But no family, she insisted, stubbornly holding to self-pity. I need something more than just friends.
The thing Kari had convinced herself she cared most about, foolish as it might be, was the mystery of the woman whose journal Kari had now read many times. I don’t care what anyone thinks, she groused. I want to know! I want to find her.
What had become of Rose Thoresen, her daughter, and her daughter’s husband and child? What had become of their work with former prostitutes? What was it that inspired this woman, Rose Thoresen, and gave her such hope? More than that, what was it about her that intrigued Kari so?
If she found Rose’s house—Palmer House—would she find any answers?
Kari studied the address she had copied into her notebook and double-checked the microfilm record to ensure that she had written the address correctly. She took a deep breath, closed her notebook, and tucked it into her handbag, her hand grazing the cloth bag in which she carried the faded journal. She rewound the spool and turned off the microfilm reader.
“All done, then?” The clerk hovered near Kari. “Find what you were looking for?”
“I think so.”
I hope so. I hope I find . . . something . . . to care about.
“Thank you for your help,” Kari smiled.
The clerk nodded and gathered the spools. “I’ll take care of these.”
Kari trod up the stairs to the courthouse’s main floor, across the rotunda, and out into the heat and sunshine. She had the house’s address memorized now, but she stood on the sidewalk, irresolute. The voices she’d ignored pushed through her defenses, assaulting her.
Why go further on this wild-goose chase? This woman, Rose Thoresen, has been dead—must assuredly have been dead—for decades now! What do you expect to find?
“Perhaps I will find the rightful owner of this journal,” Kari said aloud. Even as she uttered the words she cringed. The last thing in the world she wanted was to give up Rose Thoresen’s diary! It was her talisman; it had become her quest.
Well, I won’t mention anything about Rose’s journal, she decided. That way no one will ask for it and I won’t feel obligated to return it!
Kari gripped her handbag and began walking with no direction in mind. When she reached the corner of Bannock and West Colfax she stopped. Traffic along the street that fronted the courthouse was thick and slow; West Colfax cross-street traffic was worse. As Kari waited with the traffic for the light to change, she spotted a cab on Colfax, one lane away, stopped at the light. The driver was alone in his vehicle.
She didn’t think; she just acted. She ran through the lane of stopped cars, pulled open the cab’s door, and slid inside.
“Hey! You don’t cross lanes to get in! I got to pull over to the curb to pick up a fare,” the driver hollered.
“Can you take me to this address?” Kari rattled off the street and numbers, ignoring his protest.
“Yeah, yeah, lady. I get a ticket, though, I’m blamin’ you.”
The light changed and the cab surged forward with the flow of traffic.
It wasn’t a long drive. Ten minutes later the driver wound through a neighborhood that had certainly seen better days. The area was half residential and half industrial; the block they were driving through had warehouses surrounded by chain link fences on one side of the street and rundown houses on the other. It was a depressing sight.
The driver ducked his head out the cab’s window, looking for street signs. They turned right at a corner, drove two blocks, and then turned left onto a new street. Kari saw the street sign and knew they were getting close. Her heart thudded in her breast as she watched the house numbers roll by.
They passed a beautiful old park, somewhat neglected. A path wound from the sidewalk into the park and rambled in and out of aged pine trees.
Past the park, the neighborhood seemed to improve a little. Everywhere Kari’s eyes darted, the homes were large and of the age she expected. Some of the houses had been converted to apartments; others showed their age. A few had been restored with care.
Kari realized the corner she was looking for was only two blocks farther. She held her breath as the cab drew near the intersection.
There. Kari knew it immediately. Set far back in the oversized lot and surrounded by a gated iron fence, the house had once been the queen of the neighborhood . . . Now it was an elderly dowager, long in the tooth.
“That’s it,” Kari called to the driver. She hardly noticed when he slid up alongside the curb—her eyes were fixed on the old house.
She stared through the tall gate and up a long walkway. The house’s age did not diminish its stately lines nor did its aged appearance distress her. In her heart it looked exactly as Rose described it in her journal the evening Rose, Joy, and Joy’s husband Grant had first seen it. That evening when Martha Palmer had given the house to them.
“Well?”
Kari jumped. “Oh!”
“You getting out here?” The cabby glanced at the house and back. “You know the folks what live here?”
“No, not exactly. That is . . .”
The driver let his impatience show a bit. “If you’re getting out, that’ll be $7.75.”
Kari dug in her handbag for her little purse and counted out eight dollars. “Keep the change.”
“Well, gee, thanks.” He got out and opened the door for her.
When he drove away, Kari was standing on the sidewalk, still gazing through the gate and up the walkway. Too late, she realized she didn’t have a return ride to her hotel and she whirled back—but the taxi was long gone. She shook herself and turned to gaze at the house again.
It is just as you described it, Rose, Kari thought. What a beautiful house this must have been! It still is!
She reached through the gate and unlatched it. It swung open on oiled hinges.
Well, someone must still live here, Kari decided. She swallowed, trying to frame just the right words she would use to introduce herself. Finally she started down the walk. As she got closer, she realized that, while the house’s paint was faded, it had been touched up—repeatedly, Kari noted—and the yard maintained, even if indifferently so.
She climbed the steps and stood before the house’s entrance. The door was immense, constructed of solid wood. A heavy brass knocker faced Kari at eye level.
“Cool,” she breathed. She noticed a doorbell but could not resist using the antique knocker. Kari raised and dropped it, thrilled by its deep and melodic thud. She dropped it a second time, reveling in its powerful note.
For the first time since leaving the courthouse, Kari smiled. She looked up and down the long porch. Ivy had twined itself around the railings and up the posts, but obviously someone trimmed it and swept the porch regularly. The door was clean and the knocker shone—someone still cared enough to polish it!
At the corner of the house the porch opened onto the old gazebo; it, too, was covered in vines, but the ivy had been cut back from the gazebo’s archway.
Oh, Rose! Kari sighed. Someone still sits there, perhaps on a hot July evening like this one will be.
Kari’s examination swept back to the door. An old metal sign hung off to the side, the lettering worn but legible. She pondered the three words: Lost Are Found. The shabby sign seemed in contrast to the shining door and knocker.
“Huh,” Kari murmured, thinking the words “Lost Are Found” were vaguely familiar.
Straightening her shoulders, Kari waited. Finally, echoing from far back in the house, Kari heard a woman’s voice holler, “Coming!”
The door opened and Kari was face-to-face with a slender young Asian woman—a girl, really. The lids of her dark eyes were heavily outlined in black, emphasizing the eyes’ deep luminosity.
The girl’s hair—cut short—was teased and sprayed into a few spiky points. She was dressed in tight jeans and a black t-shirt, and she chewed and cracked a piece of gum, waiting for Kari to speak.
“Hello. I, um. My name is Kari Hillyer.”
Kari stared at the girl. The girl stared back.
“All right, then . . . Kari Hillyer. What are you selling? ’Cause we’re not buying.”
“Selling? No, no, I’m not selling anything.” Kari shook her head for emphasis.
The girl looked Kari up and down and then cocked her head to one side, still waiting.
Kari roused herself to speak again. “I’m terribly sorry to intrude . . . I, um, actually, I’m doing some research on someone who lived here—in this house—years ago now, a Rose Thoresen. I was wondering if anyone living here can tell me anything about her?”
The girl blinked at Kari and her gum-chewing jaws slowed.
Kari, growing a little lightheaded, inhaled deeply and added, “If not Rose Thoresen, then perhaps her daughter, Joy Thoresen Michaels?”
The girl continued to blink and stare, but the gum chewing had stopped and her lips had parted slightly.
“Mixxie, who is it, dear?”
The voice that called from behind the girl was cultured and aged. For several beats, the girl did not respond.
“Mixxie?”
The voice drew closer, and Kari sensed, more than heard, a whiffling or shuffling in the wide foyer beyond the doorway. The girl, keeping an eye on Kari, turned a bit and whispered something Kari didn’t understand.
Chinese? Kari wondered.
The shuffling stopped. “Shén?” The single word hinted at doubt.
The girl repeated herself and waited. The shuffling resumed and, as the girl called Mixxie stood back, Kari saw a tiny woman move into the light of the doorway. She walked with the aid of a cane, accompanied by the soft sound of her embroidered slippers sliding over parquet.
The old woman—Kari saw at a glance that she was elderly—peered into Kari’s face, studying her with almond-shaped eyes. Kari, her heart pounding, took another deep breath and studied her in return.
The old woman’s expression was serene, and her ivory skin, stretched over delicate bones, was still lovely. Kari could tell she had once been a woman of outstanding beauty.
Without thinking, Kari blurted, “Are you, by any chance . . . Mei-Xing Li?”
Kari’s attention was jerked in Mixxie’s direction as the girl loosed an expostulated curse word.
“Mixxie.” It was said gently, but the girl sighed and nodded.
“I’m sorry, Auntie.”
“I accept your apology, Mixxie. Now, please; ask our guest to join us in the great room.” With that, the woman turned and began her slow shuffle into the shadowed depths of the house.
As Mixxie did another top-to-bottom examination of Kari, her jaw resumed its work on the piece of gum in her mouth. “You better not be trying to scam my aunt,” she hissed.
“She’s your aunt?” Kari was gnawing on her lower lip, both thrilled and anxious that she had been invited inside the house.
Palmer House! The anticipation caroming around inside Kari made her stomach lurch.
“My great-aunt,” Mixxie admitted. “Follow me. And don’t you touch anything. Not anything.” She poked her finger at Kari to make her point. “I’ll be watching you. You better not have sticky fingers.”
“I assure you—” Kari started to say, but Mixxie had already disappeared into the badly lit interior. Kari closed the front door behind her and hurried to follow.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Kari’s mouth opened in astonishment. The parquet floors of the foyer glowed with a waxen sheen. The walls of the hall were papered in a subtle brocade. She barely registered a tall vase tucked into a niche as the foyer widened and she caught a glimpse of the house’s main staircase far down the hall. The wood of the banisters and steps shimmered, curving up and away from the first floor.
Mixxie had turned right through a set of double doors. Kari tore her attention from the staircase and followed her into a very large room where she stopped still, astounded further.
For as much as the owners had allowed the exterior of Palmer House to show its age, the interior of the house was vibrantly alive, immaculate, and richly decorated. The great room Kari entered had two seating areas arranged around the two fireplaces, one at each end of the room. The room’s furnishings were of a quality Kari had never dreamed of—at least before that fateful letter from Clover—and she was certain that the pieces of art and bric-a-brac gracing the walls and shelves were priceless.
“Come in. Please take this seat near me.”
Kari found the old woman sitting on an exquisite settee near the fireplace closest to the room’s doors, her knitting piled on the settee next to her. The woman gestured Kari toward an arm chair set at an angle from the settee.
A large glass bowl of fresh cut flowers—mostly lilies, gladiolus, and chrysanthemums—sat on a table between the settee and chair. Their perfume scented the air.
Kari sank into the indicated chair and sniffed in appreciation. Mixxie, who seemed uneasy with Kari’s presence, fidgeted over the back of a chair off to Kari’s side.
“Do you enjoy flowers?”
Kari turned her attention to the old woman. “Yes, ma’am, I do. I’m from Albuquerque. Gardening can be a little problematic there, but I always did my best.”
“Albuquerque? And what did you tell my great-niece your name was?”
“Kari Hillyer, ma’am. Er, it will be Kari Granger, soon. I recently divorced.”
The old woman set her head on one side, the very gesture Kari had seen Mixxie make. She studied Kari for a time. Kari waited without speaking.
“A few moments ago you asked me if I were Mei-Xing Li.”
Kari nodded.
“I haven’t heard her called by her maiden name in many years. It was quite a shock to hear it from . . . a stranger.”
“Then you are not Mei-Xing?” Kari’s regret was palpable.
Well, what in the world did I expect? she scolded herself. Mei-Xing would have to be in her late nineties or nearly one hundred years old, wouldn’t she?
Kari realized that the old woman was watching her closely as she chided herself. A look of concern crossed the woman’s brow and then disappeared.
“You . . . seem as though you are quite disappointed, my dear,” the old woman breathed, “as if you were personally acquainted with her?” Another look of concern flickered across her face.
“No. No, of course I don’t. Know her, I mean. I apologize.” Kari watched her hostess with the same intensity as the old woman studied her. “It’s just that I-I . . . read her description somewhere and you seem to . . . that is, her description could easily fit you.”
As the old woman’s expression changed from concern to puzzlement, Kari felt her emotions begin to sink.
I am such a fool! This is so stupid!
Kari didn’t notice that the old woman was struggling to reach for a glass tumbler of water on the table, but Mixxie did. She jumped to place the glass in the woman’s hands.
Kari saw then that her hostess was trembling. Mixxie muttered several sentences in what Kari assumed was Chinese to her great-aunt, ending in English, “Please let me send this woman away, Auntie. She has disturbed you.” Mixxie shot Kari a glare that had Kari on her feet.
“I am so sorry! I-I didn’t mean to cause her any distress—I will leave immediately.”
Kari had taken only a step when the old woman, with more strength than Kari thought her to have, ordered, “No! You will stay.”
Mixxie’s mouth tightened and she stared hard at Kari, but the old woman pressed her niece’s hand. “I wish her to stay, Mixxie. Please.”
Kari glanced between Mixxie and the old woman. When Mixxie huffed and dropped her eyes, Kari reseated herself.
The woman sipped the water and patted Mixxie’s arm. “I am all right. Sit down, dear.” She looked at Kari again and said, “You asked me if I were Mei-Xing Li.”
A spark bloomed in Kari’s breast. “Yes. Did you know her?”
“Of course, my dear. She was my mother. My name is Shan-Rose Liáng.”
K
ari’s jaw dropped and tears sprang to her eyes. “Shan-Rose! Of course! That’s why you look just like Mei-Xing!”
Shan-Rose and Mixxie exchanged confused looks.
“You are starting to creep me out, lady,” Mixxie hissed.
“Stop it, Mixxie.” Shan-Rose Liáng’s tone did not brook an argument, but Mixxie continued to glare at Kari with open hostility.
Shan-Rose, on the other hand, leaned toward Kari with interest. “My dear, you said you read a description of my mother. May I ask where you read this description?”
Kari sucked in her breath, annoyed with herself. “I, um . . .” She did not answer the question and Shan-Rose waited, too polite to repeat herself. She picked up her knitting and set to work, but she glanced up at Kari, letting her know that she was waiting for Kari’s reply.
Kari drew her handbag into her lap, still hesitating. She glanced up and found Mixxie’s eyes fixed on her, glittering with antagonism. Kari’s grip on her handbag tightened.
What if I show them the journal and they try to take it from me? Kari debated with herself.
Just don’t let them take it, Kari, she answered back. No matter what.
Armed with that decision, Kari opened her handbag and drew out the cloth bag. She worked at the drawstring until it opened and then drew out the journal.
“It’s all in here,” she whispered.
Mixxie snaked out a hand to take the book but Shan-Rose rapped her knuckles with a knitting needle before her fingers touched it.
“Manners,” Shan-Rose growled low in her throat. She placed her knitting next to her on the settee again. “May I hold it?”
Kari shot her eyes at Mixxie and issued a silent warning: You even think about grabbing this book and I’ll deck you, little girl. Just try me.
Mixxie got the message and sat back with a sniff.
Shan-Rose, in the meantime, had placed the book on her lap and carefully opened it. She turned to the first page, the page Kari knew by heart.
Rose Thoresen
My Journal
Lost Are Found (A Prairie Heritage, Book 6) Page 17