“There was a girl,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t see her name, but she was young. Underage. The daughter of your best friend.” She bit her lip. “John. Your best friend John. Her daughter.”
The smile died on Franz’s face.
“You tried to woo her, but she didn’t want you. You were too old for her, and she told you that, and so you pinned her down and raped her in her father’s office, while the rest of the office worked outside.”
“What is wrong with you, little girl? Why would make up such a horrific story?” Darwin said. “That’s not why we brought you here.”
Cordelia said nothing.
“You raped her, and she told her father, which you weren’t counting on. After a fight, you brought a rock down on his head and killed him. Then the young girl… Daisy, her name was Daisy, I can see it now… jumped to her death.”
Franz reached out for something that wasn’t there. He backed away, tried to smile, tried to speak.
“You want to know your future, Franz Hendrickson?”
Cordelia answered for him. She didn’t appear to be surprised or affected by the prior outburst. “Yes, tell us.”
“You’ll die within the year,” Elizabeth said, and her strength grew with the words, which she would not have shared with anyone less vile than this man and his brood. She should hate herself for the glee in announcing his fate, but instead found power in her gift for the first time. “Suicide.”
Franz’s spell broke at this. He sputtered through a series of laughs. Darwin joined in, but his were strained with fear. “Why would I kill myself?”
“Two reasons that I can see,” Elizabeth said, and she felt herself growing, expanding, becoming larger than them all. “One, your business will fail. I can tell you what choice to make, but you’ll make the opposite one anyway, because you are a selfish, vainglorious man who thinks his shit smells like roses. Two, something will finally give you cause to regret what you did to that girl and her father, and you will see yourself for the man you really are. A man who cannot live with himself.”
Darwin stepped forward from the door. “This is nonsense. It’s crazy. We’re crazy, for thinking a stupid little girl could actually see the future.”
Cordelia’s thoughts traveled elsewhere for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yes, let’s go. This isn’t what we came here for.”
Elizabeth noted that Cordelia didn’t explicitly say that she didn’t believe the premonition.
Franz kicked at the dust on the floor and then marched toward the door. He stopped before Elizabeth. “Tell your brother I’m on to him. You hear me? He’ll pay for this trick.”
Elizabeth shrugged.
“Open the door, Darwin,” Cordelia commanded.
“We’re going to let her get away with this?”
“She’s nothing but a useless child. And I’m thirsty.”
Thank God for that! Elizabeth’s neck throbbed with her heavy pulse.
Darwin shoved the latch open and the doors yawned wide. “Charles will pay, though.”
“You’ll leave my brother alone,” Elizabeth said. “Unless you want me to read your future as well.”
Darwin chortled. “Sure. Right. You couldn’t stand all that excellence.”
“Let’s go,” Cordelia said as she marched ahead and outside. Both men followed. Both looked back at Elizabeth.
She smiled wide and lifted both middle fingers in the air.
* * *
Maureen raced across the lawn toward Elizabeth. “What just happened? Why were you in there with them?”
Elizabeth told her.
Maureen’s blood pressure soared through the roof. She drove her heels into the dewy grass and a deep groan rose from deep within her. “How dare they? Who do they think they are?”
“I told them the truth,” Elizabeth said. “Franz will kill himself.”
“After they threatened you!”
“They didn’t actually threaten me.”
“They kidnapped you!”
“I’m not sure we could call it that.”
“Why do you look okay? Why aren’t you more upset?”
Silent tears appeared in Elizabeth’s lids. “Oh, I am upset, Maureen. But not at them.”
“Then what?”
“No matter what I do, Charles is going to marry Cordelia. He’s going to marry into that family.”
Maureen squeezed her sister’s arm. “Not if I have any say in it.”
* * *
Maureen found Charles at the river. She doubted he knew she was aware of his favorite spot, but it was hers, also, and she’d seen him go there from time to time. She kept his secret, but this was important.
“Do you know what your fiancée’s family did to our sister?” she demanded.
Charles set his beer to the side. He looked around, craning his neck as if expecting she brought an entourage. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
“That’s not important right now. Franz, Cordelia, and that nimrod brother kidnapped Elizabeth!”
Charles shot to the feet. “Say what?”
“You heard me.” Maureen’s fingers splayed out over her tiny hips. “They kidnapped her, Charles. Locked her in the horse barn and forced her to tell them their future.”
Charles pressed his hand to his mouth and looked out over the river. Moon spilled over the surface, lighting the way for the barges. “They fucking did not. Tell me you’re making this up, Maureen.”
“We’ve already established that I have no imagination whatsoever.”
His face was as red as a lobster. “What the fuck? Do they have any idea what I’m capable of? What I’ve done?” He lifted his beer bottle from the ground and chucked it as hard as he could throw. “Is this why I have to marry the bitch?”
“You can murder someone later,” Maureen said reasonably. “But I have a better idea.”
She filled him in on everything Elizabeth told her… about the young girl, the business partner.
And then, her idea.
“You would need to help me practice. I need time. I don’t… I don’t even know if I could do it, you know? I’ve never tried, they’ve always just come to me, and they’re all connected to me in some way.”
Charles shoved his hands in his pockets and whistled out a breath, eyes closed, cheeks aflame. “And you think you could do it?”
“I said I don’t know, but wouldn’t that be just delicious if I could? Revenge doesn’t always have to be violent.”
“If not for violence, you’d be off in a nunnery.”
“Listen to me, Huck. Elizabeth said this jerk Franz is going to kill himself next year. Elizabeth is never wrong. But she said he’s a proud, boastful man who doesn’t seem like the type, so something has to drive him over the edge, right? Right?”
Charles pulled his hands over the creases of his face, moaning as his hands dropped to his neck. He wrapped both hands around the soft skin there. “Let’s bury this motherfucker.”
Thirteen
The Necklace
Augustus left his brother’s party along with the first of the departing guests. Charles wouldn’t miss him. He never wanted the party to begin with, and Augustus figured that his leaving was helping along the ushering of the end of the whole thing.
He didn’t need to be in the office. It was late, and everyone would be home with their families by now… all but one. He’d also given a key to Ekatherina, which had drawn speculation and ire that he hadn’t asked for and didn’t need, but it did no good to explain to all the office busybodies that Ekatherina had a key because she was the only one of them who worked late and went above her duty.
Augustus would have been working, if not for the party. He would’ve preferred work over the event marking the beginning of the end for Charles’ happiness. Augustus and Charles had never had the brotherly bond many young men enjoyed, and Augustus didn’t approve of much of Charles’ behavior, but he was miserable for his brother at the thought of him married to Cordelia Hendrickson. If C
harles was the life of a party, she was the vacuum, sucking every last crumb of enjoyment. Augustus had hoped Charles would eventually settle down, but not like this.
He took the stairs tonight. Sometimes he still did this, to get his blood pumping harder, proof he was alive, and that he had built this. He’d never required thrills like Charles, but instead, he sought small, subtle reminders. Tonight, as he watched his older brother step into a den of lions, Augustus needed a reminder.
The office was dark, except the small light coming from the back corner. Ekatherina’s green lamp was no longer the beacon on the trail to Augustus’ office. The office had recently reorganized to accommodate their new growth, and the finance team had been relegated to the back, all sharing a roomy but isolated corner office. The blinds were drawn, but light peaked through the slats.
Augustus looked around at his small, but powerful empire. He was not a seven-billion-dollar man, as his brother was, but he was largely self-made. He’d started with the minimum investment needed and grown his business through grit and determination.
And, as he promised himself on the dark fall day by the river where he rescued Maddy, he’d donated half his profits the first year to the local homeless rescue.
A stack of the summer edition of Deschanel Magazine sat on the desk to his left, and he grabbed one.
He never read it cover to cover. He wouldn’t have considered himself a superstitious man, but something about this nonetheless felt ominous, like if he stopped to question or assess, he would stop moving altogether. His thumb released page after page as he skimmed, but he paused when he saw a familiar face.
Spring Elopement for Rory Sullivan and Carolina Percy, read the headline under the banner In & Out of Love. Augustus frowned. He didn’t remember approving this section, which felt trite and a small step above a gossip rag.
Carolina’s beautiful golden hair flowed like a wave of amber around her tanned, glowing face. Beside her, Rory flashed the signature Sullivan tight-lipped smile. The caption read that their engagement photos had been taken after they were married, which was pointless and silly, but Augustus found himself unable to look away.
Neither looked happy, and that was two Sullivan brothers now who had married into the great potential for heartbreak. The pattern was starting off the same in the Deschanel family now, as well, and would it also continue?
Augustus tossed the magazine aside. He shifted in place, unsure of what to do with himself. Work was where he felt most himself, but his mind wasn’t in it tonight, a fact both somewhat welcome and also worrisome. Much like stopping to read an article, if Augustus paused too long to question his habits, he might find the contents lacking.
His eyes were again drawn to the faint light in the corner office. Ekatherina would have heard him come in, surely, so he should at least say hello and good night, before disappearing again.
Augustus found her alone and crying. She wiped her face when she noticed him appear in the door, but he’d seen it, and she knew this.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she replied. Her fingers moved with maniacal precision on the adding machine to her right.
“You’re crying,” he said, helpless for a better choice of words. The tears seemed so antithetical to what he knew of her. An uncomfortable anachronism.
“It’s nothing.”
Augustus stepped inside and closed the door. He didn’t know why. It felt right. He approached her desk and sat across from her. “It’s not nothing. Anything I can do?”
The whirring of her adding machine stopped, but her hand stayed hovered over the keys. He could almost see her arguing with herself. She reached for a tissue, blotted her eyes, then pulled something out of her drawer. Her hand held up a tiny cross necklace, the cross broken into two pieces.
Augustus stretched his hand to touch it, but he didn’t do more than tickle the gold. “Yours?”
“It was a gift from my mammochka. It is all I have of her.”
Augustus this time took the necklace from her hands, after a tentative nod from her, and studied the damage. The gold was of inferior quality, only plated, and the chain was flimsy and not worthy of the task. He wasn’t surprised it broke, only that it hadn’t sooner.
“I can fix it,” Augustus said and slipped the keepsake into his pocket before she could object. Her large blue eyes blinked in surprise at his kindness.
“I do not ask this of you,” she said. “You are my boss. I work hard and I pay for repair.”
“I know,” Augustus said. She had the money, but he knew where this money was going, and there was no way he’d let her spend it on this, not if he could help. He stood, both uncomfortable by her tears and also moved nearly to tears himself. He needed to leave, before… well, he didn’t know what. But he needed to leave, and now.
“I can pay,” she said again.
Augustus gestured around the office. “You already have.”
He disappeared without wishing her a proper good night.
* * *
Colleen wrapped her hands around the leather steering wheel. It wasn’t too late to back out of this harebrained idea. She could still change course. She could just ask Philip, which was what a normal person would do. He’d either tell her, or he wouldn’t, but she’d have a better sense of things.
She never should have gone to see Ophelia. It wasn’t that she doubted her great-aunt, but her advice was designed to never let Colleen make the mistakes herself. And because she sought it out, she couldn’t very well ignore any of it. She was the instigator and the sufferer.
And then Rory, at Huck’s party. This had been before all the boozing that propelled him into almost ruining his brother’s life, but the words had been equally unwelcome.
“Colleen,” he’d said, nudging her aside. They both knew what Carolina would think of them being alone, and both were tense from the risk. “You need to be careful.”
“Excuse me?” She pulled her arm away, more rudely than she intended.
“Professor Green. Watch yourself around him. He has a reputation with his female students.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He’d only smiled in response, a smile that said everything. She hated him in that moment.
Philip had never given her the address to his mansion on Napoleon, but the Garden District was a small world. Tourists might refer to the more famous houses by their original names, like Magnolia Grace, but locals were more inclined to say things like, you know, the Deschanel place on Prytania. Colleen knew where the Green house was on Napoleon, because it was only a block from the ice cream shop where they used to walk as kids. She remembered the heavily-gabled green and tan house on the corner, looking a tad too much like something out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.
Philip wouldn’t be home. He was teaching classes until four, and if his version of things was to be believed, it wasn’t his night at the Green house in any case. Which meant Sylvie would be there, hopefully alone. The hour was early enough that their sons should be in school, which was why Colleen had chosen to come before noon.
She had a plan. It wasn’t her best plan, nor very solid even by a less-organized person’s standards, but it was good enough for government work, as Rory used to say. With luck, she’d walk away more enlightened—hopefully confirming her hopes, not her fears—and at worst, Sylvie would just think she was a foolish student who made a miscalculation.
Colleen forced herself out of the car and up the steps to the round porch. Before she could knock, the door opened. A comely woman appeared, with two throw rugs, one over each arm, and she looked as surprised to see Colleen as Colleen was to see her.
Colleen didn’t know if this was Sylvie or not. She realized she’d never seen a picture of the woman.
“Sorry to scare you,” Colleen said and lowered her knocking hand. “I was, uh… looking for Professor Green. I’m one of his students. Is he in?”
The woman’s demeanor changed in a single instan
t. She shifted her weight to one side and tossed the rugs on a nearby chair. “I’ll just bet you are.”
“He wasn’t in his office, and I just had a question about an assignment.”
Sylvie looked her up and down with a slow shake of the head. “I told him… I told him not to bring you sluts here. Jesus, Philip! How hard was that one thing?”
“Sorry?” Colleen’s blood went cold.
Sylvie laughed. “Philip and his fucking predilections for young, smart girls. You think you’re the first? Let me guess, you were first his student, then his aide and now, miraculously, he’s free to date you because you’re not a student anymore? He give you that speech yet?” Her mouth hung wide as she watched Colleen in cruel assessment. “I told him to keep this dirty business away from my steps. Away from my house!”
Colleen wished for the moment just before she’d opened the car door. If she could just walk backward down the steps, into the past, where she could slap some sense into herself. Where she still believed Philip was just a peculiar guy, and not a terrible one.
Sylvie looked past Colleen, down the street, both sides. “You tell that no-good piece of shit that I’m done. He broke our agreement for the last time! The last time! You got that? You’ll tell him?” She sneered. “I want my keys back for the loft, too. No more fucking on my dime, on my property. But hey, you look well off. I’m sure he can come mooch off you for the next twenty years. I did my time.”
The door slammed in Colleen’s face. She glanced helplessly at the forgotten rugs and had a strange, inexplicable urge to clean them for the woman of the man she’d been sleeping with.
Colleen had no better understanding of the Green marriage, but she had observed enough to understand her own relationship with the venerable Professor Green.
She was not the first. He had done this before, and he had his rhythm and act down to a carefully constructed science, so believable even Colleen had not seen through it until she’d already fallen for him.
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