“The truth, Ava.”
“The truth is all I’ve ever asked for. So you try it, for a change. Tell me my mother’s name.”
There was sorrow in her eyes, genuine sorrow, but disgust too. “Is that where we are now? Will you kill me too? To get that woman’s name? Am I your final victim?” I wanted to say something, but couldn’t. “What difference did it make what her name was once you became one of us? We should have let those men kill you. You’re more of a monster than they ever were.” Anais pushed off the chair and went back out onto the deck. “You can go, stay. Get off at the next port, it doesn’t matter. I will call the police. You’ll take Marie’s place in that filthy cell.”
“I need you to understand.” I felt the wine churning my stomach and thought I might throw up. I tried to hug her but she put out her hand. “Ross was an accident. I wanted to talk to him but he was too angry. And—”
“All you had to do was take what Claire gave you. Make a life for yourself.” She wheezed and grabbed her chest.
“He called me a stupid little girl.”
“I want you off this ship in the morning. There is a flash drive in my purse with the bank-account details. Take it, but I don’t want to see you again.”
“Grand-Maman, I’m the same person I always was.” I searched for a memory. “Remember when you took me on the trip with you to Avignon? And you let me swim—” I grabbed her against her will and held her. She smelled of perfume, Chanel, like she always did. “Please don’t hate me, Grand-Maman. I’m sorry.”
“Hate you? I never want to look at you again.”
The spray from those sputtered words sprinkled along my arm. I glanced up. This was over. No more waiting for Montenegro. The lights in the distance hadn’t moved. It had to be land. One of the towns that dotted the Riviera. Marseille, maybe—though they were dim and probably much farther away than they looked.
I went back into the cabin and fished through her bag, then returned to the deck. “You’re the only person I ever loved, Grand-Maman. Remember that.”
I thought briefly of Russell and Joanne, and in that moment I felt twinges of sadness for what I’d put them through. Joanne had been simple, helpful, accepting. It had caught me off guard and drawn me in at the same time. And Russell had believed in me. He’d trusted me up until the end. And even in those last moments at the airport, he’d chosen to let me go. Given the right circumstances, he would have loved me. He did love me. If I showed up at their doorsteps now, they’d let me in, let me tell my story and maybe even forgive me. There weren’t many people like that in the world.
In one quick motion, I climbed the deck railing. I knew the water would swallow me up and I wasn’t going to live. But I wasn’t living anyway. I’d traded my life for revenge—vindication for the mother who had sewn my clothes, who’d dragged me into a church seeking shelter.
I heard the splash and felt the water consume me, but it took a few moments to realize what I’d done. The drop was farther than I’d expected, and the sea slapping against my arms and legs made it hard to move at first. The water wasn’t warm and salty at all. It was cold and heavy, weighing me down.
The boat pulled away quickly, leaving me completely in the dark. I saw Anais peering over the railing at me, stunned and confused, before she disappeared into the night. She’d always underestimated my resourcefulness.
I turned on my back and kicked wildly, heading toward the lights in the distance, feeling freedom or death was just within reach. One or the other was fine. Or maybe the truth was that to me, they were the same thing.
EPILOGUE
He rolled over at the sound of his phone and glanced at Juliette. She was deep within the covers, not stirring at the loud trill. Almost thirty-six hours on call had rendered her unconscious.
“What’s up, Doug?” He got up and went into the bathroom, whispering as he moved.
“Are you sleeping? At five o’clock at night?”
“Just lying down with Juliette for a minute—”
“Listen, I thought you might be interested in this. Marie applied to leave the county and the country, special circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“Her mother died. Two days ago, and I think the judge may let her go to manage things and attend the funeral. She only has two more months on parole and she’s been a model inmate and parolee.”
Russell put his back to the wall. “What happened to Anais?”
“Not one hundred percent sure but I think complications from a stroke. She’d been in the hospital for a couple weeks.”
“Is that confirmed? No foul play?” His heart was starting to jump in his chest.
He heard Doug chuckle. “It’s confirmed as much as it’s going to be. Leave it alone, Russ, it all worked out. You and I still have a job, Marie had to sit in that filthy jail for months—”
“Not long enough.”
“Listen, I just wanted to tell you Anais died and Marie’s probably going to be allowed to leave the country. I didn’t call to go over the Ava thing again. She killed six people. I’m sorry she jumped—”
“She jumped off a cruise ship to get away from something—God only knows what was going on. And I knew when I let her go at the airport she was going to die. I knew she was walking into a trap.”
Doug sighed. “Don’t say that out loud ever again—that you let her go. Again, she killed six people—maybe more.”
Russell was thinking, saying nothing for a few moments. “She did. But—”
“No, no, no. I gotta go. I’ll keep you posted. And rethink that Vietnam honeymoon thing. There’s plenty of other places you two can go. You’re not going to find her there. She’s dead.”
“I’m not looking for her.”
“You’re always looking for her. The over-the-water-hut thing is nice but they have them in Fiji too. Or Bora-Bora. They found Ava’s body, Russell. Six months is long enough. Let it go. Say hi to Juliette. See ya.”
He heard the line click off and stuffed the phone in his pocket. “They found the remains of a body. Not her body,” he mumbled. “Off the coast of Turkey. How the hell could her body have ended up there?”
He went to his office and turned on the light. His notes were in the top drawer, handy at all times. He spread them out in front of him and scanned them, though he knew every detail by heart. Yes, it was the remnants of a female body that washed up on the shore near Foca, Turkey, four months after Ava jumped. A pretty far distance for a body to travel on the open sea, given she’d jumped ship off the coast of France.
A body that was little more than a skeleton—no hair or teeth. Initial DNA was inconclusive. They were awaiting results of more up-to-date short-chain DNA testing but weren’t optimistic about getting results. Officials had tentatively identified it as Ava’s remains due to threads of clothing still clinging to the bones—the black jeans and silver top matched what she was wearing when she jumped from the ship. The recovered body also had a healed fracture to the left femur that matched an injury Ava had sustained when she’d fallen off a swing at the age of ten.
He stared out the window, watching a squirrel climb the branches of an oak in the backyard. That was Ava, a squirrel. Nimble, crafty, shape shifting, always on the move, difficult to catch. Even his memories of her were elusive, fragments of their night together drifting to him in dreams. Her haunting green eyes, frightened, vulnerable, needy. Sentir le sapin.
He stood up at the sound of that voice in his head and put the file in his desk, slamming the drawer shut. Enough was enough. His wedding was weeks away. This chapter was over, and even if it wasn’t, it was going to have to be. He couldn’t start a new life looking over his shoulder.
He padded down the steps to the kitchen. Make coffee, figure out food for tonight if Juliette woke up and was hungry. Finish the application for Rutgers Law—a new challenge—and then start looking over the details of a new case they’d thrown in his lap the minute his suspension ended. He felt his phone vibrate aga
inst his leg and knew before he even looked at it that it was Joanne texting. Doug had called her, no doubt, and now she was all stirred up.
You need to come over here right now. Drop what you’re doing. He took a breath and grabbed his car keys. Her house was dark when he pulled in up front, and his knocking on the door went to pounding and then to banging before he saw the edge of the curtain lift.
Joanne pulled him in and locked the door behind her. “Keep the lights off.” She grabbed his arm, dragging him to the living room. “There.” She pointed to the coffee table. “Get it out of here.”
The Polaroid had been pulled out of a plain white envelope, no return address, mailed from New York, NY. He picked it up by the edge and studied it. He didn’t know the door in the photograph but he imagined it was Anais’s. The film was in color this time, the shape and size the same as any current Polaroid. A dark-green door, cottagey, with climbing roses and ivy visible around it. Underneath, written in dark ink: Dans chaque fin, il y a un début. Ce n’est pas fini. And then two dates next to it, the first of which Russell knew without checking would match the day Anais died. The second was three and a half weeks away. His wedding date.
“I already looked it up. It means, In each end, there’s a beginning. It’s not over,” she blurted. “And we can’t say anything about this or it’ll draw her here—one day I’ll see some sort of bright camera flash going off through the front window, and then they’ll find me dead from food poisoning or something.”
Not only was Ava alive, she was toying with them, mountain lion and mouse. It would never end. Were he and Joanne safe? Would Ava show up at his wedding and sit in the back? Would he find her standing in front of his house one day? They’d found her mother’s name months ago. He was convinced it was the right person. Ava had an uncle, aunt, plenty of cousins, and a grandmother who all lived near Brescia, Italy. Only miles from the store where her mother had purchased those shoes.
Her mother, only nineteen years old, had run away from home with her boyfriend and her two-year-old daughter. Nobody had heard from her after that. How she’d ended up in the United States, in Philadelphia, was a mystery. So was the boyfriend. He never came back to the area again and the family had assumed they were together. They positively identified her and even told a story about the day she’d bought the shoes. She’d gone shopping in Verona and visited her sister, who was working as a seamstress in a shop there. She spotted the shoes in a small storefront and begged her sister to lend her the money. Little did her sister know that she’d be murdered wearing those very shoes less than a year later.
“She said it’s not over. What’s not over? The killing? Her need to find out her real name? Why’d she put your wedding date on that picture? Is she coming? She’s close by, Russell, I can feel it . . .” Joanne was breathing fast, her fists clenched at her sides.
Russell thought of Juliette curled up in her covers, alone and vulnerable, unaware of any of this. Easy prey. He jumped up and ran out the door. In each end, there’s a beginning? No, Ava, don’t do it. Not again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to my children, Eva Elizabeth and Ian, who sacrificed numerous nights of my company so that I could put this story to paper. The evenings I spent with a computer in my lap, saying, “Just one more chapter,” or “The edits are almost done,” were ultimately for you. I want to make you proud.
To Caitlin Alexander, who has edited two of my books and counting. You took this book in shambles and created something coherent and readable, all the while making it seem simple. I could not have done any of this without you.
To Liz Pearsons, the acquisitions editor, who saw enough merit in my work and had enough faith in this story to sign not just one book, but a sequel as well. I am forever grateful to you.
Thanks to Kjersti Egerdahl, who pulled The Book of James from obscurity and started me on this path with Thomas & Mercer. I really saw myself as a writer for the first time because of you.
Many thanks to Shelley Brancato, who has always been my first editor, my first audience, and has given me her time, not to mention reams of paper—and her honesty, though not always what I wanted to hear, has made me a better writer.
To Dr. Peter Brancato, who has been hearing about this story for years, and always took the time to ask how my writing was progressing, who took brief snippets of time from telepsychiatry to give me plot ideas and advice.
And many thanks to Ellen Akins, the other Ellen, my mentor and editor, who started this book with me in the MFA program at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Your guidance allowed me to learn the ropes of the editing process and prepare myself for what was to come. I consider you one of the most gifted writers and I was honored to be a student.
To Yolanda Hughes, for endless encouragement and life coaching on the fly. The hours I’ve spent with you at the Camden County Jail, manning the mental-health office, will always bring a smile to my face. I appreciate you for your honesty in all things, and for always having my back.
Lisa Field, thank you for always giving me your ear, no matter what the topic, and for reading and saving the multiple copies of my work.
Thanks to the people on the Polaroid camera forum for providing more information than I could absorb about the history of instant cameras and film—makes, models, and picture size. I found a new love for Polaroids and even bought a 1950s Land Camera and ancient film because I am convinced I will produce one good picture.
And lastly, gratitude goes to Dr. Jim Varrell for allowing me to remain in his employ knowing full well that many hours at work were spent doing edits on this book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 June Day Photography
Ellen J. Green was born and raised in Upstate New York. She moved to Philadelphia to attend Temple University, where she earned her degrees in psychology. She has worked in a maximum security correctional facility in the psychiatric ward for fifteen years. She also holds an MFA degree in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. The author of The Book of James, Ms. Green lives in southern New Jersey with her two children.
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