Finding Laura (9 page)

His eyes narrowed as he watched her walk to the door. When she reached it, she half turned to look back at him. She was smiling.

“I know about the mirror, Daniel,” she said softly. “I know what it means.” She left the room, moving, as always, with elegant grace.

Daniel didn’t move for a long minute. He might not even have breathed. Finally he broke the silence of the room with a low, vicious curse and went to fix himself another drink.

“I
T’S A LITTLE
weird,” Cassidy decided later that evening as the two women were sitting in Laura’s living room.

“A
little
weird? It’s totally bizarre.” Laura lifted her hands in a gesture of bewilderment. “It started out okay, mind you. I didn’t lose my nerve. The guard at the gate let me in. I was shown into the study by this Josie Kilbourne, who was very polite, and Daniel came in a few minutes later, and—”

“And what? Your face just changed. What happened when Daniel came in?”

“I just remembered. Jeez, that shows how rattled they’ve got me. When Daniel came in, after he told me who he was, he asked me very calmly if I had killed his brother.”

“Like that? Straight out?”

Laura nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’d venture to say he isn’t the kind of man who beats around the bush very often.”

“He made quite an impression on you, I see.”

“You could say that.” Laura looked away from her friend’s intent gaze and went on quickly. “Anyway, like I said, barring Daniel’s question, things started out okay. Normal. Expectable. I asked about the mirror. He said he didn’t know why Peter would have wanted to buy it back, that it was junk as far as he knew. He made it clear he thinks I was sleeping with his brother at the very least, but he was more … controlled than angry. Then Amelia came in.”

“And things got crazy?”

Laura made another baffled gesture. “I just don’t get it. There’s no way she can have any idea of my skill, yet she offers me a commission to paint her portrait—a generous commission. Me, a woman she knows damn well is under suspicion for her grandson’s murder. And she’s so … insistent. That old lady is absolutely determined that I paint her. She even said they’d get a room ready for me at the house in case I didn’t want to drive back and forth, for all the world as if I lived on the other side of the state.”

“She invited you to stay in the house?”

“It wasn’t an invitation so much as a matter-of-fact assumption.”

“And what did Daniel say?”

“Very little. He wasn’t happy that Amelia had been talking to the police, and he all but accused her of being
the one to give my name to the press, but he didn’t object once to the idea of me hanging around to paint Amelia. In fact, he said he’d explain the situation to the police.”

“And you think it’s all some kind of power struggle between them?”

“There was
something
going on, that much I know. I felt it. And whatever it is, both of them mean to get me involved.”

Cassidy hesitated, then said, “Aren’t you reading an awful lot into an admittedly odd request to paint an old lady’s portrait?”

“You weren’t there, Cass. It’s hard to explain because it was all under the surface, a matter of how they sounded as well as what they said. How they looked at each other. All I can tell you is that I felt as if each of them wanted something of me, wanted to … to use me in some private plan.”

“Like a pawn.”

Laura nodded. “Like a pawn.”

“Well, then, it’s simple—refuse the commission. Don’t go back there.”

That was the simple answer, Laura thought. Certainly the most logical answer, and undoubtedly the smart one. Her rational mind told her that if she went back to that house, if she got involved with that family, she would be asking for trouble; the instinct for self-preservation buried deep inside her warned that the trouble would be bad.

But other instincts, other desires, were tugging at Laura, and what they urged was not nearly so cautious, or so clear-cut. She needed to find out about the mirror, and despite Daniel’s dismissal, she felt certain that someone in that family could tell her what she needed to know. And she thought Daniel was right in saying the police might not consider her so strong a suspect if the family was seen to accept her; there was that. And then there was the portrait, an opportunity for Laura to find out if she was
good enough to paint; capturing Amelia’s aged beauty, her haughty elegance, would certainly be test enough. And the money undeniably would come in handy.

But most of all, what she had felt when she had first seen Daniel, the eerie sense of familiarity and the instant, almost overwhelming attraction, was something she had never before felt in her life—and something impossible to push aside or ignore.

He didn’t “quite” believe her relationship with Peter had been innocent, and he hadn’t “quite” made up his mind about her—but he had defended her to the press. And he would profess her innocence to the police. And he had not objected to her presence in his family’s home.

But Laura had no idea what lay behind his expressionless face and enigmatic eyes. She had no idea what part he meant her to play in his quiet, intense gamesmanship with Amelia. She didn’t know how he had felt about his brother, or his brother’s death.

She didn’t know what he thought of her.

“Laura?”

Meeting her friend’s concerned gaze, she said slowly, “I don’t think I can refuse the commission, Cass. I have too many questions that can only be answered if I go back there.”

“Questions about the mirror?”

Laura nodded. “That. And other things. Daniel didn’t show a flicker of emotion about his brother’s death, and Amelia was almost offhand about it. Why? Even if he was a womanizer, Peter Kilbourne was a handsome, charming, immensely likeable man. How could he have passed from their lives, and so violently, with such little effect on them? I knew him for fifteen minutes, and I feel more shock about his death than they showed.”

“Surely you don’t think one of them killed him?”

“I don’t know. But a sleepy motel manager isn’t a very good witness; anybody could have been with Peter that
night. A jealous husband could have burst in. Or someone in the family, outraged because he was cheating on his wife. The point is, an outsider can never know what’s going on
inside
a family—unless they spend some time there. I’ve been invited to come inside.”

“Said the spider to the fly,” Cassidy murmured.

Laura had to smile, albeit wryly. “Yeah. That’s just the feeling I got.”

“Then have you considered the fact that it might not be safe for you to spend time in that house? Laura, it’s at least possible that someone in that family killed Peter, isn’t it?”

Slowly, Laura said, “Possible, I guess. And—Josie’s a redhead.”

“So there could be a killer in that house. Laura, you say you feel drawn in to a situation you don’t understand; maybe you’d better listen to your instincts.”

“I don’t have to decide tonight. I’ll think about it.”

Cassidy nodded, but her expression said she knew what Laura’s decision would be. Still, she didn’t say anything else about the Kilbournes until she got up to go to her own apartment a little later.

“Those newspapers of mine say Daniel isn’t nearly as pretty as Peter was. True?”

“True enough,” Laura replied.

“But?”

Laura frowned at her. “But nothing. Peter was better-looking.”

“All right then,
don’t
tell me.”

Giving in, Laura said, “Daniel isn’t handsome, but he’s sexy as hell—is that what you want to hear?”

“If it’s the truth.”

“Oh, it’s the truth. The instant I saw him, I … Well, let’s just say that for the first time in my life I understood how someone could fall into bed with a stranger without hesitating.”

Cassidy’s eyes widened, and she grinned. “Well, well. Maybe this mess will have a happy ending, after all.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why? No sparks in return?”

“Worse than that.” Laura smiled faintly. “At the very least, he thinks I was his brother’s latest mistress. And I can’t prove I wasn’t.”

Cassidy shook her head. “If you do go back there and spend any time around him at all, he’ll know you weren’t, Laura. Any man would.”

“I don’t know about that. Do you know what the name Daniel means?”

“What?”

“Judge.”

“Then he’ll judge you innocent.” Cassidy smiled. “See you tomorrow, okay?”

“Good night, Cass.”

Laura thought about her friend’s confident words later that night as she got ready for bed, and she couldn’t summon up much belief in them. In fact, her emotions were in such turmoil that she couldn’t even sort through them—or her thoughts. All she had were questions and painful feelings.

Why was Amelia Kilbourne so hell-bent on having her portrait painted by an unknown artist? Why did she seem so uncaring about the death of a charming grandson? Were she and Daniel struggling for control of the family? How long had it been going on? Who was going to triumph? And why did Laura feel that she had somehow become a part of that battle?

Then there was Daniel. Seemingly unmoved and unmoving as granite, he nevertheless was filled with an intensity Laura had sensed strongly. What did he really feel about his brother’s death? What did he feel about the grandmother he addressed by her given name, about the struggle between them?

What did he feel about Laura?

She lay there in her comfortable bed in her silent apartment and felt the dull ache deep inside her. Emptiness, that’s what she felt. Longing. Desire for a man she had never laid eyes on before this day, a man who had not so much as touched her hand, a man who thought the absolute worst of her.

I can’t go back there
.

I have to
.

It went around and around in her head, and when Laura finally fell into a weary sleep, she still had no idea what she would do.

Y
our mirror,” Dena Wilkes told Laura on Saturday morning, “was made in 1800. It was commissioned by a Brandon Cash, to celebrate the twenty-second anniversary of his marriage to his wife, Sarah. It was actually made by a silversmith in Philadelphia. And the mazelike pattern is created out of a single, unbroken line without a beginning or an end, meant to represent eternity. In fact, that’s how the silversmith listed the pattern, as Eternity, and he noted that the design was created by commission for Brandon Cash and would never be duplicated.”

“I’m impressed,” Laura told her.

Pleased, the vibrant college student patted her dark hair in a preening gesture. “Am I good, or what?”

“You’re brilliant. How did you find it so quickly?”

“I got lucky,” Dena confessed with a laugh. “The silversmith kept very good records, and since he ended up rather famous, his work is well known. He didn’t do much in brass, and what he did is well documented. Your mirror’s worth a fair price, by the way.”

Laura shook her head. “I’m not interested in its value, just its history. And the history of the people who owned it.”

“So you said, but I thought I should mention it.”

They were sitting at Laura’s breakfast bar with coffee, and Dena sipped hers before consulting the notebook lying in front of her. “Okay. We got lucky again with the Cash couple. His family was well known in the Philly area, and there are a number of contemporary accounts in various newspapers, letters, and journals. Luckily, most of this stuff is on the library net, so going up there won’t be necessary.”

“Good,” Laura said dryly. “I can barely afford you, let alone plane tickets.”

“So I assumed.” Dena grinned at her. “Let’s see, now … I didn’t know how much you wanted, so I got as much as I could. Brandon Cash was born in 1760 and lived a good long time. Died at seventy in 1830; no cause of death is listed, but there was a flulike epidemic at the time, so that probably got him.

“Sarah Langdon was born in 1762, and she also lived to be seventy, dying of what a doctor noted as a broken heart in 1832.”

Laura was startled. “A broken heart? He actually wrote that?”

“Yep. Said she just slowly wasted away after her husband died, and that he was convinced she died of a broken heart. Listen, apparently these two had quite a romance, and everybody was touched by it.” Dena consulted her notes again. “Brandon and Sarah met in 1777, when she was fifteen and he was seventeen. Both families considered them too young, but they were passionately determined to get married—and did, a year later.

“Seems they had a good life. No money worries, and their health was certainly good. Sarah bore three children without complications, and the kids grew up strong and
healthy. And all through their marriage, people commented on how devoted they were to each other. Not just affectionate, but as if each were incomplete without the other. Neither left a journal, but in a letter to his sister just after he died, Sarah said that they hadn’t spent a single night apart in all the years they were married, and that she couldn’t bear that empty bed.”

“So maybe she did die of a broken heart,” Laura murmured.

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Dena shook her head, but then her naturally positive nature asserted itself. “On the other hand, they had more than fifty years together.”

Laura nodded. “More time than most people get.” But her imagination conjured the image of an old woman lying still and silent in her half of a lonely bed, and it made her heart ache. With an effort, she shook off the feeling. “What about the mirror?”

Dena, obviously untroubled by lives lived more than a hundred years before she was born, nodded briskly. “Sarah didn’t have a will, but the mirror is listed along with a bunch of other household items that went to her daughter, Mary. This was just after Sarah died, of course, in 1832. Not much known about Mary, but in any case she didn’t keep the mirror long. I guess she needed some quick cash; she sold the mirror back to the silversmith who originally created it.”

“Do you know what he did with it?”

“Yep. He kept it for more than twenty years, because his own wife loved it. Then she died, and he sold the mirror in 1858. Actually his son sold it. To a young lady by the name of Faith Broderick. A few months later the silversmith’s son, Stuart Kenley, and Faith Broderick were married.”