by Celia Ashley
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yes, it is.” She reached into the console and drew out a pen in order to write on a narrow slip of paper, a receipt maybe. “Here’s my number.”
He tucked the paper into his breast pocket, a small shock running through his body when he felt the surface of the Tarot card beneath his fingertips. Driving the rest of the way in silence, he only spoke again when he’d pulled into the department lot beside a car with out-of-state plates. “This yours?”
“Yep.” Before he’d put his own car in park, she flung open the door and climbed out with a nod. “We’ll talk later?”
“Yeah. Later.”
Through the rearview mirror, he watched her pull out of the lot and turn left. He’d gotten most of the numbers from her plate, but not all. He was curious if the registered address would match up to her license. Hell, he was curious about anything related to Maris Granger. She intrigued him. That wasn’t an easy thing to do.
It also felt distinctly dangerous.
Chapter 5
She’d lied. Then again, so had he. Did that make them well-matched? She doubted it. Survival. Preservation. These alone made liars and hypocrites of most men and women in this world. Dan Stauffer had his own secrets to protect, and she had hers. So be it.
Even so, the key lay heavy on her palm with the weight of another untruth. She flipped it around in her fingers until it faced the correct way for insertion into the knob. With a glance over her shoulder in both directions, Maris pushed the key into the lock and turned it, the sound of grinding tumblers loud in the predawn hour. When she’d rushed from her home, she’d made no plan, had no place to stay. All these years, the key tucked away safe in her diary now opened a refuge from the chill September night.
Inside, she leaned her back against the door until she felt the plunger catch. She turned the latch on the knob and waited in the darkness until her eyes had grown accustomed, lingering still longer as she listened to the not-quite silence. People always referred to an empty house as silent, but it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Fluctuations in temperature made floors creak, wind against loosened frames rattled glass. A clock’s second hand ticked quietly, shifting papers whispered in a draft, even the stubborn drop of water clinging on a faucet’s lip might suddenly succumb to gravity to splatter in a sink. She’d been living alone for far too long to jump at every little sound. But then there were the others, from a world beyond her own. It was those she listened for now, breath held, eyes wide and staring into a blackness growing ever brighter as her vision adjusted.
Nothing.
Surprised, she made her way across the foyer and through the parlor, skirting Aunt Alva’s table. She climbed the stairs to the second floor and paused outside the room she remembered as being her Aunt Alva’s bedroom. She studied the dim shapes of the bed with its ruffled coverlet, the curtains, the curved edges of the ornate, period furnishings. Not antiques to Aunt Alva, of course. To Aunt Alva this was all she’d ever known, as familiar and comfortable as a pair of well-worn shoes. Standing in the doorway, Maris drew a long, slow breath through her nose. She closed her eyes. After all these years, the smell of the room was exactly the same. Memory rushed in on the mingled scents of lavender and the oil of some sweet and resinous fruitwood.
She took a single step over the threshold and brought her other foot to rest beside the first as she contemplated the shadows. Empty, the shadows. Nothing waited for her here.
“Aunt Alva, where have you gone? I thought to find you here still.”
Maris’s voice echoed along the smooth, polished surfaces, across the walls covered in watered silk paper. Age undisturbed held a special magic all its own. Barriers to the past were thin indeed.
The carefully made bed looked soft and comfortable. Alva had been the type of woman to make her bed every morning. The fact she had continued to do so, climbing up and down the stairs daily at her venerable age, amazed Maris. A spunky lady, Alva Mabry. Maris remembered that much, too.
Of course, Alva might have had paid help at this point, or a kind and conscientious neighbor stopping by to lend a hand. Maris knew nothing of her great-aunt’s life since the schism twenty years ago. She herself had been entering puberty at that time, an important period for a girl with her heritage, a time of change and growing power, a transformation from the sparse gifts of youth.
You will know your art soon, Maris. You have only to listen to what is inside of you.
But she’d never gotten the chance. At least not with the guidance Alva had promised her. Maris’s mother, fearful of the gifts of the women in her husband’s family, had insisted he take a job far away. God, what a battle had ensued. The family had scattered and stayed apart. All of them.
Yet, she’d gotten the impression tonight from Dan Stauffer that Alva was considered something of a quack these days. Women like her often were by those who didn’t believe or who had interacted with a charlatan and judged all by that experience. However, the sign out front was evidence, at least, of a successful business, no matter what Dan had said.
Understanding she had waited too long to renew her relationship with her elderly aunt pained her, and the strange energy she felt from Dan Stauffer still clung to her like the perfume to his shirt and caused a churning in her stomach. That man definitely had secrets. They circled around him like half-seen vultures awaiting a meal. For someone like that to so adamantly deny the otherness in this world confounded her. But he wasn’t her problem. He couldn’t be. Not a problem, not an interest, but a means to an end. Alva had pointed her in his direction for a reason. Maris hoped for more than warmth and rest in her aunt’s home. She hoped to find out why.
Abandoning Alva’s bedroom, Maris continued down the hall. Years ago, the two rooms on the opposite side of the corridor had been used for sewing and for guests, respectively. That guest had usually been Maris, in a room made special for her. No one else caught on to the fact that Alva had created the space to celebrate Maris’s gifts, but Maris and Alva knew. Most likely the room had been given over to storage as time went by. It didn’t seem probable that Alva had many guests come to visit, and certainly not family.
Guilt cut through Maris like a knife to the soul. How could she have let this happen? In the beginning, Maris had written letters to Alva, but one day Alva had written back to her No more. The woman may as well have cut out her heart. After that, Maris had nearly hated her aunt for abandoning her with a skill that seared her like fire.
Popping into the bathroom, Maris took a moment to wash her face and rinse her mouth using her cell phone for illumination. Morning would come soon enough, and she would need to be out of the house before Dan returned. No time for sleep, really. She hadn’t been looking to rest, anyway, only a few minutes of meditation to open herself up to whatever was meant to come to her.
Maris dried her face on her sleeve, not wishing to dampen Alva’s towels. Twofold, that caution. The first reason was out of a sense of respect, and the second had to do with a certain police officer noticing the wet condition of a towel that should have been long dried since its owner’s use. She crossed the hall to the former guestroom and turned the handle. Maris sucked in a breath and held it as the first glimmer of day revealed a room that looked the same as it had in her childhood. A room designed to educate and comfort, but had ended up a prison. The woman who had created this so-called sanctuary for her was gone forever now, as was the child who had spent so many days and nights there alone.
* * * *
Dan sat upright, a series of profanities rolling off his tongue. The sunlight made him squint. He tossed himself out of bed and toward the desk where his gun lay holstered and hanging from the back of the chair.
“Who the fuck is that?” he demanded and then stopped, his heart hammering in his chest. He listened hard for the noise that had awakened him. Knocking. He’d heard knocking on the door to his room. Or had that merely been a dream?
Disgusted for even entertaini
ng the thought someone would break into his house and then politely knock at the bedroom door, Dan removed the gun from the holster anyway and strode quietly across the carpeted floor. Weapon raised, he paused to listen before turning the knob. The sunshine through the window revealed an empty hall. He hadn’t expected anything else. Still, he went through the house from top to bottom, assuring himself his residence was secure. No one had a key, and if one of the guys from work wanted him, they knew his number.
The hour was barely past nine according to the clock on the kitchen wall. He normally didn’t sleep past six whether working or not, but last night’s lack of shut-eye had pretty much knocked him out. Deciding he might squeeze in a couple more hours before starting his day, Dan headed back up the stairs. Outside the bedroom door, he stopped and stared at the thick carpet in front of his bare feet. How the hell did that get there?
With a snort, Dan bent and picked up the Priestess card from the floor. No doubt he had knocked it out of his shirt pocket when he grabbed the gun and kicked it out the door without noticing as he hurried across the room. Today he would return the card to Alva’s residence. It would be a good idea to meet Maris there later with the locksmith so he could accompany her around the house while she looked for some kind of contact list or address book in order to start arrangements. Hopefully she could locate the name of her aunt’s attorney in order to ascertain the woman’s final wishes since he’d gotten the impression from Maris there wasn’t any other family left to ask. Still, should he take her word for that? For any of it? Of course not.
He tossed the Tarot card onto the desk and re-holstered his gun, wondering when he had decided definitively to ignore Maris’s drivel and treat the incident like any other. He hadn’t. Not really. God, his mind kept jumping back and forth between suspicion and acceptance. But unless he received word of something irregular from Rankin regarding Alva Mabry’s death, he would give the all clear to Maris and hopefully see her on her way soon.
Rolling himself in the blankets until he faced the wall, Dan shut his eyes against the glare of daylight. And what seemed only a moment later, he opened them again. Flailing himself free of the covers, he managed to turn around, staring wide-eyed into the room. Nothing. No one calling his name, no one knocking at the door, nothing but a disruption of his slumber caused by his consumption of alcohol and interrupted sleep the night before.
“And if not, just go the hell away. I’m not dealing with that crap ever again, you understand?” He thought of the silhouette behind his car and pushed the image away. “Kiss my ass. This is the real world.” And in the real world, cops who talked to themselves ended up spending time away from duty warming up a psych’s couch.
With a groan, Dan got back out of bed and headed for the shower. No point in wasting time seeking oblivion. Another freaking day had begun.
An hour later, Dan dialed Maris’s number. “I’ll come pick you up now if you’re ready,” he said without preamble.
“I assume this is Dan.”
“Oh, yes. Sorry.”
“I’m standing out front.”
Dan hurried to the door and peered out the sidelight, turning to view the steps and the street in both directions. “How the hell do you know where I live? Wait, I don’t see you.”
“I’m in front of my aunt’s house. Alva’s place. Why would I be at your door?”
Dan straightened. “What are you doing there?”
“Waiting for you.”
“How did you know—”
“Lucky guess. Besides, didn’t you say we would discuss this further?”
“Did I say at the house?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
He honestly didn’t recall, and the lack of recollection bothered him. She might tell him she’d known in advance through some hocus-pocus manner—that she had a vision of meeting him there or some such nonsense. If she did, he’d probably lose his patience once and for all.
“Feel like getting a cup of coffee or something?”
That stopped him dead. He stared a moment at a slow-moving vehicle making its way up the street. “Sure.”
“Pick me up here then.” She rang off.
Ordering him around like he was some kind of errand boy. He hastened to put on his shoes and slip into a sweatshirt. But he would drive slowly. Yep, he would do that.
* * * *
Maris sat on the step with eyes closed, her face turned to the sun. The light was red through the skin of her lids. Warm, too, and on her cheeks a delicious contrast to the cool, gentle breeze that ruffled her hair.
Why had she done that? Why had she asked him to have coffee with her? For one, she needed some, but she could have gone on her own. For another, the longer she kept him away from certain truths, the better off they both would be. She wanted him to unearth the mystery relative to her aunt, but to unearth all her secrets might be extremely unpleasant for her. As for Dan himself…well, he wasn’t ready. Anyone could tell that by looking in his eyes.
He had lovely eyes. Most people didn’t trust a man with eyes that color, but she’d always found the color beautiful. When she was very young, she sometimes fantasized about an imaginary friend with eyes like that, pale and clear and deep as the striated coloration of a blue marble. In fact, if the man she sought at the police station had walked in with eyes of any other shade, she would have decided she hadn’t had a vision at all, but had reverted to that old companion in her loneliness.
Yes, loneliness made one strange and fey. For a time, Maris had blamed her aunt for that, and later her parents, but really, it was who she was. She discovered as an adult her otherness made her different, and her difference kept her apart from the people around her. The stories went back generation after generation about the women in her family. They had their own community of people who understood. Once Maris and her parents left Alcina Cove, Maris had no one. In fact, if Maris never had a girl child, she’d be the last in a long line of gifted females.
At thirty-two, having a child wasn’t beyond imagining, but she’d never found anyone with whom she’d consider that kind of relationship. Maybe, like Alva, she was destined to be alone.
Maris leaned back onto her elbows, tilting her face toward the sky, the step above pressed into the ridge of her spine through her sweater. She began to breathe in a deliberate cadence, willing herself to relax, to accept the present state of her life. She heard a car door open and close quietly, almost as if he didn’t want her to know he was there. Her lips curled. The step beneath her hips reverberated slightly with the lowering of a booted foot onto the concrete.
“Wake up. I thought you wanted a cup of coffee.”
She opened her eyes and squinted at his silhouette, his head highlighted by the sun at his back. “I’m not asleep. And I do.”
He held out his hand. She hesitated and then slipped her fingers into his, allowing him to pull her to her feet. Standing on the step above him, she nearly matched his height, head to head. He looked amused. She wondered what had gotten into him.
“Did you have someplace in mind?”
She shook her head. “It’s been twenty years. The places I remember might not even exist anymore.”
“There’s a diner on the edge of town. I haven’t had breakfast yet. You?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Releasing her hand, he started toward the car. Maris lingered on the steps to the porch, something about his behavior throwing her off balance. He opened the passenger side door for her like an actual gentleman, then cocked his head to the side as he looked back in her direction. “Are you coming?”
Wordlessly, she descended the steps to the sidewalk where she ducked under his arm and into the seat. He shut the door as soon as she drew her leg inside. Suddenly she felt as nervous as a kid in school awaiting the outcome of a test.
He slid behind the wheel. “You never did say where you were staying.”
“No,” she ag
reed, “I didn’t.” Her stomach flipped beneath her diaphragm.
He arched an eyebrow but kept silent regarding her reply. Pulling away from the curb, he gave the front door of the house a quick glance. “That’s strange.”
“What?”
“I’m just remembering something incorrectly. I thought those curtains on the front door were closed.”
Maris turned to check. “They are closed.”
Dan slammed on the brakes. “They are. What the hell. Is somebody in there? I could have sworn they were just open.”
“Nope. They’ve been closed. I think you’re imagining things.” Still, Maris stared at the front door through narrowed eyes, waiting to see movement again. Nothing. What had Stauffer seen? She was beginning to think the man had a hidden talent he would have despised had he recognized it.
After a moment, Dan continued driving. Maris relaxed against the seat. “Have you given any further thought to what I was saying last night?”
“Nope.”
Maris frowned. “None at all?”
“It wasn’t last night. It was this morning, and I’ve spent the rest of it trying to catch up on my interrupted sleep. We’ll talk about things after I’ve had something to eat.”
With a snort, Maris focused on the passing vista. In the light of day, she recognized the landmark of the sailors’ cross beyond the far end of the main street and certain houses on either side as they headed through town. “Stop!”
Dan jerked the wheel, bringing his car up against the curb. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s…that’s my house.”
“Right there?”
Maris nodded at the house he pointed out. “Yes. Right there.”
“It can’t be.”
“It is.” The home where she’d spent her early childhood had been converted to a bed and breakfast. The Timeless Inn, it was called. Someone had planted a beautiful English-style garden out front behind a white picket fence. Because of that, she almost hadn’t recognized the house itself. But the bones of it remained, the once silvered wooden siding painted a pristine white now. The narrow window of her old bedroom faced the huge Victorian mansion across the street.
