Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
With a sharp hiss, I locked my phone and climbed out of my car.
I could read the comments later. The clock on my dashboard already threatened the library’s closing in a mere thirty-two minutes, so I needed to hurry if I wanted to find Irene—if she still worked here, anyway.
My esophagus felt like it was peeling, my hands shaking a bit, as I hurried into the library.
Its door jingled in welcome, and the first thing I saw was army-green carpet, heathered with red and navy spots.
I scanned the shelves to my right—mystery and romance and nonfiction—until I landed on a beige L-shaped counter at its center, separating the YA and middle grade from the rest of the sections.
Standing behind the counter was a woman around my age, with high cheekbones, waist-length braids, and coal-black eyes, perked up from a monitor.
Her mushroom-colored slacks matched her blouse; gold accents tinkled on her wrist and ears.
I gave a tiny gasp. I knew that face.
That face was the same face I’d stalked online: Ivan’s ex. The girl I’d thought about messaging. And she was right there.
“Hello,” she greeted, her expression faltering when I didn’t move. Casual, holding my breath, I approached the counter. “Can I help you find anything?”
A wet fish floundered in my throat. Think, Landry. Speak.
“Yes, actually,” I choked. I eased up to the desk but stopped a healthy distance away. Like a barrier. “I’m looking for anything you have on the name Belfaunte?”
Irene’s nametag shimmered in the fluorescents. A line formed in the middle of her chin. “I recognize that name.”
Because Aunt Cadence brought it up to you, maybe. Because you know something? A few moments passed, and all I could think of was how close she stood. She’d dated Ivan. She’d talked to Aunt Cadence, if the thread was hers. It had to be.
If it wasn’t—and if it was? It matched. All of it made sense.
But none of it made sense.
“Belfaunte, you say?” Eyes danced to me.
“Yes, ma’am.” I held up the copy of the deed, in case she needed the spelling.
I suddenly felt underdressed in my worn shorts and T-shirt.
Plaster speckles dotted my forearms. If she eyed them one more time, I’d launch into a detailed explanation as to why I had paint all over myself, how I didn’t usually look like this (though I usually did), and how I wasn’t inept at showering.
“Articles, obituaries …?” The monitor reflected in her glasses as she searched. “Belfaunte is an old name.” The mouse clicked; her tongue poked at the bottom of her lip.
“Hadrian,” I said. Then, thinking of the second name I’d seen on the deed, “Or Howie?”
I looked around as Irene continued clicking, typing, then clicking some more.
The library teemed with childish chatter.
An instructor urged the children to settle around a circular table.
Not far off, a college student had their head hung over a mass exodus of textbooks and paperwork from their emptied backpack.
Summer classes in full swing, it seemed.
Irene made a hmm in the back of her throat.
“Hadrian owned Harthwait when it was well over a thousand acres—” She stopped. Her expression remained even. “I know exactly which house you’re talking about.”
I bit my cheek, slightly expectant, as the printer started to spit out papers.
“The woman who owns it comes in all the time searching for information on the place.”
I swallowed a ball of sand. Of course she used present tense—how would she have known unless she’d seen the paper?
“Cadence Caldwell was my aunt. She passed away a little over a month ago.”
Irene’s eyes widened. “Oh, I’m—I didn’t know.
I’m so sorry.” Her cheeks tightened as she bent for the papers.
She shuffled us farther down the counter, next to a display that screamed in rainbow colors: Summer Reading Sign Ups Are Here!
A stuffed elephant leaned against the exclamation point.
Beside it, a stack of business cards. Irene flipped through the papers, and I leaned in to the card stack.
One of them had Ivan’s face on it. Wasleck Real Estate Group.
My tongue grew leaden. If she had his cards on display, that meant they were at least cordial to each other.
“This is some of what I got,” she said. She tapped a page. I gravitated to the paper.
Sure enough, there he was.
“This is Howie.” Upside down, Irene pointed to a man with long, white-blond hair. It looked to be a commissioned portrait of sorts. Without a doubt, he matched the man I had seen in the attic whipping the boy. Whipping Hadrian.
His nose was strong, his chin and jaw cut, and from the side, his throat rose and dove in all the right places. A serene, serious expression donned his features. The date at the bottom looped to read December 12, 1876.
Her finger drifted to another. My eyes skimmed. This one was of Harthwait, centered at a distance, sometime in 1894.
“The land was sold off gradually after Hadrian died, it looks like,” Irene murmured, picking up one of the other pages, bringing it forward.
A map, hand drawn in careful detail. “This shows the plots after 1891. See how they’re broken up by dotted lines and have parcel numbers?
There’s probably a key somewhere. Let’s see who did the map …
” She squinted. “Commissioned by Silas Haste. Probably a friend of the family if Mr. Belfaunte didn’t have any kin left. ”
“Does it say how he died?” I whispered. A child’s laughter pealed through the air.
I wondered if Hadrian had ever laughed like that.
Irene’s finger traveled again. This page, much like the deed, was a copy of a full-page article with weathered edges and creases and stains. She pointed a peach nail to the center headline.
“Looks like that’s what you’re looking for,” she said, just as gentle.
The Virginian
July 23rd 1890 (v.71)
Belfaunte Death Felt from Stetson, SC
Hadrian Belfaunte died at his home from natural causes on June 2nd of 1890.
Belfaunte came to own the Harthwait Estate via his late father, Howie Belfaunte, in 1878.
Belfaunte was a business man of oil for his time traveling west; either via business partners or acquaintances or both.
He accumulated a net worth of 1 million outside of his father’s inheritance.
Wakes called Belfaunte, “a riotous man that none would think to double back—a show for the bored.” Silas Haste was the only attendee to the ceremony.
It was held at Covert Lutheran. There was no burial.
Belfaunte married Cora Pho in 1878. They never had children. Cora preceded Belfaunte in death a year after marriage from natural causes.
The estate affairs are to be dealt with by Haste and their enterprises.
The article was so … dry.
My attention circled the man’s name—Silas Haste—from Virginia.
He’d dealt with Hadrian’s affairs post-death.
Not a relative, not a cousin, not a wife or child or aunt or uncle.
A childhood friend who didn’t even live in the same state.
Perhaps it was the dealing of wealth? Enterprises could mean a corporation—maybe Hadrian left it to him because he knew he would take care of matters instead of fight over the money.
And a “show for the bored”? It was as if the man thought Hadrian to be spitfire entertainment and nothing more. Like a puppet to watch crash and burn.
I leaned back, a sour taste in my mouth. What would be written about me when I passed? Would my parents still be alive, or would it be Emma? Would they talk about my work and my worth with such crassness, or lack thereof? Or would it be brittle and bareboned?
I blinked against a sudden blur overtaking my vision. I handed the paper back. “Do you have any photographs of him?”
Irene licked her teeth. “I think I do. Oh, look! I forgot this one was colorized.”
After a moment of shuffling, she handed over another sheet. This copy took up a fraction of the page—the photograph itself was no larger than a Polaroid square.
And yet.
And yet.
There he was. The date scrawled into the page read 8-8-89. A year or so before he died.
The picture was straight on, squared, and candid.
Hadrian’s features sat too strongly for black-and-white portraits. His lines too taut, his mouth too resilient, his shoulders too rigid. And still, there was a languid aura to the picture. As if the photographer might not have the good enough graces to even be in Hadrian’s presence.
As if anyone else were less than he. But not out of arrogance.
Hadrian’s hair was white, his skin tinged with color, cheeks hollowed with maturity. Not a hint of baby fat remained. And his eyes—all gray. Not an ounce of yellow.
A shiver skittered along my spine.
He looked like the man I had seen and somehow not. Like identical twins: the coloring, the lines, the features on paper matched, but once they were put into motion there was something missing that I couldn’t put my finger on.
In real life, he was different, but I couldn’t place why.
“Can I keep this?” I breathed. I sounded like a frog. “I think I might”—the lie came easily, and I should have been ashamed—“I think I’ve seen pictures of him at the house.”
“Of course,” Irene said. She gathered the copies into a haphazard stack and held them out. “Take them all. All yours.”
“Thanks.” I gave a tight smile. “I appreciate it.”
Her eyes softened. “Of course.”
I straightened. The business card started to burn in my peripheral, as if whispering, IvanIvanIvan. She was right here, available, I could ask her right now—even if it was just about the Reddit thread—
The silence hit me, then, and I realized the children had been ushered out of the building. The college student was gone. One older gentleman held a book in his arms behind me, ready to check out.
My time was up.
“Come back if you need to look for anything else?” she asked. The corner of her mouth turned up. “And … I’m sorry to hear about your aunt. She was very sweet.”