29
NORAH
Present Day
NORAH FLUNG HERSELF BACKWARD, pressing against the wall as the woman stepped closer.
“Please. Help me.”
Norah couldn’t speak. Words twisted in her throat, clutching at air and stealing her ability to breathe deeply.
“Please?”
Still Norah couldn’t reply. She struggled to suck in air, to scream, to do something—anything—but the fear that encircled her was paralyzing.
The woman stumbled, tripping on her own feet, and then swayed. Instinctively, Norah reached for her. But the woman jerked backward and bumped into a kitchen chair, sending it crashing against the table.
In a flurry, the woman sprinted for the back door, which was half open. She rammed her palms against the screen door, and Norah saw spots of blood staining the wood, left behind by the intruder’s injured hands.
“Wait!” Without thinking, Norah raced after the woman. The cool night air hit her lungs, and she gratefully sucked it in as she spotted the woman dodging between the gravestones.
Norah ran after her. The woman’s expression was imprinted in Norah’s mind, and as the surprise and terror fell away, Norah interpreted the fear in her eyes. Fear, not threat. Desperation, not intention to cause harm.
Sticks snapped under Norah’s feet, and she heard the underbrush along the tree line rustling as the stranger plunged through the woods.
“Wait!” Norah cried again, but she was answered only by the sound of crashing into the leaves as the woman tripped and fell. She saw the petite form dive across a fallen log, then shove to her feet. She looked over her shoulder, and in the moonlight, Norah made out the whites of her eyes.
“Please! Let me help you!” Norah called.
The woman didn’t stop, but instead increased her pace. She skirted the backyards of a few more houses on Predicament Avenue. Norah chased after her, glancing toward the neighbors’ homes. She debated whether she should run to one of them for assistance, but none had their lights on. If she did, she’d lose sight of the woman, whose bloody hands and horrified expression now haunted Norah.
She couldn’t help but feel the weight pressing on her chest as she ran, branches scraping her face and clawing at her clothes. Was this what Naomi had looked like the night she’d been attacked and murdered? Her hands bound? The reports stated she was found facedown on the earth. Someone had shoved her face into the dirt, suffocation mingling with strangulation.
Tears scored their way down Norah’s face. She wouldn’t let it happen again. She had no clue who this woman was. But now it was clearer than ever to Norah that the woman was like Naomi. A victim. A victim of something—of someone—and she needed saving.
The woman cut across a back lawn, and Norah followed. It seemed the woman knew she was there, knew she was chasing her, but she refused to stop running. Norah increased her pace despite the pain in her side. She’d never been athletic and was definitely out of shape, yet the woman ahead of her wasn’t remarkably fast either. Perhaps malnourishment had weakened her.
A shed’s silhouette loomed in the distance, and the woman aimed for it. She glanced over her shoulder at Norah and then continued. Norah opened her mouth to plead with her to stop, but her breath came out in a gasp. Her chest felt as if it was going to explode for lack of air.
Running around to the back of the shed, the woman kicked at the wall. A board popped out, and she squeezed through the gap. Seconds later, Norah approached the shed’s back wall and, disregarding the warning thrumming through every nerve of her body, tried to follow where the woman had gone through. But because she was larger, she didn’t fit through the opening. She grabbed at the board next to it and pulled hard. It gave way, and Norah was able now to slip through the wider gap.
She stood in the shed, breathing heavily. All was still inside. Dark. Norah could barely make out the shapes before her. A clanging sounded, the collision of metal on metal. A tool falling on something?
“Hello?” Norah called out.
She saw movement, then heard what sounded like a wood board striking a plastic bucket.
Norah edged forward in the darkness, her hands moving from side to side to feel her way. There were no windows in the shed to allow the moonlight in. Even with her eyes adjusted, Norah could see only the forms of items in her way. Her shin collided with the dull metal edge of something. She winced, grabbing at her leg.
Just ahead, Norah thought she saw a trapdoor. It was propped open. She stepped around it, the square hole in the floor nothing but a black outline. Norah crouched down and peered into the opening. A rickety metal ladder became visible the longer she stared.
Norah hesitated, afraid to go down there. She’d run headlong after a strange woman, lost her bearings in the darkness as to where in the neighborhood they were after running most of the way through the woods. And now she was alone in a stranger’s shed with a cavernous hole in the floor—
“Help me.” The woman’s white face jumped out at Norah from the ladder below as she rose from the depths, like rising from the grave.
Norah screamed, falling backward. She fell onto the deck of a riding lawn mower. Her arms flailed wildly, pushing over a barrel that held long-handled rakes and shovels. The tools crashed to the floor, bouncing off the lawn mower and onto another one before clattering into a pile atop one another.
She struggled to pull herself up by gripping the edge of the lawn mower’s seat. Her feet braced against the second lawn mower, and in front of her she noted a third.
Three unused riding lawn mowers.
A toolshed.
Tools.
No windows.
Dread filled her. The image of the pink bandanna flashed through her memory. Naomi. Otto.
This was Otto’s shed.
The bleeding woman had led Norah to her prison in Otto’s shed.
May 1901
“Mr. Charlemagne!” Effie’s hand flew to her throat as the man before her leaned against the locked bedroom door. His words and his actions made no sense to her. He was an upstanding citizen in Shepherd. His family were pillars of the community. He was a good Christian man!
“Miss James,” he said, his tone apologetic, “you were never part of the equation, nor was your sister. I was disappointed when I saw your sister through the window. Reading the accounts in the papers verified it was your sister Polly who’d been on the porch that night. What a dreadful thing for her to witness.”
He continued speaking as he straightened his vest from their harried run toward Predicament Avenue. He was nonchalant, seemingly unaware of the discomfort Effie felt.
“I truly believed the suspicion would be cast on Floyd and his mother—as it has been. But you and your Mr. Anderson are an unfortunate twist of fate.” Patrick tipped his head to the side, studying her. “Truly. I expected him to a degree, but you? And Polly?”
“Mr. Charlemagne,” Effie managed. “What have you done?”
“Done?” He stared at her incredulously. “Effie, what are you implying?”
Effie gathered her wits and started toward the door that he blocked. “Please. Let me through.”
“No, no.” He wagged his finger at her. “Let’s chat a bit more. You see, I enjoy a good debacle, and this is most definitely one of them. The best laid plans must always have a contingency included because they never go as they’re supposed to. Don’t you agree?”
Effie didn’t answer. She took a step backward from the man. “Did you . . . kill Isabelle Addington?” It was a bold question, but it slipped out regardless of her anxiety.
A flash in Patrick Charlemagne’s eyes confirmed her suspicions in spite of his answer. “Me? Kill Isabelle? That’s a harsh accusation.” He smiled grimly and gave a small shrug. “Your sister knows what happened. I’m sure you’ve already discussed it. Oh, that’s right. She’s been heavily medicated. Although”—he gave a wayward toss of his head—“it’s unfortunate your nurse fled Shepherd. She was working out quite well for me.”
“It was you in Polly’s room that night!” Awareness flooded Effie. She toyed nervously with the buttons on the cuff of her blouse.
Patrick smoothed his mustache and frowned. “I don’t like to admit to something so awful, Miss James, as it’s quite the blot on a man’s reputation.”
Effie stared at him with disbelief. “You could have killed me.”
“Actually, your sister was the primary reason for the intrusion.”
Effie tasted bile in her throat. A fierce defensiveness of Polly rose within her breast, pushing aside her reticence to confront him. “You would have murdered a dying woman?”
“Dying?” Patrick reared back. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea!” His sympathy was disingenuous. “But if your sister had not gone onto the porch—like you who chose to keep a proper distance—and if she had not peered through the windows, she wouldn’t have been traumatized by Isabelle’s untimely end.”
“Where is Isabelle?” Effie asked. Then she dared to inquire about what was truly haunting her. “Where is baby Cora?”
Patrick’s expression turned cynical. Touched with annoyance. He pushed away from the bedroom door and approached Effie. She backed away until she hit the wall behind her.
“Baby Cora. You know of her?” he sneered and released a short bark of laughter. “The reason for it all. The mess and the delight and the labor of a plan long in the making. You know, Isabelle was very helpful—until she wasn’t.”
“It was you who took Cora?” Effie struggled to put the pieces together. The jigsaw puzzle of it all was overwhelming and perplexing.
“No!” Patrick waved her off. “Of course not! That was Isabelle.” He pondered something for a moment and then stepped even closer to Effie, his body threatening to push against hers, squeezing her between him and the wall. “That music box Bethany and I gifted you this afternoon?” He didn’t wait for Effie to acknowledge. “It was Isabelle’s. I met her while I was in England.” He nodded at Effie’s look of surprise. “Yes, I was in England last year. My father sent me abroad, and it was my time to make something of myself. My family might be known here in Shepherd, but I’ve debts. Monetary debts. Wooing an employee of an English lord? There were several ideas in the making. Isabelle called little Cora ‘the songbird,’ and she found the music box to be sentimental. In fact, I was quite pleased to get it back recently.” He chuckled. “It made a fine gift for Bethany, who in turn was so kind as to pass it along to you. What irony!”
“Isabelle cared for Cora?” Effie eyed the door behind Patrick. But reaching it would be almost impossible with him standing so close to her.
“Of course she did. Cora was like her own. She was more than compliant when I recommended that she leave with the baby. That the child needed her more, and that together we could be a family here in the States.”
“But you had no intention of that.” Effie was beginning to understand. To see the deviousness of his plan. Good Christian man? It was all a horrible façade.
“Of course not. I already had my sights on Bethany Todd. She is the most eligible young woman in Shepherd, and I’ve long admired her. However, that would never happen—not with the debts I’ve acquired. I need money, and I’m not going to my father for it. Lord Mooring has plenty of money, however, and I was certain he would part with it in exchange for his daughter.”
“He’s never received a ransom request.” Effie glared as meanly as she could.
Patrick nodded. “Ah, I know. You see, it’s difficult to demand ransom for a child when you don’t actually have possession of it.” He gritted his teeth, and Effie felt the dotting of his saliva on her cheek as he spat out his next words. “Isabelle and her conscience. She was here in the house for a day when I met her here. Then she admitted she’d written weeks before to the child’s father. Lord Mooring was coming? Here? It was such a sad mess.”
“Where is Cora?” Effie blinked back angry tears. They would only give Patrick Charlemagne more satisfaction with his power over her.
“The better question is, where is Floyd?”
“What do you mean?”
“There were more than just you and Polly here that night.” Patrick reached out and ran his finger down Effie’s cheek, digging into her skin so she felt his fingernail leaving a mark. “And 322 Predicament Avenue is a place no one visits. So why? Why that night? The one night I’m here to meet Isabelle, to rid myself of that bit of traitorous baggage, the two of you showed up on the back porch, and Floyd Opperman came out of nowhere.”
“Floyd stopped you?” Effie pulled back in stunned surprise.
Patrick snarled. “No. Isabelle is dead. You yourself found the evidence of that.”
“And Cora?”
Patrick glowered, curling his upper lip in disdain. “This is what I would like to know. It would solve so many problems.”