Nightwork, page 21
“Yours, too.”
“Can you tell me where you are?”
“I’m standing on the balcony of your place. You guys look great.”
“Oh my God, you’re here! He’s here!” She looked up, over, saw him. “We’re coming. We’re coming right now.”
She scooped up Wiley, kept her hand clamped on Sebastien’s.
“He’s not going anywhere, cher,” Sebastien told her. “We’re just walking on home now.” He lifted her hand to kiss it. “Just strolling on home.”
She slowed, though she knew he’d never have come if he wasn’t sure it was safe.
Dauphine unlocked the door to the shop. Then Mags did run. She pushed the dog into Sebastien’s hands, dashed toward the door to the residence, already open, where he waited for her.
He met her halfway.
“Here you are!” Her arms flew around him. “Finally, here you are.”
“Missed you,” he murmured against her wild, wonderful hair. “And you,” he added, looking at Sebastien over her head. “You sure pick ugly dogs.”
“Got character, this one.”
“He’d have to, to make up for that face.”
His gaze shifted to Dauphine’s, just held there before he looked at Luc. Maybe an inch or two shorter than he was, but broader in the shoulders. He wore his hair in short twists and had, in Booth’s opinion, a world of patience in his eyes.
“Luc, nice to meet you finally. Please don’t punch me.”
He released Mags to pull Dauphine in, kissed her. Glanced down at the small but visible baby belly. “Both of you. I’m sorry I couldn’t make the wedding, or meet Giselle.”
She rubbed a hand on his stubble, ran it through the thick hair that fell over his collar. “You’ll meet her now.”
“I’ve seen the pictures and videos. She’s got your eyes, and attitude.”
“Attitude for sure,” Luc confirmed.
She stepped back, shook her head. “Still got that pretty face. I’m glad to see it in person again.”
“Let’s go up. Let’s all go up, sit down, have a drink, catch up.” Mags swiped at her eyes. “When did you get in?” she asked as they started up the stairs.
“A couple of days ago.”
“Couple of days!”
“I wanted to be sure. I’m sure. I like your place, your shop, too. Good security.”
“Not good enough.”
Booth grinned at Sebastien. “For most it is.”
“You’ll stay here.”
He nodded at Mags. “I’d like to, for a while. You fixed this place up,” he said to Luc. “You do good work.”
“Only kind worth doing.”
They walked into Mags’s colorful living room with its forest of pillows, its rain of crystals. Outside the French doors, Mardi Gras rocked.
Wiley, shed of the leash, pranced over to snuggle into a throne of a dog bed. He grinned at Booth.
“This one likes me. He doesn’t look as if he’d like to explode my brain with the power of his.”
“I’m going to open that champagne you’ve been saving, cher. And I give you this much.” Sebastien held two fingers close together toward Dauphine. “And the rest orange juice.
Dauphine patted her belly. “He can handle that.”
“A boy.”
She smiled at Booth. “So the cards say.”
She snuggled into an oversize bright red chair with Luc in a way that told Booth that was their usual spot here.
They looked good together, he thought. Right together. He’d thought the same when he’d seen wedding pictures and family pictures, but seeing them now locked that down.
He heard the distinctive pop from the kitchen, and Sebastien’s Woo!
“Can you just stay?” Mags asked. “Just settle in and stay? New Orleans works for you.”
“It always did. But he’s too close here, and he’s got too long a reach.”
“Curse myself.” Sebastien brought in the bottle, glasses, a jug of juice on a tray. “Curse every damn day I ever brought you in on that job.”
“Fate’s fate. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. It’s on him, not you. All of it’s on him.”
“What’re you going to do?” Mags took Booth’s hand again. “Where will you go? If you go back to Europe—”
“Not there, not for a few years anyway.” If ever. “I’ve got some ideas, some plans, a couple of places in mind.” He sent her a reassuring smile. “It’s time for that sabbatical.”
“I’ll absolutely drink to that.” She passed him a glass after Sebastien poured, waited until everyone had one. “To a nice, long, happy sabbatical.”
Though at the moment he didn’t count on happy, he drank.
Two out of three wasn’t bad.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He’d driven from New York to New Orleans in a new Volvo bought nearly as much for sentiment as efficiency. Leading with sentiment, he’d revisited the Smokies and the Outer Banks, and they’d struck him with the same wonder as the first time.
Though he didn’t precisely retrace the route he’d taken at eighteen, he used the back roads more than highways, stopped at motels and diners where cash payment didn’t raise an eyebrow.
Though it still warmed him, still welcomed him, he understood New Orleans wasn’t his place anymore. It was, and always would be, a respite, a place to connect with family and friends, and maybe his younger, more innocent self.
He experienced the sensations of being a part and separate when he saw the obvious connection and affection between Mags and Sebastien. They shared nearly a decade of history he had only pieces of. And seeing Dauphine with her sassy little girl, with another kid cooking brought on those same sensations.
He hadn’t been a part of their daily lives for too long to slide seamlessly back into them. Maybe that could change—if he had time. But LaPorte’s headquarters in Lake Charles came too close for anything approaching comfort.
To protect the people he cared about, he had to create more distance.
To create distance meant re-creating himself, again. His past, his present, and for a while, his future.
“A teacher?” Mags said as they sat on her balcony in the cool February sunlight.
“I’ve used it before. And I can handle high school–level English, and the theater courses.”
“I don’t doubt that one. Is it going to be enough for you?”
“Don’t know, but I’ve got two potentials. A private high school outside Atlanta, and a public one in Virginia, under two hours from DC.”
“Georgia’s closer to Louisiana.”
“Yeah, there’s that.” Maybe too close, and that factored in. “Anyway, I’ve applied for the position, done a few online and phone interviews. Next up is in person. My persona’s Sebastian—I’m spelling it the usual way—Sebastian Xavier Booth, originally from Chicago. Double majored in English lit and education, with a minor in theater at Northwestern. I did really well.”
“I bet you did.”
He stretched out his long legs. “Got my masters, in both, down here at Tulane—where my aunt lives. Stuck it out to get one in theater. Toured Europe between times, and after. Trust fund, you know.”
“Oh yeah.” She snickered. “We Booths are totally trust funders. Did you ever actually teach?”
“Sure. New York. I considered it a fallback while I tried to break in on Broadway and acting, then discovered it was my true path. But New York wasn’t my place. I’m looking for a quieter life, and one where I can connect, have more impact with students.”
She reached over to rub his arm. “Are you, pal?”
“Yeah, that quieter life sounds good right now. I’ll find out about the teaching part. I liked tutoring, but this’ll be a long way from that one-on-one sort of deal. The main thing is disappearing. I don’t see LaPorte—or anyone sniffing for the Chameleon—looking at a high school teacher in some small to midsized town.”
“And what about your nightwork?”
“We’ll see about that. I know how to be careful, and to keep things outside my own nest. Plus, sabbatical, add quiet life, lesson plans, and putting on shows. And all that hinges on me scoring the gig.”
“I know you, pal. You’ll get the job if you want it. How the hell are you going to pass the audition? They’re going to check all this.”
“Computers. Technology.” He wiggled his fingers. “Magic. I’m leaving you another phone, and I’m going to do some of that magic to your computer. You can expect a contact from both schools. You’ll be Dr. Sylvia Fine, the headmistress of the Robinwood Academy in New York. We’ll go over all that, but you know the drill. Sebastien’s going to handle any inquiries to Tulane, and I’ll take care of Northwestern myself. I don’t see them going too deep. They’ll have my transcripts, letters of recommendation, but we’ll cover it.”
“Any regrets that you need to cover it?”
“No.” He shook his head, shrugged, stretched out his yard of leg. “No point in them. I did what I had to do, then I got to like it. Hell, Mags, I always liked it.”
Nodding, she sat back, looked out on the post–Mardi Gras quiet of the neighborhood. “Read any good books lately? Like, say, a southern literary-type thriller set in the world of academia?”
It pinched, more than a little. “Publish or Perish by Miranda Emerson. Yeah, I read it. It’s good, really good. No surprise. And yeah, I recognized myself in the opportunistic prick and second victim. I deserved my untimely and brutal death.”
“No, you didn’t.” The rare scolding tone made him feel twelve again. “You did what you had to do.”
“It can be both. I do regret Miranda,” he admitted. “I waver between regretting getting involved with her in the first place and hurting her because I did. I guess that can be both, too.”
“It hurt you, too.”
“I got through it.” Water under the bridge, over the dam, he told himself and always tried to believe it. “We were kids.”
“Oh, my man, you had to stop being a kid before you were ten.” She looked over at him. “When do you leave?”
“I’ve got the interview in Georgia Tuesday afternoon.”
“Okay then. Let’s make the most of the time we have.”
They had music and food. He bonded with Luc over home repairs and fell desperately under the spell of the effervescent Giselle.
He sat with Sebastien on the porch of the bayou cottage on his last day, and Wiley napped sprawled over Booth’s left shoe.
“This dog’s ugly, but he’s got excellent taste.”
“That old Bluto, he never tried to take a chunk out of you, so he liked you fine enough. Young Wiley here, he likes everybody. He has to grow into more discrimination. You should get yourself a dog, mon ami.”
“Can’t stuff a dog in a go pack when you’ve gotta run.”
“You don’t want to hear it, but I look back on that damn job, my bum ankle, and that fucking LaPorte.” He shook his head, sighed as the river flowed by. “You did that job so slick! Just a boy, that’s the truth, and so slick. Born with that talent, and how’re you supposed to not use what comes to you when you’re born?”
“The job wasn’t the problem. Doing it too well turned out to be.”
“Fucking LaPorte. That fucking painting.”
“Beautiful work. I can still see it in my head, still feel that wonder and admiration. One day I’m going to steal that and the statue back.”
“You stay clear of that pig of a man.”
“Oh, I will. But one day he’s going to come home to that palace of his and find those gone. And he’ll know I bested him. He stole one possible future from me. I’ll take what he loves most. Possessions.”
Sebastien stayed silent, watched the river. Then he nodded again.
“Maintenant, mon ami, if you need help with this, with something else, you call on Sebastien. I’m there for you, me.”
“I know you are. You’re looking out for Mags, and that covers a lot of ground for me.”
“I love that woman. Love her so sometimes my heart, it’s too big inside me. So I don’t make her my wife. And she’ll never be my fourth ex-wife.”
That was one way to look at it, Booth decided. A way that clearly worked for Sebastien and Mags. And that’s all that mattered.
When he drove away from New Orleans Monday morning, he knew the people he cared about would take care of each other.
* * *
Since he intended to remain at the school that hired him for at least a year—hopefully two—he wore no disguise. He went into the interview as he now thought of himself. Sebastian Booth wore a good stone-gray suit—a Hugo Boss—and carried a leather briefcase. After all, he came from money, as most of the students in the academy did.
Those students wore uniforms, also gray, blazers with the school’s logo in red on the breast pocket. No hair color not in nature was permitted, and hair—for boys—had to be trimmed above the collar. Only clear nail polish allowed, no visible tattoos or piercings other than earlobes. Only two earrings—studs only—were acceptable.
He hadn’t thought the rigid dress code would bother him. He liked structure, organization, and understood the school of thought that believed such deviations from “the norm” served as distractions to education.
But it did, in fact, bother him, almost as much as the self-satisfied air wafting down the halls bothered him.
Even with the uniforms he could spot the jocks, the nerds, the bullies, and the bullied.
Maybe he could make a difference—which he intended to try to do wherever he landed. But though he found the campus lovely, and the school’s architecture interesting, he knew within ten minutes of the interview he didn’t want to land there.
Of course, he’d take it—and adjust—if the one in Virginia didn’t work out. But he’d take it with an eye to moving on as soon as possible.
He’d planned to stay the night in the area, drive around, walk around, get a feel for the community. Instead, he drove north, and arrived two days early in the interesting town of Westbend—so named, he’d read, as it spread on a western bend of a northern sliver of the Rappahannock.
It had charm with its well-presented Main Street in the downtown/old town section, in its small harbor, with its views of water, forest, mountains.
Enough charm, he knew, to draw some tourists, some hikers, some kayakers and day sailors. It missed being a big draw by a matter of miles. Tappahannock to the south grabbed that bag, as did the water towns along the Chesapeake and the higher-end waterfronts of the Potomac.
But he liked the feel of it. Big enough he could blend, but not so big he’d feel swallowed up.
And should he have to leave abruptly, he could wind his way to 95, and get gone.
He drove past the high school; Westbend only had one, which might be a small problem, but not insurmountable. It didn’t have the grace and dignity of the private school in Georgia, but he liked the solidity of the red brick, and the sprawl of it, the nice grove of trees, the soft roll of grass.
He noted the track, the football stadium—and home of the regional champs, the Westbend Catfish.
He scanned the parking lots—both students’ and teachers’—and wound through the campus to drive by the smaller middle school, the elementary.
It all felt … normal, he decided.
He circled back to Main Street, parked. He’d walk around, he thought, get that feel. Maybe get a burger.
A gift shop, a bookstore—and damn if they didn’t have Miranda’s book in the front window. Not all by itself, but there it sat. He couldn’t see the photo on the back, but he’d already studied every inch of it. That gorgeous fall of hair, left loose for the head-and-shoulder shot, those sea-witch eyes staring straight out, the wide mouth curved in just the slightest hint of a smile.
He went in because he couldn’t resist a bookstore, and liked knowing he’d have one right on Main Street if he landed.
He bought another thriller—he already had hers—with plans to start it in his hotel room that evening.
The very friendly bookseller recommended the Main Street Grill for the burger—just a block down.
He started down the block, then stopped at Westbend Real Estate.
He’d planned—again should he land—to rent at least for a month or two, then consider buying if he felt he’d stick for those two years.
But he hadn’t counted on the house in the photo displayed in the window.
A good-size house. Not huge, but certainly bigger than he needed. Not in town, so not walkable to school, and that had been on his list. And with over an acre of land, more than he’d planned on.
Lists and plans went out the window, and he went in the door.
A woman—the only current occupant—swiveled away from her computer and beamed a smile at him.
“Afternoon. Anything I can do for you?”
He pegged her at about his age, curvaceous in a red sweater and with a blunt swing of dark honey hair framing a pretty face.
“The house on Waterside Drive—in the window—caught my eye.”
“Terrific property, and it just came on the market this week. Four bedrooms, with one on the main floor that would serve as a home office or study. Master with an en suite—that was recently remodeled. Another full bath on the second floor, a roomy half bath on the main. A bonus outside shower. Original hardwood floors throughout, and in good shape. The kitchen’s the centerpiece of the house, in my opinion.”
She gave him that smile again. “Do you or anyone in your family cook?”
“It’s just me, and I do.” But too big for him, he thought. He didn’t need all that space.
“You’ll love it. Double wall ovens, under-the-counter microwave and ice maker. A little butler’s pantry, with sink and wine fridge. Well, you should just see it instead of me sitting here talking it up. How’s now?”
“I— Sure, if that works for you.”
“Just me here today. My partner’s out of the office. I’ll just put the sign on the door and drive you out to see it.”
