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Who Could It Be Now
To my surprise, when I dropped by to give Amy back her keys, she asked me if I would have her over for a couple of days.
“I’m sick and tired of being at home,” she said.
“Sure. If you don’t mind a little racket starting on Monday.”
“Oh, right, the guesthouse. I couldn’t care less.”
So she packed one of her bags to carry elephants unnoticed and jumped into her red machine. Needless to say she got to the Manor about twenty minutes before me. The pros of having friends with better cars than me: when I got home, the coffee was already made.
The Blotters were happy to see her again, and we spent a nice family Sunday all together.
I was exhausted after all the driving over the last few days, so I called it a night early. I traded a few texts with Brandon, already in bed, and fell asleep with my phone still in my hands. I missed him badly. Facetime and texts were okay, but it didn’t make u
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“How long?” I asked Amy as we walked out of the ER.“Three to four weeks. I gotta check with my physician first thing tomorrow.”She let me help her into the car and buckle her seatbelt.“Shit, Fran! What the fuck’s going on?” she snarled when I got in behind the wheel.“You ask me?” I reversed out of the slot and drove onto the street. “Why did you ask to come to the Manor so out of the blue? We had breakfast together that morning and you said nothing about it.”She shook her head, frowning ahead. “I don’t know. When you came back to say goodbye, I just felt this strong impulse to go with you. I don’t question that kind of feeling when I get them, so I just played along.“Like something inside you knew we would need you here,” I muttered.My phone rang, because the Haunter Supreme didn’t dig waiting. I handed it to Amy, who
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I breathed deep, opened the door and stuck my head in to show off my poor French. “Un moment, Cristine, s’il vous plait.”I think that took her by surprise, because she stopped whatever she was doing. We walked in, and my first look was at the laptop, which I had completely forgotten about when Amy had gotten hurt. It was still on the desk, seemingly untouched. I hurried to grab it and take it out of the room, leaving it on the hallway floor by the wall.“Really, Fran?”“Hey, it’s important to me. Okay, where is she?”“Give me your hand.”I didn’t stop to think, I just held the bowl with one hand and stretched out my spare to the side. A firm cold grip wrapped around it and I saw Joseph’s tall silhouette by my side. He pointed at the middle of the room and I let out a muffled interjection: I could see a greyish shape in a disheveled heap, sitting or kneeling by the dis
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I was happy to find Lady Audrey up and awake. She was obviously surprised to hear from me again so soon, and she hesitated before giving me authorization to record the call. Brandon moved back to sit at the other end of the couch.“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’d need to ask you if there’s any kind of historic family record at the Foundation, or somewhere else.”“I’m sort of the official family historian.” Of course she would place herself in the center of the action. “What do you need?”“Does the name Cristine Gauthier ring a bell?”“No. Who is she?”“That’s what I need to find out. She lived in Amiens, France, over a hundred years ago, and died there in the Great War. That would put her in the third generation, give or take. Did any Blotter live in France about that time?”“I couldn’t say.” What kind of historian was she
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The two Blotters frowned when we approached them, and they looked relieved to hear me ask about maps, instead of insisting about lovechildren and that kind of outlandish subject. Mr. Blotter seemed to assess there was no risk to the family’s honor in that and left Ann Lori to comply with our request.She led us back to the mahogany table, cleared half of it by the effective method of piling up binders at the other end, and opened another big book like the blue one. It contained maps and blueprints of every single property the Blotters had ever owned.They were all bound together, so there was no way to take the Manor’s blueprints out of the book, not even to make a copy of them. So we took several pictures of them for later printing. However, both Brandon and I wanted to take a good look at the originals, so we asked her for a magnifying glass.While she went to get it, he set the camcorder on his tripod across the table, making me place two chairs v
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The nice ladies at the Historical Society hesitated when they saw Brandon walk in already filming. Until one of them recognized him. Then it was all smiles and giggles and a rush to help us. Soon we were sitting at a table covered with old maps and government records since the time Hardwick had been first settled by white people.Brandon set his camcorder on a tripod at the other side of the table, almost against the back wall, to keep in frame not only us, but also the loads of documents before us.We’d spent about thirty minutes going through records when one of the old maps caught my attention.“Look,” I said, showing it to Brandon. “See this town, Greenwich? It was flooded when they built the Quabbin.”He leaned in, studying the area I was pointing at with a curious frown. “So? What’s so special about it? Flooded graveyard or something like that?”I rolled my eyes. Of course the West Coast alien d
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I didn’t have the heart to watch Brandon make a mess of my bedroom, so I left him take whatever he wanted upstairs and I headed to the library. Joseph was in the study with Isaac and Trisha, while Edward took a break from keeping Cristine at bay. I found him reading online, but he disconnected the tablet right away to talk with me.“What do you think is happening?”I shrugged and explained to him Brandon’s theory, about Cristine’s arrival being related to Ann’s departure.“So she’s part of the family?”“She may be. I think your brother Henry could’ve met her mother while he was serving in Paris. The dates sort of add up.”“You mean she’s my niece?”“I think so. The people at the Foundation deny having correspondence or financial records that would allow us to see if your brother was in contact with Cristine’s mothe
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We could hear Isaac’s loud voice from the third-floor landing. Plain to see he and Brandon had already set to monitor the live feeds, because he shut up the moment I opened the study door. “Come in. It’s safe,” said Joseph right away. “Thank you, Joseph,” I murmured, looking around at the mess the room was. “How is she doing?” “She throws things now and then. But she’s still where you left her.” “By the loveseat?” “Yes. Be careful.” “Wish me luck.” I traded a look with Trisha, who nodded with a quick encouraging smile. “Cristine, c’est moi, Fran,” I said, facing the end of the loveseat where I’d seen her the night before. “Can we talk?” Trisha translated. Nothing happened, so I stepped closer. The circle of spices and herbs had been blown away, but Amy had explained to me the oil worked to imprint it on the floorboards and sustain the barrier. I sat down on the floor, about thr
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