St. Charles at Dusk: The House of Crimson and Clover Series Prequel

by Sarah M. Cradit

  What is wrong with me? I wondered. I felt like molasses, laden; I couldn't stand to be in my own skin. This was more than being drunk. I had four drinks, fewer than my usual when I decided to sit down and drink. What was going on?

  I saw the main road and walked in that direction, relieved I'd found it again. I was embarrassed. Arriving at my hotel, over an hour later and drenched in my own sweat, I felt a dull pang in my arm.

  On my room’s door was a note, sealed with tape. I left it attached to the door, but unfolded it.

  Mr. Sullivan,

  Go back to New Orleans at once. You have been of no use to me and I can have my fiancée’s lawyer contact you for the legal formalities surrounding my estate. I believe you will attempt to contact me again, but I ask you not to bother. It will be a waste of your time. I will not see you. Please believe that my fiancée will also respect those wishes.

  Regards,

  Adrienne

  I ripped the note off the door and crumpled it in my fist. I couldn’t possibly imagine what she was talking about. All I did was sit down and try to talk to her. She was the one who completely flipped out. Besides, she already sent Jesse to “set me straight.” Would that not have been sufficient?

  Her moods seemed to be as fragile as glass. It made me scared to open my mouth at all. She had been one step ahead of me since I arrived, and still I had no idea how… or why. Adrienne was an enigma even more so now than she ever had been. This was not part of my job, analyzing her. I decided to call my father; I was coming home at once.

  Jesse and Adrienne could have their wish. Although I was not particularly fond of Jesse, I much preferred his calm way to her crazy, unpredictable one.

  I flipped open my cellular phone and saw I had a voice mail. Colin, I guess you must have left your phone in the motel, but call me when you get this. My father’s voice was urgent.

  Moments later, my father was on the other end. “Colin! Where have you been?”

  “Where else? I went to go see Adrienne.” I was suddenly struck with an overwhelming exhaustion that eclipsed what I felt on the road. I wanted nothing more than to climb on to the hard motel mattress and sleep.

  “What is wrong with you? How can you be so nonchalant at a time like this?” my father demanded.

  “What are you talking about? I think I need to take a nap.”

  “A nap? A nap?” I imagined him pacing the room, pulling his hair out. “I received a call from Adrienne’s boyfriend’s mother. It seems that Adrienne told her everything.”

  “Good, that should save me the trouble.” I was sleepy beyond belief. “Did she tell you how she acted? Did she apologize?” I managed to form the words around a yawn.

  “Apologize for what? How could you try to make a move on Adrienne like that? What has gotten into you? I never imagined in a million years you would do something this insane!”

  “I would hardly call what happened insane, unless you’re speaking specifically of her behavior.” I was only half aware of the conversation. The feeling of exhaustion hit me so quickly it was difficult to think of anything but rest.

  “What did you say? Colin, that’s it, I’m coming down there. I don’t know what kind of trouble you’ve managed to get yourself into, and with the crazy, dazed way you’re acting now, I cannot possibly trust you, can I?” My father’s words would have stung, had I not been completely blown away by the day’s events and my fatigue. “Are you drunk?”

  “No, Dad, I’m fine.” Giving my head a shake, I fought the haze claiming my mind. Maybe if I clapped my hands I would wake up. That’s it, that was the only rational explanation for it all, I decided. I must be dreaming.

  “Colin Sullivan, snap out of it!”

  The last thing I wanted was my father to come down and take over. My head was throbbing now, keenly aware of every movement I made, right down to my heartbeat.

  Then, in a moment of clarity, I realized something was very wrong. Something awful had happened. When I was in college, someone once slipped some sort of drug into my drink, and this was almost exactly the feeling that had ensued. I remembered the strange woman at the bar; the drinks I hadn’t ordered.

  “I mean it, I am fine,” I reaffirmed. I was using all of my energy to sound collected and confident. All I wanted was sleep, and it was washing over me fast, whether I liked it or not. I had to keep my father out of this, though, and I knew I had to pull myself together for a few more minutes. “It was a long day and I lost track of time. Adrienne wasn’t very responsive.”

  “Well, if you threatened me, I wouldn’t be very responsive either!” my father yelled into the receiver. I pulled the phone away from my head as my father’s words resonated through both ears. I was ultra-sensitive to everything around me now; every word was low and deep and carried weight that moved around in my head like a game of Pong. Had my father just accused me of threatening Adrienne Deschanel?

  “What are you talking about? The visit lasted all of five minutes.” I was afraid I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I was fading in and out. My mouth felt thick, like honey, and my lips struggled to form words, reminding me of the few hours following a dental visit when the Novocain was wearing off. The room started to bend and flex. This must be what it is like to trip on acid, I thought to myself as I lay back against the pillow. I closed my eyes, trying desperately to block out the sounds and shapes that were painfully sharp.

  Tomorrow, I would go back down to the bar and find out who that woman was. Tomorrow, I would press charges for slipping drugs into my drink, and demand to know why she had done it. Tomorrow…

  “You abandoned yourself completely! How could you force yourself on her like that? What in the hell were you possibly thinking?”

  “She said what?” The exhaustion was becoming too much for me to bear, and I knew I had dropped the phone because the sound bounced and echoed as it hit the bed on the way down.

  As I finally drifted into unconsciousness, I heard the sound of my father’s voice on the other end, fading in and out.

  When I came to, I had the distinct feeling of satisfied restfulness. Light shined into the room from the window between the open curtains and spilled out in a line across the end of the bed. As I sat up, the light hit my eyes and I had to shield them with the hand that wasn’t propping me up.

  I heard a female voice and turned to see my sometimes-girlfriend, Caitlin, another lawyer from the firm. She was thirty-five, eleven years older than me. After my last experience with love, I preferred a seasoned woman, though I never harbored any illusions of long term commitment with Caitlin.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked and set down a glass of water. She was pretty, but not in a conventional way; a power suit and dirty martini, two olives. Her short blond hair was cut perfect, straight, and severe, laying neatly along her jaw line. Her cheekbones were high and pronounced, and her cheeks seemed to cave in beneath them when she talked. Her charcoal eyes reminded me of cold steel. She was unmercifully thin, yet nearly six feet tall (without her three-inch heels on), and she towered over me like a giant now.

  “Rested,” I said. The water was gone in one quaff, and I immediately wanted more.

  “Well you should feel that way. You’ve been sleeping for nearly fourteen hours,” she told me.

  “That's not possible,” I argued. The meeting with Adrienne, my father’s phone call, everything was slowly coming back and I felt the panic rise up. “My father isn’t here, is he?” I asked, fearing her response.

  “He’s at the office. I told him I would call when you were awake.” Caitlin stood up from the chair and stretched her long limbs.

  “Please don’t call him yet. I need some time to make sense of it all,” I appealed.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Your father turned the case over to me, Oz. I have to go down and speak with the Fontaines' attorney, assuming I can even find him or her. They aren’t listed. It's imperative you tell me what really happened, or at least what you know.” She was al
ways professional, even with me.

  “When are you going?” I ignored her request, taking the offense. I was angry, though not surprised. Until I could find out what really happened, my father would remain horrified with whatever he thought happened in Abbeville.

  “Not just yet. I was afraid you would wake up and be disoriented. I didn’t want to leave you alone.” She leaned over to kiss me. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better now,” I said and smiled. I nuzzled my head into the warm fold of her leg and closed my eyes again. “Much better, in fact.” I nibbled at her leg and started to run my hands across her smooth abdomen.

  Presented with an unfolding scenario that could potentially ruin my career, all I could think about was sex. Sex wouldn’t fix anything, I knew this quite surely, but it would take the edge off long enough for me to gather myself. Besides, it was a much better alternative than thinking about what was really going on.

  “Oz, maybe later, okay?” Caitlin sounded disgusted.

  Her cold attitude sobered me. “I don’t know what my father has told you Cate, but absolutely none of it is true. I need to figure out what happened to me.”

  “Oz, sometimes when people do bad things, they block them out and don’t want to remember them. Sometimes-”

  “Stop patronizing me. You aren’t even listening. One minute Adrienne and I were talking, the next she ran out of the diner like a madwoman. I called her house and they treated me like a stalker, and then her boyfriend wanted to meet me for drinks. I walked back here and next thing I know, Dad’s on the phone telling me a story about shit that never happened!”

  I started from the beginning and told her everything, detailing all from the scene in the diner to the bar to the surreal walk home.

  She laughed, mocking me. “Conspiracy? Oz, you’re talking crazy now!”

  “I never said that. Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not one of your cases, Caitlin.”

  “I didn’t put words in your mouth Oz. I interpreted what you said quite clearly. You're attempting to push blame on someone else for your own actions,” she asserted. Her demeanor was smug and I wanted something to say to wipe the look off her face. Instead, I said:

  “That woman drugged me. I want to be tested.”

  She released a sigh of pure exasperation, one that said she couldn’t reason with a madman. “Oz, it’s time to be honest with yourself. The whole city of New Orleans knows how you felt about Adrienne, and I can see how you might have been overwhelmed when you saw her. So overwhelmed that you-”

  I pushed her away and rolled over so my back was to her. “Why did you come if you think I’m some sort of psychopath?” I asked. “I thought you, of all people, would know better. Sometimes your pragmatism makes me sick.”

  Caitlin touched my shoulder, and gently tried to pull me back, but I wouldn’t budge. “Oz, I came for two reasons. One, to take over the case, and two, because I care about you.”

  “I like that your concern for me was second to the case.”

  She sighed. “You know what I meant.”

  “Whatever,” I grunted. There were bigger things happening here than she and I.

  “Look, you don’t have to be so impossible. I’m not the one who screwed up here. I’m only trying to help,” she offered, as some kind of backwards reassurance.

  I rolled out of bed and immediately my knees buckled, landing me abruptly on the floor. When Caitlin rushed over, I pushed her arm away and pulled myself up with the chair. I hated the look of satisfaction on her face.

  “Don’t. Just go,” I growled, allowing the increasing distaste into my voice.

  “I’m worried about you, let me help you-“

  I wondered at that moment what I ever saw in her in the first place. She was attractive, but she had always been cold, even in the bedroom. I dated her because she was “safe.” I saw then, as she stood with her bony fingers splayed out on the sides of her bony hips, that safe was not always as it seemed. “Caitlin, spare yourself the effort. I’ll see you back in New Orleans.”

  On the drive home, I tried to keep my mind blank and concentrate on the road. I didn’t want to think about Adrienne, or my father, or Caitlin, or any of it until I got back to the city.

  The Deschanel files rested on the seat beside me. Caitlin would need those, but she wouldn’t be getting them from me.

  8- Oz

  Oz Reminisces…

  Giselle Deschanel was the beautiful daughter of my father’s most prestigious client. The blonde bombshell who got everything she wanted simply by being who she was; the girl every other female her age wanted to be. She was out of my reach, and seemed to like it that way, but equally loved the ego boost my attentions gave her. With an occasional date, she kept me wrapped around her finger.

  This was the summer Adrienne was thirteen and I was eighteen, and the same summer Adrienne would be sent off to a boarding school in Belgium.

  I wasn’t sure why I put myself through such pains for Giselle. I knew I was nothing special to her, and I had no problem getting much prettier and more desirable girls. But I was unable to help myself when she put her hands on those hot little hips of hers and brushed her long, golden hair off to the side. She was the personification of wanting that which you cannot really have, so the thrill of the chase kept me interested in her far longer than it should have.

  In hindsight, perhaps I was simply addicted to the Deschanels. First Anasofiya, then Giselle, Nathalie, and Adrienne. I'd flirted with Amelia as well, another cousin. No other women ever made an impression on me the way the female Deschanels did. Not ever.

  I arrived at Ophélie to pick Giselle up for a date. Despite my patience and persistence, it was a date never meant to happen. When I pulled into the carport behind Ophélie, I saw two police cars and, much to my surprise, my father’s Ferrari I so loved driving.

  “What do you mean you have no suspects?” Charles Deschanel was screaming to an officer who seemed properly intimidated. Charles himself looked disheveled, his shirt un-tucked and his thinning hair standing up to one side. I saw my father on the other side of the room near the oak mantel, his arms crossed, observing and waiting for a chance to speak.

  On the ottoman sat Cordelia, looking unaffected, and Nathalie. Lucienne and Giselle stood in the corner, barely visible in the dark. Giselle shot me an apologetic look before glancing back at her feet.

  Adrienne sat cross-legged in the high-backed leather chair, silent and wide-eyed, as she watched the adults in the room run around frantically. She stared straight ahead, at nothing in particular, and blinked so seldom I wondered if she was catatonic.

  Realization was immediate; I knew exactly what was going on.

  Three months before, the Deschanels had filed five different complaints with the police, claiming an unknown woman had been caught late at night trying to sneak into Adrienne’s bedroom window. Soon after, Charles began receiving the letters.

  You can’t ignore me forever, if I have to I will use her to get to you and your thoughts and your wants, and that is the truth, and the truth is what you hide from the world and from us, truth she will find because she can see past you, oh yes, and I will make sure she does.

  Most of the letters were variations of the same, cryptic nonsense. Cordelia believed it to be the mindless ramblings of a homeless woman who made residence near a gap in the levee, down the road. Harmless at best and invasive at worst. Charles, though, had an air about him which suggested he had good reason to believe the letters were not harmless. Whatever his secret, it was one of the few he did not share with my father.

  Charles didn’t seem to notice the new presence in the room, leaving me free to find out from my father what happened. From him I learned Adrienne was nabbed from where she was reading on the property footbridge, and Charles had gone mad. He was furious with Cordelia for encouraging him to be so laissez faire when it came to his own daughter’s safety. He had over one hundred people looking for her into the early morning before someone found her be
hind the old kitchen, sobbing, with a cross painted on her forehead in black soot, and another one of those letters pinned to her shirt. This one sounded more like a threat, with phrases such as, Can you see how serious I am now? Next time I have to do this will be the last time you see her. Adrienne had been too traumatized to tell anyone what happened.

  “I’m here to make the arrangements for Adrienne to leave immediately,” my father whispered to me. His eyes remained on his client, Charles.

  “Where is she going? I don’t understand.”

  “A Catholic school in Brussels.” My father offered no further explanation. I didn’t ask.

  An hour later, after the police left, Charles retreated with my father and Adrienne to his office. Anticipating her response, I asked Giselle if she still wanted to go out.

  “Not really.” She was not her usual self. Her mouth was turned down at the corners, her eyes lackluster. Even her hair seemed ordinary. Her usual glow faded to a dull shimmer, and she didn’t appear to care if I noticed. I thought I understood. Giselle was a different person to me than she was to her sisters. With her sisters, she could leave behind the act and be herself: carefree, fun, unmasked. She was losing the one she was closest to.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to Adrienne,” I offered awkwardly.

  “Yeah.” Her tears threatened to pour down her face. What she said next seemed to be directed at no one in particular. “Father may as well send me, too. Adrienne can’t be by herself. I will kill whoever tried to hurt her. I will, I swear I will!”

  I put my hand on her shoulder and felt like an adult for the first time in my life. Giselle leaned into me, face to my chest, and cried. In the somber house, I felt like crying, too.

  Aside from an abbreviated summer vacation the following year, neither of us saw Adrienne again for three years.