by Byers, Beth
“Lettie saw the killer?” Charles asked.
Severine nodded. “She knows what she saw was bad. She whispered it. We have to keep those children close and safe.”
Charles was about to curse but caught himself and then muttered, “Why are Thorne and Oliver gone now? We could use more hands, more eyes, and given what we’ve been experiencing lately—more guns.”
“I’ve set some watchers on the addresses. They’ll start by visiting them all and then they’ll organize the list and start from there.” Bernadette did not offer further explanation and Severine shook her head, entirely unsurprised.
Charles took the tea that Chantae brought in. She sat next to Severine, handing her another of Bernadette’s herbal concoctions. “Did you eat?”
Severine shook her head. “Did you see the children?”
“Mother is already bringing them porridge and seeing the nursery cleaned by the two girls she brought in. They’ll get them situated. Sister Sophie is already reading them stories and singing them songs.”
Severine smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. She glanced at Charles and then confessed, “I’m tired.”
“Eat,” Bernadette said. “Drink. It’s not for looking at. Then you’ll sleep, and we’ll stall your private investigator with the reminder of who pays him.”
Severine shook her head. “Wake me when he comes.”
She left the parlor, listening to Charles demanded, “Who did you hire? What on earth have you done?”
Severine was too tired to care, and she trusted Bernadette’s judgement too well to worry. If she weren’t so tired, she’d turn back to Charles to make a wager that he wouldn’t object to the former nun’s plan.
Chapter 14
“Do you know what she did?” Charles asked as Severine joined him in the parlor. She shook her head. Her eyes were burning, and she’d give her index finger for chicory coffee, but she knew that Bernadette was right. The headaches had to stop. She’d been down this road before, so she knew it was possible to make the headaches stop.
She lifted the foul tea that Bernadette had added honey and cream to—neither of which made the peppery aftertaste palatable. She sipped the tea all the same and told herself the days of chicory coffee would come again. Was it better than chicory coffee made as a cafe au lait? Severine didn’t think it was possible. She took a breath. “All right, I’m ready. What did she do?”
“She went to the parish office and asked for the names of obscure women who could use a little extra money.”
Severine’s mouth twitched and she told Charles, “No one knows the capacities of an obscure woman better than another obscure woman.”
“She’s no obscure woman, she’s a force of nature. Either way, Shaw is here. Are you feeling better?”
Severine shrugged. Had her headache faded? Yes. Was it still present? Also yes. She wasn’t going to worry them over it, so she asked instead, “Have you seen Lisette? I need to visit with her.”
“She struggled her way downstairs with Bernadette prodding her along. She seems…well, her bruises are worse, but she says that she’s better.”
Given the sick look on Charles’s face, Severine rather doubted that he believed her. Severine wanted to run up to Lisette, but first Shaw. Fabien brought him to the office from where he waited in the parlor.
“Well, you’ve stepped into it,” he said as he sat down. “That woman next door was murdered too?”
Severine nodded. “Do you have any idea why Nathaniel Sidney was murdered?”
“You,” Shaw said flatly. “That man must have known something and you coming out of the blue to find him and ask him questions, it killed him.”
“Who did you talk to first?” Severine asked, trying to ignore the guilt building inside her.
“Sidney,” Shaw replied. “Found him at work. He told me to come by his house later, so I did. We talked a bit and then he said he’d see you. You know the rest.”
“But the in betweens?” Charles asked. “You found him at work, then—”
“First, I went to see Van Ausdell. He wasn’t in, so I left a message for the man, and then I went to find Sidney. Found his work. His boss wasn’t too pleased to have me there, so I left and agreed to see him after. Then I went back to check in with Van Ausdell again. He was in meetings and his secretary turned me away again. Then I realized I’d been followed, so I slipped the leash and watched the fellow until he gave up.”
She couldn’t imagine following someone. How did you know you were being followed? How did you slip them without being suspicious? Did it matter if you were suspicious if you were being followed? It must, she thought. Even being able to recognize you were being followed told the person following you something.
It would have, however, been expected for someone like Marty Shaw.
“How did you slip them?” Severine asked, knowing it was the wrong question.
“Stepped into a store and then slipped out the back. I was far enough ahead, and I knew the alley would provide him three ways to chase. He went out the back, and I went up the fire escape.”
“So, whoever has been interfering in Severine’s life knew you’d been hired and knew that you’d tried to see both Nathaniel Sidney and Jarrod Van Ausdell.” Charles stood and paced. “I feel like we’re being stalked by tigers. We know they’re after us, but we still don’t see them.”
“You should feel like that. They must have taken care of the neighbors on the off chance that they saw something.”
Severine glanced at Charles and then sighed. “That had been our thought. We went to see them yesterday, found the children home alone, and waited. Ended up seeing a woman from Salvation Army and Officer Staubb instead of the parents.”
Marty Shaw muttered darkly. “The man wasn’t even there. He works at a shop over on 7th in the evening quite often. He wasn’t around when Sidney was killed. The woman is drowning in kids. No reason to believe she was looking out the door. She was killed to make sure.”
Severine swallowed. “Maybe the man who did it saw something?”
“Whoever went there knew he was going to kill Sidney. He’d have ensured he covered his face. He wouldn’t have just walked up in a neighborhood where anyone could have seen. I poked around the crime scene a bit. It wasn’t some friend stopping by and then things turning sideways. It wasn’t someone who had a friend come up behind him and take him out. The moment Sidney set eyes on his killer, he knew the man’s purpose. That crime scene was—grisly.”
Severine shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. He was describing the type of person who had killed her parents. Not that it had been grisly, but it had been cold and heartless. And whoever had killed them had taken them both with one fell swoop.
“Did you talk to Van Ausdell?” Charles asked, changing places with Severine, who rose and paced instead. She walked back and forth behind the desk, hating that her head wasn’t hurting. That concoction had helped to clear Severine’s head and the pain. Bernadette would remind Severine a thousand times in the coming weeks of how she’d been right.
“You talked to the teacher and others as well,” Severine said, rubbing her brow out of habit. “Anyone you talked to could have tipped off our killer. But what would Nathaniel Sidney have known?”
Shaw grunted. “No idea yet. It has been a while since your father spoke to him at all. The thing is—your father wasn’t a snob. He worked his way out of the gutter and he still saw some of the old boys. That Van Ausdell got in with his firm because of a good word from your father. There was a while there when Sidney worked for your father and things were better for him. In fact, things went right south once he left and have been getting steadily better since your father died.”
“Do you think he killed my father?”
Shaw and Charles shook their heads and then Shaw said, “He wasn’t at that party. The police thought whoever killed your parents was one of the guests.”
“That house is remote, Sev.” Charles sighed. “It couldn�
��t have been Sidney. Even if Nathaniel Sidney decided to go to your father’s party, Sidney wouldn’t have been welcomed if he showed up at the door. Your father wasn’t a man who just turned the other cheek. He’d have told Sidney to leave, and your father would have been loud about it.”
“So Sidney didn’t kill my parents.” Severine slumped into a chair again. She hadn’t really thought he had, but she’d thought how lovely it would be if it had been him. The killer would be killed, and she didn’t feel compelled to look into Sidney’s death like she felt to look into the death of her parents.
Severine propped her chin on her hand. “Is Officer Staubb dirty?”
She knew he was, but she wanted to know what other people knew about the man. Shaw snorted. “He’s eminently salable.”
Severine sniffed and then leaned back with a look to Charles. “So we caused the death of that poor man who had the good sense to break with my father. And then that led to the orphaning of several small children. Lovely. It looks like I’m just like my father.”
Shaw stared at her and then laughed. “You’re nothing like Lukas DuNoir. I worked for him a time or two and beyond that, I worked for those he’d hurt. Kid, you’re nothing like your father. Knew that the moment you handed me a sandwich while you had one. Knew it further when I looked into you. You know what people say who’ve met you?”
Severine shook her head, surprised that he’d checked her out.
“They say you’re nice. Kid, no one ever said that about Lukas DuNoir. I bet even you wouldn’t say that about him.”
Severine’s nose burned with tears, but she shook her head. She wanted to be able to say it. She wanted to be proud of her father, but she wasn’t.
“Why are you so fixated on finding who killed him anyway?” Shaw demanded.
“She’s haunted by them,” Charles said. “And she wants to sleep.”
Shaw laughed again, darkly. He shook his head and repeated, “Like I said, kid, you’re nothing like him. Lukas DuNoir never lost a night of sleep over anything he did to anyone. Not even that Sidney fellow, who was a true friend to your old dad once.”
“Enough of that,” Charles cut in. “Were you able to find out who was following you?”
“Nope,” Shaw said. He looked between them and then said, “I did follow him. Found he disappeared in an interesting location.”
“Did he?” Charles asked, irritated that Shaw was drawing it out. “And where would that be?”
“Where?” Shaw’s dark tone foreshadowed what came next. “The offices of DuNoir, DuNoir, and DuNoir.”
Severine stared, wishing she were surprised. It was those offices where Charles sometimes worked in the former office of her father. They’d never filled his place on the board. Severine had inherited it, along with everything else. Mr. Brand stood in when needed, but he’d been ordered to keep things as they were, so he’d let the rest of the board run the business as they had before.
Severine took in a slow breath and then said, “I wish that anything about what you just said was surprising.”
“What you might find surprising is that Uncle Henry isn’t out of town as Mr. Brand had said. He’s got another house.”
“He does?” Severine demanded.
“A mistress. He’s been there and sneaking about.”
“Were you able to discover where the man went once he was inside?” Charles asked. “Do you know who hired him?”
Severine frowned. “But wait, are you sure that this man you were following didn’t know you were following? Maybe he went there to put you off the true scent?”
Shaw shook his head. “Nope. He didn’t know I was following, and he walked right in, easy peasy and up the stairs.”
Charles cursed. “That isn’t so easy to do. He was recognized.”
“Yes, he was,” Shaw agreed. “I was stopped a few steps in and walked to the desk at the front. I asked for someone I knew wasn’t there and they sent me about my business.”
“We knew it was someone who was associated with Father’s money. They wouldn’t have been looking for his notebook otherwise. We knew his business was dirty, and we knew that it was likely what killed him.”
Shaw snorted. “Dirty? Girl, you technically own the bootlegging business in the French Quarter and much of the rest of the city.”
Severine’s gaze jerked to Shaw.
“Likely a good half of the brothels, gambling dens, and speakeasies in the city, too.”
“Father was dead before the prohibition.”
“That’s just an extension,” Shaw said. He stared between them and then said, “They kept it in his name. If the feds come in, it’s you and Brand going down while they skate away. Your father owned all the property they’re using.”
Severine paused and then asked, “Brothels?”
She wanted to vomit. She didn’t care so much about the alcohol. She didn’t like how it was illegal, and she had been known to have a glass of wine. She’d spent the last half-dozen years in a nunnery where the kindest and most loving of women made their own wine. Severine wasn’t a fan of how alcohol made some people monsters, and she appreciated the sentiment behind the noble experiment.
There was, she supposed, a level of criminality. The bootlegging and speakeasies made her uncomfortable, and they provided avenues for other crimes to happen. The brothels, however—were the women willing? Were they paid and taken care of?
Either way, Severine shook her head. She didn’t want to be part of it. She almost laughed bitterly and barely bit back the rising tirade.
“That’s what bought my father’s house?”
“No,” Shaw said, shaking his head. “I think that might have been selling arms during the war and supplying faulty goods to the soldiers. I don’t know the details, just the stories.”
Severine froze. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t process. She couldn’t think. She could do nothing but stare in horror and disgust. “Faulty goods?”
“And guns to whoever wanted them. So the stories go. I wouldn’t even know that much but I’m afraid I have connections in the worst of places.” Shaw seemed shocked that Severine was surprised, and he looked apologetic when he saw her start to crumple.
“So the soldiers died while my father profited.”
“Your father, his friends, his partners, his brothers. Maybe some soldiers just suffered a little more.”
Severine rose and fled without another word. She couldn’t hear more. She couldn’t take more. She knew she’d find things she didn’t want to know about her father, but she hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t expected such a terrible, terrible thing.
Her eyes weren’t burning, they were overflowing, and she ran until she found Bernadette and cried in her lap until the tears were gone, and the ex-nun said, “That’s enough now.”
“Will it ever be enough?” Severine cried.
“That’s enough melodrama for at least a week,” Bernadette said simply. “You knew what he was when you came back. You knew what he was when you were a child. Pretending otherwise, even if only to yourself, wastes all of our time. Stop crying and get to work.”
Chapter 15
Lisette looked terrible, Greyson Thorne and Osiris Oliver were still gone, and they were swimming in orphans.
“Quit pouting,” Lisette told Severine.
“Pouting?” Severine gasped.
“Your Bernadette told me I was pouting too, so I thought I would pass the message along. Let us all sort of…roll around in it.”
Severine gaped and then surprised herself with a laugh. “Why do I feel responsible for all of it?”
“For what your daddy did?” Lisette pretended to think and then told Severine, “I think you might think you need to be some kind of savior. I blame you being raised by nuns. I bet they saw things that needed to be done and then just did what they could. I bet you feel bad about Meline and her job as well.”
“Maybe.” Severine laid down on the bed next to Lisette and lifted the letter from Sister
Mary Chastity. “Want to hold my hand while I read this?”
“I would,” Lisette told Severine, only smiling with the half of her face that wasn’t bruised, “but it would hurt.”
Severine surprised herself with the tease, “Whiner.”
“Brat.”
“You should have been sneakier,” Severine said, knowing it was unfair, but the humor in her eyes cued Lisette in.
She laughed and then groaned. “Your Sister Bernadette is a force of nature.”
“She raised me,” Severine said quietly. “Bernadette and Mary Chastity. Who is, apparently, my aunt.” She held up the letter and then pushed up to sit up. She wasn’t going to take this lying down.
“Severine,” Lisette said gently, “do you remember when Jane Eyre got locked in the closet, tormented by her cousin, taken to the school, abused further, and then somehow inherited money? Do you remember how she was rescued on the moors by a man who wanted to marry her and yet she heard the soul-cry of her Mr. Rochester and returned to her nearly-blind love?”
Severine was baffled when she said, “Yes.”
“Her life was more believable than yours.”
Severine gasped and then laughed. A tear slipped down her face, but she said, “I love you, Lisette. You’re a good friend.”
Lisette’s gaze fixed on Severine’s and she nodded. Slowly, Severine opened the letter.
My Dearest Severine,
By now you know the truth, so I’ll set aside all of the things that matter most: how you are, if you’re happy, if you’re safe, and press forward. As you are now aware, I was once a DuNoir. I left that name and my family behind. I did it, knowing who they were, and I did it because they hurt me. I won’t get into the details. If you imagine something terrible, I’m sure you won’t be far wrong. Don’t imagine it, my darling. Don’t think on it.
I am not grateful for what happened, but I am grateful that it set me a journey that separated me from them. After I left, I didn’t see or speak to any of my family for some time. During the war, I saw Lukas again, and I could guess that whatever he was up to was nefarious.