Loving Laura (The Cantrelle Family Trilogy) (28 page)

He put the photograph back in the cigar box. He walked outside, put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Within seconds, Zoe came bounding through the pines and buttonwoods that surrounded the cottage. She ran up to Neil, and he gave her an absentminded head rub. Her body felt moist from the salt spray and smelled faintly of the sea.

“Come on, Zoe,” he said. She followed him as he walked slowly toward the shore.

Had he been wrong to leave Laura? Had his sense of honor become skewed? Was he so hung up on how he’d look in his brother’s eyes, he’d failed to recognize what was the right thing to do? Had he been fair to Laura or Norman by hiding the truth?

These questions went round and round in his head. Frustrated and confused, he walked down to the water’s edge. He stared at the spectacular vista spread before him.

Brushstrokes of golden rose painted the surface of the sea as the sun slipped over the horizon. Man-o’-war birds swooped through the dusk with effortless grace, casting amethyst shadows in their wake. Feathery coconut palms swayed in the breeze, the sound of their branches a rustling accompaniment to the rhythm of the sea. Neil could see the dark silhouette of American Shoal lighthouse marking the reef in the distance. The twilight hour was alive with the sound of insects and foaming surf.

He kicked at a pebble, watched it arch across the water and disappear. Zoe panted at his feet. He glanced down. The dog’s eyes gleamed in the dusk. There was a small piece of driftwood a few feet away, and Neil stooped over to pick it up.

“Go get it, girl,” he said softly, throwing the driftwood down the beach. Zoe lunged toward the stick, and when she did something shook itself free inside Neil.

When the dog came bounding back, Neil patted her on the head and beckoned her to follow him. Trustingly, she wagged her tail and trotted behind him. Hours later, when he dropped her at Gastin’s, she was still wagging her tail.

Neil rented a car in Baton Rouge. He decided he didn’t want to be dependent on anyone this time. As the miles ticked away and he got closer to Patinville, he wondered how his family would react to his sudden reappearance.

He didn’t have long to wait. He headed straight for Norman’s new apartment, a ground level modern garden apartment on the west side of the city. When he pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, his palms were clammy but he felt calm.

He had no trouble finding Unit #20. Lights blazed in the apartment. Good. Norman was home. As Neil approached the door, he could hear the muffled sound of a television show as well as the drone of the air-conditioning unit. He rang the doorbell. The door swung open within seconds.

“Hello, little brother,” Neil said, grinning. He wished he had a picture of the look on Norman’s face.

“Neil! My God! Neil! I can’t believe it.” He grabbed Neil’s hand, almost dragging him into the apartment. “What are you doing here? Do Mama and Papa know you’re home? When did you get here?”

Neil laughed. “One question at a time, okay?” He looked around, inclining his head toward the kitchenette. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer in the refrigerator, would you?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll get you one.” He grinned. “Hell, I’ll get me one, too.”

Neil watched him walk into the kitchenette. If you didn’t know he had an artificial leg, his gait would never have revealed it, Neil thought. He was amazed at how fast Norman had adjusted, how naturally he moved. When Norman came back, Neil accepted the cold can of beer and popped the top. Norman pointed to the small round table in the dining area.

“Why don’t we sit over there?” he said, dark eyes full of questions.

When they were seated across from each other, Neil cradled the cold can in his palms. He looked at his brother. He hoped he could find the right words to say what needed to be said. “Norman, there’s something I have to tell you. That’s why I came home. I... should have told you long ago, but I didn’t want to hurt you.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. I didn’t want you to think less of me. That’s the truth.”

Norman frowned. “What is it?”

“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. While you were in the hospital, I fell in love with Laura, and she fell in love with me.”

Norman’s face went completely still.

“I know it shouldn’t have happened. I fought against it, and I think she did, too. But it
did
happen. I thought I’d forget about her. I told her we had no future together.” Norman still didn’t say anything. Neil couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, but he had to tell him everything.

“That last night, when you insisted I follow her home, she cried, and I felt as if my guts were being torn out. But I didn’t want you to know. I thought you’d think I was a scumbag. So I walked away from her and went back to Florida.”

Norman rubbed his chin. “A lot of things are clear to me now,” he said.

What was he thinking? “I’m sorry. I know it seems as if we were doing something behind your back, but it really wasn’t like that. I can’t explain it. It all just happened. I wasn’t looking for it, and she wasn’t either.”

Norman looked at his hands. “I won’t pretend this isn’t a shock. I never thought...” He stopped. From outside, Neil could hear some children at play. Their voices sounded innocent and happy.

Norman’s eyes finally met Neil’s, and their gaze was clear and steady. “I can see exactly how it might have happened.” He smiled wryly. “I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt, because it does, but it’s not like Laura was ever mine.” He sighed. “I don’t blame you, Neil. I... I understand.”

Neil felt an enormous rush of love for this man who had already endured and overcome so much. He searched Norman’s face and eyes, but he saw no censure there—only love. Neil swallowed against the lump in his throat even as relief gushed through him. He felt freer and lighter than he had in months, in years. “Thanks, little brother,” he said, his voice unsteady.

“So what are you gonna do now?” Norman asked, making a visible attempt to keep his own emotions under control.

Their eyes met again.

“I’m going to find Laura,” Neil said quietly. “No matter how long it takes.”

The nun was his only hope.

Over the past two weeks Neil had looked everywhere. He’d tried everything. But he hadn’t been able to find Laura. Frustrated, he walked out onto the balcony of his hotel room and stared at Alcatraz in the distance.

He’d been in California for nearly two weeks. He’d started his fruitless search here in San Francisco, and now he was back once more.

End of the line, he thought, unless he could find Laura’s friend Celeste. All his other leads had been dead ends. And he’d been so sure he’d find her right away. Before he even left Patinville, he checked with the post office and found that Laura’s mail-forwarding instructions were to a post office box in San Francisco. But when he got here, the post office wouldn’t tell him anything except that the box was still rented to her. Neil spent the better part of four days standing inside the lobby watching her box. But no one came to pick up her mail.

Giving up on that angle, he called a friend still on the Baton Rouge police force, who contacted someone in San Francisco’s P.D. The contact, a burly Irish cop named Kevin Flanigan, checked phone listings for him throughout the bay area. That turned out to be another dead end. There was no listing for Laura Sebastian. There was one L. Sebastian, but when Neil checked out the number he discovered it belonged to a grizzled old man named Louis Sebastian. All the other Sebastian, L. listings were numbers that had been in service more than six months, so they couldn’t be Laura.

Next he tried Los Angeles but had no luck finding her mother. He knew she’d once played a part in a teen scream movie, but that was no help. Even if he were to find out the name of the movie, there’d be no record of where Ginger Sebastian might be now.

His next approach was the junior college in San Diego where Laura had gone to school. But the records office, although they acknowledged her attendance there years ago, had no updated address for her.

“And even if we did, sir, I’m afraid I couldn’t give it to you,” the dark-haired registrar said.

Neil wondered if she thought he was an ax murderer or something, but he knew the procedure. If she’d admitted to having an address, he would have called in more favors and found someone on the San Diego P.D. to help him out.

So he made his way back to San Francisco and checked the post office again, but he could see that the box still contained the same amount of mail it had earlier.

That left the nun. How would he go about finding her?

Lost in thought, he watched a cable car trundle up California Street, bell clanging and riders hanging out on all sides.

Where should he start his search for Celeste? The only thing he ever remembered Laura saying was that Celeste was now a nurse, working in some hospital somewhere. He had no idea where, what the name of the hospital was that she was assigned to, or even what her full name was. He frowned, trying to remember what Laura had told him about her.

The cable car came closer, its bell louder.

Bell.

Bells.

The sound of bells.

Laura’s words came back clearly.
The sound of bells always reminds me of one of the happiest memories of my life... the convent was like something out of a Bronte novel. ..a huge walled fortress that sat on a bluff overlooking the Pacific just south of Anchor Bay

Surely they kept records of where their nuns were assigned. Even if there were more than one nun named Celeste, it shouldn’t take long to figure out which one she was.

Neil looked at his watch. If he hurried, he could make it up the coast to Anchor Bay before dark.

The narrow road leading to Villa Marie Convent was just as Laura had described it. A light fog had rolled in, a silent mist that shrouded the bluff in mysterious beauty. As Neil rounded the last curve of the road, the convent loomed before him, its gray walls thick and forbidding.

Neil stopped the car in front of the wrought iron gates. For a moment he sat there, staring up at the fortress-like structure. His stomach felt hollow with apprehension at the intimidating prospect of breaching the barrier of the convent walls.

He looked around. He could hear the crashing surf far below and the muffled bray of a foghorn. The air was cool and damp. Rhododendrons were clustered at the base of the wall, their deep pink color a counterpoint to the encroaching silvery mist.

Neil got out of the car and walked to the gate. Just then, the bells in the tower began to ring. The Angelus. It was six o’clock.

Neil pressed the buzzer to the side of the gate. A speaker crackled to life, and a young female voice said, “Yes? Who is it?”

“Uh, my name is Neil Cantrelle. I’ve come all the way from Louisiana to find someone. I wonder if I could speak to the Mother Superior?”

“Wait one moment, please,” the sweet voice said.

A few minutes later, the voice was back. “Please come in.” Simultaneously, he heard the lock on the gate release. He grasped the handle and opened it.

Inside was a giant courtyard, cobbled and empty. There were several buildings, all of gray stone, but Neil walked unerringly toward the largest. As he approached, the double walnut doors swung wide and a young nun dressed in a black habit smiled and beckoned him forward.

“This way,” she said.

He followed her down a wide hallway with a highly polished floor of terra-cotta tiles. There was a strong smell of furniture polish and candle wax. In the distance he could hear muted voices and the clink of dishes.

The young nun stopped in front of an open doorway. She waited for Neil to enter, then closed the door behind him. The room he’d entered was large and had great floor to ceiling windows. The fog obscured the sunlight, but the room was still bright. Seated behind a big mahogany desk was a nun he judged to be in her sixties. She had shrewd blue eyes behind granny glasses and she gave him a thoughtful look.

“Mr. Cantrelle? Is that right?” she said, her voice brisk with a slight accent he couldn’t place.

“Yes.”

“I’m Mother Ambrose. Please sit down.”

Neil sat in the proffered chair. He felt just like he’d felt as a kid in parochial school when he’d done something wrong and knew he was going to be found out. He cleared his throat nervously. “Mother, I’m looking for someone, and she was once a novice here at the convent. I’m hoping you can help me find her.”

“I see. And what is her name?”

“I don’t know her last name, but her first name is Celeste. She would have been a novice here about nine or ten years ago. She came from the Los Angeles area.”

Mother Ambrose lowered her head and peered over her glasses at him. Something about the way she looked at him caused his heart to bump against his chest. “Tell me something,” she said slowly. “Why do you want to find Sister Celeste?”

Her sharp eyes demanded the truth. “I hope she’ll give me some information about a mutual friend of ours—a woman named Laura Sebastian.”

“I see,” Mother Ambrose said again. “And just what is the nature of your business with this Laura Sebastian?”

Neil had known she might not tell him what he wanted to know. After all, she didn’t know him. He looked her straight in the eyes when he answered. This was the most important plea he’d ever make, his last chance to find Laura, so he’d better make it good. “I’m in love with Laura. We had some problems, problems I didn’t think we could solve, and I left her. Now I realize I never should have. I have to find her. I have to try to make things right between us. I’ve looked everywhere. I’ve been all over California looking for her. Sister Celeste is my last hope. She’s the only one who might know where Laura is.”

Her eyes reminded Neil of cloudless summer skies as she quietly studied his face. The room was very still. From somewhere in the far reaches of the building, the sweet, pure notes of a flute could be faintly heard. Neil held his breath.

Finally Mother Ambrose nodded, apparently satisfied, then said briskly. “I believe I can help you, Mr. Cantrelle. Will you follow me?” She stood, the keys on her belt rustling as she moved.