A Signal Shown

by Yvonne Montgomery

  "You're positive you've looked everywhere?" Noreen was asking Kerry. "This house has so many nooks and crannies, you never know where something might be squirreled away."

  "How many times have you all helped me look?" Kerry pushed her plate aside. "We've explored every cranny and nook in the place. As for squirrels... who the hell knows?" She slammed her palm onto the table. "The thing that gets me is not knowing why. Why the big mystery? Why the total blank about her early life? I can't even figure out where she was born." Her green eyes snapped with exasperation. "I think she was running away from something."

  "Just a minute," Aura Lee exclaimed. "Just a cotton-picking minute." Her face flushed with temper. "You may be frustrated, but that's no reason to slander Cottie."

  "It's not slander, I'm only saying it's weird to have so much information hidden. Come on, Aura Lee," Kerry challenged. "Even you don't know any of that stuff, and you were her best friend. What in the sweet hell was she trying to cover up?"

  * * *

  The absence of noise woke Brenna, and she rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. One thirty-six. She groaned and burrowed under the blankets, hoping she could ease back into sleep. Her mind started replaying the events of the day, lingering on the shifting moods displayed at dinner.

  She had to sympathize with Kerry. What a drag, to be hired to write a biography, then not be given the materials she needed to get the job done. Of course, if Caldicott Wyntham had been really sick, she couldn't be blamed for screwing up. But blame didn't matter. It had to be a writer's worst nightmare.

  Unbidden, the image of her grandmother slipped into her mind. How many nights had Gran wandered down the hallway, face twisted with fear as she peered into each room, searching for something familiar? Then her features would almost relax as Brenna came to lead her back to her room. But her uncertain smile couldn't offset the desolation in her eyes.

  Okay, enough of that. Brenna threw off the covers and grabbed her sweatshirt from the chair by the window. She headed out toward the stairs and padded down them, making for the kitchen. A glass of milk might help.

  The refrigerator light was bright, but when the door closed, the dark pushed against the kitchen windows. During the day, the uncovered panes let the outer world inside, but now the night waited. Brenna poured the milk, and returned the carton to the shelf on the door. She turned her back on the windows and carried the glass into the study, where the shutters blocked the dark. As she slid into the desk chair she turned on the laptop and in a matter of moments was online.

  Dink, I'm feeling shaky about this whole thing. The women here are great, into happening stuff and willing to talk about it. They act interested in what I'm doing, too, but I don't know anybody yet, so I feel totally out of it. They're smart and talented. I'm feeling like I'm not. Brenna paused, letting her wrists rest on the desk. Did she sound like a total loser? Dink wanted to know everything, wanted to be supportive, but how would it be for him to learn about things he couldn't change?

  You asked about the dreams, she typed. They'd promised to keep it real, to be honest with each other. They're still with me, damn them. Twice last night I sat up in bed, convinced I'd just heard Gran call me. It's freaky, because it's so quiet at night here. Hardly any sound at all except for the wind now and then. I'm alone in this building. I told you about the woman who'll be living on the other side of the duplex—when she gets here—she has a broken leg—so if I hear anything, it trips me out cuz I know nobody's there. Hope she heals fast.

  After that there wasn't much to say. She kept hoping he'd respond with an Instant Message, but he didn't. Brenna sent her love and signed off. Dink was probably asleep, or maybe he'd gone out. She turned her mind away from the image of him at a club, dancing with someone else.

  Brenna paused at the doorway of the study and went back for her laptop. She passed through the living room and headed back upstairs. What did she need? Comfort movie or an action flick? Casablanca or the last James Bond? Couldn't think too much with chases and battles. She paused, thinking Last of the Mohicans. Daniel Day-Lewis was way too buff, though, and the love scenes way too yummy. She leaned against the pillow and entered another title. Speed would do the trick. Mindless bus travel: the complete cure for a troubled mind.

  Soon Brenna was focused on Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock coping with the downsides of public transportation. She drank more milk, and kept her mind blank, refusing to allow any toxic memories to surface. Over the last few years she'd found ignoring what couldn't be changed was better than fighting shadows.

  It was hours before she was able to fall asleep once more. And then she dreamed.

  Nightmirror

  Trees whisper outside, leaves rustling on palsied limbs. Night sneaks in, stealing the light, leaving the forms in the room gray and still.

  She sleeps shallowly, her body cold, fear colder. She can't wake up. Sleep is a crouching beast, fiercely holding her down.

  But the door is unlocked. Lock the door.

  The air thickens as minutes ooze by and something waits to get in, waits to strike.

  The pillow hardens and her heart slams in her chest. Lock-lock. Lock-lock.

  LOCK THE FUCKING DOOR

  The gate shrieks open and the night cracks open and the banshee is free, shroud twisting.

  It floats to the bed, it hovers beside her, grotesque fingers reaching for her.

  She can't move.

  It's moaning, keening. The empty eyes have hell inside.

  Who are you? Who are you? She doesn't know.

  She's so small... smaller yet... not seen... not known.

  She's gone.

  Chapter 4

  The upstairs hallway of the stone farmhouse was hazy in the afternoon sun. The air was scented with lemons and furniture wax and traces of cinnamon. The bedroom doors were shut, making the corridor feel long and narrow.

  "So, what're we hunting for?" Rose asked Kerry. She'd been working on her fountains, casual in jeans and a blue sweater, and she had a smudge of dirt on one cheek.

  "The usual." Kerry's gaze skimmed over yards of wood trim, pausing at occasional bumps in the wallpaper. "Noreen got me going again with her comment about nooks and crannies. I can't shake the feeling something's here. A little hidey-hole or concealed panel, you know?"

  "Yeah. But we've looked everywhere." Rose started down the hall, Kerry trailing behind. "I can't imagine Caldicott scooping out a hole, stuffing in her private papers and wallpapering over it. Too much trouble, and hell to access."

  "It sounds crazy." Kerry turned, casting a calculating eye over the space. "I'm obsessed with the idea of wall safes or hidden compartments. What haunts me is the feeling that it's at my fingertips, just waiting to be discovered."

  Rose's smile was doubtful. "Why didn't Caldicott tell one of us where this mythical hiding place is? She arranged for you to come here to write about her life, and if she'd had any deep, dark secrets, she would've told you about them, right?" She started down the back stairs, but Kerry stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  "Let's look in her room."

  "Again?" Rose glanced at her face and turned back. She led her down the hall and opened the third door.

  Caldicott might have stepped out of the bedroom moments before. It was the same as always with wheat-colored walls, white-enameled crown molding, the Oriental carpet swirling with reds and greens and golds. The large walnut bed, with its airy canopy of pale green silk, had plumped pillows and a patterned throw draped over the end of the flowered duvet.

  Kerry's gaze went to the walnut armchair and the chaise longue in front of the double window. There, a little over four months ago, they'd talked about the biography, Caldicott reclining on the chaise, the throw protecting her from any chill. Kerry had loved sitting in the curving chair, now and then glancing at their images in the round mirror above the small gas fireplace. She'd imagined their reflected forms as a portrait of the connection between them, framed by the gilded vines around the beve
led glass.

  She fought against sadness. "I can almost feel her here."

  Rose ran her fingertips across the top of the chest of drawers beside the door. "That's why we haven't packed up everything yet. Aura Lee still comes in here sometimes just to sit. Neither one of us can bear to clear it out."

  "We went through the drawers, and the closet." Kerry's gaze landed on the blanket chest at the end of the bed. "Maybe a false bottom?"

  Rose shrugged. "Check it out."

  Five minutes of poking around and measuring produced nothing from the old chest. Kerry went to the small secretary against one wall. "I've looked here." Still, she pulled down the writing surface and opened the tiny drawers. "Nothing." Under her grief simmered anger and a sense of betrayal.

  Rose got up from the chair. "Let's go have some coffee. Unless I'm hallucinating, Aura Lee's been baking."

  "Okay." Kerry trailed behind her down the stairs. At the bottom step, a russet dachshund stared up at them, tail wagging.

  "Strudel, sweet girl." Kerry bent to pet the little dog and then followed Rose into the kitchen, breathing in the perfume of cinnamon rolls. Strudel trailed after them. "This dog might lobby us for some baked goods." Strudel barked and sat down, waiting to be served.

  "You think?" Rose glanced about swiftly, and tore a tiny piece of roll from the pan. "Don't tell Aura Lee." She held out the morsel and the dachshund took it with a quick lick of her tongue. "Strudel and I have a deal: she lets me rub her belly and I pay her off for the privilege."

  Kerry smiled. "How did you first meet Caldicott?"

  "At a yoga class at the rec center." Rose thought for a moment. "It would've been about twelve years ago. You want coffee?"

  "Please. I'll get the rolls." Kerry used her finger to scoop a bit of icing from the edge of the pan and tasted it. "Mmmm, sin and degradation on a plate." Putting the rolls on saucers, she carried them to the table. "I didn't know Caldicott ever studied yoga."

  Rose filled two cups with coffee. "I think she'd been practicing for years, maybe decades, by the time we met." Her smile was reminiscent. "I don't know why she'd signed up for a basic class, but there she was, and there I was, and we hit it off. Grab the cream out of the fridge, will you?"

  Kerry picked up the sugar bowl as well. They pulled chairs out from the table and sat down. Strudel curled into a ball at Rose's feet, watching keenly for spills.

  "So what were you doing when you weren't studying yoga?" Kerry took a bite of roll and closed her eyes at the blend of butter, cinnamon, and lemon on her tongue.

  Rose glanced at her with a wry expression. "I was a professional wife. My husband required a lot of support for his brilliant career, and I provided it." She reached for the cut glass cream pitcher.

  Kerry wondered at the edge of bitterness in her voice. "Sorry if I struck a nerve."

  "How could you know about my nerves? Or anybody else's?" Rose sipped her coffee and put the cup down with a sigh. "Sorry. I don't know why I turn into an ice queen every time I think about who I was back then."

  "What happened?"

  Rose shook her head. "I got married when I was twenty, at the end of my sophomore year of college. Jim had just graduated, and was accepted at CU for a master's in business. So we got married and moved to Boulder. The plan was for me to finish my degree here. Of course I got pregnant almost immediately. I settled down to building our nest and waited for the baby." She added in a lower voice, "I had a miscarriage." She tore a piece off her cinnamon roll.

  "Oh, Rose. I'm so sorry."

  Her eyes were sad. "Thank you. It was a long time ago, but it still hurts." She took a deep breath. "We tried again after about six months. I'd lost any desire to go back to school. Couldn't see what difference it would make." She studied her hands for a moment. "I had two more miscarriages over the next couple of years. Jim finished his master's degree and got a job in Denver. We'd bought a house here in Boulder and I set out to make it a showplace to advance his career."

  Kerry leaned back in her chair. "You didn't get a job?"

  Rose's laugh was short and bitter. "Certainly not. Jim didn't want anyone to think he wasn't able to support us. I donated time to the hospital guild, that sort of thing. I learned a lot over the years, in some ways more than I might have in a paying job. Jim was climbing the corporate ladder at Mountain Bell, and I gave dinner parties and volunteered with the various charities his company sponsored."

  "So what went wrong?" Kerry asked softly.

  Rose's mouth twisted. "It's such a cliché. Jim had an affair with his secretary. She got pregnant. That was final proof that it was my uterus, not his prick. Jim had to do the honorable thing, right? So he asked for a divorce, paid me off, and became a doting father at last."

  Kerry fought back a desire to badmouth the absent Jim. "And you?"

  Rose's shoulders drooped. "I came damned close to becoming an alcoholic. Here I was, forty years old, dumped for a younger woman, a fertile one at that. But after a while I realized I didn't want to be a drunk. I started some classes, core curriculum stuff to jumpstart a shot at a bachelor's degree. I thought I might teach, something like that. And I decided to try yoga, since it was something totally different." Her smile grew, became genuine. "I met Caldicott, and it felt like we'd known each other forever. After I graduated she hired me to help her here, and that led to the job as co-director for the five years before she died."

  Rose pushed back her chair to get them both more coffee. "The board made me director after Caldicott died, as you know. And here we are."

  "Aren't we just. I wish I'd asked you before now." Kerry shrugged at her quizzical glance. "I mean about your life, not just stuff about Caldicott. I've been on such a tear with the biography... I'm sorry you had such a rough time."

  "Sweetie, we all have a rough time, sooner or later. Caldicott was an angel for me. I just hope I'm doing the kind of job here that she thought I could do." And that I can handle the haunted house stuff. Rose wondered if Aura Lee had communed with any spirits yet.

  "You know she'd be pleased."

  The doorbell rang from the front of the house and Strudel trotted toward the sound. "Aura Lee can get it." Rose took another bite of her cinnamon roll.

  "I never asked you before—I guess I figured you'd tell me if there was anything I needed to know—but I've wondered about when Caldicott died." Kerry paused, uneasy at the feeling she was trespassing on private emotional territory.

  Understanding filled Rose's eyes. "You want to know if she said anything before she died. About her papers."

  Kerry nodded, feeling small. "I'm running out of ideas. I've written about the Wisdom Court years and I've interviewed every pertinent person. Without earlier information, I can't take the biography any further."

  "No harm done." Rose set her cup on the table, lined it up with an invisible marker. "Aura Lee and I were with her, and the doctor—Jerri—was there, too. Caldicott was in and out of consciousness." Rose's voice thickened. "She thanked me and Aura Lee." She took a breath and let it out. "I held her hand and she dozed a while. Then, at the end, she squeezed my hand, really hard. She opened her eyes and said, All in bad time, Rose. And she died."

  Kerry thought a moment. "I've heard that before. All in bad time. Where have I heard that?"

  Rose wiped at tears with a napkin. "Something was on her mind, but that's all she said."

  "Something on her mind. I wish I knew what." Kerry swallowed at the lump in her throat. If only she'd been there to hear for herself. She glanced up, saw the sympathy in Rose's eyes. "I appreciate your telling me about it. I'll just keep looking for more 'til my time here runs out. I have four months left. However it goes, this year has meant so much to me."

  "Oh, Kerry," murmured Rose. "I wish I could remember something, anything that might—"

  Aura Lee appeared at the kitchen door. Her eyes were dark with trouble. "Rose, come with me, please. We've got a situation." She turned without another word and went back the way she'd come.

>   Rose and Kerry got to their feet and hurried after her.

  In the quiet kitchen the cups and plates on the table moved slowly to form a circle.

  Chapter 5

  The autumn sun slid behind the Flatirons, no clouds to break its fall. As the windows darkened, shadows reached toward the wingback chairs in front of the fireplace. There a man stood motionless, his attention on the portrait of Caldicott Wyntham above the mantel.

  Rose and Kerry walked across the room, behind them Aura Lee pausing to switch on the two floor lamps along the way. In the sudden light, the man turned toward them. He appeared to be in his mid-to-late thirties, of medium height and frame. Casual in slacks and a suede jacket, his stance was rigid, maybe braced for something unpleasant, Kerry thought. Light brown hair brushed brows bent in a frown over narrowed blue eyes. At his feet a worn leather briefcase leaned against the hearthstone.

  "This is Maxwell Steadman," Aura Lee said. "He claims Cottie hired him last year to research a woman called—" She looked him. "I've forgotten her name."

  "Clara Trinder. Ms. Wyntham wrote me to ask for a genealogical background for the woman, as well as any information I could find regarding her whereabouts." His clipped British accent emphasized his impatience. "Some family connection she hoped to write a book about, I believe."

  "You're a genealogist?" Rose sank into a chair as Kerry moved past her. Aura Lee perched on the sofa, face creased in bewilderment.

  "I am an historian, but genealogy forms a good deal of my professional research at the moment." He shifted his weight and tensed momentarily.

  Something didn't feel right. Kerry searched his face for signs of deceit. "I haven't found anything about that in Caldicott's records. Where in hell did you spring from?"

  Maxwell Steadman raised one eyebrow, letting the silence grow until Kerry could feel her cheeks heat. "I suppose I could answer any number of ways," he said with soft precision. "From the mind of Zeus, from the dreams of angels, from the deep blue sea. Or even the more boring: from the usual source."