Chapter Seventeen
“How did you know about this place?” James asked after we finished our meal. We were seated at a small table at the back of the restaurant. James’s plate was remarkably clean, but I’d hardly touched mine.
“I don’t know. It was the only place I could think of.” I sipped my coffee and glanced at James. He relaxed and leaned back in his seat, but in the set of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders, there was strain. “My father and I used to come here. We brought my mother. He thought being near the water would…” I shrugged. “I don’t know, wake her up? Make her see something other than whatever haunted her mind.”
“Did it work?”
My lips curved in a sad smile. “In the beginning. I remember being on the beach. I was young. Ten or eleven. She would stare out at the ocean and smile. When she looked down at me, though, it would fade, and confusion took its place, like she didn’t quite understand how I fit into her world. But there were moments she was happy, and that made me happy.” I looked down at my cup. “But, there at the end, nothing helped, and we stopped coming. Though, looking back at it now, I wonder if that coincided with my father realizing her delusions were a result of her drift and not schizophrenia.”
He thrummed his fingers against the back of the booth. “Do you have any idea what your mother’s drift was about?”
“No. She never talked about what she saw in a way I could understand. My father told me she’d cry about her baby. He thought that maybe she lost a child in her drift, but to me, she’d babble about time and how it repeats. How life is circular.” My eyes widened. “Doesn’t sound so silly now. I guess I should’ve listened to her. She was just so hard to be around, and she made me so angry.”
“Why?” James’s question wasn’t accusatory, just curious.
“Because she was a toddler, and I wanted a mom. I know how it sounds. Bratty, right?” I ran my finger over the lip of my mug. “I should’ve tried to be more understanding about her condition, but it wasn’t that easy.”
James bit at his lip, his countenance quiet. “You don’t have to feel guilty for being angry. You did the best you could with what you knew.”
“Are you angry?” I asked. “With your father?”
“No,” he answered, turning his steady gaze toward mine. “Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I saw what my anger could do. I could’ve killed him, and then what? Would that’ve brought my mother back? Would it take all of this away?” He lifted his hands and turned them over once before continuing. “He’d taken away so much already, I didn’t want him taking what was left.”
“You make it sound so easy. I don’t know how you let it go.”
The corner of his mouth tightened, and his eyes narrowed. “It’s a choice, but it hasn’t been an easy one—it’s one I have to make every day. I hate what that anger did. I hate that I let it build to a place that turned to violence, but I can’t change it. And, when I think about it, good things have happened since the fire. Things my mother would’ve wanted for me. Things that wouldn’t have happened if the fire had never occurred.”
“You think so?”
James sat quiet for a moment. “I know so.”
I took a breath and could imagine my mother sitting at the table, staring out the window next to me.
“At home, I’d sit and talk to her for hours, you know? Hoping she’d hear me. I told her everything. Everything a daughter normally would tell her mother and probably more, since she never got mad or made me feel silly.” I smiled, but it was short lived. Unexpected emotion clogged my throat. “I always thought she’d eventually wake up. That she’d hear something, and that would be it—she’d come back. But no matter what I did, it was never enough.” I looked up at James. “I was never enough.”
James stood and moved to sit next to me. He put his hands on my knees and leaned forward, his voice low and urgent. “Your mother’s illness was not your fault, and curing her wasn’t your responsibility.”
I shook my head. “I should’ve done more. I should’ve been more for her.”
James licked his lips and dropped his head. “My father was an alcoholic. Most of my memories of him include me begging him to quit drinking, and when that didn’t work, I emptied bottles and hid the car keys. I became the best athlete, the best student. I thought that if I could be more, he would want to stop. For me.”
When he looked up, the pain behind his eyes was violent.
“The thing is,” he continued. “I didn’t make him sick, so I can’t bear the responsibility for his cure. And while your mother’s condition was drastically different, you—a child at the time—couldn’t have been expected to make her any better.”
I hated the way my chin trembled with emotion. “How long did it take for the blame to go away?”
His eyes softened. “Who said it has? I mean, if I’d convinced him to get help, my mother would still be alive.” I put my hands over his and squeezed. “We have to deal with the lot we’re given and move forward the best way we know how.”
“I wish I could tell her how sorry I am.”
“Me, too.”
We sat in silence, and the waiter cleared our plates. James straightened and swept his gaze over the restaurant.
“I think we need to talk about where we go from here,” James said
Parts of me jumped and twitched with nervous energy. “James—”
“We talked about this, Abby. We agreed that if things didn’t work out, we’d run. Evelyn won’t talk to us—we’re at a dead end.”
“We can’t leave, not yet. We’ve got another day to convince her to talk to us. If we’re able to find the house, and if the diamond’s there, we could end this.”
I felt his disagreement as if it he’d voiced it aloud, but James said nothing. When we left the restaurant, the sun was lower in the sky, and the temperature had dropped. I crossed my arms and headed down the front steps. As I turned toward the parking lot, a sign caught my eye. Not so much the sign, which wasn’t important, but the building to which it was attached. The reddish-brown brick was old and in disrepair, and the windows, tall and thin, were boarded with plywood. Heck, the entire building looked like it was one storm away from crumbling to pieces, but even in this state, it was…familiar.
“James,” I said not taking my eyes from the building. I pointed. “Do you recognize that building?”
He stopped at my right. “No.”
“Come with me,” I said crossing the intersection, not bothering to look for cars.
“Abby,” James called from behind. “Wait.”
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not until I was standing under the eave. I ran my fingers along the building’s rough exterior and felt my way to the corner. I rounded the building and stared down the Strand. The historic street was quiet, not unusual for the time of year, but strange nonetheless. Not because of the apparent lack of traffic, but because I was seeing it, feeling it, through different eyes, from a different time.
The afternoon sun dimmed and faded to night, and a scream, throaty and familiar, pierced my ears. It was mine. I grabbed at my throat—the insides were raw, but I hadn’t made a sound. The cadence of my breath, heavy and labored, was in my ears, but my lips were closed, my breath shallow and quiet. My muscles burned with fatigue, yet I stood motionless.
“Abby, what is it?” James asked.
At the end of the block, a streetlamp caught my eye, and time fell away. I was there—here—standing in the pitch of night watching Thomas Bellingham run to the corner. A car skidded to a stop, and Colin exited. Muted gunshots echoed in the recesses of my mind, and I jumped.
James caught me by the arms, and his touch brought me back.
“Is this where it happened?” he asked. His eyes, dark and ominous, were crackling with tension.
I nodded to the corner. “That’s where Thomas was murdered.”
I turned in the opposite direction and walked until the sidewalk came to an end. Three steps led down to a brick-paved driveway separating the buildings. I stepped down and stood at the mouth of an alleyway. Garbage bins lined either side of the narrow passageway, and puddles of water had accumulated in the broken pits of pavement. The ground was littered with crumbled pieces of trash and rock, but when I squinted my eyes, I could see it as it was all those years ago.
I pressed my back into the building’s wall and felt the rough edges of brick press into my skin.
“You kissed me.” I shut my eyes and the memory surfaced, bright and on fire. “Right here.” I could feel the warm press of his lips, the desperation under my skin. I could sense the danger—the urgency. “You made me promise I’d be quiet no matter what. And then—”
I opened my eyes, and James was standing inches from me. His hands crept up my arms and he palmed my face. “It was a long time ago.”
I searched his eyes. “It doesn’t feel that way.”
Every emotion I’d held inside all those years ago surged violently. I felt angry, sad and happy, nervous and scared. I pushed forward and gripped James by the shoulders. My fingers kneaded the muscle and traced the length of his arms as I stared at the space above his collar and below his throat.
James’s hands, ever so soft, slid down my arms, and when I linked my hands around his neck, my sweater rose a quarter of an inch. His thumbs shifted up and tickled the flesh above my jeans. A shock went straight to my inner thighs, and my body clenched.
When his thumb bent, and he grazed his nail across my hip, desire unfurled and my head dropped back to meet his eyes. I don’t know who reached first, but our lips collided, and it was everything but sweet. It was hard and punishing, needy and sacrificial. I’d never felt more alive.
Against the pressure of his lips, I opened my mouth, and the kiss deepened. I pressed my body against his, and James’s arms wrapped around me and tightened in a crushing embrace. My hands moved to tangle in his hair, and with two stumbling steps, my back crashed into the wall.
The world fell away, and I took comfort knowing James needed me as much as I needed him. I could feel it in his kiss, in his touch. We were no longer two people separated by time and circumstance. We were one person, neither one whole without the other.
“Excuse me,” said a woman’s voice just after she politely cleared her throat.
James pulled away, sharp and abrupt, and moved to stand in front of me. I stared at the ground while embarrassment licked my cheeks.
“You two quite finished?”
At the entrance to the alley stood an elderly woman, her short hair so silver it was white. She was small, hardly five feet tall, and wore a smear of bright red lipstick that accentuated her perfect posture and sarcastic drawl. I stepped beside James, and her critical eyes flicked over me.
“Can we help you?” James asked as I fidgeted under her stare.
“My daughter was right, ya know. Nino’ll kill ya just for the sport.” Her voice had a heavy twang, an accent not often heard in the city. She shrugged and took two steps into the alleyway.
After several silent moments, I managed to find my voice. “Evelyn? Evelyn Bastone?”
“Well, who else would be stompin’ ’round after ya?” Her eyes were wide as if offended I didn’t recognize her sooner.
“How did you know where to find us?”
“I didn’t, but I figured you’d end up here sooner or later.”
I shook my head in confusion, and she continued. “The old Bellingham Hotel was just down there on the corner, and young James Bellingham was found dead right here. If you two knew anything about the diamond, you’d come here eventually.”
“Your daughter said you wouldn’t help us.”
Evelyn waved a hand. “She’s scared, and rightly so. She’d have a fit if she knew I was here, and frankly, I’m too old ta be listenin’ to her scoldin’ me like I’m a child. I’m ninety-five, not seven.”
“She doesn’t know you’re here?” James asked.
“She’d lock me up in that house ‘afore she let me wander out here to talk to the likes a’ you.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t she want you to help us?”
“Same reason I shouldn’t be helpin’ ya. My cousin is just like his daddy, who, sadly, was just like that snake of a man that was my grandaddy. Ruthless. Heartless. I have nothin’ nice to say ’bout those men.”
She stopped a foot in front of me and sighed. Her brown eyes were smart and attentive.
“Ya look like her. I can see why he’d think you’d know somethin’.” She looked at James briefly before shifting her knowing eyes back to mine. I crossed my arms—her observations made me nervous—and Evelyn tilted her head in response. “And I’m guessin’ ya do.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know anything.” She squinted, and her papery thin skin crunched around her eyes.
She took a deep breath and hiked her handbag higher around her elbow. “’Bout every few months I get someone comin’ ’round my house looking for the Florentine. Believe me, if I knew where it was, I’d a gone and found it myself. After all, it’s mine, or should be if it were to be found. My cousin is quiet misguided if he thinks that diamond is his.”
I looked sharply at James and then back at Evelyn. “What do you mean it’s yours?” I asked cautiously.
“That diamond belonged to my momma. It was a gift from my grandaddy. If it’s recovered, it belongs to me and then will pass on to my daughter, Valerie. Now, tell me what you know, and don’t lie to me, child. I may be old, but I am not stupid. You’re the spittin’ image of that gal my granddaddy spent his life lookin’ for. So if you’re not related then I must be dead and starin’ her ghost.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I answered. “I was hoping you could help me.”
“Well, honey, don’t you think if I knew where that diamond was I’d already have it?”
“I don’t think you know where it is, but you might know something that may help us locate it.”
“Well, spit it out,” she huffed. “It’s cold out here, and I’d much rather be sittin’ at home in front ‘a my fire.”
James spoke. “Your grandfather came to Houston looking for—” He stopped short and glanced at me. “He went looking for a girl.”
“The one that looks like you.” She nodded. “I remember. My momma spent most ’a that night cryin’.”
“Did you ever find out what happened there in Houston?”
Evelyn nodded. “That night, my mother lost her father.”
My jaw dropped a fraction of an inch. “He died? There?” I didn’t believe it. How had Roselli been killed when in my last drift, his gun had been pointed at me?
“Shot, from what I remember. Twice, actually. Once in the head and once in the heart. Nothin’ more than he deserved. Mama knew it. Told me later those were the happiest tears she ever cried.”
James’s hand found mine, and our fingers entwined as my mind whirred at an impossible speed. “Do you remember anything else about that night you could tell us?” James asked. “Anything your mother might’ve told you.”
“Well, I don’t know what ya think I could remember. I was only a little girl at the time, but Mama told me other things. When I was older, a’ course. Things about the man that stole her necklace, things about his brother.” Evelyn glanced at James before turning her focus back to me. “And things about the girl that planned it all.”
I swallowed and shifted under her scrutiny. For a woman I’d never met, I had a feeling she knew quite a lot about me.
“Can you tell us anything about the night your grandfather was killed?” James asked, breaking the tension.
“All but one died from what I understand, and the one that lived, he up and disappeared. The necklace wasn’t recovered. Believe me, my momma asked. Was all she talked about, there at the end.”
“What about the house? I know it may seem silly, but I think if we find it, maybe we will have some luck,” I said. “I’m not ready to die. And your cousin…well, your daughter said it herself. I’m already as good as dead.”
Evelyn lifted her chin. “I don’t know much. Only little things. My momma took me there, though, right after Granddaddy died. I was just a tiny thing, but I remember it had white wood sidin’ and a deep porch that ran the length ‘a the house,” she said. “I don’t remember much else.”
“What about the neighborhood or the street?” James asked.
Her forehead crinkled over her eyes. “Now that I think about it, I remember somethin’. Heaven? Heavenly…no…Heavensent? Haven, maybe?”
My throat hitched and swelled and blood rushed in my ears. “Havensent Street?” I asked and Evelyn’s eyes sparked with recognition.
“Yes, yes, I believe that’s correct. Do you know the street, then, darlin’?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but was unable to draw breath. My drift was pulling at my consciousness, and an image of Roselli, with his gun gripped tightly in his hand, came forward. The blood drained from my cheeks, and an ice-cold sweat broke out on my neck. It was taking me, and for the first time, I was scared I wouldn’t be coming back.
Nino stood in front of me, his arm held aloft with the barrel of his gun pointed at my head. Fear should’ve had me in a panic, but instead, I was numb. The last three years with Colin had been a lie. That fatal night, he’d pretended to rescue me, and over the years I’d grown to love him. I wanted to gag on my ignorance when everything fell into place. I’d abandoned James in that alley and started a new life with the man that had murdered him.
I didn’t deserve to live.
“Don’t do this, Nino. She doesn’t know where it is.” Colin stood with a hand stretched in my direction.
Roselli pulled the stump of his cigar from his mouth and stubbed it out on the end table to his left. “Tell me, because I’m quite curious,” Nino began in a bored voice. He stared at Colin, distaste clawing at his lips. “That night in the alleyway, did you know she was there? Did you see her? Hide her?”
I shook my head instinctively, answering for Colin. He wouldn’t have seen me. I was too far down. There was hardly any light.
“Yes,” Colin said. My gaze caught his, and I gasped with disbelief.
“You saw me?” My voice cracked. Colin looked down and then back at me with an emotion in his eyes I didn’t understand. There was sadness, but there was something beyond that. Something wistful, something pure.
“So, that night, you lied to me,” Nino said.
Colin didn’t take his gaze from mine when he answered. “Yes.”
“Was I not paying you enough? I recall you were always compensated quite well. Unless…unless it was because of the necklace. The diamond.” He tilted his head as he considered Colin. “You wanted it for yourself.”
A thousand thoughts screamed and surfaced all at once, and the parts of me I thought couldn’t fracture any further, broke apart and ripped my insides raw. Colin had proposed the night he saw me with the necklace. Could Nino be right?
Roselli’s face reddened. “I treated you like family. I treated you like a son.” His voice held distaste, accented by the spit that flew from his lips with every word.
“I didn’t care about the necklace then, and I don’t care about it now.”
Roselli raised a single brow, and his lips parted. I could see his mind putting something together like pieces of a puzzle. A wheezy laugh escaped his lips, and life sprang to his eyes. He dropped the arm that held the gun and chuckled.
“Could it really be that simple?” he asked. “Could you really be that stupid?” His questions weren’t meant for answers, and Colin didn’t reply. The silence thickened, and the smile on his face widened until he barked a quick laugh. “It is, isn’t it? Oh, is this the girl? The one you followed day and night? Oh, this is rich. She is, isn’t she.”
Roselli straightened, his face splotchy and his eyes watery with mirth. He walked toward me, his steps smooth and languid, and while every part of me screamed in protest, I didn’t move. His gaze roved over my face, my neck, and then lower. I turned away from him, disgusted by the thrill I saw in his eyes.
“I knew you had a thing for her, but to kidnap her? To lie for years just to be with her.” He nodded with every word. “Impressive. I have to say, Colin, quiet impressive. And it would’ve been sweet were it not absolutely pathetic.” Nino smiled at me. “Tell her about it. I’m sure she’s interested.”
I turned to Colin. “What is he talking about?”
“It’s not what you think,” Colin said.
What did I think? I didn’t even know. “You knew I was there? You knew who I was? Tell me what this is about,” I whispered.
“It doesn’t matter, not anymore,” Colin answered.
“Doesn’t matter? Right now is the only time it matters. I want the truth before I die.”
“You’re not going to die,” Colin said, his eyes so sad that for a moment my anger abated.
“Now, Colin, don’t go making promises you can’t keep,” Roselli said. “Why don’t you tell me where the necklace is, huh? That way I can get what I came for, and I might let you two lovebirds get back to your blissful marriage.”
I looked down at my feet and then at the shattered glass. My wedding ring sparkled amidst the wreckage. Marriage. Ours wasn’t a marriage. It never had been.
“Let her go. I’ll get the necklace for you, but you have to let her go first.”
Nino’s nostrils flared as he sucked in several angry breaths. “Give it to me now.”
“No.”
“No?” His brows lifted. The anger that was present only seconds ago seemed to evaporate and the malevolent smile that twisted his lips was back in place. “Tell me, how much does she mean to you? You love her, don’t you? Would it bother you to see me gut her? To see me cut out her heart and feed it to my dogs?” His lips curled over his teeth, his words crisp and clear.
“Let her go,” Colin demanded again. “She can’t help you find the diamond.”
Roselli considered me then turned his gun on Colin. “You’re lying to protect her,” he said before he turned back to me. “If I shot your man here, would you tell me what I want to know?”
“I—I—”
“Tell me,” Roselli yelled. His voice pierced my ears, momentarily deafening me with his volume.
The chime of the grandfather clock echoed in the following silence. I glanced at the face. Ten o’clock.
It chimed again, and Roselli pulled back the hammer of the revolver and a bullet clicked into place. Another chime, and another…
“Nino,” Colin said. “Don’t do this.”
I looked between the two men while the clock continued to tick, and fear clawed at my bones. I saw the flick of Roselli’s hand, the imperceptible tightening in his wrist.
“No,” I screamed and took two automatic steps in front of Colin just as the bullet fired.
I grunted and my hands flew to my belly. The pain wasn’t immediate—and for a moment, I thought he’d missed—but then it hit, and the pain was crippling. Fire exploded in my middle and a small scream escaped my lips as I bowed forward and fell to my knees. I pulled my hands back and whimpered as blood poured from the open wound. The clock struck ten, a strange thing to remember, and my world fell black.