The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  “Why?”

  “Maybe if you come in instead of scowling at me, we’ll both find out.”

  Seeing no other choice, Cal walked into his great-grandmother’s lovely living room where African violets bloomed in purple profusion in the windows, where built-in shelves Fox’s father had crafted were filled with books, family pictures, little bits and bobs of memories. Where the company tea set was laid out on the low table in front of the high-backed sofa his mother had reupholstered only the previous spring.

  Where his beloved gran sat like a queen in her favored wingback chair. “Cal.” She lifted her hand for his, and her cheek for his kiss. “I thought you’d be tied up all morning between the meeting and center business.”

  “Meeting’s over, and Dad’s at the center. I didn’t see Ginger’s car.”

  “She’s off running some errands since I had company. Quinn’s just pouring the tea. Go get yourself a cup out of the cupboard.”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine. Just had breakfast.”

  “I would’ve called you, too, if I’d realized you’d have time this morning.”

  “I’ve always got time for you, Gran.”

  “He’s my boy,” she said to Quinn, squeezing Cal’s hand before she released it to take the tea Quinn offered. “Thank you. Please, sit down, both of you. I might as well get right to it. I need to ask you if there was an incident last night, during the dance. An incident just before ten.”

  She looked hard at Cal’s face as she asked, and what she saw had her closing her eyes. “So there was.” Her thin voice quivered. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or afraid. Relieved because I thought I might be losing my mind. Afraid because I’m not. It was real then,” she said quietly. “What I saw.”

  “What did you see?”

  “It was as if I were behind a curtain. As if a curtain had dropped, or a shroud, and I had to look through it. I thought it was blood, but no one seemed to notice. No one noticed all the blood, or the things that crawled and clattered over the floor, over the tables.” Her hand lifted to rub at her throat. “I couldn’t see clearly, but I saw a shape, a black shape. It seemed to float in the air on the other side of the curtain. I thought it was death.”

  She smiled a little as she lifted her tea with a steady hand. “You prepare for death at my age, or you damn well should. But I was afraid of that shape. Then it was gone, the curtain lifted again, and everything was exactly as it should be.”

  “Gran—”

  “Why didn’t I tell you last night?” she interrupted. “I can read your face like a book, Caleb. Pride, fear. I simply wanted to get out, to be home, and your father drove me. I needed to sleep, and I did. This morning, I needed to know if it was true.”

  “Mrs. Hawkins—”

  “You’ll call me Essie now,” she said to Quinn.

  “Essie, have you ever had an experience like this before?”

  “Yes. I didn’t tell you,” she said when Cal cursed. “Or anyone. It was the summer you were ten. That first summer. I saw terrible things outside the house, things that couldn’t be. That black shape that was sometimes a man, sometimes a dog. Or a hideous combination of both. Your grandfather didn’t see, or wouldn’t. I always thought he simply wouldn’t see. There were horrible things that week.”

  She closed her eyes a moment, then took another soothing sip of tea. “Neighbors, friends. Things they did to themselves and each other. After the second night, you came to the door. Do you remember, Cal?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I remember.”

  “Ten years old.” She smiled at Quinn. “He was only a little boy, with his two young friends. They were so afraid. You could see and feel the fear and the, valor, I want to say, coming off them like light. You told me we had to pack up, your grandfather and I. We had to come stay at your house. That it wasn’t safe in town. Didn’t you ever wonder why I didn’t argue, or pat you on the head and shoo you on home?”

  “No. I guess there was too much else going on. I just wanted you and Pop safe.”

  “And every seven years, I packed for your grandfather and me, then when he died, just for me, now this year it’ll be Ginger and me. But it’s coming sooner and stronger this time.”

  “I’ll pack for you, Gran, for you and Ginger right now.”

  “Oh, I think we’re safe enough for now,” she said to Cal. “When it’s time, Ginger and I can put what we’ll need together. I want you to take the books. I know I’ve read them, you’ve read them. It seems countless times. But we’ve missed something, somehow. And now, we have fresh eyes.”

  Quinn turned toward Cal, narrowed her eyes. “Books?”

  Thirteen

  FOX MADE A RUN TO THE BANK. IT WAS COMPLETELY unnecessary since the papers in his briefcase could have been dropped off at any time—or more efficiently, the client could have come into his office to ink them.

  But he’d wanted to get out, get some air, walk off his frustration.

  It was time to admit that he’d still held on to the hope that Alice Hawbaker would change her mind, or that he could change it for her. Maybe it was selfish, and so what? He depended on her, he was used to her. And he loved her.

  The love meant he had no choice but to let her go. The love meant if he could take back the last twenty minutes he’d spent with her, he would.

  She’d nearly broken down, he remembered as he strode along in his worn-down hiking boots (no court today). She never broke. She never even cracked, but he’d pushed her hard enough to cause fissures. He’d always regret it.

  If we stay, we’ll die. She’d said that with tears in her voice, with tears glimmering in her eyes.

  He’d only wanted to know why she was so set to leave, why she was jumpier every day to the point she wanted to go sooner than originally planned.

  So he’d pushed. And finally, she’d told him.

  She’d seen their deaths, over and over, every time she closed her eyes. She’d seen herself getting her husband’s deer rifle out of the locked case in his basement workroom. Seen herself calmly loading it. She’d watched herself walk upstairs, through the kitchen where the dinner dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, the counters wiped clean. Into the den where the man she’d loved for thirty-six years, had made three children with, was watching the Orioles battle the Red Sox. The O’s were up two-zip, but the Sox were at the plate, with a man on second, one out. Top of the sixth. The count was one and two.

  When the pitcher wound up, she pumped a bullet through the back of her husband’s head as he sat in his favorite recliner.

  Then she’d put the barrel under her own chin.

  So, yes, he had to let her go, just as he’d had to make an excuse to leave the office because he knew her well enough to understand she didn’t want him around until she was composed again.

  Knowing he’d given her what she wanted and needed didn’t stop him from feeling guilty, frustrated, and inadequate.

  He ducked in to buy flowers. She’d accept them as a peace offering, he knew. She liked flowers in the office, and often picked them up herself as he tended to forget.

  He came out with an armload of mixed blooms, and nearly ran over Layla.

  She stumbled back, even took a couple extra steps in retreat. He saw upset and unhappiness on her face, and wondered if it was his current lot to make women nervous and miserable.

  “Sorry. Wasn’t looking.”

  She didn’t smile, just started fiddling with the buttons of her coat. “It’s okay. Neither was I.”

  He should just go. He didn’t have to tap in to her mind to feel the jangle of nerves and misery surrounding her. It seemed to him she never relaxed around him, was always making that little move away. Or maybe she never relaxed ever. Could be a New York thing, he mused. He sure as hell hadn’t been able to relax there.

  But there was too much of the how-can-I-fix-this in him. “Problem?”

  Now her eyes glimmered with tears, and Fox quite simply wanted to step into the street into the path of a p
assing truck.

  “Problem? How could there possibly be a problem? I’m living in a strange house in a strange town, seeing things that aren’t there—or worse, are there and want me dead. Nearly everything I own is sitting in my apartment in New York. An apartment I have to pay for, and my very understanding and patient boss called this morning to tell me, regretfully, that if I couldn’t come back to work next week, she’ll have to replace me. So do you know what I did?”

  “No.”

  “I started to pack. Sorry, really, sorry, but I’ve got a life here. I have responsibilities and bills and a goddamn routine.” She gripped her elbows in opposite hands as if to hold herself in place. “I need to get back to them. And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t even know why, not on any reasonable level, but I couldn’t. So now I’m going to be out of a job, which means I won’t be able to afford my apartment. And I’m probably going to end up dead or institutionalized, and that’s after my landlord sues me for back rent. So problems? No, not me.”

  He listened all the way through without interruption, then just nodded. “Stupid question. Here.” He shoved the flowers at her.

  “What?”

  “You look like you could use them.”

  Flummoxed, she stared at him, stared at the colorful blooms in her arms. And felt the sharpest edge of what might have been hysteria dulling into perplexity. “But…you bought them for someone.”

  “I can buy more.” He waved a thumb at the door of the flower shop. “And I can help with the landlord if you get me the information. The rest, well, we’re working on it. Maybe something pushed you to come here, and maybe something’s pushing you to stay, but at the bottom of it, Layla, it’s your choice. If you decide you have to leave…” He thought of Alice again, and some of his own frustration ebbed. “Nobody’s going to blame you for it. But if you stay, you need to commit.”

  “I’ve—”

  “No, you haven’t.” Absently, he reached out to secure the strap of her bag, which had slipped down to the crook of her elbow, back on her shoulder. “You’re still looking for the way out, the loophole in the deal that means you can pack your bags and go without consequences. Just go back to the way things were. Can’t blame you for it. But choose, then stick. That’s all. I’ve got to finish up and get back. Talk to you later.”

  He stepped back into the florist and left her standing speechless on the sidewalk.

  QUINN SHOUTED DOWN FROM THE SECOND FLOOR when Layla came in.

  “It’s me,” Layla called up, and still conflicted, walked back to the kitchen with the flowers and the bottles and pots she’d bought in a gift shop on the walk home.

  “Coffee.” Quinn bustled in a few moments later. “Going to need lots and lots of…Hey, pretty,” she said when she saw the flowers Layla was clipping to size and arranging in various bottles.

  “They really are. Quinn, I need to talk to you.”

  “Need to talk to you, too. You go first.”

  “I was going to leave this morning.”

  Quinn stopped on the way to fill the coffeepot. “Oh.”

  “And I was going to do my best to get out before you came back, and talked me out of it. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay. It’s okay.” Quinn busied herself making the coffee. “I’d avoid me, too, if I wanted to do something I didn’t want me to do. If you get me.”

  “Oddly enough, I do.”

  “Why aren’t you gone?”

  “Let me backtrack.” While she finished fussing with the flowers, Layla related the telephone conversation she’d had with her boss.

  “I’m sorry. It’s so unfair. I don’t mean your boss is unfair. She’s got a business to run. But that this whole thing is unfair.” Quinn watched Layla arrange multicolored daisies in an oversized teacup. “On a practical level I’m okay, because this is my job, or the job I picked. I can afford to take the time to be here and supplement that with articles. I could help—”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for. I don’t want you to loan me money, or to carry my share of the expenses. If I stay, it’s because I’ve chosen to stay.” Layla looked at the flowers, thought of what Fox had said. “I think, until today, I didn’t accept that, or want to accept it. Easier to think I’d been driven to come here, and that I was being pressured to stay. I wanted to go because I didn’t want any of this to be happening. But it is. So I’m staying because I’ve decided to stay. I’ll just have to figure out the practicalities.”

  “I’ve got a couple of ideas on that, maybe just a thumb in the dike. Let me think about them. The flowers were a nice idea. Cheer up a bad news day.”

  “Not my idea. Fox gave them to me when I ran into him outside the florist. I cut loose on him.” Layla shrugged, then gathered up the bits of stems she’d cut off, the florist wrappings. “He’s basically, ‘How are you doing,’ and I’m ‘How am I doing? I’ll tell you how I’m doing.’” She tossed the leavings in the trash, then leaned back and laughed. “God, I just blasted him. So he gives me the flowers he’d just bought, thrust them at me, really, and gave me a short, pithy lecture. I guess I deserved it.”

  “Hmm.” Quinn added the information to the think-pot she was stirring. “And you feel better?”

  “Better?” Layla walked into the little dining room to arrange a trio of flowers on the old, drop-leaf table they’d picked up at the flea market. “I feel more resolved. I don’t know if that’s better.”

  “I’ve got something to keep you busy.”

  “Thank God. I’m used to working, and all this time on my hands makes me bitchy.”

  “Come with me. Don’t leave all the flowers; you should have some of them in your room.”

  “I thought they’d be for the house. He didn’t buy them for me or—”

  “He gave them to you. Take some of them up. You made me take the tulips up to mine.” To solve the matter, Quinn picked up one of the little pots and a slender bottle herself. “Oh, coffee.”

  “I’ll get it.” Layla poured one of the mugs for Quinn, doctored it, then got a bottle of water for herself. “What’s the project that’s going to keep me busy?”

  “Books.”

  “We already have the books from the library.”

  “Now we have some from Estelle Hawkins’s personal store. Some of them are journals. I haven’t really scratched the surface yet,” Quinn explained as they headed up. “I’d barely gotten home ahead of you. But there are three of them written by Ann Hawkins. After her children were born. Her children with Giles Dent.”

  “But Mrs. Hawkins must have read them before, shown them to Cal.”

  “Right, and right. They’ve all been read, studied, pondered over. But not by us, Layla. Fresh eyes, different angle.” She detoured to Layla’s room to set the flowers down, then took the coffee mug on her way to the office. “And I’ve already got the first question on my notes: Where are the others?”

  “Other journals?”

  “Ann’s other journals, because I’m betting there are more, or were. Where’s the journal she kept when she lived with Dent, when she was carrying her triplets? That’s one of the new angles I hope our fresh eyes can find. Where would they be, and why aren’t they with the others?”

  “If she did write others, they might have been lost or destroyed.”

  “Let’s hope not.” Quinn’s eyes were sharp as she sat, lifted a small book bound in brown leather. “Because I think she had some of the answers we need.”

  CAL COULDN’T REASONABLY BREAK AWAY FROM the center until after seven. Even then he felt guilty leaving his father to handle the rest of the night. He’d called Quinn in the late afternoon to let her know he’d be by when he could. And her absent response had been for him to bring food with him.

  She’d have to settle for pizza, he thought as he carried the takeout boxes up the steps. He hadn’t had the time or inclination to figure out what her lifestyle-change option might be.

  As he knocked, the wind whistled across the back of his
neck, had him glancing uneasily behind him. Something coming, he thought. Something’s in the wind.

  Fox answered the door. “Thank God, pizza and a testosterone carrier. I’m outnumbered here, buddy.”

  “Where’s the estrogen?”

  “Up. Buried in books and notes. Charts. Layla makes charts. I made the mistake of telling them I had a dry-wipe board down at the office. They made me go get it, haul it in here, haul it upstairs.” The minute Cal set the pizza down on the kitchen counter, Fox shoved up the lid and took out a slice. “There’s been talk of index cards. Colored index cards. Don’t leave me here alone again.”

  Cal grunted, opened the fridge, and found, as he’d hoped and dreamed, Fox had stocked beer. “Maybe we were never organized enough, so we missed some detail. Maybe—”

  He broke off as Quinn rushed in. “Hi! Pizza. Oh-oh. Well, I’ll work it off with the power of my mind and with a session in the gym tomorrow morning.”

  She got down plates, passed one to Fox, who was already halfway through with his first slice. Then she smiled that smile at Cal. “Got anything else for me?”

  He leaned right in, laid his mouth on hers. “Got that.”

  “Coincidentally, exactly what I wanted. So how about some more.” She got a fistful of his shirt and tugged him down for another, longer kiss.

  “You guys want me to leave? Can I take the pizza with me?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Cal began.

  “Now, now.” Quinn patted Cal’s chest to ease him back. “Mommy and Daddy were just saying hello,” she told Fox. “Why don’t we eat in the dining room like the civilized. Layla’s coming right down.”

  “How come I can’t say hello to Mommy?” Fox complained as Quinn sailed off with the plates.

  “Because then I’d have to beat you unconscious.”

  “As if.” Amused, Fox grabbed the pizza boxes and started after Quinn. “Beverages on you, bro.”

  Shortly after they were seated, drinks, plates, napkins, pizza passed around, Layla came in with a large bowl and a stack of smaller ones. “I put this together earlier. I wasn’t sure what you might bring,” she said to Cal.