Heartwood

by Catherine Lane

  “They won’t come out here I’m afraid,” Maggie said. “The cabin is on a service road.”

  “Great.” Nikka’s face fell as she glanced around the room, eyeing the door as if she were an inmate planning a prison break. Finally, she settled her gaze on Maggie, her eyes dark and stormy. She plopped onto the couch and sank into the cushions, her shoulders slumping against their flowered prints. The pop of her Coke tab sounded overly loud in the silent room.

  Maggie’s heart went out to her. It couldn’t be easy—to start the day on top of the corporate ladder and end it on the bottom rung. She could tell Nikka that she had thrown her career away for truth and justice and all the things the law was supposed to be. But if Nikka didn’t know that already, nothing Maggie could say would sway her.

  Besides, truth be told, Maggie was glad she was stuck here. Beth would need a lawyer, and Lea wouldn’t have brought her to the Springs if she weren’t the best. And last but not least, Maggie had her all to herself up here.

  She plopped down beside her, her shoulder just inches from Nikka’s. “Look. It says here on House Call MD”—Maggie read off her phone, trying to lighten the mood—“that the symptoms of opioid drug withdrawal are very uncomfortable but are not life-threatening. That’s got to make you feel a little better.”

  Nikka circled her head back and forth, saying yes and no at the same time.

  “Seriously. Not even a little bit?”

  “Maybe a little bit.” Nikka didn’t smile, but her shoulders straightened just a bit. “I mean, we’re crazy to take this on, for sure, but at least Beth is out of that place.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good start.” Maggie stretched her legs out on the coffee table and marveled that for the first time they had gotten through a conversation in agreement.

  CHAPTER 12

  Beth’s eyes fluttered open; she felt good. The warm and fuzzy haze from the Percocet comforted her like a thin blanket, but for the first time in ages, the relief was not the first thing on her mind. Instead, her thoughts turned to the future. I can do this. I can survive without the pills. Without…

  Soft light from a golden sunset streamed in through the open window across from the bed. Wait a second… The window was usually to the side of the bed. She turned to take in her surroundings, and there, perched on a chair barely a foot away, was a profile so familiar, she gasped out loud.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

  No, of course, it wasn’t her. They had gone through all this in the car. The mistake wasn’t completely crazy, though. The eyes were almost exactly the same, the slant and the color, the hair and the chin too. The nose was a little longer, and a tiny golden stud and hoop caught the light from the window. “What’s your name, dear?”

  “Josie.”

  Well at least it wasn’t Rhoda. Beth held out a hand, and Josie set down a sketchpad and a charcoal pencil and moved over to the bed.

  “Where are we?” Beth asked.

  “A cabin in the woods.” Josie smiled. “No one followed us.”

  Beth dropped her head back on the pillow, and tears welled up in her eyes. She had escaped. The ordeal was finally over.

  Josie was watching her with familiar green eyes as if she could tell the exact thoughts that were running around in her head. Beth hadn’t seen that look in over half a century. An all too familiar pain stabbed at her breast.

  Josie reached out to pat her hand. “This is Maggie’s place, the woman who got you out.”

  “Yes, I know. The cook who makes flowers out of vegetables.” Beth pulled herself into a sitting position and wiped a tear away. She pointed to the sketchpad lying open on the bed. “That yours?”

  “It is.”

  “Will you show me?”

  “I’d love to.” Josie flipped the pad toward her.

  Studies of the nature outside the window filled the page: an intricate pine cone, a fir tree with spiraling branches, a falcon soaring on the breeze.

  “That’s my favorite.” Beth tapped three snow-peaked mountain tops, so delicate that the lines at the edges seemed to fade into the paper. “What are they?”

  “Ideas for tattoos.”

  “For your body?”

  “You bet. Like this one.” Josie pulled up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal the cherry blossom tree on her arm.

  “Oh my goodness.” Beth reached out to touch one of the flowers before pulling her hand back. “May I?”

  Josie nodded.

  Beth ran a finger across one branch. “That’s breathtaking.”

  “Thank you. I designed it.”

  “You know…” Beth swallowed. She was going to have to take the plunge sometime, no matter how much it hurt. “Your grandmother was an amazing artist too.” A sharp stab lanced through her breast.

  Still so bad after all this time.

  Her mouth went dry, and her throat constricted. She craved another pill. Desperately.

  No.

  She would fight hard not to fall into that spiral of agony again. She knew from experience it was a bottomless pit. She focused on what Josie was saying. Her happy tone pulled her back from the edge.

  “—I have some of her sketchbooks at home. Actually, that’s how I started drawing. I would get paper and copy some of the pictures I found in there. There was this tree, a redwood, I think. I drew it so many times, I’m sure I could recognize if I ever saw it in person.”

  “A little knot in the trunk about this high.” Beth sliced her hand through the air above her head. Boy, she hadn’t thought it would be this hard.

  “You’ve seen the picture too?” Josie clapped with delight—just like Dawn would have.

  “And the original as well.” Beth forced herself to take another breath. “I can show it to you, if you’d like… If we ever get through this mess.”

  “I’d like that very much. I—”

  A soft tap on the door cut into the conversation.

  “Come in.” Beth’s heart settled into a more comfortable rhythm as Maggie entered with a sandwich on a plate and a steaming mug.

  “I heard talking, and I thought you might be hungry.”

  “You know, I am. But if you don’t mind, I think I might like to try to get up and eat at the table like a regular person, if you’ll have me.”

  Twenty minutes later after official introductions, they sat at the table, sandwiches all around. Maggie poured red wine into a tumbler in front of her plate and then offered some to Nikka, who shook her head. When Josie raised her glass, Nikka put her hand out to stop Maggie. “How old are you anyway?”

  “Twenty- two.”

  “You look younger,” Nikka said but dropped her hand.

  “Her grandmother was ageless too.” The pain in her breast radiated down her rib cage. Not good. She had relived her moments with Dawn so often since the accident, but never out loud and never with Dawn’s spitting image staring her in the face.

  “Thank God you brought it up. I’m terrible at walking on egg shells.” Maggie laughed. “So, you’re Dawn Montgomery’s granddaughter?”

  Josie nodded.

  Nikka studied her. “You know, I can totally see it now. You look just like her.”

  “Is it true?” Maggie leaned toward Beth. “You and Dawn Montgomery?”

  Heat flooded Beth’s face and moved down her neck onto her chest. She had never been at ease with all the attention focused on her, and her relationship with Dawn was something she had adamantly denied to her public and compartmentalized in herself for decades. With all eyes on her, Beth hesitated. Dawn’s tragic death and hiding both their relationship and her grief had made her susceptible to the pills and people like her brother and Lea taking control of her life. She didn’t want that anymore, but coming clean after hiding the truth for so long wasn’t easy. She forced herself to nod.

  “I’ll be damned,” Maggie said.

  “Wow,” Nikka said.

  “And so when I saw you on the street.” Maggie turned to Josie. “You had…what…tried to get in to se
e Beth?”

  “And failed.” Josie took a deep breath and big sip of her wine. “I knew about Beth and my grandmother, but not about anything else. I just wanted to talk to her and get the scoop.”

  Beth leaned in. Was this her way back to Dawn?

  “When I was a kid, I found those sketchbooks I told you about. They were in my grandfather’s attic with a bunch of other boxes and stuff.” Josie paused and searched Beth’s face as if weighing something but then quickly continued. “I don’t know where they came from. Grandpa would never talk about Dawn with anyone. When my mom was touring with some third-rate play one summer, I stayed with Grandpa and Kristabel, his fourth wife. I found them then. The books were full of nature studies, but every so often there would be a picture of the same woman. Doing stuff. Like writing or planting flowers. There was one of her…” Josie turned to Beth. “You sleeping by a riverbank half-naked. They all had stuff written underneath them. BW in the garden, BW writing, BW after the first time…”

  More heat ran across Beth’s cheeks.

  “I never knew who it was. I never read your books. I’m sorry. Was never much of a reader, but then I saw your picture on Twitter with the announcement about the story—”

  “What story?” Beth asked.

  “‘The Tarot Card.’” Nikka met her gaze. “Your publisher just released it. They want to drum up a renewed interest in Heartwood. Introduce the real moneymaker to a whole new younger audience. Didn’t you know?”

  Beth shook her head. “They told me the press conference was about new covers for the Wishes books.”

  “I’m pretty sure you signed a contract.”

  “I may have. There’re a lot of things that I’m not as clear about as I should be in the past year or so, since my brother died, I’m afraid.” Beth took a deep breath as everyone at the table fell silent. She couldn’t find a way to end that thought. Addiction and losing control of your life was hardly casual dinner conversation.

  After a moment, Nikka reached across the table to pour herself half a glass of wine. “I can look into all that if you want.”

  “You could? You’d do that for me?”

  Nikka studied the wine in her hand. “Yeah, I would.” She finally looked up to slide her gaze past Beth and gave Maggie a slight shrug, who was beaming from ear to ear and trying to fight the smile all at the same time.

  The real question staring Beth in the face was could she do it? Could she bring back memories and stories that had nearly drowned her? She wasn’t sure she could keep her head above water, even with these wonderful women supporting her.

  Beth glanced around the table, first at Josie and then at Maggie and Nikka.

  Holy moly.

  She had been so concerned with herself that the obvious had escaped her. Nikka and Maggie. They had a thing for each other. It was written all over Maggie’s face. Nikka, on the other hand, wasn’t aware of it yet, but Beth knew how that went. It was the same for her in the beginning with Dawn.

  Nikka would realize soon enough. When you found the one, there was no fighting fate.

  The wine tasted almost bitter on Nikka’s tongue. Why on earth had she made that offer? A couple of hours ago, she had wanted to run away from this situation as fast as she could. And now, she had just offered to dig around in a field of legal land mines that were sure to blow up in her face.

  What had changed? She conjured three notecards in her mind and started filling in the blank lines.

  Was it Beth? Her name in bold topped one of the notecards in her head. Since the moment she had punched Beth’s address into her GPS, she had been dreaming about meeting the author. Now she was sitting down to a meal with her, privy to her secrets with a famous movie star. Her ten-year-old self would’ve shouted with sheer delight if she could’ve jumped into a time machine to tell her that someday she would have dinner with the author of Don’t Waste Your Wishes.

  Was it Josie? The first notecard flipped to the back of the pile. They had just met, but it touched her how protective the young woman was of Beth. Sure, they had a ton of connections with that sketchbook and Dawn, but still, at twenty-two, Nikka had only been consumed by her own selfish goals—getting on Stanford Law Review and graduating high in her class. She had always thought that people with piercings and tattoos were somehow less evolved. Obviously, she had to rethink that narrow point of view.

  Was it Maggie? The third blank index card slid into view, and Maggie’s name popped up. There was something about the woman sitting across from her that was both maddening and strangely alluring. She was energy coiled into human form, beyond exhausting, and she flew by the seat of her pants so fast that Nikka was forced to play catch-up most of the time. Yet it was charming how quick she was to laugh at herself and smile with others. Maggie had been clucking around her all day like a mother hen. And the way she ran her fingers through her bangs when she was thinking was awfully cute.

  Or was it all of them? A fourth card materialized on top of the other three. Even with Lea up to God knows what, a sure shit storm brewing back at the Springs and in her career, there had been a lightness to the meal that was sorely missing from her life in the City. Maybe she just wanted to climb inside that feeling for as long as she could. It wasn’t as if she had anything else going at the moment.

  Then it hit her. There was no definitive answer, no matter how many imaginary notecards she filled up in her head, and much to her surprise, that was okay. She mentally ripped the cards in two and tossed them out of her brain. For the first time in her life, she settled back in her chair and just let the worry go. It was surprisingly easy.

  Josie was in the middle of an answer to a question she had missed. Her hands waved in the air as she accentuated a point, and Maggie had a big, broad grin on her face as she listened.

  “It was all my grandfather’s money, and I was of age, so my mom really couldn’t say anything. But she was totally judgmental. I mean, everyone is when you tell people that you’re a tattoo artist. When I bought the studio, though, she really blew a gasket. I thought it would’ve changed when Wallpaper came out and did a story on me—”

  “What’s Wallpaper?” Beth asked.

  “Probably the best art magazine in the country,” Maggie said. “You really were in Wallpaper?”

  Josie nodded. “I know. Crazy, huh? They usually only do fine artists. Dynamic visual style, bold colors that are an experience in and of itself and ultra-delicate line work. Her women and flowers are as perfect as they come.”

  “They’re right.” Beth reached out toward her shoulder. “It’s like fine art.”

  “I have over one hundred fifty thousand followers on Instagram and a two-month wait list.” Josie puffed up with pride that on her, Nikka realized, read more like delight.

  Maggie whistled through her teeth. “Impressive.”

  “You would think so, but not so much for my mom. She is never happy with anyone’s success but her own.”

  “Mothers are hard to figure out.” Beth curled her hands in her lap. “I never got mine. We were estranged too…until the end.”

  They shared a sad smile.

  “We would have been fine.” Josie started up again. “If I had just gone into the family business.”

  “Which was? Not acting?” Nikka couldn’t imagine her father pushing her into such a foolish and unreliable profession.

  “Sure, what else? I mean, she grew up in the shadow of my grandfather, and supposedly, he never loved her. To hear her tell it, the only thing he ever gave her was his name: Jamison, Jamie for short. When I was born, he insisted that mine began with a J too. He was pretty selfish and egotistical, although he always had a soft spot for me.”

  Beth clenched her hands in her lap with the mention of James Montgomery.

  That’s right. She must have had had a history with him too, and from the white spreading across her knuckles, it wasn’t a good one. Nikka reached out and slid a comforting hand across her back.

  Beth smiled at her and stretched out
her fists.

  “So my mom thought that if she could become successful, Grandpa would love her. And when she couldn’t, it was my turn.”

  Beth had to clear her throat before she spoke. “You acted too?”

  “A little. I didn’t like it. But some casting director said I was a natural, and that was enough for my mom. She wanted it for herself, not me. I got three national commercials, and when I was up for my fourth, I convinced my best friend to do this.” She pointed to the curved barbell at the end of her eyebrow. “I showed up to the callback with a big bruise and this gross yellow stuff oozing everywhere. Needless to say, I didn’t get the part.”

  They all laughed. Nikka took another sip of her wine. The bitterness had mellowed.

  “The funny thing is,” Josie said, “that she did put me on a career path. My grandfather, just to piss my mom off, took me to a tattoo parlor to fix the piercing—she thought he was taking me to a doctor to get rid of it—and there I saw these gorgeous designs covering the walls. I knew what I wanted to do.”

  “That simple?” Maggie asked.

  “That simple. Never looked back.”

  Could it really be that simple? Nikka’s brows furrowed. No double-and triple-thinking involved. It would free up a lot of time, if she didn’t have to chart out every single move.

  Blue and red lights flashed through the room.

  Everyone swiveled to the big picture window. Nikka froze, seemingly rooted to the seat of her chair.

  A sheriff’s car rolled up on the dirt driveway outside.

  No, it was never that simple.

  “Shit. The cops.” Josie jumped up. “I’ll get her in back. Come on, Beth.”

  Beth immediately started shaking as she pushed herself out of her seat. “Don’t let them take me.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll fix this.” Maggie sprung to the door, leaving Nikka all alone at the table.

  Her stomach flipped and went sour. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

  Loud knocking shook the door. “Come on, Maggie. Open up. We know you’re in there.”