HARPER
October, 1988
The Present
Chapter 1
This is a mistake!
Harper ignored the voice in her head that had been nagging her since she’d slid into her Volvo in Southern California sixteen hours earlier. Her eyes were gritty, she needed a shower, and she did not need her guilty conscious pricking at her.
Not just a mistake, but a mistake of epic proportions!
“Oh, give me a break. I’m going back, dammit and I’m going now.”
Sometimes her inner thoughts, riddled with guilt as they were, bugged the crap of her. Like now. On this dark, dreary Oregon night.
She stepped on the accelerator and her Volvo shot forward, hitting a pothole, the whole wagon shuddering. Harper’s fingers tightened over the wheel.
You’re going to regret this.
“I’m not going to be here long,” Harper argued aloud, “I’m leaving again. Satisfied?”
Of course not.
Her deep-seeded doubts were never sated.
“Pull yourself together,” she told herself, but that had been nearly impossible recently with her impending divorce and estrangement from her daughter. And then there was her father’s recent heart attack. Isaac Reed had survived, she’d heard, but at yet to see him herself. As soon as she was settled in the cottage, she’d drive to St. Catherine’s Hospital. Not that she ands her dad were close these days, but she sure as hell hoped he would recover.
And really, who was she close to at this juncture in her life?
No one.
Not one damned person.
She set her jaw as her headlights reflected on the old deer crossing sign riddled as it was with bullet holes.
Some things never change.
And some things always do, her nagging brain reminded her.
“Shut up!” She cranked up the radio, blasting U-2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for. “Me neither, Bono, me neither.”
From the cat carrier on the seat beside her, Jinx gave out a low, irritated mewl.
“Almost there,” she told the cat, just as she spied the edge of the drive, nearly hidden by untrimmed laurel and overgrown rhododendrons. “You’re fine,” she assured him, then added, “We’re both fine,” though that was a lie as she eased up on the gas.
I’m home, she thought hollowly, an emptiness invading her soul.
How many ghosts from her past still lingered on the island, that jagged stump of rock jutting from the dark, impenetrable depths of Lake Twilight?
Her heart squeezed when she caught sight of the caretaker’s cottage at the edge of a parking apron, but she drove past the little bungalow she’d once called home, a spot where she’d lived on and off during her adolescence, a place of solace and heartache.
Easing off the gas, she let the Volvo roll to a stop in front of the huge gate separating the mainland from the bridge that spanned a narrow neck of the lake to Dixon Island, named ignominiously after her great-grandfather after he changed it from Qiqinu Island, as it had been called by the indigenous people who had once lived on the lake’s shores. As Harper under stood the lore, the lake had originally been named for the eagles and osprey that nested around the lake and fished in its waters.
It’s yours, you could change it back.
She had inherited all of it and could now claim the island, the bridge, the gatehouse and nearly an acre on this, the north shore of Lake Twilight. Because she’d reached the magical age of thirty-seven. Was that mid-life? Was she living through a crisis? God, she hoped not.
All signs point to “yes.”
“Oh, shut up!” She cut the engine and climbed out of her wagon. Flipping up the hood of her jacket, she stood at the gate, the Volvo’s headlamps casting her shadow through the bars of the massive wrought-iron barrier to the bridge beyond. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered. Not in prayer. The narrow bridge seemed to disappear into the darkness. The island was blurry, a massive, indistinct shape with towering fir trees rising from the cliffs. The trees sheltered the mansion, invisible now in the dark. No lamps were lilt, no exterior lights glowed to highlight the ornate walls or the high turret that knifed into the sky.
She’d thought as a child that the house was straight out of The Addams Family.
And she hadn’t been wrong.
But it had been Gram’s home, once upon a time, an architectural showpiece that had turned into a house of horrors.
Harper shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her.
You can never go back.
Well, here she was.
Very much back.
At least for a little while.
She cast a disparaging glance at the stone posts that were not only fastened to the gate, but also served as perches for the gargoyles her grandmother had loved so fervently.
“Tacky, I know, and possibly a tad macabre,” Gram had confided in Harper one summer morning. They had stood just inside the gate, the bridge to their backs as they’d studied the carved beasts in the sunlight.
Harper had been around nine at the time and the monstrous winged creatures seemed to Harper as if they’d risen from hell, just like Sister Evangeline had warned in catechism. The gargoyles’ lips were pulled back into snarls, fangs long and curved, a snake like tail coiled around their muscular bodies. They were not identical. One was sculpted with reptilian eyes and scaled like a dragon. The other’s skin was taunt and smooth over visible muscles. Horns curved from its forehead. Huge eyes bulged above a pug nose and sharp claws extended from man-like hands. The tip of its tail was cared into an arrow’s tip. A devil-creature.
To Harper, each sculpture appeared to be the epitome of pure evil.
“You want to scare people away?” she asked, studying stone creatures warily as she sidled closer to her grandmother.
“No. Not really.” Gram pulled shears from the pocket of her golf skirt and clipped off an errant bit of ivy that had dared wrap around the wrought iron railing. “I just want people to think about it, you know. And maybe consider me a tad eccentric. Wouldn’t that be delicious?” She’d flipped up her “Jackie-O” sunglasses, setting them into her perfectly coiffed hair.
Her blue eyes sparkled as she winked at Harper. “It’s all kind of in fun, you know. But, yes, I do like my privacy. Grandpa, he wasn’t fond of them.” She hitched her chin toward one of the stone carvings. “He called them ‘Ugly and Uglier.’ Thought he was so damned funny.” She sighed and for a second was caught in a nostalgic moment, her eyebrows pinching together. “He preferred something more traditional and regal.”
“Like?”
“Oh, I don’t know . . . lions, I suppose. BOR-ing.” She swatted at a mosquito, then snipped off the offensive sprig of ivy and let the sunglasses drop onto the bridge of her straight nose again. “Come to think of it, he did mention lions, oh, and eagles. Because the lake was originally named for them, I suppose.” With a quick shake of her head, she added, “As if. Let me tell you, I nixed those ideas quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. My house, my choice, my gargoyles.” She eyed the carved creatures and smiled. “You know, I think they protect me. Keep all of us safe.”
“What about Mama?” Harper asked. “They didn’t keep her safe.”
A shadow crossed Gram’s face, her smile fading. “No, I suppose not.” Gram cleared her throat and scrabbled into her pocket, this time for a pack of cigarettes. She lit up quickly with the silver lighter that had once belonged to Grandpa. As she shot a stream of smoke to the blue, blue sky, she said, “Your mother, she didn’t like them much either.” Her voice had turned soft as she wrapped one arm around her slim waist, holding her cigarette aloft in her other hand as she squinted up at the gargoyle with scales, the one her grandfather had called “Ugly.”
“When she was a little girl, about your age, or a year or two younger, I guess, your mother suggested we should replace them with race horses or unicorns.” Another puff. “Can you imagine? Unicorns?” She said it as if it were a joke, but there was a sadness to her tone as there always was when she mentioned Mama. Harper felt it, too. That sadness was like a shadow, always close, ready to grow.
“Well, that was Anna for you. Forever the dreamer.” Quickly Gram took another draw on her cigarette, then dropped it onto the pavement and crushed it with her sandaled foot.
Harper had hazarded a glance up at Ugly with its scaly skin and folded wings. If it had been the gargoyles’ job to protect the family, then they had failed miserably. Otherwise Mama would still be alive–Grandpa, too. And her brother Evan wouldn’t be such a dick-wad.
Now all thee years later, Evan, too, was gone, Harper thought with a rush of guilt. She shook it off. No time for melancholy on this miserable night.
The Volvo’s headlights offered enough illumination for her to run up the uneven flagstones to the caretaker’s cottage. While rain peppered the ground and dripped off the sagging eaves, she huddled on the porch and fumbled with the key ring–Gram’s set of keys to unlock the door.
Stepping inside, she flipped on the lights switch.
Nothing.
The house remained dark and cold and it smelled of mold and rot. “Not good,” she told herself and backtracked through the rain to the car where she searched in the glove box and while Jinx let her know he was still very unhappy. “I know, I know, it won’t be long now,” she said as she found the flashlight, snagged it and head back to the cottage.
Once inside again, she swung the weak beam over the interior and saw the soggy mess. Buckled stairs, peeling wall paper, sodden carpets and swollen hardwood. The brick floor near the front door was still intact but everything else inside appeared ruined.
Something the attorneys in charge of the estate had failed to mention.
“Well, shit.”
No way could she stay here.
Not until everything was repaired which would take weeks–no, make that months. She stepped into the living room, felt the sponginess of the floor and retreated to the front hallway again.
There was nothing she could do tonight.
On to Plan B.
Which she had hoped to avoid.
“Grow a pair,” she told herself. For the love of God, she was no longer that desperate, wide-eyed girl who had fled this place half a lifetime ago. She was a grown woman now. A mother and a wife–well, no, an ex-wife, she remind herself.
The hood of her jacket fell away and November rain drizzled down her collar as she skirted puddles and made her way to the gate.
“Here goes nothing,” she said aloud, as the automated keypad, mounted on a stone pillar had been iffy at best years before. What were the chances it would come to life now?
“Slim and none,” she said, pressing in the code. “And most likely not slim.” No response.
No click of gears engaging nor grinding of ancient wheels.
“Screw it.” Again, she retrieved the key ring and found the heavy skeleton key, shoved it into the lock and turned. Supposedly it would override the electrical system if the power was out. She heard a series of clicks, suggesting that the lock was open, but the gate didn’t move when she pushed on it, as if the heavy thing had been closed for eons.
“Great.” She shoved again, this time planting her feet, ignoring the pain in her leg and throwing her shoulders into the task. the gate was heavy and had, it seemed, been closed for eons. With an effort, ignoring the dull ache in her leg, she forced the damned thing open. Old hinges creaked, but she was able to clear a space wide enough for her car.
Good enough.
“We’re in,” she said to the cat as she settled behind the steering wheel and rammed the gearshift into first. “Even if we really don’t want to be.”
Then she drove.
Slowly.
Across the narrow bridge connecting the private island to the mainland.
Silently praying the old piers and abutments still held.
Her heart drummed a little faster, beating a quicker tempo than the rhythmic slap of wipers scraping rain from the windshield.
You shouldn’t be here.
You’re not wanted.
The past is unforgiving.
“Stop!” she said, angry at her self-doubts as the mansion came into view. “Enough already.”
As she reached the parking area, she swung the nose of her Volvo to a spot in front of the garage that angled from the main house. With a garret tucked under its roof the three bays of the garage were dwarfed by the mansion. It rose three stories above the island and was topped by the tower, as her grandmother had called the turret that climbed even higher, knifing upward and offering nearly a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of the island and lake.
“Home sweet home,” she said with more than a trace of sarcasm. “You’re gonna love it.” She glanced at the passenger seat where the cat carrier was belted tightly into th seat. Two gold eyes peered through the mesh, glaring at her suspiciously. “Trust me, this is gonna be heaven.”
Or, hell. Yeah, more likely hell. But she wouldn’t utter those dark thoughts aloud. “Hang here for a sec,” she said, before realizing she was having a conversation with a cat.
A cat!
Not even her cat!
She’d inherited Jinx when Dawn had taken off for college.
“Awesome,” she muttered under her breath. Now she was stuck with the damned thing.
Well, so be it. This was her life now, she thought as she dashed to the massive front doors of her grandmother’s mansion. And cats had always been a part of it. Gram had taken every stray that had ever wandered onto the island. “It’s a huge house, so why not?” Olivia Dixon had said, upon “adopting” an obviously pregnant calico when Harper was twelve. Gram had cuddled the cat and it had purred contentedly, kneading Gram’s shoulder.
No matter what, she would always think of this house as Gram’s. She had inherited, yes, once she turned thirty-seven and it had taken nearly a year of probate,
red tape and attorneys to actually put the place in her name. But still, this house, “the fortress” her mother had called it, and all that came with it, was Gram’s. At least in Harper’s mind.
And she was going to sell it.
ASAP!
She reached into her pocket, rattling the keys.
Don’t do it! This is a mistake! Remember the last time you were here!
Ignoring that horrid voice, she twisted the key in the lock and she let herself inside, the huge door creaking loudly.
The air inside still as death.
She walked inside and stepped back in time.
HARPER
January, 1968
Chapter 2
“I love you,” Harper said and nestled closer to Chase, his long hair brushing her cheek. He smelled of beer and cigarettes and recent sex.
They were in the back seat of his car, parked on a bluff overlooking the black waters of Lake Twilight. The windows were fogged from their recent lovemaking but if she squinted, she could see the spire of St. Luke’s knifing upward over the blurry streetlights of Almsville, the town she’d called home all of her seventeen years. Music drifted from the radio. The Rolling Stones. Let’s Spend The Night Together.
“Yeah, love you, too,” he finally said, his voice thick.
His hand cradled her head against him and she felt that she was safe being so close to him. His torso was tight and firm with a thatch of curly hair, the muscles of his arms strident, his entire body lean and hard.
“So . . .” he said, his breath fanning over her hair. “ . . . you’re not pregnant?”
“No.” She shook her head. At least she didn’t think so. Her periods were still pretty irregular, not like some of her friends who knew to the day when they would start, but she’d had no symptoms.
A pause.
“That’s good, I guess.”
“Yeah.” But her heart squeezed and when he kissed the top of her head, she ached inside and she fingered the love beads that hung from his neck, a colorful strand made by some friend at the university.
“We’d better get going.”
“Not yet.”
“Harper, it’s after midnight.” He was already extracting himself from her arms and reaching for his jeans that he’d tossed carelessly into the front seat. “There’s a curfew here and cops patrol this place.”
“I know.” She found her bra and panties on the floor behind the passenger seat and wriggled into them. “But I– I don’t want to go.”
“I get it.” His smile was a slash of white in the darkness. “Neither do I, but–oh, fu–!” He’d glanced up and was caught in the beam of a flashlight, just before there was a series of sharp raps on the foggy window.
“Police! Open up,” a loud male voice ordered.
Harper froze.
“Fuck!” Chase was scrambling into his jeans and managed to toss his T shirt over his head.
“Chase?” she whispered.
“Shh! Don’t say anything. Stay in the car!”
“But–”
“Let me handle this!”
Chase climbed over the front seat, cut the ACC and the radio as he opened the door and stepped outside. A rush of frigid January air rushed inside while Harper, her heart in her throat, finished throwing on her sweater and cowered in the back seat, mortified.
Chase positioned himself in front of the rear window, but the flashlight’s beam stole over the interior, where Harper’s skirt was wadded into a corner and her legs curled beneath her. She turned her face away when the light inched up her body.
She heard a gravelly male voice say, “Chase? Chase Hunt? Oh, Jesus! McGuire, you see this? It’s Tom Hunt’s kid! With a girl.”
“What did you expect him to be with?” the other cop–McGuire– asked. His voice was slightly higher.
Harper wanted to die.
Gunderson, a large shadow, was still trying to peek through the windows. “Holy mother of God, son, what the hell are you thinking, boy? I hope you have the good sense use a damned rubber.”
“We’re just leaving,” Chase said, moving so that his body blocked the back window. His torso was visible in front of the foggy glass, as if he were trying to protect her, keep her identity a secret. If only. Her dad would kill her if he found out and Gram . . .
“Make it quick, okay?” Gunderson of the gravelly voice said. “And don’t let me find you up her ever again! Jesus H. Christ, what the hell are you thinkin’? What would your dad say? Or your mom? Aren’t you supposed to be in Eugene? Goin’ to school on some kind of scholarship?”
Chase didn’t answer.
Harper died a thousand deaths inside.
“You’d better get back down there, or Uncle Sam will come lookin’ and haul your ass over to ‘Nam before you can think twice.”
Again, Chase held his tongue, but deep inside, Harper’s temper started to ignite, her fear and shame giving way to anger. She felt her fists ball.
“And cut your damned hair,” Gunderson advised with a snort. “You look like a sissy and–”
“Hey, Gunderson, lay off him,” McGuire cut in. “He’s not your kid.”
“And a good thing, too!” Gunderson said. “But he’s Tom’s kid and he won’t like it. Probably take a strap to him. Shit, I would.”
Harper had heard enough. “Stop it!” She yelled, her temper surging.
“Oooh. So lookie here. The little lady has some sass in her.”
She sat up straight. “Don’t you dare–”
“Harper! Don’t!” Chase warned.
“Harper?” Gunderson said. “What the hell kind of name is that?”
“I’ll tell you who I am!” she shot back.
“No!” Chase bit out.
Before she could argue, the other cop said, “Hell, Gunn, leave him alone.” The second cop’s shadow was visible through the front window, taller and leaner than the first. The cop with the thinner voice. McGuire. “Look, kid–you’re the older boy. Chase, right?” McGuire asked. “Why don’t you take your girlfriend home and you go back to Eugene and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
“For the love of Christ, McGuire. If this were your son, wouldn’t you want to know? Or your damned daughter?” Gunderson argued and she had to grit her teeth from saying anything else.
“If he leaves–if they leave now–we’ll forget this,” McGuire said firmly, then, to Chase, “And we’re not going to search the car for beer or . . . whatever. Because of your dad being on the force. But that’s it. You got it? My partner here, Officer Gunderson, is right. Take this warning for what it is. I mean, don’t come back here, son. You mind your Ps and Qs, ya hear? If we find you back here again, we’ll write you up, call your folks for curfew and haul you and your girlfriend down to the station.”
“Damn straight,” Gunderson said.
“Curfew doesn’t matter. I’m nineteen,” Chase argued, his voice bristling.
“But the girl?” Again a flashlight’s beam swept the interior and it was all Harper could do to bite her tongue and keep from flipping the cops off. God, she was pissed. Gunderson said, “She looks like jail bait to me. Take my advice: Keep your pants zipped.”
“What?”
Fury burned through her. “I’m not–”
McGuire cut on, “Now, go on,” he advised Chase. “Get outta here.”
The flash light was turned off as Chase climbed behind the wheel.
“Goddamned Hippies,” Gunderson muttered as Chase fired the engine and took off, big tires chirping, Harper still huddled in the back seat, feeling like a coward, her stomach roiling, her cheeks still hot with embarrassment, her fists so tight her finger nails bit into her palms.
“You shouldn’t have said anything,” Chase said, with a glance back at her.
“They were so awful.”
“And I screwed up. I shouldn’t have said your name.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do. How many Harpers do you think are in this town?”
Some of her anger dissipated as she looked through the back window to witness the cops getting into their cruiser and turn on the lights, red and blue flashes overhead, bright yellow beams of the head lamps cutting into the night.
Chase was right. She really didn’t want to explain what they’d been doing to her dad.
“I hate cops.” Chase hit the gas even harder and Harper was thrown back against the seat. She fumbled with her skirt, pulled it up over her thighs then climbed unsteadily into the passenger seat next to Chase. All the while Chase sped down the bumpy series of switch backs of the road that cut down the forested hillside.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she said as he shifted down.
“How do you know?”
“It just has to be.”
“Yeah, right.” His face was set in a hard scowl, made to look almost malevolent in the pale illumination cast by the dash lights. Bladed cheeks, strong jaw, deep-set eyes and lips pressed into a thin, furious line.
Older and harder-edged than his brother. At the thought of Levi, she bit her lip, then placed her hand on Chase’s thigh.
“Not now,” he said, whisking her fingers away as he reached for the gear shift. He checked the rearview mirror where the headlights of the police cruiser reflected in his eyes. “I need to drive.”
HARPER
October, 1988
The Present
Chapter 3
Everything was as Harper remembered.
Just falling into disrepair.
The split staircase still wound up on either side of the wide foyer to the landing twelve feet overhead. But the banister was now dull, the handrail no longer gleaming. Some of the marble tiles in the floor were cracked. The wallpaper that had intrigued her as a child with its brilliant peacocks and peonies was now faded and peeling near the ceiling where cobwebs collected and draped..
Dropping her purse onto a dusty side table, she reminded herself that she would only stay a little while, that she was by no means planning to reside here permanently.
As if you’ve ever had a plan in your life.
Face it Harper, you fly by the seat of your pants. All the plans you make are just reactions to the mistakes you’ve made.
Moving quickly, her footsteps echoing, she headed through the arched hallway beneath the landing. Ignoring the closed doors on either side, she walked straight to the back of the house where French doors and floor-to-ceiling windows opened to a panoramic view of Lake Twilight and the shore beyond.
Again, she hit a light switch. Several lamps responded and cast a warm glow over the antiques, period pieces and just plain junk that still filled the room. “Jesus,” she whispered under her breath. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been this.
All of Gram’s collections seemed to be intact.
Unfortunately.
Tea cups on saucers with doilies behind a glass case in the dining room, and the ever-present crucifixes on the walls. Then there were the dolls, a collection of over a hundred scattered around the mansion on cushions and chairs or propped up in the beds, or on the stairs, each one staring sightlessly out at the high-ceilinged rooms where collections of cameras and ashtrays and copies of National Geographic were on display.
Harper had loved being here as a child, even though the dolls had creeped her out. Well, not all of them, of course. Gram had supplied her with several Barbies and a Chatty Cathy that she’d worn out pulling its string and hearing it repeat the same old phrases. “I love you,” came to mind, along with “I hurt myself” in a wheedling tone. But the other dolls, some that Gram, herself, had played with as a child, others older still, were still strategically placed around the rooms like little pudgy wide-eyed soldiers, guarding the place and now collecting dust.
Just as if time hadn’t lapsed.
Harper half expected her grandmother to roll in into the room in her wheel chair, though that was, of course, impossible. And there was no lingering scent of cigarette smoke or whiff of Channel No.5, perfume in the air, no rumble of the ancient Kirby vacuum cleaner being pushed over the patterned carpets by the maid. Nor, thankfully, was there a glint of cat eyes watching her or moving as the furry beasts slipped from one hidden alcove to the next. Even the grandfather’s clock had gone silent with the passing of time.
Harper gave herself a quick mental shake.
That was then.
This is now.
The tall curtains were already parted, but the blinds were down, so she raised them to stare through the wide bay window with its expansive view of the lake. As in the past, the dark waters shimmered restlessly in the glow of the cottages on the far shore, homes of people she’d known, those who had been close to her, those who had not. Friends and enemies, she thought staring through the rainy night, remembering what might have been if tragedy hadn’t struck.
But it had. With a vengeance.
“Woulda, coulda, shoulda.” The phrase seemed to be her mantra these days. She expected her words to echo through the rooms of this old Victorian. But, no. Between the over-stuffed furniture, thick Persian rugs, and tapestries draped on the walls, the sound of her voice was absorbed.
She should have remembered that.
Well, come to think of it she should have remembered a lot about this house with its bird’s-eye view of the opposite shore.
The things she did recall?
Better left forgotten.
If only. She touched her grandfather’s telescope still mounted in the area between his chair and the window and thought of all the times she, as a kid, had peered through it, “spying” on the people on the other side of the lake. Just like her George “Papa” Dixon. Though he had owned an even larger telescope with a stronger lens that he kept in his private tower room.
He’d never admitted to using the telescopes as tools of his voyeurism, of course, but she knew he focused on the Leonetti’s bedroom and adjoining bath where Beth’s mom sometimes walked naked. She’d caught her grandfather once in his tower room, two floors above. His hand had been in his pants. His face was red above the bristles of his bear and he’d been grunting and breathing hard as he’d stared through the lens.
She’d backed out, not understanding until much later.
The sick old perv.
“And that note,” she told herself now, “I think a drink is in order,” and she walked unerringly to the sideboard located in the butler’s pantry where the side-cart of half-filled bottles had been kept.
She opened a cabinet for a glass.
Instead she found a gun.
“What the–?” she whispered to herself and picked up the pistol with its long barrel and pearl handle, one of two her grandfather had inherited and had kept locked in his private room. The gun was a revolver, now nearly an antique, the kind you would see in old cowboy movies. One side of the mother-of-pearl handle was loose, the screw holding it in place needed tightening with a tiny screwdriver–she remembered that–her grandfather forever trying to fix it.
Her heart stopped for a moment, remembering a time she’d seen one of the pistols in her brother’s hand as he’d twirled it and pretended to be Roy Rogers or Wild Bill Hickok or some other TV cowboy she couldn’t name.
But that wasn’t the last time she’d spied Evan with one of her grandfather’s precious pistols, she reminded herself and sadness stole through her.
She turned the gun over in her hands. Holding the grip, touching the cylinder and trigger, staring at the damned gun with its six deadly chambers, she remembered Evan as he’d been the last time. Eighteen, his blue eyes bright, pupils dilated, full of “piss and vinegar” as Gram had said so often.
Her throat tightened and she refused, absolutely would not think about that night.
But she was still bothered to have found the pistol. Why was the gun down here in cupboard that had housed glassware?
Who had left it here?
And where was its twin?
Questions flitted through her mind, but she had no answers and wasn’t going to try and force them. “Not tonight,” she told herself and put the damned thing back in the cupboard for now. Later, she’d transfer it to Papa’s locked safe. If she could open the massive thing.
For now, she rooted through another cabinet, found a glass and blew out any dust that might have collected over the years. With a sweeping glance past a room filled with faded pillows, velvet chairs and a variety of dolls–vestiges of Olivia Dixon’s life–she turned her attention to the side cart where she picked up a crystal decanter partially filled with some brown liquid. She had to nudge the top off with her thumbs, but when it released she was rewarded with a soft pop. How old was it? Not that it mattered. Smelling the alcohol within, she decided it would suffice and poured herself a healthy shot. Bourbon? Scotch? Rye? Didn’t matter.
The first sip was strong and burned a bit, but settled into her stomach. Two more long swallows and the glass was empty. Soon she would warm from the inside out as the alcohol seeped into the bloodstream.
But first, she needed to unpack the car.
It didn’t take long.
Her leg ached as she carried in her suitcase then a sleeping bag and a small cooler, all of which she’d driven up from Southern California. The drive had seemed to take forever. Over sixteen hours of Diet Coke, Doritos, Sourpatch kids and a couple of rest stops for the bathroom and one for a Big Mac.
To land here.
At midnight.
Last, but certainly not least, she dealt with the cat. Jinx complained mightily from his carrier as she hauled it, along with a small bag of cat food to the kitchen. Again she flipped the light switch. Only a few of the overhead lights winked on, illuminating the kitchen in a weird, almost sepia light. Then she made sure the three doors were closed before opening the cage door. Wide-eyed, Jinx, all sleek black fur and white toes slunk out.
“What’d’ya think?” she said as if the cat could answer. When he didn’t respond, just eyed the new surroundings warily, she said, “I know. Me, too, but trust me, you’re going to fit right in.” She searched in a cupboard for small dishes and found two ramekins, one she filled with water, the other a couple of spoonfuls of 9 Lives, once she dug through a few drawers to find a can opener. “Morris loves this stuff, you know,” she remarked, mentioning the popular cat from the TV commercials.
Jinx was unimpressed. He totally ignored the dishes as he crept around the perimeter of the kitchen, checking out the huge stove with its eight burners and griddle, the wide refrigerator and the butcher block island set right in the middle of the large room. “Get comfortable,” she told him as if that were possible.
Carefully she slipped through swinging doors to a butler’s pantry before making her way through the dining room back to the parlor.
“Just one more.” She poured herself another healthy shot from the open decanter, drank it in three long swigs and then spied one of Gram’s dolls, a circa 1950 specimen with a plastic face and thick-lashed eyes that closed when you laid the damned thing down. Now, in its pinafore-coved dress, the doll–had Gram given it the name of Maude?– seemed to stare straight at her Harper.
And gave her a tiny case of the willies.
Ignoring the feeling, she hoisted her glass into the air and said, “Cheers,” to Maude or whoever the doll was and noticed the others scattered around the room. All staring sightlessly in vintage clothing and creepy as hell. Her gaze landed on “Sweetie,” Gram’s favorite, a ceramic faced rag doll with painted eyes and a pink lipped 0 of a mouth. Her forehead was cracked, shattered in a web-pattern, compliments of Harper herself when, at age seven, in a fit of anger, she’d kicked the damned thing. It had flown down the stairs, knocking over a vase and scaring one of the cats that screeched loudly. Gram had found the doll, cracked face and all, and frowned.
“See what happens when you let your anger get the best of you, Harper?” she’d said from the foot of the stairs. “You could’ve killed little Marilyn here.” She motioned toward the calico cowering under a small table, the broken pieces of the vase glittering in the sun.
“Fortunately, all that’s damaged is an old piece of pottery and Sweetie here.” She picked up the doll and examined its face.
“I–I’m sorry,” Harper blubbered from the top of the stairs, blinking against tears.
“Are you?” Gram’s lips pinched together. “Then next time, don’t let your anger get the better of you.”
But it hadn’t been over with that one incident. Time after time, whenever Harper had displayed her temper, she would find Sweetie, cracked face and all, waiting for her on the bed.
That was until Gram’s stroke made it impossible for her to climb the stairs.
Now, eyeing the hated doll, Harper she took a long swallow and silently vowed to get rid of each and everyone of the damned things. “How d’ya like that?” she said to Sweetie as she took another drink and returned to the kitchen.
Jinx was at the swinging door. “I know. It’s kinda strange being here, isn’t it?” She took one last drink, then set the glass in the sink as the cat trotted after her. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s weird for me, too.” Picking him up, she walked back to the parlor and, ignoring Maude and her doll friends, headed straight to the window.
Rain drizzled against the old glass and outside the darkness was only broken by the lights of the houses on the far shore. “See over there,” she said, gesturing with her free hand. “On the point? My friends used to live there.” Lake Twilight was shaped like an hourglass narrowing between Dixon Island and the jut of land on the south shore known as Fox Point. Eyeing the houses across the water, she told the cat, “When I was in high school we would always be on the lake, swimming or water-skiing or skinny-dipping.”
It all sounded idyllic.
And it had been.
Until it hadn’t.
Her mind spun with memories better left forgotten.
She tensed.
Her fingers tightened and Jinx yowled, kicking hard, and scratching as he scrambled out of Harper’s arms.
“Ouch! You miserable—!”
Jinx took off, running down back down the hallway toward the foyer, but Harper didn’t give chase. Instead she rubbed her arm, feeling beads of blood rise where he’d caught her wrist and forearm as she walked to the bar for one more drink. She figured she deserved it. After pouring a double, she made her way back to the wide bay window. Slowly sipping, she stared through the rain-spattered panes to the houses at the point across the dark water.
She remembered each of them: The Watkins’ A-frame on the East end next to the Sievers’ Bungalow and the Hunt’s cottage and—
Holy crap!
What was that out in the dark water?
Something that hadn’t been there minutes before.
Something bright and swirling, bobbing on the surface, flickering orange and–
A fire? There was a fire in the middle of Lake Twilight?
No way!
Her heart nearly stopped.
She swung her grandfather’s telescope around, quickly adjusting the focusing knob as she stared through.
“No,” she gasped, seeing a boat in the middle of the lake, flames crackling upward in the rain-washed night.
Near the helm, surrounded by the inferno, was a woman, her tortured face turned up to the dark heavens.
“Oh . . .oh, no,” she whispered as she recognized Cynthia Hunt.
Chase’s mother.
