She was not lying. I could sense the rage and the confusion emanating off her. And the fear too. She had not expected a meeting with her past today. Behind all those roiling emotions was something else that she was trying to hide. I couldn’t pin it down. She was feeling too many things all at once. So I reached out to touch her hand.
It was cold to the touch and felt thin and fragile. She tugged it away immediately. But not before I saw something that she had not meant for me to see. A vision in which she had been younger, half the age she was now, the spitting image of her young niece at the age Leonie had died. She had been in a hospital bed like this, all alone like she was now, wearing a hospital gown, her face flushed with perspiration, panting and writhing as she struggled with the wave of pain gripping her hugely swollen abdomen.
She didn’t know what I had seen, because she said in a small voice, “Did Gaius send you?”
When Storm shook his head to deny it, she looked like she was about to cry. She clutched a small silver cross dangling from a chain around her throat, and said, “Oh.” It was a pitiable sound.
“You still miss him, don’t you?” I said.
“No,” she said. “He was evil. He was a vampire. I don’t miss him. How could I? I went astray. But I’ve found my f-faith again.” She stuttered on the word faith as if it had been difficult to say. She was twisting her cross around and around on her chain, to the point that I thought the delicate chain would snap.
“You do miss him,” I said. “Admit it. Isn’t it against your faith to lie?”
She shot me an accusing look, as if I was some sort of monster. “I don’t want to miss him,” she said. “I don’t. I won’t.” She was shaking her said head as if saying it would make it true, but tears were running down her cheeks and soaking into the dressing that covered her injury.
“You do,” I accused. “You miss the taste of his blood, and the way it made you feel. You’re a junkie. You still want it, even six years later. You still want it even though Leonie is dead.”
Constance gasped at my cruelty.
“Diana,” said Storm in a warning tone.
I shot him a brief look of irritation. I almost knew how Constance Ashbeck felt, to want a man who didn’t want you back.
“How is she supposed to tell us the truth if she won’t even admit the truth of how she feels to herself?” I said, doing my best not to snap at him.
I turned back to face her. This woman had been Gaius Ronin’s sheep for nearly two decades. She was still his sheep. It disgusted me, but I also felt a wave of pity. This woman had given up everything for Gaius, including the most important part of herself. All these years later and the lies were so ingrained in her that she would not admit them. Because she still hoped that Gaius Ronin wanted her. She had hidden herself hundreds of miles away from him, but she was still hoping he would come to claim her in some big romantic gesture. Her hero. She was a shell without him. In her heart of hearts she was waiting for the vampire to come and take her home.
“Leonie was your daughter, wasn’t she?” I said abruptly.
I saw from the corner of my eye that Storm was shocked, but I kept my attention on Constance who was blinking rapidly, and stuttering as she tried to deny it. Then she bowed her head, and whispered, “Yes.”
“And then you met Gaius,” I said harshly. “So you sent her to your twin brother so that you could have fun with your vampire lover.”
“Joshua and Darya wanted a baby,” she said defensively, refusing to meet my eyes. “They were glad to have her. I knew they’d give her a good life. She was safe there.”
“So they raised your baby, and you went off to live in vampire nest.”
“You can’t judge me. You don’t know what it was like. Leonie was mistake. And then I met Gaius and I fell in love. I had to be with him. And she had to stay away from the nest. I couldn’t have her there. It was better for everyone.”
“So why did you take her to live with you all those years later?”
“I couldn’t let her die!” she said sharply. “She was sick, and Gaius said we could look after her. He was so kind to me. It’s how I knew he really loved me. He didn’t mind, he said. It wasn’t going to be forever. Leonie was supposed to go away to university, but the stupid girl was so headstrong. She wouldn’t listen.”
Suddenly she shut up, as if she had said more than she had intended to say.
“Wouldn’t listen about what?” I demanded.
“Nothing,” she insisted shaking her head. She looked at Storm again. “Why are you here? After all this time? I don’t understand.”
“Because new evidence has come to light,” he said, “That suggests perhaps Steffane Ronin was innocent.”
“No!” she cried out loudly. “It was him! He did it. He killed my baby!”
“Why were you angry with Leonie?” I demanded, pushing her for an answer. “You argued with her in the weeks before she died. What did you argue about?”
“Gaius paid for everything for her!” she spat out. “He would have given her everything she wanted so that she could go away and live her own life, but she was so ungrateful. She said she had plans of her own and she wouldn’t… She was just headstrong. She was undecided. She was a teenager. That’s what they’re like.”
My eyes narrowed. “Were you jealous of Leonie? Jealous of your daughter? Were you worried that Gaius had an eye out for a younger woman? For Leonie?”