Page 141 of Frankly, My Dear

It was too tight.

Selene laughed and looked at herself in the mirror. Ruefully she noted a one-inch gap in the back of the gown. No way would she be able to close it.

But Selene was not upset. Oh, she would never be able to return to her modeling career in this shape. But she looked and felt better than she ever had in her life.

Selene peered closer. The collagen injections in her lips had worn off, and her suntan had faded. She decided then that she wouldn’t abuse her face again in that fashion, no matter what Georgia advised.

And she made other decisions, too. After her success with Etienne and her other students, she realized she had an innate talent for teaching. She would pursue teacher training at Columbia, not a degree in psychology.

A flicker of light through the side window diverted Selene’s attention. Perhaps lightning had struck nearby, as she’d thought earlier. Frowning, she moved away from the mirror and then gasped as she saw flames shooting through the sugar fields.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. After barely saving the fields from the recent flooding, how would James be able to survive a fire? Instantly she recognized that he couldn’t put out a fire of this proportion.

“Oui, best you should pray, Selene. For you will all die now.”

Selene turned with a start to see Giselle standing in the doorway, a gun aimed precisely at her heart. Her eyes danced with evil glee, but her hand was steady.

“Giselle, put the gun down. Someone will come.”

“Non, they are gone to the fields to help put out the fires. Victor has ensured their absence. Now I must do my part.” She laughed with macabre humor.

“Where are Mrs. Baptiste and Etienne?”

“Etienne is tied on the boat we have hidden away for our escape. He will attend the boarding school in New Orleans.”

“And Mrs. Baptiste?” Selene asked fearfully.

“Dead,” she replied with no remorse. “Did you not hear the shot? Finally the meddlesome woman is gone.”

“No-o-o,” Selene wailed and rushed for Giselle.

Giselle pulled the trigger of her small gun, and the shot hit Selene in the shoulder. She recoiled and put a hand to the bloody wound.

I’m shot, Selene thought, stunned, as she watched the red fluid seep through her fingers. Then the next shot rang out, hitting lower, knocking her to the floor.

As blood poured from her wounds, pooling beneath her, Selene saw Giselle approach through dimming eyes. She grew weaker. Leaning down, Giselle gazed at Selene to see if she had dealt her a fatal blow.

“I think I would rather you not be quite dead, Selene,” she said cheerily. “I think it would be appropriate for you to die by fire, don’t you?”

Unable to move or speak, feeling her strength seep out with her life’s blood, Selene could only stare up at the insane woman.

Giselle dropped her gun to the floor and began to tug on Selene’s skirts. “This gown is too beautiful to be wasted on you. And you are staining it with your nasty blood.”

Selene watched Giselle through a hazy veil of approaching delirium as the madwoman pulled the garment completely off her body. Giselle removed her own gown then and put on Phillipe’s ballgown, oblivious to its excessive length. Pirouetting before the mirror, she hummed, then broke into a soft French melody, as if she had not just shot a woman…no, two women.

In that moment before Selene’s eyes closed, she saw Giselle pick up the voodoo doll. “Why, Selene, you surprise me. I would not have thought you a believer.”

That was the last coherent thought Selene had before she smelled the acrid odor of billowing smoke.

James! Please, God, save him. Don’t let evil prevail. Let my time here have some meaning. Please, God, I pray…

Chapter Twenty-three

“Selene…Selene, can you hear me?” James’s voice came to her from far off.

Drifting in a place beyond her understanding, Selene no longer fought against death’s mesmerizing pull. So much blood. I feel ethereal, like an angel. She smiled in her dream state.

“No!” James cried out. “Don’t you dare die on me now. Don’t you dare!”