THE PAIN OF OTHERS (4 page)

Through the streets of the old, southern city, the downtown architecture catching early light—City Hall, the Vance Monument, the Basilica of St. Lawrence, where a few churchgoers straggled in for morning mass—and on the outskirts of
Letty’s
perception, secondary to her inner frenzy, a spectrum of Appalachian color—copper hillsides, spotless blue, the Black Mountain summits enameled with rime ice. A classic autumn day in the Swannanoa Valley.

They turned onto an oak-lined boulevard, red and gold leaves plastered to the pavement.

“We’re going into
Montford
?”
Letty
asked.

“That’s what the computer says to me.”

Hamlet Court was a secluded dead end off the B&B bustle of
Montford
Avenue, approximately a half mile long, and home to a dozen Victorian mansions.

The entrance to 712 stood at the end of the cul-de-sac through a brick archway just spacious enough to accommodate a single car.

“Stop the car,”
Letty
said.

“I take you all the way up.”

“I don’t want you to take me all the way.”

She climbed out of the car at 10:04. Hurried to the end of the street and under the archway, glancing at the name on a large, black mailbox:
Rochefort
.

The residence sat toward the back of the property, which sloped up across a masterfully landscaped yard shaded with maples and spruce trees, dotted with stone sculptures—fountains, birdbaths, angels—and not a leaf to be seen on the pockets of lush green grass.

An engine turned over near the house.
Letty
stepped off the drive and crawled into a thicket of mountain laurel as a boxy Mercedes G-Class rolled past. Through the branches and tinted glass, she glimpsed Chase at the wheel, a young boy in a booster in the backseat. The car ride over had only intensified her nausea, and as the diesel engine faded away, she put her finger down her throat and retched in the leaves.

She felt instantly better. Weaker. Less drunk. But better.

Only when the Mercedes had disappeared did she climb out of the bushes. Shivering, shoulders scraped, head pounding not only with a hangover, but a new element of suffering—coffee-deprivation.

She jogged uphill to where the driveway widened and cut a roomy circle back into itself. Up the brick steps onto the covered porch, where she rang the doorbell twice, struggling to catch her breath.

10:08 by her BlackBerry as footsteps approached from the other side of the door.

When it finally opened and Daphne
Rochefort
stood in the threshold in a lavender terrycloth robe,
Letty
realized she had given no prior consideration to exactly what she might say to this woman, had thought through and executed getting here, but nothing after.

“Yes?”

“Daphne?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What can I do for you?” Though at face value the words were all southern hospitality, the delivery carried a distinct northern draft.

Letty
rubbed her bare arms, figured she probably still reeked of alcohol and vomit.

“There’s a man coming here to kill you.”

“Pardon?”

“I know this must sound—”

“You smell like booze.”

“You have to listen to me.”

“I want you off my porch.”

“Please, just—”

“I’m calling the police.”

“Good, call the police.”

Daphne retreated to slam the door, but
Letty
darted forward, planting her right heel across the doorframe. “I’m trying to help you. Just give me two minutes.”

Letty
followed Daphne past the staircase, down a hallway into an enormous kitchen full of marble and stainless steel and redolent of chopped onions and cooking eggs. Daphne went to the stove, flipped an omelet, and began to peel a banana. “What’s your name?”

“It’s not important.”

“So talk,” she said.

Letty
stood across the island from her, light flooding in through the large windows behind the sink, the coffeemaker at the end of its brewing cycle, gurgling like it’d had its throat cut.

“Here’s the
Clif
Notes,”
Letty
said, “ because we don’t have much time. I went to the Grove Park Inn yesterday. Someone hooked me up with a master keycard, tipped me off to which rooms might be worth hitting.”

“You’re a thief.”

“I was in the last room of the day when the guest came back unexpectedly. I had to hide in the closet.”

“I’m failing to see—”

“Chase was with him.” Daphne stopped slicing the banana. “Your husband gave this man, Arnold, a key to your house. A photo of you. A floor plan. And twenty-five thousand dollars to murder you.”

Daphne looked up from the cutting board, her bright, black eyes leveled upon
Letty
like a double-barreled shotgun. Her smile exposed a row of exquisite teeth.

“I want you to leave right now.”

“You think I’m lying? I didn’t
want
to come here. I had a chance to steal the twenty-five thousand this morning. Could’ve gone home, had nothing more to do with any of this. You don’t know me, but this isn’t like me, this…selflessness. I’ve been to prison too many times. I can’t take another felony charge. Getting involved in this was a great risk for me.”

Daphne took up the knife again, continued cutting the banana.

Letty
spotted the clock on the microwave. “I can prove it to you. It’s 10:11. In exactly four minutes, your husband will call you. He’ll tell you he can’t find his wallet. He’ll ask you to go upstairs to your bedroom and check in his bedside table. If he calls, will you believe me?”

Daphne glanced at the microwave clock, then back at
Letty
. Honest to God fear in her eyes for the first time. A solemn, crushing focus. She nodded. The eggs burning.

“How will he reach you?”
Letty
asked. “Landline? Cell?”

“My
iPhone
.”

“Can we take the Beamer in the driveway?”

“I’m not leaving with you.”

“You don’t understand. By the time your husband calls you, it’ll be too late. The point of the phone call is to get you upstairs so Arnold can break in.”

“You want to leave right now?”

“This second.”

Daphne moved the pan to a cold burner and turned off the gas. They walked back down the hall, past a wall adorned with family and individual portraits and a collage of photographs—grinning babies and toddlers.

In the foyer, Daphne plucked a set of keys from a ceramic bowl beside a coat rack and opened the front door. The yard brilliant with strands of light that passed through the trees and struck the lawn in splashes of green.

Ten steps from the silver Beamer,
Letty
grabbed Daphne’s arm and spun her around with a hard jerk.

“Ouch.”

“Back inside.”

“Why?”

“There’s a car parked halfway up your driveway behind the rhododendron.”

They went back up the steps.

“You have the house key?”
Letty
asked.

Crossed the porch, Daphne struggling with the keys as they arrived at the door, finally sliding the right one into the deadbolt. Back into the house and Daphne shut the wide oak door after them, relocked the deadbolt, the doorknob, the chain.

“I should check the back door,” Daphne said.

“It doesn’t matter. He has a key and Chase left a window open. You have a gun in the house?”

Daphne nodded.

“Show me.”

Daphne ran up the staircase,
Letty
kicking off her heels as she followed. By the top of the stairs, her pulse had become a thumping in her temples—exertion and panic. They turned down a hallway, passed an office, a bright-white studio filled with sunlight and tedious acrylic paintings of mountain scenes, then two children’s bedrooms that emanated the frozen perfection of unlived-in space. At the end of the hall, French doors opened into a master suite built in the shape of an octagon, the walls rising to a vaulted ceiling that was punctured with skylights.
 

Chirping crickets stopped them both. Daphne withdrew her
iPhone
from the pocket of her robe and forced a smile that managed to bleed through into her voice.

“Hi, Honey… …no, it’s fine… …upstairs… …sure.” Daphne stepped into a walk-in closet, hit the lights.
Letty
lingered in the doorway, watched her reach through a wall of suits, emerging a moment later with a pump-action shotgun.

She mouthed, “Loaded?”

Daphne nodded. “Chase, it’s not in here. Want me to check downstairs?”
Letty
took the gun from Daphne. “All right,” Daphne said. “You two have fun.”

Letty
whispered, “Call Nine-one-one,” and while Daphne dialed,
Letty
flicked off the safety and racked a shell into the chamber. She peered around the corner, down the hall. The house stood silent. She moved out of the closet and into a lavish master bath the size of her apartment, the tile cool on her bare feet.

Garden tub. Immense stone shower with a chrome fixture a foot in diameter. Long countertops cut from Italian granite.

Letty
opened the glass shower door and cranked the handle. Preheated water rained down. The glass steamed. She returned to the bedroom, shutting the door behind her, found Daphne standing just inside the closet.

“Why’d you run the shower?” she whispered.

“Are the police coming?”

“Yes.”

Letty
killed the lights. “Go crouch down in the corner behind those dresses and turn your phone off.” As Daphne retreated into the darkness,
Letty
pulled the door closed and padded out into the hall, making her way between the easels in the studio to the big windows that overlooked the front yard.

The car in the driveway hadn’t moved. A black 4Runner. Empty.

She walked out into the hall, straining to pick out the whine of approaching sirens.

Had the central heat been running, it would’ve completely escaped her notice, and even in the perfect silence she still nearly missed it—just around the corner and several feet down, the faintest groan of hardwood fibers bowing under the weight of a footstep.

Letty
backpedaled into the studio and stepped behind the open door.

Through the crack, she eyed the hall.

Arnold appeared without a sound, wearing blue jeans and a fleece pullover. For a second, she thought there must be something wrong with his hands, their paleness. Latex gloves. Navy socks with strips of rubber gripping kept his footfalls absolutely silent and he moved slowly and with great precision down the hall, a black pistol at his side that had been fitted with a long suppressor.