by Meli Raine
“Playing a long game?”
“Maybe,” he says in a tone that makes it clear he’s not convinced. “And Corning had to know about Anya. Had to. And that means he’d have pieced together Jane’s paternity.”
“Then why the hell didn’t he reveal it? That alone could have brought Harry down.”
Drew taps the table, hard, exactly twice. “That is the key. Once we know why he didn’t use Jane’s paternity against Harry, we’ll have the key to this whole mess.”
“You and Paulson were set up for the attacks. Corning made it seem like it was your fault. Tried to make you both seem culpable. Killed your parents. Why?”
“That’s another key here.” He shakes his head and stares over my shoulder. “But the more essential point: why didn’t Corning use explosive information against Harry Bosworth when he could have?”
“Because Corning is Lindsay’s father?” I venture.
He winces. “We need Corning’s DNA.”
“That’s like saying you need one scale from a dragon’s nose.”
“Then it’s time to learn how to slay dragons, Gentian.”
“What’s the code on our timesheets for that, boss?”
Jane
Tap tap tap.
“AAAIIIIEEEEE!” I scream, the door bursting open, Duff entering with gun pulled, pointed at me. In my startling at the door knock, I’ve dumped the box off the coffee table, the file folders covering my leg, sliding down my shin like snakes.
“What’s wrong?” Duff snaps.
“You scared the shit out of me, knocking on the door like that!”
“It was me!” calls out a female voice from the hallway. Lindsay’s head pops in as Duff re-holsters his gun, radiating disgust.
“I got freaked out! I was deeply concentrating.”
Duff looks at the loose folders at my feet, newspaper articles pouring out. “Freaked out by twenty-year-old news clips?”
Lindsay comes all the way in, the delicious scent of ginger and peanuts following her as she holds aloft the takeout bags and says, “Pad Thai will solve everything.”
Deftly, Duff fades back into the hallway as I organize the fallen paperwork, heart hammering in my chest.
“You okay?” Lindsay asks. “You’re the color of chalk.”
“I found something,” I hiss. “Something incredible.” The folder with the word WITCH on it comes into view. Fortunately, none of the papers in it fell out. I turn it so she can read the word.
She shivers. “What the heck is that?”
“Alice’s handwriting. Just found it as you knocked on the door.”
Her eyes bounce between the folder and me. “No wonder you got spooked. What the hell, Jane? Witch?”
“I know!”
Lindsay’s naturally nosy, so she opens the file.
And there is a big picture of her mother, front and center.
Dropping the file like a hot potato, she lets out a little shriek. It’s not unlike my scream moments ago.
“Tell me this is a practical joke. You’re pranking me, right?”
“No! I just found it! If you think you’re freaked out, join the damn club! I feel like Alice is rising up from the grave with messages for me.”
“You’re not hearing voices, are you?” she asks, breathless.
“What? No! I was just going through all these documents and found a folder with the word WITCH on it, and now there’s a picture of Monica in it. What the hell, Lindsay?”
“Don’t yell at me! I didn’t do it!” she says in a high, reedy voice. We’re both completely on the edge. I take a deep breath. She mimics me. We calm down.
“Okay, okay, okay,” she whispers. “First things first. Let’s eat.”
“I’m reading that folder,” I argue.
“Then I’ll get plates and forks and you start reading.”
Shaking, my hands reach for the folder, mind racing. I don’t know how I’ll eat. My stomach is made of concrete.
“I am dying to know what’s in there!” Lindsay calls out.
Are other people literally dying because of what’s in here? I wonder as I right the folder and open it, finding a big, photocopied picture of Monica Bosworth, at least twenty years ago, her hair in big bangs, shoulder pads squaring her off.
Famous Politician’s Daughter Holds Art Show the headline reads. In smaller words, Local ADA’s Wife Chairs New Arts Initiative.
“Your dad – er, Harry was an assistant district attorney in 1993?” I ask, looking at the date of the article. January 4, 1993.
“Sounds about right. He became district attorney, then started running for federal office,” Lindsay says as she comes into the room carrying two plates of pad Thai and chicken satay. “Why?”
I hold up the article for her to read the headline herself.
“Huh. Mom’s always framed in terms of Daddy.”
“What?”
“She’s never mentioned as a person. Only as an adjunct of Harry Bosworth. His wife.”
I re-read the headline. “Good point. I mean, this was twenty-five years ago, though. People were more sexist then.”
Lindsay frowns. “I don’t know. She’s going for ‘first lady’ now. Seems like more of the same.”
“Why does Alice have this?” I ask aloud while Lindsay starts to eat.
“Wasn’t it her art showing?”
“Sure, but –” The next piece of paper in the stack stops me cold.
It’s Monica Bosworth in a photo with Ignatio Landau.
“Who is that?” Lindsay asks, frowning. “He looks familiar, but the photocopy is making it hard to see.”
“Ignatio Landau. El Brujo.”
“Why is my Mom in a picture with him? And who is that other guy?” There’s a man on the other side of Monica, tall and lean, intense but grinning with the kind of maddening smile that melts panties.
I squint. “Geez, Lindsay. That guy looks a lot like Mark Paulson.”
“Mark’s too young. He’d have been a kid in 1993.”
“The caption says his name is Paul Ellison. That sound familiar?”
“No.” She lets out a goofy laugh. “I thought you were going to say that’s Nolan Corning.” She stuffs a chicken skewer in her mouth. “Sure doesn’t look like him, but then again, twenty-five years have past. Old people never look like they did when they were young.”
I turn to the next page. Another news article. This time, the picture is of Alice, standing next to Monica.
“I didn’t know Monica and Alice knew each other,” I say, even queasier.
“What? Sure they did,” Lindsay says around a mouthful of food. “Mom wasn’t a fan.”
I flip back to the front of the folder and trace the word WITCH with my fingertip. “Looks like the feeling was mutual.”
I start to read. “Alice Mogrett, daughter of former vice president and Supreme Court justice Rupert Mogrett, has unveiled a new show at Yates University’s Mosner Gallery of Art –”
“Mosner. That’s why my mom’s there,” Lindsay says, as if I am supposed to understand the meaning.
“Why?”
“Because she’s a Mosner. Monica Mosner Bosworth.”
I frown, then nod. “That’s right.”
“Yep.”
“The partnership between Ms. Mogrett and Mrs. Bosworth is set to help raise funds for a local initiative...”
“Let’s look at all the articles first, and read later.”
I flip through. Picture after picture of Monica and Alice at art exhibits all over. Ignatio Landau and Paul Ellison are at the shows, too, going back about six months, into 1992.
And then: “Lindsay. Nolan Corning’s in this article.”
“So now we have my mother in pictures with Nolan Corning, El Brujo, and some dude named Paul Ellison. I’m starting to feel like the girl in the Mamma Mia movie. Who’s my daddy?” She sighs. “God, that joke is getting old.”
“It doesn’t have to be any of these people. Could be someone else.”
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“True. Sounds like my mother wanted the most powerful person she could fuck.”
“She’s with him now,” I point out.
“Only if Daddy wins the presidency. Losing won’t count for Mom.”
More pictures of Monica surface, Alice not in any of them. Harry appears in a few. The mysterious Paul Ellison and Landau are in most of them.
“So my father was either some guy whose name means nothing or a narco-trafficker. Great. I’ll take no-name,” Lindsay says.
A series of envelopes, small and stuffed with lightweight letter paper, rest under the news articles. There are seven.
No return addresses. No stamps. Just a neat, opened edge, ripped with precision.
A letter opener.
I open the first one, the letter typed on a typewriter, old-fashioned and eerie. The back of the paper is indented from the letters, like I’m reading Braille with my fingertips.
“Subject: Monica Mosner Bosworth.”
“Lindsay,” I say, voice cracking. “You should be the one to read this.” I open another envelope. The paper is similar. They’re all reports on Monica.
Reports from a private investigator.
“What is it?” She fingers the paper, rubbing it between her thumb and tips. I understand why. It’s weird paper.
“It looks like a report. Like Alice hired a PI to gather information about Monica.”
“Alice did what?” Lindsay’s eyes pop out. She looks at the papers, reading quickly, eyes skimming the page like a waterbug.
“Oh, Alice,” I sigh. “Why couldn’t you be alive? I need you to answer a few questions.”
“More than a few,” Lindsay mumbles, her breathing speeding up. “Alice had my mother tailed.”
“Tailed?”
“Followed. Tracked. Every move she made is documented here.”
“For how long?”
Lindsay rifles through the reports, looking at dates. “Looks like about a three-month stretch of time.
“When? Which dates, specifically?”
“Why does it matter?” Her face changes as soon as the words are out. “Oh, my God. I was probably conceived during this three-month stretch, wasn’t I?”
I look at the dates. “Yes.”
“We need to read every single word of all this. Alice Mogrett, God rest her sneaky soul, may give me the one thing my mother won’t. The name of my biological father.”
I look at the reports.
“You sure you want to do this?”
“Do we have a choice? You can’t ignore that, Jane,” she says, shaking the papers in the air. “At a minimum, Silas, Drew, and Mark need to read these. But we can read them first.” She sets down the papers and takes out her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Drew taught me. Take pictures. Password protect them. Upload them to the cloud or email them to yourself. Physical evidence is easily destroyed.” As if she had a system in mind all along, Lindsay starts tapping away, photo after photo of the neat reports filling her phone.
“Here,” she says after twenty pages. “I’ll take pictures. You read. Scan for names.”
“Don’t you want to read?”
“It’s like going to horror movies. I like them, but I still have to cover my eyes for the worst parts.” Pausing with the photos, she looks at me.
“Most of the last eight months have been like that for me.” I do understand.
She points to herself. “Yep.”
But she gets right back to taking photos.
“Do you want me to read every single line aloud? Most of these involve going to a tanning place, then a mani-pedi place, a lunch with nuns at a convent...”
The inelegant snort makes me laugh. “I doubt my bio dad is a mother superior. Just look for anything that stands out.”
Tap, tap, tapping her pictures, Lindsay keeps looking at me, as if impatient that I’m not reading fast enough.
It doesn’t take long for me to say, “Here. November 1, 1992. Met with Ignatio Landau at Mosner Art Gallery. Paul Ellison came twenty minutes later. They left and went to Sylvia’s Bistro. Dined for ninety minutes.”
Lindsay looks like she’s holding her breath.
Tracing my finger down, I only have to go two inches or so before finding something more. “November 3, 1992. Met Nolan Corning for coffee and ice cream at Gelato More. Meeting was intense, heads huddled. Corning tapped table angrily. Parted abruptly.”
“Eek,” Lindsay says as she continues taking photos.
The next few entries are about purse boutiques, a massage, and a trip to the gynecologist. Then:
“November 11, 1992. Met with Ignatio Landau, alone, at the Colony Hills Hotel.”
The finger she’s been using to tap photos pauses, shaking in midair.
“Go on.”
“That’s all it says.”
“That says a lot. What’s in the rest of the report?” I’m only on page three of the first one. We have a lot of material left.
I am not sure Lindsay has enough heart left to hear all of this.
I set the paper down and take a deep breath. “Do you want to call Drew and have him come here?”
She stops tapping. “What? Why?”
“Because this is getting intense.”
She scoffs. “If I call Drew, he’ll show up, take over, and tell me those reports are classified. Besides, he’s in D.C.”
“They are not. In fact, they are my private property. And being on the other side of the country never stopped your husband.”
“You think that matters? You think private property matters? If word gets back to my mom that these are out here, you’re so screwed, Jane. Even if there’s nothing bad in these, it doesn’t look good for her. And Mom is all about controlling her image.”
“You’re right. No Drew. No Silas, no Duff.”
She looks around the room. “And yeah. You’re right. Drew would be here in a hot minute if I called him. But they’re recording us, though. Aren’t they?”
“Not in the bathroom.”
“I am not hiding in the bathroom to read about my mother’s affairs with guys in hotel rooms twenty-five years ago. I have a line and apparently that crosses it. Besides, Drew will eventually know about all this. I just want to read it first.”
“Affair? You really think Monica had an affair with El Brujo?”
“Why else would she meet him at a hotel? Mystery shopping?” Hasty in her movements, Lindsay goes back to taking photos.
“This whole situation gets weirder and weirder by the minute.”
“As if your life isn’t dangerous enough, huh?” Tap tap tap, she continues.
“What do you mean?”
“My mom is... well, she gets mean when she feels cornered. Whenever these reports come out – and they will – she’ll know you were the one who found them. Handed them to me. Exposed them and what Alice did.”
“You’re going to tell her it was me?”
“God, no. But she’s not stupid. Duh. These are Alice’s private papers. You’re Alice’s heir.”
“I was doomed from the beginning. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
“Keep reading.”
“November 17, 1992. Met with Ignatio Landau at Lilac Inn –”
“LILAC INN?” Lindsay screams. “Oh, my GOD! Does it say which room?”
“No. Why?”
“Because if you tell me Drew and I had sex in the same room where my parents had sex, I’m going to die right here.”
“I don’t think that’s really the biggest of issues right now, Lindsay.”
“It’s the one I can handle, Jane.”
“The next entry is about Monica meeting Paul Ellison at a coffee shop. They started at a state campaign headquarters, then went for coffee.”
“No one’s screwing at any campaign headquarters,” Lindsay says.
For the next hour, I pore over the reports. Lindsay finishes taking pictures fairly quickly, then sits on the couch next to me,
reading the pages I’ve already read. Over the course of about twelve weeks, there are a few entries where Monica meets with Paul Ellison, but far more with Ignatio Landau.
“My biological father cannot be El Brujo. It’s impossible.”
I look at pictures of Landau. “I remember Claudia. You don’t look anything like her.”
“Even with different mothers?”
“No way. I mean, genetics is a funky science, and maybe you...” Even I can’t figure out how to reassure her that Landau isn’t her sperm donor.
“I’m going to kill my mom. Here it is. Evidence, right? Evidence she was doing something bad.”
“Why would Alice go to all this trouble? What did Monica do to piss off Alice, of all people?”
“No clue.”
We read in quiet for a while, our food getting cold, the overwhelming push of information too much.
“Jane!” Lindsay grabs my hand. “Can you read this? Is that Alice’s handwriting?”
I squint. “She always had the worst scrawl. Let me try.” I squint more, then read aloud. “See if Corning and Landau are using her for something. Not sex. Worried Thornberg will be dragged into this.”
“Thornberg? Senator Thornberg? Mark’s grandfather?” Lindsay squeaks. “What else does it say?”
“Just that.” I look at all the other boxes I still haven’t gone through. “We’re going to need a lot of coffee to get through it all.” Adrenaline rushes through me.
So does need.
A craving for Silas tackles me, flattening my body and heart. I wish he were here. Gooseflesh breaks out all down my arms, the backs of my thighs. I feel exposed. Unsafe. I’m not – Duff is outside and these papers are just papers. Nothing dangerous. Yet. My eyes skitter around the room.
“Lindsay.” I point to the folder, to Alice’s single word. “Witch. Remember? El Brujo means warlock. Or wizard.” I hurry and pull the text from the sweepstakes up on my phone, and hold it out to her. Her eyes scan the words fast, taking it in, and then they widen with unadulterated horror.
Because right there it says:
All witch hunts have a warlock.