Page 103 of The Lady on Esplanade
“So,” Sarah said, interrupting my thoughts.“You know that Adele song that keeps playing on our phones and stuff?”
“ ‘Rolling in the Deep’?”I felt encouraged that I remembered the name.
“Yeah, that one.”She looked over her shoulder at Jolene’s door to make sure it was still shut.“I’m not good at lyrics like you are, so I Googled the song to find out what it’s about.”She paused.“It’s about betrayal.Just like that Bible verse that keeps popping up.”
“Betrayal?”I looked at Jolene’s closed door, my mind tossing the implications about.Lowering my voice, I said, “Do you think it’s about Jolene?”
She shook her head.“No.Because it’s a message from Adele.The dead Adele, not the singer,” she clarified.“That’s why she’s using Adele’s songs, and that one in particular.The dead Adele is trying to tell us something, and I feel so stupid because I can’t figure out what it is about her death that’s somehow related to a betrayal.I think it’s urgent, because she keeps trying to get the message across to us, but we’re not getting it.”
“A betrayal,” I said, feeling a tinge of the PTSD from my recent encounter with Michael.“Speaking from personal experience, I’d say that a betrayal is a great reason to stick around and seek justice.”
“Or revenge,” Sarah said.
We stared at each other, sorting through the implications.Eventually, Sarah stood.“I need to get dressed.Hopefully you or I or both of us will have figured something out by the time Jolene and I get back with the tree.”
I held out my empty cup.“I can’t think if I’m undercaffeinated.Could you please fix me another cup before you go?”
She sighed heavily and took the cup before going back to the kitchen.Pausing in the doorway, she turned and said, “One more thing.I don’t think it takes a psychic person to notice, but there’s something weird going on between Jaxson and Jolene.”
“Thanks, Sherlock.I have noticed.Maybe you can get her to talk while you’re looking at trees.Speaking of which, I know she wants a big one, but I’m thinking tabletop.Remember that it has to come up those stairs and I can’t help.So it’s your job to talk her out of anything over three feet tall.”
She rolled her eyes and began heading to the kitchen just as the landline phone on the desk began to ring.Our gazes locked.“Should I answer it?”Sarah asked.
I wanted to tell her no, but I couldn’t force the word out of my mouth.
She slowly approached the desk, but before she reached it, the ringing stopped.Sarah stared at the silent phone for a moment, then turned away from it.“I’ll get that coffee for you now.”
I looked at the innocuous phone and wondered who could have been calling and what the message would have been.And if the ringing alone was just another warning of danger.
CHAPTER 32
As soon as Jolene and Sarah left, I made my way to the table and clumsily arranged my crutches and myself in front of my laptop.I’d had such grand plans to get ahead with my paperwork, and now I found myself even further behind.Judging by the boxes of decorations Jolene had brought back with her from Mississippi, I suspected that she would want to turn the apartment into a Christmas wonderland, so I was determined to focus and get as much work done as I could before she and Sarah returned.
The table still held the two bags of stones from Madame Zoe—in addition to remnants from breakfast, including crumbs and the margarine tub.The mere fact that Jolene had left the apartment without it being pristine was a chilling sign that things were not all right.I decided that I couldn’t work with the mess around me, so I collected the stones into their respective bags and stuck them into one of the desk drawers.Still not satisfied, I used a cupped hand to corral the crumbs into a pile and sweep them into my waiting hand.
I’d made it to the edge of the table when I noticed a long strand of blond hair, wavy at the end, and clearly not belonging to Jolene,Sarah, or me.My dad had once shown me how a human hair burns slowly and gives off a distinctive odor, whereas synthetic hair would melt and curl up into a frizzy ball.I considered hopping to the kitchen to retrieve Jolene’s candle lighter for easy determination of whether the hair was natural or synthetic.
It took me ten whole minutes of thinking—clearly I was procrastinating—to realize that the hair was probably from the Barbie head that had sat on the table more than once.It could have fallen out on its own when the head was there.Or maybe Sarah had been messing with it in Jolene’s room and a strand had clung to her sweater and traveled to the table.
Hobbling back and forth between the kitchen and the table, I continued to clean up while telling myself it wasn’t procrastination if I was simultaneously working on resolving the puzzles despite all the missing pieces.Sarah had left her sweater on the back of a chair, and when I picked it up I saw strands of her own long dark hair next to blond Barbie hair.I was on my way to the coatrack to hang up her sweater, and stopped when I breathed in the strong scent of Youth-Dew perfume, as if someone wearing it had just passed by.
I held the sweater up to my nose, but it carried only the scents of Sarah and wool.Maybe the perfume had been my imagination.Or maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.Pulling the sweater away from my face, I examined the strands more closely, wondering what I might have missed.I needed to talk this out with someone like my dad.Or Cooper or Beau.But I rejected that thought as soon as it crossed my mind.My dad was busy with JJ.And I would rather shave my head than ask Beau or Cooper for help.
I took another step, then stopped again, my whole body tingling with the image of my shaved head and what I’d look like bald.And then the room seemed to shrink, becoming just big enough for me and the sweater with the strands of hair.
I stumbled back to where I’d left my phone on the table and quickly scrolled through my contacts to where Sarah had dutifullyentered the numbers for Joan and Honey.Recalling the unsettled feeling I’d had after speaking with Joan, I called Honey’s number first.She picked up on the third ring.
“Hello, Honey.This is Nola.I’m sorry to bother you, but I have a random question for you that I hope you might be able to answer.”
“Please don’t apologize, Nola.I’m happy to speak with you.Joan has been gone a lot the last few weeks, so it’s nice to have someone to talk to.And, oh, I so love randomness.I use it as a theme in my paintings.”
“Great,” I said.“Do you recall if your brother ever wore a toupee?”
“Oh, my.Yes, yes, I do recall.I’d forgotten about it until just this moment.He started losing his hair in high school and was very self-conscious about it.He wore hairpieces ever after, which is probably why I forgot that he lost a lot of his hair in his twenties.It’s almost like he was born wearing a wig, and we got used to it.He was also very tall, and it wasn’t all that noticeable to those of us much shorter than he.”
“So he wore wigs even after he married Jessica?”
“As far as I know, yes.Remember that we were estranged, but every time we did see him he wore one, and Jessica once joked that he wore it as a disguise, since nobody knew the real man beneath the wig.I recall how awful those wigs were, because Mark would never splurge on any hair-restoration products or procedures.He was stingy that way—isn’t that funny?He’d spend all his money on cars and houses and boats, but not on something like personal care.That didn’t bother Jessica, since that sort of thing wasn’t important to her.That might have been what attracted them to each other, because I honestly couldn’t see anything else they had in common.”
