by J. J. Sorel
I rode the elevator and entered with my key. This time, I didn’t knock.
Determination fueled my steps. Questions were going to be asked regardless of Aggie’s rules.
Now that a connection between Aggie and Bronson had been established, coincidence was too lame an explanation for why I’d been employed there in the first place. I left the supernatural speculation for the story I was writing, which seemed to offer more answers.
I was relieved to find Aggie up and not bedridden.
“Ah… there you are. Good. Take a seat,” she said.
“You don’t want a martini?” I asked.
“No. I’m not in the mood today,” she said, looking pensive. Noting my mystified frown, she added, “I’m not a complete dipsomaniac, you know.”
“I didn’t think you were,” I replied, settling down at my regular spot by her side.
After engaging in some small talk, I took a deep breath. “Aggie, I need to speak to you about something.”
“Out with it, then,” she said. Her scraping tone sent my nails digging into my palms.
“I arrived earlier today to pay you a visit, and found the entrance doors locked.”
Her eyebrows moved in sharply. “Why did you even come here?”
“Because I wanted to meet Louisa and Charlie.”
“Charlie? Why he’s been dead for years.”
“What?” My heart thumped hard. “But I’ve met him in the elevator plenty of times. Not lately, though.”
“It’s an illusion, darling. I have them all the time. This place is strange like that.”
“I don’t believe in the supernatural, Aggie. There’s got to be a better reason for all of this.”
“I’m flesh and blood if that’s what you mean.”
“Aggie, why did you employ me? Why does the painting upstairs look like me?”
She took a deep breath. “That painting was placed there to do just what it’s done.”
“To attract my curiosity, you mean?”
“Yes. Got it in one. You’re too inquisitive for your own good, though. One thing I learned later in life that might be worthwhile adopting is not to ask too many questions. Everyone has a skeleton or two in the closet. If you poke around long enough, they’ll fall out, and what good will that do in the end?”
I sat forward. “That’s a timely analogy for what I’m about to say,” I said with a grim smile. Before Aggie could respond, I launched straight in. “The other night, Bronson was here. You were upstairs asleep, and we opened the closet in your room.”
Her inscrutable stare burned holes into my brow, for suddenly I felt a headache pounding. “After you connected the cameo that Bronson had given me to your family, he naturally couldn’t wait to meet you. I mean it wasn’t completely instigated by him.” I bit my lip. “And you were being so evasive with this no-question-rule of yours.”
She waved her hand. “Continue.”
“Anyway, I found the key in your drawer. And after we opened the closet, we discovered a jar, a box with pictures, and a letter.”
“He found the letter from Marion?” Her voice resonated with dread.
“The letter from his mother, you mean? Yes.” I couldn’t believe she hadn’t even winced at the mention of the jar.
Aggie placed her hand over her mouth, and her eyes filled with dread and sadness. “You must bring him here. I need to speak to him.”
Noticing that the blood had drained from her face, I became alarmed. “I can do that tomorrow, if you like.”
“No… now.” Her urgent and forceful tone made me stir. “I’m not sure if I’ll be here tomorrow,” she added almost to herself.
“But you seem well today,” I said.
“That I was until a moment ago. Please get me my pills.” She touched her heart.
I ran upstairs and picked up the packet of pills by her bed.
When I returned, Aggie had her eyes closed. My heart thumped against my chest. What had I done? Did I tip her over the edge? I asked myself while I studied her intently in the hope that her chest moved.
“Aggie,” I said, standing by her chair. She opened her eyes slowly. “Are you okay. Should I call 9-1-1?”
“No.” She held out her hand, and I passed her the pills and a glass of water.
I sat and waited.
“Well, are you going to call him?” she asked.
I rose and took my phone into the other room.
Bronson picked up right away. “Hey, angel.”
“Hey. Um… Aggie wants to see you.”
“Is she ready to talk about the heart?”
“We haven’t got to that as yet. But I did mention the letter, and she nearly fainted. It had a profound impact on her. She wants to see you urgently because of that.”
“I’m at the lawyer’s with James. We’ve just uncovered some of Justin’s dirty work. But I can leave James to it. I can be there in about thirty minutes.”
“I’ll see you when you get here, Bronson.”
“Sure.” There was a pause as I held on. “I love you,” he murmured.
“I love you, too,” I replied with a quiver in my voice.
That was a first for me.
Not for Bronson. Whenever we made love, it always spilled out on his breath on climax.
CHAPTER FORTY
BRONSON
Aggie kept looking at me with those cool, faded blue eyes that stripped me bare and chilled me at the same time. Shaking her head in disbelief, she said, “My God, you are Monty’s double. All the way to that dark, all-consuming look he got when something ate away at him.”
I thought Aggie was about to cry. It wasn’t an easy place for me. I’d never been good around people who expressed deep emotion, especially strangers. And although I couldn’t exactly think of Aggie as a stranger, we had never technically met.
“When I received that letter four years ago, it was like being stabbed in the heart and jolted simultaneously. Learning of Marion’s suffering and how my actions may have contributed to her suicide made me retch. You see, we were meant to be together forever, Monty and I. I should never have married Ashley.” She touched her chest. “I loved your grandfather with my soul. After I read that letter, I knew I had to find you. Then I discovered you were in prison thanks to a private detective I’d hired to look for you. That broke me, knowing that you’d fallen on the wrong path. But then as I got my P.I. to dig deeper, he came back with the disturbing news that you’d been imprisoned falsely and that you’d been set up by that nasty half-brother of yours. By golly, I had to act. I delayed my death because of you.”
“What do you mean by that, Aggie?” asked Ava.
“That’s my business.” Her dismissive, cutting response made me wince.
“You knew about Justin before I started working here?” Ava asked.
“Yes. Why do you think I employed you?”
“Ha?” Ava’s mouth fell open.
Aggie’s focus returned to me. Pointing at a floral chair, she said, “Sit here, by my side. Let me look at you.”
I lowered myself onto the chair and crossed my arms. I wasn’t used to that type of searing scrutiny.
“My dear boy.” She continued to study me closely, almost like a doctor would, as if looking for markings or something.
A faint smile touched her lips, which gave me some space to breathe. “When I received that letter,” she continued, “it brought me great pain and joy in equal measure. You see, I never knew you existed. Monty died when Penelope was pregnant. Therefore, I didn’t even know Marion, your mother, existed.”
“Penelope was my grandmother?”
Although she nodded, Aggie seemed distracted. “Oh my, you even sound like him.”
“My mother wrote that you killed my grandfather,” I said. The earlier pity I’d felt for Aggie vanished.
“Yes… But it was an accident. A horrible, horrible accident.” Her eyes pooled with tears.
“Were the police involved?” I asked.
&nbs
p; She shook her head. “It was cleaned up. One could do that back then with the right sum of cash.”
“Then the heart in the jar belongs to Monty?” asked Ava.
Aggie’s head turned sharply to Ava and then back to me. “You’ve seen it?” Her eyes searched deeply in a bid to read me.
Catching a glint of deep pain and sorrow, I saw the pathetic image of an old woman gnawed by regret.
“Yes,” I replied. “And I’ve also seen the scar, which suggests a knife wound.” My heart started to race.
I couldn’t quite fathom how that shadow of a woman might be a murderer. Sickened at the thought of interrogating her, I would have preferred not to have found that heart at all.
She looked at Ava. “I think I need that drink now.”
Standing up, Ava looked at me. “Do you want one, too?”
I nodded. “Bourbon.”
“That was Monty’s favorite drink. Ava tells me you’re a talented designer and that you create beautiful furniture,” she said with an almost childlike twinkle in her eyes.
That jarred. I was not in the mood for light and sociable conversation. “I do.” I shifted in my seat. “Anyway, you were saying?”
She picked up her cigarettes and offered me one. Despite wanting one badly, I declined.
I watched her smoke in silence. Respecting her need for a drink, I waited patiently until Ava returned with a long-stemmed glass for Aggie and a tumbler half filled with bourbon.
With the thirst of a sailor, I gulped back half of it before returning my focus to Aggie.
After a couple of sips, Aggie cleared her voice. “Monty came to me one night, as he always did. You see, we were virtually living together. Here.”
“Did he work?” I asked, not wishing to learn of their twisted relationship. I just wanted to know something about my real grandfather.
“Oh, yes. Monty was a hard worker. He started off as a laborer when young. That was when we lived in the same house growing up as teenagers. Not related by blood. Nothing like that. He was an orphan. My father, kind man that he was, brought Monty home when he was just five.”
“And they say history doesn’t repeat itself,” I said almost to myself.
Aggie continued, “Your grandfather was a great man. He started with nothing. A strong man who could carry a lump of steel in his bare hands. He wasn’t frightened of work.”
“Did he set up his own company?” I asked, stunned by the parallel between his life and mine.
“I suppose he did,” said Aggie. “You know, nobody really knew how Monty made his money. I was too deeply in love with him to talk about mundane affairs. I’d lived a privileged existence.” Her face changed as she looked out into the distance. “I used to visit his worksite when I was a young woman so that I could ogle his beautiful male form”—she chuckled—“but we never spoke about his business interests. My father left him a nice chunk of money, though. Clarke, my brother, died young. Monty and I were the only heirs to a fortune.”
Aggie shook her head as she studied me intently. “I can’t believe how alike you are. Even your bodies. Tall and well built. Men. Real Men. None of that sissy-boy shit.”
A faint smile formed on my face.
Now that I saw the woman who I’d heard so much about, I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. Pity was the biggest impulse, but then, she’d also wrecked a family. A family that could have given me a normal life. Whatever that meant, given that apart from Justin, my adopted family had furnished me with nothing but love and affection.
“Aggie, how did he die?” I asked, returning to the grim presence of that jar upstairs.
“After Monty cited Penelope’s pregnancy as a reason for not going ahead with our plan to run away together, I lost it. I’d been drinking. Seeing him late at night wasn’t enough for me. I needed him all day, all night. We were soul mates, you see.” She paused to take a sip. “When he came here that night, explaining that we’d have to wait until the child was born, I went crazy. I wanted to kill myself.”
Clasping the stem of the glass with a tremble, she sipped her drink before continuing, “I grabbed a knife and went to cut my veins. Monty, who’d also been drinking, lunged to take it from me. We tussled, which made me stumble. When I fell on top of him, the knife went straight into his heart.” Her head moved from side to side as she gripped her arms. Tears splashed over her withered cheeks.
Ava rummaged in her bag and brought out a packet of tissues. She passed one to me, and I handed it to Aggie.
“Can we get you some water?” I asked, unsure how to navigate the emotional storm erupting both within me and in front of me in the shape of a haunted old woman.
“A drink,” she murmured, barely able to speak.
“Bronson, maybe we should allow Aggie some rest.”
I stared at Ava and nodded.
“No. I want to finish this story. It’s been a cancer eating away at me all my life,” Aggie said, gesturing for us to remain still.
I looked at Ava. “Perhaps that drink, then. I wouldn’t mind another. That’s if you don’t mind.” I mustered a tight smile.
Ava returned with our drinks. She placed the martini beside Aggie and waited for her to replenish her strength. If that was what one got from martinis. For me, it was slurred words and a shocking headache the morning after. But Aggie seemed like a force of nature where liquor and cigarettes were concerned.
“Did you call 9-1-1?” I asked returning to the gloomy task of establishing the truth about my grandfather’s death.
“He died in my arms. It was a matter of seconds,” she murmured. I had to lean in to hear. It seemed a struggle for her to speak. “His last words were: ‘Take my heart.’” Aggie choked back tears.
“And you did,” I said, gulping back my bourbon. “So, you cut it out, then?”
“No…” She looked straight into my eyes. The faded blue irises floated in tears. “Charlie did that. He cleaned everything up. Charlie was my champion. He looked after me.”
“Is that Charlie from the elevator?” asked Ava.
Aggie nodded. “Yes. Charlie was buried not so long ago.”
“While I’ve known you?” asked Ava.
“I don’t know. Time is confusing. Yesterday seems like fifty years ago, and fifty years ago seems like yesterday.”
“Your bodyguard cleaned it up. Is that right?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Was my grandfather’s body ever found?”
“That wouldn’t have been possible.” She turned toward me. Her eyes had a cold sting in them. “He was cremated.”
“But how did you get that cleared without a death certificate?” I asked.
“If one’s got money in this town, one can do anything. Charlie arranged it. He knew someone working for the Mafia who had contacts, that’s it. Nothing else to say. And now… I need you both to leave because I am…” She slumped back in her seat and closed her eyes.
“We should leave her,” said Ava, turning to the older woman. “Aggie, let us help you up to your bed. You won’t be able to climb the stairs otherwise.”
“Leave me. Go.” She waved her hand.
Rising, I hesitated. I’d never felt as indecisive as that moment.
Aggie’s eyes opened slightly. Her wrinkled, cold hand touched mine. “I am so happy that you’ve found a good woman. Marion, your mother, got it wrong when she said I would have hurt you. If I had known about you, I would have smothered you with love and given you everything and more. I would have cared for you with more love than I’d ever given anyone, even Monty. I need you to know that. Your mother was wrong to believe that I would have hurt you. It was her final act of revenge against me, and it worked, because after I received that letter four years ago, my life became a living hell. No… not four years ago, but from the moment your grandfather died in my arms.” She fell back into her chair.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
AVA
It had been a week since I’d visited Aggie. She kept paying me nev
ertheless. I’d attempted to address that since it didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t get through the front doors, nor did anyone ever pick up the phone when I tried calling. I’d even contacted my bank, who had nothing to offer, only what I already knew. They did, however, mention that it had been made a permanent ongoing deposit. Four thousand dollars a month.
That meant I could live my dream of writing without having to work.
As comforting as that was, I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Aggie.
Bronson had been even more difficult to deal with. Although he still smothered me with love, I gritted my teeth whenever his brooding silence created a chasm between us. He wouldn’t share his thoughts about Monty and Aggie, even when I asked.
In my arms, Bronson was hungrier. He seemed driven almost by an animal lust that always began tenderly enough with tender kisses and caresses but invariably descended into a hotbed of deep and hard fucking that ended with the scattering of my senses.
I tapped away on my laptop. The story, which had started as a novella, had turned into a novel. Although I’d never believed in the paranormal, since I’d started working on my story, the actual process of writing bordered on that, for my fingers moved around the keypad forming words before I’d had a chance to conceive them.
The story revolved around an old woman who was manipulating a younger woman onto a path that she wished she had taken. They could even be the same person. I left that open to interpretation. Commercial imperatives no longer mattered, because I soon discovered writing stopped me from losing my mind.
I was meant to be packing boxes for my move to Bronson’s, and I’d started, but got distracted by the need to write when a knock came at the door. Expecting it to be Bronson, I opened the door, only to find a dazed and disheveled Justin standing before me.
Before I could slam the door in his face, he shoved his way in.
“You can’t barge in here uninvited,” I said.
“I can fucking do what I like, bitch.”
I’d never seem him like that, given that Justin took pride in his appearance. The dark rings under his saggy eyes showed he hadn’t slept, and he reeked of liquor.