Between (9 page)

“Open it. Are you not curious?”

“It’s locked.” The lid refused to yield to her fingers.

“Perhaps the key is yet in the envelope. It would be a small key.”

Vivian peered into the smaller envelope, and then the larger one. She picked up the brown paper wrapping and shook it over the table. Nothing.

Memory stirred.

Blue eyes, alarming in their intensity, looked directly into hers as her grandfather hung the chain around her neck.

“Keep it a secret. Do not lose it.” He’d frightened her a little, with his sharp face and his knowing eyes, and she had kept her promise, never revealing it even to her mother.

“You must have the key somewhere,” Jehenna said. “Bring it here.”

Vivian hesitated. She didn’t quite trust this woman, but the box called to her as it had when she was a child. In this moment she wanted nothing more than to see those globes again, to hear the sound of crystal on crystal.

And surely she was being paranoid. It made perfect sense for Mr. Smoot to send a junior partner on this errand. Feeling strangely detached, almost as though she were watching herself on a screen, she drew the pendant out from under her shirt. The penguin still held in its beak a tiny brass key.

Bending down to the table, Vivian fitted the key into the lock. It turned with a little click. Jehenna lifted the lid and there they were, just as Vivian remembered them, small glass spheres in varying sizes, hints of movement flickering across their surfaces.

“Do you know what these are, then?” Jehenna asked. She leaned forward over the table; her eyes glowed.

A cold chill settled at the base of Vivian’s spine. She shivered. “I have some idea.” She closed the box and pulled it closer to her.

“I find I am very curious about these little globes—they are lovely, aren’t they?”

Their eyes met, and Vivian’s unease deepened. She should do something, but her tongue seemed glued in place; her body refused to move. Her brain calculated the time it would take to snatch up the box and run for the door, how much of a lead she might have if she made the break. But she sat still and watched as Jehenna opened the box again.

The woman lifted one of the globes to the light, looked through it, then returned it, drawing out another. Vivian saw naked hunger in her face, even as she said, lightly, “As I thought—only a bauble, a toy. He mentioned them to me once as though they had some magical power. Your grandfather was, I fear, a little crazy at the end. It runs in the family, I understand. A very sad thing. Now, my dear. There should be, somewhere, another key.”

Vivian blinked. “I don’t know anything about another key.”

“It should have been with the bequests he left for you, but it isn’t. I thought perhaps he had already given it to you.”

Vivian’s hand tightened on the pendant. “This is the only thing he ever gave me.”

“That can’t be right. In all the times you saw him, surely—”

“I only saw him once.”

For an instant, so brief Vivian wondered if she’d imagined the expression, the smooth face revealed utter malice, then shifted back to a serene sympathy. “Well. No matter then. I am sorry to be the bearer of such sad news. He was old; I suppose that’s some consolation.” Jehenna stretched her arm across the table and gestured at the web-and-penguin pendant. “That’s lovely. Quite unusual. And that’s all you have from him, you say? Perhaps he gave the other key to your mother to keep?”

“No. If he did, I would know. I packed all her belongings myself.”

“We all have secrets. Packed to go where?”

“She’s—not well. We’re trying a home in Spokane for now.”

“Perhaps I could speak with her myself, if you would give me the address.”

“She’s not good with visitors. But when I see her, I could ask about a key.”

“That would be lovely.” Jehenna pushed her chair back from the table. “I should be going. No, don’t get up—I’ll show myself out.”

The box was in her hands.

Vivian fought the inertia that bound her, managed to struggle to her own feet. “Wait—those are mine.”

Jehenna looked at her, a smile flickering at the corners of her lips. “You have no need of them. I do. Good-bye, Vivian.”

And the door swung shut behind her with a soft, final click.

Not ten minutes later the doorbell rang. Vivian felt an unexpected rush of relief and gratitude to see Jared standing in the doorway. He carried a bouquet of roses. Long stemmed. Red.

The color of blood. For an instant her vision swirled and there was blood on the floor, blood on Jared’s hands.

It passed, and despite her resolution to the contrary, she found herself wanting to fling herself into his arms, to be held and comforted and made love to. But when she looked into his green eyes she remembered a clear agate gaze, a crooked grin, and she stood quietly to the side, holding the door so he could come in.

“You’ve been working too hard; you look exhausted.” Jared crossed the room and rummaged in the cupboard.

“There’s a vase under the sink.”

She sank down on the couch to watch him fill the vase with water and arrange the flowers. Tall, dark, and improbably handsome, the sort of man who turned female heads wherever he went, the man every fortune-teller predicted to
every love-hungry girl who crossed her palm with silver. Her friends had told her she was crazy to break things off with him, that she would regret it, but all she felt was a quiet regret that she had been unable to love him.

The litter of paper on the table caught her eye. The will. Things she would rather not have to explain, but it was too late now to clean up; he was already crossing the room to set down the flowers. His brow furrowed as he picked up the will and scanned it over. “Were you going to tell me about this?”

“Yes. Of course. I only just found out a few minutes ago.”

But he’d sensed her hesitation. His eyes hardened; his eyebrows drew together. She recognized with a weary inevitability the way he stood, legs braced, hands lightly curled. Primed for a fight.

He crushed the brown paper wrapping in his hand. “What was in here?”

Cornered, she got to her feet and faced him, feeling a surge of answering anger. There was nothing she wanted to tell him. Not a single, solitary thing. And if she spat out the comments that were swirling around inside her head, she could never take them back.

Once more, she tried. “Let’s not do this. It was a particularly difficult night at work, and my grandfather’s death was a shock. I haven’t slept—”

“I told you I was coming—”

And that was the tipping point. “Right—you told me. You didn’t ask. You didn’t wait for confirmation. You left a message on my fucking phone and take that as a binding contract—”

“I was planning to take you somewhere special.”

“Then you should have asked. And I would have told you that another day would be better.”

For a long moment he stood, fists clenched, glaring, and then he deflated as if she’d stuck him with a pin. His shoulders sagged; his eyes were bleak. “No, you would have told me not to come at all.”

He was right; she couldn’t argue that.

“Look, Vivian, I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

“I’m experiencing independence.”

“But you could do that in Spokane. You could work at Sacred Heart or Holy Family—a real hospital, not in this podunk little town. It hurts me to see you living like this. So unnecessary—”

His hand described a broad sweep around the apartment.

“I like it,” she said. “Please don’t condescend.”

“Vivian—”

“Jared. I explained it once; I’ll explain it again. I’ve never had a chance to be on my own, to do my own thing. Spokane is too close to you, and to Isobel.”

“Fine, then. Live here if it makes you happy. I’ll come up and visit on the weekends. In a year or so, when you’re tired of it, we can be together again.” His voice almost broke, and her heart softened.

But there were no words, nothing to offer, no action she could take.

“Jared—”

He strode across the room to her and knelt at her feet, turning his face up to hers. His eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and she realized she had never, in the year that she’d known him, seen him cry.

He pulled a little velvet box out of his pocket and opened it. Inside, a gold ring with a diamond that had to have cost him a fortune. Pressure built behind her eyes. “Oh, Jared,” she whispered, feeling loss as a hollow ache within her breast.

He took her hands in both of his. Kissed them. “Vivian, please. I need you.”

“I can’t.”

“There’s someone else. There must be.”

Again an image of the bookstore flamed across her mind’s eye, Zee’s hands and the contradiction they implied, strength and tenderness, the warrior and the artist. But she’d only just met him; one encounter meant nothing. “I’m not seeing anyone, Jared.”

“I don’t believe you.” He was back on his feet, face flushed, his body taut.

He startled when the phone rang. Not her cell phone, the house phone. She ignored it.

“Answer it,” he said, his voice harsh.

“It can wait.”

“It’s him, isn’t it? Answer it!”

“No—”

He stalked across the floor and snatched up the receiver. “Who is this?”

Her heart pounded as she watched him go still with listening, and then he turned and handed her the phone, his face a mixture of fury and shame.

Vivian turned away from him to answer.

“Vivian? It’s Melody at River Valley. We’ve got a problem—”

“What happened?”

“Your mother—well, she’s gone.”

“What do you mean she’s gone?”

“Gone. Vanished. She isn’t anywhere in the house.”

Vivian closed her eyes, clutched the receiver until her fingers ached. “When did you see her?”

“Half an hour ago. She went into the bathroom for a shower. The door was locked. I swear to God she can’t have come out into the house. We were watching—”

“That’s not possible—”
None of this is possible.

The voice on the other end dissolved into tears. “I know. I’m so sorry, but I swear on all things holy we were watching…”

“The police?”

“They’re looking for her.”

“Call me if you hear anything. Anything at all.”

Vivian’s body felt boneless, everything spinning away into madness and confusion.
Breathe, Vivian. In, out, feel the floor under your feet, find the center. What if there is no center?
She pulled the pendant into her hand, felt its warmth, thought about what Zee had said about the penguin moving in and out of realities with ease.

“What is it?” Jared’s voice had softened.

“My mother’s gone missing.”

“I told you she needed a higher level of care.”

“You wanted her locked up.”

“She needs to be locked up. She’s crazy, Viv, you know—”

“Something happened, something’s wrong—”

“You wouldn’t listen to me—”

She shook her head, held up her hand to gesture him off. “Go home, Jared. And don’t call me.”

“Don’t be stupid. You need me to look over the will—”

“Smoot can do it.”

Jared snorted, an ugly little laugh born of anger and hurt. “Good luck with that. Smoot’s dead.”

“What?”

“Smoot’s dead.”

Vivian stared at him blankly.

“Murdered, early this morning. And robbed, apparently.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Try watching the morning news sometime; you’ll hear these things.”

All she could do was stare at him, feeling the cold shock run through her. The only person she had felt she could still go to, the only person she could trust, dead. Murdered. Jared continued to grin; she knew he was humiliated and angry, but still the gap between them had grown immense, an uncrossable chasm.

Jared took a step toward her. Held out his hand. “Come on, Viv. You need me.”

She forced herself to meet his gaze, willed her voice steady. “It’s over, Jared. I don’t want to see you again.”

His face paled, then flushed. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “We can talk about this—”

“No. No point in talking. Please. Take the ring and go.”

A long moment he glared at her. Long enough for her belly to twist and her knees to go weak. To watch the hurt in his face transform to a rage that set her teeth against each other, drove her heart into a quick and erratic rhythm of fear.

At last, he picked up the box with the ring and shoved it into his pocket. “You know what? Fuck you.” He swept the vase off the table and it hit the floor with a crash, glass exploding everywhere, the flowers crimson splotches amid the mess.

When the door slammed behind him she stood gasping, arms clutched around her belly to hold herself together in a world that no longer made any sense at all.