He reached for her hand, and Karen realized she cherished the warmth and comfort of that simple act. He continued, his voice dropping to a low, quiet baritone. “You need to figure out what happened in your past—not to agonize over what could have been different, but because it’s affecting your present.”
Karen took a deep breath and squeezed his fingers. “Then let’s get started.”
The overgrown path made for a rough hike. Twice Karen tripped, grabbing Mason’s arm to keep from falling. The day had heated up nicely by the time they reached a wide swatch that looked like a firebreak, choked with weeds, small bushes and saplings but cleared of the older growth trees that shaded the rest of the area. The driveway. They followed the twisting path as it sloped slightly uphill. Karen gripped Mason’s hand tighter as they rounded a small copse of trees and the empty farmhouse rose before them, like an oasis in a desert.
They stopped, catching their breath, looking over the buildings and yard, all of which were overrun by weeds, wild bushes, briars and trees, as if the forest had tried to regain its lost ground. A barely visible garage had a maple tree pushing up through the roof, and two of the smaller sheds had patches of grass and wildflowers growing on the roof. The gutters on the house had likewise clogged and acquired a collection of blooms and vines that flowed off the roof like trickles of green water.
Karen staggered, her eyelids fluttering. She felt Mason’s arm clutch her waist. Flashes of memory seemed to explode in her mind, and she covered her face with her hands. Her mother, glimmering hair flying out behind her, chasing Karen from tree to tree in a frenzied game, both of them giggling wildly, finally collapsing on the grass under…
She straightened, leaning heavily against Mason, and pointed. “That beech. There was a tire swing on that beech.” Her breath came in gasps. “Daddy took it down every winter so the rubber wouldn’t freeze, and one year he fell…” Her voice trailed away.
Other flashes of memory shot through her mind’s eye, tumbling over each other in a tumult of colors, emotions and smells. Images blurred and wavered, as if seen through lace curtains blown about by a breeze. Her mother, singing in the kitchen as she canned fruits and vegetables. Her father, in a backyard workshop. A favorite doll. Dancing for her parents. Singing in the backyard. A puppy. “We had a dog,” she murmured, taking a step toward the porch, pointing at the latticework covering the front of it. “He lived under there.” More images, some brighter or more violent. Her father cleaning a pistol. A child’s view from the top of the stairs of a shouting match between her parents. No, not her parents. Her mother and…someone wearing bright green.
She staggered again, letting Mason support much of her weight, which he did with reassuring strength. The dizziness caused by the swirl of conflicting memories threatened to overwhelm her, and a sense of panic gripped her. “Why is this happening to me?” she whispered, startled at the sound of desperation in her voice.
Fletcher took her other arm. “Repressed memories can be overpowering, and sometimes it doesn’t take much to trigger them.”
Karen pushed away from them and went to the porch, barely hearing Jake’s words of caution. “Careful. That porch has been rotting for twenty years.”
She nodded, picking her footing carefully as she climbed the steps. “I have to go in. I have to.”
No one stopped her. The thick planks under her feet creaked and bowed under her weight, but they held. When she got to the door, she turned, and Jake tossed her the key. The rusty lock protested but opened. The door needed more encouragement, after swelling and contracting through winters past. Karen stepped inside…and sneezed. As she pinched her nose and upper lip to prevent more, she felt Mason behind her.
He touched her arm. “Are you okay, chère?”
She nodded. “Jake wasn’t kidding about nothing being touched.”
He peered around her, a sputtering of French bursting from under his breath.
Karen knew how he felt. In front of them lay a tableau of three lives frozen in time. A heavy film of greasy dust and spider webs coated everything, and leaves blown in through the broken windows lay scattered about, but in spite of it all, the scene could have been lifted from any living room from the 1980s.
An open paperback book, now yellow and brittle, lay pages down on the couch. Near it, a quilted throw was draped as if someone had just thrown it back and gotten up although the colors were now faded and dull. A nearby desk held an ancient Kaypro computer, a stack of floppy disks and a scattering of bills waiting to be paid. An early Atari game system was hooked up to a television near the couch. “I used to play that,” Karen said, her voice drifting into the past. “Daddy wanted us to stay up to date on everything.” Paint on the walls had peeled off in great hunks, and the ceiling showed signs of water damage, but Karen was lost in her memories and noticed.
She went to the couch and looked down at the book. A much-read Georgette Heyer. “Mama read romances all the time. Daddy used to tease her about wanting him to be more handsome, and I used to insist that wasn’t possible.”
The scramble of visions in her brain started to settle, achieving a bit of coherence. She looked around at Mason, then Fletcher and Jake, who’d followed them inside unnoticed. She took a deep breath. “Daddy’s office is upstairs.”
The broad, dark wood steps of the staircase felt surprisingly sturdy as they all climbed to the second floor. Karen paused to stroke the banister, which stood firm despite the lack of heat and air-conditioning in the house. “My grandfather was a carpenter. He thought he was building this house to last a lifetime.” She paused and looked around at them again. “I don’t know how I knew that.”
Fletcher pressed his finger against his upper lip, apparently trying not to break into a fit of sneezing. “My guess is that little bits like that will increasingly come back to you as everything slips back into place. Most kids have memories dating back to when they were three and four. Yours have just been held hostage.”
Karen’s sense of panic had begun to ease. “I think you may be right.” She paused. “This may sound really odd, but…this is beginning to feel like home.”
“Not odd at all.” Mason smiled warmly. “This is your home. Your birthright.”
Taking a deep breath—and fighting another sneeze—she pointed to her right. “The office should be in there.” She stepped inside the room and stopped, grinning suddenly. “And here’s Lisa.”
“What?” Fletcher’s startled question caused Mason and Jake to step aside.
Karen chuckled and pointed to her father’s desk, and the chunky-looking computer that sat on one side. “That’s a Lisa. One of the first Apple computers. Didn’t stay on the market long. I told you, Daddy wanted all the newest gadgets. His workshop out back is full of…” Her voice trailed off again, and she looked at Fletcher. “Will I ever get used to this?”
Fletcher shook his head. “Not for a while. You’re a smart woman, you were probably just as smart as a kid. I’m sure you took in everything, storing more than you realized.”
A sense of wonder and comfort settled over her. “I just can’t believe it. All this time…” She set her shoulders, determined now to find all the answers, no matter what. “My father was a woodworker. It was one reason he loved old houses.”
Fletcher grinned. “Okay. Let’s see what we can find.”
Mason turned to Fletcher. “If that computer didn’t crash and hasn’t been turned on in twenty years, do you think the tech guys in New York could get anything off the hard drive?”
The tall detective shrugged. “Probably not, but it never hurts to ask.” He went to the desk and opened the top drawer. Inside, Karen could see a brown accordion-style folder held shut by age and rubber bands that had long ago dry-rotted. “Good a place as any to start.” Fletcher carefully lifted it out, ignoring the rubber bands that dropped away in pieces. Gently, he opened the folder and slid the papers that were inside onto the desk.
In a house that had experienced frigid temperatu
res in the winter and scorching summer heat, the papers had turned yellow and brittle. As he tried to separate the folded sheets, many simply broke apart in his hands. As he continued, barely breathing over the fragile pieces, Jake continued the search of the desk, while Mason began prowling through a closet.
Karen, however, felt herself drawn to a tall, narrow bookcase near the door. Her memories continued to unfold in her head, but the feeling wasn’t quite as unsettling as before. She had grown curious, however, to see what would pop up next, almost as if she’d opened a book in the middle and was trying to figure out the plot and characters.
Books. Her parents had loved books. On the bottom shelf of this case were her father’s real estate books, sales training manuals, books on property laws. But the other shelves were clustered with her mother’s beloved romances and her father’s fascinating Christian fantasies. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were still propped against Jane Austen and Janette Oke. They had both loved Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. She paused at that…Her father had loved Dunnett. He’d read some of the books to her, holding her spellbound for hours. There, on his top shelf, was a hardback copy of Checkmate.
This, sweet pea, is the book that changed my life. You’re too young, but when you’re old enough, we’ll share it.
“Oh, Daddy.” She reached for the book, opening it slowly. A special edition on acid-free paper, the dust jacket proclaimed. The cover and pages were still in excellent condition, barely cracking as she turned a few pages. As she did, a slip of paper fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, holding it flat in her palm.
R10 L23 R45
She took it to Fletcher, excitement tightening her chest. “Is this what I think it is?”
He paused and looked at the paper. “If you think it’s a combination to a lock, you’re probably right.”
Jake looked around at them. “What kind of lock?”
“How about a safe?”
They turned to stare at Mason, who had shoved aside the clothes in the closet and pried away a loose panel in the back. Behind it, mounted firmly in the wall, was a black fireproof safe. Easily measuring two feet square, it looked as shiny and new as the day it had been installed.
Fletcher nodded at Karen. “Give it a try.”
She rushed to the safe and dropped to her knees. The dial on the safe spun easily, and she twisted through the combination, her fingers trembling. She said a quick prayer, then clutched the handle. It turned without hesitation, and she pulled open the door.
Unlike the papers in the desk, the ones in the black box were pristine and flexible. A thick stack of double-folded legal papers on one side appeared to be mortgages, and Karen pulled them out, along with an old-fashioned blue ledger, passing them to Fletcher. There were a few miscellaneous-looking papers underneath, and Mason took those, gathering them slowly and taking them to the desk. Only a large cardboard box remained, and Karen tugged it toward the front, surprised by its weight. Remembering the memory treasures in her mother’s Chinese dragon box, Karen eased the box to the floor and eagerly opened it.
And froze.
She was still staring into the box when Fletcher cleared his throat and sniffed. “Well, I think I’ve found some of the source of animosity between David O’Neill and Evangeline Steen Abernathy.” He had their attention as he held up a legal-looking document. “This is the deed to the Steen family estate, purchased by SDKM Realty Holdings. David O’Neill bought Evie’s home.”
“There’s more,” Mason said quietly. “In this stack is a letter of intent to sell the adjacent property, and a letter from a builder willing to develop the property, provided the price was right.”
“I think,” Karen said evenly, trying to ignore the numbness growing in her legs and stomach, “that the price must have been right.”
The three men gathered around her, looking down. Bank-wrapped bundles of twenty-dollar bills filled the box in front of her.
“Bingo,” muttered Fletcher.
“This is getting sorely out of hand.” Eyes narrowed to slits, Luke’s client watched the old farmhouse. The pottery supplies Karen had carried with her from the house had been deposited in the retreat studio, so keeping an eye on her had become a necessary tactic to ensure she didn’t make any more face vases. Her pottery had never been the real issues; just those vases. She could do any other kind of pottery she possibly conceived of in that unimaginative little mind of hers, but those faces had to go away before someone noticed. Someone else. Before someone else saw what was really coming out of Karen O’Neill’s demented soul.
“My face.” Fingers pressed to the upper lip of that face trembled. “Don’t make me do anything worse. Please.”
Obviously Karen’s memory had started to return. The way she had pranced around the yard, moving immediately to the tree where that dangerous swing had been, pointing to the hole in the latticework where that wretched dog the O’Neills had kept so long had wormed his way under the porch. Not a good sign at all. Once she started remembering even the smallest things about her parents…No. Not good.
The client grew still, camouflaged by the shadows, as Karen, Mason and Fletcher emerged from the house. Mason, as weak and protective as ever, tried to comfort an obviously shaken Karen. He carried a stack of folded legal papers and a ledger tucked under one arm, while Fletcher lugged an obviously heavy box, his biceps and forearms straining with the effort.
“No! They can’t have!” The hoarse whisper burst from the client, who clamped a mouth tight and backed into the undergrowth. All these years, searching for the combination! Tears stung the corners of pale eyes, which narrowed.
Wait. Where was that overgrown boy of a potter?
The first three had almost gotten to the path when they paused and turned. After a moment Jake appeared, carrying a wooden tray bearing the computer from David O’Neill’s office. The four disappeared down the path.
Waiting until they were well out of sight and hearing, the client broke from the undergrowth and dashed across the overgrown yard. Feet long accustomed to the frail porch quickly crossed the safest boards and padded up the wooden staircase. Dust on the desk had been scattered hither and yon, and a bare spot remained where the Lisa had sat. Fools. It couldn’t possibly work after all those years in the heat and cold. But there, there, in the office closet, the safe stood open.
Anguish shot through the client, who sank to the floor, fists clenched. So it was true after all. Despite all her denials, all Stephanie O’Neill’s claims turned out to be hollow. There had been a hidden stash of money, money carefully guarded against Elizabeth Steen’s prying, against David O’Neill’s risky ventures. She had been lying!
A smile spread slowly across the client’s face. Her death had been justified after all.
The satisfaction suddenly vanished. Once Karen went through those papers, once she understood what they meant, she might remember it all, including the owner of that face. Now they were both on a path with only one destination.
Slowly that brief satisfaction gave way to anger, then to a cold, determined sense of numbness. The fear had to stop clouding every night. The pain had to cease.
Only one choice.
NINE
The ride back to the retreat remained quiet and somber, with each of them lost in their own ponderings about the findings at the old farmhouse. Karen curled up in a corner of the backseat, staring out the window—and into some distant time and place.
Mason couldn’t imagine how it must feel to rediscover all those wonderful little memories about your parents, only to find out, moments later, that they may not have been who you thought they were.
Once they were at the retreat, Karen got out of the car and went immediately into her bedroom and locked the door. When Mason started to follow her, Fletcher stopped him. “Let her be,” he said, so low that no one else could hear. “Sometimes women just have to cry it out.”
The thought made Mason’s chest ache, but he inhaled deeply, steeling his nerves, and asked
if he could do anything to help.
“No. I’m going to take the computer and the money into Boston, talk to some friends of mine. One’s a retired forensic tech with the NYPD computer department. If anyone can reboot that computer, he can. I’ll get the money checked, as well.”
Jake gave Maggie the legal documents for her opinion, then took a hike around the property to work off his anxiety and to wait for Karen to awaken. So the afternoon’s activities were set—for everyone but Mason. As the house grew still, he walked out on the back deck and leaned on the rail, looking out over the glorious view.
The lodge house sat halfway down a long, sloping granite hillside. While the front lawn dropped gracefully from the road to the main entrance, the back deck overlooked the bottom half of a valley filled with trees, wildflowers and brush. The ten cabins of the retreat were scattered over that piece of woodland, slowly disappearing from view as the trees reached full leaf and the vibrant dappled colors of the flowers vanished behind the thick undergrowth. Come fall, the valley would turn into a supreme example of God’s autumn handiwork. Maggie once told him she felt this view was one of the finest in all New England. “Finestkind,” she’d said with a wry grin.
It was truly a grand place to live, to write, to create. When Aaron Jackson had planned this place as his legacy, he’d intended it to be an oasis of respite, not the location for some of the most turbulent times of any artist’s life. Mason wondered if Karen would ever be able to find peace about what had happened. “Especially,” he said aloud, “when we’ve only scratched the surface.”
He walked to the deck steps and sat, his elbows on his knees. Around him, a light wind stirred the trees, causing the beech and maples to rustle and the pines to whisper lightly. He closed his eyes, letting his mind drift back over his own childhood, over long evenings with his father on the porch of their home, listening to the pines and cypress, waiting for his mother to come home from yet another one of her trips. It was one of his favorite memories, even though his mother was not a part of it.
The Face of Deceit Page 11