Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (45 page)

I really liked this woman. “You're right. It isn't. And you know, I hadn't even seen him for seven or eight years.”

She nodded. “Doesn't matter. People in St. Aubaine will never forget it.”

“Oh, God,” I blurted.

“Trust me,” she said. “I didn't even go to the memorial service, because I wanted to wipe out that part of my life. But it takes a long time to shake the residue.” She frowned at the small parcel I had placed on the coffee table.

I took a breath. “So, you haven't seen him for a long time?”

“Last Christmas we bumped into him at a party.” Her eyes shifted towards the splash and boom end of the house. “Before that, a couple of years. I did my best to avoid him.”

Bitterness. You don't expect that in a Botticelli beauty.

“I asked you to see us because he left you a little memento. His estate has asked me to deliver it.”

She shivered. “Creepy. It's like Benedict reaching from the grave.”

I nudged the small, white parcel. Stella stiffened and stared at it like it was a litter of gift-wrapped snakes. For several longish minutes all you could hear was Josey munching s'mores.

I tried distracting Stella. “That was something, wasn't it? Benedict winning the Flambeau?”

Another snort. “Right, and I wonder how he pulled that off. Oh well, might as well get this over with.”

The package contained a framed photo of Benedict and a much younger Stella. She muttered something in Italian. From the sound of it, I figured eternal damnation and the evil eye might have been involved.

Her expression lifted as two children in teddy bear PJs exploded into the room followed by a toddler wearing nothing but soap bubbles. All three were being chased by a large damp man, grinding his teeth. Stella slipped the photo under the sofa cushion. She got to her feet. “It's well worth shaking that residue.”

Time for us to leave. Stella had a happy, secure home, and here I had contaminated it with a nasty bit of Benedict. We were halfway home before I remembered I hadn't given Stella her copy of
While Weeping for the Wicked
.

We didn't discuss the need for Josey to spend the night somewhere else besides her home. That would have meant Josey being disloyal to Uncle Mike. She hadn't mentioned his disappearing act, and I knew she wasn't about to. As they say, you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives. And whatever you could say about the dissolute old smuggler, he was all Josey had by way of family.

But in the car, minus the warmth and security of Stella Iannetti's home, I felt a chill of apprehension. Benedict's residue surrounded us like a hazardous fog.

I had trouble adjusting to the idea that I might be at risk myself, but if Benedict-in-the-bed didn't clue me in, getting hit by the Jetta, being followed by the Acura and having my house broken into did the trick. Then it hit me that if I was a target, so was Josey. If for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Something very, very bad was going on. So it was all well enough for me to go swanning around with parcels, stirring up the old girlfriends, mooning over the mechanic, and annoying the constabulary. Involving Josey was different. If I got popped off, a middle-aged aspiring divorcée with serious writer's block, who'd give a hoot? But Josey had her whole life ahead of her. We had to make that last.

On the other hand, if I sent her home alone, I wouldn't have put it past Sarrazin to have Social Services sniffing around. She was too young to be on her own. Who knew what kind of illegal substances or ill-gotten gains the cops could find in the Thring household.

“You know,” Josey looked up from a complicated piece of knitting, “we should figure out why this stuff is happening.”

“What stuff?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, people smucking you with cars, pawing through your things, following us with their license plates covered in mud, that kind of thing.”

I kept my eyes on the road. “You mean to tell me you never thought about it?” she said.

I shrugged, unwilling to say I'd been thinking about nothing else. I knew Josey well enough to believe that at the first opportunity, she'd be off in pursuit of evildoers with me waddling behind her. And we had enough problems.

“Jeez,” said Josey, “I can't believe you're not more upset.”

If she only knew. Cutting short her miscellaneous educational experiences would be the price for her safety. Josey would find that price too high, but it was necessary. I thought about Josey in that ramshackle cabin in the woods. Alone. Without the fugitive Uncle Mike. Or worse, with him, probably pursued by gun-toting police. And wild-eyed social workers.

But I could make it up to her. If I ever got Cayla and Brandon off to the publisher, the advance could underwrite a little trip south in the winter. March Break, maybe. Or some other kind of France substitute. And then there was her birthday, what was I going to do about that? What a responsibility.

“But at least we have all our new friends,” she said.

I had a sick feeling in my stomach. For all I knew, one of our new friends was the reason why we were in the soup.

“Especially Kostas.”

“Right.”

“You know, Miz Silk, before I met Kostas, I only knew how to knit and purl. I didn't know about Fair Isle or tension or anything. I can't believe he took all that time to teach me those complicated knitting stitches.”

Neither could I.

At ten o'clock, when Josey finally put down her knitting project and dropped off to sleep on the roll-out cot in my study, I crept out to use the phone. If anyone could arrange to get Josey into a safe place on short notice, it was Hélène Lamontagne.

Moonlight filtered through the glass in the front door and scattered stripes over the walls and the phone.

Hélène answered her phone on the second ring. “
Oui, allô
?”

“It's me,” I whispered, “and I have a big problem.”

“Fiona. What is it?”

I took a deep breath. “There's something strange going on here. It has to do with Benedict.”

Hélène gasped. “Something else? What kind of... something?”

“Let's see, I've been hit by a car, someone broke into my house and rummaged through my things. And we're being followed.”

“Oh là là! Hit by a car. Are you all right?”

“Yes. I have things to do with Benedict's ashes, but Josey's staying at my place because old Uncle Mike is on the run from the police. He took her trip money for bail and now the old buzzard has skipped. I'm worried about her. I can't leave her in this risky situation.”

“But Fiona, you must be in danger too.”

“Probably.”

“I don't know,” said Hélène. “Josée won't like having her visit with you cut short. Especially after she lost her trip money. She loves it at your place.” Hélène has a soft spot for Josey and wants her to have a little bit of the good life.

“She won't like having her life cut short either,” I said.

“Josée's safety must be the most important thing,
naturellement
.”

“She needs some place to stay,” I said. “If we go to the authorities, they might put her in a foster home. Sarrazin's already been hinting at that.”

“Oh, no!”

It's always so satisfying talking to Hélène. “Oh, yes. And I can't send her to stay with Liz because...well, because.”

“I understand.”

Right. Hélène knows Liz.

“And Woody is out of the question.”

“
Mon dieu
.”

“Even if Philip were home, I couldn't ask him to do anything, let alone this.”

“But of course.”

“So I'm getting desperate. You read so many awful things about kids who are wards of the Crown.”

“She can stay here.”

I'd almost given up hope.

“Oh, Hélène, really? What a wonderful idea. But that's too much to ask. I mean she needs somebody who would make her go to school. Would you mind that?” My long dead aunt would have been proud of me.

Hélène managed a ladylike snort.

I had to laugh. “Am I laying it on too thick?”

“Yes. But I would do the same. It will be nice to have Josée here. Jean-Claude is so busy, and with Marie-Eve away at Laval, I will enjoy her company. And I will make her go to school.”

“What a relief. Well, maybe when all this is over, I can find some way to make it up to you.”

“I am happy to do it. There will be nothing to make up. Unless you wanted to give us a hand with the Hospital Auxiliary Tea and Sale in October. I'm doing up a roster now.”

Oh, couldn't I just chew up a bit of crushed glass instead? “Sure. Absolutely.”

“Wonderful. Let me find the right time to tell Jean-Claude about Josée. I will make the arrangements as soon as possible, and I'll call you. Tomorrow morning I hope.”

Tomorrow would be fine. More than fine. And October seemed safely in the distance.

“Thank you, thank you,” I said.

“
Pas de problème
.”

When I hung up, I jumped at the shadow which moved behind me.

Josey's eyes were slate-coloured in the darkness. For once, no expression showed on her freckled face. Except for the kind of emptiness you might expect from a child whose life had been spent in squalor and whose hope of escape had just evaporated.

She pivoted on her heel and marched back to the study. She closed the door. When I checked on her later, she lay under her covers with her face to the wall.

I hit the laundry room and poured myself four fingers of the finest. I headed for the wingback and slumped there for an hour trying to work things out in my own mind. I had no choice but to send Josey away. The only sensible, adult, moral thing to do. Too bad I felt so rotten.

Why couldn't Josey have had a family like the one in the photos in Stella Iannetti's home? The pretty smiling mother, the tall, shy father, the twin brothers and baby sister, happy and loved. Children whose pictures predicted stable, sensible, confident adults. Just like Mary Morrison's school photo of Benedict and Bridget and Rachel showed children like the adults they grew up to be. I was thinking about that photo when it hit me, like a sock full of nickels.

The man in the bar, the man in the car following us. That face had been in the photo too. The eyes with their tilt, the strong cheekbones, the swarthy skin. I'd seen them before on a resentful childish presence photographed more than thirty years earlier.

Now I had more reasons to spin all night.

The old Josey returned at breakfast, not the silent stranger of the night before. But underneath her good humour and pep, I sensed something different.

“You can come back,” I blurted as we dodged the drizzle to get to the car. “We could plan a...a...” I searched for something sufficiently appealing, “...a museum tour. Or something.”

She trained her freckles in my direction. She'd believe that when she saw it.

If it hadn't been Saturday, I could have driven her to school and watched her safely through the doors. As it was, I had to decide if she was better off alone in my house or safer coming along for the ride. It's the kind of decision where you know whatever you decide, you should have made the other choice. We rumbled down the driveway and onto Chemin des Cèdres. “I have no alternative. I can't take the chance you'll be hurt. Or worse.”

Tolstoy leaned over from the back seat and licked Josey's ear. I got the cold shoulder from both of them. A game of Frisbee could win back Tolstoy, but what would it take to have Josey trust me again?

Outside the small pink cottage, a handful of dead roses remained on their stems. Josey raised her eyebrow. We could hear Tolstoy whining from the car.

In the few days since we'd seen her, Mary Morrison had aged ten years. Her translucent pink skin had turned grey and opaque, her hair sagged, she leaned on a pair of canes, and she shuffled as if to the grave.

I took a step back in surprise when she opened her door.

“Oh, sorry, Miz Morrison,” Josey blurted, “if you're not feeling well, we can come back. It's not real important.”

I nodded. I desperately needed the name of the man in the photo, but it could wait until we found out what dreadful thing had happened to Mary Morrison. I couldn't interpret her guarded expression.

“I guess you'd better come in,” she said.

We sniffed no delicious smells of fresh baking. Something felt wrong in the tiny room.

“Sit down.” Mary Morrison sank into a chair. “I'll get a pot of tea in a minute or two, if you'd like.”

Josey and I inhaled simultaneously, alarmed at the idea of her teetering into the kitchen to wait on us.

“No, tha...” I started to say, but Josey stood up first.

“I'm supposed to be learning to do things like that.”

“Are you? That's nice.” Mary Morrison said, leaning back. “Do you think you can find everything?”

“No problemo,” Josey said.

“Use the good china, dear.”

“Sure,” Josey said, making for the kitchen. “Is there anything else I could do at the same time?”

“Why, yes. There are some lemon squares my neighbour brought me, if you'd like to put a few slices on a plate.”

I checked out the room. Dishes and books were piled on the table in the corner. Like a packing job had begun. I couldn't see any of the photos we had come to ask about. What was going on?

Mary Morrison leaned back in her chair with no sign of the light we'd seen in her on our first visit. She waved her hand in the direction of the half-packed objects. Her lower lip trembled.

“They want me to leave my little cottage and move to Toronto with them.”

I could hardly imagine such a grim change in one's life.

“Why?” I asked. It came out as a whisper.