Twist of Faith

by Ellen J Green

  ALSO BY ELLEN J. GREEN

  The Book of James

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Ellen J. Green

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503949065 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503949060 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542047807 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542047803 (paperback)

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  First Edition

  For my children, Eva Elizabeth and Ian

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  The house was a mottled gray color that reminded me of dead fish. Scaly paint peeled from the weathered clapboards. Shutters that looked like they might have been black at one time were now streaked and speckled, hanging at odd angles on rusted hinges. A tall, narrow, ugly house built on top of a steep hill. The wind was blowing hard, and for a moment I imagined the concrete foundation splitting, the house lifting from its resting place and landing on top of me as if it were my due.

  My feet were planted on the first of eighteen stone steps leading to the front door. I glanced down, scanning the photograph again. The black-and-white Polaroid was grainy, but the house hadn’t changed much. I wanted to go to the door and knock, but hesitated. What would I say if someone appeared? It would be easier if someone opened the front door, noticed me lingering—but the windows were dark, though the sun was just a splash of color in the western horizon.

  I gulped the last of the cold coffee in the cardboard cup and climbed the steps. Curtains in a ground-floor window were parted, so I cupped my hands and peered inside; the glass was spotted with grime and offered only a shadowed view of an empty living room.

  A voice startled me. “Can I help you?”

  A woman stood at the bottom of the steps, her swaddled gray hair peeking out above a scarf, her hands stuffed deep in her coat pockets.

  “Oh. I was looking for the owner, but it doesn’t look like anyone is home. Do you live here, in this neighborhood?” I walked down the stone steps to meet her.

  “I do, yes. And if you’re going to wait for the owners, you better bring provisions. No one’s living there now.” Her thin lips moved upward to a hesitant smile. “What did you need?”

  “Has it been empty long?”

  “Six months with no tenants. I live next to the eyesore, so I know. Oughta just knock it down, I say. Why? Are you interested in renting it?”

  “No. I was doing research . . .”

  “What? Is it the anniversary already?” She pulled her scarf down a bit and cocked her head to the side. “That can’t be for another couple of months yet.”

  “Anniversary?”

  “The murders. Isn’t that what you’re researching?”

  “No, I—”

  “House is owned by a development company now.” She shrugged. “I thought they’d tear it down, but they’ve been holding on to it. Five years I’ve been dealing with this.”

  I’d been backing up little by little as she spoke, unaware that the sidewalk dipped behind me. I lost my balance and the Polaroid slipped from my fingers. I leaned down and grabbed it, but not before she got a glimpse.

  “Is that the house?” She took the black-and-white image from me and studied it.

  I thought about Claire, the woman who’d adopted me, who’d raised me for twenty-two years. She’d always claimed to have no information about how I’d been found wrapped in a yellow blanket in the narthex of the Holy Saviour Catholic Church. Barely six weeks old, she said. Though I’d begged for more details, clues, information, she’d insisted there weren’t any.

  I suspected this wasn’t the truth, because I had memories—unformed fragments punctuated by vivid recollections that didn’t jibe with her version. It was the ongoing mystery of my life. A project never finished. I’d stumbled and fallen through my teenage years and young adulthood trying to sort it all out. Who had abandoned me, why, and when? When asking questions didn’t help, I resorted to anger, manipulation, and, lately, alcohol to try and forget.

  Digging through a crawl space after her death, I’d stumbled upon the photograph tucked away with other mementos from my childhood: school pictures, report cards, my high-school diploma, a yellow baby blanket. The photograph had been inside a blank white envelope, sealed shut.

  Since the day I’d disturbed that seal and seen the image, I’d felt a growing sense of urgency—unfinished business, a chapter not complete. In the two weeks and three days since—while signing papers, helping Anais arrange for Claire’s body to be flown to France, comforting Aunt Marie—I’d returned to the photograph daily: What had it meant to Claire and why had she kept it? The little lies and secrets she’d clung to during life were about to be wrested from her now that she was dead.

  I stared into the woman’s watery gray eyes. “Who was killed?” I asked.

  She took so long to answer I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. “Husband and wife. Both of them in there.”

  “Did you know them well?” Strands of hair came loose from my ponytail and I tucked them behind my ear. I was listening to her words, but my eyes wandered to the street behind her, waiting for something, though I wasn
’t sure what.

  “Well enough to say good morning, or take in their mail when they were away, I guess. Let me see that picture again?” She held out her hand.

  I gave it to her just as a car slowed near where we stood. An older man leaned out the window. “Excuse me. Can you tell me how to get to Flourtown?” He was talking to her, but his eyes were glued to mine. I held his gaze while she pointed him in the right direction, then I watched him pull away.

  She turned back from the car, shaking her head. “Now what were you saying?” She held the picture out, studying the words—almost entirely faded—that were printed after the date.

  “This date is the same as the date of the murders.” Her finger ran along the back of the picture, and then she turned it over. “And it looks like it was taken from the lower part of the stone steps, about there.” She pointed a few feet away. “Crappy Polaroid shot, but it’s definitely that damned house.” When she shoved it into my hand, it was clear she was afraid.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “The door was left open. After they were murdered. The door was left open, that’s how they found the bodies.” She pointed. The front door of the house in the photograph was opened so wide a hint of the darkened foyer inside was visible. “Was that taken after those people were killed?”

  Before I could answer, she demanded, “Is this some sort of prank? Because it isn’t funny. It was horrible. They were beaten with a hammer. The mailman found them the next day . . . The man was lying on the floor in the living room. Where did you get that picture?”

  “Like I said, doing research. Tell me about them, please, and what happened after they were killed.”

  I thought she was going to walk away from me, because her expression turned rancid, but she didn’t. “The family name was Owens. Middle-aged man and woman. Destiny and Loyal Owens. He was a big guy. Might have caught a prowler in the house when they came home—”

  “So they think it was robbery?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t hear if anything was taken. People around here were scared, though, I can tell you that. To kill people like that. Police never found out who did it.”

  I glanced up at the house; I’d been here long enough. The eyes of the man in the dark car were dancing behind my eyelids, distracting me. “All this is giving me the creeps. I should probably go now.” I turned away and then back to her. “Thanks.”

  She gave a slight nod. “If you want the place, I’m sure you could get it for a song.”

  I smiled. “Sorry, I don’t sing.”

  I leaned against my car and studied the house. The sun was gone and the streetlamp blinked on; the stone steps were illuminated. I felt the warmth of my breath collect in front of my face. “What the hell, Claire?” I kicked my heel into the dirt.

  I opened the car door and got in, clicking the locks securely into place. 2/15/10. Destiny calls us, bound by Loyalty. I knew the words printed on the photograph by heart. All things that spring eternal can never be crushed. I rubbed at my eyes, blurry from fatigue. Destiny and Loyalty—Destiny and Loyal. All things that spring eternal can never be crushed.

  “And what springs eternal? Hope,” I muttered.

  Had Claire known this photograph pointed to me, Ava Hope Saunders? How could she not? She must have known about these murders—that’s why the picture had been shoved away, out of sight. Claire’s face was there in front of me, angry, tired, the crow’s-feet winning the battle at the corners of her eyes, her thin lips twisting with the nasty words flowing from her mouth. Distance and time hadn’t improved our relationship. It all seemed to just sit and fester, and had picked up with the same intensity and bitterness the day I returned from college.

  Though to be honest, she hadn’t exactly been herself these past six months. I could see she was tired, distracted, anxious. Usually meticulous in her grooming, she’d let her salon appointments lapse, allowing gray to peek through along her hairline; her nails were short and unpolished. Days of endless sleeping, or not sleeping enough, had taken a toll. Every second of her forty-six years showed on her face.

  In the last few weeks of her life, we’d barely spoken on the rides to her doctor’s appointments. He had no answers for her lethargy, sore muscles, lack of appetite, so he’d inject her with vitamins and send her home. After ruling out Epstein-Barr, HIV, allergies, his only suggestion was weekly vitamin B shots and plenty of rest. This would surely pass. But it didn’t.

  I’d walked into her room to see her in bed again, the white duvet pulled up to her chest. Coffee and a book on her bedside table. I’d reacted with apathy tinged with frustration.

  “You wanted me home, Claire, and all you’ve done is lie in bed. I’m getting a ticket back to Montreal.”

  When she looked up I saw the deep-purple patches underneath her eyes, the soft, pretty face that had become skeletal. For a moment I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. That took two more days.

  “College is over, Ava. It was time to come home.” Her voice was stronger than I’d anticipated. I took a step back. “We have things to deal with, you and I. Let the past go.”

  I slapped my hand against the bedpost. “Let go of the past? Why didn’t I think of that? If only it were that easy.”

  “What’s happened to you?” Her eyes were glassy and seemed to have shrunk into her head.

  I stared at her, contemplating my next words. What did happen to me? How did I end up with this family? “You want to talk, Claire? Have a heart-to-heart? How about answering some questions? Huh?” She reached her hand toward me but I pushed it away. “I didn’t think so. I’m late for work, but we’ll finish this later.”

  We never had the chance. Two days later she had a heart attack in the hallway on her way to my room.

  I started the engine and scanned the street again. Nothing. The man was gone. I took one last glance at the house before pulling away. It sat, its facade barely illuminated by the streetlamp, on top of the steep little hill, desolate, isolated, alone.

  CHAPTER 2

  As the dark-brown Chrysler LeBaron pulled up to a stop sign, he squinted into his rearview mirror. They were still there, on the sidewalk, talking. He had been parked at the far corner of Evergreen, had been sitting and watching them until the cold made his fingers stiff and difficult to move. Then he’d started the engine to get the heat circulating, rubbed his hands in front of the vent, and waited.

  She’d been there, in front of him. He’d been hoping for this opportunity for as long as he could remember. To find her, lure her away from Claire’s protection. Whenever he’d thought he smelled them nearby and started closing in, Claire had the prescience to disappear. And then the hunt would begin again.

  Once, nearly fifteen years ago, he’d almost been close enough to grab her. She was at a playground and ran to throw something in the trash can. She’d stopped and stared at him like she knew he’d choke the life out of her if he could. He smiled at her instead. At that moment Claire swooped in and took her hand, pulling her away. Claire never even looked him in the eye. But she’d known who he was—she had to. He was sure of it.

  Now Ava was here, all grown up. He hadn’t suspected where she was going as he followed her silver Honda Accord across the Ben Franklin Bridge to Philadelphia. He’d taken the exits without a thought.

  It was only as she’d started up the slight incline of Germantown Avenue to Chestnut Hill that his pulse climbed. She went right for the house, like she knew what had happened here five years ago. He went around the block and parked farther down so he could watch. Beads of sweat had collected on his upper lip and he wiped at them with his handkerchief, though his feet remained cold and numb.

  Just then the old woman had appeared on the sidewalk below and called to her.

  Ava, what are you doing? Going to the house wouldn’t do her any good. Five years ago, maybe, but not now. There was nothing to find here. And as soon as he could dispose of Ava, the last link between him and the murders would be gone too.

 
; Ava had started down the hill to meet the woman. Not for the first time, he was struck by her looks—those unnerving green eyes. They’d made his skin crawl when she was a child looking up at him, her dress spattered in blood.

  Old-soul eyes, they were. All knowing. Clear and intelligent. The thought that they could see inside him made him nervous.

  But even if she turned back and saw him now, he doubted she would give him another look. He was so average in every way: five ten, graying hair, pudgy potato-like face, small deep-set brown eyes, middle-aged midsection. He wasn’t memorable. He’d met the same people over and over and they never seemed to recall his name, let alone anything else about him.

  The woman’s head was down now, studying the damned photo, reading the words printed below. She had to have gotten it from Claire. In her things after she died. With enough bits and pieces, and that photograph, Ava would start putting the puzzle together. In one impulsive move, he had gunned the engine and pulled up alongside them. He wanted that picture.

  “Excuse me,” he’d called out the window to them. “Can you tell me how to get to Flourtown?”

  The nosy old woman came to the car, that Polaroid flapping from her fingers. He was about to grab it when she turned to point him in the direction of Bethlehem Pike. His opportunity gone, he glanced at them, nodded, waved, and proceeded down the street.

  He continued through the stop sign and turned right onto Germantown Avenue, watching them in his rearview mirror. Another time, in a quiet moment, when the right opportunity presented itself and he was sure he could cover his tracks, he was going to take the photo and end Ava’s life.

  CHAPTER 3

  I turned on the lights and flopped onto the armchair near the front door, grateful that Aunt Marie hadn’t yet come to start packing things up. Sorting through Claire’s belongings had been too overwhelming a task right after her death. First I’d found reasons to put it off, and then I just let it go. But Marie never could abide a task undone.

  I shut my eyes.

  They say your life flashes in front of you when you’re dying. But I only felt like I was dying, and it wasn’t my life that was passing in front of me, it was strips of my life, my life in shreds, that I was seeing.