Frowning, Regan shifted in the hard chair, the hush of the library settling around her. She had to find out how Camille died. It was possible she had died of disease as well, either the same one as her family, or something else. Prior to antibiotics, death was common from illnesses that were easily cured in the modern era of medicine.
But something told her Camille hadn’t died a natural death.
Searching the newspaper archives with the dates a few days after the one on Camille’s death certificate, Regan found confirmation of her fears immediately.
HEIRESS DIES BY OWN HAND!
Camille Comeaux, the youngest daughter of Francois Comeaux, who perished in our city’s latest battle against the dreaded yellow fever along with his wife and four daughters, has joined her family in death. Her broken and bloodied body was found in the courtyard of her home, where she landed after jumping from the balcony above, her goal to take her own life sadly successful. Witnesses report Miss Comeaux leapt to her death as nature intended her, with a snake around her neck. Gossips foreshadowed an unfortunate ending for this grief-stricken girl, as her behavior had been suspect in prior months, with whispers of the consumption of spirits and wearing white while in deep mourning. A once great family comes to an unceremonious and inglorious end with her untimely demise.
Regan shivered as she stared at the computer screen. Suicide. Off the Juliet balcony Regan had once found so charming. The very balcony she herself had been sitting on in her sleep like it was a sofa at noon.
It was too coincidental to be random. It was too bizarre to believe it could be anything but.And a snake around her neck?
Jesus. Regan grabbed her purse and ran to the ladies’ room, afraid she was going to throw up. Careening into a stall, she knelt on the cold tile floor and breathed in and out, determined to swallow her nausea. It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense.
The urge to vomit quieted, but Regan’s mind didn’t.
It was insane. All of it.
Or was she the insane one?
Her phone rang in her purse, startling her into jerking back away from the toilet. Fumbling to get it out, she prayed it was Felix. He would be calm. Nothing freaked him out. He would talk her off the ledge.
Oh, God. Poor choice of words.
Regan felt a hysterical laugh burble up inside her.
Without checking to see who it was on the phone, she answered. “Hello?”
She would talk to anyone if it meant she didn’t have to be alone with her disturbing thoughts.
“Hi, Regan, how are you?”
It was Beau. Regan squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m actually not feeling very well, Beau. I think I have a stomach flu. Can I call you back later?”
There was a pause and she knew he was getting his anger under control. “The stomach flu or morning sickness perhaps? Has your new boyfriend knocked you up already? I know how much you always wanted kids.”
Oh, no. The nausea returned full force, and dropping the phone in her lap, Regan leaned over the toilet and hurled the contents of her hurried lunch into the bowl. She heaved four or five times, her body ensuring that every last bit of food and fluid was evacuated. When she was sure she was finished, she wiped her tearing eyes on the sleeve of her black cardigan and took a shaky breath.
Shuddering, she reached for her phone. The ass**le was actually still on the line.
“Well, that was charming,” he said.
“I’ll call you back,” she managed, running her finger over her saliva-splattered lip.
“No, you won’t. So you’re going to sit there and listen to me now.”
“I’m in the public restroom. I’m not doing this with you right now.” Hopefully, they could do this never. She had no desire to discuss Felix with her ex-husband.
“I’m impressed,” he said, like she hadn’t spoken. “It didn’t take you long to find an idiot willing to put up with your petulance and your overdrinking. Though I have to say I’m surprised you went for the voodoo guy. He doesn’t seem your type ... a little dirty for your tastes. And aren’t you worried he’s f**king you to get to your money?”
That pissed her off enough to have her hauling herself off the cold floor. “It’s none of your damn business. And don’t tell me you’re living in celibacy because I won’t believe you.”
“He’ll get bored with you, you know. You can’t hold the interest of a man like that”
Regan paused, hand on the stall door. Damn it. He had hit on her very real fear. She did worry that she was too staid, too ordinary, too boring for Felix. But she wasn’t about to let Beau know that.
“Or maybe he won’t hold my interest,” she told Beau. “Like what happened for me with you.”
It felt good to say it, to hear the pause where she knew she’d shocked him, where she’d landed a direct hit he had never anticipated she would sally at him. She strode out of the stall, head held high.
When he said, “Bitch,” Regan only smiled at herself in the mirror above the sink.
“Asshole,” she said in return and hung up the phone.
It felt damn, damn good.
Felix had been planning to meet Regan for dinner after work, but he knew something was wrong when he spoke to her on the phone. She sounded anxious and unfocused. So knowing she wasn’t planning to leave her house for another thirty minutes, Felix decided to meet her there instead and walk to the restaurant with her. It would give them time to talk, and he could ferret out if something was bothering her.
She had given him the key to the courtyard gate, and he used it, sending a text message to her so she wouldn’t jump out of her skin when he came in the house. Heading into the kitchen, he didn’t see her on the first floor, and didn’t hear her on the second. The house was so damn big, he could wander for ten minutes before he found her, so he sent her another text asking her where she was.My bedroom was her short response.
Now he was really worried. She didn’t sound like her usual cheerful self at all. Felix bounded up the steps and jogged down the hall to her room. He skidded to a stop in the doorway.
Regan was sitting on the edge of her bed, face pale, still dressed in the Capri pants and sweater set he had seen her leave for work in that morning. Normally when she got home she changed into jeans. But she was just sitting there, legs crossed at the ankles, staring down at her hands in her lap.
“Hey.”
She looked up. “Hi.”
“What are you doing? Is everything okay?” He looked around the room for any outward signs of an interaction with Camille. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the room, everything neat and tidy the way she had left it that morning. Regan was always neat, unlike him.