Just Fall (22 page)

Ellie stared at the unopened bottle of champagne, the puffy pillows on the bed, the full skirts of her wedding dress that now felt heavy and constraining. This was not how she had envisioned her wedding night. “What’s your real name?”

“Kevin.”

“Kevin what? Is Beauman a lie too?”

“Kevin Palmer.”

Ellie rolled the name silently over her tongue. Kevin Palmer. And then, fingering her wedding ring, she thought,
Does that make me Ellie Palmer?
Her brain was reeling.

“And how long ago was that? That Quinn found you?”

“Seven years.”

“And in that time…how many…?”

He was silent.

A sour smile twisted her lips. Yes, probably better not to know.

“What you have to understand, Ellie,” insisted Rob, “is that you changed everything. You gave me the reason to get out. And I was out. I made a deal with Quinn.”

“If you made a deal, what happened? Why did he come to our wedding?”

“Quinn changed his mind.”

“So what happens now? What does he want this time?”

“He wants you to kill someone.”

“Me? No! I won’t. I can’t.”

Rob gripped Ellie’s hand. She shuddered and pulled away.

“El, do you remember the day we moved in together?”

The tenderness in his voice, the way he looked at her. It was impossible to reconcile those emotions with all she was hearing.

“Our discussion about the coffee cups?” he persisted.

“The coffee cups?” she echoed, bewildered.

“Remember I told you to always put them facedown? So the dust doesn’t get in? This is just like that. If we keep things as clean as possible, it will be all right. I promise you. I swear to you it will be all right.”

“What do we have to do?” she whispered, searching his eyes with hers.

“Obey.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. She was in shock. Terrified. Exhausted. Yet exhilarated in a weird way she couldn’t define.

Till death do us part.
Had she said that phrase only a few hours ago?

Ellie opened her eyes.

“So,” he said, kissing her lips, “just do what you’re told. Obey. Remember that if you can figure out the first step, you can figure out the next step. Okay? And never forget that I love you.”

Quinn escorted her to the door of the suite, giving her instructions. If she didn’t follow them, Rob would die. She believed him. She left the hotel, got into a yellow cab, and went back to the apartment that had been their sheltered nest. She was numb.

Their cozy apartment felt like a stranger’s, with piles of unopened wedding presents splayed every which way. Ellie caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. Still in her wedding dress, her carefully applied makeup and coiffed hair a ruin, she looked like a desperate clown. She wanted to weep but no tears came.

She peeled off her dress, leaving it a cumulus cloud draped carelessly over boxes. She stripped off her corset and Spanx and pantyhose, unclasped the pearl necklace at her throat. She fingered her diamond engagement ring and the brand-new gold band that now nestled beside it on the third finger of her left hand. She removed both, dropping them into a little porcelain dish on Rob’s dresser.

The first thing was a shower. If you can figure out the first thing, you can figure out the next thing. As she showered, her thoughts raced. She could still call the police. She could stop this. She didn’t have to follow Quinn’s instructions. But would he kill Rob if she didn’t? She believed he would. And probably kill her too.

She wrapped herself in Rob’s terry cloth robe and wandered the apartment. She inhaled the scent of him from the robe’s collar. It was dawn.

Ellie thought about Rob’s reference to the coffee cups. Her bare feet padded over to the cabinet with the coffee cups. There they were, on their shelf, open sides down. Methodically she pulled each cup from the shelf, inspecting the inside of every one. Nothing.

She shoved them back into the shelf, frustrated. One of them, a Central Park Zoo polar bear mug, crashed to the floor.

“Shit!”

Ellie stooped to pick up the shards. She gathered the big chunks in her hands and as she straightened to toss them in the trash, she froze. She dumped the broken pieces and felt underneath the shelf on which the mugs sat. There was an envelope taped to it.

Quickly, she sliced at the tape with a steak knife and freed the envelope. Two pages were inside. She unfolded the first:

My darling Ellie,

I am so, so sorry.

Please follow the instructions enclosed with this letter exactly and it is my fervent hope all will be fine.

You are my love, and always will be, believe that.

You are everything.

Rob

Ellie unfolded the second piece of paper and began to read.

When Lucien arrives at the playground, the park is buzzing with hysterical mothers and scared children. Two patrol cars are already there and the uniforms are taking statements. When Gabrielle and Agathe spot him, they sprint over, Agathe clutching Bertrand close to her chest.

His sister-in-law bursts into speech. “He was out of my sight for maybe three minutes—Agathe was changing the baby on a bench, I was talking to her, but we were right here!” Her voice is shrill. Lucien sees his wife shudder.

Lucien lays a soothing hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder. “Listen to me. It is important you remember every detail. So breathe. Calm down, and think. Was there anyone or anything unusual at the park this morning? Anything at all that you noticed?”

Gabrielle shakes her head. Her lips tremble.

“Has Thomas ever run off before? Is it possible he’s playing a game with you? Hide-and-seek perhaps?”

“No! Listen, Lucien, he just wouldn’t. If anything, he’s timid, he doesn’t like strangers, so he never strays too far!”

Lucien turns to Agathe. “Did you see anything unusual?”

Agathe looks down at the sleeping baby safe in her arms, then at her distraught sister. She raises her eyes to her husband’s.

“There was one thing…although I don’t know if it means anything…” She falters.

“Anything might help us,” he assures her.

“There was a taxi, blue, an old sedan? Boxy…maybe a Renault? I’m not sure. But it was idling near the corner of the park. It was here when we got here, and I noticed it was still there about an hour later.”

“Which corner?”

Agathe points.

“Okay, that’s a help. Gabrielle, what was Thomas wearing?”

“A red shirt with a dump truck on it. Tan shorts, sneakers—you know, the kind that light up…he loves those sneakers…” Gabrielle’s eyes overflow with tears. “Oh, Lucien…”

Lucien pulls his wife aside. “Take Gabrielle home. There is no point in you staying here.”

Agathe begins to protest, but Lucien puts a finger to her lips to quiet her. “There’s nothing more you can do here, Agathe. But I promise you—”

“That you’ll find him?”

“That we’ll do everything we can.”

Lucien sees the pain this answer gives his wife, but he doesn’t want to make promises he isn’t sure he can keep.

He escorts Agathe and Gabrielle to their cars, taking care to strap Bertrand into his forest-green velour car seat himself. He kisses his son’s damp forehead, the tip of his nose. He watches until Agathe’s car is out of sight. Then he confers with the uniforms about the statements they have collected. Two other women had noticed the blue taxi; one of them seems pretty sure it was a Volvo and had one red door.

Surely this couldn’t be a coincidence? But how could this taxi be connected to both the murder in Vieux Fort and Thomas’s disappearance? And was it connected to the Grande Sucre murder as well? Was this mysterious taxi driver so stupid that he didn’t realize that a blue car with one red door would be conspicuous? Or was he so brazen he didn’t care?

Ellie stared at herself in the three-way mirror. The satin dress, embroidered with seed pearls and delicate sequins, clung to her body, hugging the curve of her waist before cascading in an elegant bubble of the lightest chiffon. The dip of the neckline demonstrated solemn respect for the sanctity of marriage while hinting at the delights of the wedding night to come. As the saleswoman placed a veil on her head, Ellie was certain. This would be her wedding dress.

“Are you ready to show them?” the saleswoman asked. Ellie’s mother and Marcy were waiting, sipping the complimentary champagne and making polite conversation. The last four dresses had been soundly rejected. The first her mother deemed too sexy, the second all agreed was overwrought, the third definitively proved to Ellie that she was not interested in a mermaid gown, the fourth was just not special.

Ellie wanted a moment. She closed her eyes and imagined Rob’s face when he saw her walking down the aisle toward him. She opened them and again contemplated her own reflection. This dress was perfect. She felt like a princess.

Ellie stepped into a pair of white satin loaner shoes. The high heels emphasized the arc of her back, the length of her neck.

“You look beautiful,” the saleswoman cooed as Ellie stepped out of the dressing room.

Marcy loved the dress. She
ooh
ed and
ahh
ed and asked Ellie to give them a twirl. She earnestly debated the veil options with Ellie: fingertip or floor-length? A tiara instead?

Ellie turned to her mother, a hopeful smile on her face. Her mother was accepting another glass of champagne.

“So, Mom? What do you think?”

“It’s very nice.” There was a slight slur in Michelle’s voice, one Ellie was accustomed to hearing, although not usually at eleven in the morning.
Very nice,
thought Ellie. From Michelle, that was high praise indeed.

“I’ll take it.”

Marcy squealed with delight. The saleswoman summoned a seamstress. Ellie stepped back into the dressing room and onto the platform before the three-way mirror. The seamstress measured and pinned, wrote notes and complimented Ellie’s figure.

Ellie watched herself in the mirror, feeling happy, daring herself to trust that emotion. The seamstress tweaked the position of the two side mirrors. Suddenly Ellie was confronted with an infinite number of her own elegant reflections receding into endless space. Ellie smiled and her reflections all smiled with her.

It’s been a long few hours. First Ellie had to talk Crazy B into staying at Maison Marianne. Then she had to negotiate a hiding place that she felt gave them a decent vantage point from which to observe the house, but that he felt was far enough away from the mansion (and its angry ghost).

They have crouched in the heat, hidden in the overgrown tropical landscaping, without water, flicking away insects. Crazy B has lit and smoked spliff after spliff, talking all the while. Ellie is light-headed, thirsty, hungry.

Crazy B regales her with lurid tales about the house. How after the American couple’s bodies were shipped back to the States, locals came to loot the place but were scared away by slamming doors and oozing bloodstains on the walls. How the pool was drained but fills again and again. Even after the water was turned off. How Marianne’s ghostly, dripping body roams the mansion, leaving trails of water and slime.