For her part, Anna didn’t really care why any of the three came with her. The fact that they were there was the only thing she considered important. Anna absolutely refused to be alone in her own home until she had some idea of what was really going on. She knew that idea could not begin to form until she heard from Monsieur LaRoche in Paris.
As time passed, Anna’s aversion to her own home grew. In the days immediately following the accident, she always had the unmistakable feeling of being watched whenever she entered the house. Soon, that took a terrifying turn. Whenever she was in a room alone, she would not only be aware of being watched, but of being touched as well. She felt her breasts being caressed and her body penetrated.
At first, Anna wouldn’t go near the dining room. Then, she started avoiding the rooms adjacent to it. Soon, she wouldn’t go anywhere in the house except straight up the stairs to her room and back directly out. Finally, after moving most of her clothing, make-up and other essentials to Tom’s, she wouldn’t go inside her house at all.
Everyone questioned her sanity, but Anna now acted on instinct and intuition alone. She knew she was not insane. She could feel whatever was in her house getting stronger by the day, by the hour. Its draw and its call were getting harder and harder to resist.
Anna kept these facts to herself, knowing that only Jeffrey might believe her. She kept silent in order to avoid being ridiculed, but also to protect those she loved. Why that was the case, she didn’t understand. Still, she knew it to be true.
At the end of the second week, Anna would have someone drive her to the house and stay in the car with the motor running while she pulled her mail from her mailbox as quickly as possible.
“I feel like I’m your get away driver,” Jeffrey laughed one Friday after work. “I’m da wheels for da McAlister gang.” Jeffrey attempted to sound like someone from the Godfather, instead he came across as a Brooklyn boy in La Cage Aux Follies.
“You’re da wheels alright,” Anna kissed him on the cheek and got out of the car.
Jeffrey revved his engine and smiled at Anna as she ran to her mailbox and reached inside. When she got back into the car she was smiling and holding an envelope. The return address read Paris, France.
Anna was so excited that she could hardly breath. “Drive, Jeffrey. Drive,” she ordered. She read the outside of the envelope seven times. “Mademoiselle Anna McAlister,” she read out loud. “I like the way that sounds.”
“Well open and share,” Jeffrey said as he drove. “I know it’s really none of my business what your letter says . . .” Jeffrey waited for Anna to object. When she didn’t he continued “. . . but I don’t care. Read the damn thing already.”
“I can’t believe this is here. God, I hope it tells me what’s going on.” She held the letter to her chest as if she were holding a lifejacket on a sinking ship.
“Would you please . . .” Jeffrey hated to be kept waiting.
Anna carefully opened the envelope. Her hands trembled when she pulled the letter out and unfolded the paper.
“Oh fuck,” Anna moaned.
“What?”
“It’s in French.”
“Oh fuck.”
Anna felt that she was about to cry, scream, or just start laughing hysterically and never stop.
“Wait a minute,” Jeffrey said with a smile. “French is no problem.
“More like a big problem,” Anna smirked. “If you recall, I don’t read French and neither do you.”
“But, Duncan does,” Jeffrey’s smile grew to a grin.
“Duncan can read French?”
“Didn’t I ever tell you what Duncan does?”
“All the time, but I don’t see what that has to do with him being able to read French.” Anna remembered all of the stories of Duncan’s prowess in various activities.
“I mean what he does for a living.”
Old teasing habits are hard to break, even under the most trying of circumstances. “You mean he doesn’t do those ‘jobs’ you’re always talking about for a living.”
“Honey,” Jeffrey looked at Anna and grinned. “Duncan’s good, but he ain’t that good. Just don’t tell Stacy.”
“So where does he work?” Anna held the letter tightly in both hands.
“He teaches at Orchard Community College. French is like a second language to him, as well as a technique.”
Anna hugged Jeffrey as he drove.
“Hey, I’m driving.” He playfully pushed her away. “Remember, there are some of us who prefer trees as trees rather than hood ornaments.”
“Want to fuck?” Anna countered Jeffrey’s joking attack with one of her one.
For his part, Jeffrey started to search for the nearest tree.
“I love you, Jeffrey,” Anna smiled.
“I love you too,” Jeffrey sighed. “If only you had an outey instead of an inney between your legs. We’d make the prefect couple.”
Jeffrey couldn’t stay serious for more than three words. He said it gave him a headache.
Anna loved to play along. “Don’t you hate it when people forget where they came from?” She patted between her legs to remind Jeffrey of his point of origin.
“It’s much worse if they forget where they came, period.”
Jeffrey and Anna joked and kidded all the way back to Tom’s apartment.
“Brunch, tomorrow, my place,” Jeffrey said pulling the car to a stop.
“Are you sure Duncan won’t mind translating the letter?” Anna asked.
“No. The boy knows where his buns are buttered,” Jeffrey threw Anna a kiss. “Au revoir.”
Anna got out of the car, happy.
* * *
That night Anna drove Tom crazy. She behaved like she did when she was a kid the night before her birthday. It was the one night of the year her parents always had to go out and leave her with a sitter for as long as possible.
Anna fidgeted through dinner, kept looking at her watch and checked on the safety of the envelope at least a dozen times. Finally she said, “Time for bed.”
“Ah, Anna?” Tom said.
“Yes?”
“It’s 8:30.”
“That late?” Anna slowly ran her tongue over her upper lip. “Better hurry, honey,” she whispered breathily. “I’m starting to get really tired.”
Tom beat her to the bedroom.
* * *
Anna slept with the letter under her pillow. With all that had happened, she was a bit surprised to find it still there and undamaged the next morning.
Brunch was to be served at 10:37, exactly. Jeffrey always held his events at odd times. He claimed it was all for fun but he would become furious under his calm facade, if anyone showed up late, or early.
Anna pried Tom’s left hand from her right breast and got quickly out of bed. It was only 7am, but there was no way she could go back to sleep. She looked at Tom’s angelic, peaceful sleeping face and decided that he too had slept enough. Anna didn’t want to dump water on Tom again. So, instead she started jumping on the bed as if she were jumping rope.
“A my name is Anna . . .I come from Anna-bama . . . and I like to play Pi-Anna . . . with my friend Lee-Anna.”
Anna played her favorite jump rope game. She and her best friends had played it virtually every day from second through fifth grade. Anna always won. Her best friends were named Claudia and Louise.
Anna was a very good rope jumper, but this morning the rope jumped back. Tom grabbed Anna’s legs and pulled, causing her to bounce bottom down on the bed.
“I’m sorry,” Anna smiled sweetly. “Did I wake you?”
Tom growled and rolled over. “I hardly got any sleep last night. It was my turn for nightmares.”
“What did you dream?” Anna asked.
Tom thought about it for a moment. “You know, I don’t remember.”
“Try,” Anna ordered
“Whatever you say, captain.” Tom covered his eyes with his hands. “Something about the music boxes, of course. Ther
e was some guy there, but he really wasn’t. There was a lot more, but I can’t find it? I think his feet were red. Crazy stuff, huh? I remembered the dream as soon as I woke up, but it jumped away as quick as you can say A my name is Anna. Thanks a lot.”
“I’m sorry I woke you up that way,” Anna said. “I just wanted some company and . . .”
“No, not about waking me up,” Tom yawned. “You should have warned me. I didn’t know your nightmare was contagious.”
Tom’s words knocked the wind out of Anna as effectively as any physical blow. For a moment she couldn’t talk. Then, the sensation left as quickly as in had arrived.
“Neither did I.”
* * *
Anna and Tom arrived at Jeffrey’s apartment at 10:35 that morning. Anna made them wait in the car until 10:36:45.
“This is so stupid,” Tom was always grumpy when tired. He also didn’t particularly like visiting two guys who were much more than just drinking buddies.
“That Jeffrey always looks at my butt,” Tom had complained on many occasions.
“He does not,” Anna had laughed.
Anna had made the mistake of telling Jeffrey about Tom’s concern. From that day on, Jeffrey had taken every opportunity to stare at Tom’s butt as obviously as possible. He had gone so far as to nickname it, Chuck.
“10:37 on the dot or I’ll just die,” Tom spoke with a high, lisp-laden voice.
“You do that voice very well,” Anna said while watching the clock.
“Why thank you,” Tom lisped along and started singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
“Almost too well.”
Tom stopped singing. He reached over and started running his hands over Anna’s body and tried to sound like Frank Sinatra. “Let’s do it my-yyy way.”
“Time to go in,” Anna watched the clock switch to 10:36 and then counted to 45. “We don’t want to be late.”
“If he looks at my butt again I’ll kill the little cock sucker.” Tom laughed.
“Just keep Chuck covered and you’ll be okay.”
“Chuck,” Tom huffed as he got out of the car. “Who ever heard of an ass named Chuck?”
At exactly 10:37:10, Anna rang Jeffrey’s apartment buzzer. A moment later, Jeffrey’s happy voice crackled out of the small speaker. “Bon jour. The three of you are right on time.”
“It’s just Tom and I,” Anna said.
“You mean you left Chuck . . . behind?”
Jeffrey buzzed them in before Tom could tell him to fuck off.
When Anna and Tom stepped off the elevator, they saw that Jeffrey had left them a little surprise. Two Bloody Marys in crystal glasses on a silver tray sat on the floor in front of the elevator door.
“See, Anna grabbed onto Tom’s arm. “He’s not all bad.”
Tom drank half of his bloody Mary on the spot. He finished it off by the time they reached the open door to Jeffrey and Duncan’s apartment at the end of a long hall. When they walked in they found Jeffrey and Duncan kissing passionately on the couch.
“Oh shit, I don’t need this,” Tom turned away.
“Ha, ha and ha, Jeffrey,” Anna said as the embrace was broken and Jeffrey was laughing. “Very funny, guys.”
“We just wanted to make Chuck comfortable,” Jeffrey laughed harder.
“It was all his idea,” Duncan threw his hands in the air.
“Just leave my Tom and his Chuck alone,” Anna said. “They’re both mine.”
Anna gently ran her hand over Tom’s behind.
“Can I do that?” Jeffrey asked hopefully.
“No!” Both Anna and Tom said at exactly the same time.
Jeffrey moved somewhat unsteadily toward the kitchen for another bloody Mary. “Tom, you are such a homophobe.”
As he walked by, he stopped, turned, smacked his lips and stared at Tom’s behind. “And for very good reason I might add.”
“Jeffrey, stop, now.” Anna could feel Tom getting angry. His limit had been reached.
“But . . .”
“No buts.”
“Well, what do you have to say about that, Chuck?”
Jeffrey gave Tom’s bottom a pat and a squeeze. Tom spun around and pushed Jeffrey away, hard.
“That’s it! I’m out of here! I’ll wait in the car.”
Before Anna could say anything to stop him, Tom stormed out of the door. He was too angry to wait for the elevator and took the stairs instead. Anna could hear him muttering, “Fucking assholes,” under his breath as he slammed the stairway door behind him.
* * *
“Gee,” Jeffrey said innocently. “I wonder what got into him?”
“Don’t Jeffrey,” Anna said.
“Certainly not me. Although it could be fun.”
“Jeffrey, how many bloody Marys have you had?
Jeffrey held up three fingers and said “Six . . . or so.”
Duncan pulled Jeffrey to the couch and forced him to sit.
“I however had only one,” Duncan said as he sat next to Jeffrey and motioned for Anna to sit in a big overstuffed chair. “Now before our friend here causes any more trouble, I understand we have some work to do.”
“Thank you, Duncan,” Anna said. She glared angrily at Jeffrey and pulled the letter from her purse.
Chapter 9
Jeffrey passed out on the couch and Duncan started to read:
“Dear Mademoiselle McAlister,
Forgive me for writing in French, I hope this does not present a problem.”
Anna rolled her eyes. She thought of Tom fuming in the car and looked at Jeffrey zonked on the couch. She shook her head, and thought, No, of course not. No fucking problem at all.
As promised, Duncan’s mastery of French was impressive. He read and translated the letter faster then Anna could read straight English. She found this mildly annoying, but then again she often found many of the things Duncan did to be mildly annoying. Besides she had more important things on her mind.
Duncan paused and sipped his bloody Mary before continuing to read.
“Regarding the history of the music box collection which you most recently purchased, I am afraid I can only offer only a small amount of information, and even that is incomplete.”
“Shit,” Anna slammed her fist onto the arm of the chair.
“Shush,” Duncan was more than somewhat irritated at the interruption and the assault on his furniture. “His small amount of incomplete information goes on for another page if you’re interested. Would you like me to continue, or have you heard enough?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Anna said while thinking, Jeffrey’s right, he really can be a bitch.
“Do go on.”
“No more interruptions.”
“Promise.”
“Fine then.” Duncan cleared his throat.
“The music boxes were collected by a woman named Ariene LaMoreau. I know little of her early life. I do know that she lived as an adult in Paris in the early 1920’s. Some of the boxes themselves are much older. It is believed that some first belonged to Mademoiselle LaMoreau’s maternal grandmother, Madam Michelle Tremont. She received others as birthday and holiday gifts, or as tokens of affection from male admirers.
“As a point of information, various experts here in France set the value of the boxes at over 7,000 Euros, so you received, as you Americans say, a very good deal. Congratulations.”
Anna could almost hear the contempt flowing from Monsieur LaRoche’s pen.
“Back to the point at hand. I do know that Mademoiselle LaMoreau lived for years in the Hotel Baronette on the left bank in the St. German district of Paris. I know this because the collection, until very recently, had been stored in the attic of this hotel. An employee discovered the treasure and returned it to the only living family member, Mademoiselle LaMoreau’s grand niece.”
“What’s the grand niece’s name,” Anna had pulled a steno pad from her purse and was taking notes
Duncan looked up and then back at the letter. “It doe
sn’t say.”
“Fuck.”
“Do you want to hear what it does say, or would you rather sit and swear at me for awhile first. I can wait.” Duncan stared out a window to his right and started to whistle.
“Again, sorry. Go on, please.” Anna bit her tongue and swallowed some pride.
“Where was I, ah yes.
“. . . Mademoiselle’s LaMoreau’s grand niece. She had the boxes displayed in a small museum near her home, but shortly thereafter she contracted my services to sell the entire collection overseas as quickly as possible. Why? This I do not know.
However, if I may speculate, after first receiving the music boxes, the grand niece had hired a university student to investigate their history. A week after the boxes went on display at the museum, this student discovered that Mademoiselle Ariene LaMoreau had not died peacefully. In fact, she had been brutally, tortured, raped and murdered in the hotel where she had lived.”
Anna and Duncan stared at each other in shock. Jeffrey woke up, screaming. He jumped to his feet and was gasping for air. He held up his hand to his startled friends. “It’s okay. It must have been someone I drank.”
“I hope so,” Anna said softly.
Jeffrey took a deep breath. “That teaches me a lesson about bloody Marys.”
“What? Stop at five?” Duncan had been concerned, but now he was once again angry over his lover’s drinking habits, which he considered to be excessive.
“No,” Jeffrey answered. “I have to remember to use less tomato juice.”
Anna returned her focus to the letter. “Duncan, does the letter say anything else?”
Duncan retrieved the letter from the floor where it had fallen from his lap. He looked down at the bottom of the page and read the last sentence.
“I mentioned your request to the grand niece. She insisted that I advise you to be very careful. She refused to say why.
Sincerely,
Monsieur LaRoche”
Duncan folded the letter. “Pretty wordy for someone who didn’t have much to say. I just have to see those music boxes.” He handed the letter back to Anna. “Now, if possible.”
The Haunting of Anna McAlister Page 6
