The Novels of Nora Roberts Volume 1

by Nora Roberts

  “Yes, it’s yours,” she agreed. “But it’s the wrong one.”

  Rage sizzled in his blood. He wanted to hit something, someone, pound his fists into flesh. It was a feeling that came over him all too often. And because of it, he was no longer Captain J. T. Skimmerhorn of the Philadelphia Police Department, but a civilian.

  “Can’t you understand? I can’t live here. I can’t sleep here. I need to get the hell out. I’m smothering here.”

  “Then come home with me. For the holidays. At least until after the first of the year. Give yourself a little more time before you do something irreversible.” Her voice was gentle again as she took his rigid hands in hers. “Jedidiah, it’s been months since Elaine—since Elaine was killed.”

  “I know how long it’s been.” Yes, he knew the exact moment of his sister’s death. After all, he’d killed her. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’ve got plans. I’m looking at an apartment later today. Over on South Street.”

  “An apartment.” Honoria’s sigh was ripe with annoyance. “Really, Jedidiah, there’s no need for that kind of nonsense. Buy yourself another house if you must, take a long vacation, but don’t bury yourself in some miserable room.”

  He was surprised he could smile. “The ad said it was quiet, attractive and well located. That doesn’t sound miserable. Grandmother”—he squeezed her hands before she could argue—“let it be.”

  She sighed again, tasting defeat. “I only want what’s best for you.”

  “You always did.” He suppressed a shudder, feeling the walls closing in on him. “Let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  A theater without an audience has its own peculiar magic. The magic of possibilities. The echoing voices of actors running lines, the light cues, the costumes, the nervous energy and vaulting egos that bound from center stage to the empty back row.

  Isadora Conroy absorbed the theater’s magic as she stood in the wings of the Liberty Theater, watching a dress rehearsal for A Christmas Carol. As always, she enjoyed the drama, not only Dickens, but also the drama of edgy nerves, of creative lighting, of the well-delivered line. After all, the theater was in her blood.

  There was a vibrancy that pulsed from her even in repose. Her large brown eyes glinted with excitement and seemed to dominate the face framed by a swing of golden-brown hair. That excitement brought a flush to ivory skin, a smile to her wide mouth. It was a face of subtle angles and smooth curves, caught between wholesome and lovely. The energy inside her small, compact body shimmered out.

  She was a woman interested in everything around her, who believed in illusions. Watching her father rattling Marley’s chains and intoning dire predictions to the fear-struck Scrooge, she believed in ghosts. And because she believed, he was no longer her father, but the doomed miser wrapped for eternity in the heavy chains of his own greed.

  Then Marley became Quentin Conroy again, veteran actor, director and theater buff, calling for a minute change in the blocking.

  “Dora.” Hurrying up from behind, Dora’s sister, Ophelia, said, “We’re already twenty minutes behind schedule.”

  “We don’t have a schedule,” Dora murmured, nodding because the blocking change was perfect. “I never have a schedule on a buying trip. Isn’t he wonderful, Lea?”

  Though her sense of organization was hampered, Lea glanced out onstage and studied their father. “Yes. Though God knows how he can stand to put on this same production year after year.”

  “Tradition.” Dora beamed. “The theater’s rooted in it.” Leaving the stage hadn’t diminished her love of it, or her admiration for the man who had taught her how to milk a line. She’d watched him become hundreds of men onstage. Macbeth, Willie Loman, Nathan Detroit. She’d seen him triumph and seen him bomb. But he always entertained.

  “Remember Mom and Dad as Titania and Oberon?”

  Lea rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Who could forget? Mom stayed in character for weeks. It wasn’t easy living with the queen of the fairies. And if we don’t get out of here soon, the queen’s going to come out and run through her list of what might happen to two women traveling alone to Virginia.”

  Sensing her sister’s nerves and impatience, Dora swung an arm around Lea’s shoulders. “Relax, honey, I’ve got her covered, and he’s going to take five in a minute.”

  Which he did, on cue. When the actors scattered, Dora stepped out to center stage. “Dad.” She took a long look, skimming down from the top of his head to his feet. “You were great.”

  “Thank you, my sweet.” He lifted an arm so that his tattered shroud floated. “I think the makeup is an improvement over last year.”

  “Absolutely.” In fact, the greasepaint and charcoal were alarmingly realistic; his handsome face appeared just short of decay. “Absolutely gruesome.” She kissed him lightly on the lips, careful not to smudge. “Sorry we’ll miss opening night.”

  “Can’t be helped.” Though he did pout just a little. Although he had a son to carry on the Conroy tradition, he’d lost his two daughters, one to marriage, one to free enterprise. Then again, he did occasionally shanghai them into a minor role. “So, my two little girls are off on their adventure.”

  “It’s a buying trip, Dad, not a trip to the Amazon.”

  “Just the same.” He winked and kissed Lea in turn. “Watch out for snakes.”

  “Oh, Lea!” Trixie Conroy, resplendent in her costume complete with bustle and feathered hat, rushed out onstage. The Liberty’s excellent acoustics carried her throaty voice to the rear balcony. “John’s on the phone, dear. He couldn’t remember if Missy had a scout meeting tonight at five, or a piano lesson at six.”

  “I left a list,” Lea muttered. “How’s he going to manage the kids for three days if he can’t read a list?”

  “Such a sweet man,” Trixie commented when Lea dashed off. “The perfect son-in-law. Now, Dora, you will drive carefully?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “Of course you will. You’re always careful. You won’t pick up any hitchhikers?”

  “Not even if they beg.”

  “And you’ll stop every two hours to rest your eyes?”

  “Like clockwork.”

  An inveterate worrier, Trixie gnawed on her bottom lip. “Still, it’s an awfully long way to Virginia. And it might snow.”

  “I have snow tires.” To forestall more speculation, Dora gave her mother another kiss. “There’s a phone in the van, Mom. I’ll check in every time we cross a state line.”

  “Won’t that be fun?” The idea cheered Trixie enormously. “Oh, and Quentin, darling, I’ve just come from the box office.” She gave her husband a deep curtsy. “We’re sold out for the week.”

  “Naturally.” Quentin lifted his wife to her feet and twirled her in a graceful spin that ended in a deep dip. “A Conroy expects nothing less than standing room only.”

  “Break a leg.” Dora kissed her mother one last time. “You too,” she said to Quentin. “And Dad, don’t forget you’re showing the apartment later today.”

  “I never forget an engagement. Places!” he called out, then winked at his daughter. “Bon voyage, my sweet.”

  Dora could hear his chains clanging when she hit the wings. She couldn’t imagine a better send-off.

  To Dora’s way of thinking, an auction house was very like a theater. You had the stage, the props, the characters. As she had explained to her baffled parents years before, she wasn’t really retiring from the stage. She was merely exploring another medium. She certainly put her actor’s blood to good use whenever it was time to buy or sell.

  She’d already taken the time to study the arena for today’s performance. The building where Sherman Porter held his auctions and ran a daily flea market had originally been a slaughterhouse and was still as drafty as a barn. Merchandise was displayed on an icy concrete floor where cows and pigs had once mooed and squealed on their way to becoming pot roasts and pork chops. Now humans, huddled in coat
s and mufflers, wandered through, poking at glassware, grunting over paintings and debating over china cabinets and carved headboards.

  The ambience was a bit thin, but she’d played in less auspicious surroundings. And, of course, there was the bottom line.

  Isadora Conroy loved a bargain. The words “On Sale” sent a silvery tingle through her blood. She’d always loved to buy, finding the basic transaction of money for objects deeply satisfying. So satisfying that she had all too often exchanged money for objects she had no use for. But it was that love of a bargain that had guided Dora into opening her own shop, and the subsequent discovery that selling was as pleasurable as buying.

  “Lea, look at this.” Dora turned to her sister, offering a gilded cream dispenser shaped like a woman’s evening shoe. “Isn’t it fabulous?”

  Ophelia Conroy Bradshaw took one look, lifted a single honey-brown eyebrow. Despite the dreamy name, this was a woman rooted in reality. “I think you mean frivolous, right?”

  “Come on, look beyond the obvious aesthetics.” Beaming, Dora ran a fingertip over the arch of the shoe. “There’s a place for ridiculous in the world.”

  “I know. Your shop.”

  Dora chuckled, unoffended. Though she replaced the creamer, she’d already decided to bid on that lot. She took out a notebook and a pen that boasted a guitar-wielding Elvis to note down the number. “I’m really glad you came along with me on this trip, Lea. You keep me centered.”

  “Somebody has to.” Lea’s attention was caught by a colorful display of Depression glass. There were two or three pieces in amber that would add nicely to her own collection. “Still, I feel guilty being away from home this close to Christmas. Leaving John with the kids that way.”

  “You were dying to get away from the kids,” Dora reminded her as she inspected a lady’s cherrywood vanity.

  “I know. That’s why I’m guilty.”

  “Guilt’s a good thing.” Tossing one end of her red muffler over her shoulder, Dora crouched down to check the work on the vanity’s brass handles. “Honey, it’s only been three days. We’re practically on our way back. You’ll get home tonight and smother the kids with attention, seduce John, and everybody’ll be happy.”

  Lea rolled her eyes and smiled weakly at the couple standing beside her. “Trust you to take everything down to the lowest common denominator.”

  With a satisfied grunt, Dora straightened, shook her chin-length sweep of hair away from her face and nodded. “I think I’ve seen enough for now.”

  When she checked her watch, she realized it was curtain time for the matinee performance back home. Well, she mused, there was show business, and there was show business. She all but rubbed her hands together in anticipation of the auction opening.

  “We’d better get some seats before they—oh wait!” Her brown eyes brightened. “Look at that.”

  Even as Lea turned, Dora was scurrying across the concrete floor.

  It was the painting that had caught her attention. It wasn’t large, perhaps eighteen by twenty-four inches with a simple, streamlined ebony frame. The canvas itself was a wash of color, streaks and streams of crimson and sapphire, a dollop of citrine, a bold dash of emerald. What Dora saw was energy and verve, as irresistible to her as a red-tag special.

  Dora smiled at the boy who was propping the painting against the wall. “You’ve got it upside down.”

  “Huh?” The stock boy turned and flushed. He was seventeen, and the sight of Dora smiling at him reduced him to a puddle of hormones. “Ah, no, ma’am.” His Adam’s apple bobbed frantically as he turned the canvas around to show Dora the hook at the back.

  “Mmm.” When she owned it—and she certainly would by the end of the afternoon—she would fix that.

  “This, ah, shipment just came in.”

  “I see.” She stepped closer. “Some interesting pieces,” she said, and picked up a statue of a sad-eyed basset hound curled up in a resting pose. It was heavier than she’d expected, and pursing her lips, she turned it over and over for a closer inspection. No craftsman’s mark or date, she mused. But still, the workmanship was excellent.

  “Frivolous enough for you?” Lea asked.

  “Just. Make a terrific doorstop.” After setting it down she reached for a tall figurine of a man and woman in antebellum dress caught in the swirl of a waltz. Dora’s hand closed over thick, gnarled fingers. “Sorry.” She glanced up at an elderly, bespeckled man who gave her a creaky bow.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” he asked her. “My wife had one just like it. Got busted when the kids were wrestling in the parlor.” He grinned, showing teeth too white and straight to be God-given. He wore a red bow tie and smelled like a peppermint stick. Dora smiled back.

  “Do you collect?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He set the figurine down and his old, shrewd eyes swept the display, pricing, cataloguing, dismissing. “I’m Tom Ashworth. Got a shop here in Front Royal.” He took a business card from his breast pocket and offered it to Dora. “Accumulated so much stuff over the years, it was open a shop or buy a bigger house.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m Dora Conroy.” She held out a hand and had it enveloped in a brief arthritic grip. “I have a shop in Philadelphia.”

  “Thought you were a pro.” Pleased, he winked. “Noticed you right off. Don’t believe I’ve seen you at one of Porter’s auctions before.”

  “No, I’ve never been able to make it. Actually, this trip was an impulse. I dragged my sister along. Lea, Tom Ashworth.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “My pleasure.” Ashworth patted Lea’s chilled hand. “Never does warm up in here this time of year. Guess Porter figures the bidding’ll heat things up some.”

  “I hope he’s right.” Lea’s toes felt frozen inside her suede boots. “Have you been in business long, Mr. Ashworth?”

  “Nigh onto forty years. The wife got us started, crocheting doilies and scarves and what-all and selling them. Added some trinkets and worked out of the garage.” He took a corncob pipe from his pocket and clamped it between his teeth. “Nineteen sixty-three we had more stock than we could handle and rented us a shop in town. Worked side by side till she passed on in the spring of eighty-six. Now I got me a grandson working with me. Got a lot of fancy ideas, but he’s a good boy.”

  “Family businesses are the best,” Dora said. “Lea’s just started working part-time at the shop.”

  “Lord knows why.” Lea dipped her chilly hands into her coat pockets. “I don’t know anything about antiques or collectibles.”

  “You just have to figure out what people want,” Ashworth told her, and flicked a thumbnail over a wooden match to light it. “And how much they’ll pay for it,” he added before he puffed the pipe into life.

  “Exactly.” Delighted with him, Dora hooked a hand through his arm. “It looks like we’re getting started. Why don’t we go find some seats?”

  Ashworth offered Lea his other arm and, feeling like the cock of the walk, escorted the women to chairs near the front row.

  Dora pulled out her notebook and prepared to play her favorite role.

  The bidding was low, but certainly energetic. Voices bounced off the high ceiling as the lots were announced. But it was the murmuring crowd that fired Dora’s blood. There were bargains to be had here, and she was determined to grab her share.

  She outbid a thin, waiflike woman with a pinched mouth for the cherrywood vanity, snapped up the lot that included the creamer/slipper for a song and competed briskly with Ashworth for a set of crystal saltcellars.

  “Got me,” he said when Dora topped his bid yet again. “You’re liable to get a bit more for them up north.”

  “I’ve got a customer who collects,” Dora told him. And who would pay double the purchase price, she thought.

  “That so?” Ashworth leaned closer as the bidding began on the next lot. “I’ve got a set of six at the shop. Cobalt and silver.”

  “Really?”

  “Yo
u got time, you drop on by after this and take a look.”

  “I might just do that. Lea, you bid on the Depression glass.”

  “Me?” Horror in her eyes, Lea gaped at her sister.

  “Sure. Get your feet wet.” Grinning, Dora tilted her head toward Ashworth’s. “Watch this.”

  As Dora expected, Lea started out with hesitant bids that barely carried to the auctioneer. Then she began to inch forward in her seat. Her eyes glazed over. By the time the lot was sold, she was snapping out her bid like a drill sergeant commanding recruits.

  “Isn’t she great?” All pride, Dora swung an arm over Lea’s shoulders to squeeze. “She was always a quick study. It’s the Conroy blood.”

  “I bought all of it.” Lea pressed a hand to her speeding heart. “Oh God, I bought all of it. Why didn’t you stop me?”

  “When you were having such a good time?”

  “But—but—” As the adrenaline drained, Lea slumped in her chair. “That was hundreds of dollars. Hundreds.”

  “Well spent, too. Now, here we go.” Spotting the abstract painting, Dora rubbed her hands together. “Mine,” she said softly.

  By three o’clock Dora was adding half a dozen cobalt saltcellars to the treasures in her van. The wind had kicked up, stinging color into her cheeks and sneaking down the collar of her coat.

  “Smells like snow,” Ashworth commented. He stood on the curb in front of his shop and, with his pipe clenched in his hand, sniffed the air. “Could be you’ll run into some before you get home.”

  “I hope so.” Pushing back her flying hair, she smiled at him. “What’s Christmas without it? It was great meeting you, Mr. Ashworth.” She offered her hand again. “If you get up to Philadelphia, I’ll expect you to drop by.”

  “You can count on it.” He patted his pocket where he’d slipped her business card. “You two ladies take care of yourselves. Drive safely.”