Message received! She would stop making those wicked vases and move on with her life. With luck, she’d even leave Mercer, maybe move into Boston or New York with the writer, and they’d both starve in some little hovel of an apartment. Sweet revenge for all that had come before.
All right, no, that fantasy would never come to be, not with the inheritance lurking two years out. Still. Life would return to normal.
Strange thought, that. Normal. Hmph. Normal had nearly always been a burden, a requirement when the client had wanted nothing more than adventure, travel, new romance, excitement, a life of thrills in some far-off exotic port. Now, after all this, normal had become a craving worthy of a man in a desert thirsting for a few drops of water.
Amused by the idea, the client moved through the crowd slowly. Must offer condolences. After all, it would be bad manners to be there and not reach out to someone so close, so beloved by the community, who was undergoing such trauma. It would be an easily noticed oversight.
As the bright light of the fire diminished, the crowd began to part, and the client soon reached the grieving couple, both of whom were being helped into an ambulance. As the EMTs finished their work, the client reached out and touched Karen’s leg.
“Karen, I’m sorry. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do….”
THIRTEEN
Mason stood at the edge of the yard, looking over the devastated ruins of Karen’s cherished home. The charred beams and thick piles of ashes still smoldered, a dark smoke eking out of the blackness and up toward the deep purple of the dawn sky. His mind reeled to remember that only two days ago he’d stood there, preparing himself to tell her about Luke Knowles. Unbelievable how much had changed.
The night before felt like a twisted, smothering dream. Doctors had treated both of them in the emergency room—Karen for her hysteria and him for burns, cuts and smoke inhalation. He felt not one moment of regret, despite the continual sting of the injuries and the lingering heaviness in his lungs. He knew now three things that he’d doubted before: his feelings for Karen ran deeper than he’d been able to accept; he could, in fact, be as devoted to someone as his father had been; and he could finally understand the faith of his mother, of Karen, in a God who loved him.
But what did that mean going forward?
Karen appeared to accept that they both cared more for each other than they had wanted to admit after such a short friendship. At the hospital, she’d been unable to leave his side, so loudly determined to stay with him that they had treated them both in the same room.
They were now bonded by something stronger than friendship, solidified by trial. “As clay is stronger from the fire.” Her description, muttered last night, just before the sedation they had given her had taken effect. Now she lay in her bed at the retreat, drugged into the rest she would not have otherwise gotten.
Mason, however, couldn’t rest and refused to take the pain pills the doctor had offered. He wanted every sense aware and alert this morning. He had work to do.
The sun still had not risen above the trees in Karen’s backyard, and a chill mist hung in the air. Under other circumstances, the early morning would have felt refreshing. Now the lack of sleep made Mason’s eyes itch almost as much as the remaining drifts of smoke.
Later that morning, he knew the fire chief and Tyler would be back to examine the ruins for signs of arson, and the area would be off-limits until they finished. His work, however, needed to be done before Karen emerged from her drugged sleepiness, before she settled too securely into the decision she’d made last night in the depths of the fire-driven trauma.
She’d resolved to quit pottery. Not just the face vases, but all of it. In her despair and confusion over all the events swirling around her, she’d become convinced that this wasn’t just about her parents or her face vases. Someone hated her. So by the time they had arrived at the ER, her decision to stop making the face vases had expanded to include all pottery. To Karen, the fire represented something more than a single individual driven to stop her from creating one type of vase. She saw it instead as guidance from God that she should abandon the artistic life entirely.
The anger that now coursed through Mason felt as scorching as the blaze that had consumed her home. Mason’s belief in God now ran deeper than ever before. And he knew to the core of his soul that this had less to do with God’s guidance than the wickedness of one person.
Now if he could just prove it.
As if on a mission, Mason strode down the slant of the front lawn, skirting the ruins and trying not to slip on ground turned into a mush of mud and blackened grass by the fire and the firefighters. The granite hillside into which the house had been built had been stripped in several places down to the rock by the trucks and falling beams. The back wall, being mostly glass, had collapsed first, causing the roof to angle down and slide across the outside walls into the backyard, where it had continued to burn separately until extinguished by the fire team. Walking to the back, and picking his way between the remains of the roof and the basement floor, he found he had a better view of the destruction.
The house was a total loss. Parts of the front and north walls still stood, but the rest had plunged into the basement, including major portions of both floors. To his right, he could see the remnants of one kiln, its firebricks charred but unbroken, protected by a floor joist that had dropped at an angle, still supported on the front by the immovable granite that had served as the front wall of the studio. And therein lay Mason’s greatest hope.
The granite baffle.
Even now, with the violet of dawn giving way to a pale gold, the narrow entrance to Karen’s secret storage room was barely visible. Mason took a circuitous route to it, avoiding other angled and creaking joints and sections of wall and floor. The sturdiness of the solid rock beneath his feet had a reassuring effect on him, but he still took no chances with fire-ravaged remains around him.
Reaching the entrance, he touched the wall gingerly, half expecting it to still be hot. Yet it was already cool, and Mason turned sideways, edging his way inside. Because it had been cut completely out of the rock, the storage room had a ceiling of solid granite, and the baffle turn meant little light came from outside. Knowing the room would be almost pitch-black, Mason had brought a flashlight, which he now pulled from his pocket and snapped on. A scent of smoke hung in the air, but the bright, thin beam of his light revealed exactly what he’d hoped.
All of Karen’s storage boxes were still intact. The same baffle that kept out light had kept out fire and most of the water. Some of the boxes closest to the door had bowed and warped from the heat, but the ones at the very back of the room, a full eight feet from the Z-shaped baffle, showed no signs that they’d been through a fire at all. He flipped the latch on one and opened it, eagerly rummaging through the contents. Through his fingers slid picture after picture of vases, platters and bowls.
A cough of laughter pushed through Mason’s anger, and an unexpected joy came over him as he clutched a handful of photos. “Thank You, Lord!” he exclaimed.
Holding the flashlight in his teeth, Mason gathered several boxes in his arms, beginning the long task of emptying the room and carrying the contents to his car at the top of the hill.
Karen struggled out of her medicine-induced sleep, groaning as she rolled over in bed, stiff from lying too long in one position. Parched by the aftereffects both of the medicine and of crying half the night, her mouth felt as if every surface had become swollen and sore. The dryness in her throat made her want to cough—an action that made a vise of pain circle her skull. Karen buried her face in the pillow, and tears once again soaked the pillowcase. Being awake hurt.
Even more excruciating, however, was the cruelty of the previous night’s events, a reality that seeped slowly through her exhaustion. Her home had been destroyed by fire, taking with it everything she owned. Everything she was.
Being a potter wasn’t just what she did for a living—it was the center of h
er being. The art that emerged from the clay, coaxed by her fingers and palms, also came from within her mind and heart. They were the reflections of ideas she had, colors she loved, shapes that entranced her. From the time Jake had shown her what to do, how she could focus with the clay in a way she’d not been able to before, Karen knew she had been born to be a potter. It went deeper than just knowledge; she believed with all her heart that this was God’s design for her, His chosen path for her life.
Giving it up meant walking away from all her dreams, all her beliefs for her life. Yet how could she continue when it had meant the destruction of everything—and possibly everyone—she loved? Clearly, whoever hated her and her work would not stop until she did.
The whirling speculations in Karen’s mind came to an abrupt halt as another thought occurred to her, a question no one had yet asked. The curiosity of it pushed her further awake, and she sat up, trying to ignore the spinning room and the ache in her skull. As she sat on the edge of her bed, trying to orient herself, a soft tap on the door was followed by Maggie opening it quietly and peering in. When she saw Karen, she stepped fully inside, carrying a tray of tea and crackers.
“I’m glad you’re awake. Can you eat something?”
“Yes,” Karen whispered, not trusting herself to nod.
“Tea and aspirin for your head. Saltines for your tummy.” She sat the tray on the night table and poured tea from a steaming pot into a delicate china cup. She added sugar and a dollop of milk, then passed it to Karen.
Karen sipped. “How did you know what would help?”
“Experience.” Just the one word, and both of them dropped the subject. Karen had heard enough about the events surrounding Aaron Jackson’s death to know that Maggie had been through some rough times herself. She held out her hand as Maggie shook two aspirin from a small bottle. The crackers lay in a fan on a saucer, and Maggie held it as Karen took the aspirin, then picked up a cracker to nibble on.
Maggie waited silently until about half the cracker had disappeared. “Do you think you’re up to coming out to the living room? We really need to talk to you.”
Karen hesitated. “It’s over. You know that. I’m done with it all.”
Maggie watched her eat the rest of the cracker and drink a few more sips of tea. “We’d still like to talk.”
Karen took a long, deep breath, a little surprised that her head didn’t protest. “Okay. I also have a question to ask everyone.”
“Good. Do you want help getting dressed?”
The tea felt so warm and comforting, Karen didn’t want to move at all. Still…“Yes, please.”
Mason paced from the glass wall at the front of the lodge to the one at the back, then turned and started over. Fletcher stood looking out one of the rear windows, so motionless that Mason wondered if he were still awake, especially after having driven from Boston earlier that morning. Tyler sat at the dining table, flipping through a photo album that he said Karen had left in his car. He paused more than once, scowling at a page, then turned to the next photo.
Mason paused, looking first down the hallway toward Karen’s room, then at Fletcher and Tyler. “Do you think we should—”
“No.” Fletcher turned from the window, his voice flat. “Let Maggie work her medicine. She’s very good at this, very soothing for people who are hurting.” He paused, glancing at the stack of metal boxes on the table. “You are just a touch agitated this morning.”
Tyler caught the implication and looked up from the album. “Agitated.” He scowled again at Mason. “You should not have gone back in that house. If that messes with the fire chief’s investigation, he’ll have both our heads on a platter.”
Mason crossed his arms. “You didn’t see her last night. And I didn’t touch anything to do with the fire. Just the boxes. I had to do something. I’ve never seen a woman so devastated.”
Tyler and Fletcher exchanged a quick glance but said nothing.
“Look who I found,” Maggie said gently.
They all turned, and Mason felt his heart ache. A slow-moving Karen entered from the hallway, a true picture of dejection with her shoulders slumped and her face the color of bleached cloth. “Sorry, I’m moving a little slow,” she said, her voice a bare whisper. “My head’s still a little unsure from the med—” Her words broke off and her mouth went slack as her gaze swung to the neat stacks of boxes on the table. She reached a hand toward them. “How—?” Then she stared at Mason, her gaze taking him in from head to toe. “You did this.”
He suddenly felt conspicuous in his soot-covered jeans and shirt. “I had to.” He crossed to her and took her hands. “Please listen to me.” He pulled her, steadily but gently, toward the table. “I’ve said this to you before, and I know Jake has said it hundreds of times, but now I really want you to listen. I want you to hear.
“God gave you something incredibly special. Even you yourself said that there are people who can make pots, but the clay doesn’t sing for them. It’s just a craft that they can do well. But you have a gift, something that comes from the depths of your spirit. Your art speaks to me. Why do you think I kept pursuing it, wanting more people to discover it? You don’t think I meet hundreds of artists in what I do? A lot of people try, but only a few can do what you do—as you said, out of your imagination and a bit of raw clay. It speaks to the depths of those who love your work, who buy it not just because it’s pretty but because it strikes at something in their souls.”
They reached the table, and he pulled out a chair and guided her to sit. Then he pulled the closest box to the edge of the table and opened it. He forced her to take a handful of photos, then spread others from the box in a fan shape across the table. “Look at what you’ve achieved. Look at what you’ve done that no one else can do because God gave no one else your soul, your heart, your mind.”
He pointed to the boxes. “There are seventeen boxes, hundred of photos. That’s hundreds of pots and vases and platters and plaques and urns. All from you. Because God made you, Karen O’Neill, and no one else can do what you do. Just you. Please don’t quit being who God made you to be.”
Karen looked at the photos, her fingers closing tightly around the ones in her hands. Then she raised her head, her eyes bright with tears. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Mason knelt in front of her, his hands grasping her wrists. “I’m not going to get hurt. We will catch whoever is doing this. Don’t let this make you stop.”
Karen gazed at him a moment, then looked up and around, pausing in turn at Maggie, Tyler and Fletcher. She stayed with Fletcher a moment, then she spoke, her voice gaining strength. “Something occurred to me this morning.” She cleared her throat. “How does this person know I haven’t already quit? What made him burn my house? How did he know that he hadn’t already succeeded in making me stop?”
Fletcher and Tyler exchanged glances again, then Fletcher moved closer, pulling a chair from under the table and sitting at Karen’s side, opposite Mason. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Because he’s been watching every move you make. He, if it is a he, has seen that you are still trying to beat this.”
Tyler stepped closer, as well. “While you were sleeping, and you were robbing crime scenes—” he threw a harsh look at Mason “—my guys have been busy. They found a cluster of footprints on the trail near your house, as if someone had stood there for a long time. They found the same footprints all along the trail, from your house to here…” He paused and crossed his arms. “And another cluster at the farmhouse.”
Karen turned to him. “The farmhouse? Are you sure? When?”
Tyler shrugged. “We can’t tell when, but the cluster at the farmhouse was the kicker, the proof we needed that the prints on the trail were related to what’s happened with you. There’d be no reason for a casual hiker to be hanging out, watching that farmhouse.”
“They’re also a distinctive print,” Fletcher explained. “Peg insists that it’s one of the more expensive Merrell
hiking boots, but none of us know Merrell from a flip-flop. We faxed the prints to New York, in case they can track purchases to anyone with a New Hampshire address.”
Mason stood. “But whoever this is knows the area well. Knows that trail.”
Tyler nodded. “And I’d say they know the entire family.”
“Did you find anything on David’s computer?” Mason asked Fletcher.
The detective straightened. “Ah, yes, the computer. My friend did, in fact, retrieve most of David’s files. He’s going to convert them to modern programs and return them to you for your records. No major breakthroughs. David kept a fine set of books, everything clean and aboveboard. No great secrets, death threats or sneaky dealings.” He turned to Karen, one corner of his mouth upturned. “He was writing a children’s book with you as the heroine. Nothing turned up on the cash, either.”
“Nothing about Carver Billings?” Karen asked.
Fletcher shook his head. “Only the usual correspondence between competitive businessmen. We did find a list of the open houses David had planned for that month, including the address for the one he hosted the day he died.”
Tyler put his hand on her shoulder. “Which leads us to the hardest question. Would you be willing to go back to that house?”
Karen’s eyes widened, and Mason could see the fear growing in her face, feel the tension in her arms. “Why?”
“Do you remember,” Fletcher said softly, “what happened at the farmhouse? How the memories came flooding back?”
Karen stood, pulling away from Mason and letting the photos drift to the floor. “You can’t ask me to remember that. You can’t!”
Fletcher stood with her. “I think your subconscious has been going there for a while, Karen. It may be time—”
“No!”
Maggie stepped between the men and Karen. “Time out, guys.” She put a calming hand on Karen’s arm. “I know you want to catch whoever’s doing this. But one trauma at a time, shall we?”
The Face of Deceit Page 15