James Burke - Light of the World

“Maybe another time. Thank you, Ms. Horowitz. I think you’re a nice woman.” Felicity got into her Audi and drove away.

Gretchen went back into the cabin, packed her workout bag, and went to the health club, thinking that her strange encounter with Felicity Louviere was over. Early on in her life, she had come to believe that the differences in human beings were not of great magnitude and had more to do with appearance than motivation. The exception was the difference between the sick and the well. Some people glowed with sunshine and health; others seemed stricken in body and spirit, as though they had walked through an invisible cobweb and their pores could not breathe.

Three hours later, when Gretchen emerged from the dressing room at the health club, her skin ruddy, her hair damp from her shower, she was convinced that Felicity Louviere carried a form of perdition with her wherever she went.

Felicity was standing by the registration desk, her bag on her shoulder, oblivious to the club members who had to step around her to swipe their membership cards. Gretchen put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s have a bagel and some cream cheese,” she said.

“I’d like that,” Felicity said. “Is Clete with you?”

“He’s at the ranch. It’s just you and me. I’ll put in our order. Sit down over there on the sofa, and we’ll talk.”

After Gretchen had ordered, she checked her phone for messages, then sat down next to Felicity in a quiet area by the fireplace.

“I have to confide in somebody,” Felicity said. “I feel worse than I’ve ever felt in my life. I don’t want to burden or hurt Clete any more than I have.”

“What is it?”

“My husband left his financial statement from Vanguard on his desk. In four months, he’s made withdrawals of eighty-five thousand dollars from his money-market account. I thought maybe he was gambling again. I looked at the accounting book he keeps in the bottom of his desk. He enters every expenditure and deposit and transaction in ink and never puts information in a computer. The Vanguard withdrawals were there. Beside each of them were the initials A.S.”

“Asa Surrette?”

“That’s what I asked him. He went into a rage.”

“Why would he be paying Surrette?” Gretchen asked.

Felicity stared into Gretchen’s face without replying. Felicity had put on no makeup; her lips were cracked.

“Surrette is blackmailing him?” Gretchen said.

“I think he paid Surrette to murder our daughter. I think I shut my eyes to what he did. I think I’m responsible for my daughter’s death.”

“You mustn’t say that,” Gretchen said. “You had nothing to do with your daughter’s death. Where’s your husband now?”

“I don’t know. He’s frightened. He was drunk last night, and I saw him doing lines on a mirror this morning. I don’t think he’s bathed in days. He hates Clete and he hates Dave Robicheaux. He killed our daughter. The man I have slept with for years killed Angel.”

“Regardless of what may or may not have happened, you’re not responsible. Do you understand me?”

“There’s something else. I think I’ve seen him. Twice, maybe three times.”

“Seen who?”

“ Him, the man who killed Angel. He had a camera with a zoom lens. I looked at the photographs of him that are posted on the Internet. He’s lost weight since he went to prison in Kansas, but I’m almost sure it was him.”

“Did you tell your husband?”

“Yes. It terrified him.”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying. He fears for your safety?”

“He fears Surrette will take both of us. Ms. Horowitz, you’ve been very patient. But I know what I have done, or what I have failed to do. I didn’t protect Angel. I’m partly at fault for her death. I’ll never forgive myself.”

One of the club’s employees held up the heated bagels on a plate so Gretchen could see them, then set the plate on the counter.

“I’ll be right back,” Gretchen said. She charged the bagels to her account, then picked up the plate and returned to the sofa. Felicity had disappeared. Gretchen’s hobo bag lay on the coffee table, the drawstring pulled loose. She rummaged through it. Her cell phone was gone. Through the glass doors, she watched Felicity’s Audi drive away.

Alafair was sitting in the passenger seat of Gretchen’s pickup when they turned off the Higgins Street Bridge and parked down by the river, next to the old train station that had become the national headquarters of a conservation group founded by Teddy Roosevelt.

Six hours had passed since Felicity had stolen Gretchen’s cell phone.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Alafair asked.

“Love Younger is one of the most powerful men in the United States,” Gretchen said. “You think he doesn’t know what’s going on in his own family?”

“I doubt he does.”

“You can say that with a straight face?” Gretchen said. She cut the engine. The river was high, slate-green, coursing over the submerged boulders close to the banks.

“Younger probably used Cronus as a role model,” Alafair said.

“Who?”

“The Greek god who ate his children,” Alafair said.

“I don’t care about Younger’s children. They were born rich. They had choices. I was wrong about Felicity Louviere. She wants to punish herself, and I think she’s going to use Asa Surrette to do it.”

“She’s not innocent in all this, Gretchen.”

“Are you coming with me or not?”

“I’m your friend, aren’t I?”

Gretchen hooked the strap of her hobo bag over her shoulder, but did not get out of the truck. The refurbished train station looked like an orange fortress and had the clean lines of an architectural work of art. It was located at the base of a hill that sloped abruptly down to the river. At the top of the hill was the maple-lined street where Bill Pepper had lived and where he had drugged and sexually assaulted her. “You’re more than a friend,” she said.

“You don’t need to say any more.”

“I’ll say what I feel like. You know what you mean to me, Alafair?”

“Sometimes it’s better not to be too specific about feelings.”

“What did you think I was going to say?”

“I’m not quite sure.”

“You’re everything I want to become. You’re educated and smart and beautiful. You stand up to people without having to threaten them. I sleep with a gun. You can walk away from situations that make me want to tear people apart.”

“I don’t know if that’s always a virtue.”

“You’ve published a novel. You were Phi Beta Kappa at Reed. You had a four-point average at Stanford Law. Everybody in New Iberia respects you.”

“People respect you, too, Gretchen.”

“Because they fear me. They know I have blood on my hands. You know what’s even worse?”

Alafair shook her head, her eyes lowered, not wanting to hear more.

“I’m glad they know,” Gretchen said. “I want them to know what blood smells like. I want them to know what it’s like to live with the kind of anger that can make you kill people. You know how I feel today, even though I think I’ve changed? I wish I could dig up every person who ever hurt me and kill them all over again. What do you think of me now, Alafair?”

“I love you. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. I’d do anything for you.”

Gretchen grasped her by the back of the neck and kissed her on the mouth. “You rip me up, girl,” she said.

Then she got out of the pickup and started toward the train station, her bag swinging from her shoulder. Alafair stared through the windshield at the river and at the water sliding over the boulders and eddying in deep pools that were dark with shadow and strung with foam. Her face was tingling as though it had been stung by bees. She let out her breath and blinked and followed Gretchen inside.