Liz shrugged. “I don’t know. They were just asking questions.”
“No wonder you were upset,” he said, and without warning he pulled Liz into him, wrapping his arms around her again. “You poor kid.”
She thought for a moment she might cry in his arms. How good it felt to be held . . .
But she stiffened. It wasn’t right. She gently withdrew herself from Roger’s embrace.
“I’m sure David was just busy when we spoke on the phone,” Liz said. “Things aren’t going well with the business.”
“No excuse for him to be hard to you.”
“He wants me to be strong.” She smiled ironically. “I imagine Dominique was strong.”
Roger glared at her. “Believe me, Liz, David does not want you to be like Dominique.”
She held his gaze for a moment. At last Roger reached over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“I will see you very soon,” he promised. “In the meantime, I want you to relax and stop worrying. In a day or two, I’ll come by and pick you up and we’ll go on a tour of the town. Would you like that?”
“Very much,” Liz said.
“And if David’s not back, you’ll come to my gallery show as my guest.”
“Deal,” she told him.
Liz watched Roger go with grateful eyes. At last—someone here who had been kind to her. Genuine and thoughtful.
Even more than her own husband had been.
18
Variola was spreading out dough with a rolling pin on the counter, her hands dusted with flour. She planned on serving a rum-flavored coconut cream pie for dessert this evening. The delicacy had been one of Mrs. Huntington’s favorites. Variola wondered if the new lady of the house would like it as much. She seemed to have much simpler tastes . . .
She had hardly seen the new mistress. She rarely took her meals in the dining room. But Variola had heard all about the incident on the stairwell. The attempt to remove the portrait of Dominique.
So she does have some spirit inside her, Variola thought about Liz.
Variola had nothing against the young woman. But she had no use for her either. It was clear she was not going to be another Dominique. So that rendered her irrelevant in Variola’s eyes. She wouldn’t want to have to hurt the poor girl. But she might have to take advantage of her, for everybody’s good.
Because Variola could feel something happening. When she woke up in the mornings, she could feel a tugging at her mind, as if someone was trying to siphon off her power. She had a pretty good idea who could be doing such a thing.
A showdown was coming. Variola had known it would come for a long time now. She had made a special offering this morning to Papa Ghede at the little altar she kept in her room. She’d burned some rosemary and dried nasturtium and muttered a prayer over the smoke. She needed to stay strong.
I should never have come here, she thought to herself as she rolled the dough. But what choice did I have? The island was devastated. I had lost everyone. And Mrs. Huntington had made such promises . . .
She thought again of the first day she stepped foot on this estate. Dominique had greeted her, her face covered in bandages.
“I am tired of this,” Dominique had told her.
“Tired of what, madam?”
She’d indicated the bandages. “Surgeries and facials and fillers. I want to be young, Variola. Young and beautiful. You can make me that way.”
When she’d first come to this house, Variola had had no idea how much vanity and cruelty and selfishness and greed she would find there. But she’d had no choice but to come. Before the earthquake that had leveled her beloved Haiti, Variola had presided over a thriving community, all devoted to the fine arts of the island and following the tenets of Papa Ghede. Variola knew that silly Americans, so conditioned by television and movies, would have called her community a “coven.” But to Variola they had simply been family.
When the earthquake came, she’d lost that family—if not to the earthquake itself, than to the death, disease, and financial ruin that followed. Yet by then her fame had spread far and wide. Her reputation as a great sorceress had reached many parts of the globe, including one particular mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Her spells and enchantments, her potions and her powders, had brought about some amazing transformations and they had become the stuff of legend. She’d restored a woman’s hair after it was burned off in a fire. She’d corrected a boy’s lazy eye. She’d melted the pounds off a dangerously obese man. So, yes, she could make someone look younger. A simple job, in fact.
And so Variola had accepted the offer from Dominique Huntington to come live with her and teach her the arcane arts. She would be well compensated for her efforts, of course.
Once again she heard her mother’s voice in her head. Papa Ghede grants us certain powers, Variola, but we mustn’t waste time on frivolous purposes. That is not why we are here. The powers we have should never be used for reasons of selfishness or revenge. Papa Ghede does not tolerate evil. Remember that.
Variola sighed as she fitted the dough into the pie plate. In Haiti, they all knew that Papa Ghede was the spirit of the first man who’d ever died, who waited at the crossroads to escort souls into the afterlife. When a child fell sick, the whole village would pray to Papa Ghede. He was a good spirit, and fair, but he was also strict, and he had the ability to read minds. Papa Ghede knew everything that went on in the worlds of the living and the dead.
So he would have seen clearly that Variola’s work for Mrs. Huntington had been the very definition of frivolous. Mama would have shaken her head and sniffed that Variola was wasting her talents. But at least Variola’s work had not been evil.
Not in the beginning, anyway.
She didn’t need to look up from her task to realize that eyes were staring at her.
“And what orders do you bring me this afternoon, Mrs. Hoffman?” Variola asked, arranging the dough in the pie plate with her fingers.
“No orders,” the housekeeper told her.
Still Variola didn’t look up at her.
“I just wanted to let you know that Roger was here.”
That brought Variola’s big black eyes up. “Really, now. He came to see her?”
Mrs. Hoffman nodded. “I asked him if he would stay for a meal, but he declined.”
“Does Mr. Huntington know that his brother paid a visit to his wife?”
“I doubt it very much.”
Variola returned to her work. “Will he come around again?”
“That I don’t know. But I suppose it’s possible.” She paused. “Perhaps likely. They seemed to get on quite well, the two of them.”
“Of course they did.”
Mrs. Hoffman sniffed. “He has a way with women.”
Variola laughed. “But not with you, eh, Mrs. Hoffman?”
The housekeeper didn’t seem amused. “The other news is . . . the portrait remains.”
Variola’s lips stretched into a smile. “Did you ever expect it not?”
“She may try again.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will try a great many things. She is the mistress here, whether you like it or not, my dear Mrs. Hoffman.”
“This house will only ever have one mistress,” the housekeeper said, her eyes moving behind her hard, plastic face as if she were wearing a mask.
Variola chuckled lightly as she returned to work. Mrs. Hoffman, having said all she intended to say, turned and left the room.
Variola placed the piecrust in the oven. Yes, she could feel the tug—as if someone were yanking at her mind and her soul, trying to rip them right out of her. She resisted.
I’m stronger than anyone in this house, Variola thought.
Still, just the same, she would burn more rosemary and nasturtium for Papa Ghede this evening.
19
Rita came through the front door of her parents’ house and removed her wet, dripping raincoat. It was still pouring out there though the thunder and lightning had at last stopp
ed. Her mother asked her if she was hungry, and Rita replied that she had eaten at Huntington House. She was tired, she told her mother, and she was going to bed early.
But in the privacy of her room, sleep was the furthest thing from Rita’s mind.
She had just come from talking with the police. Detective Foley had asked her to come down to the station. He wanted to keep their conversation private, he said, just between him and Detective McFarland and herself. They didn’t want anyone else at Huntington House to know they’d spoken with her. Was Rita okay with that?
She told them yes.
They wanted to know about Jamison. Was it true she had seen him at the bar the night he was killed? Yes, Rita, admitted, it was true. And yes, she knew he’d been fired.
But that was all she told them.
When they asked Rita if she knew why Jamison had been fired, she had lied and said no. She hadn’t told the detectives anything that Jamison had told her about Audra. She had thought long and hard about whether she should say anything about her suspicions that Mrs. Hoffman had killed both of them. She had thought it might be good revenge against the cruel old housekeeper, and give her a freer hand at the house if Mrs. Hoffman was removed. But telling the police what she knew, Rita had decided, might hurt David and his business and his reputation, and Rita would never hurt David.
On her phone she tapped in David’s mobile number. She knew it would be the middle of the night in Amsterdam or wherever he was at the moment. But she also knew that David always answered his phone, no matter what time it rang. Whatever call came in on this line was important. Only a select few had David’s private mobile number; Rita suspected he hadn’t even given it to his new little wife. He’d never given it to Dominique; why would he give it to this one? This number was only for David’s closest business colleagues—and his father, of course, who was also his boss. But Rita had the number. David had given it to her back in those terrible days before Dominique died, when he was so upset, so unhappy. How vulnerable he had been the day he gave her this special number. How much like a little lost boy. How cruel Dominque had been to him. She was always trying to make him jealous, to make him feel inadequate. And so David had reached out to Rita and gave her his private number. It was then that Rita had known he truly loved her.
She’d used the number only once, the day Dominique died, and Rita was desperate to know if David was okay. Now, she figured, it was time to use it again.
David answered on the second ring.
“Why are you calling me?” he snapped.
“I wouldn’t be calling you if I didn’t think you wanted to hear what I had to tell you, David.”
Rita could hear the anger simmering in his voice. “What is it?” he asked.
“Your brother.”
“My brother?”
“He came by the house today to see your wife.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. The silence was so complete that Rita thought for a minute the call had been dropped.
But then she heard David let out a breath.
“What’s the problem with my brother coming by to welcome his sister-in-law to her new home?” he asked her. “It’s a perfectly natural, kind, family gesture. Why would you think I needed to know such a trivial little thing?”
“Because I remember what happened—”
“Listen to me, Rita,” David seethed, cutting her off. “You remember nothing. Do you understand? You remember nothing because nothing happened. Not between us, not between me and anyone else. Do you understand?”
It was Rita’s turn to fall silent. Finally she replied, “Yes, David.”
He hung up on her.
Rita boiled. How dare he just discard her this way? How dare he try to deny everything they’d been through—everything she had witnessed?
She had protected him! She had thought of him first and no one else in those terrible days after Dominique died. How would he like it if she went back to Detective Foley and told him everything she knew? Everything!
Sitting there, staring out the window as the moon rapidly revealed itself from behind the dissipating clouds, Rita vowed one of two things.
She’d get David back, and everything would be just as it was.
Or else she’d make sure that no one—no one!—ever had David again.
Including his mousy little bride.
20
At Huntington House, Liz was looking out at the moon as well.
Thin ribbons of clouds were drifting away as the moon rose in all its white shiny glory, reclaiming the sky from the wind and the rain. The moon made Liz happy as she watched it, as if the end of the storm symbolized the end of all her unhappiness since she’d come to this place.
But it wasn’t the moon that made her feel better. Not really. It was Roger.
At last Liz felt as if she had a friend here. Someone who understood her and, critically, who understood David. Roger had said things that reassured her, most importantly: David does not want you to be like Dominique. Roger had reminded Liz that David had married her because he had liked her, loved her, for exactly who and what she was.
But even more: Roger promised her an escape from the dreariness of this house.
Liz had found Roger’s gallery on Facebook and sent him a message, telling him how much she’d like to attend his opening. He’d quickly replied that he’d love to pick her up tomorrow—if she was free—and show her around town. Since Liz didn’t have a driver’s license yet, he was glad to be her chauffeur. Although Liz had her pick of drivers at Huntington House, she much preferred the idea of being shuttled around town by Roger. She’d told him that yes, she was free, and yes, she’d love to go out with him tomorrow.
Liz pulled away from the window. For the first time since coming to this house, she was going to sleep honestly looking forward to the next day.
But as she crossed the room to her bed, she was distracted by a sound.
The same sound she had heard before—heard a number of times over the last couple of weeks, in fact.
The low, muffled banging—from behind the wall—or perhaps it was above her.
Liz could never quite be sure where the sound was coming from. But there it was again.
She stopped the clock on the mantel and pressed her ear against the wall. There was definitely a sound.
The soft rapping of a hammer?
Or . . . a series of footsteps?
Then, as always, the sound ceased as suddenly as it began.
But this time, with the end of the sound, came the sudden overwhelming fragrance of gardenia.
21
Mrs. Martinez wasn’t pleased by the conversation she overheard in the kitchen when she reported to work the next morning. Rita was standing in the middle of the room, speaking in hushed tones to Variola. But Mrs. Martinez could hear all too clearly what the maid was saying.
“You said you could help me,” Rita implored.
“Of course Variola can help you.” The chef smiled. “The question is, what is it that you truly want? The man you claim to love, or happiness and well-being?”
“I’d say they’re one and the same.”
Variola rolled her eyes. “Oh, such a foolish child. Very well. Variola will help you nonetheless.”
“Why have you offered to help me?”
Variola shrugged. “I thought maybe we could be better friends.”
“And you need friends,” Rita said. “To help you against Mrs. Hoffman.”
“Now, girl, you are just concocting scenarios.”
“I’ve watched you. I’ve watched you both for a long time. There is a rivalry there. She was once your pupil. I saw the two of you, in the garden, picking flowers, boiling them on the stove, chanting words over the steam that rose from the pot.”
Variola nodded. “She was interested at one time in the magic and the remedies of the islands. I taught her. She and the first Mrs. Huntington were both my pupils.”
“And Mrs. Hoffman has learned maybe a
bit too well?” Rita asked.
Variola leveled her black eyes at her. “She has concluded her lessons. I no longer teach her.”
“But you can teach me,” Rita said.
The chef was nodding. “If you want to learn.”
“I do.”
“Let me tell you something, Margarita Cansino,” Variola said. “Papa Ghede is a compassionate deity. But he can take back as much as he gives if your aims are impure. And your desire to lure a man away from his marriage . . . that is impure. That is selfish. That is evil.”
Rita laughed. “But you’ve offered to help me, to teach me the ways to do just that.”
“What I will teach you,” Variola said, “is how to go after what you think you want and how to understand that what you get is what you deserve.”
“Whatever,” Rita said, seeming to become bored with all the talk. “Just help me get him.”
“You’ll only get him if it’s meant to be,” Variola cautioned her.
Rita folded her arms across her chest, impatient. “It is meant to be. He’ll realize that soon enough. He just needs a little . . . shove in that direction.”
“If he truly loves you, why is he so resistant?”
Rita stiffened. “He’s under a spell.”
From her hiding place, eavesdropping on the conversation, Mrs. Martinez winced.
“Is he now?” Variola asked. “Who placed this spell on him?”
Rita frowned. “When I came to work here,” she said, “shortly before the first Mrs. Huntington died, I heard the whispers about witchcraft being practiced in this house. Even after seeing you and Mrs. Hoffman brewing up your potions, I didn’t believe the stories. But Jamison did.” She paused. “When he was killed, I realized the stories had been true.”
“So you believe I have bewitched Mr. Huntington.”
“Either you, or Mrs. Hoffman.”
In the shadows, Mrs. Martinez tensed. Did the child not realize how dangerous her words were becoming?
“Why would either of us do such a thing?” Variola asked.
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