Play Dead

Chapter 37

A phone conversation with someone named Sister Evangeline had given Elise the rough sketch of Lo-ralie's present existence, along with an invitation to visit.

Although a cliche^ it was understandable that a person who'd had a hard life might choose to hide from the world in a cloistered monastery. Elise's birth mother wouldn't be the first person to turn to such a sanctuary in a time of need. Elise herself had known a few people who'd lived in a monastery until they'd gotten their lives together, but she didn't know anybody who'd stayed indefinitely without joining the order.

The Savannah Carmelite Monastery was located in Coffee Bluff, on a dirt road that ran from Back Street all the way to the Forest River. As Elise bumped along the overgrown lane, she was reminded of her ill-fated visit to LaRue's home. The weather was similar, hot and humid, and she hadn't met another person since turning off Back Street.

She stopped at a pair of open iron gates, car idling, air conditioner blasting. In the distance, down a straight and flat dirt road draped by trees and flanked by shrubs, stood a sprawling two-story brick colonial. It looked a little like an old hospital or school.

Should she be doing this?

Most of her life she'd wondered about her real mother, but after today there would be no more wondering. And sometimes the unknown was better than the known.

Elise stepped on the gas and eased the car forward through the pillars that marked the boundary where the real world ended and seclusion and counterculture began. She might end up regretting the visit, but it was something she had to do.

In earlier times, the Carmelites had no contact with the outside world. When the rare visitor came, he or she was forced to speak to the nuns through an iron grate that looked like a confessional screen. Times had changed. Now they could visit face-to-face.

An ancient nun in a brown habit met Elise in the entryway and introduced herself as Sister Evangeline.

"She's expecting you," the nun said, leading Elise through a chapel and out a side entrance. At the end of a short path stood a small log cabin with a red door. On either side of the door was a window with white panes and green planters overflowing with red petunias.

Elise's mother was inside that house.

Things were beginning to get surreal.

"The cabin had been empty for years when Loralie showed up here," the nun said. 'The Carmelites' lives are all about prayer, and although we shun contact with the outside world, we took a vote and decided we couldn't send her away. Our numbers had dwindled, and the cabin was empty… That was twenty years ago," she said with a conspiratorial expression.

Elise's heart was pounding, and it was hard for her to concentrate on what the woman was saying. She responded with a weak, distracted smile that was nothing but a lie of politeness.

"I'll let you go the rest of the way by yourself," Sister Evangeline said, coming to a halt, hands tucked under a layer of brown fabric. She turned and serenely followed the path back to the chapel.

Elise stared at the red door.

She wished Sister Evangeline hadn't left. She wished she herself hadn't come. She wished she'd talked to the woman inside first. On the phone. As an icebreaker.

Before her panicked thoughts took over completely, she stepped forward and knocked-a little too loudly.

A voice from deep inside the small building answered immediately, telling her to enter.

Elise opened the door, but remained with one foot on the threshold, the other on the flagstone step. The interior was dark, and Elise's eyes needed time to adjust.

One large room. Table in the far corner. Someone sitting there.

"Shut the door."

The voice was harsh, like somebody who had a sore throat, or someone who'd been born with a cigarette in her mouth.

Elise's breathing was weird and shallow; her palms were sweaty.

As a detective, she'd faced a lot of dangerous people in her years without a fluttering pulse or a rise in blood pressure, but this was the hardest thing she'd ever done.

As the room gradually lightened and objects became more distinct, she stepped inside. "Thanks for agreeing to see me." Her voice was tight, but nothing someone who didn't know her would notice.

The woman who was her mother lit a cigarette with a small butane lighter and tossed the lighter on the table. It had been too fast for Elise to get a good look at her. Shoulder-length hair. Possibly dark. That was all.

"When Strata Luna called," Loralie said, "I told her no. Told her I couldn't face you, couldn't see you, but when I thought about not seeing you… well, I would have regretted it. Plus I owe you this."

She sure as hell did.

Elise crossed the room, the soles of her shoes sounding hollow on the wooden floor.

There wasn't much furniture. No pictures on the walls. No rugs. Nothing to absorb the sound.

The table was small and narrow. Elise pulled out the only other chair-a fragile, brittle antique-and sat down, her legs shaking.

Loralie leaned back and crossed her arms, the cigarette held between two fingers. "She was right. You do look like him."

Now Elise could see that the woman's thin face was framed with frizzy gray hair, that her eyes were a faded hazel. She looked sixty, but couldn't have been over fifty.

Just your regular eyes, Elise noted. And a regular face. Hard, something Dust Bowl about it. That defeated-by-life kind of thing. No, it was beyond defeat. She was someone who'd moved on to total acceptance-which to Elise's mind was worse.

"Weird, isn't it?" Loralie took a long drag and blew the smoke at the ceiling with a twist of pale lips. "Seeing me. I've always known who you were, so I never had to wonder." She knocked the ashes into a glass tray overflowing with butts.

Had she been sitting there for hours, smoking one cigarette after the other while waiting for Elise?

"Strata Luna put a curse on me when I was pregnant with you. Did she tell you that?"

"No."

"Said it was because I was teasing and tempting her man."

"Jackson Sweet?"

"Yeah, except Jackson Sweet wasn't anybody's man. He was a free spirit. Wasn't my fault that he wanted me. And I sure as hell wasn't going to turn him down." She let out a single burst of laughter at the absurdity of the idea.

The shaking had stopped. A calm that Elise sometimes experienced under duress had come to her rescue, helping her through the moment. Things moved slower. She had time to think, analyze, react.

"Was Jackson Sweet my father?"

"At that time, I wasn't a prostitute. And I hadn't been with another man for almost a year. There is no way you could be anybody's kid but Jackson's."

Elise took a deep breath. Okay. So there it was. Her parentage laid out once and for all. "Was the curse the reason you left me in a cemetery?"

"I was scared the whole time I was pregnant. I was just a kid. And when someone as powerful as Strata Luna puts a curse on you, it gets your attention. I went to Jackson and begged him to reverse it, but he just laughed. Said Strata Luna had no power over him or his child. But then he got sick, and I was afraid the curse had crossed some barrier and reached all the way to him. And when you were born and I saw your eyes, I went a little crazy and thought it had reached all the way to his child. I figured if I threw you away, offered you up as a sacrifice, then Jackson would get well."

"What were Jackson Sweet's eyes like?" They couldn't have been like Elise's; otherwise Loralie wouldn't have freaked out.

"Brown. Dark brown. I don't know where you got your eyes. Nobody in my family had eyes like that. Jackson had a granny who was a root doctor. People said she had square pupils. I saw a picture of her once, but her eyes were hidden by dark blue conjurer shades. The same shades she passed down to Jackson."

Elise's now. "What did you do after he died?"

"I wanted everything to stop, and got real sick because I wasn't taking care of myself. I did a lot of bad things, a lot of bad drugs. Lived on the street for several years and finally ended up in a hospital for loonies. There was a nun there who told me about this place. Thought maybe I could stay here awhile, because I didn't have any money or anywhere to go."

And she'd been there ever since… "Have you ever thought about leaving?"

"A couple of times, but it's nice here. Peaceful. Safe. I take care of the grounds for my room and board. It works out."

"Do you mind if I have one?" Elise indicated the cigarettes.

Loralie slid the pack and lighter across the table. "You shouldn't smoke."

"Someone else recently told me that." Elise tapped out a cigarette and lit it. Nonfilter. Loralie was serious about her smoking.

"Would you like something to drink?" Loralie asked, bracing her hands on the table, prepared to shove herself to her feet. "Water, maybe?"

Elise shook her head, picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue. The nicotine went straight to her bloodstream, making her heart pound.

"I want you to know I thought about you." Loralie settled back in her chair, pulled out a fresh cigarette, and lit it with the old one. The smoke was getting thick. "I knew you were okay. Knew you were with a good family, and that you had a better life than you would have had with me."

That was true. The family that took her in had never been mean to her. Elise had simply never fit, never adapted. Which was strange because humans were extremely adaptable. It was as if, like some endangered species, she'd stubbornly clung to an unknown heritage.

The conversation shifted and Elise talked a little about herself and Audrey. Then it was over. Loralie announced it was time for Elise to go.

Elise stubbed out her cigarette. It had been a strong one, and she felt light-headed. "Maybe I'll visit again." She would bring a few things from the outside world. A carton of cigarettes. Pralines and chocolate.

Loralie met her gaze without blinking. "It would be better if you didn't," she said bluntly. "This has been hard for me."

Elise was disappointed but understood. Loralie was hiding from the world and her past. Closure was something they'd both needed, and now it was done. Now it was over.

"Could you send me a picture?" Loralie asked. "Of yourself and Audrey? And if you see Strata Luna, tell her I don't bear her any grudge. She's had a lot of heartache in her life. A curse can really backfire, can't it? Instead of chasing after me, she should have been painting her window- and doorframes blue and laying down a trick so evil wouldn't follow."

Elise let herself out.

As she drove back down the overgrown road, David called on her cell phone.

"A body's washed up on Tybee Island," he told her.

The good news just kept coming.