Keepsake

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Afterward, they lay in bed under the covers. Olivia was propped on an elbow with her leg thrown over Quinn's as she twisted the hairs on his chest idly around her finger.

  "Take me with you," she said.

  He stared at the ceiling. "Not on your life."

  "Quinn, why not? They won't open the door if you show up alone. Believe me about that. My uncle is eccentric, a recluse. If I'm with you, at least you'll get inside the house."

  Quinn rolled his head in her direction and smiled wearily. "You never give up, do you?"

  "I've never learned how to."

  Nor had she ever learned how to stick out her lower lip and pout prettily to get what she wanted. Or how to use tears. Or, God forbid, the silent treatment. Olivia's basic philosophy in life was that if you had logic on your side—especially if you were talking to a man—then you would prevail.

  So why wouldn't Quinn let her prevail? That's what had her so stumped.

  "Come on, work with me here," she said lightly, yanking on one of his chest hairs.

  "Ouch. Stop. No. You're not coming with me."

  "Qui-inn," she wailed, trying to win by whining after all. "You're being irrational, and it isn't like you. I think I've made my case. I've come around completely to your side. I believe that you should propose the DNA testing to my aunt and uncle. I know that you'll be delicate about it, and I know how much it means to you to vindicate your father. I know how much you loved him. Much more," she confessed, "than I love my own father, ashamed as I am to admit it."

  Quinn looked startled by the remark, and very interested. Oddly, she would have called his look hopeful. "You don't love your father?" he asked.

  "Of course I do. But there's love ... and there's love. And let's face it: I've never forgiven my dad for not offering me a job in the mill and generally for favoring Rand over me."

  She sighed and said, "My feelings for my dad are based more on respect and—I wouldn't go so far as to call it a sense of obligation; more a sense of rightness. It's right that you should love your family. It's really sad if you don't, or can't. I'm not saying that people don't have valid reasons for being estranged from members of their families," she added thoughtfully. "I'm just saying that you lose some of who you are when that happens, and it's too bad."

  Quinn said, "Do you feel that way about your mother?"

  "Mom? Oh, no. I love her unconditionally. It's so easy."

  "What about your brother?" he said softly. "What about Rand?"

  "Ah—that one's more complicated. As you know, Rand gets under my skin a lot. And there are things about him that—I have to admit—I don't admire. He's hot-tempered. He's egotistical. He sulks. He has no ambition. But deep down he's all right. And more than that, he's my twin. There's a bond there that I can't explain. You really have to be a twin to understand."

  "Whereas I don't even have siblings."

  "Which is really too bad, because I'm doing a lousy job of explaining this, aren't I?" Olivia said, laughing softly and flopping over on her back. "I think I'm more visual than I am verbal."

  Quinn took advantage of the remark to murmur, "You're a sight for sore eyes, I agree." Bracing himself on his elbow, he lowered his head to hers for a kiss.

  "Wait, wait," she said, slipping her fingers between his lips and hers.

  He sighed. "Who says you're not verbal?"

  "Before you wipe out my short-term memory with a kiss, I really, really would like to get this business of my aunt and uncle resolved."

  He didn't look melancholy anymore. He didn't even look surprised. He looked annoyed.

  "It is resolved. I go. You don't."

  "That's a bad decision. I must urge you to reconsider, sir," she said, trying to keep her tone charming.

  "No! And you know what? You can be a real pain in the butt." Scowling, he opened his mouth to say something more, then thought better of it and rolled away from her.

  It stung. She had never seen him so tense, so dark. It was disheartening. They'd grown up together and she thought she knew him inside out. True, he could be fierce and competitive. But this—she didn't know what to call it. Hostility? Bitterness? This was new.

  She was completely convinced that she was right and he was wrong. How could he not see that if she went with him to her Aunt Betty and Uncle Rupert, his job would be easier? All she could do was hope that he'd come to his senses and change his mind before lunchtime tomorrow, which was when he implied that he was going to try seeing her aunt and uncle.

  Olivia sighed, loud and mournfully. When she got no response, she switched off the brass lamp on her nightstand and curled up, facing away from him. The second sigh that escaped her was much more private and much more painful than the one she'd let out for his benefit. The second sigh hurt. She lay curled alone for a long time, with that sigh stuck in her throat, before dropping off to sleep.

  ****

  Mrs. Dewsbury was upstairs, tired and happy and soaking her dentures, when a thundering crash sent her jumping through her woolen bathrobe.

  The mirror! was her single, dismayed thought. I knew it was too heavy to hang on that hook. He should have listened to me.

  Convinced that the heavy gilded frame had fallen on her Portuguese soup tureen and had left a hideous dent in her mahogany sideboard, she left her teeth fizzing in their glass and made her way down the stairs by the light of the bathroom to assess the damage.

  He seemed so sure about hanging it that way. Why didn't the boy listen to me?

  At the foot of the stairs she turned on the light, expecting the worst. She was surprised to see the mirror still hanging peacefully above the sideboard, just where Quinn had hung it.

  That's odd. That's very odd. What else could it have been?

  Instinctively she swung her gaze toward the next breakable object in the room. Her wonderful high-tech miracle, the bright new window into her old world of books, had been smashed to atoms. She stared in shock at the gaping hole that used to be a closed-circuit television. The pain was as sharp as if someone had driven a stake through her own eye.

  And then came a sudden pain at the back of her head, and it was far more sharp and far more real than anything she could ever have imagined. After that, her sensations were neither sharp nor real. She felt nothing. Nothing at all.

  Chapter 18

  The jangle of the phone ripped Olivia from her troubled dreams. She groped for the light, then for the receiver. It was nearly midnight.

  A faint moan on the other end seemed to be some kid's version of fun. It was creaky, trembly, a pale specter of real speech—a little prankster's idea of a ghost.

  "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number," Olivia said, irritated that her heart had been sent careening for nothing. She was in the process of hanging up when she heard, or thought she heard, the name "Quinn."

  She brought the receiver back to her ear. "Who is this?" she asked sharply.

  "Miz ... Dewsbuh ... Qui..."

  "Mrs. Dewsbury? What's wrong?"

  Quinn tore the phone from Olivia's grip. "I'll be right there," he said after listening for a scant second or two. He hung up and dialed 911 and in a few terse phrases directed an ambulance to the widow's house on Elm.

  By the time he got off the phone, Olivia was dressed. "I'll start your truck and bring it around," she said, grabbing his keys from the dresser.

  She was through the bedroom door before he could object. Outside, she brought the truck to a screeching halt alongside him and slid over to the passenger side as he climbed in, pushed the seat back and took off.

  You should belt, she wanted to insist, because now she was thinking thoughts of death. Instead she forced herself to say calmly, "What happened?"

  "Someone hit her from behind. God, I'm going to get you all killed," Quinn muttered through clenched teeth.

  Was that a promise? He was driving like a fiend. Bracing herself with a furtive grip on the door, Olivia said, "Why did Mrs. Dewsbury call me instead of 911?"

  "I programmed your
number on her speed dial. All she had to do was hit the number one."

  That was the entire conversation en route to Mrs. Dewsbury's house.

  By the time they reached Elm Street, the ambulance had arrived and the paramedics were trying the front and back doors. Olivia ran instinctively to the side of the house that she saw was sheltered from its neighbors by a row of towering hedges. Yes—an open window.

  She climbed through the narrow window, one of the side openings of a walk-out bay, and found herself standing in the dining room across from Mrs. Dewsbury, who was sitting in a chair by the phone with her head drooped forward over her chest. Quinn had apparently let in the paramedics with his key. One of the them was tending to the widow while the other was laying out the stretcher.

  Olivia was dismayed to see that the old woman didn't seem able to speak. Dazed and shaking her head, she kept waving the three men away. Her gaze was glassy-eyed—until she saw Olivia standing across from her. Then she seemed to snap into focus.

  Weakly, she beckoned Olivia to her side as the paramedics continued to hover over her, trying to take her vital signs. She clutched feebly at Olivia's jacket and pulled her closer.

  Olivia rested her hand lightly on the stricken woman's back as she bent down to hear. "Yes, Mrs. Dewsbury?"

  "My teesh," said the widow. She pointed a finger straight up.

  "Your—? Ah. I'll get them and bring them to the hospital," said Olivia, divining the widow's concern.

  Mrs. Dewsbury gave her a trembling smile that started tears rolling down her withered, pale cheeks. Olivia left her to Quinn and the paramedics and ran up the stairs and into the bathroom. She grabbed the glass with the dentures in it, intending to turn it upside down to drain.

  That's when she saw that her hand was smeared with blood.

  ****

  They were keeping Mrs. Dewsbury, despite her objections, overnight for observation. The staff physician at Eastwood Community Hospital seemed more impressed with the widow's iron skull than with her iron will.

  "I doubt that there's a concussion, but I want to be sure; she seems a little disoriented," Dr. Tann told Quinn. "I don't know whether that's in character or not."

  "It's not," said Quinn.

  "She's not very happy about staying here, which isn't unusual with the elderly," the physician explained. "They like to be in familiar surroundings."

  "Who doesn't?" Quinn snapped. He was incredibly tense. "What about all the blood?"

  "It looked worse than it was; she didn't even need stitches. Any idea what was used for the blow?"

  "Yes," said Olivia. "A dictionary. We found it on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Mrs. Dewsbury is a retired English teacher; she'll be amused."

  The physician smiled wryly and said, "I doubt it. She's too upset about some television that got smashed."

  "Can we see her?"

  "No. Tomorrow's soon enough. I understand that she has a son in New Hampshire—but he's on vacation in Curacao with his family?"

  "That's right," said Quinn. "He's due back at the end of the week. Should I try to get in touch with him now?"

  "She's already said that she'd rather call him in the morning, which is reasonable. However, assuming there are no complications and she gets discharged, I'd still prefer that someone keep an eye on her for a while. When her family returns, maybe she can stay with her son, since his wife is available during the day. It's too bad," he added, "that Mrs. Dewsbury lives alone. She's at an age—"

  "When her independence means everything to her," Quinn finished up. "She needs to hold on to the house; she was born in it."

  "Be that as it may, she's eighty-one years old. She's in reasonable health but her vision is poor," Dr. Tann said, shaking his head. "Her days of living alone are winding down."

  "We'll see," Quinn said coolly.

  Olivia was touched by Quinn's fierce loyalty to his old teacher. For someone who'd had virtually no family of his own—but maybe that was why.

  Quinn seemed more tight-lipped than ever as he said, "When exactly will she be released?"

  "If her signs are stable she can go home tomorrow mid-morning."

  "I'll be here."

  The physician left Quinn and Olivia alone in the tiny visitors' room, a dreary cubicle with a small TV mounted on a wall above a bistro table that held an assortment of ragged, outdated magazines.

  Suddenly the long night caught up with Olivia: the midnight dash through deserted streets, the shock of seeing an elderly woman assaulted in her own dining room, the lingering tension between Quinn and Olivia over something as trivial as whether or not she should go with him to her Uncle Rupert's house.

  "Quinn," she said, humbled by circumstances, "I'm so sorry."

  "For what?" he said bitterly. "You didn't knock her down."

  The barely repressed rage in his voice didn't surprise Olivia. "You think it's the same man," she said, aware of the new burden of guilt he was feeling.

  "Gee. I wonder why," Quinn answered. He walked up to the double window that looked out at a parking lot. His hands were jammed in the back of his jeans as he stared, not at the boring view, but at the windowsill, working through his wretchedness.

  "We'll get this creep," she said. "This isn't about torn capes and dead rats anymore. Chief Vickers will take the case seriously, now that someone's been hurt. I wish I hadn't come in through the window, though," she added, aware that she'd trampled over the crime scene in her zeal to reach Mrs. Dewsbury.

  There was no response. After a pause, Olivia began to get frustrated. "You act so paralyzed. You act as if everything's hopeless," she said, trying to get a rise out of him.

  His response was surprisingly subdued, and that alarmed her even more than it frustrated her. "You don't have the whole picture," he said without turning around.

  "What parts of it don't I have, Quinn?"

  He shook his head.

  Weary of his continued refusal to confide in her, she glared at his broad back and said, "Sooner or later I'm going to figure it all out for myself, you know."

  "God help us, then," he said softly.

  "Damn it, Quinn!" She said it so sharply that a passing nurse stuck her head in the room and shushed her.

  Embarrassed that she had had to be reprimanded, Olivia said in a well-mannered hiss, "This is all your fault. You're acting as covert as a double agent."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Well, what do we do now? Sit here reading Time and People till morning? I already know who won the last election."

  He turned. She was shocked to see his face. There was agony there, and guilt, but also a sense of menace. He was ready to annihilate someone.

  "I'll take you home," he said, scooping up his jacket.

  She folded her arms across her sweatshirt. "Absolutely not. I'm going back with you to Mrs. Dewsbury's house. I want to be there when you call the police."

  "That's nuts. It's the middle of the night."

  "I'm a witness—and maybe even an accessory," she said, digging in. "I stepped all over any footprints under the bay window when I climbed inside the house. It's better that they get my statement now than have to chase me down later."

  He sighed and said, "Fine. At least I'll be able to keep my eye on you. Let's go."

  She grabbed her parka and fell in step beside him as he headed for the elevator. "And then tomorrow we'll tackle the other problem," she announced as they passed the nurses' station. "Our visit to my aunt and uncle."

  "No, Olivia! Jesus! How many times do I have to tell you!"

  "Shhhh!"

  ****

  The good news was that Mrs. Dewsbury did not seem intimidated by the attack of the night before, despite a morning interrogation by Chief Vickers. The bad news was, she had developed a distressing tendency to lose her train of thought somewhere in the middle of a sentence.

  "They're keeping me in this blessed place another whole day," said Mrs. Dewsbury, and Dr. Tann was right: She wasn't very happy about it.

  "Did
they say why?" asked Olivia. They knew of the delay, of course, which explained the small travel bag that Olivia was unpacking.

  "Oh, I don't know. Something about my blood press—is it cold in here?"

  Quinn, who was already half prostrate from the heat in the room, said, "I'll have a nurse turn up the thermostat." He ducked outside and when he returned, Olivia was helping Mrs. Dewsbury into a chenille bedjacket that she had found on the bedpost in the widow's bedroom. Olivia had grabbed other things, too, odd little luxuries: a brush, soft tissues, lotions, a bag of lozenges from the nightstand, and—for the doctor to see—medication for high blood pressure. Quinn was afraid that Mrs. Dewsbury would take offense at Olivia's liberties.

  Not in the least.

  "You're such a dear ... so thoughtful ... this is exactly what I needed."

  Olivia threw Quinn a superior look and said, "Men simply don't understand that these things matter."

  "What was I doing with this?" the widow said, staring at the brush in her hand as if it were a garden rake.

  "You wanted me to run it through your hair for you," Olivia answered without missing a beat.

  She took the brush and combed Mrs. Dewsbury's white hair, which looked to Quinn just about the same afterward as it did when they walked in, but the women seemed to think it was an improvement. After that, Olivia freshened the water in the drinking pitcher and moved Quinn's flowers to a more prominent spot.

  Finally, when Mrs. Dewsbury looked reasonably comfortable and at ease with them, Quinn got down to business.

  "How did your son take the news of all this?" was the first thing on his mind.

  "I ... haven't called him," Mrs. Dewsbury admitted sheepishly.

  "The nurse didn't give you the number of the Windward Hotel? I called it in."

  "She gave it to me."

  "And you're having trouble getting an international call through the hospital's phone system? It can be confusing. Why don't I—?"

  "It's silly to ruin Gerald's vacation," she said, fussing nervously with the sheet laid over her lap. "He gets so little time away. I don't want to be a bother."