Violets Are Blue

until past two. Loud rock and roll played. Then the lights were dimmed.
    No one had left the house to hunt.
    We still didn’t know if Jamilla was inside, or even if she was alive. I stayed awake and watched. I couldn’t sleep, not even for an hour or so. The FBI continued to collect information on the people inside the domain. What in God’s name were they doing down there?
    There was no word on the identity of the Sire. We did learn about the two blond males with the ponytails. William and Michael Alexander were the sons of a post-hippie couple who had worked at the ranch as animal handlers. The mother had been a zoologist. The boys had grown up comfortable around wild animals. They attended schools in Santa Cruz until they were nine and twelve, at which time the boys began to be homeschooled. They wore Moroccan robes and were always barefoot on their occasional trips to town. They were considered bright, but odd and extremely secretive. The boys had gotten into trouble in their early teens and been sent off to a state correctional facility for aggravated assault. They had been dealing drugs and also been caught breaking and entering.
    Kyle joined me in the rocks overlooking the ranch at around three.
    “You look kind of green around the gills,” I said to him.
    “Thanks. Long night. Long month. You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” he asked me. He seemed like a detached observer now. Calm and cool. It was pure Kyle. Calculated intelligence. “I don’t know anything more, Alex. I’ve told you what I know.”
    “I can still see the body of Betsey Cavalierre. I don’t want to see something like that again. Yes, I’m worried about her. Aren’t you? What are you feeling, Kyle?”
    “If she’s alive down there, they have no reason to murder her now. They’re keeping her there for a reason.”
    If she’s alive.
    Kyle patted my shoulder. “Get some sleep if you can,” he said. “Rest up.” Then he wandered off. But when I looked his way, he was watching me.
    I leaned against an oak tree and covered myself with my sport coat. I must have fallen asleep at some point between three and three-thirty. I saw Betsey Cavalierre in my dream, then my partner and friend Patsy Hampton — who had also been killed. Finally, I saw Jamilla.
Oh Christ, not Jam. I couldn’t stand that
.
    I was aware of someone nearby, standing right over me. I opened my eyes.
    It was Kyle. “Time to go in,” he said. “Time to get some answers.”

Chapter 87

    THE RANCH was four to five hundred yards away. The terrain between the house and us was too open for us to sneak up on the complex. Was this where Jamilla had been murdered?
    Kyle whispered, “She might still be alive.” It was as if he were reading my thoughts. What else did he know? What was he hiding from me?
    “I’ve been thinking about the brothers,” I said. “They never had to be careful before, so they weren’t. The magicians were the careful ones. They committed murders for a dozen years. Never got caught. There’s no record that they were even suspected of any of the murders.”
    “You think the new Sire set up Daniel and Charles?”
    “That’s part of it, I’ll bet. The brothers committed murders in towns where the magicians toured. The Sire wanted us to catch up with Daniel and Charles. It was a trap.”
    “Why kill them in New Orleans?”
    “Maybe because the brothers are psychopaths. Maybe they had orders to do what they did. We’ll have to ask the Sire.”
    “They don’t think anyone can stop them. Well, they’re wrong about that,” Kyle said. “They’re going to be stopped.”
    Which was when we got a surprise. The front door of the ranch house opened. Several men in dark clothes emerged. The two brothers weren’t among them. The men hurried to a grassy area where pickup trucks and vans were parked in a ragged line. They started the vehicles, then drove them toward the front of the house.
    Kyle was on his Handie-Talkie. He alerted the snipers waiting in the trees and rocks behind us. “Stand ready.”
    “Kyle, don’t forget Jamilla.”
    He didn’t answer me.
    The front door opened again. Shadowy figures began to move out of the house. They were clothed in hooded black gowns and they came in pairs.
    One person in each pair held a handgun to the head of the other.
    “Oh shit,” I whispered. “They know we’re here.”
    There was no way to tell who anybody was, or if any of the robed figures were actually hostages. I tried to