Free The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young Page A

details of the flowered wallpaper, lace curtains, and excessive use of lavender. I think they were going for homey, but the space reminds me of a giant girly Easter egg.
    â€œSo the guest cottage is a separate house out back?” Rae asks.
    I try to describe it for her. “You walk five minutes from the main house and there are four little cottages, where some of the staff live. They used to be slave quarters, like from plantation days.” I know that will get her going.
    â€œAre you
kidding
me? They invite you over and stick you in a slave house?” She whoops indignantly. “That’s disrespectful to you and all the black folk who were enslaved on that plantation. Seriously, that’s like making a motel out of Auschwitz.”
    According to Jules, the original slave housing was demolished early in the twentieth century. The cottages as they stand now were built about fifteen years ago. They’re modern to the point of having key-coded doors, but I don’t tell Rae that. I find her outrage oddly comforting.
    â€œEvangeline actually has Confederate memorabilia in the sitting room,” I offer.
    Rae whistles. “You really gonna stick this out for three months, Charlie-girl?”
    â€œGonna try.” Three months sounds like a long time right now, so I change the subject. “Did my renter show up?” For a while, it didn’t look like I’d be able to find a short-term renter, but a couple of weeks before I left, a divorced mom whose home had been damaged in a fire materialized.
    â€œShe moved in yesterday,” Rae says. “She’s got two daughters. Teenagers.”
    â€œOooh, our dream come true. Babysitters!”
    The second the words leave my mouth, I’m shocked.
You forgot,
I realize.
For a minute, you actually forgot
.
    â€œMaybe they can sit for Zoey,” I add lamely, but the empty space in my chest is already burning. Guilt blazes through me in a quick fire.
How could you forget your child, forget he’s gone?
    Rae and I talk for a few more minutes, but I’m guarded now. I hold my loss close, pressing it against my chest, my lungs, until it hurts to breathe. Maybe I’m punishing myself. Maybe I’m protecting myself, from forgetting and having to remember all over again. Either way, my absent little boy hovers between us. Without him, what do Rae and I really have in common?
    Finally her train pulls into the Stamford station, and we say a quick good-bye.
    â€œTake care of yourself,” Rae tells me. “Make sure you eat, promise?”
    â€œPromise.”
    After we hang up, I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t just lie here sinking into this monstrous bed, so I do something useful and look up the contact Isaac gave me in local law enforcement: Detective Remy Minot. Although Gabriel’s abduction was originally handled by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, the cold case has fallen to the parish sheriff’s department—a solid indication the investigation is dead in the water. If there were anything promising to go on, I have no doubt the FBI would be all over it. Still, Detective Minot will have access to files from the original investigation. He’s worth talking to.
    I call the Bonnefoi Parish sheriff’s department and am quickly transferred to Detective Minot’s voice mail. I leave a message, knowing the chances of this guy returning my call are slim. Cops like journalists when a cold case needs exposure, but the one thing Gabriel’s kidnapping never lacked was publicity.
    It’s six o’clock. Leeann, the cook, said she puts out a spread for the staff every weeknight between six and seven. If I want to eat tonight, it’s that or drive back to town in the dark. There are definite advantages to meeting the staff. Maybe there will be some old, faithful caretaker who has been working for the family thirty-some years and remembers Gabriel. At the very