head and tented his fingers in front of his mouth. “What the fuck does that mean?” he asked in an angry whisper.
I followed Lou into the next room, pulling Karter in behind me.
Lou sat down at a desk piled high with papers and folders. He leaned back in the chair. “It’s really not a coincidence that the Colchis family has very few written records left. They were always private, and I think most of their information was passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. An oral family history, if you will.”
I looked around the room. “So you don’t have any record of how they died?”
“I am the record.” He tapped his temple. “It’s all right here.”
Karter shot me a confused glance.
“So you know how they died?” I asked. “Marie said—”
“Marie feels like she’s entitled to know things that don’t pertain to her.” His eyes were cold and hard as he spoke her name. “Just because she was friends with Astraea doesn’t mean I’m at liberty to share her medical details with her. I have a certain way of doing things, and if she doesn’t like it, that’s too bad, but I won’t be changing a generations-long practice because she disagrees with it.”
“Can you tell me?” I asked.
Lou eyed Karter suspiciously. “I could tell you. It’s clear as the nose on my face that you’re a Colchis right down in your bones, but him—” He stuck a bony finger at Karter. “He’s a stranger.”
“I trust him,” I said, glancing at Karter, who still looked highly upset.
“You don’t take my meaning,” Lou said. “What I mean to say is he’s outside of things. An observer.”
“No, he knows what I can do,” I said, taking a step toward Karter.
“And you think that’s the only secret worth keeping?” Lou asked.
Now it was my turn to be annoyed. “Can you help me or not?”
Lou tapped his long, sticklike fingers on the desk and tilted his head to the side. “Records have been destroyed, lost. And yes, your family is disproportionately affected by unfortunate events, but it’s not bad luck. It is for a reason.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “In any given set of people, particularly people who are related by blood, you’ll find patterns, genetic anomalies that cause any number of diseases and afflictions.”
My heart sank. “I knew it. There’s something in my genetics, right? Something fatal? What is it?”
Lou shook his head. “Your blood relations have been blessedly free of cancers, heart disease, issues of that nature. However, your family has also experienced an unusually high number of homicides, suspicious accidents, and declarations of deaths after someone has disappeared.”
My skin pricked up. “What?”
“There have been twelve unsolved homicides in the last six generations of the Colchis family,” said Lou. “Four drownings. Three unsolved disappearances.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Marie’s beloved Astraea was murdered.” He glanced at Karter, and thankfully didn’t reveal the date of her death. “Perse Colchis in 1904 of a blow to the head. Phoebe Colchis in 1945 by drowning . . . in a dry bathtub. Adelaide in 1953 of strangulation. The murderer was never caught. Eurydice Colchis in 1984, stabbing. The list goes on and on.”
“All these people were dying in this town and nobody thought that was worth looking at?” I asked.
“No,” Lou said. “Because if you looked at the causes of death released to the public, you’d see nothing of consequence other than some hereditary flaw or unfortunate accident that sent them to their maker.”
“Wait,” I said, my head spinning. “Are you saying someone lied about their deaths? Why? Why not just tell the truth?”
“There are reasons. I assure you,” Lou said. He started to say more but stopped himself.
“Do you want to go?” Karter asked me suddenly. He stood in front of me, his back to Lou. “We can leave if you want.”
“No, I’m okay,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”
He stepped aside but kept his shoulder pressed to mine.
“I need to know what happened to Circe and—and Selene.”
Lou’s mouth turned down. “Selene was your mother, wasn’t she?”
“My birth mother, yes,” I said.
Lou took a deep breath. “I will try to be as delicate as one can be about these things, though I imagine this will be difficult to hear. Selene was found in a wooded area on her property. She suffered a gunshot wound to the upper chest. It was fatal. A homicide.”
“Somebody killed her?” The room tipped and I leaned against the wall to steady