Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Bubba must have Boone on speed dial because before I knew it, an ambulance had arrived and police officers were moving us out of the building.
We hadn’t gone any further inside the basement room, hoping not to disturb any evidence.
Instead, after waking her up, I’d kept Catherine talking.
She sounded weak and tired, but I hoped she’d pop out of it once we got some fluids and food into her.
“I should have asked her how long she’d been alone.” I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand as Bubba moved us into the waiting car. I reached for the door handle.
“Stay put. I promised Boone that I’d get you and Rory out of here. He said he’d fill us in as soon as he can. So, are we going to the shop or the compound?” He rested his hand on the armrest.
I didn’t want to go back to the compound or the shop. I wanted to go to the hospital and talk to Catherine. On the other hand, I felt a need to talk to Annamae. “The compound. We need to make sure she has a guard on her door. Can you call Nic?”
“I’ve already asked for one. Thank goodness Boone understands what’s going on. Trying to get a court to order protection would take a bit of fast talking. Except we are in New Orleans. Maybe this happens a lot.” Bubba gave the compound as our destination to the driver.
I texted my brother and Alexander with a group text to let them know what we’d found and where we were going.
We needed to talk about what happened today.
As the car drove out of the alley, I saw a few ghosts still hanging around the front of Café Du Monde.
One turned and watched the car leave, his face darkening as he realized we were inside the vehicle and not the restaurant.
I tried to really look at him, but with his anger burning through his energy, he was gone before I could focus on any defining features. He was male and white, but his clothing could have been a costume, or he was from another time. It was too hard to make a guess.
“Something wrong?” Rory sat up straighter, looking behind us at the street. “What did you see?”
“One of the ghosts realized we’d given him the slip. And he wasn’t happy about it.” I shook my head as I glanced back as well, but we were too far away to see anything, and I’d already seen the ghost disappear.
“He couldn’t have realized something like that.
Most of the ghosts are on a loop. I’m surprised so many followed us out of the square.
They usually ignore the living.” Rory turned back and reached for water from the mini-fridge in the back.
Your ride is off the charts. I could use a driver in California.
No, probably more of an assistant who also drove me around.
That way they could do my shopping and maybe I need a private chef too.
Wishes and horses. Must be nice to be rich. ”
I almost said that I wasn’t rich, but that wasn’t true.
I never had to worry another day of my life about having enough.
Or a ride somewhere. Or a bodyguard. Our parents had taken care of us and now Nic and I got to enjoy the benefits.
Besides the big house, Mom and Dad hadn’t focused on spending money.
They’d instead focused on the people who needed their help.
Making sure they had a job, food, and housing.
People with talent who had been lost in the world before they’d come to Louisiana. I smiled at Rory. “It doesn’t suck.”
When we got to the compound, Rory went upstairs to her room probably to call and check on her son, and I went to the kitchen to find Annamae. She was kneading bread.
“We need to talk. Now. No side stepping, no lying. People’s lives are on the line. It’s time for you to be honest with me. How did Mom and Dad die?” I watched as the blood drained out of her face. When she could take a breath, she looked over at me.
“Sit down child. Lilac, can you take over the kneading for me?” She turned toward me. “Let me get us some tea and I’ll tell you what I can. It’s been a long time. You have to realize that just in case I miss something.”
“I just want to know what she wanted you to tell me. When I time traveled and talked to Mom, she said to tell you Rebecca. What does that mean?” I watched Annamae as she poured water into a ceramic tea pot she loved and brought it over to the table with the basket of tea.
I stood and grabbed cups from the sideboard as she went back for sugar and cream.
She set up her tea, poured water into the cup, then did the same for the tea bag and sugar I’d put in my cup.
Then, with that steeping, she leaned back and looked at me.
“Rebecca is your mother’s birth name. She started going by Alana when we moved to New Orleans.
We were best friends from the minute we met in first grade on.
We lived in Baton Rouge in a neighborhood that crossed the boundary line.
Poor black folk on one side, poor white folk on the other.
The adults seemed to mind the line, but as kids, we never worried about it.
Rebecca played at my house and I played at hers.
Sometimes, the older boys would tease us, but mostly people left us alone.
Because we found we had the gift early.”
I stirred my tea. I knew the story would come at her pace, and not any faster. “So you knew Grandma then too.”
Tears filled Annamae’s eyes. “Your grandmother, she’s the one who taught me how to use my gift.
And how to hide it. My mama had died when I was two, and Daddy, he didn’t know what to do with a girl child.
Much less one that said funny things that often came true.
He loved me. He made sure I was fed and clothed, but mostly, he stayed away from me. ”
I noticed Lilac watching and listening from where she was now putting the bread in a bowl to rise. Then she washed her hands and came and sat with us, a bottle of water in front of her.
“So, your mama and I, we were best friends. Almost sisters. Then one day, she told me not to go to the dance with Marvin Day. She had that look in her eye, the one where you know she’s talking from another place.
But I was stupid and thought I was in love.
I told her I wouldn’t go, but I did anyway.
” Annamae snorted. “Like that would fool Rebecca. She came and pulled me out of Marvin’s car just before he tried to go farther than just kissing, like I wanted.
He’d been drinking and had turned mean, like his daddy.
He pulled a knife out, but Rebecca pushed me behind her and told him to leave me alone. ”
“Let me guess, he didn’t.”
Annamae shook her head. “He called us both all kinds of names, but we got out of there and went back to your grandma’s house where she had fresh baked cookies.
Everything seemed to be fine until one night after the football game.
Marvin got a few of his friends to grab us and take us to the parking lot.
If we’d got in that car, I think that would have been the end of the story.
Even I could see how that story ended. Instead, your dad drove up between us and the boys.
We climbed in and he took us home. Monday, there was an announcement that Marvin and his friends had been killed on the road after the game.
They’d run into a tree. There were empty bottles all over that car. ”
“After school, my daddy came to get us. We drove right to your grandma’s house.
He had packed a suitcase with my clothes and brought it out when we stopped.
We were told we were moving to New Orleans to live with your dad’s family.
That Marvin’s family were telling everyone that we put a spell on the boy.
A spell that killed him.” Annamae sighed as she studied a lemon from the bowl on the table and then put it back into the bowl.
“The only spell Marvin had on him was the alcohol he ingested to make himself stupid. But you can’t fight ignorance.
Your grandmother stayed behind and sold the house before she left.
Daddy visited me in New Orleans a few times, but from that moment on, I was part of your dad’s family. ”
“You had to leave because a kid got in a car accident?” Lilac shook her head. “That’s stupid.”
“When people get scared, or angry, they need someone to blame. There’d been rumors about Rebecca and me for years.
We were lucky, but everyone thought we had made our luck.
Not by hard work, which we did, but other means.
We stayed away from places where we knew bad things were going to happen.
Had I listened to your mom about the dance, maybe I’d still be in Baton Rouge.
Your mom, however, was always going to marry your dad.
She’d met him on a choir trip during sophomore year and that was all it took.
She never saw another guy in her future. ”
“So, Mom and Mercy think this guy is somehow related to this Marvin?” I wasn’t sure that a vendetta so many years ago would have started this rash of killings, but sometimes, like Annamae had said, people get scared.
“Before your mom died, she thought she was being watched. Stalked. She’d find little gifts in the oddest places.
First, she thought it was your dad being romantic.
Then maybe you kids. Your dad thought it was someone who’d worked for him.
But Rebecca thought it was Marvin’s younger brother, Franklin.
She said she’d seen him in one of the shops.
I didn’t even think about it after the accident.
Not until I heard about Mercy’s death. I should have told someone when the car accident happened.
Maybe I could have stopped this back then. ” Annamae choked back a sob.