Coco du Ciel

by Elise Noble

  “What did I say about the baby?”

  “Not much. You didn’t even tell me you were pregnant until the bump got too big to hide. I offered to help, but you said the person who should be helping was the one person who didn’t want to know.”

  “The baby’s father?”

  “You were scared. That’s why you lashed out at me. But you were tough as well, and I couldn’t understand why you’d take your own life. Plus you said more than once that life was precious.”

  “Thank you for believing in me.”

  “I still believe in you. I’ll always believe in you. And I’ll do whatever it takes to catch the man who tried to steal my sister from me.”

  CHAPTER 31

  REMI BEING REMI, he opened the Airbnb website, filtered the properties within a twenty-mile radius, sorted them in order of cost, and five minutes later, they had themselves a mansion. It wasn’t as lavish as the château—nothing was as lavish as the château—but the agent was a night owl and agreed to meet them with the key.

  At two o’clock in the morning, she was brimming with curiosity, but Remi just ignored her questions in the way that only rich people could and offered a bonus if she could arrange to have groceries delivered. Cha-ching. Coco could practically see the dollar signs in the woman’s eyes as she promised to shop for anything Remi wanted personally. Anything at all, any time.

  She did have the sense to back out the door when Celine glowered at her, though.

  What would the sleeping arrangements be? There were four huge bedrooms, and Coco would have understood perfectly if Rhys wanted to sleep alone after the way she’d betrayed him. But following a moment’s hesitation at the top of the stairs, he held out a hand.

  “You look exhausted.”

  Warmth flooded through her as she slipped her hand into his. Maybe, just maybe, they stood a chance?

  “In every possible way.” Coco was physically and mentally shattered. “But I can’t sleep for long. I don’t have any pills.”

  In France, Remi had constantly adjusted the dose depending on how she felt each morning. Every breakfast had turned into a question-and-answer session. He’d bring the pills to dinner and she’d wash them down with wine, wondering if tonight would be the night that the memories of drowning would finally disappear. So far, they’d always been there, lurking at the edge of her subconscious.

  “He gave them to me. Not literally. I mean, I didn’t swallow them. They’re in my pocket.”

  “I’m really sorry I drugged you. If I’d thought there was another way…”

  “Desperate people do desperate things. I’m only sorry I didn’t realise how much you were hurting inside. How do you feel now that you’ve met Rochelle?”

  “Better, I think? Relieved. And I’m more and more sure that I’m Jocelyn the whole way through. All those mannerisms Chelle said were so familiar, the way I felt at home in the house even if I don’t remember it, the timeline… Plus Joss loved Marmite and I do too.”

  “With gummy bears?”

  “Not with gummy bears. I was so messed up.”

  They reached the bedroom door, and Rhys took Coco’s other hand in his. “Promise you’ll talk to me in the future? Please? The thought of you running again…”

  “I’ll talk to you.” It was hard, opening up. Yet another thing she had in common with Jocelyn, according to Rochelle. But Coco understood now that she had to try. Jocelyn’s secrets had hurt so many people, not least herself. “I’m still processing everything, you know? The baby… Is this grief? This weird, hollow feeling?”

  “It might be. Grief…it can hit you in different ways. When my mum died, the emptiness was in my heart. Some days, it would take a moment after I woke up to remember she was gone, and then I’d get angry. Angry that I’d forgotten and angry at myself because I wasn’t there at the end. Angry at the universe in general. I miss her smiles. I miss her hugs. I miss being able to pick up the phone and talk to her. Grief…it feels like nothing, and it feels like everything. If you let it, it’ll eat at you from the inside out, and every time I felt those teeth, I’d look at my mum’s picture on my phone and remind myself that she wouldn’t want me to mope. And each day I kept busy, my chest grew just a tiny bit fuller.”

  “How long did it take?”

  “A while. Everyone’s different.”

  “I don’t feel angry, more confused. Does that make sense? I never even met my baby, but I think…I think I loved him.”

  Rochelle said he would have been a boy. A baby boy. A sob welled up in Coco’s throat, and at first she tried to swallow it down, but when Rhys squeezed her hands, she gave in and let the tears come.

  “I’m s-s-so sorry.”

  “None of this is your fault, sweetheart. You’re the victim.”

  Was he right? For weeks, she’d been trying to convince herself that she was the lucky one. How many other people got a second chance at life? But honestly, it felt more like a sick supernatural joke. It would have been easier if she’d simply stayed dead, but each time she had that thought, she’d look at Rhys and feel a tiny glimmer of…hope?

  “I don’t want to be a victim. And I don’t want to be weak, but I’m not sure I have much strength left at the moment.”

  “You’ll get stronger in time. Right now, you have four people who care about your future—let us carry you for a while until you can walk by yourself.”

  Rhys gave the best hugs. He had strength, and he didn’t mind sharing it. Or his kisses. And she’d take all of those that she could get. It was so easy to melt against him, to surrender the stresses and just be for a moment. Had it always been this way? Had she felt as comfortable with the baby’s father? No. No, she couldn’t have. Not when the asshole had left her to sit in her room night after night with only stress and gummy bears for company. He hadn’t cared. Rhys had dropped everything and flown halfway across the world to find her. From what Chelle had said, the jerk who’d knocked her up hadn’t even managed a phone call.

  Aaaaaaaaand there was the anger.

  “You okay?”

  “You said that it helped to stay busy. I think I need to stay busy.”

  Jocelyn had been something of a magpie. She’d loved shiny things. One of the boxes in Rochelle’s room had been filled with craft materials—cord and glue and beads and silver findings. In the evenings, pre-asshole anyway, she’d loved to watch old romance movies and make jewellery. For every on-screen smooch, there was a necklace, or a pair of earrings, or occasionally a bracelet. Chelle had dug through her jewellery box this evening and gifted a necklace to Coco, turquoise and wooden beads on knotted yellow cord. Happy colours.

  She fingered the beads, wondering how Jocelyn had come up with the design. So pretty. Once upon a time, tying those knots had sated her soul. Would she ever be happy again? Maybe. Each one of Rhys’s kisses was like stringing another bead onto the cord. One day, the project would be finished and her heart would be whole again.

  “If you want to stay busy, I could teach you to code? Simple apps aren’t that hard to design.”

  Coding? No. “I actually had something else in mind.”

  When he didn’t get the message, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, praying he’d kiss her back again. If he rejected her, well, she’d want to run and hide, but you lost one hundred percent of the chances you didn’t take.

  He did kiss her back, but only for a second.

  “Promise me you won’t disappear again.”

  It was the easiest promise she’d ever had to make. At least, she thought so. “I’ll stay by your side for as long as you’ll have me. Close by your side. Nothing whatsoever between us. Not even clothes,” she added, just in case her intentions weren’t clear.

  Rhys’s eyes widened. Then he stiffened, and not in a good way. Shit. Too much, too soon. Way to go, Joss. You’ve fucked up yet again.

  Instinct took over and she turned to bolt, but Rhys still had hold of her hand.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

>   “Uh, to the bathroom?”

  “We have an en suite. Don’t you dare run.”

  “But—”

  He silenced her with a kiss, and this time there was nothing tentative about it. Sparks shot through her lips and sizzled in her veins until she was a fizzing mess in his arms. Was it normal for your knees to go weak? For that spot between your thighs to pulse and throb?

  Rhys ran the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips, and they parted on a moan. Coco wasn’t in control of her own body anymore, but it didn’t matter. Rhys would take care of her. He always took care of her. If it hadn’t been for the baby, maybe she’d even have been grateful for the ending in Larkspur Lake because surely what had come before couldn’t have been as good as what she had now. Her killer still deserved to be punished, though.

  “I didn’t bring a condom,” Rhys whispered when they finally stopped to take a breath. “We left France in kind of a hurry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “We’ll have to wait. Neither of us wants to…you know…”

  “Repeat the mistakes of my past?”

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly.”

  “It’s okay; I screwed up in so many ways, I realise that. And I’ll wait as long as it takes. As long as I have you, I’ll wait.”

  Rhys feathered soft kisses across her cheek. “You have me, sweetheart. And there’s plenty we can do without going all the way. I want to taste every inch of you.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight, we sleep. Once we solve your mystery, we’ve got all the time in the world, but we can’t hang around in Lark’s River for long.”

  “I love you,” Coco blurted. “I don’t expect you to say it back, not now anyway, but I need you to know.”

  A lock of hair fell across her cheek, and Rhys tucked it behind one ear. Always so sweet. Jocelyn might have made a mess of her life, but she wasn’t the biggest idiot in the world. No, that prize went to Stacey. She’d had Rhys and then chosen a douchebag who wore a retainer as a fashion accessory and had graduated from the Helen Keller school of DJing. Barely.

  Wait a second… How did she know who Helen Keller was? Had Celine mentioned her? Or were there stray remnants of memories washing around in Coco’s skull?

  Did it honestly matter?

  The past was the past, and the future stretched out ahead like a path to paradise. All she had to do was put one foot in front of the other, slow and steady, and she’d finally find happiness.

  CHAPTER 32

  “YOU CHANGED IN the last few years. Before you died, I mean. Before you died.” Rochelle gave her head a shake. She’d done that a lot in the past twelve hours. “I still can’t believe you’re back.”

  That makes two of us. Coco reached out to touch her sister again, just to reassure herself that she wasn’t dreaming. Was it possible to feel things in your sleep? Her nightmares were frighteningly realistic, but this… It was different. Warmer. Lighter. In those nightmares, the water was always cold and the crushing pressure made it hard to breathe. She picked up a slice of toast and focused on the sensations as she bit into it—the rasp of the bread on her tongue, the slippery butter, the sweetness of the jam. There was no Marmite in the house—Rochelle hated it. Joss used to order it in bulk from the internet.

  Yes, this was real.

  Rhys gave her leg a gentle squeeze, reminding her without words that she was okay. That they were okay.

  “Changed how?” Coco asked.

  “We used to have fun together. Go to the movies, go bowling, go to the diner. Sometimes you’d even come for a bike ride, but exercise wasn’t exactly your thing unless there was a horse involved.”

  “Really? I’ve been learning to play tennis.”

  Rochelle choked on her coffee. “Tennis? Are you joking?”

  “No, I swear.”

  “Are you good at it?”

  Celine burst into laughter, and when Coco glared at her, she grinned. Her presence here was a relief. Remi was still annoyed by Coco’s escape—it showed in his eyes—but Celine was so happy to be somewhere other than the château that a little of her joy rubbed off on her husband. She’d spent ages staring out the window last night, not because anything exciting was happening on the quiet street in small-town USA, but because it was different to everything she knew.

  “At tennis? I’m absolutely terrible.”

  “Figures.”

  “Gee, thanks. About the horses—I read on Facebook that I used to work at a ranch?”

  “You did. Every Saturday and Sunday morning, although Mr. Austin couldn’t afford to pay you much. And then you started your new job and quit horse riding too. And the community theatre, and you loved the theatre. I know you said that your work was important, but Joss, it sucked all the happiness out of your world.”

  “It was obvious?”

  “To everyone. I mean, I tried to talk to you about it, but you just insisted the ridiculous hours were part of your long-term career plan. That you didn’t want to spend the rest of your life being poor.”

  Glancing around the house, it seemed that plan hadn’t worked out so well, had it? And perhaps being poor wasn’t so bad anyway? Living with Rhys in Uxbridge, Coco had learned to appreciate the small things, the people rather than the possessions, and she’d been happy apart from the nightmares. And look at Celine and Remi—they had unimaginable riches, and yet they were still miserable half the time.

  “I was an architect, wasn’t I?”

  “An architectural assistant. Did you know that you helped to design the new public library in town?”

  “Really?”

  “The old one got taken out by a freak tornado. It’s on YouTube.”

  “Wow.”

  “But the new building’s much nicer. When it opened, you took me for a walk around and pointed out all the little touches you’d added. The curved windows, the seating area that overlooks the shelves, the book-shaped fountain…” Rochelle’s mouth twitched at the corner. “The funhouse mirrors in the bathrooms…”

  “I put funhouse mirrors in the bathrooms?”

  “Your boss thought you were crazy, but everyone loves them, especially the kids. Going to the library is fun now, and it’s showing in the kids’ school grades too.”

  Was that why she’d pushed herself so hard? Because she believed in her job and thought she could help people? Maybe. But if she’d lived to work, that left one massive question…

  “If I spent all day, every day at the office, then how did I have time to date?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “But the baby…”

  “I always figured you got involved with somebody from work. Unless you had a one-night stand or a secret thing with the pizza delivery guy—I mean, all you did at home was eat and sleep.”

  A one-night stand? Coco didn’t feel like a one-night-stand sort of girl. And as for the pizza delivery guy…ugh. She just couldn’t imagine herself getting naked with a man she barely knew. Could rebirth have changed her personality that much?

  “Let’s focus on work for now. Did I mention anyone’s name?”

  “Uh, probably? I’m really bad at remembering names. At the salon, I write them all down and check the schedule before each appointment. Faces, I can do, but names? Pffft.”

  “Did you ever meet any of my colleagues?”

  “A few. The first year, you took me to the office Christmas party as your plus-one because you didn’t want to go on your own. Some creep hit on me. Slicked-back hair, dimples, thought he was God’s gift because he could bench-press two hundred pounds.”

  “Did he have any tattoos?”

  “Not that I remember. Why? Does that matter?”

  A lump formed in Coco’s throat as she nodded. Talking about her own death hadn’t become any easier, and remembering it was worse. She closed her eyes for a second, and the man’s arm was right there, swirling in the dark water, waiting for her to choke.

  “Coco does have some clear memories,” Rhy
s explained, and she sagged with relief because she didn’t have to try and speak. “The man who killed her had a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson tattooed on his arm. ‘All life is an experiment.’ Plus he had an outrageously expensive watch and dark hair. That’s as much as we know.”

  “H-h-he was strong too. He held me u-u-underwater.”

  Rhys curled an arm around Coco’s shoulders, and she leaned into him, borrowing his strength once more. She’d thought coming to America would help to bring her closure, but it had also torn open old wounds. And talking about her demise was like pouring salt water onto the jagged flesh.

  Over and over and over again.

  The colour drained out of Rochelle’s face, and she gripped the chipped edge of the dining table until her knuckles turned white.

  “I’m so sorry…”

  “What’s done is done,” Remi said, checking his own watch. “We don’t have much time here, so let’s focus on the goal.”

  Rochelle glared at him, but she also put her hands in her lap. “The only person around here with fancy-ass quotes tattooed on his arms is Lance Drecker, and it wasn’t him.”

  Now it was Remi’s turn to look annoyed. Probably people didn’t snap at him often. “And how do you know that?”

  “Because Lance Drecker got both of his legs blown off in Iraq, and he’s been in a wheelchair ever since. There’s no way he could get over the sand to the lake.”

  “How about rich people?”

  Rochelle barked out a laugh. “This is Lark’s River.”

  “And we’re a stone’s throw from Reno.”

  Coco reached out for her sister’s hand. “Please? There must be someone. That watch cost a hundred thousand euros.”

  Rochelle gasped. “What kind of lunatic spends that much money on a watch? He could put a down payment on a house instead. Or donate to the food bank. Or fund the church’s youth program for years.”

  At least Remi was self-aware enough to display mild embarrassment. “Yes, well, some people would choose the watch. And we still need to find the man who wears it.”

  “Then try the partners at the architecture firm. I don’t know how much they get paid, but Joss always said that if she made partner someday, our money worries would be over.”