Deja New

by MaryJanice Davidson

  She tried to explain this to her stone-faced audience, men who didn’t understand why a woman would want to be in charge of her own life, men who found the idea as repellant as it was incomprehensible.

  But how to explain her bloody clothes?

  “I have no idea! Before I moved away I donated a number of items to the church. I did the same in Paris. Anyone could have picked them up, and they could have blood on them for any number of reasons.”

  But what were the odds of her clothes turning up soaked with blood?

  “A good way to determine that the blood isn’t mine would be to note that I’m still alive.”

  That was another thing. Her temper.

  At least one suggested that she wasn’t who she said she was. “You don’t look like an Augusta,” one of them said, eyeing her riotous red curls and freckles. “You look like a Sally. Or a Bridget.”

  It was all she could do not to fly at him and tear his face with her fingernails.

  When, incredibly, it appeared the execution was going forward, she started talking to the press. “The press” in town consisted of an older gentleman in his forties, who was much more interested in her legs than the pursuit of justice. He, too, seemed to think the entire affair was a darkly hilarious misunderstanding, one it would be too much trouble to correct.

  “But I’m here. I’m right here, I’m not dead. They didn’t kill me.”

  A shrug. “Well, they killed someone.”

  “How does that follow? As I told the police, that blood could be on the clothes for any number of reasons. And, once again—I do hate to belabor the point—I am not dead!”

  “Perry has a violent history, he confessed, he’s too stupid to have done it alone, which means his family helped, that’s all.”

  That was not all. “So you won’t report this. You won’t write about it.” Cajoling hadn’t worked. Getting angry hadn’t worked. Perhaps shaming would work. “You won’t lift a finger to save an innocent man? To expose a shoddy investigation? You won’t take the trouble?”

  “Oh, that’s not my place.”

  She blinked. “Not your— It is your place. It’s your essential function, what you are paid by Gloucestershire County to do.”

  “I’m not paid to make enemies of the constabulary. And I’ll take their word over that of a drifter.”

  “Oh, I’m a drifter now? Is that right? Because during the trial, you wrote that I was a ‘poor beloved local girl, brutally murdered by a monster who will face God’s judgment thanks to the tireless efforts of our heroic Campden constabulary.’ ‘Brutally murdered’ is redundant, by the way.”

  He had been fool enough to be complimented when she quoted his words back at him, but had no use for her editorial opinion, if the ugly flush spreading from his eyebrows to his chin was any indication. “Perhaps you’ve made it all up, then.”

  She clenched her teeth so her jaw wouldn’t drop. She had been doing that with such frequency, she had a constant headache starting about an hour after she woke up until, after fretting in her bed for hours, she finally fell into an exhausted asleep.

  “Made it up? To what end? What possible reason would I have to leave my life in London to return to this wretched town and pretend to be a murdered woman?” She had no chance of swaying him to her point of view, which she should have seen earlier, and was done holding back. “Why would I—or any sane person—do something so daft? Please. Enlighten me. Please, dazzle me with your journalist acumen. I’m sure I will be fascinated instead of repulsed.”

  “Girls like you,” he said, gaze flicking again from her face to her chest and back up, “like attention.”

  “Men like you,” she said, standing, “don’t know the first thing about girls like me. And your office reeks of grease. You might try eating something besides chips. You’ll lose weight and your breath won’t smell as bad. Regrettably, you’ll still be bald.”

  Then it was execution week: John tomorrow, his mother Wednesday, his brother Thursday. They anticipated her plan to disrupt the proceedings

  (disrupt? I’ll torch the building if I have to, they’ll see a firestorm)

  by closing the executions to the public, and forbidding her access to anyone in the station.

  She packed. Again. She couldn’t save them, and was afraid to stay. Her resolution to tell the truth coupled with her waspish tongue had made her more enemies than usual; this town was no place to linger. She genuinely feared a late-night visit from any number of disgruntled men. Especially since she was already “dead.” Whatever they did to her, there wouldn’t be a trial.

  The worst part for her (the worst part for the Perrys was entirely different) was that unpleasant things like this had happened to her before. She couldn’t remember her earlier lives, exactly, except in dreams that faded the longer she was awake. All she knew was she had betrayed the innocent and they always paid for her lies, while she never did. Her first memory was helping her mother making her third birthday cake. Her second was the strong sense that she must always take responsibility for all that she said and did. She made it a point never to lie, something that frequently brought her trouble, and never wavered from that conviction. But a clear conscience was worth the trouble, and she had thought that this time, this life, she had it licked.

  I did the right thing, she told her diary. She had been keeping one since she was eight, but wouldn’t for much longer. What was the point of being careful, of never lying, of being sure of all sides before picking one?

  Later, when she was writing it all down, she laid it out, almost as if someone who wasn’t her would be reading it:

  From the moment I read about my murder, I did the right thing. How can it count for nothing? How can they all be executed?

  I don’t understand it.

  I’ll never understand it.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Archer and Leah had the house to themselves when they got back from the disastrous ICC visit. “Probably to ourselves,” he amended. “No telling where Auntie Em is. Her room. The basement. Dante’s Vestibule of Hell, which we also call the basement . . .”

  “It’s so quiet,” Leah marveled. “Except for you talking.” She was surprised to find it made her uneasy. A Drake throng was many things, but dull wasn’t one of them.

  “Contrary to what it might look like, they’ve all got lives outside of my dad’s case. Oh! Say! Speaking of ungrateful assholes, I’m so sorry you had to witness that—that whatever-it-was today.”

  She took his hand and squeezed as they walked through the empty kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom. “Hardly your fault. All families fight.” She paused. “I’m pretty sure. According to my clients, anyway.”

  He snorted. “That was a little more than a fight.”

  “Granted, but . . . Oh, hell, I’m talking through my ass.”

  “In your defense, it’s a wonderful ass.”

  “Insatiable idiot,” she said fondly. “You know this is all new territory for me.”

  “My uncle threatening to murder someone just to get out of our semiannual visits is new territory for everyone.”

  Leah had to smile. “Fair enough. And poor Angela.”

  That was something she hadn’t counted on: being fond of Archer’s cousin, who had held his lack of lives over his head like it was a shameful thing, and didn’t get around to apologizing for any of it until a few months ago. Who, it must be said, was controlling and, it must also be said, shrill, and stubborn, and volatile.

  But those words described every single Drake in existence, and Leah had more than a few of those qualities herself. Angela, at least, was trying. And she never quit. Even when her uncle was being wrestled to the ground by a flurry of corrections officers and screaming about how much he loathed her visits, she stood her ground.

  Which was more than could be said for the “adults”—the one who landed them in a te
n-year mess, and the one who hid from that same ten-year mess—Dennis and Emma Drake.

  It came down to roles, Leah decided. Self-assigned and otherwise. If Jack and Paul and Angela’s mother was a ghost, Angela was everyone’s big sister. Even Archer’s. Even hers.

  “You know what’s odd?”

  “Knowing you, darling, it could be anything.”

  “Touché. There’s something poking at my brain and I don’t know why,” he admitted. “I was a little uneasy after our first visit, but I figured that was because I hadn’t seen Dad in years. But it’s worse now. I can’t shake the feeling that whatever-it-is, it’s right in front of us. We’re just so used to seeing it, we’re not noticing it. Or something. Hell. I don’t know.”

  Leah had paused at the door to their shared bedroom and Archer absently reached out and rubbed her shoulders. A sucker for any kind of massage—she was a bit touch-starved, legacy of her odd upbringing and odder line of work—she let her head fall back and moaned, a sound that always elicited a Pavlovian response in her fiancé. But who wouldn’t make appreciative noises beneath Archer’s hands? The man was so skilled, he could have been a masseuse to the gods.

  “What, Leah? Why’d you stop?”

  “Just thinking ahhhhhh right there . . . mmmmmm . . . wondering when we should go back home. There doesn’t ummmmmm seem to be ahhhhh much more we cannnnnnnmmmm . . .”

  “Do you mind if we stay ’til Friday? Two weeks chock full o’Drakes is more than enough to ask of anyone, never mind the mother of my mother-in-law.”

  She groaned and it wasn’t at all Pavlovian, she sounded like a sleepy bear trapped in a well. “Argh, gah, don’t put it like that.” She shrugged so his hands dropped away. “Arrgghh.”

  “Sorry.” Archer kissed the tender spot just behind her ear. “But y’know, if you set aside the horror and the years of psychological damage and the unprecedented new territory we’re stumbling through, it’s kind of funny.”

  “No.”

  “A teeny-weeny bit funny.”

  “Not really, no.” She opened the door, stepped inside, then stopped short. The bed was neatly made and on her pillow was a small blue dessert plate, and resting atop the plate was a cream puff swan.

  Archer’s eyes went big. “Whoa. He never makes those! He says swans are mean* and pâte à choux is overrated.* How come you rate so high? And yes, that’s petty jealousy you hear in my tone.”

  “I have no idea,” she lied.

  Archer was cautiously approaching it as if it was a real swan that would fly away if he startled it. “Leah, I’m not sure you understand the significance here.”

  “Why don’t you try patronizing me? That’s bound to help me figure it out.”

  “This is the Holy Grail of pastry! You know how many of those tiny, delicious-yet-mean swan puffs he’s made me in twenty-some years?”

  “Archer, Jack’s only been alive for—”

  “Two! You’re here a week and you already have one? The world just doesn’t make sense anymore!”

  “So this would be the worst part of the trip, then?”

  “Yes! We have a new winner. Dammit.”

  She walked to her side of the bed and studied it: light golden brown with pastry cream nestled beneath the wings and a beautifully arched neck. And best of all . . .

  She picked up the plate and sniffed her swan, then showed it to Archer. “It’s not coffee flavored.”

  “Which is making you smile because . . . ?”

  “Because Jack’s trying new things. That’s all. And if you stop pouting, I’ll share it with you.”

  “Okay. You should eat the head first—chomp!” Archer mimed savagely decapitating a bird shaped from pastry. “It’s deeply satisfying.”

  “You can devour the head.”

  “I love you so much right now.”

  “As you should.”

  FORTY

  Angela Drake was kissing him and he had no idea why.

  At her subdued request, he had driven her to his townhouse on Canal Street; neither of them had much to say on the way over. This made a forty-minute drive seem a lot longer than it was. Angela Drake wants to come home with me. I should be as happy as I am nervous. But I’m more confused than anything else.

  The silence was broken when they pulled up to the low three-story brick building (which was only low in contrast to the skyscrapers in the distance). “This is nice.”

  “It’s not home, but it’s much,” he replied, hoping for a smile. Alas. Thwarted hope. Sorry, Olivia Goldsmith. Your wit was not up to the task. Although it might have been my delivery.

  He parked in his spot, got out, pulled the backpack full of leftovers and dirty dishes from the back seat, and walked her across the street and up the front walk.

  The weight of the pack felt like a reproach. So you scrubbed a gravestone and indulged in roast beef sandwiches and Caprese salad. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? That everything would be fixed—for both of you—and you would date and fall the rest of the way in love and live happily ever after?

  No. Not for one moment. He had never fooled himself that anything about Angela Drake would be easy. But he wasn’t in it for easy, and it had been a wonderful day. Not just a wonderful day with Angela, a wonderful day in his life.

  Up to a point.

  And though he was furious with Inmate #26166, he thought his time was better spent trying to help Angela calm down after she threw up. He had a hunch that her male relatives would attend to that other matter, regardless.

  When they got inside he saw her looking around appreciatively and decided to get a crucial detail out of the way. “I inherited this,” he explained. “My grandmother left it to my brother and me. By the time she passed away, it was just me.”

  “Okay.” She was examining the books in the shelves to the left of the fireplace. “Gorey fan, hmm?”

  “Yes. Also Wilkin, Hiaasen, McNair, Kinney, Iggulden, Miller, Gaiman, and Branch.”

  “Eclectic,” she murmured, examining Susan Branch’s homey, watercolor-illustrated Vineyard Seasons shelved beside Frank Miller’s Sin City.

  “Yes. And, again, I inherited this place. I wanted to be up front about it.”

  She gave him an odd look, and he was amazed at how quickly he’d blown it: within twenty seconds of putting his key in the lock. A new record.

  “The reason I’m telling you this—”

  “Twice.” She softened that with a gentle, “You don’t have to explain.”

  “—is because the last woman I went out with used real-estate listings to select romantic partners.”

  That got her attention, and even better, the odd expression morphed to interest. “I guess that’s my cue to say ‘no way’ but . . . y’know. Chicago real estate.”

  “Remarkably, that is exactly how she explained it to me,” he replied. “Once I realized why she asked me out, I told her I inherited this place. I didn’t earn it. Didn’t buy it. I’m a cop. I’ve always been a cop.” I’m not rich, in other words.

  “She dumped you.”

  “Unfortunately not. She told me that inheriting it wasn’t a deal breaker, because ‘no matter how you got it, it’s still a terrific piece of real estate, we should go out some more.’ Quote unquote. So I ended up dump—uh, breaking it off.”

  She brought up a hand to cover her grin. “Jeez. I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

  “That’s Chicago,” he deadpanned, because Richard Gere in Chicago had been a tap-dancing demigod. He loathed all musicals save that one.

  He led her through the short hallway and the two steps down into the sunken living room. His furniture consisted primarily of classic dark wood and muted colors: a tan love seat, a deep brown couch, dark patterned throw rugs, lots more bookshelves. The reddish-brown hardwood floors glowed. He had an unnatural fondness for waxing them:
It was tedious and he could shut off his brain while sinking into the task. It was much like meditating.

  “Something to drink?”

  “Please.”

  “White wine? Red? Water? Tea?”

  “Water is fine.”

  She followed him into the kitchen, which was small and sleek with dark wooden cupboards and black appliances, and took a seat at the butcher’s block.

  “Angela, you don’t have to eschew wine because I can’t drink with my medication.”

  “I don’t think I was ‘eschewing’ anything. And you can, but . . . you probably shouldn’t.”

  He laughed. “Excellent point. But please, have whatever you like, truly.”

  “Water really is fine, sparkling if you have it.”

  “Oh, I’ve always got some of that on hand. I have an unfortunate addiction to chocolate egg creams.”*

  “I’ve got no idea what those are.”

  “Too bad, because I am sworn to guard the family recipe—also from my grandmother—for life. But they’re wonderful, trust me.” He pulled out a small bottle of Perrier, made use of the ice dispenser in his fridge, and poured her a cold glass. She drained it right away—stress was a notorious dehydrator—and he promptly refilled it.

  “So.” He paused. He waited for his brain to spit out the right thing to say, something that would fix everything and make her smile and reassure her that her uncle might not give a shit, but she was surrounded by people who cared about her. Think of something. Anything. An affirmation of life. A knock-knock joke. Something.

  Drawing a blank here, his brain replied. Sorry, old friend.

  He cleared his throat. “So. About what—”

  But she was already shaking her head. “Nope.”

  He took the cue and backed off. “As you like.” But now what?

  Angela, thank God, seemed to know. Of the two of them, she was definitely the least jittery. And the most dehydrated. She drank half her second glass, got off of the stool, and walked to the fridge, where he’d been stuck as he begged his brain to cooperate.