Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) (20 page)

Only…she didn’t believe that.

This was Cape Trouble, where Mom had died.  If this pendant
was identical to Mom’s…it almost had to be Mom’s, didn’t it?

I’m being ridiculous, but…
  She tried to calm herself
enough to think clearly.

How could she find out?  Call her father?  A verbal
description, even if he remembered well enough, wouldn’t be adequate.  Okay,
what if he found a photo, scanned it and emailed it to her…?  But she knew he’d
be at work right now, so she’d have to wait until evening, and that was
assuming he’d kept any photos at all and not given them all to her. 
And
had kept one that showed the necklace clearly.  And, since it was rather
delicate, she suspected it wouldn’t show up that well in a casual snapshot.

It would be agonizing to wait until evening anyway.

Even if it was Mom’s…somebody might have found it later and
not connected it in any way to the tragedy of that woman’s death.  And without
knowing the donor, the necklace’s reappearance didn’t mean much anyway, did it?

But she couldn’t take her eyes
off
it.  There had to
be some way to find out, not later, but now.  There were locals who’d known her
mother…but twenty years ago, and why would they have paid that much attention
to her jewelry anyway?

Sophie drew in a sharp breath.  Elias Burton.  He was
already an artist then, which made him more observant than normal people.  Half
the time, he’d had a sketch book with him, and sometimes that easel was set
up.  She knew he’d drawn her, and probably multiple times.

Was there any chance at all he’d kept drawings of her
mother?  Or even painted her in enough detail to include the necklace she
always wore?

Sophie tuned in to realize that Slawinski was saying again,
“Ms. Thomsen?”

She pulled herself together enough to offer him a smile of sorts. 
“I’m really okay,” she said, even though her heart gave an unpleasant thump
every time her gaze strayed back to the necklace.  “I need to make a call or
two, though.”

In her purse she found a list of important phone numbers
that either Hannah or Naomi had given her.  No number for Elias.  She called
information, only to be told he was unlisted.  Naomi’s cell phone, then.

On the fifth ring, she answered, sounding wary.

Once Sophie had identified herself and asked if she had a
number for Elias, Naomi said, “Oh, sure.  It’s in my phone, though.  Do you
need it right now?”

“Yes, please.”  Realizing Naomi was probably standing in the
midst of the café kitchen during the beginning of the lunch rush, Sophie added,
probably uselessly, “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll call you back in just a minute.”

Naomi was as good as her word, rattling the number off and
assuring Sophie it was no problem.

Sophie reached Elias’s voice mail.  His voice was brusque. 
“Leave a message.”  No cheery assurance that he’d return the call.  She could
be wrong, but suspected he rarely did.

Just in case, though, she left a message.  “This is Sophie
Thomsen.  I’d like to talk to you.  In fact—” she made a quick decision, “—I
think I’ll drive up to your place in hopes you’re there working.  If I don’t catch
you, well, I’d appreciate it if you’d call me.”  She gave her number.

Then, while she had Slawinski occupied loading the things
she wanted to take home, she called Daniel, who listened in silence as she told
him hastily and somewhat incoherently about what she’d found.

“Have you touched the jewelry?” he interrupted, his voice
hard and unfamiliar.

“Well…of course I have.”  She looked down into the open
shoebox.  “I mean, some of it.”

“Don’t,” he said.  “In fact, don’t touch anything.  I’ll be
there in ten minutes.”  And he was gone.

She blinked, wanting to be annoyed at his high-handed
assumption that she’d obey but secretly relieved.  Of course she could have
driven to Elias Burton’s home in the woods by herself, but she was just as glad
not to have to.

When told the chief was on his way, Officer Slawinski nodded
stolidly and waited without saying anything.  Sophie closed up her laptop and
stowed it in her bag.  Surely her laptop wasn’t among the “anything” she wasn’t
supposed to touch.

The marked police car Daniel drove during the day rolled to
a stop right in front of the unit.  He nodded to Slawinski and told him he’d
call to let him know when he was needed again, to have lunch and then go on
patrol.

Only when they were alone did he look at the open shoebox
and the jumble of jewelry.  “This is it?”

“Yes.”

“All of it was in there together?”

“Yes.  I, um, had to untangle the chains, so I probably left
fingerprints all over the place, if that’s what you were thinking.”

He grunted.  “Strange hodgepodge.”

“That’s what caught my attention right away.  I mean, some
of it’s really cheap stuff.  But look at the wedding ring.  And then—”  She
tried in vain to swallow the lump in her throat.  “I saw that.”

He scrutinized the heart pendant at which she’d pointed, then
lifted his head to study her in the same, unnerving way.  “You’re not sure it’s
your mother’s.”

“No.”  Once again she felt inarticulate as she tried to
explain why she might have blocked out the memory.

His face softened and he stepped closer, wrapping a hand
around her nape and gently squeezing.  “I get it, Sophie.  Anyway, it’s been a
lot of years.  But I think it is your mother’s.  All I have to do is look at
you.  You’re trembling.  Part of you knows.”

She shuddered, and when he put his arms around her she let
herself lean for just a minute.  He was right.  Her reaction had been instant
and visceral, even worse than when she’d first seen the Save the Misty Beach
painting of the place her mother had died.  She wanted to be wrong – but she
knew
.

He set her away, his hands rubbing her upper arms as if he
was trying to warm someone suffering from hypothermia.  Maybe she was in shock.

“All right,” he said.  “Let’s lock up.  I’m going to bring
the whole box with us, and we’ll go see Burton.”

He produced a pair of latex gloves, just as he had the first
time she met him, and carefully lifted the shoebox and its contents into
another, larger box that had been empty.  Then he folded the flaps and set it
in the trunk of his squad car.  He transferred the stuff Slawinski had just
loaded into the back of her Prius to his car, too.

“I could follow you….”

He shook his head.  “I’ll bring you back later.”

“I did try calling him,” she said, once they were driving
toward the gate.

“So you said.”  He gave her a raised-eyebrow look.  “Tell me
you wouldn’t have headed up there on your own.”

“Why shouldn’t I have?” she asked, regaining enough spirit
to be annoyed by his implication that she was some kind of idiot.  “I could
have found my way now that I’ve been there.”

He stopped and rolled down his window to tap in the code
that opened the gate.  They both watched as it began ponderously to move.

“Did he strike you as real friendly?”  He drove forward and
through the opening, lifting a hand at Marge, who waved at them through the
office window.

Sophie had to hesitate.  “He wasn’t unfriendly.”

“He didn’t so much as invite either of us to step onto his
porch.  Even in the big city, we tend to interpret that as something less than
cordiality.”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” she said stiffly.

As if she hadn’t spoken, Daniel continued.  “He was around
when your mother died, Sophie.  Not just that summer, but that morning.  Did
you know that he and Benjamin were supposedly the first two people to reach
you?”

She flashed him a startled glance.  “I…don’t remember.  How
do you know?”

“Billington told me.”

“You’re saying—  But Elias was just a kid.”

“Seventeen year olds have been known to commit heinous
crimes.  I’ve arrested a few.”

She couldn’t argue, which made her suspect she had been
naïve.  Once she’d seen Elias Burton’s face, memories had flooded back.  In
them, he had often been lurking in the vicinity of her and her mother.  Her
mother really was a beautiful woman, with the kind of spectacular cheekbones
and style that Sophie knew she lacked.

Daniel didn’t say much during the drive, and she looked out
the side window and brooded.  She was aware of his occasional glances, but was
too filled with high-wire tension to want to talk.

This was Saturday, and Highway 101 was busy.  Tourist season
didn’t reach its height until July, but resorts and inns were already filling
up.  As soon as Daniel turned off the highway, they left the traffic behind,
though, and began to climb into the wooded foothills of the coastal range.

Once again, Elias Burton’s house gave no clue as to whether
its owner was home.  Daniel parked, and they both got out and started across
the yard.  And once again, the front door opened and the artist stepped out
before they’d reached the foot of the steps.

This time he wore faded, paint-spattered jeans and a
disreputable T-shirt that had both bleach spots and splashes of paint.

“You’re back.”  He sounded oddly resigned.

“Did you get my message?” she asked.

“I’ve been working.  I don’t pay attention to the phone when
I’m in the studio.”

“I’d like to talk to you,” she said.

“Does this have to do with the auction?”

“No.  It’s…about my mother.”

They eyed each other.  His gaze flicked briefly to Daniel
and then back to her.

“I suppose you’d better come in,” he said at last, abruptly.

Daniel laid his hand on Sophie’s back as they ascended the
porch steps and stepped inside Elias’s house.

She was immediately dazzled by the light-filled, uncluttered
interior.  Tall windows brought the outdoors in.  Hardwood floors gleamed, and
walls were creamy white that set off a few large painting.  A river-rock
fireplace reached for the vaulted ceiling.  Above a rough-hewn slab of wood
that served as mantel hung a single painting that seemed to be the focal point
for the entire room.

A sound escaped her.  Her feet moved with no volition and
she walked forward until she stood only a few feet away, staring up at a
stunning oil painting of her mother.  She was on the beach, the shimmer of blue
behind her, and looking over her shoulder as if someone had just surprised
her.  She had something in her hand – Sophie’s gaze dropped to it, and saw that
it was a sand dollar.

With a jab of pain, she looked back at her mother’s face and
found herself staring into eyes more like hers than she remembered.  Those eyes
were troubled, as if she had been weighing some inner conflict as she walked
the beach.  The sand dollar, perfect and waiting for her, might have
represented an answer, or a dream.

“I’m sorry,” Elias said behind her, his voice heavy with
regret.  “I almost took it down after you were here the other day.”

“You really were in love with her,” she said hoarsely, and
this time it was an accusation.

The silence was long enough she turned to look at him.  He
gazed at the portrait, but it was more as if he were looking inward.

“I was,” he said finally.  “With all the passion of a
seventeen-year-old boy’s heart.  Now…she’s a memory.”  His eyes met Sophie’s. 
He shrugged.  “I think this might be my best work.  I captured something.”

“You’ve made her look sad.”

She could see the instant denial on his face, even as he
looked past her again at the painting.

“Not sad.”  He hesitated.  “At a turning point in her life,
maybe.”  Was that kindness on his face when he focused again on Sophie?  “I
don’t think your parents’ marriage was a happy one.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that you wanted to think that?”
she lashed out.

“Yeah,” he said after a minute.  “Of course I did.  But I
think it’s the truth, too.  And I never deluded myself she’d look twice at me. 
She was nice to me, that’s all.  Patient enough to pose a few times.  It was
embarrassingly obvious that she knew how I felt, which made me even more
awkward around her.  Her dying the way she did…”  For the first time, his face
showed discomfort.  “It hit me hard.  Teenagers lean to melodrama anyway.  I
thought maybe I could have done something.  Said something.”  His shoulders
moved again.  “I wanted to…I don’t know, help you, but suddenly you were gone
and we were all supposed to pretend it had never happened.”

“I don’t believe she killed herself,” Sophie said fiercely.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel make a quick
sharp movement that made her realize he hadn’t wanted her to say that.  It was
Elias’s shock that gripped her, though.  His eyes seemed to burn.  And she
suddenly wasn’t sure it
was
shock.

“You suspected,” she whispered, and then her eyes widened. 
Had he suspected...or did he
know
?  She felt herself take an involuntary
step backwards, bumping up to the stone hearth.

The next second, Daniel was at her side, that warm,
reassuring hand on her back again.  He gave a gentle rub, but when she glanced
at him it was to see that all his attention was on Elias.  It was the man who
touched her, but the hard-eyed cop who studied the artist of the portrait above
the fireplace.

He hadn’t torn that burning gaze from her.  “No.  Suspected
is too strong a word.  I didn’t want to believe she’d do that.  For a long
time, I could still hear you scream.  I saw how much she loved you.  I couldn’t
believe she’d do that to you, no matter what.”

Daniel stirred.  “Billington says you two were the first to
reach Sophie that morning.”

“What?”  Elias looked at him as if he’d forgotten Daniel was
there.  “Yeah.  I guess we both heard Sophie.  I kind of ran into him in the
fog.  Old Man Billington wasn’t far behind.”  He frowned.  “Why were you
talking to him about it?”