Slate.Gigi did not allow herself to linger on that thought forallthat long. “What happened to Slate with Eve and the bullet and the blood, the betrayal… It has to remind you of—”
“No.” Knox cut her off.
Gigi plopped herself down on the floor next to him and bumped Knox’s shoulder with hers. “Just no?” What Eve had done to Slate, ithadto remind Knox of his own Calla Thorp good-bye.
Gigi laid her head on his shoulder.I’m here, broody buddy. I am right here, and the dark place doesn’t scare me, because I see your light. Even if you don’t. Even if you can’t. I see it.
“Just no,” Knox said, but he didn’t shrug Gigi off his shoulder, and after three or four minutes, he voluntarily spoke again. “I hate this place.”
“This not-so-humble abode or St. Adelaide Parish?” Gigi asked.
“Both.” Knox looked up, glaring at the crystal light fixture on the ultra-high ceiling. “Out in the bayou, it was easy sometimes to forget who Calla was, but she clearly never forgot who I was.”
“And who was that?” Gigi asked, bracing herself for words that Knox had spoken before:a barely literate, backwoods nobody…
“A Landry,” Knox said harshly. “Trash.Whole family’s trouble, and even they looked down on my mother. If she wasn’t drunk, she was high, and if she wasn’t drunk or high, she was mean. On the rare occasion there was food in the cabinets, she fed the dogs before she fed me. Beat them less, too. If it hadn’t been for Severin, for Brady and his mama…” Knox ground his teeth, every muscle in his face going taut. “And Calla grew uphere. High and mighty. Destined for greater things.”
You believed in her. You believed in what the two of you had. You believed she saw more in you.Gigi didn’t say any of that out loud. She just stayed there, her head on his shoulder, their backs against the door, cuddled up—until there was a knock.
Knox was on his feet in an instant, and he waited for Gigi to get behind him before he opened the door.
There was no one there—just a coffee tray.
Before Knox could stop her, Gigi squeezed past him and squatted to get a better look at the tray. There was a handwritten note propped up against the sterling silver coffee pot:
Parlor, 9AM.Just the girl.
Chapter 56
GIGI
At nine on the dot, Gigi stepped into the parlor to find Helena Thorp sitting at a high, round table that hadn’t been there the day before. On the table, there was a deck of cards, beautiful, ornate playing cards like none Gigi had ever seen. She took the seat opposite Helena.
“The game of War,” the old woman said. “Do you know how to play?”
An auspicious beginning. And not at all concerning on a metaphorical level!“I know the game,” Gigi said. “Highest card wins. And if you tie—”
“Yes, quite.” Helena dealt Gigi a single card, face down.
“Pretty sure I’m supposed to get half the deck,” Gigi commented.
Helena flipped a single card over for herself: a six. “Diamonds,” the old woman said, tapping a finger to the card’s suit. “A symbol of wealth. Formed under pressure. And when set in a ring and placed on a certain finger, the stone can bind a woman to a man.”
“Or another woman,” Gigi said helpfully. “Or—”
“Your card,” Helena cut in. “Flip it.”
Gigi flipped the card: the seven of spades.I win.Something stoppedGigi from saying that out loud or claiming Helena’s six of diamonds as her own.
The Thorp matriarch tapped Gigi’s winning card. “A spade is a blunt instrument, useful for burying things that need burying.” Helena pushed her card to Gigi, who picked up her own as well—a deck of two.
Helena dealt again, and they played a second round in silence. On their third round, a new suit showed up.
“Clubs,” Gigi said. When Helena said nothing in reply, Gigi filled the silence herself. “Puppy dog feet.That’s what I called the suit of clubs when I was young.”
Gigi, Knox, and Brady had been the Clubs during the Grandest Game.
“Young,” Helena echoed, sounding suddenly ancient, like she was speaking across decades, across eras. “We were, all three of us, so very young.”