Twist of Faith

by Ellen J Green

  Freezing rain pelted her windshield; she turned on her wipers. Everything with Quinn and Ava had happened so fast, it wasn’t organized or clean. And she’d been thinking faster than Quinn, trying to minimize his involvement—he was so vicious and angry. And now he was dead too. She put her hand in her pocket and felt the Polaroid film seal she’d found. Another photograph had been taken outside his door. It didn’t matter if he’d had a heart attack, choked to death on a sandwich, or been murdered. Someone had been there with him when he was dying. The thought made her stomach twist.

  She turned onto Main Street and pulled into the general store. She needed coffee and some Advil. Her head was pounding, and she felt she might be sick in her car. Claire’s diary was in the back of her mind. Always lurking, even when she wasn’t thinking about it. If Ava had known about the Owenses’ house six months before, why’d she pretend she’d just found the photo after Claire died? What was she doing during those six months? Claire’s diary was all she had to go on. And the going was slow. Claire’s abrupt switching of languages, alternating style, big and loopy, small and slanted, hindered things. Most of it was cryptic, indirect. The most cryptic of all was the last entry, written the night before she died. Desperate times call for desperate measures. What to do?

  Marie tried to think about those last months with Claire. The two sisters had become distant, but not because of an argument or disagreement. Her sister was simply spending most of her time alone, retreating from the world. Marie had gone to the house one morning and had to let herself in. Claire was huddled under her covers, complaining of vague physical symptoms. Nausea. Body aches. Headaches and chest pain.

  “Please,” Marie had pleaded. “Get up. I’ll take you to the doctor.”

  Claire’s face looked sunken. Her spirit defeated. “No, sors d’ici.” Then she’d turned away. Not a please go, but more a get the heck out of here.

  At the time, Marie thought Claire was stressed, or had contracted a lingering virus. It didn’t occur to her that her sister might be struggling with something other than an illness—or the never-ending danger Ava’s presence brought into their lives. Something even more terrible. Because she had no other choice, Marie had retreated to her life at the convent. And Claire became more distant and quiet. And Ava? What of Ava?

  Ava got a job interning at the court as a translator, in the middle of this. Marie had mapped it out. Ava applied at the courthouse four days after Claire’s entry about Ava having the photograph. She started the job the next month, digging her heels further into Camden County. Making ties. Hanging out with lawyers and police detectives, like she had no intention of letting anything end.

  Marie stood in line at the general store and ordered a small coffee, black, and took a bottle of Advil from the rack.

  She stared into the clerk’s eyes. “Oh, and I need a flashlight.” The clerk nodded. “And maybe a good knife.”

  “We definitely have them. This way.” He led her to a section of the store where camping goods were displayed.

  Marie took a long time searching the half-aisle inventory of the small store. She chose a medium-sized flashlight and a pack of D batteries. The knives were all very expensive, made for hunting and fishing, sharp and thick enough to slit a deer clean through from tail to gullet. She ran her finger over the tip. Perfect.

  She paid for the coffee, Advil, flashlight, and knife. And then ran her thumb over the thick stack of twenties in her wallet. Her rainy-day fund. At last count it was nearly $850. She should have stashed more when she’d had the chance, but this was enough to get her away, pay for a hotel and some meals. But not enough for an ultimate escape. She didn’t want to use a credit card or pull large sums of money from her account unless she had to.

  She was concentrating so deeply that she almost didn’t notice the short woman with streaked brown hair and a green bubble coat, wearing three-inch-heeled Cole Haan boots, staring at her from the other side of the aisle. When the two women locked eyes, Marie felt a wave of familiarity wash over her. Then she felt paranoia sliding in behind it. Where did she know this woman from? But when she looked up again, the woman was gone.

  Marie paid for her items, stowed her seven dollars’ change in her wallet, and went out to her car. She threw the items in her trunk and pulled out of the store, made a left onto Route 532, and headed not straight toward the access road to the Barrens, but back toward Route 72.

  She saw the accident just in time. A tractor trailer had slid off the small road, through the guardrail, and hit a tree. Police lights were everywhere. In a split second Marie skirted around the accident, the lights, the officers, and sped to the junction of 72, well aware that it was getting dark and the rain was forming slick ice patches on the road.

  She never looked back to see the little red Toyota Corolla stopped just before the accident by the frantic hand of a police officer. Nor did she see the woman in the driver’s seat slam the steering wheel with her fist.

  CHAPTER 45

  Joanne stripped off her clothes and pulled on her flannel pajama pants and matching top. She went to her desk with a big cup of coffee and planted herself squarely in front of her files. It had taken an hour and a half to make it back home—the roads were a mess, the traffic horrific, and Marie was long gone. She’d failed in her mission to follow the nun, and she knew Russell would be disappointed. But she wasn’t trekking through the woods to tell him the news. She realized her time would be better spent researching, poring over the information she had. There was something here, she was fairly certain, if she could find it.

  She had Ava’s phone, the whiteboard, and all the notes she and Russell had compiled. Nineteen ninety-six. Claire was in Brooklyn at that time. Ross Saunders had been living in Philadelphia, near Fishtown. Marie was in France, in the convent, or had just moved to the States. Anais was in Cherbourg. She glanced at the four boys’ names. What did that year mean to them? She pulled out Ross’s records. Born 1949. Post–World War II Philadelphia. He would have been forty-seven or forty-eight years old in ’96. She took a sip of coffee. What would these boys have in common when they were forty-eight years old?

  She flipped pages rapidly and then sat back in her chair. School was what they’d always had in common. School. The Kensington–Frankford neighborhood. Childhood. School. At forty-eight they’d maybe be going to their reunion. A big one. Thirty years. She looked at the information Russell had on Claire. Brooklyn, same job until August of 1996. Then she started moving, and moving a lot. The summer of ’96. She jabbed her pen onto paper and then wrote a note at the bottom of the whiteboard.

  She randomly Googled summer of ’96 but nothing came up that was of any interest. Then she Googled summer of ’96 Philadelphia. Again, nothing of interest. “I need newspapers,” she whispered. Then she Googled Saint Francis de Sales Church.

  The page was filled with current photographs of the parish priest, Father James Ryan, and pictures of activities, congregants. She looked at the clock. It was almost eight. She dialed Russell’s number and it went to voicemail. Tomorrow morning, she thought, she was going to go to that church. But right now, she had to focus on what was in front of her. Ava’s phone.

  The girl hadn’t put a password lock on it, which was weird, but it was a good thing. She’d combed through it before at Russell’s request, looking for information. Mostly concentrating on incoming and outgoing calls. Maybe there was something more. She turned it on and watched the usual apple light up the screen. Joanne got up and poured herself another cup of coffee. The phone dinged, indicating some activity—a text or phone call. She raced back to the table. One missed call and a voice message from a local number were displayed.

  She clicked the button and heard a female voice come on. A breathy “Nous avons besoin de parler. Oh shit.” And then it clicked off. Joanne played it back a few times, listening to the voice and tone. Was it familiar? She held her finger over the “Call Back” button and took a breath. It rang and went to voicemail. She hung up and called b
ack again, expecting it to go to voicemail again, but instead someone answered.

  “Who is this?” Joanne whispered after seconds of dead air. Then she heard a click in her ear.

  It had to be Anais. It had to be—the woman had disappeared from Cherbourg. Maybe she was in the United States and had picked up a burner phone. Or Marie. Was it Marie? She tried to place the nun’s voice in her head, but came up blank. Or maybe another family member she didn’t know.

  Joanne sat at her computer and punched in the reverse-phone-number website. She carefully plugged in the digits. The phone number came back as a cell phone registered in Haddonfield, New Jersey. In order to get more information she needed to pay ninety-five cents. It definitely wasn’t a burner.

  Joanne fumbled with her wallet, finding the right credit card. She paid the money for one month’s unlimited access to the website and then waited. It seemed to take forever. A Loading sign appeared on her computer screen. Just then her own phone rang.

  “Joanne.” Russell’s voice. “You’re home?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes were on her computer screen. The name popped up on the screen. Claire Lavoisier. It was registered to the address of the house in Haddonfield.

  “We’ll be there soon. We’re on 72, but traffic is bad.”

  “I know. But get back here, now. I mean right now. I have something to tell you.”

  “Yeah, us too. Hey, lock your doors and hang tight. We’ll see you in an hour.” He clicked off. She hung up and stared at that name. This wasn’t possible. Someone had to be using Claire’s phone. What the hell is going on?

  Then it dawned on her that Ava’s phone was on. Someone could pinpoint exactly where that cell phone was, as long as it was on. She went to the table and with trembling fingers shut it off.

  An hour later, when she heard a bang on her front door, she was so scared she had to peek through the curtain and see Russell’s familiar face before she’d unhook the chain.

  CHAPTER 46

  Marie took the turnoff from Route 72 onto Bay Avenue and crawled through the back roads near Manahawkin. She slowed near an old hotel, pulled in behind the building, and parked. A faded gray sign hanging from two hooks swayed in the wind. This was her best hope—little more than a fisherman’s hole-up for bad weather. Bayside Inn. It was closer to the bay than the ocean, that was true, though it wasn’t anywhere near water.

  The smell hit her when she opened the door—it was intimately connected in her brain with danger, and she felt her heart start to flutter. Mold with a hint of Lysol underneath and years of grime in between. She registered under the name of Joan McAllister, a name she and Claire both agreed they would use when staying here, paid cash, and went to the front room with peeling striped wallpaper and a sagging bed. She’d asked for this specific room, 203, as always. Then she checked her watch and waited.

  This inn had been a go-to hiding spot for Claire on and off over the past twenty years. Completely out of the way, cheap, and relatively safe, and there were stores less than a mile away for all needs. A nothing spot where no one asked questions and, even better, no one cared. Claire had stumbled on this hotel, driving south on the Garden State Parkway. A missed turn and, confused, she’d ended up on Bay Avenue. Initially, she’d run into the hotel to get directions back to the parkway, but while standing in the entryway, she’d realized this could be it. A safe haven. Marie had chuckled when she’d first seen her choice. Her sister with her Birkin bag and Louboutin heels hiding in this dank crawl space. But she found Claire was quite adaptable when her life was at stake. In those cases, jeans, a drab cardigan, hair in a top knot, and an old fishing shack served her well.

  The sisters had an agreement. If Claire disappeared and wasn’t answering her phone, it meant she was in trouble or people were asking too many questions—something was wrong. If her sister vanished, Marie was to come here first. On the seven or so occasions that this had happened, she’d found her sister here with Ava in room 203. But now Claire wasn’t just missing—she and Ava were both gone and there was no finding either of them hunkered behind this flimsy plywood door. But on an inkling, a last hope, Marie had come anyway.

  She sat on the bed and felt the springs give underneath her. A terrible, filthy thing. She pulled back the covers to inspect the mattress for signs of bed bugs. Bringing those creatures back to the convent would be very bad. The mattress was yellowed from time, but there was nothing else untoward under the sheets. Marie’s breath came fast. Coming here was a bad idea. This place was nothing more than a cesspool of bad memories.

  Quinn’s face invaded her thoughts. His ugly eyes, staring, always coming when least expected; he was the only one of the four that had refused to let things go. It had become more vengeance than self-preservation for him to find Ava, she was sure. But the sisters could never understand why. Quinn was no more or less guilty than the others in what happened. Connelly, the priest, had probably prayed his fears away, and Loyal had secreted himself away within the folds of the middle class, the memories and guilt only allowed to invade the outer fringes of his waking thoughts.

  The sky had been clear, the morning of the worst confrontation with Quinn. The almost royal blue had been uninterrupted by clouds. She and her sister talked of taking the three-hour drive from Willow Grove to the Jersey Shore later in the day. Marie hadn’t seen a beach in over a year and had been looking forward to it, but it never happened. Instead Quinn happened, the emergency room happened. He’d been lying in wait, following them as they went, letting them drive for over an hour and a half, through Philadelphia and into New Jersey, all while he watched from a distance.

  Marie rubbed her head and went to the grimy window. The sun was starting to go down. The streets were empty; the rain and cold had washed people indoors. She watched drops of rain slide down the outside of the windowpane and turned away. The memories came flooding back. Quinn accosting them in the parking lot. The sky had turned from dreamy blue to angry gray, the rain just sprinkling the sidewalk when they got out of the car to grab a coffee at a diner. Claire was saying something about the weather. “Not much of a beach day now” or something like that, and he was there. His bitter, twisted face, the tiny livid eyes coming alive beneath folds of skin.

  He’d latched onto Claire’s hair, demanding Ava. Ava was nearly fourteen by then, almost grown up, but she wasn’t with them. Ava was with her grandmother in Cherbourg. With each refusal to tell him Ava’s whereabouts, he’d pulled harder, twisting and slamming Claire’s head into the hood of the car. Blood spilled down the side of her face from where her eyebrow split open against the hot metal. Marie stood by, motionless, feeling that concrete had grown around her feet. She had no voice. She heard the thump of her sister’s head, her screams, saw the dripping blood, but she couldn’t do anything. He only ran away like a rabid dog sprayed with a hose when someone had yelled to them from across the parking lot.

  The conversation with Anais that night wasn’t pleasant. Enough. I’ll send Ava back, you take her to the police and tell them everything. Claire had refused, and the arguing between them became loud and repetitive. In the end Anais wouldn’t help them. I will give you only enough to pay your bills, but that’s it. I won’t let you come here, I won’t clean up Ross’s mess if you continue to protect him. What is wrong with you? Then she’d slammed the phone down in their ears. Marie always wondered how much of it Ava had heard on the other end.

  Marie now dialed Anais’s number in Cherbourg and listened to it ring. Maman, this time I really need you. But Anais didn’t answer. She clicked the phone off and watched the light that came through the dirty window dim until it was gone.

  She put her coat over the stained pillow and rested her head for just a minute, letting her mind drift. She and Claire were girls at the beach in Oostende, Belgium. The breeze blew across their damp skin, making them shiver. Anais was in her beach chair, blue hat on her head, sipping water and reading a magazine. The sun was glorious. The two girls wore matching blue bathing suits, danci
ng in the frigid waves as they approached. Laughing. Splashing each other. A tapping sound intruded into her dream. The ice cream vendor was knocking his scoop against the cart. The girls were in line for a cone, holding Belgian francs firmly in their little hands. Claire ordered chocolate for both of them. The tapping came again as the man put the dipper into the container of water and then hit it against the cart to shake the excess off.

  The sound came again, louder. Marie opened her eyes to find herself in a fetal position on the bed. The tapping sound was coming from the door.

  CHAPTER 47

  Both men were soaking wet and covered in dirt. Joanne hesitated at the door, not letting them in.

  “Look, there’s a hose around the side of the house. It’s cold, I know, but do you mind? Or I’ll boil some water and put it in a basin out there for you. ’Cause you’re both crummy dirty.”

  Russell glanced down at his clothing. “We have so much to tell you, are you serious?”

  “God, then strip for me. Leave all your dirty clothes here on the porch. I’ll get you stuff to wash up.”

  They obliged and sat on her sofa in just boxers and T-shirts while she prepared a basin with hot water for them to wash themselves. “Ava’s purse, I’m pretty sure. Total Wine & More is totally Ava,” Joanne said. “So to recap, you got frickin’ lost in the Pine Barrens, found Ava’s purse, and then a grave—but it was just filled with deer parts?”

  “Here it is.” Russell threw the purse down on the table. “I don’t remember it, but I wouldn’t. Do you?”

  She put the basin on the table and handed them each a bar of soap, a washcloth, and a towel. “Wash in the basin with soap. Then dry with the towel. And don’t make a mess.”