Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (27 page)

He’d done that. He’d done that the night at Big Charity.

“But you’re not opening it, either.”

I turned toward the little girl, but the memory found me anyway, the one from Julian’s couch, of the darkness and the closed door, what had happened when I pulled it open and stepped inside.

The body follows the mind, I’d once read. The body has no sensor of its own, no way to discern reality from memory or fantasy. What the mind conjures, the body feels. What the mind sees, the body experiences. That’s why Aunt Sara didn’t want me exploring my dreams—or stepping into my visions. She didn’t want me to feel the terror or the grief, the pain.

But this wasn’t pain. The sensation curling through me, the residue from that room, wasn’t grief or terror, either. But it did hurt.

The door between us had closed last fall, and it had to stay that way.

“I can’t,” I said as the girl ran around the curved red slide—and stopped in her tracks. “I can’t open it again.”

Because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

“What are you so scared of—”

I pulled away from him, watching the little girl sneak a quick look at the woman and boy, then start toward the gazebo.

I crossed to her, smiling as she stopped and stared up at me. “Hi.”

Her eyes got really big.

Sliding the hair from my face, I went down on a knee. “You’re really good on those monkey bars.”

But it was like she didn’t even hear me. “I didn’t think you were real…”

My heart kicked up a notch. “Real?” I asked with a funny face. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because they said you weren’t.”

To her, it was clearly some big exciting secret. “Who?” I said. “Who said I wasn’t?”

“
Everyone!
My mom, Mr. Philippe, Brittany…”

I felt Dylan come up behind me. “Who’s Mr. Philippe?”

“Aurelia!” The woman swung around, jerking a hand to her forehead.

“The gallery man,” she said, waving.

“What gallery?”

“The one down the street,” she said as the woman—her mother?—started toward her. “I always thought you looked so scared—but you’re really pretty.”

“Aurelia!” The older version of her raced up behind her. “I told you—”

“Mom—look! It’s the girl from the pictures…”

Her mother froze.

“She’s real!” the little girl gushed, but already her mom was springing back to life and taking her by the arm.

“No, it’s okay—”

The mother looked stricken. “Don’t mind her,” she said.
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Aurelia tried to protest, but her mother dragged her away.

Everything flashed.
“Omigod.”
But then I was the one pulling away, hurrying away, down the street in the direction the girl had pointed—the little girl who hadn’t been coached, who didn’t know to be afraid or protect—toward the gallery she’d mentioned.

“Trinity—”

At the crosswalk, I hurried to the other side, stopping outside an old wood-frame church. Hoping someone could tell me where to find the gallery, I took the steps and reached for the heavy front door—and saw the sign:
PHILIPPE’S PLACE.

I’d found the gallery without even trying. And yet instead of reaching for the handle, I lifted my hand and pressed my palm against the dark wood.

I felt him even though he said nothing, felt him come up behind me. But as usual, he stopped in that fraction of a breath before his body found mine.

And I just stood there, suspended between a past I didn’t understand and a future that kept shifting.

“I saw her,” I told him. “In my dream, I saw the girl painting.” And I couldn’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t spoken, if I’d simply stood and watched, what would have come next? Would she have added me to the scene of the hawk and the ice cream shop? Would I have looked …
not real,
as the little girl said?

“That’s why everyone’s been staring at me,” I knew. “That’s why I’m here, why I
had
to come here—why I was drawn here.”

“All you have to do is open the door.”

A literal door, hard and solid and closed, separating me from the answer I craved.

“I don’t understand,” I murmured. “How can a complete stranger paint pictures of me?”

Dylan stepped closer. “The same way you saw her, and Grace.”

I twisted so fast I had no time to prepare for how little space separated us. He caught me, his hands to my arms, his fingers curving. Around us, the breeze blew, cool, I knew, it had to be cool.

But as the hair whipped against my face, I felt only warmth, and when I looked up, I found a certainty far beyond eighteen years.

“And Jessica,” I murmured. Against logic or reason, I’d seen them all.

And they’d seen me.

“But sometimes things just are,” he said, and even had he not touched me, I would have felt him. And I wasn’t sure why, wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t let go, when it was obvious I had nowhere to go.

“That’s why I’m here,” I said, lifting my hand to the dragonfly at my chest. “To find out what
is.
”

“Then open the door.”

Four words. That’s all they were. Simple, straightforward, obvious. I had only to open the door and walk inside.

“What if she was mistaken?” I said, vaguely aware of a blur of motion to my right. “What if there’s no link between me and the portrait?”

“You’re stalling.”

Turning, I lifted a hand to swat the mosquito, and saw the dragonfly hovering at the door.

“If you want to see what comes next,” Dylan said, as somewhere beyond, a bird screamed, “you have to open doors.”

I stared at the gossamer-thin wings of the dragonfly—strong enough to carry, but fragile enough to be destroyed by the slightest pressure—and no longer knew which door Dylan was talking about. The one to the gallery—or the one within me.

Lifting my hand to the heavy gothic door, I reached for the handle. But I didn’t turn it, not until Dylan put his hand to mine. Then, together, we pressed the lever and stepped inside.

TWENTY-FIVE

The chapel, with its white steeple and gothic windows, had to be at least a hundred years old. And while the people of Belle Terre no longer worshipped within, the shadowy vestibule still radiated church. Maybe it was the dark wood floors and walls, the ornate candelabras. The stillness, the quiet.

“There’s no one here,” I said, looking around.

Behind me the door closed, and Dylan crossed to a desk and picked up a black business card. Retrieving his phone, he glanced down and frowned. “It’s after five.”

On a Friday night. I hadn’t even considered that.

“You have a missed call.”

Something inside me twisted. I hurried over to him, taking the phone from his hands—and finding Chase’s name.

There was no message.

Uneasy, I shot him a quick text before crossing to the door to the inner sanctuary.

Can’t talk now.

I’ll call you soon.

If Chase had heard my voice, he would have known something was very wrong.

Sliding the phone into my pocket, I reached for the handle—

“You can’t go in there, darlin’.”

I spun around to find an older man with military short white hair emerging from a dark corridor. Overhead a sign read
RESTROOMS
.

“Are you Philippe?”

His smile was warm, friendly. “Not in this lifetime,” he drawled as I noticed the utilitarian nature of his blue work shirt and the broom against the wall, the rag in his hand. “Maybe I’ll be gettin’ luckier in the next.”

“Do you know where I can find him? I need to talk to him.”

The older man’s smile faded, as his eyes narrowed. Thoughtfully, he lifted a hand to rub his whiskers. “You from around here? You look awfully—” His eyes flared, then got really, really dark. “You’re her.”

My heart kicked. “You’ve seen me before?” Robotically, he crossed the lobby.

I followed. Because I knew. I knew where he was going, and I knew why the hum had started inside me, why it grew louder.

Why the dragonfly had hovered outside.

The frame was museum quality, lavish and intricate in antiqued shades of bronze and ebony. It hung on the wall, safely away from the sun, in a place of perpetual shadows. Trapped inside of it, beneath a sheet of glass, a soft green dragonfly fluttered against a blur of camellias, and with eyes the color of night and skin the color of death, I screamed.

The lobby fell away, taking with it the remains of the day and the echo of the silence, leaving only a vacuum without a molecule of oxygen.

Through the haze I was aware of Dylan moving toward me, the feel of his hand against my back.

“Sweet Christ.”
The janitor’s voice was garbled, distant, as if water filled the void. “I thought you were dead.”

I tried to turn to him, but my body wouldn’t move. Breathing hurt. But then Dylan was doing what I couldn’t, stepping toward the old man who stood like a bystander at a grisly crime scene.

“Why would you think that?”

“I-I…” The man stepped back, shaking his head. “Look at her,” he breathed, glancing beyond Dylan to the vividly hued painting that could not have borne a stronger resemblance to me, had I posed. “Does she look alive?”

It was impossible to tell which she he meant.

Inside the shaking started, the fissures of cold springing up in an unwanted free-for-all.
This
is what I’d wanted.
This
is why I’d come. For answers.

But I’d never expected to find myself in the throes of death.

“Who is she?” Dylan asked.

“I … I can’t really say.”

“Can’t—or won’t?”

“Can’t. Never asked,” the janitor said. “Most of the time I try not to even look at her.”

But I couldn’t stop. Her features had a swirling, dreamlike quality, as if thick glass separated her from the world beyond, trapping her, holding her back. Her dark brown eyes were wide, drenched with devastation—and acceptance.

And they were mine.

“What about the artist?” That was Dylan. There was no way words could have squeezed through my throat. “What can you tell me about who did this? It was a girl, right?”

Did. This. Not paint. Not create.

Did. This.

“Nothing,” the janitor muttered. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back in the morning…”

*   *   *

Spending the night in Belle Terre was not part of the plan. Spending the night in a small hotel room with Jim Fourcade’s son was so much worse.

He sat by the door, in the dainty buttery yellow chair that looked like it belonged in a child’s portrait—not as a seat for a guy in faded jeans and a charcoal T-shirt, working a switchblade against the lock on my mother’s book.

I could have had him take me home. I could have come back in the morning. Except my car sat dead in the parking lot. And even if I’d found a ride—from Chase or Victoria, Detective LaSalle—there was the small complication of Fleurish!

I was scheduled to open at ten tomorrow morning.

It was way simpler and more efficient to spend the night and head home in time for work.

Curled around the BlackBerry, my fingers throbbed. I looked up, toward the remains of the bloodred sunset. Standing at the window, I’d watched every second of the transition, but had no memory of when night had taken over.

But I knew when the phone rang. The sudden interruption kicked through me, and even before I saw his name, I knew.

Acutely aware of the way Dylan glanced up, I turned toward the
VACANCY
sign flashing against the darkness.

“Hey,” I answered quietly.

“Where are you?”

The bluntness of the question caught me off guard. “
Chase
. I-I’m still in Belle Terre. I was going to call you in a few minutes—”

“Maybe you should call Detective LaSalle.”

I froze.

“He’s looking for you.”

Oh, God.

“Which is weird, since I thought he was
with
you,” Chase said.

And everything started to spin.
“W-what?”

“All day.” His voice was quieter now, relentless, much like it had been last night on the levee, when he’d told me he wanted to hurt Dylan for being in my dream. “I thought you were with Detective LaSalle.”

My mind raced. I tried to remember. What had I said, what exactly had I said in my voice mail?

“No.” I’d never said LaSalle. I was sure of that. “I didn’t…” Want to feel like a rat in a cage, didn’t want him to watch and study, see into dreams that might have had nothing to do with Grace. “I didn’t want to drag him into this until I knew for sure.”

A garbled sound broke through the phone. “Drag him in? T, he’s a cop. That’s his job.”

“I know that.” I wanted to be home. I wanted to be at Chase’s house and looking into his eyes, touching him. I wanted him to touch me back.

I wanted all this to be over.

“I wasn’t sure about what I was seeing,” I told him, “and didn’t want to make anything official. I just wanted to look—to see if what I saw in the dream is even real.”

“And is it?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you still there?”

It was a simple question—it deserved a simple answer. But there wasn’t one. Not a simple one. “There’s someone else I need to talk to.”

He didn’t say anything, but I could hear him, hear him breathing—and my heart squeezed.

“Chase,” I whispered. “Say something.”

Several seconds passed. Several long seconds during which the heater blew, its breath blowing the curtain—but the warmth didn’t come close to touching me.

“T,” he finally said. His voice was softer now, and it was all I could do to swallow. “This isn’t a game.”

I knew that. The stakes were way higher.

“I wish it was,” I said, staring at the leather band wrapped around my wrist. “I wish I
could
put everything back in a box and stash it in a closet.” Like we’d done last Sunday, before …

Before so much.

It was hard to believe how badly everything had blown up in less than a week.

“But it’s my life,” I said, hating it, hating it all, the dreams that wouldn’t stop and the distance that kept spreading. “And I can’t walk away.”