“Not after Kitty’s invitation came for my grandfather. I owed it to you to tell you what I knew. And besides, it’s my family history too.”
Elise’s breath quickened as he clasped his hands on either side of her waist. “You know it’s not like that.” He sat her in the windowsill, fitting his hips between her legs. His lips were smooth and full. His tongue reached for hers, and their mouths moved in perfect syncopation. Their bodies clung together, mirroring the other’s movements and placements on their faces, necks, and backs. Time was suspended, and life couldn’t have gotten better than it was right then until he tried to take off her shirt. Beyond the cold windowpane on her back, there was the problem that his uncovered windows faced the other side of his building.
Sensing her discomfort, he pulled away to look at her. “I’m sorry. Too fast?”
“Just not right here,” she said.
Without another word, he lifted her from the sill and carried her through his apartment and into the darkness of his bedroom.
Falling onto the bed, she wrapped her legs tighter around his waist, allowing their natural rhythm to resume until they were naked. The motion of their bodies rooted her to the moment, and she couldn’t think, only do. The street traffic noise, only six stories below Jasper’s apartment, faded, as did any doubt, worry, or care about the future.
She awoke first. They were naked, limbs tangled. The sky was cloudless. She took it as a sign of good fortune and went back to sleep. Three hours later, their legs were still intertwined, and hers ached. She slithered from underneath him to find her phone screen full with missed messages. Her mother must have told her sisters about Kitty. She climbed back into bed and kissed Jasper’s back. His skin felt cool. She lay there for half the morning, enjoying the peace away from everything having to do with Kitty Karr.
When she got hungry, Jasper suggested they go to the restaurant on her rooftop where they first met.
She kissed him in appreciation of his sentimentality. “I need to be on a plane shortly.”
“Is everything okay? I thought you—we—had the weekend.”
“Me, too, but apparently my sisters and I weren’t the only people the FBI visited. It’s best I—”
Jasper held up a hand. “Say no more.” He reached for his phone. “Then I’ll order breakfast while you get dressed.”
She slipped on her sweatshirt. “Really, I need the air.”
Elise wanted to be alone so the paparazzi, who she knew had followed her to Jasper’s the night before, could get another picture. They tried to be stealthy, but Elise saw them, as always. If it were the two of them, the cameras would blow their cover, greedy for comment. It would cause a commotion on the street, and the story, thanks to some random iPhone user, would be online before they could get back indoors. This way, the paparazzi could suspect all they wanted, but they would wait to build a case for more money. It gave her a day or two, and timing was everything.
She returned to Jasper’s building less than twenty minutes later with two coffees and two pastry bags. Pretending to not know one was being watched felt like work: maintaining her angles, ignoring the cameras, and avoiding eye contact with “the extras”—New Yorkers and some likely tourists—who might later relay their sighting of her on the street.
CHAPTER 45
Elise
Saturday evening in Los Angeles, November 4, 2017
The FBI had visited Lucy, Maude, and Billie before Kitty’s memorial. They decided not to say anything about anything until Sarah’s courtesy call, but then came in person to deliver a cascade of information that Elise flew home to hear before her press tour in London.
“We siphoned donations from rich people to send to the movement,” Lucy said.
“What movement?” Noele asked.
“The Civil Rights Movement, honey,” Maude whispered, gesturing for her to listen.
“Some of us were considered victims,” Lucy continued, “but we would have been suspects and perhaps convicts had the FBI known we were Black.”
“Some of our colleagues were charged with crimes against the United States,” Maude said.
The women believed time had made them safe and were secure in the thought that no one had ever spoken of Blair House, uttered the names of the women they met, or even looked in its direction if they happened to pass by it since. Prosecution had been a real threat, and what had happened to some was never forgotten. Still, they continued to operate—quieter, safer—until most of the group’s members were unknown legacy leftovers.
“So, if people were to find out Kitty was Black—” Sarah asked. It was a clear and annoying attempt to emphasize her stance, having heard tidbits already on Wednesday when she made calls.
“It could turn a lot of us into suspects.”
“It could threaten all our identities.”
“But it could also keep us safe.” Lucy pulled an oversized leather ringed notebook from her purse. She opened it on the table, and everyone gathered around to see. “This is the ledger. Everyone and everything connected to Blair House is recorded here. Real names, fake names, addresses, donation amounts.”
It was the missing link between Kitty’s stories and the details about the work they’d been conducting.
“No one can prove that all these people listed in here weren’t involved.”
“Because year after year, they donated.”
Elise thumbed through the ledger, which showed a year-by-year balance of all the donations Blair House received.
“They got massive tax write-offs for charity donations and profited,” Noele said.
Lucy nodded. “And our accounting records could make the argument that the ‘fraud’ was a ring.”
The names and donation amounts were blueprints of family trees—the full lineage, not the skeleton in the family Bible or listed on a census form. This ledger indicated rights to wealth and property, all over the country, that had been long denied: Kitty’s lineage to a tobacco fortune; Emma’s to one made in clothing. Lucy and Laurie were descendants of the biggest landowner in Louisiana. Billie’s White relatives, on both sides, had been poor, but they got money from the government and began manufacturing their own cooking oil.
Noele’s eyes got big. “Rich people donate to these fake charities to write off millions in donations on their taxes.”
“They didn’t know we were funneling money to the movement, but they were happy to look the other way in terms of legitimacy. Most of them would do anything to keep their families in the dark.”
“No one is going to want the FBI to start digging into their taxes or family secrets,” Giovanni said.
“They could donate,” Elise proposed.
“The first ask would be to find out if there’s an active investigation,” Lucy corrected her.
Noele’s eyes stretched. “That would be extortion … on our part.”
“How?” Giovanni said.
Noele started talking with her hands. “Forcing people to give money to us or inquire with the Justice Department in exchange for our silence about their family secrets is definitely extortion.”
“We’d be accusing them of fraud,” Elise said.
“Motive to commit extortion.”
Lucy ignored their back-and-forth. “Some of these last names would make our involvement, and any interest in our true identities, a mere footnote.”
“At this point, no one can out us but ourselves,” Billie summarized patting her forehead.
“I think the families would very much care, finding out their wife, mother, or grandmother wasn’t who they thought she was.”
“That’s why I said that some families will go to great lengths to keep their secrets,” Lucy said. “There are many of us who passed for White, all across the country. And we know many names.”
“Like Cora?”
“Yes, but she made sure it would be very hard to find her unless you have this ledger.”
“You were supposed to burn it,” Maude said.