by Diane Wood
It was only a couple of hours later that Belinda rang back. She sounded scared. “George rang here,” she whispered. “I gave him your message and he said I could tell you where he was. I think he’s hiding from your mother, so he didn’t want to use his mobile.” Passing on the address of a flat in the warehouse district, she said he’d expect Nat about eight o’clock and that he’d have something she wanted.
Nat wondered if he was finally going to give her the journal.
* * *
The area was made up of a combination of abandoned warehouses and warehouses developed into apartments. Eventually the whole area would be residential and probably quite expensive. The address was one of the better apartments with a sophisticated video intercom system.
“Why is she here?” George demanded when he finally answered the intercom. “She’s not your friend, Nathalie,” he stated. “I won’t let her up.”
“Then I’m not coming either,” Nathalie responded, taking the risk that he actually wanted to see her. “Alex is part of my life, so you might as well get used to it.”
It was a standoff, but it was only moments before his cold voice came back through the intercom. “Top floor,” he spat before the door buzzed and they were on their way to the lift.
The lift was glass, modern and speedy. Each of the five floors appeared to house only one apartment and there was no sign of other occupants.
George ushered them in, staring in surprise at Nat’s badly scratched and bruised face. But he made no comment, instead moving directly to the drink cart. Nathalie thought he looked awful. His shoulders slumped, his face pale and unshaven and his clothes rumpled.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked, addressing them both.
“No,” Nat replied curtly. “I’m not here to socialize. I want answers about our childhood, and I’m not leaving without reading Mother’s journal.”
“I told you—”
“I know—you’re protecting me,” she cut in sarcastically. “But I’m not accepting that this time, George. I know that Charlotte killed my real mother. So you can’t protect her anymore.”
“Oh God, Nat,” he moaned, putting down the decanter. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
“He’s right, you know,” Charlotte said, stepping through the doorway.
“Mother!” Nathalie exclaimed, spinning to face her, then looking at George. “You told her I was coming?”
“He didn’t need to,” she interjected. “The cards told me betrayal was afoot and I knew you’d go for the weakest one.”
“She made me ask you here,” George stated flatly, refusing to look her in the eye. “We need to work this out.”
“So you told her you had the journal? Which doubtless means it no longer exists?” Nathalie replied bitterly.
“So, you’re Christine Martin’s sister and my daughter’s lover?” Charlotte declared, ignoring Nathalie and focusing her attention on Alex. “You don’t look a bit like Christine. Much more attractive, although nowhere near as sexual. I think it’s ironic that you end up with my daughter, given that it was Nathalie who seduced Christine in the first place.”
“If I’m supposed to be shocked, you’re wasting your time,” Alex replied pointedly, trying hard to hide her revulsion for the woman before her. “Nathalie told me all about my sister and how she ended up with your family. We don’t have any secrets.”
“Well, well, so forgiving,” Charlotte smirked. “But then Nathalie always did have a way with the women. Even I found her a pleasure to bed. Or could it be that you’re just using her to get your revenge on our family?”
“You really are a piece of work, aren’t you?” Alex responded icily. “I doubt you’ve ever experienced a human emotion.”
“But I’m very rich and very powerful, so please don’t think you can lord it over me, you overeducated little bitch. Now what do you want with George?” she asked, turning back toward Nathalie.
“I want to know why you killed my mother. I want to know who she was and why you didn’t kill me when you had the chance.” The words tumbled out angrily, yet even now Alex detected the inner fear.
“How dramatic…and uncivilized,” Charlotte replied calmly. “You want to discuss matters of life and death, and yet you won’t even take a drink from our host. Do sit down, child, so that we can talk rationally.”
“I don’t want to sit down, and I’m not your child. I want answers.”
“Then there will be no discussion,” she said turning away. “I will not be defied.”
“Do what she wants,” Alex suggested, gesturing toward the large sofa. “What’s she going to do, Nat—attack us? I left the address we were coming to with my mother, so we’re quite safe.”
“Aha, yes, your mother,” Charlotte said cryptically as she took a seat opposite the women. “Now there’s a paragon of virtue. But we’ll discuss her later. Right now we need to sort out why you would make the preposterous claim that I killed your mother. Given that I am your mother that statement would seem quite insane.”
“No, it’s you that’s insane. I had hypnosis and I remember the house in America and the cellar. I know my real name and I know that you’re not my mother. So let’s stop fucking around,” Nathalie retaliated angrily.
“Well then, you obviously have me cold,” she retorted with a shrug, appearing totally unfazed by the revelation. “If the information came from hypnosis, then it must be true. Although…somehow I don’t think you can use it in court. So I guess you’re back at square one. And if you think I’m going to discuss this with you without George searching you first, then you really are quite delusional. Well, George,” she snapped suddenly, making him start. “What are you waiting for, search them and be thorough.”
At first Alex wanted to refuse, but she knew if she did, Charlotte would disappear without ever speaking to Nathalie.
When George finished, Charlotte indicated for them to sit down again. The whole scenario had a surreal quality to it.
It scared Alex how attractive and charismatic the woman appeared and yet how vicious and evil she truly was. One minute she was charming and sweet and just as suddenly ruthless and cold. It was easy to see how people, especially young people, could so easily fall under her spell. She would be anything you wanted her to be—a chameleon offering generosity, sexuality and acceptance—until you were trapped in the mire of her true personality.
“Why should I tell you anything?” she questioned, sipping on a drink. “I owe you nothing. I raised you as my own when your mother left, and you lived well.”
“Left?” Nathalie spluttered. “You killed her. You abused me, you lied to me and you sold me to anyone who wanted me—to make money? What I want—”
“What you want?” Charlotte spat through clenched teeth. “What you want? Who cares what you want? You’re so like her. She thought she had the right to be ungrateful, the right to treat me as if everything I’d done for her was nothing. But she found out differently, and so will you.” Then, very softly, “I loved her though…I loved her so much…but she thought she could leave me.”
Nathalie was stunned. “What do you mean you loved her?”
“She was my lover,” Charlotte responded triumphantly. “We were lovers for years.”
Nathalie turned to George, confused. “You told me the journal said that Charlotte was jealous of my mother because Charlotte had loved my father?”
“I—” George stuttered.
“What would George know?” Charlotte cut in coldly. “George wouldn’t have the brains to understand my journal.”
Glancing at George, Alex noted that with each comment directed at him by Charlotte, he shrunk into his seat—the picture of a beaten man.
“So what’s the true story?” Alex challenged. “Nathalie’s regaining her memory, so she’s eventually going to remember anyway. Why not tell her your version? You know how memories can distort things.”
Charlotte glared, but she lifted her head and shoulders defensively.
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“If you loved Nathalie’s mother, why did you kill her?” Alex persisted gently.
“That…that was an accident,” she answered, looking into the distance. “She was leaving me again. She was going to the police…and I couldn’t have any of that.”
“Going to the police about what?” Alex asked, glancing at Nathalie, who acknowledged that she should continue asking the questions.
“We were in the same foster home, you see,” Charlotte explained, focusing on the distant past. “It was an awful place, dark and fetid. I was twelve when Olivia arrived and she was a year younger and so beautiful. Dark and exotic and intelligent. Her father was Native American, and her mother was white. Both of them were useless junkies who died or disappeared. She’d been in and out of care for years. Just like me.” Again she stared into the distance, her face hard and cold. “There were six kids at the home,” she continued. “And the old man took turns with each of us, but at least we got fed and were pretty much allowed to do whatever we wanted. Sometimes he’d entertain friends and they’d pay to use us, and at those times we got extra money to buy clothes or go to movies. It didn’t worry me, but Olivia hated it and wanted to run away. After a while we became lovers and eventually we left together.”
“How old were you?” asked Alex, reverting to the psychologist role.
“Thirteen or fourteen…”
Alex knew Nathalie wanted to ask a thousand questions, but she discouraged her with a look that said, “If you stop her, she may not continue.”
“We did men for money and got our own cheap little flat. I was so happy. She made me so happy. Then some of them started to pay us for being together with them, they liked the contrast of my fairness and Olivia’s darkness. Word spread, and a lot of businessmen who were into young girls started using us. The money was excellent and we lived very well.” Sighing, she continued with her recollections. “I thought it was exciting, but Olivia hated it. She wanted to go back to school. When she went to school she was always top of the class. We argued about it a lot, but in the end I gave in—and that was my biggest mistake. The cards told me not to let her, but I did anyway. That was the last time I didn’t listen to the cards. They don’t lie.”
For a moment she stopped talking, and Nathalie thought she wasn’t going to continue.
“She was spoilt, you see,” she said eventually, directing the comment at Alex. “She had me, she had plenty of money, but she wanted more. She wanted to be a nurse and eventually maybe a doctor.”
“Why was school such a bad thing?” Alex asked, trying to keep her talking.
“It was okay for a year or so,” she acknowledged. “We still worked together when the clients wanted doubles, but otherwise she studied and I worked. She was very clever and finished high school in twelve months. But then she went to college and that’s when she met him.”
“Him?” questioned Alex.
“Andre Abraham, Nathalie’s father.”
George rose quietly and poured four drinks, handing one to each of them. Then just as silently, he sat back down.
Nathalie shook her head at Alex to warn her not to drink. She knew that the drink could be laced with anything. It was a favorite party trick of Charlotte’s. She noted that neither George nor Charlotte took a drink either.
“What was he like?” Nathalie asked, unable to stop herself.
Looking directly at her for the first time in a while, Charlotte curled her lip in a sneer, “What do you think your father would be like? He was as ugly as you with gray eyes. It was bad enough that Olivia had dark blood. I forgave her for that, because I loved her, and she was beautiful. But to screw some New York Jew boy without getting paid—it couldn’t be allowed. Of course, I didn’t know about it then,” she said, her eyes focusing on the distance again. “He was another student, and they started having coffee together. At least that’s what she said when I finally found out about it.” She moved into silence, deep in her own thoughts.
And it seemed to stretch to minutes.
Alex didn’t know whether to say something but decided against it.
Eventually, Charlotte sighed, pulled herself a little more upright in the chair and began again. “But before I found out about them the cards told me I was being betrayed, so I decided to test her. I told her that she needed to go back to work. She refused. It was the first time she’d ever defied me. That was when I fell pregnant with George. Olivia was thrilled and wanted me to keep the baby, but I didn’t want some squalling brat, so I was going to get rid of it…”
Alex looked at George and saw the pain on his face as he stared at his mother.
“Then she told me she’d go back to work if I kept him. She promised she’d stop going to college,” she continued. “She said she’d look after the baby. And I could see the value in using the baby to keep her around, even if I had to sell it later. People pay a lot of money for white, healthy babies on the black market. It was worth the risk.”
“My God,” Nathalie blurted, looking at George, who was on his feet and pacing behind his chair. “He’s your son.”
“You are so much your mother’s daughter,” she snarled. “So completely crippled by your pathetic emotions and society’s rules. Anyone can spawn brats, even people like my drunken useless mother and your drug-addled grandparents. Animals rut and babies are born. It’s meaningless. It is how you turn that nothingness into something of value that counts.”
“I’m going to the bathroom,” George mumbled as he headed from the room. “Please feel free to carry on without me, Mother.”
“Don’t be long,” she demanded. “It’s your fault that we have to rehash all this old history, so you will be here to hear it.”
She didn’t speak again until he returned a few minutes later. Somehow, George seemed more buoyant than when he left. Nathalie assumed he’d popped or snorted something while he was gone.
“Anyway,” Charlotte continued, glaring at George. “George was born and it became very annoying. Everything was for the baby. It took all of her time and attention, and then she’d be tired and not want sex. She expected to drop out of our business—supposedly because she didn’t want to leave George, but I suspected otherwise, and naturally I wasn’t going to tolerate that for too long. So I decided to bring the clients to her. I told her that if she didn’t buck up her ideas, I’d take the baby and find it another home. That brought her into line.”
“Yes, I suppose it would,” Alex commented dryly.
For a second Charlotte wasn’t sure if Alex was being sarcastic, but she decided to ignore it, because she was actually enjoying telling her story. After all, it wasn’t as if these two women would ever get the chance to tell anyone else. She had that covered nicely.
“So, how did Olivia—”
“Have Nathalie?” interrupted Charlotte. “That stupid Abraham bastard just couldn’t leave things alone. He tracked her down through college records and made contact. I knew nothing about it, because the bitch didn’t tell me. She told me later that she’d confessed to him how we made a living. She wanted him to go away because she was afraid of losing George. But he wasn’t put off and declared his love…and she fell for it. Of course they kept their relationship hidden, but the cards told me about it and I started watching her whenever she left the house. Eventually I saw them together. She would take George with her when she went to meet him.”
At this point her face was like stone, her eyes burning with hatred.
“I watched them for weeks,” she continued viciously. “Because I wanted them to feel nice and safe before I taught them not to cross me. They were like stupid children—wandering in parks or taking George to the beach. Playing happy families with my son. He’d carry George around on his back. He’d even change his nappy. Pathetic! Of course I knew she was sleeping with him.”
“Did you confront her?” asked Alex, glancing at Nathalie and George, both of whom appeared mesmerized.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The cards told me that I ha
d to do something much more permanent.” At this point Charlotte began gently rubbing her forehead, deep in thought and seemingly oblivious to her horrified audience.
For a while she didn’t speak.
Alex indicated with a shake of the head for Nathalie and George not to say anything. She wanted to believe that Charlotte telling the story was her way of getting it off her conscience, but she knew otherwise. This was Charlotte bragging about her actions. Promoting how clever and powerful she was. It occurred to Alex that Charlotte was the consummate sociopath.
“She left me,” she suddenly stated. “Before I could decide what to do, they disappeared. I was doing readings all day at some society luncheon. When I got home she was gone, and so was George. I went around to Abraham’s apartment, but it was empty.”
Now she looked at Nathalie. “She stole my son from me. That’s why I kept you after she died. I wanted her to know there was a price for stealing from me.”
“But that must have been years later, and my mother was dead. How was that going to punish her?” Nathalie asked in disgust.
“The dead see everything,” Charlotte answered matter-of-factly. “Every time I punished you I made you more and more mine. I knew she’d be crying and I wanted her to cry. She was supposed to be with me. We could have been rich and powerful together, but the cards said she’d betray me and she did.”
“When did you see Olivia again?” Alex asked, trying to divert Charlotte back to the story.
“It took me eighteen months to track her down. By then I had important contacts in the police—men who enjoyed my favors. They were living in another city. She told me later that he came from a wealthy family and that they were angry that he’d gotten involved with someone with a young baby, a woman who wasn’t Jewish and who had seemingly appeared from nowhere. They assumed she was after his money. Of course they would have been even more against it if they’d known her background. Apparently they cut him off financially until he came to his senses. So they never knew they were to have a grandchild. Of course Olivia could have made good money, but he wouldn’t let her.” Charlotte shook her head to indicate her lack of understanding about that decision. Then she continued, “He got some menial casual job and continued studying. Olivia studied with him, looked after George and got pregnant. I gather you were an accident,” she said, staring at Nathalie. “But of course there was no way they would consider an abortion. So here you are.”
