Breath of Dawn, The (3 page)

With his head to the steering wheel, Morgan sat alone in the night, clutching his baby’s monitor to his chest, the engine unturned in the Maserati that would fly if he let it. Outside in the car was as far as he could go, and that only because the lights of the monitor would show what he might not hear over the pure-pitched speakers throbbing words he knew by heart from countless repetitions.

A life leaving nothing behind. No dream to echo in time.

Hours ago, he’d typed the final word of his third book and sent the file without once looking back to revisit what he’d written. He’d laid out the core of his philosophy, everything that made his zenith shine. Whoever could reproduce it, let them. Let others save the world.

Visions and dreams dismembered. Nothing remembered. Everything lost in this night.

Once, he’d fed on the cool certainty, the razor-sharp focus and adrenaline of the contest, recognizing potential and turning disasters around, seeing problems and finding solutions no one else saw. Now it was all ashes in his mouth, shades laughing softly in the night wind.

A few strides might get him the sympathy of his brother and even Rick’s wife, but no matter how close they were, in the end,
it was his own effort to put one foot in front of the other, step by step by step.

All his successes, yet he hadn’t seen it coming. Almost two years, and still the stealth and shock of death rocked him. The lyrics had ended, and in their place came the caring platitudes.

“What could you do? You weren’t even there.”

He’d been useless to his wife and worse than useless to Kelsey, his vigorous bone marrow damaging one organ after another when she had nothing to fight back with.

“You did all you could. It was out of your hands.”

The hope had been a slim one, but he’d believed. He was golden. He’d save her, and then he and Jill could know her. Only he hadn’t. Morgan Spencer wasn’t God. If he were, Kelsey would be here,
Jill
would be here.

Instead . . .

The piercing-clear moon showed his face in the rearview mirror. The kings of the earth rise up and the one enthroned in heaven laughs.

V
era’s second bedroom smelled of ancient sachets and floral body powder, a whisper of spring on an autumn day. No guessing what color the room was painted or if it had a window. Quinn pressed between folded piles of textiles, including bolts of fabric and batting for apparently unfinished projects. It made her think of Grandma Pearl’s quilts, none fashioned from store fabric but from dresses and shirts no longer worn. Maybe she got her penchant for salvaging and recycling from the woman she’d loved only second to Pops.

Without the pocket doors on the closet, she’d have never gotten to the clothes inside. She pushed them into their slots and dug her fingers between hangers packed so tightly the polyester had nearly fused. Better insulation than a prairie soddy, but she had to wonder, what made the woman fortify her home this way?

Gripping a wooden hanger, she used her weight to pull a woolen blazer free. The first in a battalion of forgotten clothes, it yielded only a grocery receipt. On the receipt she read a penciled reminder to call Ray. RaeAnne, she assumed—Vera’s bright ray of sunshine.

With that first chink in the wall, the next hangers offered less
resistance. In the chartreuse dinner jacket she felt a lump in the cuff of one sleeve. Turning it up, she found the lining held closed by a safety pin. She removed the pin, and a pearl earring fell into her hand.

Though RaeAnne had relinquished everything but the locket, originally she said to leave all jewelry, so this find needed clarification. Quinn took out her phone and called. “Sorry to bother you at work.”

“Please, bother me.” RaeAnne’s throaty twang brought a smile. “Did you—”

“I haven’t found it.”

RaeAnne made a long, heartfelt sigh.

“But that ring you found in a sock isn’t the whole story. I just found an earring pinned inside a sleeve.” As she spoke, she felt the other cuff, but didn’t find the match. “It’s a good-sized pearl, but I don’t know whether it’s real.”

“I doubt it. She only ever bought costume.”

“You went through the jewelry she had accessible.” Quinn fingered the earring, thinking. “But this was hidden, and I’m wondering why.”

“You can’t ask why with Vera. She just did things.”

“You said she had all her faculties.”

“No old-age issues. But she wasn’t what anyone would call typical.”

“Maybe someone gave it to her, someone important.”

That gave RaeAnne pause. “There’s only one?”

“So far.”

“Maybe you could hold onto the things she’s done something stranger than usual with.”

“Okay.” She laid the jacket on the pile. “I’ll keep those objects together, and you can make a decision when I’m done.” She didn’t want RaeAnne to come out of the situation with regrets from choices made in haste. Or grief. Or the anger and disillusionment of unresolved issues.

Getting back to work, Quinn realized as the clothes went down in size they increased in style and elegance. At size twelve, there were vintage designer gowns she would definitely sell through her
online store. Easier to believe the pearl real when paired with a gold lamé gown. Vera would have looked quite the dame in that.

The pockets of the polyester pantsuits with slinky Qiana blouses and wide ’70s lapels yielded nothing more interesting than handkerchiefs, emery boards, and ticket stubs, but the hem of a shoulder cape had been loop stitched over a Venetian-glass necklace. Holding it to her chest, Quinn pictured Vera in a gondola with the opera-style cape over her shoulders and the beads glittering in moonlight. She imagined the man in the locket perched beside her on the cushioned seat.

“Do you like the necklace, my dear?” she asked the empty room.

“I
adore
it.”

Laughing, she placed the necklace with the earring. Everything had a history, even if no one knew it. Confident she’d find the locket secreted like the necklace and earring, she resumed her search. Piece after piece of clothing moved through her fingers, but no locket. Not pinned into any cuffs, not sewn into any hems. It was not in the lingerie drawers of the dresser, not in the trunks that produced every conceivable linen from embroidered pillowcases to Christmas stockings to latch-hook rugs.

The matching vanity yielded lipsticks and sticky brown, mostly evaporated perfumes. The bottles might have value to product-line collectors, so she carefully packed them into a container and loaded it into her truck with the usable clothing and fabric goods. The brilliant sunshine had produced a vibrant October day she took a moment to enjoy, breathing deeply of the piney scent before going back in. She was getting a sense of Vera that should be helping the quest but so far hadn’t.

Size-ten shoe boxes bricked the wall floor to ceiling, double deep. All held shoes, except those filled with clothing tags and tags with tiny bags of spare buttons and beads and tags with receipts stapled on. Tags and receipts she dumped, but she could probably match the novelty items to things from the closet, which would add value.

From the toe of one pink leather pump, she drew a butterfly pin studded with blue stones of differing hues. Lifting the butterfly on her palm, she watched the light glitter through the stones like sunlight on an aqua sea. “Butterflies shouldn’t be locked in boxes,”
she told it. Nor should things that matter be hidden behind heaps of camouflage, like a heart sealed by ever-thickening walls.

She moved into the kitchen, shook and sifted open containers of oatmeal and cornstarch and baking soda while she sorted and boxed the canned and dry goods for a charitable donation. She checked and emptied the containers in the fridge and freezer, something RaeAnne would surely have done if she hadn’t been absorbed in finding the locket.

With her arm pressed to her forehead, she glanced at the asylum cabinet, brooding in the center of the floor. She could almost hear it calling, “Open me.” What if the locket was in there? Vera knew about the cellar, might have known about the cabinet. She couldn’t imagine her down there at eighty-two with hips wider than RaeAnne’s, but perhaps when she was younger.

Quinn pushed her hair back and looked once more at the milky glass panes obscuring the contents. It belonged to Morgan—as is
.
But she might search everywhere else and find it was in the cabinet all along. Shouldn’t she rule it out? Her fingers itched.

She’d brought the skeleton keys with her—in case Morgan changed his mind, but how would she know? Since he’d seen what he needed of the house, he wasn’t likely to return before she finished. The locket might be inside one of the bottles, and there was no way she could check without leaving signs of tampering. She groaned. Why had she taken the check? Immediately her sense returned. Fifteen hundred dollars was why.

She’d spent the previous evening photographing and listing items that didn’t require research. Everything from the cellar would. How much for shackles? She shuddered, casting a glance at the door. She’d have to go through it sometime, but she’d felt a creepiness down there, and going alone into dark, confined spaces violated her safety code.

With Livie holding his finger, Morgan entered Rudy’s general store, a dark-stained wood-plank exterior with green roof that reminded him of Lincoln Logs. Inside was a magical place for a little person who loved fishing flies as much as toys. As always, she
ran to the case that held them arrayed like jewels, pressed her little hands to the glass, and stared in. Moving from one end of the long counter to the glassed end, Rudy bent and peered at her through the display. A superb judge of character, Livie didn’t jump back but studied him in kind.

Wordlessly, he pulled one of the drawers toward himself. With big, blunt fingers, he took one brilliant bead-and-feather fly out and stood up tall. Livie’s eyes followed him, her chin tipping up and up. He bent over and lowered the fly. Morgan almost stopped him, then realized it had no hook. Why would Rudy make a fishing fly with no hook? But then he knew.

Livie stretched out her hand, and Rudy laid the thing on her tiny palm. Rapt, she scrutinized its form and design, the iridescent colors. No scientist in a lab could have researched it more thoroughly.

Morgan met Rudy’s eye, both their mouths twitching. He said, “Like that, Livie?”

“
Like
it, Daddy.” She held it higher for him to see.

He and Rudy hadn’t discussed her fascination, yet the burly mountain man had obviously prepared this for her next appearance. “It’s awesome, Rudy. You’re an artist.” How those big hands made something so intricate, delicate, and minuscule, he didn’t know.

“Just a hookless fly.” But pleasure lit the yellow-green eyes beneath shaggy russet brows. Morgan took out his wallet, but Rudy waved him off. “Seeing her face is enough.”

He slid the wallet back, not insulting Rudy with an argument. Cradling the fly in both hands against her chest, Livie trailed behind him like a pint-sized shadow as he picked up the items he’d come for and laid them on the counter. After paying, he crouched in front of Livie. “Would you like to tell Rudy something?”

She studied him a minute, then looked up at Rudy. “Thank you this fly.”

Rudy grinned. “You’re welcome, little miss.”

Livie giggled. “No li’l miss. Livie.”

“Oh.” Rudy looked astonished. “Well, now I know.”

Smiling, Morgan gave him a wave and led her out by a finger. Moments like these seemed to crystalize and hang in the air like something wonderful, just out of reach. He buckled his daughter
into her seat, kissed her forehead, and laid his hand over hers still holding the fly as though it might spring into the sky. “You’re pretty special, you know.”

“You special, Daddy.”

He placed another kiss in her hair, inhaling her scent, and then stepped back and closed the door. A truck pulled up to the pumps at the other end of the lot. Quinn slipped out and moved toward the pump controls. In another life, he’d have greeted her. Since she didn’t see him, he got into the Range Rover and drove away.

Early the next morning, Quinn got back to it. Ordinarily she’d have the furniture picked up as is, but because of the locket, she scrutinized the underside linings, fingering every pillow, unzipping the sofa cushions, feeling down between the seats and sides and backs. Seven ten-dollar bills rewarded her search. But no locket.

She drew the line at cutting into the stuffing. Vera’s hiding places had been amateurish and noninvasive. No sense ruining things that could be used by others. She was feeling good about her progress—until she entered the dining room. There Vera had reached true hoarder status, or suffered an avalanche of mail and subscriptions.

The thought of going through everything felt like a preview of hell. She narrowed her eyes. Was that assistant really champing at RaeAnne’s job, or had she taken one look in the room and run? Quinn went in, and squealed when a mouse skittered from behind one stack to another. Not surprising her first rodent encounter at Vera’s happened in the room most wildlife friendly.

It wouldn’t bother her except that cute, tawny-colored mouse with creamy cheeks was a deer mouse that could transmit hantavirus. Because of that, she kept a misting bottle of bleach water in her truck. Heading out for it, she paused when Noelle’s truck pulled up, though it was her husband, Rick, who climbed out wearing a dark brown vest over a heavy shirt. At this elevation, she’d have wanted sleeves on that jacket. Except in the heat of summer, her arms were always cold.

“Hi.” He approached her, bearing a trace of stable scent. “I’m Rick from the next ranch over.”

She nodded. “We met at the bakery—except for names, though Noelle told me yours. I’m Quinn.”

“She told me yours too.” His eyes creased. “I’m just letting you know I’ll be taking down the fence back there.”

“Joining yours and Morgan’s properties?”

Rick frowned. “Morgan’s?”

“You know . . . the house?”

“What does the house have to do with Morgan?”

And of course she realized her mistake. “You should talk to him, I guess.” She got the bleach sprayer and bandanna from the truck and started back in.

“Are you saying Morgan’s buying this house?” He seemed not only puzzled but annoyed. Or maybe it was worry. Rick was not easy to read.