Teardrop (32 page)

She thought she was going to gag, but she didn’t. She thought she might scream, but she didn’t. Instead she knelt closer to Madame Blavatsky’s chest and resisted the urge to touch her. For months she had longed for the impossible opportunity to cradle Diana after her death. Now Eureka wanted to reach for Madame Blavatsky, but the open wounds held her back. Not because Eureka was disgusted—though the woman was in gruesome shape—but because she knew
better than to implicate herself in this murder. She held back, knowing that no matter how much she cared, there was nothing she could do for Blavatsky.

She imagined others coming upon this sight: the gray pallor Rhoda’s skin would take on, the way it did when she was nauseated, making her orange lipstick look clownish; the prayers that would stream from the lips of Eureka’s most pious classmate, Belle Pogue; the disbelieving curses Cat would spew. Eureka imagined she could see herself from outside herself. She looked as lifeless and immobile as a boulder that had been lodged in the apartment for millennia. She looked stoic and unreachable.

Diana’s death had killed death’s mysteries for Eureka. She knew death was waiting for her, like it had been for Madame Blavatsky, like it was for everyone she loved and didn’t love. She knew that human beings were born to die. She remembered the last line of a Dylan Thomas poem she’d once read on an online grief forum. It was the only thing that made sense to her when she was in the hospital:

After the first death, there is no other
.

Diana was Eureka’s first death. It meant that Madame Blavatsky’s death was
no other
. Even Eureka’s own death would be
no other
.

Her grief was powerful; it just looked different from what people were used to.

She was afraid, but not of the dead body before her—
she’d seen worse in too many nightmares. She was afraid of what Madame Blavatsky’s death meant for the other people close to her, dwindling as their numbers were. She couldn’t help feeling robbed of something, knowing that she would never understand the rest of
The Book of Love
.

Had the murderers taken her book? The thought of someone else possessing it, knowing more of it than she did, enraged her. She rose and moved toward Blavatsky’s breakfast bar, then her nightstand, searching for any sign of the book, being as careful as possible not to alter what she knew would be a crime scene.

She found nothing, only heartache. She was so miserable she could hardly see. Polaris squawked and pecked the edges of Madame Blavatsky’s cloak.

Everything might change with the last word
, Eureka thought. But
this
couldn’t be Madame Blavatsky’s last word. She deserved so much more than this.

Again Eureka lowered herself to the floor. Her fingers found their way across her chest intuitively, making the sign of the cross. She pressed her hands together and bowed her head in a silent prayer to Saint Francis, asking for serenity on the old woman’s behalf. She kept her head bowed and her eyes closed until she sensed that her prayer had left the room and was on its way into the atmosphere. She hoped it made it to its destination.

What would become of Madame Blavatsky? Eureka had
no way of knowing who would find the woman next, whether she had friends or family nearby. As her mind reeled around the simplest possibilities of getting Madame Blavatsky help, she imagined terrifying conversations with the sheriff. Her chest tightened. It wouldn’t bring the old woman back to life if Eureka embroiled herself in a criminal investigation. Still, she had to find some way to let the police know.

She gazed around the room, despondent—and then she had an idea.

Back on the landing she had passed a commercial fire alarm, probably installed before the building became a residence. Eureka stood and stepped around the pool of blood, sliding a little bit as she crossed the door. She regained her balance and tugged the sleeve of her tracksuit over her hand to avoid leaving fingerprints. She reached for the red hatch and pulled the metal handle down.

The alarm was instantaneous, earsplitting, almost comically loud. Eureka buried her head between her shoulders and started toward the exit. Before she left, she gazed into the room once more at Madame Blavatsky. She wanted to say she was sorry.

Polaris was perched on the woman’s shredded chest, pecking lightly where her heart had once beat. He seemed phosphorescent in the candlelight. When he noticed Eureka watching, he raised his head. His black eyes gleamed demonically. He hissed at her, then squawked once, so shrilly it pierced the sound of the fire alarm.

Eureka jumped, then spun around. She ran the rest of the way down the stairs. She didn’t stop until she’d passed through Madame Blavatsky’s atelier, through the red-lit foyer, until she stood gasping in the parking lot, where a golden sun was just beginning to burn into the sky.

25

E
arly Saturday morning, the twins bounded into Eureka’s room.

“Wake up!” Claire bounced onto the bed. “We’re spending the day with you!”

“That’s great.” Eureka rubbed her eyes and checked her phone for the time. Her browser was still open to the Google search “Yuki Blavatsky,” which she’d been refreshing continually, hoping for a story on the murder.

Nothing had come up. All Eureka got was an old yellow pages listing for Blavatsky’s business, which she alone seemed to know was out of business. She had driven by the strip mall on Tuesday after an unbearably long day at school, but at the turn into the empty parking lot, she’d lost her nerve and sped
up, until the unlit neon palm sign was no long visible in her rearview mirror.

Haunted by the lack of obvious police presence, by thoughts of Madame Blavatsky decaying alone in the studio, Eureka had driven to the university. Setting off the fire alarm clearly had not been enough, so she sat down at one of the free student union computers and filled out an anonymous crime report form online. It was safer to do it there, in the middle of the bustling student union, than to have the police Web page on her laptop’s browser history at home.

She kept her report simple, providing the name and address of the deceased woman. She left blank the fields asking for information on suspects, though Eureka was inexplicably certain she could pick Madame Blavatsky’s murderer out of a lineup.

When she’d driven by Blavatsky’s storefront again on Wednesday, yellow crime-scene tape barred the front door and cop cars crammed the lot. The shock and grief she’d refused to feel in the presence of Madame Blavatsky’s body had washed over Eureka, a rogue wave of crippling guilt. It had been three days since then, and she’d heard nothing on the radio or TV news, online, or in the paper. The silence was driving her crazy.

She’d suppressed the urge to confide in Ander, because she couldn’t share what had happened with anyone, and even if she could, she wouldn’t know how to find him. Eureka was on her own.

“Why are you wearing water wings?” She squeezed William’s inflatable orange muscle as he wiggled under her covers.

“Mom said you’d take us to the pool!”

Wait. Today was the day Eureka had agreed to sail with Brooks.

It is your destiny
, Madame Blavatsky had said, piquing Eureka’s curiosity. She wasn’t eager to spend time with Brooks, but she was at least ready to face him. She wanted to do what little she could to honor the old woman’s memory.

“We’ll go to the pool another day.” Eureka scooted William aside so she could climb out of bed. “I forgot I have to—”

“Don’t tell me you forgot you were watching the twins?” Rhoda appeared in the doorway wearing a red crepe dress. She worked a bobby pin into her tightly coiffed hair. “Your dad’s at work and I’m delivering the keynote at the dean’s luncheon.”

“I made plans with Brooks.”

“Rearrange them.” Rhoda tilted her head and frowned. “We were doing so well.”

She meant that Eureka had been going to school, had suffered through her hour of hell with Dr. Landry Tuesday afternoon. Eureka had forked over the last three twenties she owned, then dumped out onto Landry’s coffee table a battered sack of nickels, dimes, and pennies amounting to the extra fifteen dollars she needed to pay for the session. She
had no idea how she would afford to suffer again next week, but at the rate the past few days had crawled, Tuesday was an eternity away.

“Fine. I’ll watch the twins.”

She didn’t have to tell Rhoda what they’d be doing while she watched them. She texted Brooks, the first communication she’d initiated since Never-Ever:
Okay if I bring the twins?

Absolutely!
His response was immediate.
Was going to suggest that myself
.

“Eureka,” Rhoda said. “The sheriff called this morning. Do you know a woman named Mrs. Blavatsky?”

“What?” Eureka’s voice died in her throat. “Why?”

She imagined her fingerprints on the papers on Madame Blavatsky’s desk. Her shoes unknowingly dipping into the woman’s blood, screaming out proof of her visit.

“Evidently she’s … missing.” Rhoda lied badly. The police would have told her Madame Blavatsky was dead. Rhoda must not have thought Eureka could handle hearing about another death. She didn’t know one percent of what Eureka was handling. “For some reason, the police think you know each other.”

There was no indictment in Rhoda’s voice, which meant the cops weren’t treating Eureka as a suspect—yet.

“Cat and I went to her storefront once.” Eureka tried not to say anything that was a lie. “She’s a fortune-teller.”

“That junk is a waste of money, you know that. The sheriff is going to call back later. I said you’d answer some questions.” Rhoda leaned over the bed and kissed the twins. “I’m almost late. Don’t take any chances today, Eureka.”

Eureka nodded as her phone buzzed in her palm with a text from Cat.
The freaking sheriff called my house about Blavatsky. WHAT HAPPENED?

No clue
, Eureka responded, feeling dizzy.
They called here, too
.

What about your book?
Cat typed back, but Eureka didn’t have an answer, only a heavy weight in her chest.

Sunlight glittered on the water as Eureka and the twins walked the long cedar planks to the edge of Brooks’s Cypremort Point dock. His lean silhouette bent forward, checking the halyards that would raise the sails once the boat was in the bay.

The family sloop was christened
Ariel
. It was a long-seasoned, weather-stained, beautiful forty-foot sailboat with a deep hull and a square stern. It had been in the family for decades. Today its bare mast stood up stiffly, cutting the dome of the sky like a knife. A pelican sat on the line that tethered the boat to the dock.

Brooks was barefoot, in cutoffs and a green Tulane sweatshirt. He wore his father’s old army baseball cap. For a moment Eureka forgot she was mourning Madame Blavatsky.
She even forgot she was mad at Brooks. As she and the twins approached the boat, she enjoyed his simple movements—how familiar he was with every inch of the boat, the strength he displayed tightening the sheets. Then she heard his voice.

He was shouting as he moved from the cockpit to the main deck. He leaned down the stairs, head level with the galley below. “You don’t know me and you never will, so stop trying.”

Eureka stopped short on the dock, holding the twins’ stiff hands. They were used to Eureka shouting at home, but they’d never seen Brooks like this.

He looked up and saw her. His posture loosened. His face lit up.

“Eureka.” He grinned. “You look terrific.”

She squinted toward the galley, wondering whom Brooks had been yelling at. “Is everything okay?”

“Never better. Top of the morning, Harrington-Boudreauxs!” Brooks lifted his cap at the twins. “Are you ready to be my double first mates?”

The twins jumped into Brooks’s arms, forgetting how scary he’d just been. Eureka heard someone climbing from the galley to the deck. The silver crown of Brooks’s mother’s head appeared. Eureka was stunned that he would say what he’d said to Aileen. She stood on the gangway and held out a hand to help Aileen up the steep, slightly rocking steps.