Chapter 15
That night Jade went home to his parents’ house, crawled into his old bed, and listened to his aloneness. It was a silence broken only by the cyclical whirr of the refrigerator.
Belle was staying at the manor house, ostensibly to be mothered by Paris. But Jade feared she was being drawn into Señor’s web. He didn’t like the way she stood on the porch. When had she become so comfortable there? She was seventeen, and he hardly knew her. And what he could surmise only made him uneasy.
“We’re gathered here today,” Señor was saying, “to remember one of our workers, John Virgil Cabral; his wife, Isabelle Alexandra; and their twins, Alizé Eugenie and Jean-Achille. In their honor, we’ve planted a tree. Go ahead, boys.”
He motioned to Miguel, Gabriel, and Raphael, who tenderly unwrapp
