Chastity stilled. “You know where Faith is?”
“I’m not going to answer you. I want you to tell me what you think you’re doing.”
“I’m trying to find my sister.”
“For him?”
“For him who?”
The woman looked around, skittish all of a sudden. “You know perfectly well. Her husband. You came down here to see him.”
Chastity nodded. “What do you want to tell me about Max, Dr. Hayes-Adams?”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because women are being murdered. The sooner I know where Faith is, the sooner we can discover who is responsible for the deaths of at least two other women.”
“I know damn well who’s responsible.”
“Then why haven’t you gone to the police yet?”
“Because nobody’d believe me. Nobody’d believe any of us.”
“They just might, if you gave them the chance. Please, won’t you come in and talk, and maybe we can help each other.”
“No. No, I won’t. You go home. That’s what Frankie told you to do, and damn it, that’s what you should do. I didn’t take the risk of doing something completely illegal just so you could ruin it all. Especially now.”
Chastity heard James walk up behind her, and ignored him to maintain eye contact with the rather excitable Dr. Hayes-Adams. “I’m still here because the police won’t let me go. Because they think I know something about Frankie’s murder. And Susan Reeves and Willow Tolliver.”
Dr. Hayes-Adams’s eyes grew wide. “You know…”
“I’m going to ask you again. Come in and talk with me. Talk to the police with me. At least make them ask questions, Dr. Hayes-Adams. I promise they can help.”
At which point James leaned in behind her. “You might want to ask about that completely illegal thing before you make promises.”
“A new identity,” Dr. Hayes-Adams snapped. “Her second, thank you very much, since she just had to come back after we’d gotten her safely away, and we couldn’t take the chance that she’d be recognized. And that doesn’t even count the times we signed her into ERs under assumed names after he beat her like a two-dollar whore. We kept her safe, until you came along and screwed everything up.”
“We?” Chastity asked. “You and Susan and Frankie?”
The doctor suddenly went on alert. She looked around again, as if expecting to see someone else lurking nearby.
“I have to go. Just figure out a way to go home. Please.”
“But if she was safe,” Chastity said, “why did she come back?”
The doctor had quite a glare on her. “Because at least we care for her. Now, I have to go before I’m seen.”
They were standing out on the sidewalk for anybody to see, and Chastity began to feel as exposed as the doctor. Besides, the clouds were beginning to mass over the rooftops. Another thunderstorm was brewing. The streets were going to start flooding soon. Chastity really needed to get off that sidewalk.
“Please, Dr. Hayes-Adams,” Chastity begged, “come inside.”
Dr. Hayes-Adams straightened and scowled. “I will not. I shouldn’t be here in the first place.”
“At least give me something I can take to the police. They’re looking into the murders. I swear to you.”
For just a moment, Dr. Hayes-Adams stopped, poised to flee. She huffed, shook her head. Looked over her shoulder again. “All right, you want something? Here. The day Wllow went missing, a warehouse in Algiers went up in flames. A warehouse where Wllow might have kept your sister for a few days. By the time it caught fire, your sister was safely away. Find out about that fire.”
“You think that’s where Willow was killed?”
Dr. Hayes-Adams was already backing away. “I think nothing. I’ve told you everything I can. I have to go now.”
“But Faith—”
“I’ll ask. I’ll ask if she’ll talk to you. I’ll let you know.”
“No, wait!”
But short of restraints and major sedatives, there was no way Chastity was going to keep the woman there. She heard the first rumble of thunder as Dr. Hayes-Adams slammed into her Mercedes SUV and drove off. And all she could do was stand there on the cracked and lopsided sidewalk and watch.
“Well, that went well,” James said.
“We should follow her.”
“She’s not going to see your sister.”
Chastity slumped. “You’re right. She’ll call her. Which means we should probably stay here and wait.”
“Since it’s about to rain, yeah. I think so.”
Chastity turned for the front porch. “Did you hear her? My God, there’s a whole group of them. Getting my sister fake documents and getting her out of town.”
“Only to have her show up again.”
Chastity nodded. The trees were dipping now, the smell of rain thick in the air. Chastity shivered with the portent of it.
“She thinks it’s Max, James. Doesn’t she?”
“You’ve done everything but say it yourself.”
She sighed. “She’s right. I can’t think of one thing that would prove to me that he’d do something that…that awful. I mean, just because he’s an asshole doesn’t mean he’s a murdering asshole. And I’m the last one to have an objective opinion. But I’m beginning to believe that there aren’t any other options.”
“I thought you said he was surprised when he found out about that first body.”
“He was. He really was.” They opened the front door and stepped into the shadows. “I wonder, though…”
“Yes?”
Chastity came to a halt on that cool hardwood floor, as possibilities tumbled so fast they ate at what remained of her composure. “Could it be possible that he wasn’t so much surprised by the ring on the body…”
James stopped to look down on her. “As the ring being on the wrong body?”
Chastity couldn’t seem to move from where she stood in the middle of the living room. Behind her, lightning forked across the sky. She thought about what had been done to those three women. She felt sick.
“Willow looked so much like Faith.”
“Could a husband have made a mistake like that?”
“Good God, James, I don’t know. Besides, if he thought Faith was already dead, why did he ask me to come down to look for her?”
Standing there in the shadows, James didn’t answer.
If Max had indeed murdered them, those women who had kept his wife safe, then Chastity had led him right to them. She’d staked them out like goats for him to dispose of at his leisure.
“I need to talk to the police,” she said.
“You need to call Max and tell him you’re not coming.”
Chastity stood there, staring into the peppermint-colored kitchen beyond the shadows. “No, I don’t think so. I think I need to talk to him.”
“But you just said you think he murdered those women.”
“He’s a bully. I know how to deal with bullies.” She grinned suddenly, feeling tight and brittle and furious. “Besides, I’ll be in plain view in full daylight in a public place.”
“In a thunderstorm. You sure?”
“I’m sure I need to know what he’s going to tell me,” she said. “Then I’ll call the police.”
Jackson Square was all but deserted. Chastity and James arrived a few minutes early to find the trees dripping and the steam rising from the thunderstorm. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still roiled across the sky and thunder rumbled and cracked across the river. The wind was capricious, lifting and swirling the litter that remained from the hastily departed tourists.
Chastity looked, but the psychics had decamped as well. For a second she actually thought she might want to speak to Tante Edie. Find out how this discussion with Max was going to turn out. How the rest of this week was going to turn out, when she had disaster pressing down on her from all sides.
But without tourists, there was no business. And the t
ourists were at the airport trying to find a way home. The natives were home boarding up houses or in their cars trying to get past Lake Pontchartrain before the hurricane arrived.
Chastity wanted to be with them in the worst way. At the airport, on the highway, on a dirt path—she didn’t care. Away from the odd electricity in the air, the constant weather alerts, the dread that crawled in her belly at the thought of her father walking through those wrought-iron gates.
She wiped the water off one of the benches that faced the cathedral and sat down. James prowled a few feet away.
Chastity saw Max first. Clad in a tailored suit, business tie, and shiny loafers, he walked as if he were on a hospital hallway, completely in control. A man to attract attention with his sculpted gray hair and square jaw. She saw that gray hair and held her breath.
Would there be another man with gray hair following behind?
Would Max bring her father?
She was so distracted by the possibility that her father would walk through the gates that Max was almost upon her before she realized that he’d actually come alone. She was so relieved, she damn near melted all over the bench.
She had murders and a missing sister and two women she’d liked who were dead. And she was more distressed by the possibility of seeing her father than by any of that. It was definitely time to go home.
Max gave Chastity a sympathetic smile as he reached her. She knew he’d caught sight of James. She’d seen him stiffen. But he didn’t say anything, just settled on the other side of the bench as if they were in his living room.
“Are you all right?” he asked, leaning her way.
Chastity fought the urge to back away. She fought harder to pay attention. She still expected her father to suddenly show up, right about the time Max needed to make a point.
“I’m fine, Max. I have to admit that I’m glad the police are finally paying attention to what’s going on.”
She tried hard not to be obvious, but she watched him. She measured him, as if suddenly she should be able to see something in him she’d missed. Could he really be so sadistic and not reveal it? Not smell differently, like Lloyd, or have maroon eyes, like Hannibal Lector?
But Chastity, who lived in the real world, knew that the real monsters were often handsome and appealing.
He smiled and patted her hand. “The police are paying attention? That’s great. I thought they didn’t tell you anything.”
“They told me they think that Susan’s and Frankie’s murders are linked. They’re investigating the fertility clinics.”
“Good. I’ve been so worried about you.” Tilting his head, he oozed anxiety. “You really don’t have any idea where Faith is?”
Well, at least Chastity could be honest about that. “No. I really don’t. I assume you haven’t heard anything, either?”
“No. Not a peep. I even called your father, just in case she thought to maybe contact him. He was the one who took her to that clinic, by the way. He told me.”
She didn’t believe him. Mostly because this time, when he talked about her father, she saw how watchful Max suddenly became. Nothing obvious. There was no gleam, no leer. It was just a curious stillness, as if he was waiting for her reaction.
So there was something she should have seen all along. Something Max had neatly camouflaged with her own fears.
Chastity made it a point to face him, even though she still wanted to watch over her shoulder. “Thank you for the information. Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
Max dipped his head, his gaze now on his hands where they lay in his lap. His brilliant, manicured, surgeon’s hands.
“Are you sure you can’t stay?” he begged. “I really wouldn’t ask if I weren’t desperate.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I have trouble enough driving on a bridge over the river. I’m not going to be able to cope at all with a storm surge.”
“But it’s not here yet. Another day or two. I just know you’re close to finding Faith.”
“No, Max. I can’t.”
He looked away, as if gathering his tact. He sighed, and Chastity felt the tension in her chest begin to coil. What was he about to do?
“I didn’t want to have to be the one to tell you this,” he said, not yet facing her.
Chastity didn’t answer. She kept James in sight, though. He might not like it, but he was fast becoming her anchor. And she had the dreadful feeling she was just about to need one.
“I imagine you’ve always wondered why your sister ran away from you. Why she didn’t contact you again.”
Well, at least he had Chastity’s full attention. “I imagine you’re going to tell me.”
He looked up and Chastity saw distress in those sharp brown eyes. “I just don’t know how to tell you this. But you have to understand, I’ll do anything to find my wife.”
His wife. There it was again. Chastity wrapped her hands around her purse and held on.
“You know that she had a baby,” he said.
Chastity blinked. Where the hell was this going? “Yes.”
“Well, I finally found out about it. I found out when she had that baby.”
He expected an answer of some kind, Chastity thought. She didn’t give him one. She just watched him.
“You were right, Chastity,” he said. “Your sister is thirty-eight. I guess if I’d known, I might have guessed. At least suspected. Especially knowing your father.”
Chastity blinked. “My father? What are you talking about? What does he have to do with it?”
This time, Max was the one who waited.
Chastity didn’t disappoint him. She knew her jaw dropped and her face drained of color. “You’re saying that Faith had a baby by my father. That that’s why she left when she did?”
“Not if you think that she was pregnant then. She’d already had her baby.” He was watching her again. His nostrils even flared, just a little. “She’d had it sixteen years earlier.”
Should she feel something, Chastity wondered. Should she recognize the inevitability of this moment?
The footsteps in the hall had just stopped outside her door.
“Faith isn’t your sister, Chastity. She’s your mother.”
Twenty-One
Thunder rolled over the river. Somewhere a car honked, and the wind caught the trees and set them writhing. More rain was coming. Chastity could smell it. She could see James standing just out of hearing range. She could almost hear her heart thundering in her chest.
Max was lying.
It was the first coherent thought she had. He had to be lying. Her family was dysfunctional. It wasn’t gothic.
But Faith was twelve years older than Chastity. She’d always been distant from her. Resentful. As if Chastity had stolen something from her, although Chastity had never been able to figure out what.
Faith and Hope and Chastity.
Chastity.
Well, didn’t that just take on a new meaning?
Had it been her mother’s indictment? Her ineffectual swipe at the man who controlled their lives, and the daughter who had supplanted her in his bed? Her ultimate denial?
Faith was twelve years older than Chastity, and everything suddenly made sense.
“I’m so sorry, Chastity,” Max said, leaning closer. “I didn’t want to tell you here, right out in the open….”
He tried to lay a hand on hers. Chastity yanked back as if she’d seen a snake.
“I understand, Max.”
He’d done it on purpose. Set out to hurt her.
Shouldn’t she be hurt? Shouldn’t she be vomiting up her socks? She’d sure wanted to when she’d thought her father might show up.
Her mother had never expressed affection. Not once in the sixteen years she’d known her. And then, when Chastity had stood up for herself against the man who’d hurt her—hurt them all—her mother had spit in her face and walked away with her real daughter.
It made so much sense.
“How did yo
u find out?” she asked, sitting quite still.
Max shrugged, his attention never wavering for a second. “Your mother. When she was dying. I’m so sorry, Chastity. I mean, I know that everything is changed now.”
There it was again, that watchfulness. That flash of expectation in his eyes, as if he was still waiting. Hungry for her reaction.
Chastity had the weirdest feeling that he expected to feed off it. Her fear. Her distress. Her devastation.
She faced him, for the first time immune to his coercion. Bemused by his attempt to shatter her. She thought how precise his hair was, how tailored his clothing. How completely he controlled everything around him.
Until now.
“It doesn’t change anything, really,” she said, composed and collected where she sat, her own hands folded around her purse, her focus on the statue of General Jackson at the center of the square. “The day things changed for me was when I admitted that my father pushed my head underwater while he raped me. And that the first time he did that, I was four years old.” She took a small breath, willing herself to calm. “I always thought of it as the moment somebody pulls a tablecloth out from under the good crystal only the trick doesn’t work. All that crystal is shattered into a thousand shards on the floor, and there will never be any way of making it whole again. That’s what I felt that day. But this?” She shrugged, turning now to face him down. “This isn’t really as much of a surprise as you might think.”
Did she see disappointment? A sudden flash of fury, like a glint of red in a gemstone? Did Max seem, suddenly, to coil more tightly into himself with frustration?
She remembered a Star Trek episode she’d seen once, where an alien had attacked the ship by feeding off its crew’s emotions. How the crew had struggled to maintain calm to starve it out of existence. She thought of that alien now as she caught the quickly suppressed rage in Max’s eyes.
He’d brought out the big guns, and she’d just walked on past.
And still he sat there, waiting for her to crumble. To break down so he could offer his help, his comfort, his control.
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