Page 53 of Nineteen Seventy-Six

“Lisette agreed to the arrangement,” Charles replied, voice cracking. He tried to meet Lisette’s eyes, but she hadn’t taken them off her belly. “I didn’t force her to do anything.”

“I don’t hear her defending your novel idea.”

“She knows better than to rise to your bait.”

“Or she knows that your arrangement, no matter how terrible, is all she’s got.”

Charles’ head throbbed. Pressure pushed at his skull. “Shut up.”

“She’ll be no better than a ghost in this house. No better than one of Sweet Maureen’s parlor tricks, hovering, waiting for a moment of usefulness.”

“Shut up, Cordelia, or I swear to Christ—”

“You’ll use her like a brood mare until you’ve used her up, and then what? Then what, Charles? We both know nothing ever keeps your interest that long. Even silly Catherine, the only woman you might have actually, truly, really loved. Who broke that off again? It wasn’t her. It was your fickle nature. Your inability to give more than you take. You will take everything from Lisette, and then you will leave her with nothing.”

Charles jumped to his feet. “I’ll fucking murder you with my bare hands if you don’t stop running your goddamned mouth, you crazy bitch!”

“Charles,” Richard warned but made no move.

“Ahh.” Cordelia laughed in the darkness. “And there we are. The real Charles. The one who can and has murdered others. You think I didn’t know? You think others don’t?”

“You’re fucking insane, you know that?”

“Augustus only worried about the police. But what of the rest of New Orleans? What of all the others, who know you killed that teacher, Evers, for fucking Maureen? Or those transients, after they attacked Evangeline? To your credit, you did not kill the children bullying Elizabeth, but does Colleen know her old lover, that professor, disappeared not long after she left for Scotland? No? Oh. You haven’t told her.”

Lisette stopped whispering.

Cordelia made a soft sound. “Of course, who could blame you? Anyone who hurts one of your sisters is off-limits. Who could blame you? But what about the one who hurt your brother?”

“You and your incessant fucking rambling.”

“What about Ekatherina, Charles?”

A thousand tiny pinpricks danced over the surface of his skin. All the air went still, and then was sucked away from him, out of the room, into the storm.

“Charles?” Lisette asked.

“Charles?” Cordelia repeated.

Colleen first tried to call her mother’s home. A pre-recorded message from the operator told her the phones were down. Then, she stepped aside to let Noah make the call to his father, but when the color disappeared from his cheeks, she knew he, too, got the message.

Magnolia Grace.

The Gardens.

Ophélie.

Even Sullivan & Associates.

All down.

“Jesus,” Colleen whispered, falling into the chair. She buried her face in her hands. “What do we do?”

Noah rested both hands on her shoulders and sighed. “We just… we remember hurricanes are a way of life, and they know what they’re doing.”

“Why isn’t the news talking about this?”

“Maybe they don’t know about it over here yet.” Noah squeezed her shoulders. There was a light tremor in his touch. “Eugenia said the storm turned, and—”

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