Chapter 7 - The Monastery Ledger
Rafferty listened without interruption.
That, more than anything, unsettled Fay.
Powerful men usually interrupted to prove they understood before they did. Rafferty asked only 3 questions, each precise.
The landlord's name.
The clinic administrator.
The clients who canceled Mrs. Odette's contracts.
Then he said, "Do not cash the check yet."
Fay almost laughed.
"That was your solution?"
"No. That was bait."
She went silent.
"Celeste expects you to use money connected to me," Rafferty said. "Then she can call it payment for affection, or hush money, or proof that you engineered last night."
Fay's stomach dropped.
She had been minutes from falling into the trap.
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"Let me handle Celeste."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the one I have."
"Then it isn't enough."
Rafferty was quiet for a moment.
"What do you want?"
No one with his kind of power asked that plainly.
Fay answered before she could become afraid of the honesty.
"I want my daughter safe. I want Mrs. Odette's business protected. I want my landlord to remember that poor people are not furniture he can throw out when richer people call. And I want Celeste Vanderpool to stop saying my life is hers to move."
Rafferty's voice lowered.
"Done."
"Do not say done like you own the world."
"I don't."
"You sound like you do."
"I own enough of it to make this right."
The answer should have offended her.
Instead, exhausted and frightened, Fay felt the terrible relief of standing near a wall while arrows flew.
At 8 the next morning, Rafferty visited Saint Bartholomew's Monastery.
It no longer housed children. The state had closed the residential program 12 years earlier after funding cuts and scandal. Now the old stone building served as storage for a Catholic charity that had too few volunteers and too many broken heaters.
Sister Agnes was 84 and looked as if she had been carved from stern patience.
She did not bow to Rafferty's reputation.
"You finally came back."
Silvano blinked.
Rafferty did not.
"You remember me."
"I remember every child who thought he was difficult enough to be unlovable."
The sentence landed with surgical accuracy.
Rafferty accepted it because old women who had fed orphaned children had earned the right to speak dangerously.
Sister Agnes led him to a records room smelling of dust, paper, and rain.
"Fay Delacroix," Rafferty said.
"Marguerite's daughter."
"You knew her?"
"Everyone knew that child. Too quiet unless someone was hurting. Then she became very loud."
Rafferty looked toward the shelves.
"I remember her."
"You should. She sat with you for 5 nights when you were sick."
Silvano's expression shifted.
"Five?"
Sister Agnes opened a ledger.
"Marguerite worked laundry. Fay came with her because they had nowhere safe to leave her after the storm. One February, Rafe Cain developed pneumonia. Staff was short. Fay dragged a chair beside his bed and announced she would tell stories until he stopped looking like a dead fish."
For reasons Rafferty did not want to examine, his throat tightened.
"Did she leave suddenly?"
Sister Agnes's face changed.
"Her mother did. A man found them. Not a good man. Marguerite came to me that night asking for bus money. She said staying would cost Fay more than leaving."
"Do you know where they went?"
"Not then. Later I heard they returned to New Orleans under Marguerite's maiden name."
Rafferty touched the ledger page.
There, in careful handwriting, was the entry.
Rafe Cain, fever severe. Child Fay D. remained beside patient after evening prayers. Folded paper boats from blue scraps.
Rafferty read it twice.
Then Sister Agnes placed a second paper on the table.
It was a receipt from 22 years earlier.
Bus fare.
Medicine.
A note in Marguerite Delacroix's hand.
Tell the boy the boats know the way.
Rafferty closed his eyes.
For 25 years, he had believed he survived those nights by becoming harder.
Now he understood.
He had survived because a little girl refused to let him be alone.
When he opened his eyes, Silvano was watching him.
"Find out who threatened Marguerite," Rafferty said.
Sister Agnes answered before Silvano could.
"You won't like the name."
Rafferty looked at her.
She turned the ledger around.
May you like
Beside Marguerite's departure note was a visitor log signature.
Everett Vanderpool.
