by Sarra Cannon
She frowned at him.
“I’m glad because it means you’re doing all right,” he clarified. “It wasn’t easy… meeting you like that and just not knowing you were—how it turned out. Sorry if that’s strange.”
Hallie stared at his boots. Nothing about this wasn’t strange.
“So, are you—” he began, his voice laced with uncertainty, “are you here to work on the Belleyre project?”
But before she could respond, Dr. Signer stopped beside them, good-natured and brisk as usual. “Oh, good. I’m glad you two have met. Have a seat - Carla just arrived, so we’re ready to begin.”
Their little group - now five students and Dr. Signer - gathered around the conference table. Matthew took the danish plate and placed it in the center before settling in next to Hallie. He slid the danish napkins in front of her, but she ignored him. Today was about her grade and already, she was unsettled, thanks to him. How could she prove to herself she was capable of reassembling the pieces of her life, when the man who’d watched them shatter - who saw her only as a sad, tragic trauma victim - was sitting right beside her?
“All right,” Dr. Signer said, taking a seat at the head of the table with a yellow legal pad. “We’ll start with updates, and I have the first. I’d like to welcome Hallie to our team. She’s an undergraduate, pre-med, and she is joining the project to make up some course credit. Which means she is going to need a brief outline of our aims. Who would like to fill her in? Somebody volunteer, so I don’t have to pick on you.”
A tall girl with curly dark hair raised her hand so fast she knocked her eyeglasses askew. Unfazed, she adjusted them and answered.
“Our research project focuses on a local author, Christine Belleyre. She was an American writer and abolitionist who was most active during the Civil War, and she was primarily concerned with the plight of female slaves. Her diaries and letters document her work interviewing both enslaved and freed women. We know that she was in the process of writing a novel about them. During the war, however, she grew reclusive, split up her diaries and other papers, sent them out across the country, and then vanished.”
Dr. Signer held up her hand and wrote something on her legal pad. “Thank you, Carla. An excellent summary of the context of our work,” she said. “Can anyone else speak more directly to our specific aims?”
“We’re trying to stitch everything back together,” Matthew said, turning to look at Hallie. She hated that she was grateful for the excuse to look back at him, to drink in the sight of his easy smile and unshaven jaw. “Dr Signer is networking with other Belleyre scholars around the country, but we’re the central hub, because we’re in her hometown and have the largest Belleyre collection. People send us their scans and findings and we’re working on verifying and compiling them online, in the hopes that we can someday have a complete picture of her work.”
“Well said, Matthew.” But something snagged in Hallie's mind as she processed this.
“I’m sorry,” she interjected, “did you say she vanished?”
— —
He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Weeks of looking for her, of begging the hospital for information, and she had turned up here, of all places. And again, just like that night on the icy road, his heart had rebelled at the sight of her. Dormant parts of him woke and strained and he felt wildly out of control, as though his soul were a caged animal, roused by the sheer terror and pure joy of encountering its perfect companion—and its sole agent of destruction. It took every ounce of composure he could muster to speak to her, not to reach for her, to shake her hand so innocently while remembering how primally soothing it felt to comfort her, how it had roused and settled his soul in one fell swoop.
It took even more composure to remember that he had a job to do, a reason for seeking her out, and there was no point in getting attached to anything about her.
Everyone at the table laughed at Hallie’s question, and her ears flushed. She had tried to hide it, and she was doing a damn fine job, but Matthew knew she was in pain. He’d known it from the moment she walked in the door, could feel the distress in her soul like a knife wedged in his chest, tearing more at his flesh with every heartbeat.
“Belleyre did seem to vanish,” he said, gentling his voice for her. “Sometime around the end of the war, she abandoned her mansion on the hill and left Abingford. She must have taken another name, because no one has been able to find any record of her after she left. But we don’t have all of the clues yet, and that’s something else we’re working on. We’re trying to gain access to the Belleyre House, which hasn’t been inhabited in over sixty years and might still have some of its original contents. Letters, contracts, manuscripts, and other materials.”
Hallie was silent for a moment, and just as Dr. Signer was about to move on, she raised her hand, her gaze still on Matthew.
“How are you planning to gain access, especially given the locals’ attitude toward that place? They’re not just superstitious about it, they’re fiercely protective of it—it’s a part of their heritage. Despite the myths surrounding Belleyre, many of their families worked for her, and it’s well known she paid all of her employees a good, fair wage. That plantation drove Abingford's economy for decades.”
Even without looking, Matthew knew Dr. Signer was impressed at Hallie’s knowledge of the town’s history and attitudes. In that moment, his path was clear.
“Well,” he replied slowly, “I’ll definitely need a partner. One who can respect the complicated relationship this town has to the Belleyre House, and whose knowledge we can utilize to demonstrate that our work is giving Belleyre and Abingford the respect they deserve.”
“That is true,” Dr. Signer said, tapping the cap of her pen on the table. “Hallie, I’m going to pair you with Matthew to work on this. Follow his lead for now - he can brief you on the strategies I’ve discussed with him - but keep in mind what you’ve just said. Gaining entry to the house and using its artifacts are going to be incredibly challenging tasks without the support of the local community.”
And just like that, Matthew knew the universe was unquestionably handing him a gift. Here, at last, was his chance.
His task was simple. Seduce her. Make her love him. Then ask her, as delicately as possible, to rid him of his curse. To give him the ultimate gift—the only gift, after a century and a half of miserable stagnancy and weary loneliness, that he could ask for. The only gift that she alone could give him: death. It was time.
He glanced up from the danishes. The meeting had moved on to updates on documents from Maine and Texas, but across the table, Hallie hadn’t taken her eyes off of him. And from her hardened look, the vulnerability she guarded like a broken, caged bird, he knew one thing for sure: nothing about this would be easy.
Chapter 4
At the close of the meeting, Hallie lingered, hoping to escape without having to talk to Matthew just yet. When the room had cleared, she flung her heavy bag onto her shoulder and walked into the hallway—where Matthew was leaning against the wall.
“I was just waiting to see if you wanted to have coffee. To go over the stuff for the Belleyre house.”
“Uh - I can’t right now, actually. I have another meeting in town.”
“Ah. All right. Well, let me give you my phone number—” He pulled a pen and paper from his book bag and scribbled it down for her. Hallie ripped the sheet in two and signed her own number to the other half for him.
“I’ll call you and we can schedule a meeting,” he said. Papers rustled in the office across the hall. She nodded.
“Thanks,” she said, but as she walked past him toward the staircase, he stopped her.
“Hallie,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know something about surviving… and please believe me when I say that none of this is your fault.”
Instantly, she recoiled, her face and eyes burning with embarrassment and shame. She jerked her arm out of his grasp. He looked surprised, which frustrated her
even more.
“Who do you think you are?” she said, struggling to keep her voice to a whisper. In that moment, she hated him, this boy who had haunted her dreams with comfort and warmth, but whose real life gestures left her feeling naked, overexposed, and weak.
He took a step back, a deep crease in his brow, and opened his mouth uncertainly.
“Stop acting like you know me,” she said, and he winced. She softened her tone. “Look, I know it feels like we know each other, because of that night, but we don’t. I’m grateful for what you did, but I don’t need your pity. I’m just trying to live my life. So can we please just forget about it?”
He gave her an apologetic half-smile and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, running one hand through his hair. “From here on, it never happened. Clean slate. We’ve only just met. And it has been lovely meeting you, Miss Medina,” he added primly, playing up his Southern accent and inclining his head to her. “I look forward to many more such meetings in my future.”
His placating drawl made a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. She curtsied.
“As do I, Mr…”
“Roanoke.”
“God, that sounds so Southern.”
He chuckled, nodded, and set off in the opposite direction down the hallway, hands in his pockets, his steps echoing on the linoleum.
— —
The offices of Brockhurst and Landon were located on the second floor of a building in the historic town square, above a gourmet donut shop that, this late in the afternoon, had long sold its last pastries. Which was a shame, because Hallie was a stress-eater, and she had a weakness for the maple ones.
The office where the secretary had asked her to wait had stiff-backed leather chairs, whose heady scent mingled with the smell of sugar and yeast wafting up from downstairs. The desk was prim and tidy, with only a single sleek computer monitor on the leather desk pad - even the keyboard had been shoved out of sight. She could hear voices arguing in the waiting room: a man’s and - from the sound of it - the secretary, who had lipstick on her teeth but eyes like a hawk. A third voice joined the fray, and then Mr. Brockhurst flung open the door to the office, bustling through the doorway with his black briefcase half opened, his jacket draped over his arm, and his coffee cup tucked in his elbow.
“Sorry for the delay, Miss Medina.” He dropped his briefcase on the tidy mahogany desk and tossed his coffee cup in the trash. “Good God, the rabble Landon chooses to represent… Have you been waiting long?”
But he didn’t wait for her response. “All right,” he said, seating himself behind the desk. “I’m sure you’re wondering the reason I’ve asked you here today.”
“You mentioned, um, financial matters. Look, I know Dani’s bills are adding up, but I’m sure I can work out some kind of arrangement with the hospital—”
He began shaking his head as he pulled an embossed folder full of papers out of his briefcase.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Louisa has all of that taken care of. What we’re here to discuss is an entirely new matter, mostly unrelated to your accident or Dani’s care. Can I offer you something to drink? Lucille ought to have brought you some water, or a soda, at least—”
“I’m fine, really, Mr. Brockhurst. Please, continue.”
“Right. Well. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Ms. Fawcett has been quite active in supporting her daughter financially for many years, now.”
She sucked in a breath, feeling the lump in her throat harden. “I wasn’t aware of that, no.”
“I see. To put it simply, upon yours and Dani’s… separation from her, Louisa established an account in Dani’s name, which they both had access to. You know, perhaps, that the Fawcetts come from a family of means?”
“Louisa talked about it, sometimes, when we were kids… She said she had traveled when she was younger, and that her parents had a big house. But when I knew her, we lived in the camper. We lived on truck stop diner food and Chef Boyardee.”
Brockhurst merely chuckled. “Yes, Louisa was always the free spirit of the family. She liked doing things differently. But it was her money that allowed her to live such a carefree lifestyle, and she continued to support you and Dani, from afar, once she had left.”
Hallie couldn’t help but blurt the question that had gnawed at her every day for the last six years. “Then why did she leave?”
Brockhurst pursed his lips and had the decency to look contrite. “Quite honestly, Miss Medina, I don’t know. I haven’t actually spoken to her in several years. And I admit I am concerned, both as her lawyer and a family friend, about her mental state - then and now. She and I have conducted our occasional business over fax, when we needed to draw up papers. But recently—well, recently, her decisions have become increasingly erratic. She is bleeding money, to be quite frank, attempting to donate it to an apparently haphazard collection of organizations—and, as of last week, to you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Louisa contacted me with the instructions that I am to draw up the papers necessary to bequeath to you a very large some of money. Three million dollars, to be exact.”
At those words, Hallie’s breathing stopped. It was as though someone had sucked all the air out of the little office, so that not even the barest sound waves could travel through the vacuum. Her ears felt muted, her voice muffled, her hands disembodied. She laid them on the table and asked, absolutely expecting to be corrected, “Did you say three million dollars?”
His reply seemed to float out of nowhere. “Yes. Three million dollars.”
“Now,” he continued, “I know that you’re probably very eager to—”
An hysterical laugh bubbled, involuntarily, from her lips.
“Wait. Wait. Dani has had this kind of money… forever? Since Louisa left?”
“Yes.”
“They were in contact, then, this whole time?”
“I don’t know the extent of their communications, but I believe so. Now if we could return to—”
“She lied. They both lied.”
“Miss Medina, please—”
“And now I’m supposed to take her money.”
“I really think that if you—”
Hallie stood up so fast that Brockhurst’s computer wobbled, blood pounding in her ears. “I can’t. No. Thank you for your time, Mr. Brockhurst, but I really can’t do this right now.”
“Miss Medina - Hallie - please wait, this really isn’t—”
She pushed open the door and had made it halfway down the stairs before she lost her footing and landed hard on her butt. She was heading nowhere. Cruel thoughts crept into her mind. Where could she go? To the campus apartment she could no longer afford, that Dani had been so enthusiastic about, that she’d signed for so enthusiastically, claiming money was no obstacle? The apartment that Hallie’s scholarship stipend and Dani’s supposed “double shifts” had paid for? The place that had become her first real, permanent home? No. She couldn’t go anywhere, really. She didn’t even have a car anymore. The Westie—well, who knew where the Westie was anymore? Maybe Louisa had shipped it to Boston, too.
Her stomach roiled, and Hallie leaned her forehead against the wall of the stairwell, unsure whether she was going to vomit or hit something. Then, as anger coursed through her, she turned around and climbed back up the stairs two at a time, through the waiting area where the secretary was dusting the fake plants, and burst back into Brockhurst’s office.
“I want the Westie.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The car. The Westie. I want the Westie.” Those are my demands, she felt like saying.
“Ah. The Volkswagen Westfalia camper.” He shuffled through his documents. “Yes, I think I remember seeing it mentioned… Right.” He looked back up at her, pulling a pair of thin silver reading glasses out of his coat, which hung off the arm of his chair, and putting them on. “Please, have a seat. I know that this is an emotional, trying time for you, and that none of this news
is exactly easy, but it must be dealt with, and in a timely fashion.”
Hallie sank back into the chair, trying to calm her heartbeat.
“Excellent. Now, the Westfalia camper should be no issue. Louisa has always been very clear that it is to pass to you, in the event that Dani…is unable to care for it. As I understand, the van will be ready within a week or two, as a specialized mechanic is completing the repairs right now.
“The matter of the trust fund, however, is not quite so easy. As I mentioned, I am concerned about Ms. Fawcett’s state of mind, given her recent financial decisions. Which is why I am not accepting her instructions via fax, at this time, and am insisting on an in-person confirmation of her wishes. Which brings me to my point.
“I need someone to find Louisa and speak to her in person, gain her original signature for the five million, and convince her to contact me directly, so that I can proceed with handling her legal and financial decisions. She has proven immensely difficult to track down. Naturally, I had hoped you would be amenable to finding her yourself, given that you traveled with her extensively and know her ‘regular haunts,’ so to speak, and also given that it is, after all, your five million dollars that lies in the balance.”
Hallie gaped at him.
“You want me to track down the woman who told me she saw me as her daughter, then abandoned me—and her real daughter—at a motel in Abilene, in order for me to get her money? All because you think that she is making irrational decisions with this money, despite years of her being, by all accounts, less than stable?”
“I—I really think it will be best for all parties involved,” Brockhurst stammered.
Hallie stood up again. “No. No way. I don’t want her money. I don’t want anything but the Westie. I’ve looked out for it for the last six years, restoring it, maintaining it…Dani never cared. It’s as much mine as theirs. But beyond that, I don’t want anything from them, or anything more to do with any of you. That’s all I want—to be left alone.”