by Beth Moore
“No problem. I get it. But I can’t bring myself to let you go in there with everything turned upside down. Just give me a little while.”
“I so wish you wouldn’t bo—”
Stella had already gone into her room and shut the door behind her before Jillian could finish the sentence. “No bother at all, Jillian. I need to do it anyway,” Jillian muttered under her breath.
She pulled a pair of jeans out of her suitcase and tried to remember where she’d stuck her makeup. When the plastic bag occurred to her, she remembered the shirt she’d dropped in the toilet at Café Beignet. She tore open the bag and pulled the top out of it carefully with her thumb and index finger. “Gross.” She stepped on the pedal of the trash can in the kitchen, and when the lid opened, she dropped the top in it. At least the makeup was in a sturdy enough plastic bag to be rinsed off without getting her eye shadows wet. She’d found them in the cosmetic aisle at the drugstore near Saint Sans, but they still weren’t cheap.
Most of the morning had passed by the time Stella came out of her room. “Have at it,” she said, not rudely by any stretch but matter-of-factly.
“Thank you so much,” Jillian responded sincerely. As she walked into the straightened bedroom, change of clothes in hand, she noticed Stella pausing at the door.
“I have an errand I’ve got to run.” Stella seemed anxious.
“I hate that you have to go out in this deluge.”
“Well, me, too. But I’ve got something I need to take care of.”
“Go right ahead. You sure don’t need to babysit me, Stella. I want to be as low maintenance as I can as long as I’m here. I’ll just take a shower and do the rest of my getting ready at the sink in the other bathroom. Okay with you?”
Stella looked unsettled. “Yep. I’ll be back before you know it.” Stella remained at the doorway to the bedroom until Jillian went into the bathroom and shut the door.
Jillian took her shower in record time, hoping to be out of there and in the other bathroom by the time Stella got back. It took Jillian a full minute to realize that the chrome knobs in the shower were reversed. Teeth chattering, she turned the C knob quickly to the right and the icy water warmed up.
She opened the bathroom door the second she was dressed. “Stella, I’m out!” She walked into the bedroom, wrapping the towel around her head, and heard no response. Relieved that she’d gotten out of the shower before Stella returned, she slowed down a bit, caught her breath, and picked up her pajamas from the bathroom floor.
On her way back to the living room, she noticed a book on Stella’s nightstand. It was a tattered clothbound antique with the spine split on one end and shredded on the other. The front of the book had a design on it, but the cover was too dark for her to discern the image from across the room. Curiosity piqued, Jillian stepped over to the nightstand and picked up the book. She prepared herself to be impressed if it turned out to be an old classic.
The faded image on the cover was a woman wrapped all the way around with her floor-length hair. She was standing in a garden that looked a lot like the one in Stella’s bizarre mural. A large snake was curled at the woman’s feet. The picture was disappointingly unoriginal. Jillian didn’t know much about the Bible, but it didn’t take a theologian to assume the woman on the cover of the book was supposed to be Eve. The title on the spine was unreadable, so she opened the book to check for one inside, sending chunks of brittle pages to the floor.
She squatted down quickly to gather up the sections of yellowed paper and stick them back in place. Wedged in before the last few pages was a close-up photograph of Stella, taken not many years before. Jillian pulled it out and stared intently at it, her heart beginning to pound. The picture in her hand had been ripped in half. Jillian thumbed through the old book, searching for the other piece or a note that might go with it. Not a single other item was tucked in the pages. Jillian’s mind started to race. She did not know how it was possible or why it would be so, but she knew as much by intuition as memory who’d been in the other half of that picture. She’d caught a glimpse of it in Olivia’s hand.
Jillian’s pulse reverberated in her ears. “It can’t be,” she whispered, trying to back herself out of the madness. “You’re putting things together that don’t go together, Jillian. Get a grip. It can’t be the same picture.” She knew her words were sane and reasonable. What were the chances that Stella and Rafe had been in the same picture? But her insides were sounding a frantic alarm.
She jumped to her feet, her eyes darting wildly around the room. The bottom edge of Stella’s closet caught her eye. The door was shut tight, but the corner of a black trash bag was protruding about an inch through the opening at the base. Jillian’s memory jumped to the bag that had been on Stella’s bed the night before. She remembered how nervous Stella had looked, glancing over her shoulder toward her bedroom, leaving Jillian so long at the front door. She was just cleaning stuff out. Nothing unusual about that, Jillian told herself. She was embarrassed about the mess. But why get all nervous about it? And why did I get that weird feeling?
What she was doing was inappropriate enough, but snooping in a person’s bedroom closet was a boundary a true friend would refuse to cross. What kind of friend was she? Right or wrong, a second question welled up within her with such force that it drove her past the war within to a place of no return. What kind of friend was Stella?
She quickly perused the room for another bag. Maybe the bag in the closet wasn’t the one she’d seen the night before.
Jillian knew this much for certain: the trash bag on the bed last night hadn’t been in Stella’s hand when she’d stood in the doorway earlier. Jillian placed her palm on the doorknob to the closet and leaned back for an eyeshot of the living room, making sure she was alone. Stella could walk through the apartment door any second.
Adrenaline spiked through Jillian like a geyser. She turned the knob and opened the closet to a maelstrom of clothes and hats and shoes. She shook her head, chiding an imagination that was derailing her rationale like it was a runaway train. Glancing into the living room again, she crouched down to untie the knot in the black trash bag. The knot was stubborn in her trembling fingers. “Come on! Give!” Tearing into the bag would give her away the second Stella opened the closet. Finally the knot came loose.
The heavy rain darkening the windows frustrated Jillian’s view. Turning on the light was out of the question. She foraged through the bag, trying to identify the contents by feel, checking and rechecking the front door. Panicking over how long it was taking, Jillian rotated the bag upside down, tumbling out the contents. The items toward the top of the heap were random and meaningless: a few pieces of women’s clothing, a towel, an old purse. She dug toward the bottom like a dog digging for a bone. Underneath a stringy terry-cloth robe, she turned up a man’s shirt. Next to it she found a faded baseball cap and, beneath it, a card key from a local motel. She drew an old cell phone out of the pile and felt around for a charger, surfacing, instead, a single glossy snapshot.
Jillian snatched the picture and held it above her head to catch as much light as possible. It was the two of them, Stella and Rafe, in a photo apparently taken at the same time as the one torn in half. Her thoughts whirled, trying to snag something that made sense of the sight. She came up on her knees, stuck the photo in her back pocket, and began stuffing the contents back into the bag as fast as her hands would fly. She glanced around her and frantically patted the floor for anything she’d left out of the bag. Her right hand landed on an object that had tumbled to the edge of the dresser.
It was a man’s wallet, typical dark leather with time-blackened edges. Jillian picked it up and opened it, butterflies crowding her stomach. Under the clear plastic was an old state of Louisiana driver’s license. She blinked her eyes, adjusting her sight to the shadows, glared at the man’s picture, and read the small print.
Fontaine, Raphael Weyland
Stunned, Jillian dropped back on her heels and fell into so
meone standing behind her.
CHAPTER 36
SPRING 1919
THE ORGAN WAS NOTHING LIKE the pipes at Saint Mary’s, but it had been donated to Saint Silvanus, and anybody with a lick of sense knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth. To a charter congregation big on cause and short on funds, the instrument may as well have been dipped in gold.
It was a regular pump organ that had been restored some years earlier but never electrified. The owner meant to get rid of it but claimed it just wouldn’t leave. More of a parlor variety, it was Victorian-style oak with an intricately carved crown pediment set behind four spindled torches, the latter of which went almost without saying.
The fancy beveled mirror embedded behind the fretwork was a classic. It served as the eyes in the back of the organist’s head. With her back to the congregation and the organ flush against the north wall, she could not only see the soloist she accompanied but faces of parishioners as well. That coveted bench was the best seat in the house, but the options were rather limited regarding who would grace it. Hiring someone was out of the question. The church could barely support the parson’s small family. The first volunteer who appeared to know middle C from high C won the bench. The congregants counted themselves fortunate when she happened to be a widow who’d taught piano lessons for longer than many of them had been alive. After all, how different could a piano and an organ be?
The organ pedals were Brianna’s favorite preoccupation during prolonged vocal selections when everybody could stand but her. Since she was seated on the front pew of the opposite section, she enjoyed the perfect side view. Each pedal was overlaid with harp-shaped filigreed metal plates that teased as brass. It was a nice touch, certainly, but the ornamentations were a cut above the normal tastes of a nine-year-old.
What Brianna loved best was the way Mrs. Scoggins often slipped off her shoes to pump the organ so as not to scratch the fine filigree, and on no rare occasion, a stocking would get stuck to a rough edge. This was an understandable distraction and one that normally led to an untimely chord as the stocking rarely if ever pulled free on its own. By the time Mrs. Scoggins bent over and rose again, the soloist had moved on and could seldom find her way back.
Brianna’s joy was not complete until she shifted her gaze to her father, enthroned on the platform in a tall-back chair with red velvet inserts.
CHAPTER 37
“YOU KNEW HIM!” Jillian scrambled to her feet, trapped between Stella and the closet door.
“How dare you pry into my private things? I took you in and you—”
“How dare I? Are you kidding me? Here’s a better question: who are you?” Jillian’s fury exceeded her fear. She tried to step around Stella, but Stella bodily blocked her. Jillian leaned forward, bringing her face only a few inches from Stella’s. “You need to move or I swear, woman, I will move you.”
“I will move under one condition: you sit down and let me explain. There are things you need to know.”
“Oh, I want an explanation alright. Now, move.”
Stella hesitated before taking a step back. Jillian bent down and gathered up her pajamas and toiletries and walked around Stella to the living room. Stacking up all her things in the chair closest to the apartment door, Jillian said, “So, talk.”
“Sit down and I will.”
“I prefer to stand. Actually, I prefer to leave, but you owe me an explanation.”
The look Stella gave Jillian was chilling.
Jillian steeled herself and refused to back down. “You knew him. How?”
Stella walked over to the window and gazed into the downpour without saying a word. She placed her hand on the cold pane and spread her fingers apart, squinting as if she were staring through them. A sheet of lightning lit up the room. Jillian fell into the chair and pulled her knees to her chest as thunder clapped right on its heels. Stella never flinched.
“Jillian,” Stella finally uttered, still staring out the window, “I need you to go somewhere with me.”
“Are you out of your mind? For starters, it’s falling a flood out there.”
“It’s not like a tornado and we’re not going to melt if we get wet. It will be worth it to you. You need to see some things with your own eyes.”
“What kinds of things? Why don’t you tell me what they are first and then I’ll decide if I want to make the trip.”
“Pieces of the puzzle. Things you need to know about the Fontaines. There’s more to all of this than you realize. You don’t know that woman at all.” Stella paused for a moment, her back still to Jillian. “And there are some things of Raphael’s. Things you will be very interested in seeing.”
The tone of Stella’s voice and the halting cadence of her words were so different from normal that Jillian would not have known it was her in a pitch-black room. Jillian wondered if Stella might have taken something. Either way, Jillian was annoyed that she wouldn’t just face her and talk. “Why do you have stuff that belonged to him? Answer me that first.”
Stella turned around slowly and leaned her back against the windowpane. Her eyes were now fixed on Jillian’s. “We had a thing.”
The fact that Stella had insider information on the family was nearly intolerable to Jillian. She was still trying to wrap her mind around an existing connection between them. “A thing. What kind of thing?” Jillian knew what Stella meant, but after weeks of withheld information in multiple face-to-face conversations, Jillian wasn’t going to let her get away with the indirect approach. She was quickly losing patience with Stella’s whole mysterious air.
“We were together for a while.”
“A couple. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm. And exactly when would that have been, since my understanding is that it has been some time since he was sober enough to carry on a relationship?”
“He had his seasons.”
“So you two had a ‘thing’ during one of his ‘seasons,’” Jillian responded sarcastically.
Stella stared at her without saying a word. Jillian let the silence hang heavy between them for a while but soon lost patience with what seemed like a game. She stuck her pajamas and her toiletries in her suitcase and zipped it up.
As Jillian turned toward the apartment door, Stella muttered, “His last.”
Something about those two words stuck a hook through Jillian’s soul. She did not want to go with Stella, but in that moment, she knew she did not have the will to resist it. The curiosity was too much. The gaps in Rafe’s story had become the gaps in her own. Those puzzle pieces did not belong to Stella. They belonged to her. Jillian resolved to gather them up, call Jade for help, and walk away from these people forever. “Is it close by?”
“Close enough.”
“You have one hour. Then you drop me off at the café. From there I’ll check into a motel until I can leave town. Agreed?”
Stella nodded. “Give me a moment before we leave. I need to take some things from here.” She paused. “So that you can see it all together.”
“I’ll be at the bottom of the stairs for two minutes, and after that, I’m leaving.”
Stella soon descended the stairs with a bulging purse under her arm and keys in her hand. Despite the umbrella, they were both drenched by the time they got to Stella’s car. Jillian hadn’t felt much like huddling with her underneath it. It made no difference anyway. The rain was falling diagonally in sheets.
Stella tried the ignition several times before the old car started. It was a small model and quite low to the ground—unnervingly so, given the flooding that had begun in the narrow streets around the quarter.
Jillian tried to keep from shaking all over while waiting for the heater to kick in. The speed of the windshield wipers added to her agitation and the blade on the passenger side was half off, whipping back and forth furiously. The traffic lights were only visible up close. Jillian shoved her right foot into the floorboard as Stella drove through a stoplight.
Lightning split the sky and Jillian braced herself for a clap of thunder that nearly shook the car. “Maybe we should stop somewhere until some of this passes.” Jillian was almost at a full-throttle yell, trying to make herself heard over the roar of the downpour.
Stella’s response was equally loud. “Where would you suggest?”
Jillian had no idea where they were, but it was clear even through the gray blur that this was not a neighborhood of cafés and convenience stores. Twisting around in the seat in search of friendly shelter, she realized not one light was on in the run-down buildings they were passing. “The electricity must be out. This is freaky. Let’s go back.”
“We’re here.” Stella made a sudden right turn that nearly threw Jillian into her lap. The front tire bumped hard against the curb and the car swerved left as Stella overcorrected, nearly careening them into a flooded ditch. By the time Jillian could compose herself, Stella was pulling the car up to an old storage unit on the back side of a lot. Jillian could no longer think of anything that could be behind that roll-up door to make the trip worth it.
Stella got out of the car in the gushing rain without glancing back at the umbrella. She walked methodically around to the trunk and opened it. The trunk slammed and Stella appeared at Jillian’s car window and tried to open her door. Jillian hesitated for a moment but unlocked it. After all, whatever they’d come to see was obviously behind that door. As she grabbed the umbrella and cracked the door to unfold it, she saw a crowbar in Stella’s hand.
“What’s that for?” she yelled over the roaring rain.
“The door sticks.” Black mascara streamed down Stella’s face.
Stella hit the roll-up door several times with the crowbar and then crouched down to wedge it between the bottom of the door and the pavement. The door gave way, sliding up quickly and bouncing at the top with a bang. A beam of light streamed from the left edge of the unit. Jillian tried to make sense of the sight before her. When the beam jerked side to side, she saw the form of a large man inside the unit wielding a flashlight.