Page 53 of Saint Céline
“And Miss Martin?”
“She became her invention completely.” I smiled faintly.
Silence settled heavily through the office. The dean studied me. “That sounds less like academic admiration and more like a man standing too close to a fire.”
“Everything worth studying burns eventually.”
“Jesus Christ.”
I laughed softly at that. Dean Waverly looked deeply unimpressed. “You know,” she said while collecting herumbrella again, “most people experiencing inappropriate attachment simply start sleeping with someone else.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s healthier than whatever this is.”
“Debatable.”
She paused at the door. “For what it’s worth,” she said quietly, “grief can distort fascination into intimacy very quickly.”
I met her gaze evenly. “Who said anything about intimacy?”
“That answer alone is concerning.” Her expression did not change.
Then she left. The office fell quiet again after the door shut behind her. Only rain remained. I stood motionless, coffee cooling slowly in my hand. Then eventually, I crossed back toward my desk and opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet beside it. The black box sat exactly where I had left it. Inside lay the memorial card from Katherine’s funeral, the silver button from years ago, the torn notebook fragment, and Céline’s forgotten pen. I turned the pen slowly between my fingers.
Cheap psychology would call this desire. It wasn’t. Desire was simple. Biological. Predictable. This felt closer to intellectual possession. Not wanting to consume her. Wanting to understand her completely.
Thunder cracked violently over the cliffs. I thought of her driving toward the Montgomery estate right now through storm-dark roads, rehearsing composure before entering a house filled with ghosts.
Miss Astoria mattered because the cat represented the last relationship in Selena Martin’s life untouched by performance. The animal loved her before Céline existed. And some deeply buried part of Selena still desperately needed proof that something would choose her without requiring elegance first.
I slid the pen back into the box.
A memory surfaced abruptly, and I felt my jaw tighten. Hector was sleeping beside my bed during thunderstorms when I was sixteen. My father was shouting downstairs. The dog lifted his head before I even reacted, already alert, already listening for danger before I consciously recognized it myself. Animals understood instability instinctively. Perhaps that was why they attached themselves so fiercely to damaged people. Or perhaps damaged people simply recognized unconditional loyalty faster because they encountered it so rarely.
The rain intensified against the windows. Without thinking, I reached for my phone. My thumb hovered briefly over her contact information, then stopped.
No. Not tonight. Tonight belonged to the dead girl’s house. The grieving mother. The cat that was waiting outside the wrong bedroom door. Not me.
14
Céline
The Montgomery estate looked smaller in the rain. The house itself remained enormous, all pale stone and black iron railings perched high above the cliffs like something old enough to outlive grief entirely. But the illusion of grandeur had weakened somehow since Katherine died.
The windows glowed too dimly behind their heavy curtains. The gardens looked neglected around the edges, with leaves scattered across the paths and rose bushes starting to droop. Even the long, curved driveway felt emptier than I remembered, wet gravel crunching beneath my Porsche as though the property itself had started settling inward, pulling its shoulders in against the storm.
For years, I had wanted this house more than anything. I used to stand at the kitchen window of the staff cottage and stare up at its lit windows at night, imagining what it would feel liketo walk those halls without carrying someone else’s laundry or worrying about leaving footprints on the marble.
Now, sitting behind the wheel with rain sliding down the windshield in silver rivers, I could barely force myself to get out of the car. My hands stayed locked on the steering wheel while the engine ticked quietly, cooling.
Miss Astoria waited somewhere inside those walls, and the thought of seeing her again made my chest ache in a way nothing else had since Katherine killed herself.
The porch lights were already on when I finally climbed the front steps, their warm glow cutting through the downpour. Mrs. Montgomery opened the door before I could knock, as though she had been standing there listening for my car. For one terrible second, she simply stared at me, her face pale and tired under the soft light. Then she pulled me into her arms so quickly I barely had time to react.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered against my hair.
The word pressed sharply against my ribs. Her sweater smelled faintly like lavender, and the expensive perfume she always wore too lightly to identify. Beneath it lingered another scent now, stale grief mixed with sleeplessness and rooms left closed too long. I hugged her back automatically, my arms wrapping around her smaller frame. She felt thinner than I remembered, her shoulders sharper under the soft wool.
