All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1)
Page 60
• Not on any of the other three planes, since the passenger lists encompassed a finite group of people. Besides, someone like Cam St. Bride would certainly not be traveling commercially if he could help it, and I knew that the presence of a private corporate jet would come in handy later on. (Plus, I work across the street from the airport where St. Bride Data keeps its jet!)
So that left the Twin Towers. Which tower became a matter of character, because Cam would have assessed the situation and gotten the hell out of Dodge (the South Tower) as soon as he saw the smoke pouring from the North Tower. Most people in the South Tower did not know that a plane had hit the other tower, since the damage occurred on the side of the building away from them, but they certainly saw the smoke and knew that something had happened. In fact, even in the North Tower, many people did not know that a plane had hit the tower; they thought a bomb had gone off. Those who had worked in the World Trade Center in 1993 remembered the earlier bombing, and many people chose to leave as a precaution. Although the occupants of the South Tower didn’t know what was coming at 9:03 a.m., and in spite of the building announcement that everything was under control, many decided to evacuate and thus survived. Because of this precaution, the South Tower saw far fewer casualties, even though the strike zone in the South Tower was lower and the hit destabilized the building more severely (which is why it fell first). The cool and rational Cam would have disregarded the announcement, factored in the disruption to his travel plans of the emergency vehicles already gathering on the streets, and left the building as quickly as he could.
Then I learned about the restaurant at the top of the North Tower. No one in the restaurant at 8:46 a.m. had a chance once the hijackers rammed the 767 into the building. All the stairwells were blocked, and the elevator shafts were either damaged or completely destroyed, so no one above the 91st floor made it out alive. Add in that the Windows on the World restaurant was exactly the sort of place where Cam St. Bride might conduct a breakfast business meeting, and his final destination was decided.
Remember that, even though there is an official total number of victims from the towers, no one really knows how many souls were actually trapped there, because very few bodies were recovered intact and many, many remain unidentified to this day. So Cam St. Bride does not replace anyone.
The one liberty I took was the timing of the last elevator. It actually left at 8:40 a.m. that morning, six minutes before AA 11 struck. I placed the last elevator at 8:43 a.m. so that Cam might reasonably still be on the phone with his brother, but gave his corporate counsel and the briefcase time to escape.
There are so many references on 9/11 that it is hard to single one out. I have included a brief bibliography at the end of this note.
~•~
On a happier note, I have also included a bibliography for anyone wishing to learn more about Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, and his influence on Virginia architecture. I have always had a passion for old houses, and in writing this had the fun of creating not one but four houses.
Ashmore Magna and Ashmore Minor are both based on James River plantations; the “minor” house, once owned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation but sold to a private investor after 9/11, is close to the old city, while the other, privately owned by the same family since its building, sits in lordly splendor in Fluvanna County. Both are beautiful homes. The interiors are my own invention and come from a myriad of sources. The Folly is based on one of the smaller Newport summer cottages (smaller being relative, as these cottages were magnificent mansions). I based Richard Ashmore’s renovations, which remove the worst of the Gilded Age excesses, on numerous different houses.
There are so many books on Jefferson’s architecture, Monticello, and Virginia plantation homes that, again, I have listed only a smattering. I have focused the Jeffersonian bibliography on his relationship with Sally Hemings, as that has the most relevance to the story of Richard Ashmore and Laura St. Bride.
Several years ago, the original photographs for the Guinness/Sadler book, Mr. Jefferson, Architect, taken by Desmond Guinness, went up for auction on Ebay. Guess who was the lucky winner?
Lindsey Forrest
9/11 Bibliography
Botte, John. Aftermath: Unseen 9/11 Photos by a New York City Cop. Collins Design, 2006.
Brill, Steven. After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era. Simon & Schuster, 2003.
Carter, Abigail. The Alchemy of Loss: A Young Widow’s Transformation. HCI Book, 2008.
Der Spiegel. Inside 9-11: What Really Happened. St. Martin’s Press, 2010.
DiMarco, Damon. Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11. Santa Monica Press, 2004.
Dwyer, Jim and Flynn, Kevin. 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. Times Books, 2011.
Frankel, Max. September 11, 2001. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2001.
Glanz, James, and Eric Lipton. City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center. Times Books, 2003.
Meyerowitz, Joel. Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive. Phaidon Press, 2006.
Murphy, Dean. September 11: An Oral History. Doubleday, 2002.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Photographers of the New York City Police Department (Author), Christopher Sweet (Author), David Fitzpatrick (Author), Gregory Semendinger (Author). Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of September 11, 2001. Studio, 2002.
Torres, Francesc. Memory Remains: 9/11 Artifacts at Hangar 17. National Geographic, 2011.
Jeffersonian Bibliography
Brodie, Fawn. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Biography. W. W. Norton & Company, 1974.
Gordon-Reed, Annette. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008.
---. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. University of Virginia Press, 1997.
Monticello Bibliography
Adams, William Howard. Jefferson’s Monticello. Abbeville Press, 1983.
Beiswanger, William L. Monticello in Measured Drawings: Drawings by the Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service. University of Virginia Press, 2001.
Beiswanger, William L., Peter J. Hatch, Lucia C. Stanton and Susan R. Stein. Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. University of Virginia Press, 2001.
Frary, I.T. Thomas Jefferson, Architect and Builder. Garrett and Massie, 1950.
Giordano, Ralph G. The Architectural Ideology of Thomas Jefferson. McFarland, 2012.
Guinness, Desmond, and Julius Trousdale Sadler, Jr. Mr. Jefferson, Architect. Viking Press, 1974.
Howard, Hugh. Houses of the Founding Fathers. Artisan, 2007.
---. Thomas Jefferson: Architect. Rizzoli, 2003.
Lautman, Robert. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello: A Photographic Portrait. Monacelli Press, 1997.
Lay, K. Edward. The Architecture of Jefferson Country: Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Virginia. University of Virginia Press, 2000.
Leepson, Marc. Saving Monticello: The Levy Family’s Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built. University of Virginia Press, 2003.
McLaughlin, Jack. Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder. Holt, 1998.
Nichols, Frederick Doveton. Thomas Jefferson's Architectural Drawings: With Commentary and a Check List. University of Virginia Press, 2011.
Stein, Susan R. The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Harry N. Abrams, 1993.
Wills, Chuck. Thomas Jefferson: Architect: The Interactive Portfolio. Running Press, 2008.
Virginia Plantation Homes Bibliography
Blackley, Pat. Virginia’s Historic Homes and Gardens. Voyageur Press, 2009.
Brodie, Steven, Leroy Phillips, James Waite, and Richard Yen. Carter’s Grove Drawings. The Historic Buildings Survey, U.S. National Park Service, United States Department of the I
nterior, 2007.
Carson, Cary, and Carl R. Lounsbery. The Chesapeake House: Architectural Investigation by Colonial Williamsburg. University of North Carolina Press, 2013.
Edwards Betsy Wells. Virginia Country: Inside the Private Historic Homes of the Old Dominion. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1998.
Gleason, David King. Virginia Plantation Homes. Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
---. Plantation Homes of Virginia. Portfolio XVII. Private commission of limited edition photographic prints. No. 914 of 1100 copies. (Author’s personal collection)
Green, Bryan Clark, Carter Loth, and William M.S. Rasmussen. Lost Virginia: Vanished Architecture of the Old Dominion. Howell Press, 2001.
Masson, Kathryn. Historic Houses of Virginia. Rizzoli, 2006.
Roberts, Bruce. Plantation Homes of the James River. University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
Wenger, Mark R. Carter's Grove: The Story of a Virginia Plantation. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1994.
Acknowledgments
EVEN THOUGH WRITING IS A SOLITARY ACTIVITY, no one writes a novel in a vacuum. I have been blessed with the support of my husband and family as I prepared to publish this story. For everyone who supported and encouraged me, I thank you all! Especially:
• my editorial team: Diane Mumpower, Pam Murphy, Marianna Stone
• my mentor: Patricia Burroughs (who told me long ago that she really liked it and had only one teeny suggestion -- rewrite a first-person narrative into third person! Much easier said than done! But it made all the difference.)
• my web team: Ricardo Nunez of TailoredWP.com, who set up two of the web sites, and Jeev Sen who set up the other and launched me on my way with WordPress
• my web logo designer, Christie Gucker of Provoke Something LLC
• my cover designer, Robin Ludwig of Robin Ludwig Design, who guided this newbie through the procedure of designing the perfect cover
• my tax advisor, Erik Kinard
• my dearest friend John Cope (1953-1994), who came to the rescue when I said that I needed the most obscure opera ever written (and who actually had the referenced recording in his own collection!)
• my parents and siblings, who supported me in my writing, and especially my sister, who was always only a phone call away with love and encouragement
• and, of course, my husband and daughter, who knew that seeing my story in print was my deepest desire.
Lindsey Forrest
About the Author
LINDSEY FORREST BEGAN HER CAREER AS A famous novelist in fourth grade, entertaining her classmates at recess with short stories about her favorite TV shows. A few years later, she discovered Georgette Heyer, Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, and other romantic suspense/Gothic authors, and angsty heroes (who might or might not be cold-blooded murderers) replaced her first imaginary friends. In eighth grade, she wrote her first five novels, full of shameless references to Gone with the Wind and replete with kidnappings, ladies in peril, heroines who took no prisoners, and the original Richard Ashmore*.
And UST?** Oh, yes. Even though, at her tender age, she had no idea what that meant.
After college, she sadly realized that she needed real money to pay the rent and buy food, so she went to work as a lead writer/editor for an international information company. She now spends her days writing about the scintillating world of income tax, saving her energy at night for a world where everyone has more important things to think about.
When she isn’t daydreaming at work about her next chapter, she is reading on her e-reader (never leave home without it!), stitching her way through her never-ending stash of needlepoint canvases, and collecting shoes, handbags, dolls… you name it.
For outtakes, news about future projects, pictures of her cat Max, and anything else she can think of to throw out there on the Internet, visit Lindsey at her web site: www.lindseyforrest.com.
* These will never see the light of day. They are locked away in a trunk for all eternity.
** Unresolved Sexual Tension, for the uninitiated.
Book Club Questions
1. The title of the book is All Who Are Lost. In what way does this apply to the living as well as the dead? Who among the living characters can be described as “lost”?
2. The author states on her web site that the chapter titles often carry secondary meanings. Pick a chapter title, and describe its hidden meaning.
3. Richard and Laura have different ideas about what really transpired at Ash Marine eleven years before. What do you think, and whose perceptions come closer to reality?
4. Diana was the only witness to her mother’s death off the Irish coast in 1970. She has only told Richard, and he has sworn to keep the secret. What do you think happened? Did Dominic really kill the girls’ mother?
5. The first thing Diana says about herself is that she is “no good with the truth.” What is Diana lying about? Can we rely anything Diana says, or is she an unreliable narrator?
6. Richard resurrected and rebuilt the Folly at Ashmore Park. In what way does this mirror the rebuilding of his life after his own great folly?
7. What do you think lies beyond Julie’s playacting?
8. The author has stated her interest in the Myers-Briggs classification of personalities and discusses the character types of the main characters on www.lindseyforrest.com. Richard (INTP) and Laura (INFJ) are very compatible, where Richard and Diana (ISFP) are not, even though they too share only two of the four major characteristics. Based on MBTI classification alone, why is Laura better suited to Richard than Diana?
9. Richard and Lucy seem to be exact opposites, and Richard finds Lucy’s tendency to meddle irksome, to the point where he describes her as “Miss Infernal Busybody.” Why do you think they remain so close when they have such different personalities?
10. Richard’s hero is Thomas Jefferson, and he shares many of the same characteristics, tastes and flaws. Like Jefferson, Richard is a religious skeptic. How does the crisis precipitated after his great failure change him?
Coming Soon
LINDSEY FORREST
All That Lies Broken
Ashmore’s Folly Trilogy: Book Two
Laura and Richard now stand face to face, equals
at the same place in their lives,
living in their own world, safe from past and present.
But the world is not so easily forgotten.
Even as Richard begins to dismantle
the past that blocks the future,
he struggles to open his heart to
the last love of his life.
Laura finds herself chafing against
her place on the edge of her lover’s life,
wanting so much more,
no longer willing to settle for less.
An estranged wife will not give up her desire to smash
the man she hates so fiercely.
A younger brother will not relinquish
the rage against the man who bested him
in life and in death.
Secrets unravel. An identity is uncovered.
A world begins to shatter
when a reporter stumbles across Laura’s secret.
Then a sliver of bone resurfaces in
a place of great sorrow….
Dedication
To Elizabeth and Lucas
lights of my life
All Who Are Lost.
Copyright © 2014 St. John Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S.
Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.
St. John Publishing Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 250774
Plano, TX 75025-0774
www.stjohnpub.com
First St. John Publishing Group e-book edition, October 2014.
First St. John P
ublishing Group paperback edition, October 2014.
The characters and events, except for those of obvious historical importance, are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Forrest, Lindsey.
All Who Are Lost / Lindsey Forrest – 1st ed.
ISBN-10: 1941421002
ISBN-13: 978-1-941521-00-7
1. Contemporary Family – Fiction. 2. Contemporary Romance – Fiction.
3. September 11, 2001 – Fiction. 4. Forbidden Romance – Fiction.
5. Virginia – Fiction. I. Title
Cover Design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.
Book Design by St. John Publishing Group, Inc.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Ghost of a Girl
Chapter 2: What Goes Around
Chapter 3: The Day
Chapter 4: After
Chapter 5: The Journey Home
Chapter 6: Blue Eyes, Dark Heart
Chapter 7: Upon That Shore
Chapter 8: Three Little Maids Are We
Chapter 9: Diana, Beginning
Chapter 10: Blood Between Us, Love
Chapter 11: Diana, Not in Love
Chapter 12: Said the Spider to the Fly
Chapter 13: Girl, Eavesdropping
Chapter 14: Ancient Crimes
Chapter 15: Diana, Mrs. Ashmore
Chapter 16: Knocking on Forbidden Doors
Chapter 17: Here Be Dragons
Chapter 18: Falling Off the Edge
Chapter 19: Diana, Treading Water
Chapter 20: Nocturne
Chapter 21: Diana, Discovering
Chapter 22: Sex, Lies, and Thomas Jefferson