Chapter 30
ELI
TRACK: Mary Gauthier, “Mercy Now”
I don’t know where to go, but if this is my last day working at Rolling Hills, maybe I should take a walk around to say goodbye.
Shit, if I’m not working here, I should probably move out of the staff apartments too, even though I’m part owner of the building.
I own a bunch of other buildings I could move into.
The thought is more depressing than I can handle right now, so I focus on making my way upstairs to the lobby.
I’m crossing the marble floor, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, when I hear my name.
“Eli!”
I glance up, then scowl. Jude. One person I don’t need to see, with his constant cheery exuberance.
After the viral video, I called him to give him shit about posting the video, and he’d just been bewildered.
He was completely oblivious to the fact that Reese might not have wanted to be shoved into stardom.
“But she was amazing!” was what he said to me, as if I didn’t know that.
“Hey,” he says when he jogs up to me. “What’s up with you?”
I size him up. The rumors either haven’t spread up here or Jude’s been too oblivious to catch them.
“Nothing. I’m not really in the mood for conversation, man.” I angle toward the door cut into the drywall facade shielding the fancy lobby from the construction going on in the east wing.
Jude falls behind me a little, and I think he’s actually going to take the hint, but when I swing open the door, he catches it. “I’ll join you. I haven’t seen this part since they got past the framing.”
I grit my teeth, but it’s not like I can stop him.
Inside, it looks like we’ve caught the place on a lunch break. It’s normally a hive of activity in here, but right now, there are only a couple of workers around. One of them, wearing a reflective vest and hard hat passes us, gives us a quick look.
“We’re supposed to be wearing hats in here,” Jude says, speaking the words the guy wouldn’t once he recognized us. He says it, but he seems unbothered, shoving his hands in the pockets of his khaki dress pants.
“I don’t really care if I get knocked on the head,” I say. “Take me out of my goddamned misery.”
“What about me?”
I shoot him a look.
“Don’t answer that,” Jude says, giving me a grin.
I almost smile. A wash of guilt rides over me as I remember what Reese said about how Jude views our dynamic. But I’m not in the mood to be nice, so I keep walking.
“So how’s the other guy?”
I look sharply at him as we walk past the doors of the main floor. Plastic hangs in the doorways where the frames are going to be, and I look down to see a shaft of light hit my hand. It may not be cut, but my knuckles are bright red and streaked with a smear of blood.
“Not good.”
“Who was he?”
The fact that he has to ask that makes me feel sick. I don’t actually hit people on the regular. I haven’t hit anyone since Seamus, and that was only once as an adult.
I realize how shitty that sounds as I say it.
“Reese’s ex.” I pull back one of the plastic curtains and step into the room.
Jude follows. “Did he do something?”
I crouch down next to one of the boxes where an electrical outlet will be placed in a week or so, inspecting the rough edge of the drywall like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
“He got onto the set somehow and tried to go after Reese.”
Jude’s eyebrows go up.
“Not like a physical thing. I don’t think. But…”
I rest my upper arms on my knees and run my hand through my hair. “He’s a dick, and he kept her down for years. Fucking years. She’s… He messed her up, and I can’t abide by that, you know?”
Jude grins, then leans back against the wall. “You sound like a fucking cowboy.”
“What?”
“Only cowboys say abide. I guess you would make a good Wyatt Earp.”
“One of Dad’s favorite movies.” I’d forgotten how much our dad loved cowboy stuff. Still does.
“I’m surprised he turned into a tourist when Mom died,” Jude says. “Thought he would have bought a ranch or something.”
“I’m not sure what’s worse.”
We both laugh then, but it doesn’t last.
“So Reese is pissed at you, huh?”
“That’s an understatement.” I rock back so I’m sitting on the ground. “And Cass looked at me like she wanted to make an Eli-skin rug.”
“Gross.” Jude slides down the wall to sit beside me, though there’s a good five feet of space between us. “Well, at least it’ll take the heat off me.”
I look over at him. “What are you in trouble for now?”
“I kinda went overboard on that interview about the ghost.”
I dip my head down onto my forearm, which is now resting across my knees. To my surprise, I find myself trying not to laugh, imagining just how overboard Jude could have gone. “Did you do a one-man reenactment of the murder?”
“No, but I should have. Good idea.”
I do laugh then. Jude does too. It feels good.
When we wind down, I ask him what he told them that had Cass pissed off.
“I told them that we found a book in the walls written in code. Right about here, actually. Shit, this is right around where Eleanor’s room was.”
Despite all my common sense, and what’s going on in my head, I feel a prickly chill pass over my skin.
I rub my arms. “Focus, Jude.”
Jude grins. “You felt it too, didn’t you?”
“No,” I bark. “I don’t believe in that stuff.” Still, when the plastic at the door flutters, my stomach clenches.
Jude doesn’t even notice. “I told them Seamus’s dad decoded the book for us and everyone thought it was a dead end, but I knew it wasn’t.”
I tear my eyes from the plastic flap, suddenly rapt.
Jude continues. “Nora figured out there was some kind of code within the code.” He does a “mind blown” gesture with his hands at his head.
“Seriously?”
He nods. “She figured out that the guy who wrote the book hinted that there was some kind of secret cache of something somewhere on the grounds.”
“What? What kind of cache?”
“A box with stuff in it. Nora thinks it’s going to have love letters in it or some shit. The problem is, now Cass thinks we’re going to get treasure hunters digging up holes around the golf course.”
“Wait, who’s the guy again?” I wasn’t paying close attention to the story when it happened—figured it was all kind of nonsense. But suddenly I’m interested. Plus, this is less ghost, more real history. If the book is to be believed.
“Eleanor’s boyfriend. At least, that’s what Nora thinks. And I believe her.”
“She’s smarter than both of us combined,” I concede.
“Exactly.”
I glance around the room, but nothing else moves. Nonsense, just like I knew. I admonish myself for getting caught up in it. Still, I want to know the rest. “So this is the guy Eleanor was apparently having an affair with?”
Jude leans forward and pulls on his toes, stretching absently.
“Yeah…he was her husband’s chauffeur. But her husband…
he was barely a husband. He traveled all over the world and, like, openly brought his mistresses to events and stuff, instead of Eleanor.
The book said, ‘His supposed wife is the most beautiful and downtrodden mistress of them all. She’s been all but abandoned, and not deserved.
’ He had a massive crush on her, obviously.
Nora said there are indications later in the book that they were in love, but I don’t know how she got that from a diary.
” Jude shrugs. “Anyway…” He goes off on a tangent like Jude does when you let him talk too long.
He’s animated now, his arms going all over the place as he excitedly tells me about the personal lives of people who lived and died over a century ago.
I try to listen to him. But all I can think about is that poor chauffeur. The man who sees the woman he clearly loved being hurt by the man who’s supposed to be everything to her.
After a moment, Jude seems to wind down. It’s then he notices I’m staring at the floor so hard there should be a hole burned there.
“You okay?”
I shake my head. “I couldn’t just stand there and watch him be a dick to her, Jude. I was physically incapable of staying still, knowing all their history. Knowing what’s possible for her, what he kept her from seeing for so long.”
Jude studies me. For a long moment neither of us says anything. Then Jude tips his head back against the wall. “Do you remember Brad Butler?”
I’m so surprised by this I throw him a confused look. I do remember Brad Butler. He was on my baseball team, and he was a little dick and a half.
“Do you know he used to lock me in the bathroom when I was in third grade? Before I went through puberty of course.” He grins.
“No,” I say softly. “I knew he was a bully, but I didn’t know he did that. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“I did. I told you he was picking on me. Do you remember?”
I think back, my head not really working as sharply as I’d like it to. “Yeah, I think so. But you never told me the bathroom stuff.”
“Yeah well, it’s not exactly fun to tell your brother that a guy at school used to try to stick my head in the toilet, then locked me in the girls’ room and then told the teacher I was…doing stuff in there.”
“Jesus.” Even now a flare of anger hits me.
“I didn’t tell you the details, Eli, because I was scared you’d kill him.”
I snap my eyes to his. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yeah, it is. Because I could have told Griffin. He was only in fifth grade, but he was big by then, remember? But he would have talked to Brad, convinced him he wasn’t interested in picking on me, and Brad would have stopped.
Griff has that fucking magic. But you…you wouldn’t talk to him.
You’d do exactly what I’d have wanted and knocked his teeth out.
You wouldn’t care about the consequences.
Even then, I knew I didn’t want to get you kicked out of school just to make me feel better.
So I just told you he was bugging me, and you didn’t even ask for any details.
You just went over to Brad and told him he had to leave me alone or you’d… ”
“Knock his teeth out,” I say softly.