CHAPTER SEVEN
A few years ago, the old truck Leonard had bought for us had died a lackluster death in the parking lot.
Ike and Shawn promptly bought their own cars, taking the opportunity to own vehicles they preferred to drive.
Meanwhile, I had asked Leonard if I could just use one of the hearses as my personal ride, and he’d said it was fine.
Now, behind the wheel of the hearse I’d claimed as my own, I drove down Seint Row—the private, isolated road in Hollow Cove—with only my headlights and the occasional streetlamp to guide my way toward the eighteenth-century estate at the end.
Acres of manicured land surrounded the house, contained within a protective stone wall, and as I drove up to the iron gate, a bitterness so vile and deep tugged at my upper lip until I was sneering at the enormous mansion held within.
My mother had been a child when I was born. A runaway, living on the streets alongside people far more sinister than she possessed the ability to be.
On the rare occasions when my father showed up to grace her with his presence, she clung to him, looked at him like he had hung the moon and filled the miraculous ocean.
She believed the stories he told about building a better life for him and her and us, and he’d fuck her as she told me to turn away.
He’d always promise to return, and when he did, he’d be closer to that dream world than he had been before, and then he’d disappear again.
Of course, he’d eventually come back. Never knew when, but he always did, yet never because she needed him.
His entire existence was self-serving, and when he couldn’t find someone else to get him off, he’d look for my mother until he found her to warm his bed.
Again and again, he’d find her in an alley, a shelter, on a dirty corner, and because she had nothing else, she held on to his promises until there was nothing left of her existence to hold on to him with.
Then when she was gone, Gerald moved on to us—his children. Selling us dreams and promises, only to steal them away again and again.
My mother had never stopped believing him, but—God rest her soul—she was stupid. Naive and desperate. Too good to not be blinded by hope for a future she deserved, but was never going to have.
I hadn’t inherited that foolishness, or maybe I’d just been broken too many times.
I always knew better than to trust Gerald Crowley.
I knew better than to trust anyone. And now, as I pulled up to the valet standing beneath the cover of the brick carport, just outside the home’s massive entrance, I hated my father more than I ever had before for somehow finding this for himself and not for her.
She might have been young, lost, and stupid, but she’d been kind. She’d been worthy. Gentle and, oh Lord, how she loved us. Even when she was wasted, she had loved my brother and me deeply, far more than she could ever love herself.
I tamped my fury down with an exhale, giving the steering wheel a final squeeze before quickly letting it go and grabbing my plague doctor mask. I pulled it on with haste, adjusting the hem of the hood to lay over my shoulders, and glanced in the rearview mirror.
The mask covered my face fully and hid my eyes behind the plastic lenses of the attached steampunk-style goggles.
Nobody inside this house would know who I was, and I wanted to keep it that way.
I couldn’t trust even the best of people, let alone the undesirable company my father kept, and I didn’t want any of them tracking me back to the funeral home.
Before I opened the car door, I glanced at my hands and the tattoos creeping out from beneath the sleeves of my suit jacket, and I was struck with hesitation.
Leonard hadn’t been thrilled when I began the journey of blanketing my skin with ink. He warned me that some of our clients, particularly the older folks, would have an issue with my image, and although I rolled my eyes at the time, I realized quickly that he hadn’t been entirely wrong either.
Close-minded people would see a man with sleeves of tattoos, and they would automatically make the snap judgment that he rode a motorcycle, beat women, and lived a life of crime.
It was why I hadn’t yet tattooed my hands—they were harder to keep covered—and sitting in the hearse now, outside my father’s apparent multimillion-dollar house, I was grateful again for not having made the leap.
I wanted nothing to set me apart from any other anonymous masked figure inside this place.
But there were still the tattoos on my arms …
They tested their limits with harsh black lines, peeking out from beneath the cover of my sleeves.
Sleeves rode up, they were unreliable, and I grumbled beneath my breath as I reached across the cab to open the glove box and pull out the pair of leather gloves I wore to burial ceremonies in the New England winters.
I tugged them on, tucking them into the ends of my sleeves, and flexed my hands, moved my arms, and ensured they wouldn’t slip out and blow my cover.
I glanced again in the rearview mirror and muttered to my reflection, “I look fucking ridiculous.”
That didn't matter though.
My identity was concealed, and that was the point.
Feeling satisfied, albeit a little silly, I climbed out of the car, straightened my lapels, smoothed the front of my jacket, and addressed the valet attendant with an air of indifference.
I said nothing as I dropped the keys into his open palm, and before he had a chance to speak, I was walking away, toward the open entrance of the house.
Now, let it be clear that I lived in a beautiful house.
The Llewellyn Family Funeral Home had been erected in the late 1800s, and to this day, we—the people who had inhabited its walls over the years, past and present alike—had kept as much of its original charm as possible while keeping it structurally sound.
And although the place was admittedly a little outdated in its interior aesthetic, it was nice, and it was clean.
It was a far cry from the hovels I had lived in before—that was for damn sure.
But as nice as it was, it didn’t hold a candle to this building I stood in now.
I tried to keep my cool as I stood beneath a chandelier fit for a palace, before a pair of twin staircases, leading to an open landing overlooking the foyer.
I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself, but it was difficult not to marvel at the thousands of crystals dangling from the overhead fixture, or the ornate carvings in the crown molding, or the marble floor beneath my feet, likely worth more alone than the funeral home in its entirety.
Roughly a dozen people stood in the foyer, milling about with drinks in hand and chatting among themselves.
They all seemed to know each other, despite being disguised in their designer costumes, their faces hidden from view with elaborate masks.
None of them seemed to notice me as I passed through into another room, more crowded than the last.
It was a large, open space with little furniture.
A few seating arrangements were tucked here and there, all occupied with guests.
Classical music passed through the twists and turns of wrought iron chandeliers, hanging from the high, vaulted ceiling, and gold frames filled with watercolor paintings adorned the walls.
It felt more like a museum than a home, and if I hadn’t come with the sole purpose of finding Leonard, I might’ve taken some pictures to remind myself one day that this existed somewhere other than my dreams.
But I needed to find Gerald, the man who had lured me here, and I wasn’t going to do that by oohing and aahing over the house he supposedly lived in.
Maybe he’s squatting, I thought with an amused snicker, and if it hadn’t been for that invitation or the fancy suit he’d worn, I might’ve believed it.
“Welcome to Seint Manor, sir. Would you care for some champagne?”
A waiter in a tuxedo and a Phantom of the Opera mask presented a tray of gold-rimmed champagne flutes, filled to the brim with bubbly white champagne. With no intention to drink but every intention to blend in with the crowd, I accepted one with a nod.
“Thank you,” I replied, then promptly scolded myself for speaking at all.
What if someone recognizes my voice?
With the glass in my gloved hand, I pushed my way through the room, turning this way and that in search of my father.
I wondered what he would be dressed as and if I’d recognize him if I saw him.
Maybe the very point was for me not to know his whereabouts, to not recognize him, and this whole thing was an elaborate plan to catch me off guard.
For what reason? I wondered, walking through the room and peering down a hallway toward what appeared to be a bathroom. Why would he need to catch me off guard? What does he want with me?
It was the question of a lifetime. Gerald Crowley had slithered from beneath his rock time and time again to cast his shadow over every alleyway and street corner my mother was on, but I understood the motivation behind his visits came down to sex and nothing more—certainly not the love he held for his family.
But after my mother’s death, I couldn’t understand why he kept coming back, why he tracked us down, why he wanted me here now when he could easily wash his hands of us and forget we ever existed.
We sure as hell wouldn’t have a problem forgetting about him.
Ike isn’t here. He never asks for Ike.
He wants me.
And again, I asked myself, Why?
A closed pocket door caught my eye. With a glance over my shoulder, ensuring nobody was watching me, I quietly slid the door open enough to slip inside, quickly shutting it behind me.
Then I swept my gaze around the dimly lit room I’d found myself in and was instantly transported to somewhere magnificent as I stood, captivated by a library fit for a king.