Chapter 33
A jarring blow to my head, along with excruciating pain from my ankle, woke me up.
I opened my eyes to see a blurry Camille dragging me toward the stairs.
The cloying stench of putrefying flesh gagged me as the heavy air crushed my chest. My head hit the first stair tread as she tugged on my legs, beginning to drag me up the stairs one by one.
I felt absurdly grateful for the overdose of pain meds Camille had dumped in my soup.
Her face hovered over mine. “I’m so sorry to wake you.” She smiled warmly. “Go back to sleep. I’ve got a nice bourbon waiting for you.”
That one word sent a familiar craving through me, the shame of it stinging my eyes. She grinned down at me as if I’d given her the right answer.
Camille dragged me up another step before dropping me again.
Thud. She let go with one hand long enough to swipe her forehead.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re good and numb before you accidentally fall down the stairs.
Your family and friends will be disappointed to know that you lost your battle with the bottle, but at least you won’t feel any pain. ”
I ran my tongue over my parched lips and tried to turn my head to hide my humiliation.
Camille spoke with her soft Southern voice so that anyone not paying attention might have thought she was discussing the proper place settings for an afternoon tea.
“It’s your one weakness, you know. I had to do a lot of thinking before I figured out how to take care of you.
Just like with Adele. Except her weakness was her children. ”
Sticky fingers brushed my cheek again as the scent of Youth-Dew permeated the rot, not softening the stench but at least reminding me that I wasn’t alone. Sybil was here, protecting little Patrick and keeping Mark at bay. For now. And Bonnie was here, too. Somewhere.
There were so many bits and pieces of questions spinning in my head, but one circled on repeat. I reached out and grabbed it. “Why?”
She dragged me up another step, then dropped me, my head and legs thumping in sync. “Because your mama never taught you to mind your own business. Even before you found Adele’s stones, I knew you were trouble. You wouldn’t give us Adele’s rings.”
Adele. She’d been warning Beau of danger for years—for as long as he’d been ignoring her.
We’d thought she’d returned to help Beau find his lost sister.
Until we’d discovered that Adele’s death hadn’t been accidental.
If I somehow managed to survive this, I would make sure he knew it was all his fault.
Thump. My head hit another step, offering me momentary alertness.
My ankle was now numb from the pain, something for which I might have been grateful in different circumstances.
I needed more time. I needed Beau to understand my text.
With a sinking feeling, I realized that even if he did, he would have no idea how to find me.
“You’re a lot heavier than you look,” she gasped.
I was too weak to feel insulted.
“I have no idea how I’m going to get you up so I can give you a proper shove. But, as dear Adele used to say, where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Those had been Adele’s words. It was like she was there, speaking directly to me.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. It was trite and overused, but right then I needed desperately to believe it.
A reel of memories flashed behind my closed eyelids.
Memories of Beau and me, of all the times we’d finished each other’s sentences and how we’d known each other’s thoughts before we said them out loud.
There had always been an unseen—and largely unwelcome—connection between us.
I forced my eyes open and stared at the room, at the bed and nightstand, imprinting it in my brain while I thought about Beau.
I might have dismissed such woo-woo practices only yesterday, but right now it was all I had. I only needed more time.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Camille whipped her head around to see where the voice had come from. “Adele?”
It seemed to have come from everywhere—the ceiling, the floor, the walls—blanketing me with love and warmth.
I tilted my head, listening. There were two voices now.
Both female. They seemed to be chanting, the words familiar to me, yet undistinguishable.
The rhythm reminded me of Melanie and Aunt Jayne when they joined psychic forces, their chorus as powerful as it was memorable.
We are stronger together. I felt hands on my head, protecting it from the hardwood floor, while another set held me down, slowing Camille’s progress.
“Mom?” I wasn’t even sure if I’d spoken, but I felt a reassuring touch on my cheek to let me know she’d heard.
Camille managed to wrestle my limp body over the last step before collapsing onto the floor next to me.
A wave of sleepiness washed through me. I forced my head up, let it bump back down on the floor. “Why…Adele?” My words slurred and sloshed against each other.
Camille sat up. “Sweet Adele. I did love her like a sister, you know. We were so close. When Henry lost yet another job, it was Adele who invited us to move to New Orleans and start over. She even got us our jobs at the Past Is Never Past. That’s what kind of a friend she was.
In return, I tried to be the same kind of friend to her. ”
I attempted to snort but could only hiss air from my nose.
“I was an excellent salesperson and bookkeeper. Just ask Mimi or Christopher. When I started giving Henry and myself well-deserved bonuses, they didn’t even miss the money.
And they wouldn’t have had all the excess income without me, so it was really a win-win.
It could have gone on forever without anyone knowing—I also did the taxes for the business, of course, and knew all the tricks—but Adele got it into her head that it would be a good idea for me to have a backup person.
She said she didn’t want me to have to think about work while I was on vacation.
That was Adele. Always thinking about others. ”
She got to her feet and walked out of my field of vision. I heard the once-familiar sound of a bottle top being twisted open. Her footsteps neared and I smelled the beloved scent of bourbon.
She stood over me, a bottle filled with amber liquid in her hand.
“I was able to hold her off until one day when I visited my parents in Alabama and Adele took the opportunity to start going through the books. She found the discrepancies right away—I almost think she was looking for something. She told me that she was going to tell not only Mimi about it but also the police. She was always about doing the right thing. Adele gave me the chance to tell Mimi myself, because that’s the kind of person she was.
“Henry thought we should confess to Mimi. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, bless him. But I love him. I have ever since I first laid eyes on him. We had such a good thing going, and we even had money in the bank for the first time. I couldn’t let Adele ruin all that.”
She groaned as she propped my torso against the newel at the top of the stairs.
Being upright made it easier to stay awake, but now I could see the red stain on the floor where the rug had been, and I could see the black shadow creeping along the wall near the ceiling.
The temperature plummeted as fear billowed inside me.
It was Mark, guarding his secret. With a sinking feeling, I knew that dealing with Camille might be the least of my worries.
To stay awake, I began chanting an internal litany to the tune of “Dancing Queen”—the first tune that came to mind. Hurry, Beau, please just hurry, Beau….
“Open your mouth, Nola,” Camille said sweetly. “You’ll like this part. This will be over quickly. You won’t feel a thing, just a little snap of the neck when you accidentally fall down the stairs.”
I felt her hands on my face, forcing open my mouth, and then there was the warm liquid taste of bourbon on my tongue. It burned as it slid down my throat, and my stomach betrayed me with the familiar hug of warmth that I’d missed. She held my head while I gagged until I swallowed.
Liquid dripped down my chin and neck and onto my sweater. She used my sleeve to wipe it, then dropped my arm with a look of satisfaction. “Sorry to be so messy, but it adds a realistic touch to this story, doesn’t it?”
She set the bottle next to me on the floor, the smell of it now entwined with the putrid stench and the perfume.
I retched, feeling a mixture of soup and bourbon come up, then dribble down my chin.
My shame and embarrassment were quickly drowned by terror as I looked down the steep, narrow stairs. Hurry, Beau. Please just hurry, Beau….
Camille struggled to lift me to a standing position as two sets of invisible hands held me down, thwarting her efforts.
She stepped back, breathing heavily as she looked at me, seemingly unaware of the oily shadow oozing along the wall and of the drop in temperature.
I struggled to breathe through the stench of death mixed with Estée Lauder perfume as small white clouds blew out of Camille’s mouth while she talked.
“Little Sunny’s kidnapping was the best thing that could have happened to us, because Adele could barely eat or sleep, much less think about any bookkeeping improprieties.
I couldn’t have planned a better distraction. ”
Leaden weights seemed to have attached themselves to my eyelids, and each blink grew longer and longer. But I needed to hear the rest of the story, if only so I could repeat it later and see Camille punished.