The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(113)
“Where is he?” I asked. “Is he all right?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “The line was really bad. He said his cell phone had died, so he was using the landline in Button’s kitchen.”
“But it’s not in service anymore.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Exactly. He says Jayne needs our help, and he wants us over at the Pinckney house as soon as we can get there.”
I bristled. “He’s with Jayne?”
“Yes. Rebecca called him to tell him that she’d seen you, and told him everything she’d told you this morning. Including something about the attic stairs.” She frowned. “What about the attic stairs?”
“Rebecca dreamed she saw Hasell pulling up a board and lifting something from the bottom step.”
My mother paled. “He can’t go into the attic. Not by himself, and not with just Jayne.”
“You’re scaring me,” I said, standing. “You stay here with Nola and the babies and I’ll go.”
“No. He was very specific. He said he needed both of us.” She faced Nola. “Are you okay staying here with the babies? They need to be fed, but you can skip the baths because of the storm. Bedtime at eight, all right?”
Nola nodded.
Turning to me, Ginette said, “You can borrow one of my coats, since yours is soaked. And he said to bring the album.”
I didn’t have to ask which album he’d meant. “Why?”
“He was cut off before he could tell me. But he said it was important, that he would explain everything when he saw us.”
She threw on her raincoat and pulled on her gloves while I gave the babies quick kisses and hugged Nola. “You call Sophie if you need anything, all right? At any time.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
I forced a smile, then picked up the still-wrapped album and followed my mother out into the storm, knowing with certainty that bad weather was going to be the least of our problems.
CHAPTER 33
We drove my Volvo station wagon, believing it to be the safest option available. The streets already sloshed with standing water, forcing me to drive in the middle of the street. This might have been more alarming if there had been any other traffic, but it seemed everyone else south of Broad was too sensible to head out in a storm like this.
What would have been a five-minute walk turned into a fifteen-minute drive as I inched down Legare toward South Battery. The unlit Pinckney house stood like a dark omen against an almost completely black sky, illuminated only by the flashes of lightning that forked through the sky with an uncomfortable frequency.
As I pulled into the driveway, my headlights passed over Jack’s minivan. It wasn’t until I’d stopped behind it that I realized the interior lights were on, and the driver’s-side door wide-open. I must have let out a cry or a shout because my mother was handing me a portable umbrella and telling me to go. I barely remembered to put my car in park and turn off the ignition before I jumped out and ran toward the open door to look inside.
To my disappointment, it appeared empty. But even more alarming was the fact that the key was still in the ignition, the car running as if Jack had exited in such a hurry that turning off the car and shutting the door were the least of his worries.
I reached over to turn the key, spotting a photograph facedown on the floor of the passenger seat. Holding the umbrella so I wouldn’t drip more rain onto the interior, I reached down to pick it up carefully along the edges. To avoid ruining it with my wet fingers, I placed it on the seat before flipping it over. It was an old Polaroid like so many of the photos we’d found in Button’s albums, making me believe that this one might have slipped out of one of them. Probably the album Jack had brought to me at the office, because it would have been in his car. It was a photo of a baby, a newborn. The baby was small, but plump and ruddy-cheeked. Healthy. It was wrapped in a blanket and sported a dark fringe of hair swirling around the top of her nearly bald head, a tiny bow made from yarn clinging to a few wisps. On the white border at the bottom of the photo was a single date written in fading blue ink: May 30, 1984.
I dropped the photo back on the floor and jerked back as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t. I knew that date—it had been written on the saltshaker from Lake Jasper. I recalled the conversation I’d had with my mother when I asked her about it. May thirtieth was the baby’s birthday. But that baby had died and been secretly buried. I looked again at the baby’s face in the photo, her pink rosebud lips wet with saliva, her eyes wide and curious. She looked very much alive.
A loud meow erupted from the back of the van, followed by a black blur as the cat flew past me and out the door into the rain. I stumbled backward, dropping the umbrella. Leaving it where it was, I slammed the van door, then ran toward the front door of the house, my mother following behind me with the wrapped album tucked beneath her arm.
We stood for a moment under the portico, dripping water and breathing heavily.
“Where did the cat come from?” my mother asked.
“From inside the van. I didn’t see it, and I probably didn’t hear it because of the rain pelting the roof of the van. I don’t know about that cat, but if I had nine lives, it just scared away one of them.”
My mother reached behind me and grabbed the large brass knocker and banged it against the wooden door two times. It vibrated inside the empty house, but although we waited for a full minute, there was no sound of approaching footsteps from inside. She reached behind me and rapped again, but I was already searching inside my purse for the house key Jayne had given me.