Pure Instinct

EPILOGUE

A sordid picture of old family money and madness began to come together once the Raveneaux family was examined more closely.

Dominique had attempted to murder her brother at the age of seven. She'd been secreted away to doctors for several years and on return, she'd again showed tendencies of hatred toward her little brother. When the barrier between anger and murder burst again, the general had had her locked up in a pretty cell he'd created for her in the basement while he searched the world for doctors who might possibly fix her.

At times she'd spent long months and even years of her childhood in such places as New York's prestigious Psychiatric Center for the Mentally Disturbed, Menninger's Clinic in Stockholm and a special hospital in Brussels.

She was declared mentally competent and had the papers to prove it, so when she returned home under her own steam in July of the previous year, no one had ever connected her with the strange mutilation death of a young man she'd lived with for a time in Brussels. The man's heart had been carved from his chest. He'd been an intern at the hospital in Brussels, and had been instrumental in Dominique's recovery. Interpol had been interested in locating the former patient, but had lost contact with her. She'd been placed in the institution under a false name, and records were intentionally sketchy.

Dominique had learned of her brother's whereabouts from her father, the general, who had told her that her brother's once-pure and innocent heart had become-in her absence- demoralized, depraved and tainted. He'd explained her brother's absence away in this manner, by blaming it on his lifestyle.

She'd been a model daughter at the time, at least by day, discharging all the kitchen staff and insisting on providing her parents with only the healthiest and freshest of meals, a talent she had learned while in Europe. She'd talked of starting her own catering business, saying that if she couldn't cook for someone, she'd become so bored to distraction that she'd be quite depressed. The general and his wife had acquiesced, al-lowing their daughter to indulge herself, despite the unseemly appearance of having her running the kitchen and preparing food.

By night, she would become a Hyde creature, anxious and bloodthirsty in her relentless search for her brother. She began frequenting the bars and clubs in and around Bourbon Street until she found Victor. When she and Victor clashed, it was for control of that innocent, so-well-loved heart now gone from her parents' life, the same heart she detested, her brother's heart. Victor never saw it coming, didn't know what hit him. And as for Dominique, who'd become Emanuel when she went on her quest, that single heart did not fulfill her needs entirely, and so, when that first taste of murder and heart-taking wore thin, she went after the hearts of others, repeating the process in an endless need to feed on the very thing she could not have, a pure heart.

Among the many skills she'd learned during her long years of “captivity” were sewing, darning and embroidery, and she never forgot the pure-white doilies her mother made and spread about her basement cell room-and her upstairs room, where she was allowed only if she were good.

The general's little princess, Dommie also formed a passion for the image of queens, thinking herself quite the little princess all her life, believing that she would one day grow into the role of a queen. She'd learned lace embroidery with colored silk string first from her mother, and had improved her talents with the help of a kindly nurse in Stockholm, and she never forgot her lessons.

A more thorough search of Dommie's current living quarters at Raveneaux-which turned out to have originally been Victor's room, not the child's room Jessica and the others were escorted to-unearthed all the materials Emanuel had used in creating her calling cards.

As authorities and an army of lawyers took over the case, to put to rest the Queen of Hearts killer and all the destruction left in her wake, each day more details of the bizarre story exploded onto the pages of the Times-Picayune. Every awful thought anyone had ever had about inbreeding and family secrets in the Deep South was brought to life in the Raveneaux story, and each day became a painful reminder of how madness and insanity and dysfunctional elements visited all families at one time or another, in one generation or another.

And finally, Victor Surette might at last stop walking across Alex Sincebaugh's dreamscape.

Kim Desinor revisited the remnants of her past and found that St. Domitilla's was a sad, much smaller place now, a shell of its former self. And she cried long and hard, but she forgave as well, and in the forgiving, she found release, freedom, sanctuary and peace; while Meade, Stephens and Wardlaw faced charges of misconduct.

Jessica looked out over the runway at the New Orleans Lake-front Airport, and in the dusk she saw Kim and Alex Sincebaugh's embracing bodies silhouetted against the terminal glass where they were saying their final good-byes. Kim would be last to board the plane returning Jessica and her to their Virginia headquarters and home. In the terminal, Jessica had said her good-byes with a firm handshake and a smile for Carl Landry and Alex, but Kim was having a heart-wrenching time. She and Alex continued to exchange long, sensual kisses, their pending separation painful and prolonged, a heady reminder to Jessica of the bond she and James Parry had shared in Hawaii the year before.

She had contacted James from Kim's hotel room to inform him of her success in routing the awful soul of Mad Matthew Matisak to the grave and to the bottom rung in the seven circles of Hades. James had been sick with worry, and had been trying desperately to get in touch with her when he'd learned that she was in New Orleans and possibly facing Matisak there. He'd gotten word through the FBI grapevine, and had been poised to get on a plane to locate her there, to do whatever was in his power to help and to protect her.

He'd next spoken of pending cases on Oahu and a visit from his sister, and had wanted to know if Jessica was coming in November when the whales returned to spawn, so that they might together return to Maui.

Jessica had said yes over and over to his invitation, spending two hours long-distance with him on the phone. They'd talked of diving the Maui reefs and the underwater volcano, of revisiting old haunts, and Jim had made it sound as if her returning to Hawaii was the most important thing in his life, something to look forward to. And listening to his melodic and resonant voice had made her realize just how fortunate she was, because now life once more seemed full and rich and pure, and it was so because his love for her was pure.