She curled into the bed with the curtains open, so she could watch the moon move across the sky. As the night faded to morning, Severine finally slept.
“Miss Severine!” Lisette called as Severine took her dogs to the old park.
Severine looked up and smiled at the girl. She wore a smart dress and shining shoes and her dark brown eyes flashed in the morning. Severine felt like the risen dead this early, and Lisette had the look of a girl who had just come back from the holidays.
“Hello, Lisette!”
“I—” Lisette blushed and then confessed, “I told my momma about you. I reminded her of the story of your parents and how I had been obsessed, and she reminded me of something.”
Severine lifted her brows.
Lisette handed over an old book that was glued with clippings. Severine took it from her and then gasped as she found article after article about her parents’ deaths. She had been bundled away so quickly that she’d never seen these things. Severine traced the picture of her mother in the newspaper and then glanced up at Lisette.
“I—”
Lisette smiled and nodded. “I shouldn’t have asked those questions. My momma reminded me of my manners, but—”
Severine waited, leaning down to let the puppies off of their leads so they could run with Anubis in the park.
“I think you must want to know what happened to them.”
Severine didn’t argue.
“I think you must intend to find their killer. That would be my goal if it were my momma.”
Severine didn’t confirm Lisette’s guess, but their gazes met and Lisette nodded. She understood all too well.
“Are you going to that big house in the country?”
“I am.”
“Alone?” Lisette gasped. Her gaze was wide and worried and Severine suddenly wondered if she had made friends in Lisette and Meline. The concern…you wouldn’t feel that for a stranger, would you?
“I’ll have Anubis and the girls,” Severine answered.
Lisette shook her head and said, “You shouldn’t go alone. I know it isn’t my place to tell you that, but you shouldn’t go alone. Aren’t you scared? You said it could have been anyone who was there and aren’t they mostly all living there? Your family, I mean?”
Severine had to concede that Lisette had a point. “Yes, and that’s why I’m going alone. I can’t trust any of them. Not yet.”
“What about someone else?” Lisette demanded.
Severine lifted her brows, waiting for an idea.
“Me,” Lisette said suddenly. “I’ll be your secretary. All rich folks have secretaries. I can’t stay up there all the time, but I think you’ll need to get away in between or you’ll go mad surrounded by possible killers and no one you can trust. You should have the locks changed on your big old mansion here and then make it your special place that the rest of them can’t come.”
Severine eyed her. “Can you type?”
Lisette shook her head.
“Shorthand?”
Another quick shake of the head.
Severine saw the sudden wisdom, though. “My assistant, then, to do whatever I need.”
Lisette’s gaze narrowed, but she nodded.
“You’ll be learning the regular stuff too. Those courses by correspondence.”
Lisette paused, and Severine could see that the girl was thinking of declining.
“You’ll be better for it. If you decide to escape the madness of the DuNoir house, you’ll get a better position than whatever you have now.”
“I’ll be taking double wages for being at risk then. Murderers and all. Double wages of a white girl’s pay,” she added.
“Agreed,” Severine said and then sighed. “I feel better about going already,” she confessed, to Lisette’s pleasure. “I have a few more things I want to do, and I have to meet with Mr. Brand at his office this afternoon. He can get your wages for you then.”
“We’ll come back often? Momma won’t forgive me if we don’t.”
Severine nodded.
Lisette grinned widely, her pretty, even teeth flashing in the sunlight. “Wonderful! Mr. Abe was going to sack me for sure for being late to bring you this book. Momma would have wrung my neck for losing another job.” Lisette took the puppies’ leashes and went to round them up.
Severine laughed and then realized she couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed. It was so relieving to feel joy again, even passing joy, that she almost stumbled. Anubis pressed his head under her hand, and she dug her fingers into his ruff and breathed deeply.
“What does your momma do?” Severine asked when Lisette returned with the two puppies and they turned back toward the mansion.
“Cleans for a bunch of houses.”
“Maybe she’d be interested in staying at the mansion? Looking after it and us when we come back?”
Lisette’s gaze widened and then she turned, momentarily calculating. “She’s too old to clean a big old place like yours.”
“Are you bargaining for your momma like you did for yourself?”
Lisette readily admitted it.
“She can be my housekeeper, and she’ll be paid generously.”
“Like a white woman.”
Severine didn’t object. It was the same work, wasn’t it? Of course she’d pay the same. “I’m far more concerned of knowing we can trust whoever is in the house when we’re escaping the big house.”
“You can trust Momma with anything.”
“I was guessing so,” Severine answered. “Your momma raised you, didn’t she?” She shocked herself realizing that she did, indeed, trust Lisette.
They returned to the mansion and Severine put her dogs in the back garden and changed her clothes. She put on a light grey dress with black pinstripes and a drop waist. She cinched the belt at her hips and the black tie around her neck. She carefully placed a black cloche over her head and examined herself in the mirror.
“You should get
