Chapter Twenty-Eight
~ Day Six ~
“There’s a call for you,” Daisy whispered. She jerked her head toward the telephone booth on the first floor as she picked up a breakfast tray.
“Who is it?” Cora asked. But Daisy had already moved on, her head bent to mask how red and puffy her eyes were.
Cora furtively made her way to the telephone booth. They’d all been searched that morning prior to being allowed into the house, and Cora had a feeling that their every move was being watched more closely than ever. It made her nerves feel tight and coiled.
“Hello?” Cora said, picking up the telephone.
“Cora-thorn,” her father said on an exhale.
Cora battled a bolt of surprise. “Da?” she asked. They weren’t supposed to talk until tomorrow.
“Are you all right?” He lowered his voice. “I heard about what happened last night from my friend Johnny at the San Luis Obispo department.”
Cora’s surprise crept higher. Apparently Truman’s lid didn’t contain leaks quite as well as he thought.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, touched that he had called; at the worry she could hear in his voice. “I wasn’t anywhere near when it happened.” She twisted the cord around her finger, cutting off blood flow. Despite the distance that had grown up between them like weeds, part of him still did care.
If only he knew who had saved Truman’s life last night.
She tightened the cord, suddenly feeling nauseous about all the secrets she was keeping. Would she ever stop lying to him? They could never have a real relationship if she didn’t.
But would they have one at all if she did?
“Did this new development wreak havoc on your plans?” he asked, and she heard the unmasked interest in his voice. “Do you need to talk through anything?”
She hadn’t realized just how much he had been living through her and this mission until that moment. How he must hate his job. How her victory, in some ways, would be his too.
“It’s making things a bit more difficult,” she admitted.
“Right,” he said, and his disappointment cut through her like a paring knife. “Well, listen. I was talking to a friend here in Bitterlake who is looking for a secretary.”
“A secretary?” Her face fell.
“I know, it’s not what you were thinking. But perhaps if—well, if things don’t go according to plan there—”
The feeling of failure was opening up in Cora’s chest like a hole.
“—it might be for the best. Perhaps … well, what if you came and lived with me for a bit?”
She let go of the telephone cord. Watched the blood flow slowly back into her finger.
It was both everything she had wanted for so long, and everything she hadn’t.
“I’ll think about it,” she said softly.
And in that moment, she almost asked him.
Did you know I was listening that day? Did you change the plan and send Rusty to the south side because you knew I couldn’t be trusted?
All along, have you blamed me?
“I better go,” she said.
“Call me tomorrow at eight, before the chief gets in.”
“I will,” she promised.
“And, Cora-thorn—” he hesitated. “Be careful.”
Truman looked up as the door slid open. Clementine walked in, wearing a long satin dress the color of persimmons. It trailed across her like smoke and shadows. The jewel he had bought her hung low and heavy between her breasts.
She came toward him. Leaned down and brushed her lips against his temple, so that he could smell violets on her skin.
“You gave me a good scare last night,” she said. She traced the skin along his hairline, so delicate that it sent a shiver down his back.
He took her by the arm. Whispered in her ear, low and dangerous: “Are you sure? As memory serves, you seemed to be having a good time.”
He gestured to the chair next to him and said, curtly, “Sit.”
She slid into it. But first she poured herself a glass of orange juice that was mostly champagne.
“How do you feel this morning?” she asked.
“Alive,” he said. “And more determined than ever to not waste my own time.”
She narrowed her eyes as he leaned back and steepled his fingers.
“Are we going to talk about what’s going on between you and Beaumont?” he asked.
Clementine shook her head a little and laughed. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said.
“Do you think I’m a fool, Clem? Perhaps I am. Letting you toy with me in my own home.”
Clem bit her lip. She looked out the window, far away, at the Pacific. “It’s not fun, is it?” she asked.
“What do you mean, darling?” he asked with exaggerated patience.
“It means that I’m tired, Truman. Tired of feeling like a doll dangling on a string. Just waiting for you to grow weary of me. I have no permanence here, no status—”
Truman sat forward, waving her off. “I’ve given you everything you could ever want, Clem. Raised you up from nothing.”
She laughed, the sound of it like a drink laced with bitters. “As if you didn’t come from nothing, too. I think sometimes you’ve forgotten that.”
“I never forget,” Truman said coldly. And he didn’t. It was always there, lurking like stale cigarette smoke. Especially whenever he talked to Mabel.
“You know I care for you,” Clementine said. “Yet you doubt me.”
“You care for me,” he retorted, “yet you would humiliate me in my own house in front of my guests.”
“You humiliate me all the time,” she said, rising. “A side piece. A harlot.” She began to pace around the room. “Why won’t you divorce her, Truman? Do I mean so little to you? All you care about is money and status. When will it ever be enough? Why can’t you be content with it all?”
“I could say the same for you,” he said. He examined his fingertips. “Isn’t that exactly what this little tantrum of yours is about?”
“Maybe I’m growing tired of waiting,” Clem said. She paused. “Perhaps you should go after your true love—status, and politics, and getting back at your father. And I’ll find someone who—”
“Don’t,” he said. A one-note warning.
She emptied her glass and set it down on the table. “Well, why don’t you think about what you really want,” she said, coming around to face him. She traced a line across his lips, bending down to flash the skin of her leg. She whispered in his ear, “And so will I.”
Then she left, her skirts whipping behind her, not letting him see that she was shaking.
“Are you all right?”
Daisy looked up from gathering the breakfast dishes as Jack approached. Her eyes were still raw, and he did a double-take when he saw her face.
She nodded briskly and looked at his bandaged arm. “You?”
“Just a graze,” he said. The moment he’d heard the phrase cross the doctor’s lips, he’d instantly thought of Leo.
“Daisy,” Jack lowered his voice. “Do you know where Ella is?”
Daisy looked down at the stack of heavy silverware and sighed. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”
“Please,” he said. “It’s important.”
She picked up the tray and shot him a look of exasperation. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”
He waited outside the kitchens for her to deposit her tray, and then they wound through the back labyrinth of the house.
Daisy led him through the corridors until they came to a stop in front of a slightly open door.
Jack could see Cora, dressed in her regular maid uniform, reaching as she scrubbed the inside of the windowpanes.
“Morning, Ella,” Jack said, pushing open the door. “Can we talk?”
Cora stopped scrubbing, but kept her back to him.
“I can watch the door,” Daisy said. She looked at Jack. “You get five minutes.”
He closed it behind her.
“Are you all right?” Cora asked in a low voice. She didn’t turn to look at him.
“Fine, yeah,” he said.
“So you ended up saving Truman’s life,” she said.
He gave her a short laugh. “Don’t think I wasn’t conflicted about it.”
“Good thing you were there, then. Instead of following my plan.”
His smile tightened. “Don’t think I wasn’t conflicted about it,” he repeated.
Her voice turned to ice. “Glad you’re at least a little conflicted every time you betray me.”
“Cora,” he began. “I came to say that I’m sorry—”
“Trusting you always turns into my greatest regret,” she said firmly, cutting him off. She squeezed the rag until her knuckles whitened. “Because you’re the same person you’ve always been, and shame on me to believe you could ever change.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Cora,” He clenched his jaw. “I came here for one thing. I saw a chance for that thing last night, and I took it.”
“Actually, it was my chance you took.” She looked at him, her eyes blazing. “For as long as we have known each other, I have helped you. At every turn. At great risk and at incredible cost to myself.” She threw her rag in the bucket. “So you’re on your own, just like I’ve always been.”
She pointed at the door. “Now get the hell out.”
Jack left his meeting with Cora feeling wretched.
This week was giving him so much more than he’d bargained for. He had forgotten what it was like to owe anyone anything. To have someone depend on him. To care about someone other than himself.
Jack tried to shake free of it. He didn’t know why he cared so much what she thought of him; what she must have felt when he diverged from the plan, or if it had mattered to her when she realized he was hurt.
He couldn’t lose sight of the goal. He had chosen himself over Cora last night.
Then, in the moment, before he could think things through, he had instinctively saved Truman Byrd’s life.
Who was he at his core? Maybe that mattered less than who he wanted to become.