Coco du Ciel

by Elise Noble

  Another tear rolled down her cheek, and this time, she turned to face the window so the cabin crew wouldn’t see her crying again. Crying for everything she’d lost twice over. But it wasn’t only herself she had to think about. Jocelyn’s past might have been destroyed, but Rochelle was suffering right now, and Coco was the only person who could make things right. There was a connection between them, an invisible thread reeling her in. She needed to apologise, to give Rochelle the money she’d taken from Remi, and then she needed to disappear.

  Disappear where? She wasn’t sure. Maybe she really would walk into Larkspur Lake this time. At the moment, she wasn’t sure what the future held; she only knew that she had to stop Rochelle from crying over and over and over in her head, a movie that played on a loop. Did that happen to other people? Celine said that after she was reborn, she’d been a blank canvas, that she’d had an insatiable appetite to learn, but Coco just felt hollow inside. An empty vessel that only the past could fill. She’d tried to remember, to rewind back beyond that night in the greenhouse, beyond the moment in the darkness when she’d woken damp in the dirt, so confused and lost in a virtual jungle. But there was nothing. Only a vast, yawning hole.

  And then she’d seen Rochelle, and in Rochelle’s face, she’d seen her own.

  Remi would never have let her go to Lark’s River. Sure, he’d promised to help, and he’d kept that promise in his own way, but his way meant throwing money at the problem. Investigators and daily reports. He liked control. To be the king of his castle, and to keep that castle fortified so the outside world couldn’t get in. Celine deserved more. A beautiful prison with horses and gardens and a tennis court was still a prison.

  Rhys wouldn’t have let Coco come to America either. From the moment they met, he’d cared for her and protected her, perhaps even loved her. She knew she loved him. But she didn’t deserve him. He needed a partner, not an empty shell of a woman who’d left her previous life in ruins. What if she screwed up again? How could she learn from past mistakes if she couldn’t remember them?

  No, this was the best way. By giving up her own future, she’d free Rhys to thrive in his. He was smart, so smart. Coco, broken, messed-up Coco, would only have held him back if she’d stayed.

  Damn these tears.

  The plane landed at LAX, and Coco, Jocelyn, whoever she was, wandered the transit lounge aimlessly, waiting for the second leg of her flight to Reno. If that wasn’t a metaphor for her life, then what was? Surrounded by people yet alone, dependent on others for the next step of her journey. She used some of the time to research bus routes. It wasn’t as if she could hire a car—she didn’t have a fake driver’s licence, and she had no idea if she even knew how to drive. If she’d stayed in Villance, would she have turned into Celine, destined to trundle around immaculate gravel paths in a golf cart for eternity?

  Outside the Reno-Tahoe airport, she tossed the last remnants of her temporary life into a trash can—her smartphone, her passport, and Celine’s credit card. When she was found, she didn’t want to be carrying anything that could cause problems for Rhys or the Kleins. Jocelyn’s problems were hers to fix and hers alone. Maybe Coco and Jocelyn were the same person, and maybe they weren’t? Maybe the girl walking towards the bus needed a new name? Jojo? She laughed, perhaps slightly shrilly, and a businessman wheeling a suitcase gave her an odd look.

  Look all you want. She’d borrowed one of Rhys’s hoodies and chopped bangs into her hair before she left France—there wasn’t much of her face visible to see.

  The bus ride to Lark’s River seemed to take forever. Stop, start, stop, start, stop, start… Exhaustion set in. Coco hadn’t slept since she waved goodbye to the château—she hadn’t dared—and although the sludgy feeling from the pills had faded, it had been replaced with a bone-weary tiredness that left her fidgeting to stay awake. Just a little longer. Once she’d spoken to Rochelle, her soul could rest, either temporarily or permanently. She’d leave that up to fate.

  The stop nearest to Rochelle’s duplex left Coco with a half-mile walk through the quiet neighbourhood. She’d hoped she might recognise the place, that visiting might dig up buried memories, but as she hurried past the houses like a bargain-basement wraith, there wasn’t so much as a tingle of familiarity. She even managed to take a wrong turn at one point.

  As she approached the house, she ducked into the service alley. Remi’s surveillance team would be watching at the front—that’s what their reports said—so she’d have to use the back door. But when she knocked softly and waited, there was no answer. Had Rochelle gone out? A dim glow came from inside the house, and fear began to gnaw at Coco’s insides. There was a killer on the loose, after all, and Rochelle didn’t go out in the evenings. She worked, she came home, she cooked dinner, and then she read a book or watched TV. And cried.

  Coco tipped up the flowerpot to the left of the door without thinking about it. The husk of a plant had died long ago, but the silver key was still underneath. Wait. How did she know that? Did she know that? Or had it just been a lucky guess?

  No matter, she didn’t have time to waste. The key turned with a quiet click, and Coco crept inside. The house lay in silence. No TV, no radio, no running water. Just the faint tick of a clock somewhere and the squeak of a floorboard as Coco checked the place for her sister. She wasn’t there. Hmm. So she did go out sometimes. That was a good thing, right? Or maybe not. Coco spotted a note stuck to the fridge, block letters picked out by a streetlight.

  Lost Souls Support Group - Thurs 8 p.m. - my turn to take cake!!

  Coco choked out a sob. That was Rochelle’s idea of a social life? Grief therapy? Jocelyn had failed as a sister in every way possible. And she felt even worse when she went upstairs. Her old bedroom was empty, completely empty, while Rochelle’s was filled with photos of the two of them—on the walls, the dressing table, a chest of drawers. One side of the room was filled with cardboard boxes, each of them labelled in black marker. Joss’s clothes. Joss’s drawings. Joss’s shoes. Joss’s random stuff. She’d kept everything. Coco picked up a framed photo from the nightstand and traced Jocelyn’s smile.

  “You were happy once.”

  And now? Now she was just lost.

  CHAPTER 30

  COCO WAS WOKEN by screaming, and for once, it wasn’t her own.

  Her eyes flew open, and glass smashed when the precious photo of her old self slid off the bed and fell to the floor. But that wasn’t the worst part.

  Rochelle had come home.

  She was pressed into the corner by the door, and when Coco sat up, Rochelle’s hands flew in front of her face, defensive.

  “K-k-keep away from me.”

  Oh, shit, shit, shit.

  “Sorry! I’m so sorry! I can’t even manage to apologise without messing it up.”

  Rochelle squeaked in fear as Coco reached for her bag, and when she pulled out the money, she lost her grip and five thousand euros flew into the air, floating down like confetti as Rochelle began hyperventilating.

  “Dammit! I only meant to bring this and then leave. And say I was sorry. Twice. Now I’m sorry twice because I fell asleep in your room and…” She swiped at her eyes with a hand. “I should go.”

  Mess, mess, mess. Such a mess.

  She got to her feet and headed for the door, but Rochelle screamed again. And what was that in her hand? Rochelle thrust it in Coco’s direction, and an arc of blue light crackled between metal prongs. A stun gun?

  “Don’t come any closer! I’m calling the police.”

  “There’s no need, I swear. I’m leaving right now.”

  “W-w-who are you?”

  “Honestly, I don’t even know anymore.”

  “Y-y-you died.”

  “Jocelyn died. And I might be her, but I might not. I’m just not sure.”

  “You’re a ghost? Is this some kind of joke? Cosmic revenge because I always refused to believe in ghosts, but you thought they existed, and so now you’ve come back to haunt me? It’s not f
unny, Joss. Not one bit.”

  “No, I’m real. Well, the outside part is. I got…rebuilt? Reborn?”

  “Like a mutant science project? That’s not even possible. I was the one who studied science, remember?”

  “I don’t remember. That’s the whole problem.”

  “Coco!” The shout came from downstairs, then footsteps thundered towards them. Rhys appeared in the doorway, hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. “What the hell are you playing at?”

  “Rhys? How did you get here?”

  His mouth set into a thin line. “In an aeroplane, the same way you did. What, you thought we’d just let you go?”

  “I…”

  “Who exactly are you?” Rochelle waved the stun gun in front of her as if it could create an invisible force field. “And how did you get into my house?”

  “The back door was unlocked,” Remi said from behind Rhys. Double oops. Celine was there too, staring wild-eyed.

  Make that triple oops.

  “I always lock the back door. Always.”

  “You hid a key,” Coco said. “Anyone could have found it. Like the man who killed me.”

  Rochelle had been pale already, but now the last of the colour drained from her face, and the hand holding the stun gun began trembling. Good thing it wasn’t a proper gun with bullets.

  “I-I-I don’t understand.”

  “Funny, you look like I felt when I first found out,” Rhys said. “The story’s a doozy.”

  “Who are you people?”

  “I’m Coco’s boyfriend.”

  “And I’m a geneticist,” Remi said.

  “Wait, wait. Who the heck is Coco?”

  Rhys pointed, and Rochelle’s forehead creased in confusion. “Then she’s not Jocelyn?”

  “The jury’s still out on that. Truthfully, we have no idea.”

  “Then what…?”

  “How open-minded are you?”

  “What sort of a question is that? Why are you here? I should call the police.” She fumbled in her pocket, and her phone flipped out and landed on the floor beside the money. “Shit.”

  “And what would you tell them?” Remi asked. “That your dead sister and her friends have come to visit? They won’t send a squad car; they’ll send a psychiatrist.”

  “What do you want from me?” Rochelle whispered.

  “An excellent question. Coco, what on earth possessed you to come here?”

  Remi’s voice was tight. He was pissed. Which was quite understandable and not at all unexpected, but Coco had planned on him being pissed in France, not the US.

  “Uh, I just wanted to apologise.”

  “With my money?”

  “Sorry.” Coco stooped and began scooping up the cash. “You can have it back, I guess.”

  “If you’d asked, I’d have given it to you.”

  “Oh.”

  “And what did you plan to do after you’d terrified your sister?”

  “I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.”

  “Vintage Jocelyn,” Rochelle muttered. “You never did think things through. No wonder Mom always said I was the sensible one.”

  Coco burst into tears. Despite all the fear and the screaming and the questions, Rochelle had called her “you” and not “she.”

  “Y-y-you believe I’m your sister?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know what to think! I identified your body in the freaking morgue. But you look like Joss, and apart from your weird accent, you sound like Joss.” Rochelle turned on Remi. “You said you were a geneticist—what the heck did you do? Clone her? Isn’t that illegal?”

  Remi sighed. “I suppose now that she’s here, we’d better fill you in on the details. But understand that if any of this information goes beyond this house, then Coco will be in danger.”

  “Why do you call her Coco? And what kind of danger?”

  “The name is part of the story. And if anyone else finds out she’s alive, she’ll be locked up in a lab for the rest of her unnatural life while scientists try to work out how on earth this miracle happened.”

  “But you know?”

  “I know the bare bones. The exact details of the process are still hazy.”

  “She…she really is my sister?”

  “I believe so.”

  Rochelle’s tears fell harder, and she dropped the stun gun in favour of throwing her arms around Coco. Of all the things that might have happened, Coco hadn’t expected this. She should have been wading into the damn lake by now, and instead, she had her sister back and possibly Rhys as well. Celine gave her a shaky smile. Remi scowled, but that was quite normal. Maybe in time he’d forgive her.

  And Coco had one more thing too: hope.

  “You said somebody killed you?” Rochelle asked. “I told the police it wasn’t suicide, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  “The only thing I remember about my old life is someone pushing me into the lake and holding me under the water.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, not yet. But I want to find out. I need to find out.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  Coco screwed up her face because that was something else she hadn’t thought through. “Uh…”

  “Let’s talk,” Remi said. “I hope nobody was planning on sleeping tonight.”

  ***

  Remi ordered a pizza, then complained bitterly because the dough was too thick and there wasn’t enough cheese. It seemed that living without a personal chef was tough when you were a billionaire. Celine, on the other hand, was fascinated with dinner, the house, the street outside, everything. Probably when a girl didn’t get out much, she was easily pleased.

  Rhys, well, he kept one arm around Coco’s shoulders while he ate pizza with his free hand. She wasn’t sure whether he’d turned a little possessive or was just making sure she didn’t run off again, but it felt…nice. More than nice. She’d forced herself to keep her distance from him for the last few weeks because if she’d given in to her emotions, then she’d never have been able to walk away from him, but now she didn’t have to hold back anymore. It felt natural to lean her head on his shoulder as Remi talked—first about the greenhouse, then the coco du ciel trees, and then about their time in France. Coco noticed that he didn’t mention Celine’s origins. He’d clearly decided that some things were on a need-to-know basis and Rochelle didn’t need to know. And no way was Coco going to breach his trust a second time. She was already on shaky ground.

  “Trees? You’re telling me that trees can bring the dead back to life?”

  “Only very specific trees under very specific circumstances. And if that secret gets out, how long do you think the trees would last?”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone. But how did Joss’s DNA get into the trees?”

  “There’s an investigator working on that problem as we speak. You’re certain Jocelyn’s body was buried? It couldn’t have, say, been switched?”

  “She had an open casket. The mortician was one of those conveyor-belt places, but they did a real nice job.”

  “Then we’ll let the investigator in Las Vegas carry on with what he does best.” Remi cut his eyes in Coco’s direction. “Don’t you get any ideas about visiting the funeral home.”

  “I’ll behave, I swear.”

  Coco had her sister. What more could she ask for? Of course, moving back to Lark’s River was impossible, but just to be able to phone and email Rochelle would be a blessing. Her tiny circle of friends had increased by one tonight. Or was it morning now? Celine yawned, and Remi squeezed her hand.

  “We should find somewhere to sleep. Tomorrow, we can talk about the next steps.”

  “I have a spare room,” Rochelle offered. “But there’s no furniture. You strike me as the type of people who’d want furniture.”

  The idea of Remi roughing it was laughable.

  “We’ll find a hotel.”

  “Uh, the only hotel in Lark’s River got closed down by the healt
h inspectors last week.” Rochelle grimaced. “Bedbugs.”

  “Airbnb?” Rhys suggested.

  Remi crinkled his nose. “Anything’s better than bedbugs. What happened to the furniture?”

  “I sold it to pay the rent last month.”

  “Would it not have been easier to get a roommate?”

  “When I tried that, I woke up in the middle of the night and found the creep sniffing my feet.”

  Urgh. “Chelle, I’m so sorry I left you on your own.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. And I guess… I guess I still blame myself for it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I should have stopped you from going to the lake that day. Handcuffed you to the radiator or something.”

  “You weren’t to know. I mean, why would you have stopped me from going for a walk?”

  “Joss, you never, ever went out for a walk. If you could have driven from the sidewalk to the front door, you would have. You loved to go horseback riding, but walking? No way. I had a feeling you were heading out to meet someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I figured the baby’s father, seeing as you’d lied to me.”

  “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “The past is the past.” Rochelle sounded like Celine. “I thought you’d tell me in your own sweet time.”

  “What about anyone else? Did I have other friends I might have confided in?”

  “I doubt it. You quit your job and shut yourself in your room for months. You even ate in there. Gummy bears dipped in Marmite, packages and packages of them.”

  “Are you serious? That’s disgusting.”

  “Yes, but would you listen? Of course not. I tried phoning Mom, but she just said that as long as you were eating, you wouldn’t starve, and then she hung up on me. She’s only called once since the funeral. Once.”

  Coco was kind of glad she didn’t remember her mother now.