The Clairvoyants(85)

“It was recovered from the car,” she said. She led me up the narrow stairs to the guest bedroom and handed it to me. “I did look through it, I’ll admit. I had to find out whose it was. The photographs are, well, intriguing.”

I explained they weren’t my work.

“They’re Will’s,” she said. “Right?”

“They are,” I said, surprised that she knew William.

Tara was taller than Anne, more robust, though I didn’t know Anne before she was sick. And Tara’s eyes were green, not Anne’s blue. But there was something about Tara’s gaze reminiscent of Anne’s, a canniness.

“They were close when he was a student,” Tara said. “She talked about him all the time. He helped her out around the house, taking over in a sense when her husband left. But I wish she hadn’t gotten mixed up with him. With these photographs, and these girls.”

“They’re like her family,” I said, and then I saw Tara’s expression. “Of course they aren’t.”

“I absented myself,” Tara said. “But that girl’s death upset her. She called me, drunk, when they found the body.”

I looked around at the little guest room, at the narrow old pine bed and at the worktable in the corner. Tara’s suitcase was nearby on a chair. I’d only been in this room in the dark, and now the blinds were open, and the view of the backyard revealed. Out there, on All Hallows’ Eve, the trees had been strung with little lights.

Tara sat down on the bed and gestured for me to sit as well.

I said I’d met Anne right after Mary Rae died. “And she had me here for dinner the night of the accident,” I said. “She saw these photographs, and then she got upset, told me she would have to bring me home.”

“She would get confused easily,” Tara said, reassuring me. “It was the tumor.”

I stood from the bed and walked to the window. “I don’t know how we ended up where we did.”

“I’m sure this is quite traumatic for you,” Tara said.

If I’d taken Anne’s offer to stay the night, I would have woken up here, and everything might have been different.

“I feel it’s somehow my fault,” I said.

Tara looked, for the first time, sad. “It was going to happen soon anyway. And let’s face it, she shouldn’t have been driving.”

She ran her hand over the coverlet, smoothing out the wrinkles we’d left. “Ready?”

Back in the living room the Milton girls held plates of food and talked in subdued tones, passing the tissues. When I came in the room they grew quieter.

“We want to know what she said,” Alice said.

“We’re just curious about her last night.” Jeannette’s voice was squeaky from tears.

“It’s not like she knew it was her last night,” I said.

“She made beef Wellington,” Geoff said from his end of the couch. “For God’s sake. She must have sensed something.”

They were wondering why it hadn’t been them with Anne.

In the living room, dust motes mingled with the smoke from everyone’s cigarettes. Del stood in the doorway wearing her apron, her hair so blond and fine, it seemed translucent. The fireplace was cold, but the sun streaming through the living-room windows made up for it. Tara walked a few of Anne’s colleagues to the door. None of them ventured into the living room or disrupted the Milton girls’ interrogation of me.

“I want to know where Billy is,” Alice said. “Why isn’t he here?”

They looked to me, even though Del, with her expanding midsection, was only a few feet away. “Tahiti?” I said. “Singapore?”

Alice wouldn’t be deterred. “What did you and Anne talk about?”

“We talked about William’s work,” I said. “About the photographs he took of all of you.”

Alice’s mouth flattened and seemed to seal itself up. The girls readjusted their positions on the couch.

“Why would that be a topic of conversation?” Lucie said.

“We were talking about him,” I said. “I found the photographs and I showed them to her.”

The girls shared a look.

“Where are they?” Alice blurted out.

I opened my bag, took out the portfolio, and handed it to them.

The Milton girls rose as one from their seats and gathered in the center of the couch. It seemed they had never seen the images, either. They slowly turned the pages, their heads touching, their faces unreadable.

“It doesn’t even seem like me,” Lucie said. Her face reddened. “I hardly remember.”

Alice and Jeanette concurred. “It was like a dream,” they said.

Del came into the room and sat on the arm of my chair.

“The secondhand smoke won’t be good for the baby,” Alice snapped.

Del wrapped her arms around herself, as if to ward it off.

“Anne told me,” I said. I caught Del’s eye. “Sleeping pills.”

The Milton girls slowed their page-flipping.

“What are you talking about?” Lucie said.

“You’ve lost the plot,” Kitty said.

Geoff roused himself and inched forward on the couch.

“That’s ridiculous,” Alice said. She grabbed her hair in her hands and twisted it into a long rope. “I mean I don’t remember really falling asleep,” she said. “I remember waking up in the guest room.”