Breath of Dawn, The (33 page)

“The Dark Knight.” She slid her hair behind her ear. “That fits, you know.”

“Not by my performance in our gym yesterday. All the
bam
s and
pow
s would be my face with stars around them.”

“Well, the knight part anyway.”

“Don’t get sentimental. I have to stay focused. I just wanted to tell you, the
gardeners
will be back. With the reshuffling of my team, I could be gone all week.”

“Our weekends are pretty awesome.”

“Yeah.” His voice thickened, and then he growled. “Now look what you’ve done. I’ll have to force my head back to the game.”

“You can do it, Caped Crusader. Go defeat the villains of the underworld.”

“If only it were that easy.” He gave a low sigh. “What are you taking on in my absence?”

She thought a moment. “How about asylum lore? I ought to find out if there’s anything else I can tell RaeAnne.”

“Ugh. Happy hunting.”

“Thanks. I think.”

After putting Livie to bed, Erin climbed into her own with the professor’s tales. Maybe it wasn’t wise to read alone in the dark, but it wouldn’t happen at all with Morgan home. This time she went, as if drawn, to the Hauntings divider.

Taking a deep breath, she began with an account written by one of the asylum directors. The first thing the woman did was establish her credentials.

I am not doing this to prove my importance, but rather my sanity. Someone who has studied as I have and mastered many fields is not inclined to imaginative flights.

Quinn swallowed, pretty sure she wasn’t going to like this imaginative flight, and too afraid she might recognize it.

What I will tell here was first brought to my attention by one whose veracity I had not judged entirely sound, so my response was unequivocal: “Do not speak of this again.” In time I would see, whether spoken of or not, some things are what they are.

I have striven to resist any bias that attaches good and evil to any condition that brings a soul into our care. A defect in the mind is no punishment from God or whatever universal force may rule this world. But I have come to believe it might provide a channel by which evil may take form.

Herein you will find a recounting of not one, but many instances of this phenomenon that can be called by no other name than hauntings.

“Okay, I’m creeped out.” She took her phone and called RaeAnne. It would only be nine o’clock central time.

“Hi, Quinn!”

“Is John Carter home?”

“Yes. Watching the football game or the after-show or something. Please, take me away.”

“I’m reading the professor’s file. The . . . Hauntings section.”

“Oh my. Anything interesting?”

“I don’t know. I’m too scared to read on.”

“Want to read it together, like we did the journal?”

She half laughed. “Maybe that’s why I called. Are you sure Vera never mentioned weird goings-on?”

RaeAnne thought. “No, I just can’t remember anything like that.”

“She must not have been susceptible.”

“There was the hoarding.”

Erin nodded. “I thought of that too. But lots of people do that, and she wasn’t saving pet bones or anything.”

“Weird you should say that. There was something about pets. Every time she tried to get one, it ran off.”

“I’ve heard animals are perceptive.”

“Well, let’s hear it.”

Erin picked up the paper-clipped sheets and read, “‘The first incident of my experience occurred on the heels of a darkly restive night.’”

“Quinn, I swear you should do voice-overs. You just put chills down my back.”

She laughed. “I’m so glad you’re doing this with me. I’m putting chills down my own back.”

The tale was more disturbing than scary, though. The patient, whom the director declined to name except as patient 1, had begun her therapy session as normal, then begun speaking in an altered voice and foreign language. “‘It was especially notable that patient 1 had no recollection of the event.’”

“That sounds demonic, Quinn. Are you telling me my mother’s house is possessed?”

“I don’t think places get possessed. Only repossessed.”

“Thanks for the humor. But I’m serious. Did I sell Morgan one of those houses they show on TV where everyone runs out in the night and never goes back for their things?”

She quivered, recalling the menace in the cellar. “Will you think I’m crazy if I tell you I felt it?”

“No. But I’ll think you’re crazy if you ever set foot in there again.”

“I never intend to.”

“So tell me what happened.”

She did.

“And neither Morgan nor the professor felt anything.”

“No. But I’d spent quite a lot of time there by that point. Maybe it takes a while to make an impression.”

“Maybe. Do you want to read some more?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to listen.”

“As long as John Carter’s watching TV, I may as well.”

“Okay, then.” She raised the pages once again.

“Our janitor was a solid sort who applied himself to the job with methodical competence. When he came and stood before me, his face like chalk and one hand badly seared, I feared his recounting. He’d gone to the cellar, he said, to check the boiler. He’d been certain it had failed because the temperature in the cellar had dropped severely. Upon approaching it, however, he felt a great heat and was compelled to lay his hand upon it.”

“Good heavens,” RaeAnne cried.

“Or hell.”

“My Lord,” she breathed.

“Saying the name of Jesus lightened the oppression I felt. I didn’t even realize what I was doing.”

“Quinn, you are never, ever to go back there, and neither am I. When we go meet my dad, we’ll find somewhere else to stay.”

“I’m sure we could stay at Noelle and Rick’s.”

“That’s right. You’re family now. I still can’t believe all that.”

“I’m starting to.”

“You should write
your
memoirs. They’d read like a romance novel.”

She smiled, hoping it wouldn’t be a jailhouse romance.

RaeAnne sighed. “John Carter’s turned off the TV, so I guess I should go.”

“Thanks for listening. Hope it wasn’t too disturbing.”

“I’m eight hundred miles away.”

She was more than that, but looking at the pages after she hung up, it seemed that maybe alone wasn’t a good way to read the notes after all.

Y
ou’re not serious,” Erin said with a pallor in her cheeks that shouldn’t have been possible in the hot tub, even though he’d lowered the temperature to accommodate Livie.

“Oh, come on.” The corners of his mouth pulled. “It’s Christmas.”

“At your parents’?”

“That’s the tradition.”

“Why can’t we do it here? Or at Rick and Noelle’s?”

“Because my mother birthed us.”

“Not me,” she muttered.

Bright red sand verbena and chaparral lotus scented the air around the tub without sweetening Erin’s mood. He’d flown in just hours before, his part of Belcorp’s rescue in the bag, his team in place and functioning. Relaxing now with the positional jets hitting just the right spots, he watched Livie paddling in her tiny life vest. Clearly his child was in paradise. His wife, not so much. “Rick and his family will be there.”

“They like Rick’s family.”

“Erin.”

She closed her eyes—probably imagining hours of inquisition and full-fledged shunning.

Maybe it wouldn’t be the easiest time for her. But Livie needed it, and so, surprisingly, did he. “You’re making this worse than it is. Relax.”

“I’d rather face Markham and the FBI than your unhappy mother.”

He grinned. “Celia’s a warrior, I’ll give you that. Like Old Testament Deborah. Fierce and faithful.”

“It’s the fierce part—”

He gripped her shoulder. “Just be yourself.”

“And that would be?”

He thought a moment. “Ruth.”

“Ruth?”

“Loyal. Devoted. Brave. She’s listed in the lineage of Christ.”

She cast him a perplexed look.

“What?”

“It surprises me you know these things.”

“Thank the Jesuits.”

She searched his face. “I can’t reconcile that with . . .”

“My carnal nature?” He pulled a wry smile.

“Your Bruce Wayne.”

He toyed with a strand of her hair. “What picture of heaven did Jesus present? A feast. A
wedding
feast. Or in this case”—he tapped her nose—“Christmas dinner.”

She groaned. “That will not be heaven.”

He pulled her legs across his and encircled her shoulders. “We’re not leaving for several days and we’ll only be there a week.”

Livie leaned off one of the seats into the deeper water. “Look, Daddy. I a harbor seal. Look, Mommy Erin.”

He turned with widened eyes. “When did that start?”

A smile softened Erin’s face. “After the graveyard.”

“Do you mind?”

“How could I?”

He stroked her cheek, then kissed her. She’d be just fine, wherever they spent Christmas or anything else.

As much as she had tried to pretend it wouldn’t happen, it was. The moonscape of the earth below proof she was being carried irrevocably toward the dreaded holiday gathering she’d envisioned.

“We see Grammy?” Livie queried.

“Yep.” Morgan cradled his daughter’s head where she sat between them.

“We see Gramps.”

“That’s right.”

“We see Mommy Noelle?”

“Yeah, sweetie.” He smiled. “We’ll see Auntie Noelle.”

“We see Liam?”

“Liam and Uncle Rick and all your aunties.”

Ruth, she thought. Your people shall be my people.

Their choppy landing fit her frame of mind, but there was no use pointing out the omen. Morgan didn’t realize the calm seas he floated on were the eye of the hurricane. All the wind would be aimed at her.

When Rick arrived in his truck at the airport, she helped Morgan load their bags and gifts, along with half the house that had to be hauled when traveling with a child. She would have climbed in beside Livie’s car seat, but the guys motioned her into the front, where she slid to the middle. Morgan rested his arm across her shoulders and asked Rick when they’d gotten in.

“Couple days ago.”

“And the rest of the horde?”

“Present and accounted for.” Rick glanced at her. “Ready for this?”

“I’m light on combat training.”

“Aw, there won’t be hostilities. You might get smothered, though.”

Morgan tweaked her hair. “She’s pretty sure Mom will swallow her whole.”

Rick pulled into the traffic lane. “Celia’s no dragon—unless you threaten her treasure.”

“That would be her brood,” Morgan added darkly.

The whirlwind of nerves kicked up to a small tornado in Erin’s stomach. With Celia’s disapproval of their marriage, Christmas loomed like a Salem witch trial.

“Breathe,” Morgan whispered in her ear.

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t wearing the noose.

She had to admit the idyllic snow-covered farm shone like a Thomas Kincaid canvas—lanterns on the porch and barn, strings of icicle lights on the rooflines, and colorful Christmas bulbs draping shrubs and trees and pristine white fences. As Rick and Morgan grabbed armloads, she freed Livie from the car seat, murmuring, “We’re here, sweetie.”

The little girl squeezed her neck when the house door flew open and people piled out to the shoveled porch and path. Their combined greetings made clouds of white in the brisk twilit air.

Squealing, a high-school or college-age girl flung herself at Morgan, who dropped the portable crib and two bags to hug her.

“How could you!” she demanded. “How could you pull a Rick and get married without me?”

“Two words, Tara. Life happens.”

“And in Paris!” Punching him, she made a noise of extreme frustration.

Morgan laughed. “I know. Insult on injury. But look—” he turned—“I brought my bride.”

With Livie plastered to her like lichen on a rock, Erin took a step forward. As excited as the child had been to see them all, in this moment they shared a mutual apprehension.

“I’m Tara,” the young woman said.

Erin freed a hand and offered it. “Erin.”

With dark brown hair and indigo eyes in a heart-shaped face, Tara was stunning. “Guess you’re madly in love with my brother. Everyone is. I spent nineteen years fending my friends off.”

Morgan crooked a brow. “Since the day you were born?”

Tara didn’t miss a step. “That pink bundle in the nursery beside me? I gave her a piece of my mind.”

He gave a hearty laugh and hugged her shoulders.

Other young men and women crowded him, and in the doorway Hank and Celia appeared. Celia’s attention slid off Morgan. It was undoubtedly Livie she was looking for, but as they were interconnected, the gaze landed squarely—and surprisingly softened. A clinging grandchild will do that.

“It’s okay,” Erin whispered in Livie’s ear.

“Don’t let go me.” Livie’s voice was small.

“I won’t.”

From the center of the melee Morgan assessed the situation but seemed to think she had it covered. She found his confidence questionable.

Tara circled around to Livie. “Hi, monkey. Remember me?”

“Hold me, Mommy Erin.” Livie buried her face.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” she told Tara, and then Celia was there, pressing a kiss to Livie’s head.

“Here’s my little girl.”

Livie transferred her hold, and Celia took over. “We’ll be in the kitchen, Erin.” The light touch on her shoulder could have been an invitation or dismissal.

Morgan took her hand. “Everyone, this is Erin. Erin, my sisters Tiff and Steph. You met Tara, and that’s Therese over there with her husband, Stephen, and their twins.” The twin boys looked about three.

“Don’t know those two guys.” He indicated the young men who appeared to be connected to Tiff and Steph. Luke and Danny introduced themselves.

Erin got handshakes and hugs, some more exuberant than others. Therese, who looked like Rick, seemed to reserve judgment, and Erin guessed she and Celia had close communication. Then Noelle came outside with Liam, and those hugs were heartfelt.

“Thank you for being here,” Erin whispered.

Noelle squeezed her hands. “You look beautiful.”

“I do?”

Noelle’s smile glowed. “And happy.”

Erin drew a shaky breath. “That part, yeah.”

“Morgan even more.”

Erin nodded, warmed again by what she felt for him.

Liam tugged her jean leg, and she crouched down. “Yes, Liam?”

“Where’s Livie?”

“In the kitchen with your grandma.”

“Come on.” To her surprise, he took her hand and tugged.

She raised her brows to Noelle. “I guess we’re going in.”

As the family moved inside, Morgan moved with them. Watching Erin bear up reminded him of Thanksgiving, how she’d not only prepared the meal but celebrated it with four virtual strangers, with such good humor and compassion. She’d awakened dead feelings, feelings that now came as naturally and essentially as breath. He hoped his mother would see Erin’s substance.

Not a harsh woman, Celia simply loved with a ferocious love, not cast in a broad net but endowed individually, unwaveringly. She needed to know the ones who mattered would not be injured. And if they were threatened, she made no excuses for her defense.

The house smelled of cinnamon and roast meat, probably his mother’s pork chops with spiced apples. Her down-home cooking was different from Consuela’s, hearty and nourishing without the sizzle. He moved into the family room, where the tree looked like a commercial lot specimen, more evenly shaped than the ones they’d cut themselves. Adorned in mostly homemade ornaments, its pine scent mingled with the kitchen aromas.

“You look good,” his dad said.

Morgan nodded. “I am.”

“Praise God.”

“I am.”

They shared a shoulder hug. Hank eyed him. “The marriage is working.”

Working seemed an understatement. “It’s working.”

“Well, Morgan. You’ve never done things typically.”

“Orthodox I’m not.”

“You always land on your feet.”

“This was a long drop.”

Hank sobered. “I know it, son. For all of us.”

Morgan nodded, looking around. Jill hadn’t been a part of enough family gatherings that he saw her in everything, but a little of her lingered, especially the grief of last Christmas. He’d spent so much energy the past week encouraging Erin, he hadn’t shored himself up.

Celia called her brood like the Little Red Hen who made no
bones about who would share her bounty. Seating Erin, he checked her for damage. So far so good on that front.

She told Livie, “Fold your hands, sweetie.” And when Livie’s little voice joined in the blessing, he looked over. “We’ve been practicing,” she said.

“I say grace, Daddy.”

“I heard you, punkin. You were perfect.”

When she beamed her chipmunk smile, he realized another tooth was coming in. Before he’d noticed every minute detail, his life in orbit so tightly around his child, she had her own gravity. Now Erin had done something with her he hadn’t realized, and a physical—albeit tiny—change had escaped his notice.

“Morgan.”

“Thanks.” He took the bowl of mashed potatoes from Tiffany on his other side. He put some on his plate and Livie’s and passed it on to Erin. A savory gravy followed, then Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. He doubted Livie would eat either but gave her a portion anyway. At the ends of the table, his parents each started a platter of pork chops that would be moist and tender and delicious.

Tara had commandeered Erin’s other side and plied her with questions about Paris. Like Tiffany, the kid was a Francophile.

Erin said, “We were only there a day and a half.”

“But you went shopping.” Tara touched the sleeve of Erin’s blouse, the layered vest. “I know this didn’t come from Macy’s.”

“We went to some boutiques, but you’d have to ask Morgan where. It was a blur to me.”

He let the names of the couturiers slide from his tongue, and Tara squealed. “I’m dead. You stabbed me through the heart.”

He didn’t tell her he planned an extended tour of France for her college graduation gift. Three years in the future would be painfully long for her to anticipate. Maybe his parents would consider a semester abroad for their youngest, but he doubted it. She was too impulsive, too driven by emotion, too much like their oldest son. He didn’t think her small college had an overseas program anyway. He gave her an indulgent smile. Someday.