The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster Page 6

  “Women?” It took Adam a moment to follow the thread of her thought. “He adores them!” Seeing her skeptical look, he started to tick off a list of names. “Barbra, Judy, Bette, his mother…” He looked Annie up and down impudently and added, “He’d adore you too, looking like you just walked out of a Victorian novel, but—” He shrugged, sliding the file across the counter. “Some interesting stuff in there,” he said, tapping it. He looked across the room. “I’d better go soothe some ruffled feathers. Give me a holler if you need anything.”

  Stapled inside the file was some Antiquarian letterhead, but the insignia was unfamiliar. A closer inspection revealed that the original Antiquarian was located in Kansas City. “Well, it appears that all roads do lead to Rome,” Annie whispered. She scanned the list before withdrawing a yellowed, water-stained newspaper article tucked into the sleeve on the opposite side.

  The hairs on the nape of her neck stood up when she saw that the article was dated May 30, 1895. Reading the contents as quickly as possible, she learned that the door had been designed as a prop for the stage show of David C. Abbott, a professional illusionist. While she was a bit spooked that the designer of her magical door was a magician, the next bit of information caused her to gasp.

  Adam stuck his head out the door. “Everything okay?”

  “Someone just walked on my grave,” she said. Seeing his blank look, Annie waved him off with a smile, too impatient for further explanation. Waiting as he closed the door, she read on. David Abbott appeared to have cut quite a swath in Kansas City until he met a rather untimely end. He was murdered in his home, stabbed repeatedly. Several of his belongings—including the door—were slated to be auctioned the following day, a bizarre coincidence stemming from his recent purchase of a new home. The article mentioned that there was a suspect but no known motive. Stuffing the clipping back into the file, Annie glimpsed yet another hint of yellow. A second article.

  Feeling the need for air, she stepped outside and started to pace as she read. This one was in dreadful shape. It appeared to have been printed the following day, but most of the contents had fallen victim to whatever substance had stained the first article. Only one section was clear enough for her to make out.

  A money clip engraved with the initials “AC” has been found at the scene of the crime, leading law enforcement to seek Ambrosius Culler, the business partner financing David Abbott’s show at the Coates Opera House, for questioning.

  The rumor that Mr. Culler paid a visit to the officer-in-charge…

  Annie chewed on her lower lip for a second before flipping open her cell phone and typing a quick message: Christian, call me.

  May 26, 1995

  Dearest El,

  From the moment we “met,” I have suspected there were larger forces at work. I am not fond of words like “fate”—my independent nature rebels at the notion—but I simply can’t put our meeting down to chance.

  And if some agency does have a hand in promoting our friendship, then I may have stumbled upon its motive. I think it’s very possible we have been brought together to save a life.

  I’m babbling. Let me start over.

  I’ve just returned from the store where I purchased the door. Everything comes back to Kansas City, as you suspected.

  Two news clippings, obviously forgotten, were tucked away in the back of a file the store proprietor provided me. The articles were dated the thirtieth and thirty-first of May, 1895. It seems that the person who made my door was a stage magician by the name of David Abbott. He was murdered in his home in Westport on the twenty-ninth, apparently by his business associate (a Mr. Culler), and the door was auctioned off the following day.

  The math frightens me, El. May 29, 1895, is ninety-nine years and 362 days ago for me. For you, it is in three days!

  We can’t simply ignore the fact that there is going to be a murder. I think we should do something about it, don’t you?

  Your confederate,

  Annabelle Aster

  P.S. If you decide to go to Kansas City, please take care. The articles were water-stained so I could not read everything, but the first article did mention that there was a suspect. My alarm bells are ringing, though I don’t know why.

  26th of May, 1895

  Dear Annie,

  You do like to test your friendships early, I see. And I’m guessing that you’ll continue to pester me until I agree to this crazy idea. It is an unfair comment, I know, as I have no doubt that, were our roles reversed, you’d be hopping off to Kansas City without a second thought and without a plan.

  I’ll go. Knowing what you’ve found, I suppose I can’t do anything else. The next time you decide to share the future, however, make it something useful, like next year’s alfalfa report.

  David Abbott is a magician of some renown in these parts and is currently performing, I believe, at the Coates Opera House in Kansas City. I will go, and I will speak to him.

  I wonder, however, if you have considered other implications of this potential misadventure? Should I succeed, Mr. Abbott’s door will not be auctioned off, and the series of events leading it to your possession will be altered.

  Let me just say it now and get it over with. I have become fond of our correspondence—there you have it. Indeed, I have become fond of you. And my life will be made less for the loss.

  Still, I will go.

  Affectionately,

  El

  “The series of coincidences is eerie,” Annie said.

  While she was relaying her discovery and the news that Elsbeth had agreed to travel to Kansas City, Christian was eating a burned oatmeal cookie, a vacant expression on his face.

  “Strange, don’t you think?” she asked.

  Suddenly aware of a pause in Annie’s monologue, Christian looked up, and seeing that she expected a response to a commentary he wasn’t listening to, his ears colored slightly. “Hmmm?”

  “I said, ‘Strange—’ Never mind. You evidently have something more pressing to deal with.”

  “I’m a little distracted,” Christian said apologetically.

  “Clearly.” Annie watched as he politely nibbled at the edge of his cookie. She, on the other hand, had given up on her gastronomic nightmare after one agonizing bite. “And I’ll hazard a guess it isn’t my culinary tour de force that has you so preoccupied.”

  “Actually, it’s not ba—” Realizing he wasn’t fooling anyone, Christian dropped the cookie onto his plate and started to laugh. “Annie, it’s terrible!”

  The comment was so honest and the laughter so infectious that Annie joined in, against all attempts to the contrary.

  Resting his chin on his fist, Christian pressed the thumb of his other hand on the cookie until it broke into three pieces. He looked rather detached as he said, “I met him.”

  “You met whom? Oh! Well, this is significant. Is he a third cousin twice removed? Or, better yet, have you been marked for”—she wiggled her eyebrows—“liquidation?”

  Christian glowered at her. “We’re talking about Texas, Annie. Those options don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

  Grinning at his riposte, Annie glided onto the empty bench across the kitchen nook from him. “Start from the beginning,” she said, tucking a pile of sateen behind her knees.

  “Well, he sort of-of-of…”Despite appearances, Christian wasn’t stuttering. He was balking. “Well, he pulled me off the street before I could get splattered on a car’s bumper.” Wincing, he added, “I might not have been paying attention to where I was going.”

  She blinked. “Were you…?” She didn’t even need to finish the sentence.

  Knowing full well what was going to happen next and determined to speed up the inevitable, Christian handed Annie the entertainment section of the newspaper, waiting patiently as she rolled it into a tube before whacking him lightly on top of his head. He grinned as she reached over to comb her fingers through his hair. “Continue,” she said.

  “Not much to say, really. I
was pretty shaken up, so he dragged me off to a coffee shop. We talked a little…very little.” Christian glanced at Annie from under his brow to see if she caught his drift, then changed the subject. “I banged up my elbow,” he said, proudly displaying his scab. “He gave me his card. I don’t think he has many friends, you know? It was something he said. Oh! And I have his driver’s license. It must’ve fallen out of his pocket.”

  “He’ll be wanting that back then.”

  Christian tried to frown, but his fist was pressed against his cheek and he could only manage half of one. “I called him.” He dropped his head to the table with an audible thump and looked at Annie from the corner of his eye. “We’re meeting at Gill’s later— for drinks.”

  “You don’t sound very eager.”

  “Can I just mail his stuff and call it a day?”

  “No, you cannot.”

  “But I’m a disaster when it comes to actual conversation, Annie!” He shrugged, causing his head, which was still resting on the table, to slide across its surface, getting cookie crumbs in his hair. “Let’s examine the facts.” He sat up, lifting a finger with each piece of information. “I stutter. I’m socially inept. I have an anxiety disorder. And I strongly suspect that the diagnoses of ADD and OCD were intentionally overlooked by an understandably stressedout diagnostician.” He practically barked the last four words before dropping his head back onto the table. “Aside from taking an eternity to get a word out, I’ll end up saying something stupid—the phone call was chock-full of classics—then I’ll get embarrassed by whatever it was I said and say something else stupid, on and on, ad nauseam.” He took a deep breath while scratching at a ketchup stain on the table with his index finger. “And if that’s not bad enough, I’ll spend the following day—the entire following day, mind you—replaying and wincing over everything I said, while beating myself up for what I wish I’d said. It’s exhausting.”

  “You forgot to add Asperger’s to the list.”

  Christian straightened, obviously giving Annie’s comment more consideration than intended.

  “And hypochondria.”

  His shoulders slumped as he looked at her from beneath his brow. “Funny,” he said sullenly.

  “You’re going.” Her eyes flashed in a way that brooked no argument. She brushed the crumbs from the side of his head. “Your problem is that you have no idea how charming you really are. And you need to make a few friends—besides me.”

  “That’s rich.”

  She waved off his insinuation that she suffered from an equal shortage and softened her tone as she scooped crumbs onto a saucer. “I’m worried about you, Christian.”

  Somehow, without her intending it to, the comment hit a bull’s-eye. Christian’s features blurred and became barren, and his eyes locked onto the table.

  “What?” she asked.

  He looked up, not quite meeting her eyes. He shook his head, but she wasn’t fooled—not by his air of indifference nor his milquetoast smile.

  “What?” she demanded as she set the saucer aside to sit across from him.

  Realizing she hadn’t been duped, he relented. “We’ve been seeing more of each other lately.”

  For anyone else, the comment would have made no sense. But Annie understood immediately. This was about his hallucinations. This was about the angel. Annie didn’t know if the angel was one of mercy or ill will, but her visitations began after Christian awoke from his coma. She disturbed his sleep, a golden-haired beauty wrapped in a radiant nimbus who also appeared at his regular haunts, sitting quietly in the cafés he frequented or dangling her feet from tree limbs above the sidewalks of his beaten paths. Thousands of dollars in therapy and buckets of psychobabble provided no real answers, at least not to Annie’s mind.

  The trauma from the accident had scrambled his brain beyond the memory loss, apparently. No matter what anyone said or the evidence presented, he swore that his mother, a Jayne Mansfield look-alike, had pulled him from the wreckage and had stood guard over him until help came—all this despite the fact that she’d died many years prior. He wouldn’t budge from that position. His therapist said that the angel was a “protective bubble,” a coping mechanism that his mind retreated to when some stimulus in his environment threatened to trigger a flashback, and that it naturally took the appearance of the person that made Christian feel safest—his mother. But if the angel was a protective mechanism, why were her features always locked in an expression of terror?

  Fully aware that his comment would keep Annie’s head busy, and in the lack of any response from her, Christian collected the plates and took them to sink, giving himself a moment to reflect. He was about to tell her not to worry when another thought crossed his mind. He turned, curiosity scribbled across his features. “Annie, what is the Serenity Prayer?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “A slip of paper fell out of Edmond’s pocket with a prayer written on it. Does it mean anything to you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Despite Christian’s mastery of interpreting the nuances of Annie’s expressions, this one left him baffled.

  Finally, she smiled. “It means we have a rescue project.”

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  David Abbott

  May 29, 1895

  Elsbeth boarded the train, stowed her satchel, and settled into her seat, all the while thinking of Yule May. That damn horse could read her like a book every time.

  She’d been grousing as she loaded her buggy for the trip, looking for any excuse not to go to Kansas City but knowing she would, regardless. Promises were meant to be kept, most of all to a friend. And Annie, as sad as it seemed, just might be her best friend in the world. There was Amos at the Hay and Feed, but she’d kept him, along with everyone else in Sage, at a distance since Tom died and Beth Anne left. The memories they stirred up were too painful. Eventually, the invitations stopped coming, Elsbeth ran out of reasons for leaving the farm, and she settled inevitably into a solitary existence. That is, of course, until Annie came along and stirred up a hornet’s nest.

  It happened when Elsbeth was stowing her luggage on the buggy. She’d stepped away to glance across the wheat field and back to the cabin, suddenly aware of the price she’d paid the last twenty years.This isn’t a life, she recalled thinking. Before she could get too sentimental, though, Yule May had taken three lazy steps in her direction, dragging the buggy behind, to give her a good head butt, snapping her into the present.

  And then again, when she was winding her way down the seldom- used path leading from her front door, that crazy animal had actually tossed her mane and started to gallop like some fool thoroughbred and not the fossilized plow horse she was, almost as if she recognized Elsbeth’s need to shed her burdens and put her past behind her.

  As the train pulled from the station, Elsbeth started to chuckle, thinking what a sight it must have been with that crazy horse galloping down the road and her thrown over her heels into the wagon bed, cussing up a storm.

  Several hours later, she woke to the sound of the train’s whistle as the porter walked down the aisle saying, “Next stop, Kansas City. Kansas City in twenty minutes.” She snorted and pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose, gathered her satchel, and stuffed the Kansas City Star inside. The locomotive took a good ten minutes to grind to a halt at the railroad station, where Elsbeth emerged onto the platform from a wall of steam, a little soggy but none the worse for wear.

  The general clamor, clang, and congestion unnerved her, and she made directly for a horse-drawn trolley that eventually dropped her at the front steps of the Broadway Hotel.

  Safe in her room, El examined the ticket she’d purchased for a matinee performance of Abbott’s production through the concierge in the lobby. She’d decided that the best course of action was to seek out the man in his dressing room after the show. How she would do that she didn’t know, but that was the sum total of her plan, despite how she’d bedeviled Annie for her own lack of
one.

  With the show hours away, El retrieved a penny dreadful from her satchel—part two in a series called The String of Pearls that introduced her favorite character, Sweeney Todd, to the world— and wandered into the bathroom. She’d worked her knickers down to her swollen ankles and situated herself on the toilet, preparing to get her fill of the demon barber of Fleet Street when her eyes strayed to the eagle-claw tub.

  Tugging at the porcelain chain pull, she resituated her knickers and wandered over to give it a good once-over before switching her attention to a shelf containing an assortment of scented bath oils and soap bars. She tested a few and stared at the tub with renewed interest. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity, she decided, turning on the tap.

  El arrived at the theater with twenty minutes to spare—cleaned, combed, and smelling, regrettably, like a French whore. She looked up at the gilded, honeycombed ceiling as she stepped through the lobby doors and stopped dead in her tracks. Receiving a sharp word from the gentleman behind her, El moved farther into the lobby. Obstreperous to the end, she glared at him witheringly before heading to the stairs and into the theater proper—a colossal, cloisonné jewel box, if ever there was one.

  An usher helped her to her seat while she studied the other patrons. The sheer volume of satin and brocade was astonishing, and she found herself glancing down at the course fabric and roller-print floral pattern of her calico dress. She sniffed at her sleeve, catching a whiff of mothballs, and looked across her shoulder at the peacock sitting next to and staring at her. “What?” she barked and turned to face the stage as the woman switched seats with her none-too-happy partner.

  Music drifted up from the orchestra pit, the curtain rose, and the social politicking wound down as people took their seats. Abruptly, floodlights panned over the audience. The hush evaporated to silence as a man walked across the empty stage, the click of his heels echoing throughout the auditorium, to sit on a stool placed front and center. He was wearing a tuxedo, a top hat, and white gloves that he slowly and methodically peeled from his hands as if oblivious to the thousand eyes watching him.