Edge of the Shadow

by Yvonne Montgomery

  Andrea looked beyond technique to the person on the page. He was just a man, twenty-five to thirty at a guess. No, not just a man, she realized, examining almond-shaped eyes and lips pressed together in determination. Offsetting his good looks was an air of strength. She could see it in the jaw above his stiff collar, and could read it in the way he held himself. Here was a man who would take on the world.

  She turned the page to look at the sketch she'd drawn today. It was the same man. He was half turned toward the slanted ground behind him. The jagged rock formation above him was menacing, as if it could fall on him. His hair appeared wet, and his collar, so stiff in the first sketch, was crumpled. He was scared. Who was he, and why the hell had she drawn him?

  Andrea dropped the cover. She'd worked like a maniac the last month to tie up the loose ends involved in moving to Colorado for a year. The long drive had worn her out. Maybe her subconscious had mixed up a few features from drawings she'd done before and presented her with a man she'd never seen. "And had me sketching him in my sleep," she whispered.

  Andrea put the pad back on the night table. For fifteen years she'd worked with hundreds of victims and witnesses. She had a gift for hearing descriptions and translating them into images that had often helped in identifying the bad guys. But she hadn't produced portraits out of the blue, and she'd always been awake while she sketched.

  Andrea started at the knock at the door. "Yes?"

  "Are you coming to dinner?" came Noreen's muffled voice. "Aura Lee just started dishing up."

  Andrea glanced down at her bathrobe. She could throw on a sweat suit and wear her slippers. "I'll be right down."

  "Okay."

  Andrea pulled on her clothes and was tying one shoe when her elbow caught the edge of the sketchpad. It fell to the floor, the cover flipping open to reveal the top drawing. The beautiful young man stared up at her and her throat went dry. His image provided no answers, only a sense of urgency she couldn't understand.

  What could make her create and forget not one, but two sketches? Was she having a breakdown? She closed her eyes at the thought. The weird moment yesterday when Neal's face seemed to melt—that she'd been able to pass off as a fit of dizziness. Today he'd probably decided she was a few shingles short of a roof, but she hadn't frothed at the mouth or anything. Could she be reacting to some odd form of stress?

  The thought got Andrea halfway down the stairs. What if it isn't stress? The little she knew of her family tree didn't yield anyone who had been all-out crazy. There was speculation about her great-aunt... what was her name? Ruta, Ruthann, Ruelynn? "Great-Aunt Rutabaga," she said aloud.

  A butter-smooth voice said, "You look like you don't know whether you're coming or going." An African-American woman smiled at her from the foyer. The paisley shawl around the shoulders of her gold tailored suit set off cocoa brown skin and tilted eyes viewing her with amusement. Her hair, black frosted with gray, had been plaited into tiny braids, all cascading over the broad gold band framing her face.

  Although comfortable in her sweat suit moments before, Andrea realized she looked like a frump. She continued down the steps. "I'm decision-challenged, that's all." She extended her hand. "My name's Andrea Bellamy." Her fingers were firmly squeezed.

  "Elizabeth Schuster."

  Ah, the cookbook writer from outside New Orleans, Andrea thought. "Did you have a good visit with your family?"

  "You might say that." Elizabeth unwound the shawl from her shoulders, draping it over the newel post. "My husband, Lovell, and I had our usual fight. After that we spent quality time together." Her eyes twinkled. "Then we were able to catch up with each other and talk about the kids and the restaurant." She adjusted the gold bracelet on one wrist. "Every month it's the same. Good thing my stay is only a year. I don't think Lovell would be much inclined to keep goin' after that."

  Andrea considered the difficulties the Wisdom Court grant might cause for a recipient's family. "Isn't it hard to be away from them?"

  "Sure it is. But this is my time. You think I haven't spent years taking care of all of them and cooking for the restaurant, too? Believe me, I have. It's not gonna hurt Lovell or the girls with me out here. Besides, the twins are in college." Her eyes gleamed with shrewd humor. "When my cookbook starts selling, they'll find all kinds of ways to help me spend the money."

  "Oh, yeah," Andrea said with feeling. "My daughter just graduated. Someday I might get solvent again."

  "What's your thing?" At Andrea's lifted brows, Elizabeth waved a hand. "What'll you be working on here? Wait a minute—you're an artist, aren't you? I remember Rose saying something about a painting of yours."

  "Yes, I paint." Andrea frowned, wondering suddenly if she would have the same trouble with painting as she was having with sketching. Wouldn't that be a kick in the teeth, she thought with bitterness. I could create a whole portfolio without having any memory of doing it.

  "Well, you don't look happy about it." Elizabeth studied her. "Isn't it what you want to do?"

  "More than anything," Andrea said. "I just have to make sure I know what I'm painting." At the bubbling laughter from the other woman, Andrea stared.

  "Lord, I love this place. Things are always hopping, always something new to keep me interested. D'you know, I've never been bored here." She put her arm around Andrea's shoulders and gave her a quick hug. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about, honey, but you've got to admit, it's not boring."

  Andrea smiled reluctantly. "You've got that right."

  Elizabeth dropped her arm and headed down the hallway. "I smell beef bourguignon and I'm starving. Let's go get us some dinner."

  As they walked into the dining room, Kerry leapt to her feet, scurrying around the table to greet Elizabeth. "When did you get back?"

  Returning her hug with enthusiasm, Elizabeth extended a hand to Dolores, who was standing behind Kerry. "The plane got in at five-thirty, but it took forever for the luggage to get unloaded. You know the drill. I'm lucky I'm here, with all those clouds piling up, because it looks like all hell is going to break loose before too long."

  "It's good you're back. I'll get you a plate." Aura Lee went to the kitchen, bringing back a place setting and a wineglass.

  When everyone had resettled around the table, Elizabeth surveyed the company. "It's so good to be back, but I swear you all look like you've been working yourselves to the bone. Rose, you've lost five pounds at least. Kerry, if you don't stop wearing those god-awful coveralls, I'm gonna burn 'em." She took a healthy swallow of wine. "Aura Lee, you've got a secret."

  Her voice was tinged with humor, but Aura Lee went pale. "How did you know? Who told you?"

  Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "I'll never reveal my sources." She turned her laughing gaze to Noreen. "You find out everything, Noreen. What's this woman been up to?"

  Before Noreen could answer, Aura Lee stood up. "Rose, this isn't the way to get everybody in favor of my plan. Why didn't you wait until later?"

  "I haven't talked to anyone," Rose protested.

  Noreen frowned in full schoolmistress mode. "Don't be melodramatic, Aura Lee."

  Pausing at the door to the kitchen, Aura Lee turned to look at them with tragic eyes. "Rose promised a serious discussion about a séance, but I know how it will be. Kerry will snipe and Elizabeth will laugh, and who knows how the rest of you will react. This is important!"

  "For God's sake," Kerry groaned. "Not the séance bit again."

  Aura Lee took a step toward the table. "Enough, Kerry! I'm sick of your disrespect. We need to contact Cottie before something terrible happens."

  Lightning cracked and the window lit up. The overhead chandelier blinked out, leaving only the candles at the center of the table. Thunder roared like the end of the world, and Dolores screamed. Seconds later a tree branch crashed through the window and a rush of cold air snuffed out the candles. From upstairs came a series of crashes ending in a loud crack of splitting wood.

  The silence in the heavy darkness was
deafening. "Okay, okay," quavered Kerry. "I vote for the séance."

  Chapter 6

  The next morning they found a large branch of the old cottonwood had pierced the attic roof and lay across the tongue-in-groove floor. A broken rafter sagged over furniture shrouded in sheets, squashing boxes under its weight.

  Daylight speared through the jagged hole onto fluttering leaves. Further back the sun struggled through dirty gable windows, dust motes turning the air to gauze. Rose flashed to thoughts of the garret where Jo March wrote her stories, and the austere chamber where Sara Crewe yearned for her father.

  Behind her Kerry murmured in distress. "Oh, no, look at those boxes." She scrambled across the floor to a steamer trunk, the top creased by a tree branch. "We have to get this out of here. No telling how much harm's been done, or to what. I knew we should've come up last night to check things out."

  "By flashlight? We had enough to do covering the dining room windows." Rose turned at a noise behind her. Noreen had climbed up the steps, holding the rail in a death grip.

  "Elizabeth's off to Denver for the TV interview, so that's taken care of..." Noreen's voice trailed off. Her gaze traveled from a crushed hatbox to file folders spilling yellowed papers onto the floor. By the time she peered up at the hole in the roof, her hands were clutched tightly at her waist. "Lightning," she lamented. "Can you believe it could strike so near the house, with the mountains right up against us?"

  Rose's pant leg caught on a broken branch. She tugged it free and reached Noreen's side, putting her arm around the older woman's shoulders. "Everything will be okay."

  "But look at it," Noreen fretted. "Will the roof have to be replaced? Do you know anything about such repairs?"

  "A little. We'll take care of it." Rose turned her back to the attic stairs and steered her through the debris. "Neal's on his way over. Could you help Aura Lee fix some tea and maybe some pastries to keep us going?"

  Noreen nodded. The anxiety in her eyes was fading and color had come back into her face. "You're right, tea would be good. Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? Sydney Smith, seventeen seventy-one to eighteen forty-five," she added gamely. "I'll go down and help Aura Lee." Gripping the railing, she descended the steps.

  "Well, at least she's quoting, even if it was a man." Kerry brushed leaves off her pants.

  "I wish she didn't always feel so responsible," Rose murmured. "It takes away from her own work."

  "Always the headmistress, I guess." Kerry surveyed the chaos around them. "Where can we take all this stuff? Imagine having construction people up here."

  Rose reminded herself that Kerry had a vested interest in preserving information about Wisdom Court. Any threat to that would naturally upset her.

  Kerry slumped against a shrouded dresser. "I didn't mean to snap at you. I've been pecking away one box at a time, but it never occurred to me that leaving the rest up here would be a problem. Who knew a damned tree would break the roof?"

  Rose pulled a branch to one side and reached for another. "Further proof you're not omniscient."

  Kerry looked around the attic with a frown. "If only I'd taken more boxes to my place to sort through them there."

  Rose tugged at a crumpled dustcover under a fallen chair and used it to dry an area of the floor further from the roof damage. "Let's shift what we can away from the tree."

  They started piling papers and scrapbooks into empty boxes Kerry found in the recesses over the eaves. Dolores arrived and soon the stairs echoed with the thump of her Doc Martens as she carried boxes down to the library. Kerry took more while Rose tried to clear the floor, sweeping up leaves and stacking broken branches in one corner. A batch of sodden photographs required jury-rigged drying lines in Andrea's studio.

  Heavy footsteps heralded Neal's arrival. "The damage in the dining room is minimal. We'll have new glass here by this afternoon." He looked around the attic and whistled at the destruction. "Must've been a hell of a boom when it hit. Any problem getting the power back on?"

  "The power people were here first thing this morning."

  Neal set down his battered toolbox and ran a practiced eye over the ceiling. "I can't tell if the other rafter was affected. It doesn't look cracked from here. We're lucky the whole roof didn't cave in." He pulled a spiral notebook from his back pocket, and took the pen behind his ear to make a note. "We'll need to cover up that hole. Where's the ladder?"

  "Back shed." Rose had been making her own list. She'd have to hire a hauling company to carry off the wreckage. The insurance company might require bids for repairs. Would they need permits? Inspections?

  Soon the tall stepladder rose through the attic entrance, followed by Neal. He eased it around the railing and propped it against the wall. "How much of this stuff are you taking downstairs?"

  Rose glanced around the space. "The rest of the boxes and those two trunks for sure. I'm hoping we can push the furniture into the corners. Will that allow enough room to work in?"

  "Maybe."

  Dolores trudged up the steps, Kerry close behind her. "Noreen said to tell you tea and fixings will be ready in about fifteen minutes."

  "Thanks. Kerry," Rose asked, "do you want the trunks taken to your place? The other option is to put them in the library."

  "Definitely the library," Kerry said. "I'm still tripping over my own stuff."

  Neal unfolded the legs of the ladder and placed them across a smaller branch. "What's with Noreen? I saw her when I came in and she looked kind of drag-tailed. She feeling okay?"

  "I sent her downstairs," Rose said. "I don't want her to trip over these branches. And I can't quite see her carrying boxes down those stairs, can you?"

  Dolores made a sound. "Not me. I'm a lot younger and I'm sucking air like a fiend."

  Neal had the stepladder directly under the hole in the roof. "She'd carry boxes if she needed to." He climbed nearly to the top and began checking around the edges of the break. He wiggled the end of one board gently. "Noreen's one tough lady after herding teenage girls for all those years." He put a little more pressure on the plank and moved it back and forth slowly, leaning on it to check its strength. Without warning it snapped off above the jagged end and fell toward the clutter below. The weight of the board threw Neal off balance and he lurched to one side, taking the ladder with him. Both fell heavily onto the floor, across the larger tree limb.

  "Madre de Dios!" Dolores shrieked.

  Kerry dropped the box she'd picked up and scrambled toward Neal. Dolores followed, Rose right behind her. The leafy boughs obscured Neal's head and torso. One of his legs extended through the gap between the ladder steps. Rose felt ice down her spine. What if he broke his leg, or his back? What about his neck?

  "Stay there!" Neal's order brought them all up short. He shifted his body and under the rustle of leaves they heard the dry whisper of wood moving against wood. Freeing his foot from the ladder, he eased his legs off the branch, onto the planks.

  "Are you hurt?" Dolores spoke carefully in a low voice, in case anything louder could cause the floor to crumble.

  "Couple of bruises." Neal brushed at the twigs and leaves in his hair and on his shirt.

  Rose saw the red streak across his forehead. "You're bleeding!" She started toward him but Neal held up a hand.

  "Don't come over here. I'm not sure the floor will hold us both now." He scooted himself back against the largest branch, wincing as he extended his arm.

  "What is it?" Rose demanded.

  "Shoulder." Neal pushed the rubbish off the planks nearest him. He slowly pressed against the boards immediately around and under him, testing their solidity. When he moved one leg, a faint cracking came from beneath him. "That doesn't sound good." His fingers continued delicately along the surface of the floor. Blood dripped over one brow and trickled into his eye. He rubbed at it with the back of his hand, smearing it down the side of his face.

  From downstairs came the familiar slam of the front door. Dolores eased back toward the
stairs and then swiftly moved down them. "Bring back some clean cloths," Rose called after her. She turned to Kerry, waiting tensely beside her. Rose said in a low voice, "I think you'd better call an ambulance. He could have a concussion."

  "I don't have a concussion." Neal frowned in concentration, his hands moving over the wood.

  "Then I'll call Jerri. You're bleeding, Neal. She'll want to check you out."

  "Wait a sec." His frown deepened as his fingers felt across the grain. "There's a hell of a crack here." A creaking noise was followed by a clatter. "Well, that would explain it."

  "Explain what?" Rose tiptoed closer. "Is the floor going to crash in or what?"

  "Probably not," Neal said dryly. "If it were, we'd know by now. What I thought was a split from the fall was a cut piece, a cover for a deliberate opening."

  "Let me see." Kerry thrust through the damp leaves and branches until she was close enough to peer over Neal's shoulder. "It's a hiding place!" Kerry allowed Rose enough space to kneel beside them.

  The recess was between two joists and in it was a bundle wrapped in coarse fabric. Rose recognized it as a feed sack, making out the faint outlines of flowers on the grubby material.

  Neal lifted out the packet and set it on the floor. He pulled back the cloth, nose wrinkling at its musty odor, revealing a candy box decorated with the picture of a girl wearing a bonnet. The flush on her cheeks was faded and her smile had yellowed but the gilt scallops edging her image gleamed in the muted light.

  Neal raised the lid. Inside was a book with the word "Diary" etched on it. Two dried roses bound with a frayed ribbon lay on top of it. Under the volume was a folded scarf, black net edged with blue ribbon. A smaller box with worn corners lay beside the scarf.

  Kerry reached past Neal's shoulder toward the flowers. Her fingertips brushed the dry petals and the blossoms crumbled into dust. "Oh, no." Two drops of blood fell onto her sleeve. She jerked toward Neal. "Oh, God, I forgot about your head."