Copperhead

“Say no more,” said Frye. “Your marital affairs are absolutely your business and I am not going to pry. You find a good time next week and I will sneak in wearing a perfectly acceptable dress to see you.”

“And I will only try the clay,” put in Helen. “I’m not promising anything beyond that.”

“Yes, yes. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Helen, and for the first time that day a genuine smile broke through the worries and fears.

“You’re much prettier when you smile,” said Frye.

“I thought I was pretty already,” said Helen cynically.

“It’s not about the face, you know? I have learned that. Should’ve learned it sooner, but we all have our upbringings to contend with. When you entered the door you looked grim, but just now you look as though you could move mountains.”

“Maybe I can,” said Helen. This woman thought she could do things. And she didn’t even have the excuse of being family, who maybe only thought it was good for you if they said they believed in you. Maybe she could move mountains. Maybe she could try.

“So tell me,” said Frye. “What can I do for you in return?”

Helen looked down at the piece of furniture she had been trying vainly to lift. “Help me move this trunk,” she said.

With Frye’s help the trunk slid scratchily over the dusty floor to reveal a small trapdoor. “This is it,” crowed Frye. She brought the oil lamp closer, wafting the cloud of oil stink along with it.

Helen levered the trapdoor up to reveal several rafters’ worth of storage space under the floor.

Empty.

Helen tugged the corner of her coat under her stockinged knees and carefully knelt there, feeling around under the floorboards. Dust. Grit. Things she didn’t want to touch, but Tam would probably appreciate. Her fingers closed on a bit of splintery wood and she pulled it out, examining it. It was roughly made and yet lined with velvet.

“What’s down there?” said Frye, kneeling next to her with the oil lamp, heedless of her slacks. “The murder weapon? The face?”

“The face,” Helen repeated in slow realization. “Yes. That’s what this held. A face. One of our old faces.” There had been one just like it in the carpetbag—it must have held Millicent’s old face—perhaps it still did.

Carefully Frye took the box from Helen and held it up to her own face, checking the measure. “It would fit,” she agreed, cradling the box in long fingers. “Do you think they were all here?”

“I do,” said Helen. “All the ones she hadn’t done yet. All of us.” She looked at Frye, her stomach clenching in knots. “Who would want our old faces?”

Frye shook her head. “Looks as though I’ll be waiting a while longer for my facelift then. I suppose you’re off the hook, unless you want me to sneak in for the sheer fun of it.” She exhaled, rocking back on her heels. “Oh, Jane, Jane, Jane. I told you I had a spare bedroom.”

Helen’s fingers swept the interior one last time. There was paper or something lodged into that crack in the board, tucked there for safekeeping. She teased it from the board, pulled it forth and into the glow of the lamp.

A message. A note.

Cold sliced up Helen’s spine as she studied the words cut and pieced together, letter by letter.

LEAVE THE CITY NOW BEFORE YOU GET HURT.

Chapter 4 THE HUNDRED

Helen held the threat out with nerveless fingers for Frye, who read it and then put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Them as talk big don’t do nuthin’,” Frye declaimed, no doubt quoting some line in a play. “You’ll find her.” She peered at the note. “That L looks like the L on the Lovage’s Gin bottle.”

“Great!” Helen said cynically. “We can narrow it down to everyone who drinks gin.” She wavered to her feet, folded the note, and tucked it inside Jane’s carpetbag where she wouldn’t have to see it anymore. She rubbed the backs of her hands against her eyes, which were stinging from the stirred-up dust. “Did you find anything else?”

“A photo,” said Frye. “Jane and some man with rumpled hair.”

“That’s her fiance,” said Helen, studying the small blue-and-white fey tech photo that Frye held out. “She looks … happy there,” she said, and the world came crashing down on her silk shoulders again. She had to make everything right. She had to let Jane’s fiance know what had happened. No, he was gone himself, into the dangerous forests with his daughter. But she should wire the housekeeper at Silver Birch Hall.

Helen stumbled to her feet, away from Frye’s kind touch. Numbly she wrapped her coat more tightly, hunched her shoulders against the cold. So much to do, and no assurance that anything she did would make it right. It seemed just as likely that she would get herself in over her head again, and need rescuing herself, when there was no one left to rescue her.…

“Why are you leaving me?” said Frye, as Helen put her hand to the doorknob.

“The trolley,” said Helen, and Frye laughed a loud bellow.

“Doesn’t run much past dark, what do you think? You probably caught the last one getting here.”

Helen’s eyes were wide with despair at this last blow. All sense fled and silly words tumbled from the depths of her heart. “You mean—so I’ll never get home and I’ve already walked miles and the calluses are blisters, why didn’t I break the heels in, of course I never wear the sensible shoes because sensible means hideous, and he’ll be so angry if he happened to check on me and I’m tired, so very tired.…”

Frye handed Helen a handkerchief. “I drive a car, love. I’ll take you home.”

* * *

Helen drifted under a pile of lap robes, semi-awake. Frye hummed some mournful-sounding musical number to herself, but otherwise kept quiet. The grey mist smeared with blue drifted by and Helen thought how it seemed that you jumped ship from person to person, always seeking a new one to be your rock. But they sank. She could leap into this spot where she was in Frye’s motorcar; a protected island, just drive on till morning. But it would sink, too. They all did, in the end.

Frye turned into the street Helen had told her, and Helen pointed out their house. The square windows in the games room—Alistair’s room—were golden. He was home. He was awake.

She was so very, very tired.

“She’s just lying low, out of danger,” said Frye as she pulled to a stop. “It’s what anyone would do. She’ll come home.”

“Thank you,” Helen said, stumbling out of the motorcar. Her blistered feet landed in a puddle, splashing ice up her legs. She fumbled in her inner coat pocket for a card. “Look, here’s my address. Send me word if anything turns up.”

Frye’s face held concern as she took the card. “You’re all right?”

Weak grin, game face. “Nothing two olives and a little Lovage’s Gin won’t cure,” Helen said jauntily to Frye, and waited for the woman’s answering grin before turning away and striding into the house as if she had every right to return to it at two in the morning.

Helen closed the front door softly behind her, running through excuses in her head, ones that didn’t involve getting Adam in trouble. None of them were very good, or believable.

The thin electric light spilled out of the games room into a triangle in the hallway. She had never thought much of the idea that one should face the music. In fact she thought she’d rather go hide in bed now, and let him yell at her in the morning, if he must. Maybe Jane would be home by then and everything would be fine, fine.

But she heard a scratchy melody drifting out, and she stepped out of her ruined shoes and crept down the hall on stocking feet to see.