“Um, I don’t know,” she said, flinging the blankets off and trying to sit up. “Maybe his phone is dead.”
“Do you mind checking on him? I need to speak with him.”
“Is it important?” she said.
“It is,” Cashel said. “It looks like they found Gracie. They are pretty sure she’s in a cabin, way off the grid, with a Dr. Rawlings, a professor.”
Cora’s heart sank. Poor Paul.
“They think?”
“She fits the description, so even though there’s been no positive identification, we’re pretty certain. I’m not aware of what they are waiting for. But they have to be certain before announcing it—privacy issues and then there’s the slight possibility of false hope.”
“Wow,” she said after a few beats. “Well, if it’s her, at least we’ll know she’s still alive.”
“Yes, but the audacity,” Cashel said. “So many resources were used to search for her. Everything from dragging the river to using highly trained and expensive search dogs. She’s got a lot to answer for.”
“Well, she’s a grown woman. I don’t think she needed approval to run off with her lover,” Cora said. “Looks like someone may have jumped the gun.”
Would that someone be Paul?
“It’s a good thing it wasn’t Paul,” he said, as if he were reading her mind. “I’d kick his ass myself. As it is, there’s Henry murder.”
“You don’t think—”
“Absolutely not. And if I did—”
“You couldn’t tell me,” she said. ”I know. I’ve heard your spiel before. Ho hum.”
“Please tell Paul to call me,” he said with a clipped tone. Cora grinned. She loved goading him. He was so easy.
The line went dead.
Cora took one look at herself in the mirror and decided on a quick shower and a change of clothes. She was still feeling tired—usually a nap perked her right up. But this retreat was taking it out of her, along with the stress of the incidents with Gracie and Henry. She had just met him and the very next day he was killed. You just never knew when something dreadful was going to happen.
After her shower, she dressed in a 1970s deep purple velvet maxi skirt and a white poplin blouse. She loved mixing the vintage styles. She ran a brush through her red curls, smeared some pink lipstick on, and she was ready for Friday night dinner.
But for now she was off to find Paul to tell him to call Cashel. Whew, she was glad she wasn’t the bearer of that news. Good thing his parents were coming to collect him tomorrow. He was going to need some support. Poor Gracie—it sounded like this Gerald Rawlings was quite a player and he was a mistake for Gracie. Cora knew that because she’d made a few in her day, as had Jane. Both of them vowed to think their way into their next relationships. So far, it was working with Adrian, but then again, he hadn’t been around much because of his mother’s health.
As Cora walked down the stairs, she heard chanting from the living room.
Chanting? What?
When she finally entered the room, she saw that most of her retreaters were sitting in a circle around another circle. Within the center circle were Ruby, Liv, Paul, Sheila, and Marianne. A photo of Gracie was on the table in the center, along with a necklace catching glints of light. All this was placed on a bed of herbs and twigs.
Turning, turning, turn around
Gracie’s lost and must be found.
Turning, turning, turn around
under sky or in the ground.
Turning, turning, turnabout
find her, find her, search it out!
Nobody noticed that Cora had entered the room. They were intent. The room smelled of burning candles and sage.
What were they doing? It sounded like a charm or a spell to find Gracie. There she stood, knowing Gracie had been found—but she was not to tell anybody what she knew. She found the scene before her odd, but also strangely comforting. All her crafters who were here to retreat from their usual routines, give themselves time and space, had come together to say a prayer, or make magic, for Paul’s girlfriend.
Cora knew this kind of “spell” didn’t work. But she also knew it could serve to provide comfort. Which it appeared to be doing. Her crafters had bonded over this. And where had she been? Sleeping.
She hated to interrupt. Paul now looked relaxed, hopeful, and calm. She knew the news that Cashel would deliver would send him into another kind of tailspin. Before she cleared her throat, she stood for a few more beats, letting Paul steep in his momentary bliss.
Chapter 24
“I don’t believe it,” Paul said to Cora and Jane later that night. “I refuse to believe that my Gracie ran off with that creep. I’m sorry. You have no idea what that man put her through. I mean, it was bad.”
Jane and Cora were sitting with him around the kitchen table, the other crafters having mostly gone off to bed. Cora had just told him that the woman with Gerald Rawlings in the mountains probably was Gracie, though there had been no positive identification.
“Paul,” Cora said after a few minutes, “sometimes it’s hard to see the people we love clearly. Believe me, I know.”
Jane grunted. “We both do. We’ve both been through some stuff with men. Why do you think we’re single?”
He quieted and shook his head. “It makes no sense. Gracie said she would never go back to him. It was a very brief fling. We broke up for a while and it was intense. He tried to blackmail her for grades. I mean, when she wanted to end it with him, he told her he’d fail her.”
“What?” Jane said. “I can’t believe she’d put up with that!”
“Well, she didn’t. That’s what I mean. She went to the dean,” he said. “Almost got the man fired. He was placed on probation, even though he has tenure. It was bad. Evidently, there had been several others. Gracie was livid.” His jaw was firm with incredulity. “And she was scared and hurt, but here’s the thing, she didn’t back away. She went to the dean,” he said with emphasis.
“How about a drink?” Cora said to them after a few seconds of silence. “I have this new mead I’ve been dying to try. Someone who Ruby knows makes it.”
“I’d love to try it,” Jane said, perking up a bit.
“No,” Paul said. “I think I’m going to bed. My parents will probably be here early in the morning. I’m going to take a sleeping pill and get some sleep. Pills are the only way I can even think about sleeping. Sometimes even they don’t work.”
After he left, Cora poured Jane and her each a glass of mead.
“He’s right,” Jane said. “What I know of Gracie, well, it doesn’t add up.”
“I agree that something is off,” Cora said.
“But it’s really none of our business, right?” Jane said, and sipped her mead. “Mmmm, this is good. I mean, tomorrow he’s out of here. Then, he and the whole sordid business are out of our lives.”
Cora took a deep breath and bit her lip.
“And we don’t know if that whole professor thing is even true,” Jane went on. “You know, I don’t know who to believe anymore. People can make up stories about anything or anyone. I mean, he is a writer, could be he’s exaggerating.”
“Have you ever read any of Paul’s writing?” Cora asked.
“No,” Jane said. “You?”
Cora shook her head and drank some mead. A sweet, floral flavor played on her tongue. “Wouldn’t you think there’d be something in the news about the incident at the college?”
“Maybe. Depends on how successful the school was at keeping it a secret,” Jane replied. “But it’s not our concern,” she said with a bit of force. “He’s leaving tomorrow. The end. Right?”
Cora wasn’t so sure. Too many things didn’t add up. Why shouldn’t she look around on the Web later tonight? She nodded but didn’t look directly at Jane. She knew that Jane considered Cora’s “disease to please” a problem. And it could be. But not this time. What harm could it do to look a few things up tonight?
“We’l
l be finishing up that basket class tomorrow, then the pottery charm class. I think one more glazing for most of them. Some of them did lovely pieces. Liv is very talented. I’m looking forward to Ruby’s crafting with herbs class later in the day,” Jane said.
Cora sipped her mead. It was delicious, but she was already beginning to feel its effect. Sweet drinks went to her head a lot faster.
Her cell phone went off. It was Adrian.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hey, Cora, just wanted to let you know I’m home.” His voice sounded as smooth and honeyed as the mead.
“Welcome home,” she said. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s doing much better. Thanks for asking. Is it still okay if I come by Sunday night?”
“As far as I know it should be fine.”
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” he said, and breathed heavy into the phone. “I know we only had the one date, but I felt a connection and I’m hoping for more.”
How sweet. Cora caught Jane’s eye. She was listening, unabashedly.
“I feel the same way,” Cora said.
After Cora and Adrian had hung up, Jane sat there with her chin in her hands. “I want the scoop.”
Cora was smiling so hard her cheeks were beginning to ache. “I really like him.” But even as she said that, she felt a tendril of fear moving through her. Yes, she liked him, but she reminded herself to be careful.
Chapter 25
Jane made her way home down the path through the garden. She stood a moment and gazed at her pretty little carriage house and studio. It was all coming together: her house and studio, her life with her daughter. It was going to be okay. She wasn’t certain an exhale was in order yet, since Neil was back in the picture, out of jail, and wanting to see London.
The moon was full and so bright it lit the path ahead of her. This would be their first spring in Indigo Gap. But a year ago they first laid eyes on the place—and Cora fell in love with it. Jane admired Cora for her talent in repurposing houses, objects, and even lives. Cora saw the diamond in the rough in this dilapidated old place. Jane was beginning to love it here. She was so afraid that Cora would bring them trouble with all her poking and prodding. She just couldn’t leave well enough alone.
When she opened the door to the house, a scream reverberated through her whole body. London! She flew upstairs to find the babysitter holding her daughter and trying to comfort her. “Shhh, baby, it’s fine,” she was saying to her.
“What’s going on?” Jane demanded.
“Mama!” London held her arms out to her and Cora made her way to the bed.
“What’s wrong? Sweetie, calm down,” she said, as the child plastered herself to her, trembling.
“She was asleep,” Louise said. “I think she had a bad dream.” She looked uncomfortable, like she didn’t know quite what to do with herself, perched on the edge of the bed.
“Don’t let him take me!” London said.
“Shh, baby, nobody’s going to take you. I’m here,” Jane said, willing back tears and the roaring ache inside her chest. All this talk of Gracie missing had frightened London.
“The bad man is going to take me!” she said.
“Baby”—Jane peeled her daughter from her body and looked her in the eye—“ain’t nobody going to take you. Your mama is here—your sitter is here. We are here. You just had a dream.”
“But someone took Gracie!” she said between sobs. “And she’s a big girl!”
“Oh, honey,” Louise said.
The three of them sat in silence for a few moments. Jane reached for a tissue for London. She would need one herself soon, once her daughter was safely tucked in bed again. She planned on a good cry. The world was a scary place, which she tried not to think about. She tried to cast it aside, even though she had been in the belly of it at one time in her life. She didn’t want to bring that fear into her daughter’s life. She didn’t want fear to control her or London. There was a huge part of her that wanted to tuck London safely away from the world and its dangers. But at the same time, she knew she couldn’t shield her child forever. And she had vowed not to lie to her, to help her daughter become an emotionally stable person by offering her honesty, even about the dangers in her life.
But this was hard. It was the hard road. It was the road of ogres and monsters and fighting them head-on. She preferred to dwell in the world of fairies and princesses. But that never lasted long.
Later, after London was tucked in, and Louise gone, Jane surprised herself by not pouring a glass of wine and having a good cry. Instead, she turned on her computer. She was going some check up on some of the people she allowed into her daughter’s life. How had Gracie fooled them all? She was working for one of the best families in town. Everybody she worked for offered nothing but good things to say about her. Yet, she had apparently been involved in some questionable things.
Wait a minute, she told herself, why are you doing this? Hadn’t you just told Cora this was no longer our business?
Yes, but now she saw how this was affecting her daughter. Now, she simply had to know more about this young woman. If for no other reason than to explain things to London.
She keyed in “Gracie Wyke” on her laptop. The search engine brought up a list of links. Jane took a deep breath. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 26
“I can’t find anything bad about Gracie Wyke,” Jane said.
“What?” Cora managed to say, glancing at the clock. Was it really 1:35 AM?
“Gracie Wyke appears to have lived the perfect life, except for the professor thing,” Jane said.
They had always called each other any time of the day or night, but late-night calls had gotten to be a thing of the past since they had moved to North Carolina and were close “neighbors,” essentially living on the same property.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Jane said. She sounded bright and chipper, which Cora found irritating. “London had this nightmare about a man stealing her. I started thinking about how this is affecting her, and probably a lot of the kids that Gracie sat for.”
“And then there’s Henry . . .” Cora interrupted. Luna lifted her head from her spot on the bed toward Cora, with an air of confusion.
“Yeah,” Jane said. “I’m not so certain one thing doesn’t have to do with the other.”
“The police are certain,” Cora said.
“I need to find out,” Jane said after a minute.
“What? Find out what?”
“I really need to know what’s going on here. I feel, I don’t know, personally invested here because of London and her relationship with Gracie,” Jane said. “I need to know what is going on.”
Cora noted an edge of panic in Jane’s voice.
“Look, all things will be revealed soon. I’m sure,” Cora said. Usually it was the other way around, with Jane talking her out of pursuing one thing or the other. “I think it’s sweet that Paul has so much faith in Gracie. Don’t you? I mean, it’s endearing.”
“Or stupid,” Jane said.
“Oh, the man is not stupid,” Cora said. “I’ve read some of his writing. While you were digging up info on Gracie, I was reading some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read. Paul is a brilliant writer. He’s won all kinds of awards—so I’m not the only one who thinks so.”
“Yes, but writers are fragile sorts,” Jane said.
“I’m not sure about that. I mean, yes, he does seems rather sensitive. But I don’t think he’d blindly believe in Gracie if there wasn’t good reason, even if he is madly in love. After reading his writing . . . I just don’t know what the hell is going on here. But I’m with you. We need to find out.”
“What should we do?”
Cora thought a moment, yawning. “The first thing we need to do is get a good night’s sleep.”
That may have been a steep order. Cora tossed and turned the rest of the night. Sleeping fitfully was worse than not sleeping at all. Finally, at 5:30 A
M she gave up and decided to get her day started. Coffee. Cuddles with Luna. And writing a blog post.
She curled up in her window seat, holding a big cup of hot coffee, and gazed out over the town of Indigo Gap and the surrounding mountains. It was almost as if the town were scooped out of the mountainside. Luna curled up on her lap, kneading her flesh and circling around before settling down. The conversation with Jane played in her mind. London must be deeply disturbed by Gracie’s disappearance to have had a nightmare about it. And then Jane in turn was upset enough to start doing research online.
Cora herself was careful about what she shared about herself online. A resourceful person could create a whole false identity online. It was easy enough to do.
It wasn’t as though Cora lied about herself. A part of her was exactly the person she portrayed online. Aware. Upbeat. Crafty. Caring. Vintage. But, she mused, nobody would want to read about the depth of the darkness in her previous life. Which led her to the anxiety attacks and ultimately to her early retirement from the Sunny Street Women’s Shelter. No. People didn’t really want to know about that—and why should she tell them? She wanted an upbeat, positive personality—at least online.
She drank from her coffee and wondered what truth Gracie could be hiding from people online—if any at all. But everybody had secrets, private matters. For example, this professor whom she had an affair with.
Love made people do all kinds of crazy things. Twisted love. Obsessive. But it was still love, wasn’t it?
Cora wished she knew.
“It was definitely a murder.” Cora heard Detective Brodsky’s voice in her head.
She felt a chill, but assured herself it was nothing more than the dilapidated old window allowing the spring air in. Outside, the rising sun shone crimson on the horizon.
Chapter 27
Cora and Jane took advantage of the morning lull, during which some of the crafters were still sleeping and others met with Sheila and Ruby pressing flowers. Brunch was planned for 10:30. They had plenty of time before then.
No Charm Intended Page 10