it," he said with a brief grin.

  She traced the rim of her cup with a fingertip, avoiding his gaze for a moment. "Something else happened tonight," she said softly. "Just a few minutes before you arrived."

  She looked up at him. His eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch, but that was as close as he got to asking a question. He seemed content to let her story emerge as slowly as she wished. No probing, no grilling. She took a deep breath.

  "When I read my email tonight, there was a message from…from whoever's doing this. I really screwed up, though. I was so scared and angry, I deleted it almost immediately."

  "What did it say? Can you remember?"

  "There's no way I'll forget," she said. "It's something I already know by heart.

  That moment she was mine, mine, fair, she quoted,

  Perfectly pure and good: I found

  A thing to do, and all her hair

  In one long copper string I wound

  Three times her little throat around,

  And strangled her ...

  Manny whistled low. "Robert Browning?"

  "It's from 'Porphyria's Lover,'" she told him after a slight pause. She would have to stop being surprised by the Ruiz family.

  He frowned. "Bad poem."

  "Careful. You don't want to trigger my professor mode and have to sit through a lecture. What do you mean, 'bad poem'?"

  He shrugged, then took another sip of coffee. "I just mean the poem's got a bad spirit."

  She leaned back in her chair. "You sound like a mystic."

  "I'm a Ruiz," he said simply. "Now I see why I scared you so bad when I knocked at the door. I wondered about that."

  Deirdre blushed again. She knew her panic had shown. "It's more than just what the poem says. It's been misquoted. In the original–"

  "I know," Manny said quietly. "It's golden hair, right?"

  "That, and the last line. And strangled her... it was repeated all the way down, as far as I scrolled."

  "Is this a poem you teach in any of your classes?"

  "Always," she nodded.

  "And you've been teaching at the university for almost three years," he mused.

  She looked at him narrowly. How did he know?

  "That's how long my aunt has been coming here," he explained. "I drive her sometimes."

  "So you think it might be a student?" she asked.

  "Could be anyone. Do you have any ideas?"

  "Not really," she said slowly. "But there are people who are more likely to connect that particular poem to me than my students are. There's a whole publishing company, in fact—about twenty people. It's a small house here in Seattle. Orca Books. They'll be releasing my anthology quite soon," she explained. "The title is Porphyria's Revenge. It's a response to Browning."

  Manny tapped the tips of his fingers together as he thought. "So all we know is that whoever wrote that email knew those lines were important to you. Do you remember anything about the email address?"

  "I didn't recognize it," she said. "I think it was just numbers."

  "Hard for a layperson to trace, but it can be done if we need to. For now, we know that whoever is doing this knows something about how email works and how to disguise the address of origin. That should narrow the field at least a little."

  "It's so difficult to believe this is happening." Deirdre hugged herself, trying to suppress a shudder. "Who could hate me so much?"

  Manny studied her for a moment before replying. "It might not be hate, you know. It could be a twisted kind of love. It's a very strange world out there." He pushed his chair back and stood up. "Why don't you get dressed and I'll go with you to the cop shop. I don't think they'll be very interested, but it's a good thing to have this on record."

  Deirdre felt her stomach lurch. She felt almost as if he'd tricked her, leading her into a false sense of security. "Thanks," she said slowly. "I think I'll wait till tomorrow, though. I'm pretty tired."

  "I know you don't want to go," he said softly.

  Deirdre looked away.

  "I don't know why," he continued, "but Auntie Rosa said to tell you: no harm will come of this."

  She drew in her breath sharply. It was one of the wishes she had made when Mrs. Ruiz read her tarot. She hadn't said it aloud. No one could possibly have known.

  She shook her head and whispered, "I'm not going."

  Manny gazed at Deirdre's heart-shaped face, framed by the copper curls, several long tendrils curling ove
r her shoulder. She was looking down at her cup again. What was going on with her? Secrets. Lots of secrets. He could feel them in the air between them.

  Deirdre. Her name was as beautiful as she was. He remembered when his aunt had first described her to him three years ago. Màs bonita que la poesia. More beautiful than poetry.

  She looked delicate, but something, perhaps the set of her jaw, told him this was a misconception. He wondered for a moment what she'd be like in bed. Sweet, but fierce, he imagined.

  "You don't compromise do you?" he asked.

  "No,” she said, looking up at him. "Ambiguity belongs in poetry. Not life."

  He frowned and nodded. "For tonight I'll take 'no' for an answer, but I'm not leaving until I take a look around and make sure everything's okay. I'll even look under the bed."

  "I'm not sure even your aunt has the courage for that," Deirdre said, attempting lightness she didn't feel. She glanced toward the darkened windows and suppressed a shiver. "Do you want some more coffee first?"

  He shook his head. "Thanks. Not tonight. I've got to meet a client in about an hour."

  "Oh." She felt deflated, oddly reluctant to face the rest of the evening by herself. "Big case?"

  "Boring case. Excitement's mainly in the movies. Come on," he said, standing up.

  The partially opened box sat on the coffee table, an edge of the wreath visible. Manny frowned as he caught sight of it. He picked up a pencil and slid the lid back gingerly.

  "You never know. We may want to dust for prints later," he explained. "No sense in adding mine. Anyone touch it besides you?"

  Deirdre shook her head.

  "Good. Just the one door?"

  "There's one in my storage room that used to lead down to the rest of the house. A back stairway, I guess, but it was nailed shut when they turned this floor into an apartment."

  "Does anyone live on that side?"