“Moss was living with us, so we tried to give them some privacy. I swear, we must have seen every single attraction in the state, twice, including the casino, and Will wasn’t a gambler. We thought we were being subtle, but they could see right through us. The cabin was a safe haven for them.
“And the paintings. Oh, my, they could take your breath away. They were so honest and pure, so real. He told us the three months he was living with us were the most productive time in his career, and, of course, the happiest.”
“Where are the paintings now?” Amelia asked.
“At first, I kept them here in the condo so Necey would have easy access to them. But I never heard from Necey after the—incident. Not until you were born. She said she didn’t want them anymore, but I think she was just afraid to keep them in Confrontation because of her brother. She was afraid he might burn them. So I rented a temperature-controlled storage unit, and that’s where they’ve been ever since.
“Alec, your mother did instruct me to sell one to help finance law school.”
“I wondered how she could afford to send me to Duke,” Alec said. “I worked two jobs, but it was way beyond our means. She contributed a lot, but there were a lot of expenses.”
“She thought it would be like Moss himself was paying for your education.”
“When can we see the paintings?” Amelia asked anxiously.
“We can go right now. The storage unit is not far from here.” Katherine got up, picked up her purse and her cane, and led Amelia and Alec to the front door.
“There’s more I’d like to ask, like to know,” Alec said.
“We can talk more about it when we get back,” Katherine said.
Amelia opened the door and looked up at the sky.
“It’s a sunny day,” Alec said. “Not a cloud in the sky.”
“You don’t know South Miami. It rains almost every afternoon.”
“But you’re not driving, so it shouldn’t matter,” Alec pointed out.
“So you’ve uncovered my granddaughter’s deep dark secret—her weather phobia.”
“Yep,” Alec said.
“Her grandfather had the same weather issues. It got worse with age.” Katherine locked the door to her condo. “We couldn’t plan an outing until he’d checked the weather. Everything we did was weather-dependent. It dictated where we could go and when we could go. Where are you parked?”
Alec pointed out the gray Lexus SUV in the parking lot. He took Katherine’s arm and escorted her to the car. She held on to him with one arm and maneuvered on the cane with her other hand.
“And he’s a gentleman, too,” Katherine said pointedly, looking at Amelia, in case her granddaughter hadn’t noticed.
“Yes, he’s quite a guy,” Amelia agreed, sarcastically. But actually, Alec was that and more. He was the total package, except for the fact that he lived in Godforsaken Confrontation. And the fact that he really didn’t want her to sell the cabin, her grandmother’s cabin, because he thought of it as his home, even though he’d never actually owned it. She had the sense he was just humoring her while at the same time throwing obstacles in her path.
They drove a short distance to the storage facility. A storage unit Amelia had never known about. She wondered whether her father even knew about it. It was a nondescript gray structure. It reminded Amelia of a small prison and, like a prison, it was like a fortress. Her grandmother entered the code on the keypad from a yellowed piece of paper she had in her handbag, and a door rattled open. When it closed behind them, Amelia had an eerie feeling. The long empty hallways were isolated. They were locked in. Anyone might be lurking in the cavernous space.
“Grandma, I hope you don’t come here at night or by yourself.”
“I haven’t been here in years, not since your father sold my car.”
“Does Dad even know about this place?”
“No one does. Except you two, now. Necey swore me to secrecy. I was afraid of Bunnell, and so was she. I’m glad you are here, Alec. The contents of this locker belong to you now. I think it would be a good idea if you took them back with you to Confrontation when you go. Amelia’s father is moving me into Eternal Gardens in Miami. It’s on the other side of town. I won’t be able to get back here. I’d like to close out the locker.”
They made slow progress down the hall, the sound of Katherine’s cane echoing off the walls, until they got to Unit 555. Katherine took out her key and handed it to Alec. “You have to open it from this lock at the bottom. I can’t bend over anymore.”
Alec took the key, bent down, and opened the lock, then raised the steel door by hand.
“Grandma, how did you ever manage to access this unit?”
“Well, it was thirty years ago. I was a lot younger then, and in better shape, and I still had your grandfather to help.”
“You’ve been paying rent on this storage unit all these years?” Amelia wondered.
“Necey sent me a check now and then to help cover the cost.”
Alec closed the door behind them, and they walked into a large, air-conditioned space.
The paintings were wrapped individually and stacked against each other.
Alec began unwrapping them, one at a time. It was like discovering some long-lost treasure that had been unearthed in a sunken ship.
The first one was a large oil-on-canvas painting of Necey, similar to the one in the cabin. She was nude but tastefully draped, and Alec held his hand to his mouth. Tears streamed out of his eyes.
“Look how young she was.”
“Young and beautiful,” Katherine added. “The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. He captured her perfectly, her outer beauty and her inner beauty.”
“I wish I had known her,” Amelia said.
“There are many more like that, of Necey outside, with the mountains in the background, with a basket of fresh eggs. Necey in her element and, in the end, Moss in his.” Alec studied a self-portrait. It was as if his father had come alive. He touched each of the canvases reverently, handling the same paper his father had touched, as if he were trying to summon his father’s spirit, trying to find some connection. His eyes seemed to hold out hope that, by some miracle, Moss might materialize right in front of him.
“He had so much talent. I didn’t inherit that from him. I imagined, I hoped, I might meet my father one day.”
Katherine ambled over to the paintings and made a selection. “This is one of my favorites.” She pulled the wrapping off, revealing Necey as a laughing wood nymph on the floor of a forest, a waterfall cascading in the background.
“Grandma, these paintings are amazing. The colors are wonderful. This is definitely a new style for him. I’d never seen a Moss Hathaway portrait before the one of Alec’s mother in the cabin.”
“Yes, they’re remarkable. He was a major talent.”
A sealed envelope slipped out of the back of the wood nymph painting. Amelia lifted it from the floor and read the outside words.
“Alec, this is for you. It’s from your father, addressed ‘To My Son or Daughter.’ ” She handed it over to Alec, who held it reverently.
He opened it carefully and took his time reading it. Then he handed it back to Amelia.
To My Son or Daughter—
I can’t wait to meet you. I don’t know whether you’ll be a boy or a girl. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you know how much I love you and your mother. Whoever you turn out to be, you can count yourself lucky to have a mother like Necey.
I want you to grow up and be whatever you want to be, whether that’s a painter, a poet, or even the President. I’m sure you’ll be smart, like your mother, and sweet. And I hope you take after her in the looks department, because I look more like Abraham Lincoln, tall and gangly. It’s a miracle your mother even gave me a second look. But I’m glad she did or you wouldn’t be in this world.
I have a lifetime of things to teach you, and I can’t wait to start. If I have one lesson to pass on, it’s never to g
ive up on love. I hope you find the kind of love your mother and I have had, and when you do, don’t ever give it up or give up on it.
Your Proud Dad
Tears streamed down Amelia’s face, and she licked them from her mouth. Necey Brady must have been some woman.
“I’d like to hold on to this,” Alec said, taking the letter from Amelia.
“Of course.”
Then they looked through the rest of the stacks of paintings.
“They’re also priceless,” Amelia said. “When news of a new collection by Moss Hathaway surfaces, it is going to set the art world on fire. And after all these years, the world will finally know what happened to Moss Hathaway. One of the great mysteries of the last century will be solved. And the greatest gift of all will be the release of these fabulous paintings.”
“Amelia, we can’t tell anyone what happened. That would mean Uncle Bundy would be tried for murder.”
“Alec, he should be. He killed your father.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I guess I don’t. Why don’t you try to explain it to me?”
“Uncle Bundy has been like a father to me. He’s gruff and controlling, and there have always been rumors about missing people and suspicion that he might be responsible, but he was the only father figure I knew. He took care of us, my mother and me. My mother had no way of earning a living. She was dependent on Uncle Bundy. I sensed there was tension between Bunnell and my mother, and maybe fear, but he was always kind to me. He thought of me as his son. For all these years, I thought I was his son. I was ashamed, but—”
“But now that you know the truth…”
“What is the truth? What do we really know? I was going to confront him, but he disappeared again.”
“You were going to confront him with a shotgun, as I recall,” Amelia put in.
“I was mad.”
“You should be. He cheated you out of the life you could have had, should have had.”
Katherine placed her hand on Alec’s arm. “Why don’t we take these paintings to the car, clear out this locker for good. Then we can go back to my condo and talk. I can tell you exactly what happened that morning at the cabin.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Moss Hathaway canvases were stacked at attention against the living room wall of Katherine Rushing’s condo like obedient soldiers. Alec was slumped in a leather recliner, staring at Amelia and her grandmother, who were seated on the sofa. His posture was an indication of his mood—dark and defeated. He was expecting the worst.
“Are you sure you want to hear this now?” Amelia wondered. “Maybe you’d like to go back to the hotel to rest and relax, and we can talk about this tomorrow.”
“No,” Alec said. “I’ve waited thirty years to hear it. I want to know what really happened that morning in the cabin—every detail. I have a right to know.”
Katherine clasped her hands on her lap, nodded, and began her story.
“Moss had been with us about three months. It was obvious he and your mother were in love. They couldn’t hide it, but they met in secret. They had to because—”
“Because of Uncle Bundy.”
“I’m sure you are aware of what a controlling, possessive man he is. He and your grandfather, Necey’s father, were cut from the same cloth. I myself was afraid to go near them. I always had a sense they were watching me like feral animals, barely restrained, with their teeth bared, ready to attack when they caught the scent. They terrorized your mother and her sisters. The girls were home schooled. They weren’t allowed to date or have any kind of relationship with a man. Your mother was a very smart woman. She was self-taught. She read every book she could get her hands on. But the girls didn’t have any kind of freedom.”
“He was overprotective.” Alec nodded. “He still is.”
“To the extreme.”
“Did he ever…?”
Katherine knew what the boy was asking: Had Bunnell ever crossed the line with Necey or either of her sisters.
“I can’t tell you for sure about your aunts, but he never touched Necey. Oh, he wanted to. You could see it in his eyes. He was hungry for her, but of course she wanted nothing to do with that. She made that clear, but her brother was the type to take what he wanted. She wanted to get away from Confrontation in the worst way. As she grew more beautiful and mature, it became more important for her to leave Confrontation. Her life there was stifling. Her brother was a violent man. He would punish her for the least infraction—if she dropped an egg, or overlooked a patch of dust when she was cleaning, if she burned the dinner beans or didn’t get a stain out of his shirts or didn’t bring him a beer fast enough. He thought he owned her because he was supporting the family. It was an abusive relationship, but without the sex. When he wanted a woman for that, he would leave Confrontation, satisfy his needs, and, days or months later, return. There were always rumors, all kinds of rumors, about missing women in the next town, but Bunnell was clever and connected. He was never charged. He was the law around there.”
“How can you be sure he never—”
“Because Necey confided in me. She was a virgin when she met Moss. She had to hide her feelings because she was sure if Bunnell found out, he’d make her pay and make Moss pay, too. And it wasn’t in her nature to lie to anyone, so it tore her up inside. But I think she experienced love and joy for the first time in her young life when she met Moss. It wasn’t that she wanted to leave with the first man she saw, just to get away. They were truly in love.
“So I covered for them. Moss was boarding at our house, and I left Necey and Moss alone. I was supposedly chaperoning, but my husband and I took every excuse to leave the cabin and let them pursue a relationship. When Bunnell came sniffing around, I put him off the track, told him I hadn’t seen his sister. But he was like a bull in heat. If he had known Moss was pursuing his sister, he would have snapped. And finally, in the end, when he found out, he did just that. I think one of your aunts finally told him. He must have smacked the truth out of her.”
Alec crossed his arms and frowned. “Go on.”
“When she told Moss she was expecting a baby, that man was over the moon. He insisted that your grandfather and I drive him to the next town to a jewelry store so he could get a proper ring for Necey. He took his time picking out just the right ring, a ring he thought Necey would love, and she did. She was twirling around the cabin when he put that ring on her finger the night we got home from the store. They had their whole future mapped out. They were going to travel, see Italy, perhaps settle there while Moss painted lofty architectural views. He was eager to branch out and stretch his talent to new heights. Necey had hardly been out of Confrontation except to attend church functions, and even then she was well chaperoned. Meeting Moss represented a new level of freedom for Necey in her unnaturally sheltered life. They were deliriously happy. They were such a lovely couple.”
Katherine twisted her hands. “On this particular morning, on their last morning together, they had it all planned. Necey’s bags were packed and stored in my closet. She and Moss were going to leave Confrontation for good. He was truthful about his marriage, which wasn’t much of a marriage at all. He was determined to get a divorce and marry your mother. It was around dawn. The cabin was peaceful. Your grandfather and I were asleep in our room, and Necey and Moss were in the second bedroom when we heard an incessant pounding on the door.
“ ‘Bernice Brady!’ Bunnell bellowed. ‘I know you’re in there, you lying whore. Open up this door.’ The racket was loud enough to wake everyone on the mountain. Bunnell kept screaming her name, and obscenities, and I thought he was going to break down the door, so I let him in. I wish I hadn’t. I’ll never forgive myself for giving him the opportunity…”
Katherine took a deep breath and continued. “ ‘Where is she?’ he screamed. ‘I know she’s in here.’
“Your grandfather and I blocked the door of the second bedroom. ‘You need to leave our house, or we’ll call th
e police,’ we told him. I think Bunnell laughed at that point. He knew we didn’t have a phone, and he was friends with everyone in the police department. He knew he was untouchable. It was then I noticed the shotgun he was holding in one hand.”
Katherine’s hands flew to her throat as if she were reliving the incident. Amelia rested her hand on her grandmother’s shoulder, mutely asking that she continue her story.
“Your grandfather tried to stop him, but Bunnell was out of control, like a raging bull. He was waving the shotgun around and threatening us. He swiped us out of the way like he was swatting a fly and opened the door to our guest room, where he found them. They were in bed, Necey in a frilly white nightgown and Moss in nothing but his boxers. They were trying to hide under the comforter. Like children do when they’re convinced you can’t see them, thinking somehow the bedspread would protect them. Against a loaded shotgun. Moss was a painter, a mild, quiet man. He’d probably never even seen a shotgun before. He didn’t stand a chance against a man like Bunnell.
“Bunnell pulled off the bedcovers and hauled Necey to her feet, almost wrenching her arm out of its socket. Moss tried to protect her, but Bunnell was a lot stronger than Moss, and he yanked him out of bed and dragged them both into the living room.
“Seeing Moss in his undershorts and Necey in a flimsy robe further enraged him. And he knew…you could tell he knew about the baby.
“ ‘How long, Necey?’ Bunnell demanded. ‘How long have you been whoring yourself out? And for what? A man who plays with paints?’
“ ‘Moss is a great artist,’ Necey protested. ‘I love him. We’re going to be married. You see, he gave me this promise ring.’ Necey held out her hand and flashed the fancy emerald-and-diamond ring.
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