When family secrets are unearthed, a woman’s past can become a dangerous place to hide…
After the death of her adoptive mother, Ava Saunders comes upon a peculiar photograph, sealed and hidden away in a crawl space. The photo shows a shuttered, ramshackle house on top of a steep hill. On the back, a puzzling inscription: Destiny calls us.
Ava is certain that it’s a clue to her elusive past. Twenty-three years ago, she’d been found wrapped in a yellow blanket in the narthex of the Holy Saviour Catholic Church—and rescued—or so she’d been told. Her mother claimed there was no more to the story, so the questions of her abandonment were left unanswered. For Ava, now is the time to find the roots of her mother’s lies. It begins with the house itself—once the scene of a brutal double murder.
When Ava enlists the help of the two people closest to her, a police detective and her best friend, she fears that investigating her past could be a fatal mistake. Someone is following them there. And what’s been buried in Ava’s nightmares isn’t just a crime. It’s a holy conspiracy.
The house was a mottled gray color that reminded me of dead fish.
Scaly paint peeled from the weathered clapboards. Shutters that looked like
they might have been black at one time were now streaked and speckled, hanging
at odd angles on rusted hinges. A tall, narrow, ugly house built on top of a
steep hill. The wind was blowing hard, and for a moment I imagined the concrete
foundation splitting, the house lifting from its resting place and landing on
top of me as if it were my due.
My feet were planted on
the first of eighteen stone steps leading to the front door. I glanced down,
scanning the photograph again. The black-and-white Polaroid was grainy, but the
house hadn’t changed much. I wanted to go to the door and knock, but hesitated.
What would I say if someone appeared? It would be easier if someone opened the
front door, noticed me lingering—but the windows were dark, though the sun was
just a splash of color in the western horizon.
I gulped the last of the
cold coffee in the cardboard cup and climbed the steps. Curtains in a
ground-floor window were parted, so I cupped my hands and peered inside; the
glass was spotted with grime and offered only a shadowed view of an empty
living room.
A voice startled me.
“Can I help you?”
A woman stood at the bottom of the steps, her swaddled gray hair
peeking out above a scarf, her hands stuffed deep in her coat pockets.
“Oh. I was looking for
the owner, but it doesn’t look like anyone is home. Do you live here, in this
neighborhood?” I walked down the stone steps to meet her.
“I do, yes. And if
you’re going to wait for the owners, you better bring provisions. No one’s
living there now.” Her thin lips moved upward to a hesitant smile. “What did
you need?”
“Has it been empty
long?”
“Six months with no
tenants. I live next to the eyesore, so I know. Oughta just knock it down, I
say. Why? Are you interested in renting it?”
“No. I was doing
research . . .”
“What? Is it the
anniversary already?” She pulled her scarf down a bit and cocked her head to
the side. “That can’t be for another couple of months yet.”
“Anniversary?”
“The murders. Isn’t that
what you’re researching?”
“No, I—”
“House is owned by a
development company now.” She shrugged. “I thought they’d tear it down, but
they’ve been holding on to it. Five years I’ve been dealing with this.”
I’d been backing up
little by little as she spoke, unaware that the sidewalk dipped behind me. I
lost my balance and the Polaroid slipped from my fingers. I leaned down and
grabbed it, but not before she got a glimpse.
“Is that the house?” She
took the black-and-white image from me and studied it.
I thought about Claire,
the woman who’d adopted me, who’d raised me for twenty-two years. She’d always
claimed to have no information about how I’d been found wrapped in a yellow
blanket in the narthex of the Holy Saviour Catholic Church. Barely six weeks
old, she said. Though I’d begged for more details, clues, information, she’d
insisted there weren’t any.
I suspected this wasn’t the truth, because I had memories—
unformed fragments punctuated by vivid recollections that didn’t jibe with her version. It was
the ongoing mystery of my life. A project never finished. I’d stumbled and
fallen through my teenage years and young adulthood trying to sort it all out.
Who had abandoned me, why, and when? When asking questions didn’t help, I
resorted to anger, manipulation, and, lately, alcohol to try and forget.
Digging through a crawl
space after her death, I’d stumbled upon the photograph tucked away with other
mementos from my childhood: school pictures, report cards, my high-school
diploma, a yellow baby blanket. The photograph had been inside a blank white
envelope, sealed shut.
Since the day I’d
disturbed that seal and seen the image, I’d felt a growing sense of
urgency—unfinished business, a chapter not complete. In the two weeks and three
days since—while signing papers, helping Anais arrange for Claire’s body to be
flown to France, comforting Aunt Marie—I’d returned to the photograph daily:
What had it meant to Claire and why had she kept it? The little lies and
secrets she’d clung to during life were about to be wrested from her now that
she was dead.
I stared into the woman’s
watery gray eyes. “Who was killed?” I asked.
She took so long to
answer I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. “Husband and wife. Both of them in there.”
“Did you know them
well?” Strands of hair came loose from my ponytail and I tucked them behind my
ear. I was listening to her words, but my eyes wandered to the street behind
her, waiting for something, though I wasn’t sure what.
“Well enough to say good
morning, or take in their mail when they were away, I guess. Let me see that
picture again?” She held out her hand.
I gave it to her just as a car slowed near where we stood. An
older man leaned out the window. “Excuse me. Can you tell me how to get to
Flourtown?” He was talking to her, but his eyes were glued to mine. I held his
gaze while she pointed him in the right direction, then I watched him pull
away.
She turned back from the
car, shaking her head. “Now what were you saying?” She held the picture out,
studying the words—almost entirely faded—that were printed after the date.
“This date is the same
as the date of the murders.” Her finger ran along the back of the picture, and
then she turned it over. “And it looks like it was taken from the lower part of
the stone steps, about there.” She pointed a few feet away. “Crappy Polaroid
shot, but it’s definitely that damned house.” When she shoved it into my hand,
it was clear she was afraid.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“The door was left open.
After they were murdered. The door was left open, that’s how they found the
bodies.” She pointed. The front door of the house in the photograph was opened
so wide a hint of the darkened foyer inside was visible. “Was that taken after
those people were killed?”
Before I could answer,
she demanded, “Is this some sort of prank? Because it isn’t funny. It was
horrible. They were beaten with a hammer. The mailman found them the next day .
. . The man was lying on the floor in the living room. Where did you get that
picture?”
“Like I said, doing
research. Tell me about them, please, and what happened after they were
killed.”
I thought she was going
to walk away from me, because her expression turned rancid, but she didn’t.
“The family name was Owens. Middle-aged man and woman. Destiny and Loyal Owens.
He was a big guy. Might have caught a prowler in the house when they came
home—”
“So they think it was
robbery?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t
hear if anything was taken. People around here were scared, though, I can tell
you that. To kill people like that. Police never found out who did it.”
I glanced up at the house; I’d been here long enough. The eyes of
the man in the dark car were dancing behind my eyelids, distracting me.
“All this is giving me
the creeps. I should probably go now.” I turned away and then back to her.
“Thanks.”
She gave a slight nod.
“If you want the place, I’m sure you could get it for a song.”
I smiled. “Sorry, I
don’t sing.”
u u u
I leaned against my car and studied the house. The sun was gone
and the streetlamp blinked on; the stone steps were illuminated. I felt the
warmth of my breath collect in front of my face. “What the hell, Claire?” I
kicked my heel into the dirt.
I opened the car door
and got in, clicking the locks securely into place. 2/15/10. Destiny calls
us, bound by Loyalty. I knew the words printed on the photograph by heart. All
things that spring eternal can never be crushed. I rubbed at my eyes,
blurry from fatigue. Destiny and Loyalty— Destiny and Loyal. All things that
spring eternal can never be crushed.
“And what springs
eternal? Hope,” I muttered.
Had Claire known this
photograph pointed to me, Ava Hope Saunders? How could she not? She must have
known about these murders—that’s why the picture had been shoved away, out of
sight. Claire’s face was there in front of me, angry, tired, the crow’s-feet
winning the battle at the corners of her eyes, her thin lips twisting with the
nasty words flowing from her mouth. Distance and time hadn’t improved our
relationship. It all seemed to just sit and fester, and had picked up with the
same intensity and bitterness the day I returned from college.
Though to be honest, she hadn’t exactly been herself these past
six months. I could see she was tired, distracted, anxious. Usually meticulous
in her grooming, she’d let her salon appointments lapse, allowing gray to peek
through along her hairline; her nails were short and unpolished. Days of
endless sleeping, or not sleeping enough, had taken a toll. Every second of her
forty-six years showed on her face.
In the last few weeks of
her life, we’d barely spoken on the rides to her doctor’s appointments. He had
no answers for her lethargy, sore muscles, lack of appetite, so he’d inject her
with vitamins and send her home. After ruling out Epstein-Barr, HIV, allergies,
his only suggestion was weekly vitamin B shots and plenty of rest. This would
surely pass. But it didn’t.
I’d walked into her room
to see her in bed again, the white duvet pulled up to her chest. Coffee and a
book on her bedside table. I’d reacted with apathy tinged with frustration.
“You wanted me home,
Claire, and all you’ve done is lie in bed. I’m getting a ticket back to
Montreal.”
When she looked up I saw
the deep-purple patches underneath her eyes, the soft, pretty face that had
become skeletal. For a moment I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. That took
two more days.
“College is over, Ava.
It was time to come home.” Her voice was stronger than I’d anticipated. I took
a step back. “We have things to deal with, you and I. Let the past go.”
I slapped my hand
against the bedpost. “Let go of the past? Why didn’t I think of that? If only
it were that easy.”
“What’s happened to
you?” Her eyes were glassy and seemed to have shrunk into her head.
I stared at her,
contemplating my next words. What did happen to me? How did I end up with
this family? “You want to talk, Claire? Have a heart-to-heart? How about
answering some questions? Huh?” She reached her hand toward me but I pushed it
away. “I didn’t think so. I’m late for work, but we’ll finish this later.”
We never had the chance.
Two days later she had a heart attack in the hallway on her way to my room.
I started the engine and scanned the street again. Nothing. The
man was gone. I took one last glance at the house before pulling away. It sat,
its facade barely illuminated by the streetlamp, on top of the steep little
hill, desolate, isolated, alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment