The Breath of Dawn

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “Okay.” He held out a sheet of paper. “Here.”

  “What’s this?” She read the heading, a trip itinerary and confirmation number. For a minute she thought he’d planned their foreign wedding, then noticed the destination. Dallas. And the date. “Tomorrow?”

  “RaeAnne will meet you at the airport. You’ll stay at her house, get your business done and have a little fun, then fly back on Monday morning.”

  She’d all but forgotten Vera’s journal and the pieces of jewelry. She hadn’t agreed to fly anything to RaeAnne, but seeing her, giving her the journal, would be awesome. And it would take her mind off Morgan.

  “Out and back in three days,” he said softly. “No hassle.”

  “You obviously haven’t flown lately.” Neither had she, but she’d heard. “RaeAnne’s up for it?”

  “She’s ecstatic.”

  That forced a smile. “Okay. I’ll do it.” She relinquished the shovel and opened her truck door.

  “Need a ladder for that thing?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  He stepped back as she climbed into the truck. Yeah, it was a climb, but she didn’t require a ladder. And for a man who was no more than five eleven or so, he was pretty mouthy about her stature. He stood beside his own vehicle as she started her sluggish engine.

  Casting a glance out the window, she said, “Please tell the professor good-bye. And thank Noelle.”

  He raised a hand in farewell as she backed into the plowed area. The drive home was not difficult, snow melting on the streets as though it had only been kidding. She pulled into her mushy driveway and parked. Varied emotions held a caucus in her head. Had she imagined the horror in the cellar? Dr. Jenkins felt—or admitted—nothing. The stories had disturbed her, and maybe she had worked herself into a spook—like telling ghost tales in the firelight.

  At any rate, she was home, except her house had shrunk. After the massive log walls and soaring ceiling of Noelle and Rick’s, her A-frame seemed an overgrown tent. She climbed the steep stairs, dropped onto her back on the bed, arms splayed, and stared at her peaked ceiling. In a while she’d get to work, but at that moment she needed to process everything.

  Her cell phone rang. Warily, she pulled it out. The same number as the texted threat filled the screen. She hit End, then coded in the carrier and told them she needed a new number. It pained her to think one of three loved ones had given her old number to Hannah. They had to have known she’d give it to Markham. Or maybe they didn’t realize the hold he still had.

  She couldn’t believe they would betray her—though, after everything, they might say the same of her. She had, by extension, testified against her own father. She had brought the ceiling crashing down upon the heads of everyone she knew. It was only a matter of time before her own head felt the blow.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Teeth clenched, Markham hung up. He could send another text, but he was through with threats. It was time for action. Hannah had given him a trail to follow, a fruitful trail—as it turned out—with a solid destination. The rabbit hadn’t hopped very far. For the first time ever, he felt the anticipation of the hunt, though the word sent a liquid feeling to his legs.

  Against his will, he recalled days when a shotgun blasting squirrels meant meat in the pot. Not his gun, though. He’d been too sensitive, so they left him to skin and gut. Punishment for compassion. Blood on his hands. Its stench in his nostrils, its shame on his soul, shame he felt to this day. But he’d learned to use a knife.

  He wrenched his thoughts back. He was not a violent man. He had intelligence. He had charm. He had sincerity that made men weep. He didn’t need vulgar tools to bend the wills of others. He needed nothing but himself—once he got what belonged to him from Quinn.

  Traffic had been snarled by a rollover accident, a semi caught by high winds, and Quinn arrived at the airport certain she’d be told to forget even trying to board her plane. Instead, the woman processed her respectfully and directed her to security, where she was channeled into a column that had no one in line, given a cursory security scan, and directed to her gate.

  After the hellish highway, it felt miraculous. At the gate, she was greeted and escorted onto the plane, where they seated her in a form-fitting recliner in the section she hardly knew existed—first class. She dropped her head back, recalling Morgan’s smile when he’d said no hassle. He was unreal, not simply that he had the means, but also the inclination, to make her trip as seamless as possible. It made her heart hurt.

  That feeling dissolved the moment RaeAnne met her with a huge hug. “I just can’t believe you did this. You and Morgan. I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m having a hard time myself.”

  “When he called to ask if you’d sent the journal, then told me what he intended, I knew he was a man who gets things done.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Car’s right here.” RaeAnne bustled her into her Camry. “Morgan must have emphasized fourteen times to be here when you walked out.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said he wanted it ‘hassle free.’”

  Quinn shifted in her seat.

  “You want to tell me what’s up between you?”

  “Between us? Nothing.”

  RaeAnne cast her a dubious look.

  “He’s not normal, you know.”

  “Sugar, he makes normal as dull as pancakes without syrup.”

  Quinn fiddled with the bag that held Vera’s journal and the jewelry. “You’re getting your things, and that’s what matters.”

  “I can’t wait. There must be something worthwhile in the journal, if she hid it in the cellar like that.”

  “That’s what I thought. She kept everything, but she squirreled away the things that mattered.”

  “The locket alone meant the world to me.” RaeAnne wove into traffic. “But now maybe I’ll understand why.”

  “Not a bad-looking man, your dad.”

  “I know! Can you believe it? I mean, Mom did some stage work, but he looks like a star.”

  Quinn studied the woman beside her, hair the color of the blond lock saved with the photo. “Think he swept her off her feet?”

  RaeAnne’s shoulders rose and fell. “I hope it’s in the journal. I really do.”

  “The way she kept it secret, there might have been a bad end.”

  RaeAnne nodded soberly. “I’ve assumed that my whole life. Anything else will be a blessing.” She merged onto an interstate highway and settled back. “We have an hour on here, this time of day. Want to read it to me?”

  “Seriously?”

  “I can’t wait until we get home.”

  Laughing softly, Quinn pulled the journal out of her bag, more than a little curious herself. Still, she paused a moment, before entering Vera’s private world.

  “Go on. Read.”

  And so she read.

  “The thoughts and dreams of Veronica Greenwald.”

  RaeAnne sighed audibly.

  “I want to make one thing clear. What goes in here, stays in here.”

  Quinn looked up. “Does that mean we shouldn’t read it?”

  “It means she kept it to herself long enough.”

  Feeling as though she had a duty to both of them, Quinn went on respectfully.

  “I have never claimed to take the conventional path. Nor have I wandered through a rose garden. What ways I traveled in this life are my own, for good or ill.”

  Quinn turned to RaeAnne. “Sounds like she wrote this later on, as a memoir, not a diary.”

  “I hope she’ll tell the truth.”

  “She has no reason not to, if no one was meant to see it.”

  “True.” RaeAnne nodded. “Go on, please.”

  Quinn turned the page.

  “My dreams as a girl were like any young lady of my time. Fall in love, raise a family. But then I discovered theater. Oh, what a howl everyone put up, and they were right, as eventually every one of their concerns came to pass. Bu
t I’m old now, and I don’t regret the lights, the curtains, the thrill of opening night. I was never the star I wanted to be, but I had my share of accolades. And I had Raymond.”

  RaeAnne jerked the car. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Now you know your dad’s name. And I’m thinking it was more than a one-night stand.”

  RaeAnne’s chin trembled. “Makes me wonder if I knew my mom at all.”

  Quinn gave her the silence of her grief.

  “I never knew the rest of the family that well. We didn’t spend much time with them. I don’t think Mom really fit, and I doubt anyone changed her mind about anything. I guess I wouldn’t be here if they had.” A tear formed in the corner of her eye.

  “Want to read the rest privately?”

  RaeAnne sniffed. “I’d like you to go on. You seem part of this somehow.”

  Quinn read on, page after page about Vera’s first awkward auditions, people she met, advice she received—good and bad and some meanspirited.

  “My hips were big, my bosom small, but I had talent. It was not a career for the weakhearted, but I wanted it. How I wanted it.”

  Such a clear voice. Vera came alive on the pages, jumping out to sit with them and share her story in raw detail. Quinn read without pausing, but still they reached RaeAnne’s house without another word about the mysterious Raymond.

  RaeAnne showed her to a guest room done in china-blue chintz. “You’d get to meet my husband, John Carter, but he’s traveling for work. Anyway, it’s good. We can have girl time.”

  After all the time spent with men lately, that would be a joy.

  “While you freshen up, I’ll get us something to eat. The way they starve people on flights these days is a crime.”

  “Actually I had a full meal. Morgan sent me first class. In fact it might have been some VIP first class I’ve never even heard of.”

  “O-o-oh.” RaeAnne packed three notes into the single syllable.

  “It’s probably the way he travels all the time.”

  RaeAnne nodded knowingly.

  “It’s not what you think.” She set her overnight bag on the trunk at the foot of the bed. “He wants me to work for him.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Domestic. Maybe helping with Livie. That’s his little girl.”

  “Oh.”

  Quinn laughed. “Stop that. He’s not looking for love.” He’d made that so very clear.

  “I wonder what his story is.”

  Quinn stared out the window, wishing she didn’t. “He hasn’t offered. And I’m not asking.”

  “But you would sort of like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m not sure. Sometimes the less you know, the better.” If she’d gotten this connected knowing next to nothing, how dumb would it be to learn more?

  “That is almost never true. Take it from me.”

  “Once you learn something, you can’t unlearn it.”

  “Well.” RaeAnne tucked her purse onto a table in the hall. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Something to drink, if you have it.”

  “Oh, I have lots. Come see what you like.”

  Quinn followed her through a kitchen with navy calico curtains and shiny red-and-white backsplash tiles. There could be no more evidence of their dissimilarity than RaeAnne’s decorating—not that it was awful, only vastly different. She chose a flavored tea from the fridge in the garage off the kitchen that held only drinks and said, “Ready to tackle the journal?”

  “Absolutely. I’m all for knowing.”

  They laughed. “I guess you don’t need me to read.”

  “No, but I kind of like it. You have a theatrical voice yourself.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “No, really. It’s nice to listen to.”

  “All right.” They settled into her china-blue living room. Quinn found her place in Vera’s story.

  “I’ll never forget the production of Oklahoma! where I first laid eyes on Raymond.”

  She looked across at RaeAnne sitting rigidly. “This is it, I guess.”

  RaeAnne pressed a hand to her mouth. “Don’t mind me if I blubber.”

  “He sang Curly, and I had only the part of Aunt Eller, but we were love struck from the first rehearsal, even though he was sixteen years younger than I.”

  RaeAnne pressed a hand to her chest. “What?”

  After double-checking that she’d read it right, Quinn looked up. “That’s not unheard of.”

  “It is in my world. Sixteen years? My mother, the cougar!”

  It was kind of shocking, but Quinn shrugged. “They fell in love.”

  “Sure, but . . . maybe that’s why she never told me. Do you think that’s it?”

  “You’re pretty scandalized.”

  “All this time I imagined a . . . I don’t know, age-appropriate man. She was thirty-six when she had me. He must have been twenty. Don’t tell me that’s normal.”

  “Maybe he made normal as dull as pancakes without syrup.”

  RaeAnne laughed, but it was more of a croak. “I don’t think you’d be as cavalier if it was your mother.”

  Quinn pictured the wispy woman who’d married a minister. If there had been a dream in her mother beyond that, she’d never heard it. Her father had dreams, though. They’d made him ripe for picking. “Should I go on?”

  “I don’t know.” RaeAnne gripped her hands. “I can’t stop thinking my dad’s only twenty years older than I am.”

  “Lots of people can say that.”

  “But my mom was almost forty.”

  “Well, that’s a . . . discrepancy. On the bright side, your dad’s in his sixties.”

  “Oh my goodness.” She collapsed back into the couch. “He might still be alive.”

  Quinn let that sink in. RaeAnne had obviously not been thinking in those terms. Understandably disquieting. “Do you know the theater where she performed Oklahoma!?”

  “I have all her playbills. They were tucked neatly in a drawer.”

  Go figure. “Then you could find your dad’s name.”

  RaeAnne rocked her head back and forth. “This is too much. I’m a church lady. I know there’s a right way and a wrong way of things. It’s bad enough they didn’t marry—now this. What am I supposed to do?”

  “You don’t have to do anything. You’d simply know.”

  “You’re right. Oh my goodness.” She gripped her head. “I’m so glad you brought it in person. I’d just die if I read all this myself, without John Carter here.”

  Quinn smiled. “Not sure what I can do that helps, but I am here.”

  The rest of the journal told of a short, sad infatuation. Raymond had risen as Vera’s star waned. He was gone before his daughter arrived. No wonder she never told the tale.

  “Well, I guess that settles that,” RaeAnne said. “Why would I want to meet him?”

  “On the other hand, it’s been forty years, give or take. He might have regrets of his own.”

  RaeAnne shook her head. “I am so in need of chocolate. Let’s bake brownies.”

  Quinn laughed. “The cure for anything.” Especially RaeAnne’s concoction, a Ghirardelli mix into which she threw two handfuls of extra chips. They literally melted in their mouths.

  After that comfort, they studied the odd pieces of jewelry Quinn had found hidden in the clothes. It was a good assumption the ring had also come from Raymond, so RaeAnne added it to the lot. She picked up the pin. “Mom loved butterflies. This would have meant a lot, even if it’s only glass.”

  “It could be aquamarine.”

  “Sort of looks like something a young man would pick out.”

  Quinn smiled at RaeAnne’s earnest face as she tried to come to terms with all she had learned.

  “This has been one amazingly strange day,” RaeAnne summed up.

  At least the strange belonged to someone else for a change. And that reminded her. “Did your mom ever mention something scary in her house?�
�

  “Scary like ghosts?”

  “I guess.”

  “Not that I remember. Why?”

  “Seems like the place might have a few.”

  “Ghosts are like husbands,” RaeAnne joked. “They show up when they want and make a lot of noise, then disappear when you need them.” She spent the next few hours telling stories of floods and tornadoes and all the mayhem that only struck when John Carter was on the road.

  After a whirlwind of laughing too hard and eating too much, Quinn left a dear friend in Dallas.

  “Where’s Queen?” Livie asked for the fourteenth time in an hour. They stood out in the yard on the hot post-Thanksgiving Monday that could have been May instead of November. Fifty degrees at least. Rick took advantage of the temperature shift and the melted snow to exercise the stock. “Where’s Queen, Daddy?”

  “She went flying in an airplane.” He pointed across the yard. “What’s Uncle Rick doing?”

  “Riding a horsey.”

  “Yep. And I bet he wants to take you along.”

  Circling just close enough to hear, Rick glanced over. “Want a ride, Livie?”

  Morgan hoisted her between Rick and the saddle horn, thankful for the time he’d get without her asking for Quinn. According to the information online, the flight had landed in its morning time slot, and she was either finishing the two-hour drive or home already. He hadn’t asked her to call but should have, because while he’d given her his number and memorized the number of the jerk harassing her, he hadn’t gotten hers.

  He could count on one finger the times he’d failed to get the phone number of a woman who mattered even fractionally as much as Quinn. The oversight unsettled him. It was like fumbling the first play of the game. Not that this was a game, certainly not to Quinn. And not to him. Not to the player on Monday night football either. When you were in the business of results, you didn’t drop the ball.

  He’d be flying out next week for the Belcorp consultation and wanted resolution with Quinn before he left. Maybe she would contact Noelle. Or Noelle could contact her. On that thought, he went inside.