Page 110 of The Lady on Esplanade
I lay limp listening to them walk through the house, each step diminishing my remaining hope.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
I struggled to open my eyes, wanting to believe Adele was right.
Fight, Nola, baby.We got this.
My eyes sprung open.We got this.It was what my mother used to say every time she had a setback.It was what gave us the good months.I’d hated it then, that reminder of her failure.But maybe that wasn’t what it had been to her.Maybe it had been a rallying cry of hope.If we were together, we could face anything.
A glass vase filled with Mardi Gras beads flew off the dresser, over our heads, and down the stairs, landing with an explosive crash.Camille jumped, but she didn’t release her grip on me.
“Did you hear that?”Beau’s face appeared at the bottom of the steps; he looked up and spotted us.“There you are.Everything okay up there?”
“She’s drunk,” Camille said.“And I think she tried to overdose on her pain meds.”Camille grabbed my arm and spun me around so I faced the stairs.
Felicity appeared behind Beau, her eyes wide as she took in the broken glass and me.“Who else is up there?”She was looking past us, into the room where the icy chill pressed against my back.
A low growl sounded behind us, the resonance vibrating deep in my marrow.Tumbling down the stairs almost seemed like a welcome alternative to being near whatever that was.Camille moved to stand behind me, pressing her knee into the middle of my back and holding me upright.
“Camille, is everything okay?”Beau put his foot on the bottom step, his gaze never leaving my face.I tried to mouth the word “No,” but my facial muscles acted as if they belonged to someone else.
“Nothing I can’t handle.I told her to stay off the stairs, that they were too steep, and far more dangerous because of her inebriated condition, but you know how headstrong she can be.And she’s got a broken ankle.It’s almost as if she has a death wish.”
I tried to speak, to defend myself, but only gurgled.
Beau’s gaze shifted from my face to whatever was standing behind us, and judging by the look on his face I was more glad than usual that I couldn’t see ghosts.
The women’s chanting continued, the words slipping over the cliff of my memory, eluding my grasp.
“We’re stronger together,” Beau said, still looking behind me.
“Adele?”Felicity whispered.
Beau faced his sister.“You can see her?”
Felicity nodded, her eyes wide.“Do you see the other woman, too?”
“Yeah.And they’re not alone.”
The growl rumbled in the air again, my chest vibrating with it.
Beau put one foot on the next step.“Adele’s here, Camille.She’s been talking to me for years, and I finally decided to listen to her.I know what you did.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.Adele’s dead.”Camille’s knee dug harder into my back.
Beau’s face hardened.“You killed our mother, and we can prove it.”He took another step up the steep stairway.“Adele told me to talk to Henry.He’s your weakest link, Camille, as I’m sure you know.It took him all of five minutes to cave.He told me how you lured my mother to the flooded Charity Hospital with the promise of finding Sunny.And how he strangled her and then pried the diamond from her ring because the two of you are the worst kind of predators.She loved you, Camille, and you murdered her.”
Camille went still, oblivious to the creeping black shadow that now covered the stairway walls.“Henry killed her—not me.She was my friend.I loved her like a sister.”
Beau took another step.“Right.Which is why you asked him to kill her and then rob her.You didn’t have the guts to do it yourself.And then you told him where to hide her body.You are as guilty as he is.”
Camille reached down and grabbed a handful of my hair.“Stop where you are.Or I will shove your drunk girlfriend down the stairs and she will take you with her.”
The dark entity emitted another growl as the shadow oozed down the wall and touched the steps.Fear was the only thing keeping my eyes open.And anger over what Camille had done to Adele.And to her children.
“Please don’t make this any worse,” Beau said.“I’ve already called the police, and they’re on their way.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Camille said, her voice taunting like a playground bully’s.“A ghost’s testimony won’t stand up in court.Neither will anything Mimi has to say about the rings.”
