Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  “Is that your scientific opinion?”

  “I had a femur and a spear point practically fall in my lap. And this is in some hole dug by heavy equipment where people have been tramping around like it was Disneyland. We need security, a team, equipment, and we need that grant. We need them all ASAP.”

  “I’ve already pulled the chain on the funds. You take on some students from the U of M.”

  “Grad students or undergrads?”

  “Still being discussed. The university wants first crack at studying some of the artifacts. And I’m doing some fast talking with the Natural History Museum. I’ve got a buzz going, Blondie, but I’m going to need a hell of a lot more than a couple of bones and a spear point to keep it up.”

  “You’re going to get it. It’s a settlement, Leo. I can feel it. And the soil conditions? Jesus, they couldn’t be much better. We may have some hitches with this Dolan. The girl lawyer’s pretty firm on that. Small-town politics at play here. We need some big guns to get his cooperation. Campbell wants to call a town meeting.”

  Callie glanced wistfully at the pizza parlor before she made the turn to head out of town to the motel. “I drafted you for that.”

  “When?”

  “Sooner the better. I want to set up an interview with the local TV late afternoon.”

  “It’s early for the media, Callie. We’re just gathering ammo. You don’t want to break the story before we’ve outlined strategy.”

  “Leo, it’s midsummer. We’ve only got a few months before we’ll have to pack it in for the winter. Media exposure puts the pressure on Dolan. He doesn’t step back and let us work, he refuses to donate the finds or pushes to resume his development, he comes off as a greedy asshole with no respect for science or history.”

  She pulled into the motel’s lot, parked and, shifting the phone again, grabbed her pack.

  “There’s not that much you can tell them.”

  “I can make a little seem like a lot,” she said as she climbed out and went to the back of the Rover to pull out her duffel.

  With that slung over her shoulder, she pulled out her cello case. “Trust me on this part, and get me a team. I’ll take the students, use them for grunts until I see what they’re made of.”

  She yanked open the door of the lobby, stepped up to the desk. “I need a room. Biggest bed you got in the quietest spot. Get me Rosie,” she said into the phone. “And Nick Long if he’s available.” She dug out a credit card, set it on the counter. “They can bunk at the motel just outside of town. I’m checking in now.”

  “What motel?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. What’s this place called?” Callie asked the desk clerk.

  “The Hummingbird Inn.”

  “No kidding? Cute. Hummingbird Inn, on Maryland Route Thirty-four. Get me hands, eyes and backs, Leo. I’m going to start shovel tests in the morning. I’ll call you back.”

  She disconnected, shoved the phone in her pocket. “You got room service?” she asked the clerk.

  The woman looked like an aged little doll and smelled strongly of lavender sachet. “No, honey. But our restaurant’s open from six A.M. to ten P.M. every day of the week. Best breakfast you’ll get anywhere outside your own mama’s kitchen.”

  “If you knew my mother,” Callie said with a chuckle, “you’d know that’s not saying much. You think there’s a waitress or a busboy who’d like to earn an extra ten by bringing a burger and fries, a Diet Pepsi to my room? Well done on the burger. I’ve got some work that can’t wait.”

  “My granddaughter could use ten dollars. I’ll take care of it.” She took the ten-dollar bill and handed Callie a key attached to a huge red plastic tag. “I put you ’round back, room six-oh-three. Got a queen bed and it’s quiet enough. Probably take about half an hour for that hamburger.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “Miss . . . ah . . .” The woman squinted at the scrawled signature on the check-in card. “Dunbock.”

  “Dunbrook.”

  “Dunbrook. You a musician?”

  “No. I dig in the dirt for a living. I play this”—she jiggled the large black case—“to relax. Tell your granddaughter not to forget the ketchup.”

  At four o’clock, dressed in clean olive-green pants and a khaki-colored camp shirt, her long hair freshly shampooed and drawn back in a smooth tail, Callie once again pulled to the shoulder of the site.

  She’d worked on her notes, had e-mailed a copy of them to Leo. On her way back, she’d dropped by the post office to express-mail him her undeveloped film.

  She slipped on little silver earrings with a Celtic design and had spent ten very intense minutes on her makeup.

  The camera crew was already setting up for the remote. Callie noted Lana Campbell was there as well, clutching the hand of a towheaded boy who had a scab on one knee, dirt on his chin and the kind of cherubic face that spelled trouble.

  Dolan, in his signature blue shirt and red suspenders, stood directly beside his business sign and was already talking to a woman Callie pegged as the reporter.

  She assumed he was Ronald Dolan because he didn’t look happy.

  The minute he spotted Callie, he broke off and marched toward her.

  “You Dunbrook?”

  “Dr. Callie Dunbrook.” She gave him a full-power smile. Callie had known some men to dissolve into a panting puddle when she used full power. Dolan appeared to be immune.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” He jabbed a finger at her chest, but fortunately for him didn’t make contact.

  “Local TV asked for an interview. I always try to cooperate. Mr. Dolan”—still smiling, she touched his arm as if they were compatriots—“you’re a very lucky man. The archaeological and anthropological communities are never going to forget your name. They’ll be teaching classes about your site for generations. I have a copy of my preliminary report here.”

  She held out a folder. “I’ll be happy to explain anything you don’t understand. I realize some of it’s pretty technical. Has a representative of the National History Museum at the Smithsonian contacted you yet?”

  “What?” He stared at the report as if she were handing him a live snake. “What?”

  “I just want to shake your hand.” She took his, pumped. “And thank you for your part in this incredible discovery.”

  “Now, you listen here—”

  “I’d love to take you, your wife and family out to dinner at the first opportunity.” She kept the smile in place, even boosted it with a couple of flutters of her lashes, while she steamrolled him. “But I’m afraid I’m going to be very busy for the next several weeks. Will you excuse me? I want to get this part over with.”

  She pressed a hand to her heart. “Talking on camera always makes me a little nervous.” She tied up the lie with a quick, breathless laugh. “If you have any questions, any at all about the report or the ones that follow, please ask either myself or Dr. Greenbaum. I’ll be spending most of my time right here, on-site. I won’t be hard to find.”

  He started to bluster again, but she hurried off to introduce herself to the camera crew.

  “Slick,” Lana murmured. “Very slick.”

  “Thanks.” She squatted down and studied the little boy. “Hi. You the reporter?”

  “No.” He giggled, and his mossy-green eyes twinkled with fun. “You’re gonna be on TV. Mommy said I could watch.”

  “Tyler, this is Dr. Dunbrook. She’s the scientist who studies old, old things.”

  “Bones and stuff,” Tyler declared. “Like Indiana Jones. How come you don’t have a whip like he does?”

  “I left it back at the motel.”

  “Okay. Did you ever see a dinosaur?”

  Callie figured he was getting his movies mixed up and winked at him. “I sure have. Dinosaur bones. But they’re not my specialty. I like human bones.” She gave his arm a testing squeeze. “I bet you’ve got some good ones. You have Mom bring you by sometime and I’ll let you dig. Maybe you’ll find som
e.”

  “Really? Can I? Really?” Overwhelmed, he danced on his Nikes, tugged on Lana’s hand. “Please?”

  “If Dr. Dunbrook says it’s okay. That’s nice of you,” she said to Callie.

  “I like kids,” Callie said as she rose. “They haven’t learned how to shut down to possibilities. I’m going to get this done.” She ran her hand over his sun-shot hair. “See you later, Ty-Rex.”

  Suzanne Cullen experimented with a new recipe. Her kitchen was equal parts science lab and homey haven. Once she’d baked because she enjoyed it and because it was something a housewife did. She’d often laughed over the suggestions that she open her own bakery.

  She was a wife, then a mother, not a businesswoman. She’d never aspired to a career outside the home.

  Then, she’d baked to escape her own pain. To give herself something to occupy her mind other than her own guilt and misery and fears.

  She’d buried herself in cookie dough and piecrusts and cake batter. And all in all, she’d found it a more effective therapy than all the counseling, all the prayers, all the public appearances.

  When her life, her marriage, her world had continued to fall apart, baking had been a constant. Suddenly, she had wanted more. She had needed more.

  Suzanne’s Kitchen had been born in an ordinary, even uninspired room in a neat little house a stone’s throw from the house where she grew up. She’d sold to local markets at first, and had done everything—the buying, the planning, the baking, the packaging and delivery—herself.

  Within five years, the demand had been great enough for her to hire help, to buy a van and to take her products countywide.

  Within ten, she’d gone national.

  Though she no longer did the baking herself, and the packaging, distribution and publicity were handled by various arms of her corporation, Suzanne still liked to spend time in her own kitchen, formulating new recipes.

  She lived in a big house snuggled well back on a rise and guarded from the road by woods. And she lived alone.

  Her kitchen was huge and sunny, with acres of bold blue counters, four professional ovens and two ruthlessly organized pantries. Its atrium doors led out to a slate patio and several theme gardens if she felt the need for fresh air. There was a cozy sofa and overstuffed chair near a bay window if she wanted to curl up, and a fully equipped computer center if she needed to note down a recipe or check one already in her files.

  The room was the largest of any in the house, and she could happily spend an entire day never leaving it.

  At fifty-two, she was a very rich woman who could have lived anywhere in the world, done anything she desired. She desired to bake and to live in the community of her birth.

  Though she had chosen the wall-screen TV for entertainment rather than music, she hummed as she whipped eggs and cream in a bowl.

  When she heard the five-thirty news come on, she stopped work long enough to pour herself a glass of wine. She sampled the filling she was mixing, closed her eyes and considered as she rolled the taste on her tongue.

  She added a tablespoon of vanilla. Mixed, sampled, approved. And noted the addition meticulously on her pad.

  She caught the mention of Woodsboro on the television and, picking up her wine, turned to see.

  She watched the pan of Main Street, smiling when she caught sight of her father’s store. There was another pan of the hills and fields outside of town, as the reporter spoke of the historic community.

  Interested now, certain the report would focus on the recent discovery near Antietam Creek, she wandered closer to the set. And nodded, knowing how pleased her father would be that the reporter spoke of the importance of the site, the excitement in the world of science at the possibilities to be unearthed there.

  She sipped, thinking she’d call her father as soon as the segment was over, and listened with half an ear as a Dr. Callie Dunbrook was introduced.

  When Callie’s face filled the screen, Suzanne blinked, stared. There was a burn at the back of her throat as she stepped still closer to the screen.

  Her heart began to thud, painfully, against her ribs as she looked into dark amber eyes under straight brows. Her skin went hot, then cold, and her breath grew short and choppy.

  She shook her head. Everything inside it was buzzing like a swarm of wasps. She couldn’t hear anything else, could only watch in shock as that wide mouth with its slight overbite moved.

  And when the mouth smiled, quick, bright, and three shallow dimples popped out, the glass in Suzanne’s hand slid out of her trembling fingers and shattered on the floor at her feet.

  Three

  Suzanne sat in the living room of the house where she’d grown up. Lamps she’d helped her mother pick out perhaps ten years before stood on doilies her grandmother had crocheted before she’d been born.

  The sofa was new. She’d had to browbeat her father into replacing the old one. The rugs had been taken up and stored for the summer, and summer sheers, dotted-swiss priscillas, replaced the winter drapes. Those housekeeping routines were something her mother had done every season, something her father continued to do simply because it was routine.

  Oh God, how she missed her mother.

  Her hands were clutched in her lap, white knuckles pressed hard against her belly as if she were protecting the child who’d once lived in her womb.

  Her face was a blank sheet, dull and colorless. It was as if she’d used up all her energy and strength to gather her family together. Now she was a sleepwalker, slipping between past and present.

  Douglas sat on the edge of a Barcalounger that was older than he was. He watched his mother out of the corner of his eye. She was still as stone, and seemed as removed from him as the moon.

  His stomach was as tight and tangled as his mother’s fingers.

  The air smelled of the cherry tobacco from his grandfather’s after-dinner pipe. A warm scent that always lingered there. With it was the cold yellow odor of his mother’s stress.

  It had a smell, a form, an essence that was strain and fear and guilt, and slapped him back into the terrible and helpless days of his childhood when that yellow smear on the air had permeated everything.

  His grandfather gripped the remote with one hand and kept his other on Suzanne’s shoulder, as if to hold her in place.

  “I didn’t want to miss the segment,” Roger said, then cleared his throat. “Asked Doug to run home here and set the VCR as soon as Lana told me about it. Didn’t watch it yet.”

  He’d made tea. His wife had made tea, always, for sickness and upsets. The sight of the white pot with its little rosebuds comforted him, as the crocheted doilies did, and the sheer summer curtains. “Doug watched it.”

  “Yes, I watched it. It’s cued up.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Play it, Daddy.” Suzanne’s voice hitched, and beneath her father’s hand, her body came to life again, and trembled. “Play it now.”

  “Mom, you don’t want to get yourself all worked up about—”

  “Play it.” She turned her head, stared at her son with eyes that were red-rimmed and a bit wild. “Just look.”

  Roger started the tape. The hand on Suzanne’s shoulder began to knead.

  “Fast-forward through—here.” Energy whipped back, had Suzanne snatching the remote, fumbling with the buttons. She slowed the tape to regular speed when Callie’s face came on-screen. “Look at her. God. Oh my God.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Roger murmured. Like a prayer.

  “You see it.” Suzanne dug her fingers into his leg, but didn’t take her attention off the screen. Couldn’t. “You see it. It’s Jessica. It’s my Jessie.”

  “Mom.” Douglas’s heart ached at the way she said it. My Jessie. “She’s got the coloring, but . . .Jesus, that lawyer, Grandpa. Lana. She looks as much like Jessie might as this woman does. Mom, you can’t know.”

  “I can know,” she snapped out. “Look at her. Look!” She stabbed the remote, froze the screen as Callie smiled. “She
has her father’s eyes. She has Jay’s eyes—the same color, the same shape. And my dimples. Three dimples, like me. Like Ma had. Daddy . . .”

  “There’s a strong resemblance.” Roger felt weak when he said