“Mama—” Fear had climbed up my throat, leaving no room for the truth. I didn’t even know what that truth was, but I sensed in my gut that it couldn’t be good. Two gunshots. Shaking, I grabbed the keys off Mama’s dresser and took off again.
“Elise!”
But she must have heard the panic in my voice because she was on my heels, and a glance over my shoulder revealed Mama in white nightgown flying behind me.
“Dear Lord… dear Lord.” Mama’s voice shook as I fumbled with the keys. Because now that we were right outside the door, we could hear Ava and Cole.
The lock turned. We ran in.
And I will never forget that sound. Not as long as I live.
Hearing a woman scream is startling. Distressing. But hearing a man scream in horror and heartache — as if the world just ended — is somehow a million times worse. Nothing in my life had prepared me for that bottomless agony. The sound of Cole screaming split my heart open.
“Father in heaven,” Mama wailed. And then she seemed to collect herself as her spine straightened, and her eyes shot to mine. “You stay right here.”
No. Way.
Mama either didn’t hear me tear after her or she knew it was pointless to stop me because she didn’t say a word as I ran.
The smell of blood and fireworks hit my stomach when I reached the top of the stairs, but I kept running until I skidded to a halt outside that bedroom door. Or what was left of the splintered wreck of wood.
I only saw what I saw for a second. Not even a whole second. I shut my eyes at once, but it was too late. The spray of pink on the curtains. The spongy globs on the floor that seemed to float in pools of blood. The garnet black hole where an eye should have been.
In that instant, my brain succeeded in trapping all of this, staining itself forever with the image.
I don’t even remember sinking to my knees next to Ava. I couldn’t say when it happened. Maybe it was that moment or ages later when she crawled up my body, howling in terror and anguish, and clinging to me like I was the only thing keeping her from pitching backward into a yawning abyss.
But I held her while Mama yanked Cole out of that room by the scruff of his collar and pushed us all down the hall toward Ava’s room and away from hell.
I’d been banned from the house.
Even empty, Mama didn’t trust it. As if everything we had witnessed the night before last was the house’s doing. As if it was cursed.
Maybe that was easier to stomach than the truth. But she hadn’t even let the police interview me inside after we saw what we saw.
So, now, Monday morning, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at my phone while Mama waited for Service Masters to arrive. I’d called Cole three times yesterday. Mama told me he and Ava were staying at his friend Louis’s for now. But she hadn’t seen them since the police left early Sunday morning, so she couldn’t assure me if he was okay or not.
But I couldn’t call a fourth time. Could I?
I scrolled back through the messages I’d started sending yesterday morning.
Me: Are you okay?
Me: How’s Ava?
Two hours later:
Me: What can I do?
Two hours after that:
Me: Mama says you don’t want a funeral.
And then late yesterday afternoon:
Me: A TV crew just left. I’m glad y’all are at Louis’s.
Before I tried to go to bed last night:
Me: Cole, please call me back. I’m so worried about you.
But he hadn’t called back. Maybe he was in shock. From what I could tell, Ava had been. She’d sat in the back of the ambulance, white as the moon, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. I was glad she’d been in that emergency vehicle because from there, I didn’t think she could see the two gurneys that were loaded into the coroner’s van.
With his arm around her, Cole hadn’t looked shocked. He’d looked… condemned.
But I hadn’t been able to talk to him then. I didn’t know what I would have said if I had. The moments upstairs before the police arrived were just a blur of Mama barking orders and attempting to restrain Cole. He’d wanted to go to his mother, but Mama hadn’t want him anywhere near that scene.
And after the police took my statement, Mama had banished me to the guesthouse. I hadn’t seen Cole or Ava since.
The door to the guesthouse opened, and I shot off the bed. In our living room, I found Mama wearing a dazed expression. This was new. Over the last two days, I’d seen her focused, almost manic. Now she looked lost.
“Mama?”
My mother raised her eyes to me and frowned. “Cole just told me…”
At the sound of his name, my heart thumped harder in my chest. When Mama didn’t finish her sentence, I grew irritated.
“What? He just told you what?”
Mama drew in and blew out a breath. “He wants me to get the house ready to sell. He’s taking Ava back with him to New Orleans.”
This shouldn’t have surprised me, but I still felt it like a kick in the stomach. Cole had planned to take Ava and his mother to New Orleans before all of this. He was in school. Given the circumstances, orphaned as they now were, of course he’d take his sister with him. And, of course, he’d need to sell the house. How could they keep it now?
But it was their home. And it was our home.
And I hadn’t seen this coming.
Mama swallowed. “He just gave me my notice.”
Pressure warped my eardrums, and a buzzing filled my head. Mama would be jobless. We would be homeless. And as bad as that was, it wasn’t the worst news.
Cole was leaving for good.
Mama must have seen the shock and fear on my face because she crossed the room and gripped my elbows. “Oh, baby, don’t worry. We’ll be fine. He’s not in a rush,” she said quickly, swiping my bangs out of my eyes. “With everything in the news, he doesn’t think they’ll be able to sell for months. He wants me to stay on until then, and he’s giving me a severance package. Can you imagine? A housekeeper with a severance package?”
She gave a little laugh, but it held no humor, and I knew she was just a rattled as I was. I frowned as I realized I’d just been thinking about me. This had to be hard for her too.
“So, he just called and fired you over the phone?”
“Oh, no,” Mama said, shaking her head. “He came to pick up a few things he’d asked me to gather. We spoke in the kitchen, and then he went to look for some papers in the study—”
I didn’t let her finish. I jerked out of her grasp and sprinted for the door.
“Elise!” Mama called after me, but I was already outside, tearing across the patio to the back porch. I thanked God when I found the kitchen door unlocked, and I nearly spilled onto the floor when it opened for me.
“Cole?” I yelled, righting myself and running for the far side of the house where Mr. Whitehurst had kept his study. Just off the family’s den. No call answered me, and when I cleared the door, I saw at once the space was empty.
“Cole?”
Maybe he’d gone upstairs before leaving. Maybe he was still here. And just as I reached the bottom of the stairs I heard it. The thrum of the Audi’s ignition. My heart catapulted into my throat, and I spun on my heel. I threw open the front door and let it bang behind me before I sped down the porch steps.
“Cole!”
Through the windshield I saw his head snap up, and his eyes flare. And just as quickly, they went cold. I ran around to the driver’s side door and — without thinking, without apology — jerked it open.
His face registered surprise at my bold move, but only for an instant.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Cole blinked once and then frowned at me. “What are you doing?” I heard cool detachment in his voice, but I ignored it. I knew the real Cole. He’d shared that with me. If he was being aloof right now, it was because he was in pain. His world had been torn apart. I could get past that.
I thought I saw a flash of something like pity pass over his face. And for an instant, my confidence wobbled, but then the pity was gone, replaced by that slight frown. As if I was boring him.
What the hell?
“I thought it was for the best,” he said evenly. It was the evenness that checked me. He sounded so… so… polite. Cole Whitehurst had never — not ever — been polite to me. Not for the years he ignored me. Not when he’d teased me. And certainly not when he kissed me senseless.
“Cole… what—”
“I have to go, Elise,” he said flatly, grabbing the door’s leather interior handle with an obvious aim to shut it. I yanked back, angry now and more than a little confused.
“No. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
Cole closed his eyes. I watched his jaw clench and his throat work. Pain. He was in so much pain. It almost cut me in two. I raised my hand and placed it on his shoulder, feeling his strength and heat under my palm. And for a moment, I felt him give under my touch, as though he was letting me in. Letting me help him. Letting me care for him.
But then he jerked away.
“No.” He opened his eyes, and the cool, detached, polite look was gone. “I did this. I let this happen.”
I shook my head with violence. “You didn’t. It’s not your fau—”
Sneering, he looked almost feral. “I was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to be getting her out. And where was I when that bastard was pointing my gun at her?” His voice came out a strangled growl, his mouth tightening in disgust. “In my back yard, kissing a child.”
It was like being kicked in the stomach. I fell back a step at his words, shame like I’d never known burying me alive. Kissing Cole had been the most thrilling and wonderful experience of my life. And the look of disdain on his face burnt that to ash.
The way we’d been together just two nights ago had felt so right. If he regretted that… If he blamed that for the loss of his mother…
Then he must have hated me.
I opened my mouth to say something. To apologize. But how do you apologize for that?
Tears of shame clogged my throat. My eyes filled, and through the blur of wetness, I saw Cole’s gaze had fallen to his lap. He looked miserable. Lost.
He didn’t want me to talk to him. He clearly didn’t want me to touch him. So, I did the only thing I could do. The most generous thing I could do for us both.
I ran.
Part II
Chapter 16
Eight years later
ELISE
“So, he bought one of your rings?”
“Yep.”
“The Gray Blakewood? World-famous author?” Alberta’s eyes went wide with wonder, as she held her fork of mac-n-cheese suspended in midair.
I nodded, grinning. “The one and only.”
Alberta dropped her fork and stood up from our second-hand sofa. In the next instant, she attacked me with a hug, and I had to juggle my bowl of macaroni to avoid dropping it.
“Elise, that’s amazing!” She sang in my ear as we hugged.
“I know, right?” I giggled. We untangled ourselves, and I claimed my spot on the couch. “It’s pretty exciting.”
“Damn right, it is.” She plopped down beside me, picked up her bowl, and blew over it. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays were Alberta’s nights to cook. And more often than not, that meant mac-n-cheese.
Personally, I wouldn’t call boiling a box of elbow macaroni and mixing a pouch of cheese powder and milk cooking, but in the three years we’d lived together, I’d learned not to complain.
I took a bite instead. The pasta could have cooked a minute or two longer, and I guessed Alberta had used a little too much milk because the cheese sauce was thin and bland. I chewed with resolve. I could take over the cooking every night, but then I’d have less time to design.
So that was a hard no.
Even though I worked the floor at Buttross Jewelers, my favorite place in the world these days was in the back of the store with the computers and the industrial 3D printer. My boss, Ed, would let me stay after closing and work on my own designs. When I finished one, I’d program the 3D printer to render one in wax, and if Ed liked the prototype, he’d let me build the mold for it and set one in metal. The first year I’d worked for him, he’d only allowed me to use bronze and pewter, but those designs had sold so well, now I was free to use golds and sometimes even platinum — on smaller pieces, of course.
In my nights alone in the back of the store, I could lose hours. And if that meant eating Alberta’s chewy pasta, so be it.
Especially now that I could say a world-famous author had bought one of my engagement rings. The reality of it sunk in.
“Holy shit!” I shouted. “A world-famous author bought one of my engagement rings!”
Alberta tipped her head back and laughed at the ceiling. “You sound so surprised.”
I blinked at her, grinning like a crazy woman. “I guess I am surprised. Kind of.”
She shot me an arched look. “You shouldn’t be, E. Your designs are the real deal, and you know it.”
I mirrored her expression. “And if I didn’t, you and Mama would be quick to school me.”
Alberta smothered a laugh, took a bite of her dinner, and wrinkled her nose. “This didn’t really turn out great. Nothing like Flora’s,” she muttered.
I took another loyal bite and kept my face blank. Mama’s macaroni bake was a religious experience. What sat in our bowls couldn’t come close.
“Speaking of Flora, did you see her today?”
I nodded as I swallowed. “Yeah, she likes her new job. The cafe is cute.” Mama had just started working at Cafe 20.3 on the Bayou, a tiny, new restaurant and bar on the corner of University and General Mouton. I’d gone for the first time on my lunchbreak.
“So, she’s doing okay?” Concern laced Alberta’s voice. Mama’s last year had been rough. When Jolie’s Louisiana Bistro closed after Valentine’s Day more than a year ago, she’d been out of work for eight months. The downturn in the oil industry had hit everyone in Lafayette hard, and it seemed like every other restaurant in town was closing its doors. Jolie’s. Two Paul’s Urban Barbecue. The Oyster Reef.
And no one was hiring. At least, they weren’t hiring a cook in her fifties with bunions and arthritis. She’d eventually found work in the cafeteria at Magnolia Estates nursing home, but she’d said it was too depressing.
“It’s like looking at my future. And it’s not so bright,” she’d complained.
Mama had practically jumped at the chance to work in a real restaurant again. Well, not literally. Mama didn’t do much jumping these days.
I gave Alberta a shrug. “She likes the new place, but her feet hurt.”
My best friend tsked. “She needs to have them fixed.”
“Well,” I said with a sigh. “She couldn’t do it when she was out of work because she didn’t have insurance, and now she doesn’t want to do it and miss work.”
Alberta made a face. “Adulting sucks.”
I nodded, but really, it wasn’t adulting that sucked. It was adulting alone. More than once, I’d thought about moving back in with Mama so she could take care of her feet while I took care of the bills. But two things were stopping me. One was Mama and the other was Alberta. Mama made a fuss every time I broached the subject.
“I’m not an invalid, Elise Nicole, and I refuse to be treated like one.”
“You are not gonna put your dreams on the sidelines just because I have sore feet.”
And my favorite: “What makes you think I want you back for a roommate, anyway? I did that for twenty-one years. What? Is Alberta sick of you already?”
Alberta most definitely was not sick of me, and we were three years into a five-year plan. Our apartment was a compact two-bedroom on St. Joseph Street that actually belonged to Alberta’s Un
cle Martin. The rent was better than pretty much anywhere in town, and we lived as cheaply as we could — cooking at home, shopping at Wal-Mart, and outfitting our wardrobes at Goodwill — so we could save every penny.
In two years, if we could find the right place — where the location was promising but the rent didn’t kill us — we were going to open a boutique jewelry store and art gallery. And we were on track to do it. I still had my booth at the farmer’s market once a month, and since I’d lived at home and gone to UL for my degree in metalwork and jewelry, I didn’t have any student debt. I’d tucked away a tidy sum over the years, but the tricky thing about a jewelry business was the inventory. Precious metals and gemstones were — no surprise — expensive, and Alberta and I had decided long ago that we’d run a business with a conscience. Fair trade or no trade. Neither one of us could stomach the idea of blood diamonds or child slavery coming anywhere near our shop, so that meant we’d have to pay a premium for raw materials just to get started.
And, yeah, Mama knew all of this. She wasn’t about to let me put any of it on hold, and if I tried, Alberta would probably lose her shit anyway. She’d lived at home while going to school just like me, but with a concentration in painting, we’d seen each other every day in Fletcher Hall at UL. We’d even had a few of the same sketching and design classes as freshmen. Now she was teaching art to first through fourth graders at Plantation Elementary, but teaching was a term she said could only be used loosely. Most of her days were spent kid-wrangling and keeping students from declaring paint wars. She wore scrubs every day to work, and some nights she’d come home splattered like a walking, scowling Jackson Pollack.
In August, she’d say, “Nine months ‘til summer.”
On Mondays, she’d say, “Four days ‘til Friday.”
Every morning, she’d say, “Eight hours ‘til three.”
I knew in her heart she would understand if I had to put our plan on hold to see to Mama, but I truly didn’t know if she’d be able to survive it.
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