Intimate Strangers Affair Read online

  “Oh, hmmm. That’s right. Lucky, sure.” As usual, I tuned her out when the information steered into the dangerous waters of the matchmaking sermon. In many ways, Mrs. Bernard and Catherine were no different. I knew they were proud of me, but they didn’t seem to understand me. In their eyes, my new profession wasn’t enough. Netting a silver daddy would be a bigger accomplishment, one that could be counted on in the uncertain future. But despite all this, I felt their unconditional love. And that more than made up for anything else. I really couldn’t ask them for more. And yet, I wanted to. Ever since my voyage home, I felt as if something was missing, something I couldn’t name. It would come to me when I least expected it, a phantom feeling, hollow like the pangs of hunger.

  ***

  One week later, Mrs. Bernard was still stuffing me with food. “Skin and bones,” she would call me, and ladle out something delicious. I didn’t mind. The memories of hard tack and watery soup that we’d eaten on the voyage were thankfully fading into the distance.

  “Great dinner, Mrs. B. This is really great.” I chewed happily at the kitchen table. This food was such an improvement over ship fare. This stuff had real flavor: wine, shallots, and butter. I almost wept over the rich taste of real butter again. And best of all, I couldn’t crack a tooth on it. During the three-month trip around the Horn, I’d forgotten that food like this even existed. “What is this? Chicken?”

  “Lapin au vin a la François. Though why Frankie has to dress it all up in French and name it after himself, I don’t really know. Pure foolishness. Like he invented everything on God’s green earth! The man takes credit for everything, and it’s my recipe after all.”

  My fork clattered to the table. I fought the impulse to spit out the food and tried to swallow it fast instead, but it stuck like a big greasy ball somewhere in my throat. I choked. Coughed. Thumped a fist against my chest. “What did you say it was?”

  “Lapin au vin a-”

  “I was afraid you said that.” Rabbit. It couldn’t be rabbit! Not those cute hopping furry things I used to coax out of their holes with my leftover bits of cake. Just couldn’t be them. My stomach roiled a protest. “But it tastes like chicken.”

  “Everything tastes like chicken, my dear. Everything. All full now? You look done. Are you done?”

  “Oh, yes!” Hastily I wiped a napkin across my mouth and stood up from the long bench. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could keep everything down.

  “The slop bucket needs emptying. If you don’t mind, my dear.”

  “No problem, I can do it.” I picked up the heavy wooden bucket and walked out of the kitchen. The pail banged against my thigh as I walked down the narrow hall, then up the steps and into the dark alley between our maison and the other homes in South Park.

  It felt good to be outside again. After the kitchen heat, the night air felt pleasantly cool and crisp. Wisps of fog swirled around me as I walked past the herb garden to the waste heap. I could hear the horses and the creaking wheels of the carriages as they took the nobles from their mansions to the evening theater. Just as I lifted the lid to the compost bin, I felt someone behind me. Something juicy landed at my feet. I glanced down. Brown globs, spittle, the sharp stink of cheap tobacco.

  “What ‘ave we got ‘ere, eh?” a man’s voice said behind me.

  I turned slowly. The sneer in his high-pitched voice matched the one on his pointed face. His open-necked plaid shirt and rough wool pants were not the clothes that a swell from this neighborhood would wear. He belonged on the wharf, not here. And here I was, unarmed. What had I been thinking? My pulse raced a little faster.

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “No problem, luv. I got a better idea. Come along with me, eh? Let’s hit the old frog and toad. Come to old Peter, nice and quiet. There now, lass. There’s a good girl.” He moved closer, his sneer deepening with each step.

  He reached out palm up as if offering to take my hand for a dance, but I retreated and shook my head.

  His look turned impatient, then feral. “Come with me. Right now. Let’s make it easy, eh?”

  The gap was closing between us. He was moving too fast, faster than I could retreat. I’d never make the door to the house in time. Suddenly I swirled, flinging around the slop bucket like a mace. The temple. Direct pressure. He’s out. Something jarred my wrist as I heard a loud crack.

  Peter yowled, “She broke me bloody nose.” He hunched over, his hands covering his face. I leaned back on one leg and solidly kicked my attacker in the testes. That should rattle his family jewels enough to reduce any inguinal hernia, if he’d suffered from one to begin with.

  Well, he was suffering now all right. His yelping was quite satisfactory as I ran down the alley. Only three more feet, then two, one foot to the door. I could feel the rough wood door under my palm and groped for the knob. There. Found it. I twisted it, pushing forward to open the door, when something heavy knocked the base of my skull. Lightning danced before my eyes and filled my skull. Pain pounded through me, louder and louder. I tried to ignore it and run away, even move the slightest bit. But I couldn’t. My whole body was limp, the ground rough and cold against my cheek. My thoughts seemed to congeal. The lightning joined into one gigantic blinding flash, whitening out everything. And then just as suddenly, everything turned black. Blacker than night. Inside me was as dark as outside, and I knew no more.

  ***

  When I finally woke up, it was too quiet. The kind of quiet that rubs my nerves the wrong way instead of settling them into an easy peace. That peculiar absence of noise always meant danger or approaching death. I didn’t even know how long I’d been here. My skin prickled with fear, even though it was hotter than hell in the dark room I was in. It was too dark to even make out vague shapes. The blackness surrounded me, seeming to suffocate me. The room smelled stale, like dust and disuse. No one had disturbed this air for a very long time. I could be here for even longer, left alone and forgotten. Abandoned with only fear for my companion.

  I cautiously moved my cramped arms and legs, and then promptly wished I hadn’t. Tingling shot through me as if a million imps with needles were poking me here and there. Everywhere. I tried to sit up. The back of my head pounded with canon fire. I felt dizzy. I fell backwards and my elbows banged against the hard dirt floor. Grunting, I persisted. It was some time before I could haul myself up and just sit. I drew up my knees and rested my poor head against them.

  My mouth felt dry and scratchy like old woolen socks, and my head spun. Dehydrated. Perhaps I’d lost more blood than I’d realized. I pressed two fingers to my neck and checked my pulse, then the five deeper pulses like I’d been trained. Yes. Worse than I thought. And what I needed wasn’t what I was likely to get in a joint like this. Still, I wasn’t a fainting flower. Damned if I’d let them beat Nathalie Arnaud down. No way. I’d fight back. Yeah, that’s right. I’d do it. Just as soon as I was done puking. Acid shot up, then down my gut.

  Breathe. Now. Again. I focused on each inhalation until the waves of sickness gradually subsided. Then I gingerly felt my swollen mouth, the part of me that was always getting myself into trouble. I remembered waking up jolted in a carriage, asking questions of people I couldn’t see. Maybe I’d asked one too many questions, because the answer had been delivered by the hard end of a hairy-knuckled fist. The second smack must have been to reinforce the answer. I had heard it the first time. And now, I was sure to remember.

  I sat there for a few shaky moments, still tasting the metallic tang of old blood. I began to check and catalogue my various aches and contusions: possible hairline fracture, and a nasty abrasion on the right sixth thoracic rib. There was a loud click, and a small white circle appeared in the middle of the gloom surrounding me. From it, shone a thin shaft of light into the room. A peephole. So I was being watched. Interesting. By whom?

  “Awake, sir. Just as I predicted. Harry found the right kind of muzzle for her,” said a muffled young voice, which cracked on the last word.

&nb
sp; Even from a distance, I could hear the lick-your-boots tone. Obsequious. Disgusting. I hoped he had pimples. Lots of them.

  “She’s ready.”

  Ready for what? I wondered wearily. My head still rested on my knees, still partially sheltered by my arms.

  The peephole shuttered closed again, then metal scraped loudly against metal. The door swung open, slowly creaking until it hit the wall and started to rebound close again. Light streamed through the doorway, so bright that I thought I was inside the sun for a moment. It hurt my eyes. Half-blinded by the light, I could see only the dark outlines of two shapes, but I could smell them. The shorter one reeked of cheap aftershave cologne and peppermints. He approached me with crisp military steps as if he were on parade. A taller shadow still waited at the threshold. His shape looked blurrier, but I caught the sharp smell of Turkish tobacco, brandy, and that cloying scent of death he wore like the pomade in his hair. In a flash, I recognized him. How could I not recognize him? He was the man who’d led my father to ruin. He had killed Papa just as certainly as if he’d pulled the trigger himself. He was the very devil himself, Major Moore. William Moore. Still alive and well. So he was the reason why I was here now. For all my short life, he’d been the author of all my miseries. And he was here again. The plague would have been more welcome.

  “Stop there, Sergeant Hollinger. Maintain a three-foot radius. Minimum regulation,” the major spoke in clipped rapid tones like the rattle of a snake, quiet, but with a deadly warning.

  The marching boots abruptly stopped, and I peered over the top of my arm. The sergeant was still a boy with brown fuzz passing for whiskers. His uniform was pressed crisply, buttons polished. I’d been right about the pimples.

  “She looks harmless to me, sir.”

  Fine. I was happy to oblige. I bowed my head more, let my shoulders slump forward. Should I try fainting? Maybe submission would work this time. After all, defiance had only earned me a beating before.

  My act made Moore laugh. “Harmless? She’s as harmless as a mountain lion. Best watch your back. Saw her break a man’s neck once. I’ll never forget that.”

  I wouldn’t either. One quick yank between the first and second cervical vertebrae. Spinal cord severed. Instant death. My first accidental lesson in neurology. And finality.

  “Just once, and it was self-defense.”

  I could still remember the drunk holding down Claude, his hands raised and locked. The moonlight glinting off the Bowie knife, and me jumping on the man’s back. I had held on to him with all my child-strength, desperation making me stronger even though he had tried to shake me off. I’d bitten him. Tasted dirt and sour flesh, and then suddenly we were all falling backwards. I had grabbed harder, got his neck, clung with all my might as we fell and fell and fell through time and space. It seemed like we were falling forever: the drunk cursing and twisting, me and Claude holding and kicking, scrabbling for safety. Even now, I could still feel the drunk’s sweaty neck, the resistance, then the sudden give under my hand. I could hear the snap, then the surprised gasp of the man as his last breath escaped and he went limp in my arms. I don’t suppose you ever forget the first man you kill. It didn’t matter that I was saving our own lives from that drunk with a Bowie knife. It didn’t matter at all. It had been wrong. Wrong and horribly irreversible. Remembering it sickened me. And in a funny kind of way, it had motivated me too. Everything I had done since then had been some kind of atonement, I suppose. Maybe I’d been trying to apply the magic of medicine to erase one terrible mistake. And after that one mistake, our family had changed forever. William Moore entered our lives, and it had never been the same again.

  “I was only ten. It was an accident,” I said dully.

  “An accident? My dear, sweet child, all murderers say the same thing. Every man with a noose around his neck protests his innocence. It’s all the same, really. Same story.”

  “What do you want?”

  Moore smiled. “Nathalie, how shocking. Is that a way to greet your uncle?”

  “Uncle!? You’re not my uncle! We have no blood relation.” The very thought made my skin crawl.

  “A courtesy title, but nevertheless…” His eyes gleamed like a reptile’s in the dark. He seemed to be enjoying this, and I hated him even more.

  “So what do you want?” I repeated firmly as if I were talking to a slow patient. “You said we were finished. We’d be free after I finished that job for you. Well, I did it. I got those papers from the French Minister.”

  “And very useful, too. Now we know that France will remain neutral. They won’t help the Confederacy after all. You did well, Nathalie, even if it meant violating patient confidentiality. I wonder what the Minister’s wife would think if she only knew that her doctor had prowled around the house after her laying-in? Hmmm? Hardly ethical behavior.”

  “And then, there’s the small matter of stealing,” Hollinger added.

  “Stealing for you. And the American government. Never took a thing for myself. Never would.” It had been my first and only time. Really, it was easier than delivering a footling breech baby. And there were some similarities. Timing and calm nerves were everything. Fortunately, I had both to spare. The papers had been secured, and little Gustave had been safely delivered into his mother’s arm. It had been a busy day. I didn’t want to repeat that experience. “Well, I did it. I helped you out. You said that if I helped you that time, it was done. Over and done.”

  “It’s never done. Don’t be so naive. Your father was like that. Handsome, bright, but simple. Too simple for today’s world. He didn’t understand either. Nothing’s cut and dried, black or white. Nothing ever ends,” Moore said silkily.

  “So why am I here? Is this because of Claude?”

  Moore’s head jerked a little. “Yes.”

  Panic bubbled through me, rising through my gut, chest, throat, choking me. They already knew. He was as good as caught. They might send him to Alcatraz or even Rock Island, the worst of the Union prisons. He would surely die of dysentery or starvation if they sent him there. Or maybe Claude would be executed by the firing squad, or strung up somewhere. He was all I had left in the world. I’d do anything, absolutely anything, to protect him. “Well, I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Not really. Sure, he’s a gambler and a con artist, but he’s small potatoes. Nothing like this job. This was a big heist. The biggest. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Fifty Union sailors died when the USS Columbia went down. Fifty. All good men, all patriots,” the sergeant said with angry voice.

  “And there’s the small matter of a million dollars in gold. Still missing, you know,” Moore added calmly.

  “Well, suppose Claude has the gold. I’m not saying he does, but suppose he did. If he does have the money, he can return it. All of it.” I crossed my fingers and hoped that this was true. When I found Claude, I would tie him down and make him do it.

  “Too late for that. Much too late. What’s done is done. And there will be consequences,” the major promised ominously, removing a cigar from his coat pocket. He scratched a match against the wall. The flame flared, then plumped when he cupped his hand around it. He carefully lit his cigar, puffing until the tip glowed red. “And just what exactly are you proposing?”

  “Just tell me where Claude is and I’ll talk to him. I’ll get him to give it back to the Union. Every last nugget. Down to the last cent.”

  “And in exchange?”

  I could already see the trap yawning at my feet. Wide, then wider still. I was teetering on the brink. The pit of my stomach dropped. Nervously, I licked my lips, gathering air and courage. Say it. Come on. Just say it. “I’ll…do anything…anything you want.”

  “Anything? Really? How very gratifying.” Moore sucked on his cigar, then tilted back his head. Blue smoke streamed out of his nostrils and curled toward the ceiling. He puffed some more until the tip of the cigar glowed even redder. Embers flew off as his face tightened into what might pass for a pleased expression. At that mom
ent, he looked like Lucifer cutting a deal amidst his own fire and brimstone. “As it happens, there is something you can do. A job. Right away. And it seems that only you can do it.”

  “What is it?” My stomach bunched. I was prepared for the worst.

  Major Moore casually stood there as if he were enjoying a good smoke at the park instead of blackmailing me inside a jail cell. His nonchalance made me feel worse. At that moment, I wanted to hurt him badly, maybe even kill him. I think it showed, and I think it amused him. Chuckling, he examined the end of his cigar and flicked off some white ash. He seemed to enjoy my discomfort. The silence lengthened, broken only by the sounds of his interminable puffing. At last he spoke, his voice round with satisfaction. “There’s a man I want you to meet. His name is Don Miguel Samuelle Cabrillo.”

  Chapter 3: Fire and Ice

  Some folks say that dogs always look like their owners. Was that true for houses too? Take the home of Don Cabrillo, for instance. I wasn’t sure at first, and as I grew to know him, I became less and less sure. It was like navigating a boxwood maze: the deeper I went, the more confused I became. The man and his home were a complete cipher to me, one of those diagnostic dilemmas I couldn’t crack no matter how much time I devoted to it. It was aggravating and fascinating. A mystery I couldn’t quite leave alone.

  I’ll always remember the first time I saw his casa. It deceived me. Totally. At first, I had mistaken it for the sprawling hacienda down the path, but instead, I’d been redirected to an austere white clapboard house. It was missing the usual knobbed or rickrack gingerbread trim that was popular now, and there was no fussy flower garden or delicate lace curtains that would hint of a woman’s touch. The house was…plain, and its very plainness made it seem even more unique compared to the other fancy Victorian homes in the city. It stood completely alone on the edge of Black Point bluff, overlooking the wide gray bay.