In Search of the Dove Read Online Free PDF Page B

want to buy and bring home as gifts.”
    “Charms? Not as in charm bracelets?”
    “No.”
    “You mean love potions, herbal medicines, hexes?”
    “Well, love potions and herbal medicines, anyway.”
    Jessica nodded. “I guess you always were interested in stuff like that.”
    “You used to be, too. It’s in your Cajun blood. Remember the time we got the neighborhood kids together for a seance at midnight out in back of the corn crib—and you dressed up as a ghost?”
    “I’m through playing around with ghosts!”
    “Honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. You’re thinking about what happened later, aren’t you?”
    Jessica nodded tightly, feeling Simone’s speculative gaze on her face. “Let’s just forget about all that,” she whispered.
    “All right.”
    Silence hung in the air between the two women. Jessica took several sips of her tea, grateful for the feel of the hot liquid sliding down her throat. For a long time she’d told herself that she’d deal with the remembered pain in her life “some day.” Since coming back to New Orleans she’d felt “some day” licking at her heels like a cold, black fog.
    * * *
    J ACKSON T ALIFERO put down his engraved silver fountain pen and adjusted the wooden blinds that kept the afternoon sun out of his spacious office. The view out the window of his psychiatric clinic reminded him of a very exclusive hotel complex. The two-story white stucco buildings with their Spanish-style roofs and wide verandas commanded a hill that swept dramatically down through the jungle to the ocean.
    On the wide green lawn he could see old Mrs. Wallace waving her arms wildly at Perry Davenport as two attendants rushed to intervene. It wasn’t hard to imagine the stream of four-letter words pouring from the old woman’s mouth.
    Mrs. Wallace suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and had become rather an embarrassment to her high-society daughter after biting the finger of an important dinner guest. That was why the woman was willing to pay 5,000 a month to keep her mother out of sight down here on Royale Verde.
    Perry Davenport, on the other hand, was quite another matter. His problem was paranoid schizophrenia and, until coming to Blackstone nine months ago, there hadn’t been much hope of curing him. But he’d been responding remarkably well to the clinic’s exclusive new drug therapy. The last time his parents had visited, they’d been astounded by his progress and more than willing to up their monthly payment to 7,000.
    The tall, white-haired physician pursed his rather full lips and looked around the office, pausing to admire the Louis XIV sideboard that graced the center of one wall and the small Renoir that hung over it. Once fees like those from Wallace and Davenport had been adequate to support his style of living. But that was no longer true, and his expensive tastes weren’t the only reason he needed a great deal of money. He had other aspirations as well.
    At Blackstone he was a ruler with absolute power. He’d come to like the knowledge that when he gave an order, it was obeyed without question. But the clinic was such a limited environment for a man of his leadership abilities. He’d made plans to extend his autocracy, and they’d been proceeding well until the squeamish Dr. Xavier had decided to bow out without even saying goodbye.
    Of course, under the circumstances, sneaking off without asking permission had been a prudent move. The wayward chemist had sense enough to understand that had he made his intentions known, he would have ended up in one of the clinic’s padded cells for a bit of behavior modification. Xavier hadn’t waited around for the padlock to snap closed. Instead, he’d bribed a native houseboy to hide him in the van that made twice-weekly runs to Queenstown for fresh produce and meat. Naturally, the man had paid dearly for helping the doctor escape. But his punishment had served its purpose. The staff now understood that the