Moving Target

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Charters,” Hingham said, clearing his throat. “There is a particularly difficult custody case that . . .” He cleared his throat again.

  “I understand,” Serena said, a polite lie. “It doesn’t matter.” The truth. She had been quite willing to look out the windows at the mountains that had ringed her childhood and formed her adult dreams. “I take it that the State of California is ready to close the books on my grandmother’s murder?”

  “The books will never be closed until her killer is found. But, yes. I’m empowered as her executor to turn over to you all that remains of Lisbeth Charters’s—er, your grandmother’s—worldly goods.”

  His use of her grandmother’s real name—Lisbeth Charters—told Serena that her grandmother had trusted this man as she had trusted only one other person on earth: her granddaughter.

  Then the rest of the sentence penetrated Serena’s mind. She compressed her lips against bitter laughter. Worldly goods. Her grandmother had lived a simple, spartan life. Her reward had been a cruel, savage death.

  “I see,” Serena said neutrally. “Does the fact that I’m finally receiving my so-called inheritance mean that I’m no longer a suspect in G’mom’s murder?”

  The controlled anger beneath his client’s voice made Hingham examine her more carefully. Middle height, casually dressed in blue jeans and an unusual woven jacket, a slender yet female body that once would have aroused him and even now interested him, red-gold hair in a long French braid down her back, triangular face with eyes as cool and measuring as a cat’s. The papers in his hand told him that she was in her early thirties. Her face looked younger, though her oddly colored eyes held an unflinching power that belonged to an empress twice her age.

  Lisbeth Serena Charters had had eyes like that. Violet blue. Wide-set. Fascinating.

  Unnerving.

  Hingham cleared his throat again. “You were never under serious suspicion, Ms. Charters. As the detective explained, it was simply routine to ascertain your whereabouts the night your grandmother died, especially as you were her sole surviving heir.”

  “The detective explained. It didn’t change how I felt.”

  “Yes, well, it must have been very difficult for you.”

  “It still is. Even though G’mom and I weren’t close, she was the only family I had.”

  And every day, Serena asked herself if she and her grandmother had been closer, would her grandmother still be alive?

  There was no answer. There never would be.

  Abruptly her hand moved in an impatient gesture. “Let’s get this over with. I have work to do.”

  “Work?” Hingham glanced at the papers in his hand. “I understood that you were self-employed.”

  “Exactly. No time off for good behavior. My employer is a bitch.”

  A ghostly smile rearranged the wrinkles on the lawyer’s face. “Would she mind if you took time for coffee?”

  Serena smiled despite her unhappiness with the law, the legal profession, and the bureaucracy of the State of California. “Thanks, but I really should get back to Leucadia before the freeways turn into parking lots.”

  “Then if you’ll be seated . . . ?”

  Despite the restlessness crackling along her nerves, Serena went to the wing chair that waited beside Hingham’s desk. Outwardly calm, she forced herself to sit quietly. She had spent a lot of her life masking the energy and intelligence that poured through her with such force, they made other people nervous. Deliberately she leaned back into the chair, crossed her legs, and waited for the old lawyer to tell her what she already knew: her grandmother had no worldly goods worth mentioning.

  Hingham’s chair creaked sharply as he sat. “I take it you don’t need all the ruffles and flourishes.”

  “Correct.”

  He nodded and shifted papers. “Your inheritance is what remains of the house and five acres it sits on. There are no liens nor outstanding debts.” He handed a plat map and deed across the desk to Serena. “The taxes have been paid through last year. I filed for a reappraisal due to the fire.” He handed over more papers. “There are no utility bills because there are no utilities. Lisbeth—Mrs. Charters—was self-sufficient to the last.”

  If Hingham thought it strange that his client was Ellis Weaver on the publicly filed deed and Lisbeth Charters in her very private life, he said nothing. So long as a person didn’t take a second name in order to conceal illegal actions, multiple names were quite legal.

  As Serena took the papers, she gritted her teeth against emotions that owed as much to anger as to sorrow: Lisbeth Charters hadn’t deserved a violent death.

  “I recommend that you request another appraisal on the land itself,” Hingham added. “The assessor is greedy.”

  Serena tried to care. She couldn’t. Not now. Not when she was holding the sum total of her grandmother’s life: a handful of official papers that added up to less than Serena received for weaving the kind of textile that gallery owners called “important.” But the papers, like the galleries, left out so much, everything that mattered; the laughter and the silences, the tears and the warmth when cold winds blew, and the memory of lanterns shedding golden light over the safe little world of her childhood.

  She had never felt poor in her grandmother’s house, though she knew now that they had been impoverished.

  Hingham cleared his throat. He was accustomed to reading people, yet the composed young woman across the desk from him was a closed book. As Lisbeth Charters/Ellis Weaver had been. He cleared his throat again, rearranged papers, chose one, and handed it across the desk.

  “She has one bank account,” he said. “In Bern.”

  As the words registered, Serena focused on the lawyer rather than on the memory-haunted past. “Where?”

  “Bern, Switzerland. A numbered account. That’s why there isn’t any paper. Just the account number written in Lisbeth’s hand. Even as her executor, I had a devil of a time getting any information about the account out of the Swiss.”

  “Are you certain it was G’mom’s account?”

  “Quite.” Hingham smiled, pleased to have ruffled his composed client. “From the number, I would guess that the account is rather old.” He waited for Serena to ask how much money there was in the account. He was still waiting when he cleared his throat and told her. “There is enough in the account to cover any final expenses associated with her death. As you know, she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered over her land.”

  Rage and tears fought for control of Serena’s voice. Rage won. “How clever of her murderer to carry out her last wishes.”

  Hingham winced at the slicing edge in her voice. At that moment he decided to spare his client the whole truth: he had given Lisbeth’s charred remains a formal cremation as soon as the sheriff’s office permitted it. Then he had driven out into the desert wilderness Lisbeth had called home and had given her ashes to the wind.

  Serena crossed her legs again. It was the only sign of the near-wildness that swept through her whenever she thought of someone killing her grandmother on a brutal whim. But thinking about it did no good. So she forced herself to think about something else. “Why would my grandmother have a numbered Swiss bank account?”

  “The usual reasons, I assume.”

  “But she wasn’t involved in anything criminal.”

  Hingham smiled. “There are many legitimate reasons for having anonymous bank accounts. Your grandmother was an extremely, um, private woman. And the account is quite old. Well before your time, I would guess. It has nothing to do with you, except if you choose to close the account. I could do that for you.”

  Serena looked at the piece of paper in her hand. There was $12,749.81 U.S. in the foreign bank. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  The lawyer’s mouth flattened. He couldn’t count the times Lisbeth had said the same thing to him. I’ll take care of it myself. No matter how hard he had tried, she had refused all but the most neutral legal necessitie
s from him. It hadn’t been anything personal. She had disliked and distrusted all men equally.

  “As you wish.” The impersonal words stuck in Hingham’s throat now as they had in the past. He cleared his throat roughly and handed over a small envelope with the logo of his office as a return address. “This is a key to her safe-deposit box.”

  “In Switzerland?”

  He smiled. “No. Palm Springs. In my position as executor, I—”

  “—opened it.” Serena’s voice was cool. She didn’t like the thought of anyone pawing through her grandmother’s life. There had been too much of that at her death, the lonely cabin and its burned-out pickup truck festooned with bright crime-scene tape, and gray ashes lifting with every bit of breeze.

  “She requested it when she amended her will. I am an officer of the court, Ms. Charters. I ascertained that there was nothing of interest to the state in the safe-deposit box.”

  “Why would the state care if G’mom left me a few mementos?”

  “If the, um, mementos were sufficiently valuable, there would be the matter of death taxes to pay.”

  “Of course. How could I forget.” There was no inflection in her voice, simply the flat line of her mouth to reveal her disgust. G’mom had never taken a thing from any government in her life—city, county, state, or federal. But that didn’t stop the various governments from wanting a share of her spoils, however meager they might be.

  Hingham unlocked the belly drawer of his desk and gently removed a worn leather portfolio that all but filled the wide drawer. “There were several items in the safe-deposit box.” He put a fresh, magazine-size envelope next to the portfolio. “And this was found in the ruins, near your grandmother’s loom.”

  “What is it?”

  “Cloth. She was lying on it, apparently.”

  In fact, the investigators speculated that she had started out curled around the cloth as though it was a child; then the pain had come. But Hingham didn’t think Serena needed to know the clinical details or see the gruesome photos in the police files. Some things were simply better left unknown.

  “Apparently?” Serena asked. “I don’t understand.”

  Hingham sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There was little left but stone walls and the stone chimney. It’s a miracle that this survived the fire at all.”

  Frowning, Serena took the envelope, opened it, and drew out the cloth. Perhaps a foot wide, more than a yard long, the fabric smelled of smoke yet wasn’t burned. The threads were supple, gleaming, every color and no color, opaque and transparent, whispering to her in an ancient tongue, luring her deeper and deeper as the unfinished pattern teased her with a feeling of absolute rightness.

  This is mine.

  I wove it.

  Yet she had never seen the cloth before in her life.

  Chapter 2

  Ms. Charters, are you all right?” Hingham asked.

  Serena forced herself to look at the lawyer rather than the pattern hidden like a puzzle within an ancient textile. She had always had an excellent imagination and a vivid feeling of being connected to a long, long history of weavers; that was what made her textile patterns so unusual that galleries were beginning to show a real interest in her art. But this certainty of direct connection was too real, too unnerving. Too . . .

  Dangerous.

  “Ms. Charters?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “The memories are difficult.” That, she realized wryly, was truer than she wanted him to know. In this case, impossible was a more accurate description; there was no way she could have woven it. “This cloth is very, very special to a weaver like me. The pattern is fascinating and the cloth itself feels like the softest kind of satin. Or maybe velvet. The feel changes in the most extraordinary way. What an incredibly skilled weaver she must have been.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “No. The woman who wove this cloth. It was a long time ago. Very long.”

  A feeling of agreement echoed through her, softer than a whisper, as definite as thunder: Almost a thousand years.

  Hingham looked at the scarf Serena was holding. It had a nice enough mix of colors, he guessed, but he didn’t see any particular pattern. As for the feel of the stuff, well, it had made his flesh creep. He had hardly been able to hang on to it long enough to stuff it in an envelope. Yet here she was stroking it like a pet cat. Amazing.

  Shaking his head, he turned away from the cloth. At least there was nothing ugly about Lisbeth’s other bequests. In fact, they were among the most beautiful objects he had ever seen. With great care he opened the portfolio.

  Serena’s breath wedged in her throat. Against the scarred, faded leather, colors gleamed richly in deep tones of ruby and lapis, emerald and gold, incredible color soaring like a song in the quiet room. Elegant black calligraphy described a time and a place long gone, using an ancestral language that few alive today could understand.

  Her heart stopped, squeezed, then beat quickly. When she spoke, her voice was barely a breath. “My God.”

  Gold gleamed and shimmered as the lawyer turned a page over. More colors sang in a design a thousand years old. Awe prickled over Serena’s skin like electricity. It was her design, the one that had haunted her dreams her entire life.

  “You didn’t know she had these, did you?” Hingham asked.

  “I—I thought I dreamed them.” Serena’s eyes shut, then opened. The dream was still there. Reverently she ran a fingertip down the supple edge of one vellum page. “It’s real!”

  “Oh, yes. Quite real. Four loose sheets written on both sides. Eight pages total.”

  “Real.” She was having trouble accepting it. “But you said there was nothing of value in the safe-deposit box.”

  “For all I know, these aren’t.”

  Reluctantly she looked away from the unbound remains of what had once been a beautifully illuminated whole manuscript: and that, too, was a memory she shouldn’t, couldn’t have. “I’m afraid they are very valuable.”

  “If so, then they are far older than any government that would hope to tax them.” Hingham’s smile was gentle and indefinably sad. “Your grandmother wanted you to have these pages. I saw no reason to get them appraised, and thus probably force you to sell your inheritance in order to pay death taxes to a state which did nothing for Lisbeth, least of all keep her alive.”

  “You . . .” Serena hesitated. “You cared about her, didn’t you?”

  “I would have loved her. She wouldn’t permit it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” He sighed, pulled off his glasses, and rubbed the high bridge of his nose. His eyes were as black as his hair once had been. “A more stubborn woman I’ve never known. It was her biggest vice. And her biggest virtue.” He sighed and replaced his glasses. When he spoke again, his voice was neutral. “The final item is this.”

  For the space of a breath, Serena simply stared at the small sealed envelope the lawyer was holding out to her. Then she took it, slit the bottom of the envelope with a letter opener he handed her, and read what Lisbeth Serena Charters had considered important enough to pass to her granddaughter from beyond the grave.

  Serena,

  When you read this, I’ll be dead. No sorrow there. I lived longer than most, and all the useful parts are worn out.

  If this note comes to you with only four leaves from the Book of the Learned, then I’ve failed in my duty. For a thousand years this book has been passed down from mother to firstborn daughter. We’ve lost some pages through the centuries, but damned few.

  Until my generation. I’m taking steps to get them back. I’m old enough now that death is more a lure than a fear. If I fail and you decide to go after your heritage, remember me when I was in my twenties. Think like the woman I was. Then think like the child you once were, when the desert was new to you. The Book of the Learned will follow.

  Be very careful. Forgery is a dangerous art.

  A wise woman wouldn’t pursue this. But since whe
n have the firstborn women of my clan been wise? Certainly not for a thousand years. If you follow where these pages lead, don’t make the mistake I did—be a moving target, not a sitting duck.

  Trust no man with your heritage.

  Your life depends on it.

  Serena read the letter again. Not for the first time, she wished her grandmother hadn’t been so suspicious of everyone. She had trusted Hingham enough to leave the letter with him, but obviously she hadn’t trusted him not to read it. She had given no more information than she thought absolutely necessary for her granddaughter to have.

  That wasn’t very much to work with. Just enough to tell her that there was a more or less whole manuscript somewhere out there, and it was her heritage, and to be careful. The warning was clear enough—moving target—but the way to reclaiming her heritage wasn’t.

  Frowning, she refolded the letter and put it back in the envelope. Though Hingham was obviously curious, he didn’t appear to notice when she put the letter in her purse. Nor did he ask any questions about what the letter contained.

  “I need to know more about these,” she said, gesturing toward the vivid pages. Maybe they were too vivid. Maybe they were forged. “Do you know anyone who could give me a discreet appraisal?”

  Hingham had expected some such request. He pushed a piece of paper toward her. Beneath the lawyer’s logo were two addresses with telephone numbers and E-mail addresses. One was in New York. The other was local.

  “The Palm Springs number belongs to Erik North,” he said. “For a young man, he has an excellent reputation for knowing the nuances of old English manuscripts. I understand he travels a lot, though, so he might not be in town right now.”

  “The second number?” was all Serena said.

  “The House of Warrick.”

  Serena recognized the name. Anyone would. The auction world had three giants: Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and the House of Warrick.

  “Warrick has long specialized in old manuscripts,” Hingham continued, “so I would recommend them. Due to the nature of this community, they have a small branch here, but New York handles major appraisals. I would be happy to ship the pages for you.”