Chapter Twenty-Four The Performer
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Performer
Why was it that getting dressed for a promenade in the park was the equivalent of dressing for war?
I tight-laced for the occasion, a walk with my sister.
It was of the utmost importance that I didn’t wear anything plain or embarrassing, as she would nag me.
Before her mourning period, her marriage, everything, our trio of sisterhood would put on our best, better than our Sunday skirts.
One thing we all had in common was our fascination with fashion.
I suppose our mother rubbed off on us in a single positive manner, and it was style.
Some days I forget she was a master seamstress; she barely used those skills for anything other than weaving stories, rumors, whatever would feed her greed for infamy.
“Is this new?” Félice gestured to my dress.
I looked down, pinching the material as I walked. It was the color of buttermilk with a pattern of white roses with green leaves dotting the fabric. Lace lined the trim and the collar around my neck, the fabric over my upper chest lighter and more sheer.
“Not new, but never worn,” I answered.
“Well, you look simply radiant.” Félice smiled. “How is the household? Have you gotten sick of one another yet?”
“Tolerable.” I had to bite my cheek, punishment for a lie.
“Tell me, Petre,” she began, looping her arm in mine as if keeping me under her parasol would shield us from whoever could be listening. “Be honest. How does he treat you?”
“Like a colleague.”
Her face twitched, a confused brow rising nearly to her hairline.
“He is indifferent, but he is fair,” I lied. “There isn’t much to it.”
“If that is true, why do you keep him?”
My neck snapped from how quickly I looked at her. “Is this a conversation you want to have in public?”
“You act like I asked how you plan to do it.” She laughed. “I know you went against our parents’ matches, I just wasn’t sure if that changed his indispensability.”
“If I already went against the plan once, what makes you think I would suddenly fall in line with the usual?”
“Come now, Petre, don’t throw one of your fits,” she scoffed. “It is the natural progression. We all do it for the family, for our own well-being. Keeping him is costing you an opportunity. You are still young.”
“Just because that is how you decided to get ahead doesn’t mean it will be my choice.”
“Who said I wanted to get ahead?” She squeezed my arm. “It is the only thing a woman can do to be comfortable in this life, is it not?”
“Our ideas of comfort are very different, Félice,” I warned her.
Her eyes were sharp. The blue of them always scared me, like staring down a wolf with its hackles up. That same sharpness never left, even as her eyes snapped somewhere else, accompanied by a smile. “Lorelei, what a surprise.”
My head whipped over my shoulder.
There was my dear friend, bright like a summer flower with a crow propped on her shoulder, waiting to pick her clean of spring seeds.
“Who is this gentleman?” Félice teased, surely saving this detail for later gossip.
It was the man Lorelei was with at the theater.
“This is William, he is the new ballet master.” Lorelei’s chest puffed, her arm looped in his proudly, even without a ring.
William could be considered handsome, just not quite enough to attract Lorelei without added benefits unseen to the naked eye. Slick hair, shaved face, and, unfortunately, fashionable.
“Does William have a surname? Or are you afraid little sprites will steal him if you tell us?” I raised a brow.
Lorelei’s eyes flicked my way before returning to Félice, ignoring me. “I will be working closely with him on the new production of La Sylphide.”
“I didn’t know auditions had already ended.” My jaw tensed.
“I suppose talent doesn’t have to audition if you know they’re perfect. Sometimes it’s just meant to be,” William replied, undoubtedly pleased with himself. “The minute I saw her perform, I knew she would be perfect for La Sylph.”
“Oh, is that what talent gets you?” I smiled, though I suspect it was more of a grimace.
Lorelei glared, begging me to be quiet.
I thought I had appealed to her better senses last time I warned her, but I suppose it fell on deaf ears.
Lorelei had never even owned a dress nice enough for a promenade, and suddenly she was wearing something worth more than any salary she’d ever made. When I looked closer, my heart dropped. A diamond and garnet brooch in the shape of a sparrow was pinned upon her coat. It was one of a kind . . .
Or at least, that was what my mother used to say when she wore it. I wouldn’t forget a piece like that.
This poor girl, being groomed into a position that would wear her down to the bone by the time there was a “two” in front of her age.
I couldn’t say that I wasn’t once in her shoes, but I thought I could break the cycle for her.
Even now, my cycle wasn’t over yet. Vincent continued to haunt me, lingering like a spirit clinging to the spine, shivers warning against the upper hand he still had. Much like a specter myself, I had unfinished business with him.
Like receiving some omniscience from beyond, my body wouldn’t quit its sheepish tremor. My hands were unable to still except when they were holding my skirts.
The coroner’s office was a bleak thing. The offices were entrapped in a cold brick building, a leaky, miserable place to spend most of your time. I would say it was at least sterile, but I had my doubts about that too.
A cold corridor led to the stairs, which spiraled down to the basement. It was ill lit; every complexion would be washed in the ailing light. I was familiar with the office space enough to know where to go but not enough to remember precisely where Vincent’s office was.
The hallway smelled of the sickly sweet putrescine cadavers. I couldn’t cook any dried offal because of the same off-putting musk. It stuck in your nose for days, and it would take serious scrubbing to make it leave the senses.
One by one, the doors passed. A storage closet, autopsy room, laboratory, then the offices. I peeked into the next room, the embalming room. It was brighter than the hallway, and the smell all the more apparent. The only difference was a tinge of sulfur and bleach.
The next door was an orange wood, the frosted glass dark, and I could almost feel the same dread as when he was alive.
The door creaked as it opened, the cheap wood on new hinges alerting whatever ghosts remained within. It was as musty as any office, maybe just as much dust despite the abandoned nature. Everything was exactly where he’d left it.
The only light came from the hallway, spilling across the dull gray stains on the carpet, the utilitarian furniture, all the way to the worn walls, likely from the sweating brick foundation.
It was painfully ordinary. His desk to the corner, no windows, papers scattered on every surface. The piles of folders never seemed to make their way back to the cabinets, always in vertical stacks. A skyline of evidence, justice to be neglected.
I approached the back of the desk and sat in the dry leather chair.
If I were a forbidden memory, where would I hide?
I picked at the peeling leather arm, scanning over the photographs.
To anyone, this was a normal working man’s desk.
This could be how he left it; men were allowed to be messy.
They were allowed to abandon responsibilities, especially if they were elected.
The only hint that he may have intended to come back was the half-full coffee mug, a film of fuzzy mold flourishing on the sour drink.
I brushed through the papers, my posture slouched and focused. Employee checks, crematorium records, police reports.
Within one stack of folders, cases from upstate that had made their way down here. Mysterious ailments of farmers, all escalated and never reviewed, yet their bodies had already been marked as cremated. The log stopped where expected, as there was no one to continue it after him.
I pulled open the first few drawers. Only paper clips, notepads, a crumpled bill or an invoice here and there. Then the last drawer, all the way at the bottom.
Stuck.
Another yank, only to brush my thumb over a keyhole below the knob.
My heart dropped directly to the pit of my stomach, a tingling at the back of my neck prompting a dry swallow.
It’s in there. I know it.
Arkady may have been correct about my ignorance of Vincent’s whereabouts affording me some protections. But now, I absolutely needed to know.
Asking for Vincent’s keys and belongings would only make Arkady ask more questions. I doubt he would extend the same trust to me. No questions, no qualms.
I would find it myself. I had my suspicions about his studio, as I would hope he didn’t hide Vincent’s things in our own home.
No, he was smarter than that.