Reckoning by Shana Figueroa (17)

Val walked into Jones’s and stood at the threshold, taking in the scenery of what used to be the Red Raven and was now a posh, overtly sex-free bar. She’d been to Max’s former club only once before; she recognized the shadow of its basic architecture, though everything else had changed. He’d told her the private lounges were off the corridor to the far right of the entrance, and that was where she’d find Eleanor, if the woman was there. It’d be easier if Max had come with her, but after exchanging minimal words that morning, he’d run off to visit Michael in the hospital before work.

She’d apologize to him if she thought it would make a difference. He wasn’t in a conciliatory mood yet, and neither was she. As long as he continued to ignore the fact their family was in danger, with Eleanor the likely cause, they’d stay locked in a stalemate. She wouldn’t let it go until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt her mother, husband, and children were safe.

At least her meeting with Stacey had gone well. Val figured all the drama constantly swirling around her life was the reason her friend had taken off to begin with—that, and all the times she’d broken Stacey’s heart for what she thought was the greater good. Sure, she was married with kids now, but the last week proved nothing had really changed. She was still a chaos magnet. It felt great at the time, but maybe meeting with her old friend had been a mistake. She didn’t want to mess up the new, happy life Stacey had built for herself. And how did she find out Val had prevented her death all those years ago? Kat or someone else in Northwalk must have told her. Goddammit, Val would never escape her sins. She’d been dying to explain herself, and talk more about her mother, and motherhood, and Max, and everything, but didn’t want to unload it all right then. They hadn’t spoken in five years, for Christ’s sake. Probably the last thing Stacey wanted to hear was all about Val’s never-ending problems. But she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want Stacey to call again. Hopefully by then all this mess with Eleanor would be over, and they could truly reconnect.

Val approached the bar first, typically the “all-seeing eye” of any adult establishment. “Evening,” she said to the bartender, a young brunette.

“Evening. What can I get you?”

“Some information.” Val held up her phone, the picture she took of Eleanor during the memorial service on the screen. “What do you know about this woman? I’m investigating an insurance claim, and she might be able to corroborate the claimant’s report. I know her first name is Eleanor.”

The bartender frowned at the photo. “I don’t know anything about her, except she worked here for a few months and quit recently.”

“Really? The claimant says she was here only a few days prior.”

“She put in her two-weeks’ notice about two weeks ago. That’s all I know.”

What a coincidence that since Val had gotten wise to her, she’d suddenly made herself scarce. “Did she have any friends here? Socialize with anyone?”

“Nope. She kept to herself. Honestly, she’s very pretty, but also creepy if you talk to her for more than two minutes. You’d know if you met her.”

“Has she ever mentioned anything about her background, like where she’s from or if she’s got family?”

“Nu-uh.”

“Any idea where she lives, or other places she might work?”

“No, sorry. But Mickey might.” The bartender pointed to the kiosk set up in front of the corridor that led to the private lounges. A big dude in a suit that looked ridiculous on his hulking frame manned the desk as he poked at a tablet computer. Val thanked the bartender, then walked over to Mickey. He gave her a polite smile.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he said. “How may I help you?”

“Hi there. I’m looking for Eleanor.” Val flashed him the photo on her phone. “I heard she worked here up until a few days ago. Can you tell me where I might find her, like her home address or other places she works at?”

“Sorry, ma’am, we don’t give out that information.”

“I’m investigating her in connection to a recent crime. All I want is to talk to her, take her statement. You don’t want to be responsible for obstruction of justice, do you?”

He cocked his head and gave her a smile with a hint of smirk. “I didn’t know you were on the police force, Mrs. Carressa.”

Dammit. The bartender might not immediately recognize her, but it looked like she couldn’t rely on her anonymity anymore to pump people for info, now that she and Max were local celebrities.

“My Seattle PD application’s under review. And it’s Shepherd. Valentine Shepherd. But really, I need to talk to Eleanor. It’s important.”

“I still can’t give out that information.”

He wanted to play hardball, did he? She folded her arms and sized the man up. Given his spiffy duds and haute air despite a brutish frame and a jagged tattoo that peeked out from his collar, he might as well have screamed, “I’m overcompensating for an embarrassingly low-class background! Look at me rising above!” There was no way the bar owners would hire this guy to be the face of their most exclusive area unless he was the owner, or at least part-owner.

“A review from Max Carressa would carry a lot of weight for this place. Could do wonders for business—or turn people off. Suppose my husband gave your bar a one-star review because the staff was rude to him and refused to serve his wife. How do you think that might affect your fine establishment?”

The smirk wiped off his face.

“Or suppose he wrote a review about how amazingly accommodating Jones’s was, how they catered to his every need and desire, never messed up a drink order, made extra sure his beer nuts were nice and warm, elevated his drinking experience to a Zen-like state of nirvana, and accommodated his wife? Which review would you rather have, Mr. Jones?”

Mickey Jones glared at her for a moment, then fiddled with his tablet before saying, “The address we sent Eleanor Fatou’s paychecks to is 1614, 110th Avenue Northeast, Apartment 23B, in Bellevue.”

Eleanor Fatou. At least now she had a name for a Google search.

“Thanks, Mr. Jones.” She sent him a friendly wave on her way out. “Keep an eye out for Max’s five-star review on Yelp.”

As she plugged Eleanor’s address into her car’s GPS, her cell phone rang.

“I need evidence now!” Lacy screamed into Val’s ear.

“And what is so special about now?”

“It’s been almost a week! I’m tired of waiting.”

“A bunch of people just died, Lacy. Sorry that’s thrown off your timeline.”

Lacy’s voice turned to a whimper. “I have to see him every day, knowing what he’s doing behind my back…You have to give me something. Anything.”

Val sighed and glanced at her watch as she pulled out of her parking spot. “Okay, listen. I’ll probably be home in a couple hours. Meet me there and we can talk.”

“Fine.”

When Lacy hung up, Val called Jamal. He still hadn’t gotten on board with her shoot-on-sight policy for strangers trying to get into their house, though he had acquiesced to a strict no-entry-without-prior-notice rule.

“Lacy Zephyr’s coming over in about two hours,” she told him. “She’s a high-maintenance blonde, a Real Housewives type. Fake everything. You’ll know her when you see her. If she beats me home, you can let her in. Tell her to wait in the study.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After she disconnected, Val tossed her phone into her tote with a curse. The last thing she cared about at the moment was Aaron’s extramarital activities. But if she came up empty from her visit to Eleanor’s place, maybe Lacy could give her enough info on Aaron’s routine for her to follow him to Eleanor instead. Or possibly use him as bait.

Val tried not to finger her gun in its side holster as she climbed the stairs to Eleanor’s apartment. It wouldn’t look good on a police report if she immediately shot the woman, despite her gut’s assurance that was exactly what she should do. She stopped in front of a plain brown door, set in a plain brown building in a totally unremarkable apartment complex. Stepping out of view of the peephole, she rapped on the door.

No answer.

She knocked again, then pressed her ear against the door. Silence. No one home. Probably for the best, she thought as she took her too-eager hand off her gun. After a quick glance to ensure no one was around, she took her bump key out of her pocket and slipped it into the doorknob’s lock. Slowly she pushed the key in, feeling each soft click as the pins lifted and then dropped into the cut below, until she knew only one pin remained. Then she slammed the palm of her hand into the key at the same time she turned the knob, and the door popped open.

“Beautiful,” she said to herself as she pulled the bump key from the lock and put it back in her pocket. Doing one more scan of the area to confirm she’d gone unnoticed, she stepped into Eleanor’s apartment and closed the door behind her.

Eleanor pressed the button marked “Carressa/Shepherd” on the console next to the iron gate. The intercom buzzed.

“May I help you?” a man’s voice asked through the tinny speakers a few seconds later.

Not Maxwell. Good.

“This is Lacy Zephyr,” Eleanor said. “I believe Valentine is expecting me.”

“Okay, come on in.”

She heard a click as the gate’s lock disengaged. Eleanor smiled and went inside.

Val walked through Eleanor’s apartment, surprised to find it almost completely bare. No furniture, nothing on the walls. She would’ve guessed Eleanor had just moved in, or was about to move out, except there were no packing boxes. In the tiny kitchen, she opened the refrigerator and the cupboards—no food, no dishes. Did anyone even live here? Maybe she had the wrong place.

She walked to the apartment’s only bedroom and finally found signs of occupancy. A mattress adorned with simple blankets and a pillow laid on the floor. A neat stack of five books, small slips of paper laid on top, sat beside the crude bed. A clear, crumpled wrapper lay on the floor. Val picked it up and sniffed it—somebody was a candy cane fan. She leaned over the bed and spotted a few stray strands of yellow hair. This was the right place after all.

Val picked up the papers on the books—ferry tickets, from Seattle to Bremerton and back, all at various times in the evening, all on Saturday. What was on the other side of the Puget Sound that required a weekly commute?

Pocketing one of the tickets, Val riffled through the books—all different versions of the Bible. Flipping through a couple, she noticed the same sections highlighted in each—no, Eleanor had highlighted the differences in the same sections of each version. The woman was obsessed with how the ancient stories changed depending on who told them. Weird thing to obsess over.

She dropped the books back on the stack. What other bizarre hobby could Eleanor be hiding? Val lifted a corner of the mattress and heard a soft thump. Lowering the bed, she saw a notebook on the floor, which must have slid out from underneath the pillow. She picked the book up and flipped it open. A journal.

“Bingo,” she said.

The door to Valentine’s condo swung open, and a preppy black man in his early twenties greeted Eleanor.

“Evening, Mrs. Zephyr,” he said with a polite smile, “I’m Jamal, Ms. Shepherd’s and Mr. Carressa’s nanny.”

“Please, call me Lacy,” Eleanor said.

“I’m sorry, Lacy, Ms. Shepherd’s not home yet. She was expecting you a little later, but you can come in and wait in the study if you’d like.” He held the door open for her and stepped aside.

“I’d love that, thank you.”

Eleanor entered the condo, walking slowly through the entrance hallway and stopping at the juncture between the kitchen, the living room, and stairs that ascended to a second floor. As Jamal kept walking, presumably in the direction of the study, she took a moment to look at all the things they had. Original art on the walls. Oakwood furniture. Designer curtains. Crystal tchotchkes, like the cat-sized stag on an end table in the corner—with an antler snapped off.

In fact, the longer she looked at their nice things, the more she noticed the flaws. Scratches on the artwork. Chips in the furniture. Stains on the rugs and curtains. An embarrassment of riches they treated with disdain.

They had so much to lose, and they didn’t even know it.

Val read the first entry in Eleanor’s journal:

She read the next entry:

Val shuddered. Jesus Christ, this woman was crazy.

“Ma’am?” Jamal said to Eleanor when he realized she’d stopped following him. “The study’s this way.”

“Ah, yes. Sorry. Just admiring how nice Valentine’s life is.”

“Um, her house is very nice, true.” His eyes narrowed a sliver, as if he sensed something wasn’t quite right. No matter. What he thought of her was irrelevant. She wouldn’t be there long anyway.

She followed him halfway through the living room when what she really came for appeared from around the corner of an adjoining hallway.

The children.

Val skimmed through the rest of Eleanor’s crazy-person journal. Every entry began the same—Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned—followed by a few sentences to a paragraph of some mundane activity or sinister thought she felt ashamed of. None were dated, and none mentioned the bombing or the dead man in the cathedral’s basement or trying to set the place on fire.

“Shit,” Val muttered when she realized while the journal might be disturbing, it wasn’t incriminating. Nowhere in it did Eleanor actually admit to committing any violent or illegal acts. She was too smart for that.

Letting out an annoyed huff, Val flipped to the last page:

Red raven? That was Val. Could Max be the ebony fox, and Lydia and Simon the twin abominations? Father sounded like a reference to God, but who was Mother? Could they be real people telling her to do evil things, or figments of Eleanor’s delusions? If they were real, why were they commanding her to torment Val’s family?

She read the final entry:

She read the passage again. I want what she has, even though I know she only has them because she defied your will. Sounded a lot like the letter she received just before the bombing. She pulled the now well-worn paper from her pocket and compared the handwriting. It might have been written by the same person…she couldn’t tell. The letter looked composed with a steady, deliberate hand, while the journal contained quick scratches of words. The police could analyze it, though she wouldn’t be able to tell them where she got it, or all the cryptic ways she thought it referenced her family. So really, giving it to the cops would be a waste of time. Well, there was one cop who would believe her, and wouldn’t care about a little breaking and entering.

Val snapped the journal shut, then texted Sten and asked him to meet her for coffee in twenty minutes. She did one more walk-through of Eleanor’s house to be sure she didn’t miss anything. Given how empty and mostly unused the place looked, she figured Eleanor didn’t really live there; she used it as a crash pad, a place to sleep and take a shower if she had no other option, and an address to put on legal documents. A woman like Eleanor probably had lots of boyfriends, along with lots of hotel rooms and love nests to call her own—at least one in Bremerton. She might not be back to the apartment for days, even weeks. With Val’s mom needing protection from a future murderer, and her always vulnerable children, and Max needing protection as well, there was no way she could stake out the place for that long.

Shit. What now? Val looked at the journal again. Father was probably God, but if Mother was a real person, then Val had at least two people to look for. There was always Aaron, her only other connection to Eleanor. And whatever help Sten could provide. She stopped in the bedroom one more time and grabbed the book with the smoothest cover—the one most likely to have Eleanor’s fingerprints on it. Damn, it’d have to do.

The boy and the girl stood at the threshold of the living room, two tiny statues staring at her.

“Kids,” Jamal said when he saw the children, “Why don’t you go back to Nana’s room and show her more of your drawings?”

“She’s in the bathroom,” the girl said. She looked at Eleanor. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Jamal’s startled gaze cut between Eleanor and the girl. “It’s okay, Lydia, your mom’s expecting her.”

Eleanor took slow steps toward the girl, a perfect black-haired cherub with wide eyes full of something other than innocence. “What if I said you’re not supposed to be here, either?”

“Of course we’re supposed to be here,” the girl said.

“We’ve always been here,” the boy added from behind her.

“Kids,” Jamal said, his voice getting testy. “Really—”

Eleanor ignored the nanny’s protests and knelt in front of the girl. She watched Lydia’s gray eyes study hers without fear—reading her soul maybe?—while the boy looked over his sister’s shoulder, anxiety pinching his chubby face.

“What do you see when you look at me?” Eleanor asked the girl. “Do you see the things I’ve done?”

“I see some things you could do,” the girl said, utterly calm.

“And we don’t like them,” the boy added with a hint of childish defiance.

It was true. Mother was right—they had the Sight. A stolen gift from Father, perverted and bestowed upon them by the one who defied His will, a gift they had no right to possess. When Mother told her the children needed to die, it’d given her pause; Father had not shown it to her, and she didn’t like killing children otherwise. But they weren’t children really; they were creatures, things not meant to exist.

“What am I going to do to you?” Eleanor asked them.

The girl cocked her head as if she didn’t understand the question. She didn’t know. They couldn’t see everything. But could they hear her thoughts?

I’m going to kill you.

The girl blinked, but otherwise didn’t react. Neither did the boy. The children might have the Sight, but didn’t know their fates, or her mind. Good.

Eleanor stood, smiling down at the children. “I just love kids,” she said to Jamal, never taking her eyes off them. “They’re so strange and wonderful.”

“Mommy will stop you!” the boy said, his voice quivering with uncertainty.

She threw back her head and laughed. Silly creature. “I’m sure she’ll try. She’ll fail—”

“Mrs. Zephyr, please.” Jamal stepped between her and the kids, arms outstretched like he broke up a fight. “Lydia, Simon, go back to Nana’s room now. Mrs. Zephyr, the study is this way.”

“You know, I don’t think I need to meet with Valentine after all. Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll see myself out.”

Forgive me, Mother, for doubting you, she thought. Your will shall be done, and the children will die.