The Last Camellia: A Novel

by Sarah Jio

  “Yeah,” I said. “She, um, she wanted to wish us an early happy anniversary.”

  Rex nodded. “Wow, that was nice of her to remember.” He eyed the arrangement for a moment, curiously.

  “How is your research going?” I asked as I set the flowers on the table next to the mail.

  “Fine,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “I can’t help but think that this story is missing a crucial element—”

  “I may have an idea for you,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went walking. And, well, Mrs. Dilloway showed me Lady Anna’s study. Rex, I think something very dark happened here long ago.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “I’m not sure just yet,” I said. “I think I’ll head into town this afternoon to see if I can dig anything up.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “I wish I could join you, but one trip into town is enough for today. Besides, I’m meeting with the foreman at noon.”

  “Foreman?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The man my father’s hired to do the renovation.”

  I knew changes were in store, but I hated to think of them changing anything major about the manor. “They’re not doing anything dramatic, are they?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “But it’s not my decision. My parents have already made their plans. I just have to sign off on some final details.”

  I thought of the conservatory. Was it scheduled to be destroyed? Would they turn it into a media room? Would the bougainvillea be toppled to make room for a flat-screen TV?

  My heart pounded. “Rex?”

  “Addison?” he said, his eyes meeting mine.

  I searched his face, so loving, so honest and strong. He was my rock, my peace, the only family I’d ever known. So why couldn’t I say what was in my heart? The conservatory, Mrs. Dilloway, the arrangement of orange roses that symbolized the terror of my past. I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

  “You OK, honey?” Rex asked, kissing the spot between my neck and my right shoulder. He set his bag down by the stairs, and a few files slipped out, including the one labeled “Amanda.”

  He quickly knelt down to tuck the files back into his bag before facing me again. I thought I detected distance in his eyes then, just a flash, a hint that just as he didn’t know everything about me, maybe I didn’t know everything about him.

  I forced a smile. “Of course I am.”

  Rex looked at me curiously from the stairs. “Be careful driving into town, OK?”

  I nodded as I passed the vase of orange flowers, their petals the color of a bright, hot flame.

  On the road into town, I swerved left, then right, narrowly missing an oncoming car. The honk of the horn bellowed behind me as the car passed. Despite my frequent visits to England with Rex, I could never get used to driving on the opposite side of the road.

  I pulled into a parking spot in town, rethinking my plans for the day. What did I think I’d find here? I eyed the storefronts along the cobblestone road. The post office. A cobbler. Gretchen’s Café. Milton’s Pub. I watched as a policeman swung his baton around his wrist before walking into a brick building with a red door. I hastened my pace and approached.

  “Can I help you, miss?” a middle-aged woman with John Lennon–style glasses asked from behind a desk. She wore her hair in a ponytail, and her blunt-cut bangs formed a perfectly straight line across her forehead.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling my chest tighten. “I’m doing a little research, and I wondered if you could point me in the right direction.”

  “Oh, you’re an American,” she said warmly. “Welcome to Clivebrook.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “What brings you to these parts?”

  “My husband’s family recently purchased Livingston Manor,” I said. “We’re spending the summer here.”

  “Ah,” she said. “So you’re part of the Sinclair family.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m Addison Sinclair.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Maeve.” She passed a file folder to an officer who had appeared by her desk, then turned back to me. “It’ll be good to see people smiling up at the old house again,” she continued, “after all the sadness there.” She shook her head to herself. “Some folks in town think the place is cursed.”

  I nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I understand that some young women went missing from town in the 1930s and ’40s.”

  “Indeed,” she said, pointing to a placard on the wall near the door. “Their names are all up there.”

  “So they were never found?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Such a dark time in our history. Of course, I’m too young to remember any of that, but my mum still talks about it as if Clivebrook’s very own Jack the Ripper is still out there.”

  “Goodness,” I said. “Do you think he could be?”

  “Oh, heavens no, dear,” she said. “If he was, he’d be pushing ninety.” She shook her head. “No, the crime spree stopped in 1940. My hunch is that he died then. But we may never know.”

  I pulled out my notebook and wrote down the date. I’d ask Mrs. Dilloway about it later. “Do you know much about Lord Edward Livingston?”

  “Just that he died in the 1960s,” she said. “He was deeply private. No one knew much about him, just the rumors. I remember he came into town once when I was a girl, and I was out there by the fountain playing jacks and one of the boys shouted at him. Called him a murderer. I felt sorry for him.” The woman sighed. “He didn’t look like the type of person who would kill his wife. Much too debonair for a crime like that, if you ask me.”

  I nodded. “Anything else you can think of? Anyone else who may have worked at the manor over the years who struck you as off?”

  “Well, there’s that housekeeper,” she smirked. “What’s her name, Mrs.—”

  “Dilloway?”

  “Yes,” she said. “She gives me the creeps, that one. To live in that old house for seventy years—she has to be hiding something.”

  “She cared a great deal about Lady Anna Livingston,” I said. “It’s why she’s stayed all these years, to look out for her gardens.”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have to believe that it’s true.”

  “Then why would she have filed a motion to have the autopsy report of Lady Anna sealed?”

  “What?” I steadied myself on the edge of the desk.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll go see if I can pull the file.”

  A moment later, Maeve returned with an envelope. “If you can believe it,” she said, “the judge favored her request. The documents are sealed, but you can see the motion right here.” She pointed to a photocopied page. “Look,” she said. “There’s her signature at the bottom.”

  I wandered along the street for the next hour, trying to make sense of everything Mrs. Dilloway had said. If she had loved Lady Anna so much, if she had wanted to protect her, why would she want to conceal the truth about her death?

  I walked along the sidewalk, until I came to a little park at the edge of town. Children played near a small garden. I listened to their laughter and watched as two little girls glided through the air on their swings. Happy. Carefree.

  Fifteen Years Prior

  “Manda!” the little boy cried.

  I rubbed my eyes as I jumped up from the couch. How long had I been asleep? Aunt Jean, on a bender, had asked me to watch Miles. She was due back yesterday, but hadn’t returned. I ran to the bedroom, but he wasn’t lying on the cot beside Jean’s bed. The crumpled Big Bird blanket lay on the wood floor.

  “Manda!” he cried again. This time, I ran to the window, peering out over the fire escape to the alley below, where some benevolent resident of the apartment had years ago installed an aluminum swing
set. I gasped. Sean. He was swinging him too high. Miles’s little hands held on to the rusty chains for dear life. “Stop!” I screamed from the open window. “Sean, he’s going to fall off!”

  I sunk my feet into my shoes and grabbed my jacket, wincing as the sleeve rubbed the spot on my wrist where Sean had put out a cigarette against my flesh the night before. Miles screamed in the distance. “I’m coming, Miles!” I shouted as I began climbing down the fire escape, scolding myself for oversleeping. Sean could torture me, but I would not let him hurt that little boy.

  Once on the street, I turned a sharp corner into the alley, where the old rickety swing set swayed as if it might topple over and take little Miles with it.

  “Manda!” he cried. “Help me!”

  “Stop it, Sean!” I cried.

  “Make me,” he said, smirking.

  “Please!” I shouted. “He’s going to fall.”

  I hated Aunt Jean for leaving us alone with this monster. I looked at Miles, barely three, his little legs flailing in the air. A few more moments and he would fall. He didn’t have the strength to hold on. He was slipping.

  “Look, he’s going to wet his pants again,” Sean said, laughing. “Let’s see how long it takes.”

  “Stop it!” I cried, trying to pull him back.

  “That will come at a price,” he said, shoving me. “You know what I like.”

  “You’re disgusting,” I said, shuddering and then clenching my teeth. “I won’t let you touch me.”

  The next moments played out as if in slow motion. Sean’s hand making contact with Miles’s back. The little boy’s final cry. The look of sadness, fear, defeat as his small body drifted through the air, his blond hair flapping in the breeze. And then his head hit the cement. He lay there, eyes open, blood trickling from his nose. The face of a child who had never known love.

  I ran to him, cradling his head in my arms. “Miles,” I cried. “Honey, no, no, please don’t die. I’m here. I’m here. I won’t let him hurt you again. I promise.” He lay there, lifeless. I rested my head on his still body before turning to Sean with rage. “You killed him!” Tears streamed down my face. “How could you do this?”

  He smirked and folded his arms across his chest. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You pushed him,” I said. “You knew he was too little to hold on!” Blood covered my hand as I touched his cheek. “I’m going to the police.”

  Sean took a step closer, unfolding his arms. For the first time, he looked frightened. “No, you won’t,” he said.

  “I will,” I replied, gritting my teeth. “You won’t get away with this.”

  He laughed. “No, you have it wrong. You won’t get away with this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Murder,” he said. “Jean put you in charge of Miles. You were his babysitter. And now you have blood on your hands. Quite literally.”

  I looked down at my hands, covered in the boy’s fresh blood. “No,” I said. “You’re wrong. They’ll hear the truth and they’ll—”

  “But who will they believe, is the question.” He smiled, pointing up to the sixth-floor window that had been left open. “I’ll tell them he annoyed you, and that you pushed him.”

  “They won’t believe you,” I said. “You’re a liar.”

  “They will believe me. I promise you that.”

  My hands trembled. Could he be right?

  Sean placed his hand on my waist. “Here’s what you’re going to do,” he said. “You’re going to walk upstairs and get a trash bag.”

  “No,” I whimpered.

  “Yes,” he said. “What’s the name of that stupid garden you volunteer at in the Bronx?”

  “The Botanical Garden,” I said under my breath.

  He nodded. “Do you have a key?”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “Good,” he said. “Tonight, after dark, we’ll bury him there. No one will know. It’s the perfect cover-up.”

  I looked out at the street through my tears. The world looked foggy, gray, lonely. “But what about Jean?” I sobbed. “What about Miles’s caseworker?”

  “We’ll tell them he ran away,” Sean said, grinning. A thin mustache grew above his upper lip. “Foster kids always run away. No one will care.”

  “No,” I said. “I won’t do it.”

  He clenched his hand around my wrist, sending a jolt of pain up my forearm. In that moment, all I wanted was to make him stop, to make it all stop, to end the pain, the sadness. “Please!” I cried. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Go upstairs, Amanda,” he said methodically. “Get the trash bag.”

  My body quivered as I stood up. Did I have any other choice?

  “Hurry,” Sean said from behind me. He’d wrapped Miles’s body in three layers of black plastic, then stuffed him into an old duffel bag he’d found in Jean’s closet. “Faster!” he barked

  I numbly walked toward the entrance of the Botanical Garden. My hands felt clumsy and tired as I inserted the key into the lock. Before this day, the gardens had been my private sanctuary, a place where Sean couldn’t hurt me. I volunteered twice a week, watering plants, sweeping up leaves. When my shifts were over, I hated going home. Jean was rarely there anymore. But I returned for Miles. Sometimes I brought him with me to the gardens. He loved it. I remembered the day he’d climbed the oak tree by the knot garden. I remembered the way he’d smiled. And now he would be buried here. Tears welled in my eyes.

  “Are you sure no one’s here?” Sean whispered.

  I nodded as we pushed past the doors. The evening gardeners left at nine. As we walked ahead, I eyed the fire alarm on the wall. I could reach out and sound the alarm. Then what? Sean would run, and I’d be left here with the body of the little boy. How would I explain myself? And what if Sean was right—what if no one believed me? It didn’t matter now. Nothing would bring Miles back.

  Sean lifted a shovel from a rack on the wall, then pointed to the gardens in the distance. “We’ll bury him out there,” he said. “Come on.”

  I followed him through the doors and out to the rose garden. The soil in the center had recently been tilled. No one would ever suspect that the ground had been disturbed. Sean dropped the duffel bag onto the ground with a careless thud, and I watched as he plunged the shovel into the earth. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, trickling down to his thin dark mustache. I looked away in disgust, resting my eyes on an orange rosebush a few feet away. Miles’s life had been a sad one. He’d seen so little beauty in the world. At least now he’d be surrounded by it. Sean wiped the sweat from his brow before heaving the duffel bag into the makeshift grave. The roses swayed in the night breeze. They’d watch over the little boy. Roses were maternal like that.

  As Sean began to scoop dirt into the hole, I stopped him. “Wait,” I said, reaching into the pocket of my coat to pull out Miles’s beloved bear, the one whose head I’d painstakingly sewn back on. I held the matted stuffed animal against my cheek before nestling it beside the boy in his final resting place.

  I rubbed my arms to blunt the chill. The wind had picked up. When had the children left the playground? I stood up, gathering my bag, which is when I noticed him, standing there leaning against the maple tree. He took a long drag of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground, smashing it with his boot.

  “Hello, Amanda,” he said, grinning.

  I froze. The familiar terror returned. He looked the same. Just as I’d imagined. Longish, greasy brown hair. Thick eyebrows. The stubble on his chin.

  “Did you get my flowers?” he asked.

  “Leave me alone, Sean,” I said, making a fist, looking around for someone, anyone. The park was empty. “I told you, I don’t have the kind of money you want.”

  “Oh, Amanda, you always were the smart one,” he said, walking closer. “So clever. Here’s the thi
ng,” he said, now inches from my face. I could smell his unwashed hair, the sourness of his skin. “I had a lot of time to think about you while I was locked away. Ten years I spent in prison.”

  “That wasn’t my fault,” I said. “You raped a girl.” I shook my head. “I read the story in the newspaper. She was only thirteen, you bastard.”

  He smiled at me as though I amused him. “Do you remember Miles? Do you remember how he cried for help?”

  I shook my head. “You’re sick.”

  Sean chuckled to himself. “You could have stopped me.”

  “I tried.”

  “Not hard enough,” he said, still grinning. “And you know what? You’re right. It’s not money I really want. I have plenty of it from my last job. The cops couldn’t get to my offshore account.” He nodded to himself. “You see, my dear”—he traced the outline of my face with his finger—“what I really want is you.”

  I spat in his face, and he reached up to wipe the smear with his sleeve before reaching for my wrist, pulling my watch lower on my arm. “It’s still there,” he said. His touch made me feel nauseated. “What do you think that husband of yours will think when he learns that you killed a boy?”

  “Don’t touch me!” I screamed.

  In the distance, two people turned toward us, a man and woman. “Help me, please!” I shouted.

  “Shut up, Amanda,” Sean warned.

  The man ran toward us. “Let the lady go,” he said. His companion stood in the distance. She had a bobbed haircut and wore sunglasses. I thought she looked familiar, but in that adrenaline-filled moment, I couldn’t be sure.

  Smirking, Sean shrank back and ran toward the pathway that led back to the main street. “This isn’t over, Amanda!” he shouted.

  “Let’s go to the police,” the man said. “You’ll want to file a report.”

  “Back already?” Maeve, the woman in the police station, asked. “Solved the Clivebrook Killer case?” Her expression changed to concern when she noticed the tears in my eyes. “Everything all right, miss?”