West Wind

By Madeline Sloane

Copyright 2011 Madeline Sloane

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 Madeline Sloane

Web:
http://www.MadelineSloane.com

Printed in the United States of America

This ebook is licensed for your personal
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you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
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own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are either the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales
is entirely coincidental.

Prepared for publication by The Omnibus

Web:
http://www.TheOmnibus.net

To lvan

Chapter One

James Weaver tilted a brass watering can over
the small garden at his property line. "How am I supposed to know
if she's okay?"

Standing on their neighbor's front porch, his
wife, Ida, had alternately rang the bell, knocked on the door and
tapped on the window for the past five minutes.

"Well, she never goes anywhere," Ida said,
keeping her voice low so the elderly woman inside wouldn't hear.
"She hasn't driven the Cadillac for at least a month."

"Just try the door then. Doubt if she locks
it." His sage advice delivered, James went back to tending his
flowers.

Ida visited Rose Windham a few times a week,
getting as close as any neighbor could to the reclusive old lady.
It was mid-morning, so she shouldn't be in bed. She twisted the
knob and slowly opened the door of the Victorian mansion.

James Weaver dropped the watering can on his
toe at the sound of her scream.

* * *

Sabrina's heart pounded as she groped for the
telephone.

"Sabrina?" Her mother's husky voice still
carried a slight Portuguese accent. "Are you awake?"

"I am now," she said, swinging her legs off
the side of the bed. "What's wrong? Is Daddy okay?"

"Yes, he's fine. It's Grandmother Rose."

"What's happened?" Sabrina rubbed her face,
wiping sleep from her heavy lids.

"She's in the hospital. She fell. Daddy's on
the cell phone with her neighbor now. Doctors say she may have had
a stroke."

Sabrina had limited experienced with illness.
Her parents were healthy and Rose seemed invincible. These three
made up her small family.

"We need you to go to Eaton."

Sabrina exhaled. Here it came. "Isn't Daddy
going?"

"We're leaving for Tibet in two days,
Sabrina. We can't change our plans now. We've got our visas and
tickets and our itinerary isn't flexible." Her mother's voice rose,
no longer husky.

Sabrina heard the threat of tears. She
wondered if they were for Grandmother Rose, unconscious and injured
in a hospital on the East Coast, or if they were for Marta,
herself, busy with yet another trip to the Orient.

Her parents, Norman and Marta Windham, were
bohemian writers, renowned more for their eccentric personalities
and fantastic destinations than for the quality of the books they
wrote as a team. For more than twenty years, their popular series
of "Tread Lightly" travel guides sold well. They wrote about
backpacking the Himalayas, rafting the Amazon, floating across
Africa in a hot air balloon, and snowshoeing through British
Columbia. They retained the "eco-friendly" attitude that attracted
them to each other as young college students, sipping green tea,
dining on hummus and lentils, favoring Birkenstock shoes and
all-cotton clothing.

Sabrina, the daughter of aging hippies who
smoked who-knows-what in their Hookah, mutinied in her youth. At
the age of thirteen, fighting her way out of a lifestyle
embellished with the exotic artifacts of her parents' travels,
Sabrina begged to enroll in an all-girl, Catholic preparatory
school in Maryland. At the time, the family still lived in northern
Virginia, close to Washington, D.C., where her parents worked as
freelance writers and co-hosted a show on public radio. They now
lived in Boulder, Colorado, a bastion of aging "free spirits."

Norman and Marta were amused by their young,
conservative daughter, who rebelliously dressed in plaid skirts,
knee-high socks, leather loafers, white shirts and cardigan
sweaters. They understood her need to "buck the establishment." The
same need drove them into finding their destiny as teens, albeit
with tied-dyed T-shirts and hemp sandals.

As the daughter of ramblers, Sabrina grew up
self-reliant and reserved. She spent most summers at Grandmother
Rose's home in Eaton, Pennsylvania, while her parents rode
elephants in India and Land Rovered through the Australian outback.
If anything, Norman and Marta were relieved that Sabrina wanted to
attend a boarding school. It freed them of one more item on their
checklist when traveling: Where to put Sabrina.

She sighed, pushing a weary hand through her
dark, rumpled hair. "Alright; calm down. I'll go," she said.

"Good girl. I'll have Daddy text message you
the details. Which hospital …"

"There's only one hospital in Eaton, Mom,"
Sabrina said, recalling the summer she broke her wrist. It
prevented her from swimming at the community pool just when she
learned how to dive. After the cast came off in August, her
grandmother enrolled her in tennis lessons to build her wrist
muscles. For the next few weeks, until she returned to Virginia for
seventh grade, she swooned over Robert Hall, a pre-law college
student who taught tennis at the rec center during summer
vacations.

"Fine. Let me take care of a few things and
I'll be there tomorrow."

"You mean tonight," her mother said.

Sabrina looked at her clock. The red digital
numbers clicked to six a.m. and the alarm buzzed. Reaching out to
slap the snooze button, she groaned. "Yes; I mean tonight. Good
bye, Mom."

* * *

Sabrina worked from her apartment, the second
floor of a 19th century row house remodeled into three levels of
living. The landlord lived in the basement apartment, and an
elderly married couple rented the first floor. The property owner's
hobbies including gardening. He kept the small front yard blooming
nearly year round. Instead of landscaping the backyard, he built
small decks for each unit and filled them with potted trees,
container gardens and patio furniture.

Renters appreciated the airy feel inside each
apartment, thanks to the ivory walls and French doors opening onto
the deck patios. Built-in oak shelving glowed, six-foot windows
filled the rooms with light, and the kitchen was decorated in a
Tuscany style. The effect was chic, yet homey, and the rent
enormous, even for Baltimore.

Sabrina used her second bedroom as a home
office where she operated her small financial consulting firm.
Photographs from her parents adorned the walls. There were vistas
of Mount Fuji, underwater shots of colorful fish and coral at the
Great Barrier Reef, a photo of Norman and Marta in front of
Stonehenge, and another of Marta racing the steps of a Mayan
pyramid. There were no photos of Sabrina; she was never included in
their journeys. Instead, they shuffled her to Grandmother Rose's
home in Pennsylvania, or various college students would take turns
house- and daughter-sitting for the Windhams.

After showering and packing a suitcase,
Sabrina knocked on the basement door.

"Mr. Brothers; it's me, Sabrina Windham," she
called through the steel door, knowing from experience that he rose
early.

Ricardo Brothers opened the door, a steaming
mug of coffee in one hand.

"Good morning, Sabrina. What can I do for
you?"

"I have to go to Pennsylvania for awhile. I'm
not sure how long. My grandmother is in the hospital," she
said.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Ricardo took a
sip of his coffee. The aroma of freshly ground Columbian beans
filled the hallway.

"Would you please collect my mail and forward
it to me? Here is the address," she said, handing him an envelope.
"I've included some cash for postage. Also, will you take care of
the plants? I watered them on Saturday, so they're good for a few
more days."

"Certainly. Anything you need. You have my
phone number and my e-mail, so please keep in touch. I hope your
grandmother is better soon."

She nodded her thanks. A car honked.

"There's my taxi. I have to run. Thank you,
Mr. Brothers, I appreciate this."

Ricardo nodded kindly, and then sipped his
coffee as he watched Sabrina hurry up the concrete steps. His
orange tabby cat wound through his ankles, meowing softly.

"Morning, Sally. Ready for your breakfast?"
He closed the door and followed the cat into his tidy kitchen.

* * *

The small airplane dipped below the clouds
and touched down gently. The tube shook and ill-fitting cabinet
doors rattled as the wheels roared down the runway. It coasted to a
stop and the seatbelt light snapped off. Sabrina waited for the
other passengers to disembark. She preferred to wait since the
limited headroom on the "puddle jumper" plane meant she would have
to crouch until others disembarked.

Across the aisle, a young mother cradled a
sleeping infant over her shoulder. "You go ahead," she said as her
harried husband struggled with the car seat.

Sabrina gracefully slid out of the cramped
seat, opened the overhead storage and removed her briefcase. Packed
with her notebook computer, cell phone, books and folders of
pending work, the case weighed at least twenty pounds. She grunted,
then shifted it in front of her, hoping it wouldn't throw her off
balance as she exited the airplane. She paused at the top of the
rolling stairs and looked around.

The small airport squatted in a valley
nestled between green mountains with fog-shrouded peaks. The
Appalachians were old, their shoulders rounded from millions of
years of wind and rain. Sabrina viewed this same scene for many
summers, coming to and going from Grandmother Rose's house. Always,
she made the trip alone.

The same woman who used orange-tipped
flashlights to guide the two-engine turbo prop commuter now drove
an ATV with a trailer to the rear of the airplane. The steward
opened the locker in the plane's belly and placed suitcases on the
tarmac. The young woman, spry in a green, one-piece jumpsuit and
yellow safety vest, slung the suitcases into the trailer.

"That it?"

The steward nodded and then tippled his
fingers, miming a drink.

"Yeah, sure. I get off at four. See you at
the pub?"

"I'll be there. I've got a couple of days
off, so …"

Their voices lowered as they moved closer.
The woman laughed and pushed at the young man's chest. "Perv!" She
quickly kissed him and then sprang onto the seat of the tractor.
"Gotta get these bags to the terminal. See you tonight."

Sabrina walked across the tarmac and entered
the airport. In the lobby, people hugged and chatted with arriving
passengers.

"Well, it's not much, but it has the right
ingredients,"
Sabrina thought, glancing at the single security
gate and the lone ticket window.

She headed for baggage claim, joining the
other passengers in front of a set of garage doors. The metal doors
lifted noisily and Sabrina watched as the young woman from the ATV
tossed the baggage onto a low-slung counter. She'd driven the
tractor about fifty yards from the plane.

Sabrina found her bag, and then headed for
the car rental counter when a short, elderly man stepped into her
path.

"Excuse me, miss. Are you Sabrina
Windham?"

Puzzled, she nodded. The man twisted a worn
baseball cap in his hands. "I'm James Weaver; Rose's neighbor. The
visiting nurse said you were coming in this afternoon and that I
should offer you a ride home."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Weaver," Sabrina
said. "But, I'm going to need a car while I'm here in Eaton, so
I'll rent one."

"Well, here's the thing. Miss Rose has a nice
car and the nurse said you're to use that while you're here. It's a
real nice one. Miss Rose always gets a nice, new car every few
years. It's right out front."

He shuffled towards a sliding glass door that
parted when he passed its electric eye. Parked at the curb sat a
Cadillac, its motor running and the radio tuned to a conservative
talk show.