Chapter 4 - A Promise Made in the Dark
Fay’s first evening at the Cain Hotel passed without incident.
That made her suspicious.
She had spent so much of her life waiting for the next bill, the next broken appliance, the next employer who suddenly cut her hours, that stability itself felt unfamiliar.
At six, Helena showed her the event office.
At seven, Fay learned the scheduling system.
At eight, she corrected an invoice discrepancy that had gone unnoticed for two weeks.
By nine, Helena looked impressed despite obvious efforts not to show it.
“You’ve done this before.”
“Not this exact software.”
“I meant the work.”
“My mother used to keep books for a restaurant after we left Saint Aurelia’s.”
“You helped?”
“Since I could add.”
Helena nodded.
“Mr. Cain said you were capable.”
Fay stopped typing.
“He said that?”
“He said you’d resent me if I treated you like charity.”
Heat climbed Fay’s neck.
“That sounds like him.”
Helena glanced over.
“You’ve known him long?”
“No.”
“That answer arrived too quickly.”
Fay smiled faintly.
“We knew each other as children.”
Helena’s eyebrows rose.
Then professional restraint returned.
“Interesting.”
Fay turned back to the computer.
She appreciated that Helena did not pry.
At ten thirty, when the shift ended, Fay walked through the lobby expecting to catch the last streetcar.
Rafferty stood near the revolving doors.
He wore no jacket.
Black shirt sleeves were rolled to his forearms.
He looked tired.
She stopped.
“Do you wait in hotel lobbies for every temporary employee?”
“Only the difficult ones.”
“I’ve worked here for five hours.”
“You’ve argued with me for most of our acquaintance.”
“We knew each other for three weeks when we were children.”
“You argued then too.”
Fay almost smiled.
Then she noticed the tension in his face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“That usually means something happened.”
Rafferty glanced toward the street.
“I’ll walk you to the stop.”
“I know where it is.”
“I remember.”
“Then why?”
“Because someone stole records about your mother last night.”
Fay’s expression changed instantly.
“What?”
He had considered hiding it.
That lasted approximately ten minutes.
Fay had lived too long with other people deciding what she could handle.
Rafferty refused to become another one.
They moved to a quieter corner of the lobby.
He explained what Silvano found.
Fay listened without interruption.
When he finished, she asked, “Why would anyone want records about my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was in them?”
“Possibly evidence she complained about the Vanderpool Foundation.”
Fay stared at him.
“You think Celeste’s family had something to do with my mother losing her job?”
“I think we don’t have enough information yet.”
“My mother hated talking about Saint Aurelia’s.”
“That matters.”
“She kept one box.”
Rafferty went still.
“What box?”
“Papers. Old letters. Maybe photographs.”
“Where?”
Fay frowned.
“My apartment.”
“We’re going there.”
She crossed her arms.
“You don’t give orders very well when they involve my apartment.”
“Someone stole your mother’s records.”
“And that gives you permission to enter my home?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“It gives me permission to be extremely annoying until you agree voluntarily.”
Fay stared.
Then laughed.
It was the first time Rafferty had heard her laugh fully.
The sound disturbed him in a way threats never did.
It made him want to hear it again.
He immediately disliked that realization.
Thirty minutes later, they reached Fay’s building.
Silvano came separately with two security men but remained downstairs after Fay made it very clear her apartment was not becoming an armed headquarters.
Rafferty climbed the narrow staircase behind her.
The building smelled faintly of old wood and cooking oil.
Fay opened the door quietly.
The apartment was tiny.
Clean.
A patched sofa.
A narrow kitchen.
Children’s drawings attached to the refrigerator with mismatched magnets.
Two paper boats sat on the windowsill.
Rafferty stopped at the sight.
Fay noticed.
“She likes making them.”
“So I see.”
Mrs. Evelyn had already put Josie to bed.
Fay moved quietly down the hallway to check on her.
Rafferty stayed near the kitchen.
On the refrigerator was a photograph.
Fay kneeling beside a little girl with chestnut curls.
Josie’s smile was wide enough to transform her entire face.
Rafferty found himself staring.
Fay returned.
“She’s asleep.”
“She looks happy.”
“She is.”
He glanced at the hospital envelope on the table.
Fay immediately picked it up and placed it beneath another paper.
Too late.
Rafferty had seen the letterhead.
Children’s Hearing Center.
He said nothing.
“Mother’s box is in the closet.”
Fay retrieved an old cardboard container sealed with twine.
Dust coated the lid.
She set it on the floor.
“I haven’t opened this since she died.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Fay nodded.
“My mother was stubborn enough that I thought she’d outlive everyone.”
“What happened?”
“Stroke.”
Rafferty sat opposite her.
Fay untied the twine.
Inside were photographs, tax papers, recipe cards, employment letters, and notebooks.
For almost half an hour they searched.
Then Fay found an envelope.
SAINT AURELIA’S.
Her hand froze.
She opened it.
Inside was a handwritten letter from Marguerite to someone named Sister Catherine.
Fay read aloud.
“Catherine, I copied the figures before they took the ledger. The donations do not match the food deliveries. Mr. Vanderpool’s company invoices the home for work that was never performed.”
Rafferty’s expression hardened.
Fay continued.
“They are using the children’s property to secure private loans. If I confront them openly, I believe they will remove me.”
She stopped.
There was another paragraph.
Her voice became smaller.
“I am most worried about Fay. She has become attached to one of the boys, Rafferty. He is angry at everyone, but I think he is only frightened. She sits beside him when he cannot sleep.”
Rafferty closed his eyes briefly.
Fay stared at the paper.
Her mother had remembered.
Another sheet fell from the envelope.
It was a list of account numbers.
Silvano would need to examine them.
Then Fay noticed a final note written on the back.
“If anything happens, the original ledger is not at Saint Aurelia’s. I placed it where the children sent their boats.”
Fay frowned.
“Where the children sent their boats?”
Rafferty knew immediately.
“The drainage canal.”
She looked at him.
Behind Saint Aurelia’s was a stone runoff channel that led toward the river.
Children floated paper boats there after storms.
“Would she hide something there?”
“Thirty years ago?”
“Maybe.”
Fay shook her head.
“It would be destroyed.”
“Unless she meant somewhere near it.”
Rafferty took out his phone.
“I’m calling Silvano.”
Fay caught his wrist.
He stopped.
Her hand remained there for a second longer than necessary.
Both noticed.
She released him.
“Before this becomes your war, I need to know something.”
“What?”
“Why do you care so much?”
Rafferty looked at her.
“Because your mother may have been harmed.”
“Lots of people have been harmed.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t investigate all of them.”
“No.”
“Because Celeste is involved?”
“Partly.”
“Because of the boat?”
His expression changed.
Fay’s voice softened.
“You don’t owe me anything because I sat beside you when we were children.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
For once, Rafferty had no useful strategic answer.
He looked around the tiny apartment.
At the refrigerator drawings.
The paper boats.
The old box.
At Fay.
Finally he said, “Because when I was eight, I believed nobody would notice if I disappeared.”
She did not move.
“You noticed.”
His voice lowered.
“I built most of my life around never needing anybody to notice again.”
Fay’s eyes softened.
“That sounds lonely.”
“It was efficient.”
“Those aren’t opposites.”
He almost smiled.
Then a small sound came from the hallway.
Josie stood in the doorway.
She wore yellow pajamas.
Her hair was tangled around her face.
She looked curiously at Rafferty.
Fay immediately stood.
“Sweetheart.”
Josie did not respond.
Fay approached, touched her shoulder, and waited until the child looked directly at her.
Then Fay spoke slowly.
“You should be sleeping.”
Josie smiled.
She placed one small palm against Fay’s cheek.
Rafferty watched.
The gesture struck him.
Fay saw his confusion.
“She feels my voice.”
Josie noticed Rafferty.
Her eyes widened.
She stepped partly behind her mother.
Fay crouched.
“This is Rafferty.”
Josie studied him.
Rafferty, feared by men twice his size, appeared uncertain what to do.
Fay hid a smile.
Josie pointed at his coat pocket.
The corner of the leather sleeve showed.
Rafferty understood.
He removed the old boat.
Josie’s face lit up.
She hurried forward.
Fay started to stop her.
Rafferty crouched.
He placed the boat carefully in his palm.
Josie stared at the faded blue star.
Then she pointed toward the boats on the window.
Rafferty nodded.
“You make them too?”
She could hear some frequencies and read faces well, but his low voice was difficult.
Josie tilted her head.
Then she placed her hand against his cheek.
Rafferty froze.
Fay’s breath caught.
Josie waited.
Rafferty looked at Fay.
“What do I do?”
“Talk.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Rafferty looked back at Josie.
His voice, when he spoke, was softer than Fay had ever heard it.
“Your mother made this boat for me a long time ago.”
Josie felt the vibration.
Her eyes moved to the boat.
Rafferty continued.
“I was afraid.”
Josie looked surprised.
“Yes,” he said. “Me.”
She smiled.
Then she took his free hand and led him toward the table.
She selected a square of blue paper.
Placed it in front of him.
And waited.
Rafferty stared at the sheet.
“I don’t remember how.”
Josie pushed it closer.
Fay laughed quietly.
“That means she’s not accepting excuses.”
For the next ten minutes, New Orleans’s most feared man sat at a chipped kitchen table while a five-year-old corrected his paper-folding technique.
For the first time in years, Rafferty forgot to watch the door.
Then Silvano called.
His voice destroyed the small peaceful moment instantly.
“We found where Marguerite hid the ledger.”
Rafferty stood.
“Where?”
“Not in the canal.”
“Then where?”
Silvano paused.
“In the wall of the old boat shed.”
Rafferty looked at Fay.
“And?”
“It’s gone.”
Fay’s face fell.
Silvano continued.
“But whoever took it left something behind.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of what?”
Silvano’s voice became grim.
“Your fiancée’s father standing beside Marguerite Delacroix.”
“And on the back,” he added, “someone wrote one sentence.”
Rafferty waited.
Silvano read it.
“Ask August what happened the night Saint Aurelia’s burned.”
Fay went completely still.
Because nobody had mentioned a fire.
And suddenly, Rafferty remembered something else from his childhood.
Smoke.
Bells.
Children running in the dark.
And a promise he had made to Fay before they were separated.
May you like
A promise neither of them had remembered until now.
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