City of the Dead Read online

  Ms. Reeves offered another smile, this one wry. “It’s too bad Max’s mother isn’t in town. She could tell you everything. She kept close watch on that family.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, no offense, but your sister wasn’t her idea of a proper wife for Max. She wanted a Comus queen for him. Well, he had a Comus queen, didn’t he? His first wife, Arabella. She was the perfect daughter-in-law for Mizz Ellen. But she died, and then Max made his own choice.”

  “You seem to know more than you think about Faith.”

  Ms. Reeves shook her groomed head. “About Max, really. He grew up nearby. Our mothers are good friends. And I heard all about it when poor little Arabella succumbed so tragically.”

  “Succumbed? Cancer?”

  “Depression. She accidentally overdosed. No real surprise. She was a fragile little thing. I always thought Faith was more up to Mizz Ellen’s weight.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Oh, the boys were small. Probably ten years or so, I’d guess. Nobody was surprised, really. Except Max. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  Again Faith felt as if she were playing catch-up. She battled an urge to look over at James. He sat perfectly still next to her, his eyes half open, as if he were barely paying attention.

  “And you’re sure you don’t remember Faith speaking of the Arlen Clinic. Of wanting to go there that Friday.”

  “I remember that Faith wasn’t wearing her pearls. That sticks with me because I never saw her without them. They were Max’s wedding gift to her. I know that because Mizz Ellen informed us all that Max didn’t think his family pearls good enough. Truth was, Mizz Ellen wouldn’t give the family pearls up a second time.”

  “Did you ask Faith about them?”

  “She said they were being restrung.”

  “But she didn’t say anything else? Anything that might have seemed odd? Anything that said she was troubled or afraid?”

  “No. Like I said, we simply didn’t have anything in common.”

  There was something Susan Reeves was not telling her, Chastity knew it. But she’d run out of questions. She’d just gotten to her feet to leave, when the front door slammed open. Chastity couldn’t miss Susan Reeves’s reaction. She jumped to her feet, her mouth already open, when a toddler came bounding across the room.

  “M-o-m-m-m-y!” she shrieked, throwing herself into Susan’s arms.

  “I’m sorry, Mizz Reeves,” a thin black woman apologized as she shut the door. “I couldn’t keep her any longer. She missed you.”

  But Chastity barely heard the woman. Her own focus was fixed on the bright-eyed little two-year-old who was babbling nonsense for the mother who had picked her up and held her in her arms.

  The two-year-old little girl with almost white blond hair and blue eyes so pale she looked as if she were blind or psychic.

  Faith’s eyes.

  Eleven

  Chastity sat back down with a thump. “You want to tell me again how little you know about my sister?”

  Instead of answering, Susan Reeves focused her attention on her daughter. The little girl was dressed in a bright pink T-shirt and shorts, pigtails and sandals. A normal little girl. A bright, happy, healthy little girl.

  “I think not,” she said.

  “I’m not going to hurt your daughter,” Chastity said.

  Susan Reeves kept smiling. “You’re so sure about that?”

  “I’m not sure of anything except that I want to make sure my sister’s all right. And that I won’t intentionally harm anybody.”

  Susan Reeves stared at Chastity with that patrician over-the-nose look that probably sent most lesser beings scurrying. Most people didn’t face down gangbangers and neurosurgeons on a daily basis, though. Susan Reeves broke eye contact first.

  “You can imagine what my family thought when I told them I wanted a baby,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes suddenly alive as she made faces with her daughter. “Especially considering the fact that my lover is black. Well, and a woman, of course. Since my family tends to dark coloring, my mother made sure people would wonder.” She shrugged. “We all finally compromised. I made sure my baby was as white and pretty and smart as possible, and my mother agreed that she would accept her as a member of the family.” Nuzzling her baby’s neck, she chortled at the high shriek of glee she got in response. “Who could not love this little munchkin?”

  Chastity couldn’t manage an answer to that. She couldn’t take her eyes off Susan Reeves’s little girl. Faith’s little girl. That little girl who looked so much the way Hope had, once. Eons ago when she could still smile.

  Chastity had pictures of her somewhere, that sister who had been six years her senior. Who had already been fragile and fey by the time Chastity was born. But in those pictures, Hope had looked out at the world with just this delight, this saucy grin.

  Faith had to have seen Susan’s daughter. How could she have stayed away? How could she have told herself it was just an egg? Just a gift? Chastity wanted to grab that little girl out of her mother’s arms and hug her so tight she squealed. She wanted to soak in the exuberance that still lived in those pale, pale eyes.

  Maybe, though, this was the better way. Live on through genetics, but let somebody a lot healthier raise the child.

  “My sister is missing, Ms. Reeves,” Chastity said quietly, her eyes on that baby as Susan handed her back to the black woman in the crisp white uniform. “You need to be honest with me.”

  “Mommy will be in in a few minutes, munchkin,” Susan said to her little girl, and then waited until she left.

  Then, almost wearily, she sat back down.

  “I really didn’t know Faith donated eggs until I saw her on Arlen’s donor page. And you tell me, Ms. Byrnes. If you’re looking for the whitest, smartest little girl you can find, where better to go than your sister Faith?”

  “Were you one of the friends she made at the clinic?”

  “No. I know she did make some. But it seemed uncomfortable. And I really wasn’t sure how Max felt about it.”

  “Max seems fine.”

  Susan laughed. “He probably bet on the outcome each time. Max loves a good bet.”

  Chastity went a bit still. “Pardon me?”

  Susan just shrugged. “I’ve known Max forever. It’s just part of his nature. I think it’s why he’s a cardiovascular surgeon. His mother wanted him to be a cardiologist. Socially acceptable and available for family functions. But I think Max enjoyed the risk.”

  “Have he and Faith been getting along?” Chastity asked.

  Susan shrugged. “I rarely saw them together. Faith certainly never said anything.”

  “And the clinic. Why wouldn’t you talk to me about it?”

  “Because my daughter is my business. No one else’s.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me now?”

  Susan Reeves had a very cool smile. “I have a beautiful eighteen-month-old, and four more just like her waiting for me when I decide she needs sisters or brothers. I’m perfectly happy with the Arlen Clinic.”

  “Faith didn’t talk to you about her connection with it?”

  “No. Not really. It was too uncomfortable for both of us.”

  Chastity nodded and gathered her things once again. “I thank you for your time,” she said. “If I may, I might call again later.”

  Susan Reeves got to her feet. “I really can’t tell you anything more.”

  Chastity and James followed. “Could you maybe tell me the names of any of the people Faith made friends with at the clinic?”

  Another pause. A calculation Chastity could actually see.

  “Well,” Susan said, “I do know that there was Willow Tolliver. She’s one of the psychics down at Jackson Square. She’s been a donor, I think. And Eddie Dupre. He’s the embryologist. Faith has talked about them both.”

  Chastity nodded because there was nothing else she could do. She was certain she wasn’t hearing the entire truth from Susan Reeves, but she
didn’t know what else to say. So she climbed to her feet and bid Susan good-bye. Just as they reached the polished mahogany front door, though, she turned one last time.

  “Would you share the password for the donor page?”

  Susan frowned. “They’ve undoubtedly changed it.”

  “Even so.”

  Ms. Reeves shook her precise brunette head. “No. I’m sorry.”

  For a moment Chastity fought the urge to insist. But she couldn’t blame anyone for the desire to protect. So she nodded, as if it were all right, and held out one of the cards she gave out to victims’ families.

  “My cell phone number is here,” she said. “If there’s anything you remember or find out that might help find Faith. Please.”

  It took a second’s hesitation, but Susan accepted the card. Chastity turned back toward the door. She’d just about stepped through, when Susan Wade Reeves spoke up.

  “You might consider your Bible, Ms. Byrnes. You know, all that begetting.”

  Chastity pulled to a stop. She faced the woman, and saw just a brief flash of something in her eyes, something that spoke for her daughter and the woman who’d given the gift of her.

  “Thank you.”

  Then she and James walked back out into the thick, evocative yard where shadows lurked beneath bright, tropical flowers.

  Chastity was still so focused on Susan Reeves that she didn’t pay attention as James stopped at the edge of the yard.

  “Know anybody in a black sedan?” he asked.

  She looked up, blinking. “Pardon?”

  He pointed to where a black sedan sat about a block down. “I think he was following us.”

  But just as he said it, the car started and turned down one of the side streets.

  “Does paranoia cost extra?” she asked.

  “Caution. Comes with the package.”

  For some reason, that didn’t make her feel better.

  No one who met Dr. Winnifred Hayes-Adams would have taken her for a desperate woman. Fred, as she was known to her friends, was a scientist, a brisk, lab-coated innovator in the world of bioelectronics. She helped design and implement the newest generation of monitoring equipment that beeped and whirred and blinked throughout hospital hallways.

  Fred had a Ph.D. in biophysics, master’s in biology and engineering, and a Phi Beta Kappa key. She tested off the range for intelligence and played three instruments. Fred had been married for fifteen years. She was nearing forty years old, and she was becoming frantic to get pregnant.

  She and her husband had gone through a full range of fertility testing. She’d tried IVF unsuccessfully four times. She’d considered a surrogate mother, a surrogate father, and more than one international adoption agency.

  In the end she’d turned to New Life Associates. Not because they were the most reputable. She’d been to the most reputable. Because they promised the best bang for the buck. New Life didn’t just offer donor eggs. They offered top-of-the-line donor eggs. For a certain amount of money, Fred and her husband could design their child the way they might a new kitchen. And Fred, who regarded science with the passionate fervor of a religious zealot, knew that this was the way to go for her.

  The problem was that Fred had gotten in a bit of a jam. She’d found not just the ideal donor, but the perfect donor. The clinic was all set to start the testing, and here she was doing her best to jeopardize that. After all, she hadn’t known she was going to find the perfect donor just when she’d promised to help a good cause. She hadn’t realized that her cause was the perfect donor.

  She should have been at the clinic getting her blood work done. Gazing wistfully into the computer image of the mother of her future twins. Instead, she was dressed like a college senior looking for the apartment of a man who did very illegal things.

  Expensive, illegal things.

  Almost as expensive as the eggs she hoped to score.

  And she was doing it for the second time in four weeks.

  Clad in jeans and T-shirt, Fred marched down a side street two blocks from Loyola University. She had to hurry. The weather was moving in, and she didn’t want to be found here.

  She never figured to be breaking the law at the corner of a campus. It was something that belonged downtown, near the projects. A place given to shadows and whispers, like in the movies. But the people near the projects didn’t have the capability to produce what she needed. What she’d promised to obtain.

  She still couldn’t quite figure out how she’d volunteered to do this. She was a straight shooter if there ever was one. Church, work, marriage.

  Baby.

  She just hoped she’d be able to finish this without obstacle. She was already going to have to delay But if she were caught today, there might be a chance that New Life’s operation would receive unwanted scrutiny. And Fred didn’t want that.

  Not yet. Not till she had her baby.

  Babies.

  Fred would have twins. Even a desperate woman could be efficient.

  “Pick another Bible verse,” Chastity said, her attention on her computer screen. “And move farther back.”

  They’d been at this for a couple of hours now, sitting at Kareena’s kitchen table with coffee and sandwiches as they tried to pull a password from a very long book. Chastity had been feeling bad enough when she sat down. She felt worse now. Hot and claustrophobic and as twitchy as Susan Wade Reeves.

  James sat alongside, doing nothing more than helping, and she wanted to throw him to the ground. A perfectly normal stress reaction for her once upon a time, and God knows she’d been dealing with some stress.

  It was worse this time because it had been so long. And because James wasn’t a nameless one-night stand. She liked him. He almost made her feel safe.

  Which was the most stupid thing she could ever think. Safe, after all, was no more than an illusion.

  The table had been set with the gold-rimmed Sunday china. There was a tablecloth, snowy white and pressed, and they all sat around it, enveloped by grass cloth and the sparkle of the chandelier. Chastity had asked her friend Frances over to dinner, and they were all gathered there, stiff and proper and polite, like a TV family in technicolor.

  “You’re so lucky,” Frances said with a smile full of braces. “This is such a cool place to live, and your parents are great.”

  Everyone smiled. Even Hope, who looked like hell. Hope, who was only fifteen and three hundred pounds of dimpled gray fat. They smiled, knowing that later, after Frances was gone, after the doors were locked to keep people from seeing, he would creep down the hall.

  “Yes,” Chastity said with a perfectly straight face, because she didn’t know what else to do. “We’re very lucky.”

  And she felt ashamed. Hot and claustrophobic and small.

  “Try Genesis,” James said alongside her.

  Chastity jumped, yanked back to the present. She could still smell that dining room. She could hear the careful clink of glasses and the small talk that had seemed so safe. So normal. But it hadn’t been. It had been the code for terror.

  “Chastity?”

  She closed her eyes a second. Pulled herself a bit farther away from James so she could concentrate on what they were doing.

  “Yeah, okay. What Genesis?”

  “Book five, verse one.”

  “How do you know the Bible so well?”

  His smile was enigmatic. “I had a lot of time to read once.”

  Chastity considered him a minute as he munched on a sandwich. “Why do you drive a cab, fireman?”

  He didn’t seem in the least disconcerted. “Kind of tough to steer a rig with one hand.”

  “And yet you’re driving.”

  “Yep.”

  “No dreams of careers or education or advancement?”

  “The only dream I had was to be a fireman. Like most kids. Can’t do that. Do this.”

  “Must make life a lot easier if the only people you have to interact with sit in the backseat, though.”


  She thought she’d get chagrin. Instead, she got a slow, knowing smile. “Immensely. Now, how ’bout Genesis?”

  He was right. It was Genesis 5. Actually, the password was Gen51, or Genesis 5:1, the start of the recitation of all the generations of Adam. As Susan Wade Reeves had said, all that begetting. A clever password for a fertility clinic’s donor page.

  And quite a page it was. Slick and commercial and laid out like a catalog, as if the women were advertising beer instead of eggs. Bright, smiling faces, compassionate words, promises of immortality for a mere five thousand dollars plus expenses.

  Not all were beautiful, but everyone had some kind of recommendation. IQ, talent, fertility. Blondes, brunettes, Hispanics, African Americans, Asians. All types and sizes.

  It creeped her out.

  But she had a sister to find. And one of these women might be able to help her. Like, maybe, Willow Tolliver.

  Chastity found her right there on the fifth page.

  Willow Amber Tolliver claimed two children and high grades through junior college. Athletics, art, and a sweet disposition. She could be contacted through the Arlen Clinic.

  She was a blonde.

  A pale blonde with anxious blue eyes. No tattoos or disfiguring marks. Chastity couldn’t take her eyes off that photo.

  James didn’t say a word. Just studied alongside.

  “Is it me,” Chastity asked, “or does she look an awful lot like my sister?”

  “Yeah,” he said, setting his coffee mug down. “She does.”

  Chastity looked a bit longer, her stomach in a sudden twist.

  If Susan Reeves wasn’t lying, it was a connection. It was also quite a coincidence. Only Chastity didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “James,” she said, her focus on those pale blue eyes, “do you think Susan Reeves gave us Willow’s name on purpose?”

  “You mean, she wanted you to specifically check Willow out for some reason?”

  Chastity sucked in a breath. “Like, maybe she knows that Willow is missing.”

  James looked at the picture. Then he looked over at Chastity. “You think she’s the body in the swamp?”