Key Trilogy (65 page)

“Helping you?” he prompted. “Caring about you? About Simon?”

There was a bite in his voice, but there was something both careless and cool about it that made her feel small. She countered it by shifting and looking him dead in the eyes. “That’s right, I’m not. Nobody helped me raise him, or feed him, or love him. Nobody helped me put a roof over his head. I’ve done it myself, and I’ve done a decent job of it.”

“You haven’t done a decent job of it,” he corrected. “You’ve done an extraordinary job of it. So what? That means you have to slap away every helping hand?”

“No. No, it doesn’t. You get me so mixed up.”

“Well, that’s a start.” He took her hand, and had it to his lips before she could protest. “For luck.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She got quickly to her feet when Rowena came back into the room.

“If everyone’s ready, we’d like to continue the tradition of beginning the quest in the next room.”

Brad kept his attention on Zoe. She was a little pale, but she was holding her own. Still, as they started down the wide hallway, he noted how Malory and Dana moved in to flank her.

They’d become a team, a triad, even a family over the last two months. He didn’t think anything would change that now. They would need that unity through what was coming.

His heart took a bump when he stepped into the next room and looked up at the portrait that dominated it.

The Daughters of Glass, moments before their souls were stolen, gathered close. Just as the three women who shared the faces of those tragic demigoddesses now gathered close.

Venora, with Malory’s vivid blue eyes, sat with a lap harp in her hands and a smile just blooming across her face. Niniane, with Dana’s strong features and dense brown hair, sat beside her on a marble bench and held a scroll and quill.

Standing, a sword at her side and a small puppy in the crook of her arm, Kyna looked back at him. Her hair was a long fall of inky black rather that the short, sharp, sexy style Zoe wore. But the eyes, those long, topaz eyes, were the same.

They pulled at him, as if they’d dug hooks into his heart.

The three daughters radiated beauty, joy, innocence, in a world sumptuous with color and light. Yet, a closer look showed the hints of darkness to come.

In the thick green forest was the shadowy shape of a man. Just slithering onto the bright tiles was the sinuous figure of a snake.

In the corner, the sky was bruised with a brewing storm that the daughters were yet unaware of. And the lovers who embraced in the background were too wrapped up in each other to sense the danger edging close to their charges.

To look closer yet was to see the three keys worked cleverly into the painting. One, disguised in the shape of a bird, seemed to fly through the cerulean sky. Another hid itself within the lush green leaves of the forest. And the third reflected deep in the pool behind the daughters who were sharing their last moment of peace and innocence.

He’d seen how they’d looked after the spell. White and still as death in the crystal coffins as Rowena had painted them.

He’d bought that painting, titled
After the Spell
, months before he’d even come back to the Valley or known of this guest and these women. Been compelled to buy it, he thought now, as he’d fallen in love, or into fascination or obsession—he wished to God he knew—with Zoe’s face.

“Two keys are found,” Rowena began. “Two locks are opened. Now there is but one.” She moved to stand under the portrait as she spoke, with the fire snapping gold and red flames behind her.

“You agreed to this quest because you were curious, and you were each at a point where aspects of your life were unsettled and dissatisfying. And,” she added, “because you were paid. But you’ve continued to quest because you’re strong and you’re true. No one else, not in three millennia, has come so far.”

“You’ve learned the power of art,” Pitte continued, and stepped over to join Rowena. “And the power of truth. The first two journeys bring you to the third.”

“You have each other,” she said to the women. “And you have your men. Together you make a chain. You must not let him break it.” She stepped forward and spoke to Zoe as if they were alone in the room. “It is for you now. It was always for you to finish.”

“For me?” Panic wanted to gush into her throat. “If that’s true, why did we pick before? With Mal and Dana?”

“There must always be choice. Fate is the door, but you choose to walk through or turn away. Will you walk through?”

Zoe looked up at the portrait, and nodded.

“Then I’ll give you your map, your clue to the key, and pray that it guides you.” She walked over and took up a scroll.

“Beauty and truth,” she read, “are lost without the courage to hold them. But one pair of hands can grip too hard, so that the precious slips through the fingers. Loss and
pain, sorrow and will, blaze the rough path through the forest. Along the journey there is blood, and there is the death of innocence and the ghosts of what might have been.

“Each time the path forks, it is faith that chooses the way or doubt that blocks it. Is it despair, or will it be joy? Can there be fulfillment without risk of loss? Will it be an end, or a beginning? Will you move into the light, or return to the dark?

“There is one who stands on either side, with hands held out. Will you take one, the other, or close your hands in fists to hold what is already yours until it’s ground to dust?

“Fear hunts, and its arrow strikes heart, mind, belly. Without tending, wounds fester, and scars too long ignored harden into shields that block the eyes from what needs most to be seen.

“Where does the goddess stand, her sword in hand, willing to fight each battle in its time? Willing, too, to lay down the sword when the time comes for peace. Find her, know her power, her faith, and her valiant heart. For when you look on her at last, you will have the key to free her. And you will find it on a path where no door will ever be locked against you.”

“Oh, boy.” Zoe pressed a hand to her stomach. “I can keep the paper, right? I’m never going to remember all that.”

“Of course.”

“Good.” She worked hard to keep her voice calm and even. “It sounded a little . . .”

“Violent,” Dana put in.

“Yeah, that.” Zoe felt better, considerably, when Dana’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “But, it seemed, compared to the others, that my clue was more a lot of questions.”

Rowena held out the scroll. “Answer them,” she said simply.

WHEN
they were alone, Pitte stood beside Rowena, studying the portrait.

“He’ll come after her quickly,” Rowena said. “Won’t he?”

“Yes. He’s had more time to study her, to learn her weaknesses, to understand her fears and her needs. He’ll use them against her.”

“The boy is safe. Whatever we do, whatever it costs us, we must keep him so. He is a sweet boy, Pitte.”

Hearing the pain, the longing in her voice, he drew her close. “He’ll be safe. Whatever the cost.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “He won’t touch the child.”

She nodded and, turning her head, stared into the fire. “Will she trust, I wonder, as completely as I trust you? Can she, with all that has gone before, and all she has to risk?”

“Everything comes down to the courage of one woman.” He tipped her head up, let his thumb graze her jawline. “If she has even a glimmer of yours, we will win this thing.”

“She hasn’t had you. She’s had no one. They’ve all come to touch my heart, Pitte. I never expected to feel this . . .” She laid her fingers to her breast. “Attachment. But she most of all, brave little mother, she touches me.”

“Then trust in her, and her army. They are . . . resourceful and clever. For mortals.”

With that he made her laugh, and lifted her mood again. “Three thousand years among them, and still you find them a curiosity.”

“Perhaps. But unlike Kane, I’ve learned to respect them—and never to underestimate a woman. Come.” He swept her up in his arms. “Let’s to bed.”

LONG
after she’d put Simon to bed, Zoe found dozens of things to occupy her around the house. Long after Simon stopped whispering to the dog, long after Zoe heard Moe clamber up on the bed and Simon’s desperately muffled
laughter, she wandered around, looking for something to occupy her hands, her mind.

Her quest started at sunrise, and she was afraid she was going to be awake to see it, and the day, begin.

It was hardly her first sleepless night, she reminded herself. She had countless others to her credit. Nights Simon had been fussy, or sick. Nights she’d tossed and turned, worried about bills. Nights she’d filled with a dozen chores because the day simply hadn’t been long enough to get them finished.

There had even been times she hadn’t been able to sleep because she was too happy to close her eyes. Her first night in this house, she remembered, she’d spent hours walking around, touching the walls, looking out the windows, making plans for all the work she wanted to do on it, to make a home for Simon.

This was another big occasion, so there was no point in complaining about a few hours of lost sleep.

At midnight she was still too restless to settle, and decided to indulge in a long, hot shower—one that wouldn’t be interrupted by a young boy wanting her attention.

She hung her best sleep shirt, a poppy red one, on the back of the door, then lit one of the jar candles she’d made herself so the room would fill with fragrance as well as steam.

Little rituals, she believed, set the tone for sleep.

She soothed herself with the pulse of water, and the silky feel of the peach blossom shower gel she was considering as stock for her salon. She would let the clue roll around in her head, she decided, try to see it as a whole first. Then as pieces of the puzzle. One piece was bound to lodge itself, and she would pursue that until . . . until the next, she thought.

Step by step, until she began to see the picture. A painting for Malory, a book for Dana. What did that leave for
her? Shampoo and face cream? she wondered with a half laugh. Those were the kinds of things she knew. Those and what was important in a young boy’s world. She knew how to make things, she considered. How to build or transform.

She was good with her hands, she reminded herself, and turned them under the water while she studied them. But what did any of that have to do with paths in a forest, or a goddess with a sword?

A journey, she thought as she turned off the water. That had to be a kind of symbol, as she’d never actually been anywhere. And that didn’t look to be changing anytime soon.

Maybe it had to do with her coming to the Valley in the first place, or starting her business with Malory and Dana. Or, she mused as she toweled off, maybe it was just life.

Her life? The daughters’ lives? It was something to work out, she decided as she smoothed peach-scented cream over her skin. Nothing all that interesting about her life, but nothing said it had to be. She recalled that Dana had taken specific words from her clue and worked with them. Maybe she would try that.

The goddess with the sword—that was easy enough. Kyna had the sword, and Kyna was hers. But that didn’t explain how she was supposed to
know
her in order to find the key to free her.

With a shake of her head, Zoe turned, glanced at the steamy mirror over the sink.

Her hair was long, a spill of black over her shoulders that made her face look very, very pale. Her eyes were direct, intense, and golden. The mists, warm from the shower, drifted between Zoe and the glass, shimmered like a curtain as she lifted her hand to reach with fingers that trembled toward a reflection that wasn’t her own.

For a moment, it seemed her fingers would pass through the curtain, through the glass, and touch flesh.

Then she was standing, alone, in a steamy bathroom, her fingers pressed to the streaked mirror. And staring at her own face.

Imagining things already, she thought, and let her hand fall. Projecting, that’s what it was called. Trying to see herself in the young goddess, and just tired and worked up enough to think she could. Another angle to consider, she decided. In the morning when her mind was sharper.

She got into bed with her files, and went over her supply lists. For the salon, for the day spa she planned to attach to it. For the house itself.

She toyed with some new ideas, made some notes, tried to concentrate.

But the key and the clue kept winding back through her mind.

A forest. There were lots of forests in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. Did it mean a literal forest, like with trees, or was it a metaphor?

She wasn’t good with metaphors.

Blood, what did the blood mean? Did it refer to Jordan’s blood when he’d been hurt? Or was it someone else’s? Was it hers?

She’d certainly had her cuts and scrapes over the years. She’d sliced her thumb once, when she was, what, eleven? Cutting tomatoes for sandwiches. Her brother and sister had been fighting, and one of them had bumped her.

The knife had cut right along the side of her thumb, from the tip past the knuckle, and the gash had bled like a fountain. She still had a scar, she mused, turning her thumb up to trace the faint line.

But the scar wasn’t hard, and it certainly wasn’t any kind of shield. So that probably wasn’t it.

Pain and loss and blood and despair. Christ, why did her clue have to be so depressing?

She would just have to make the best of it, she decided,
and picked up her notes again. She blinked when her vision started to blur, and slid into sleep with the light still burning.

She dreamed of her blood, dripping steadily on a dull brown linoleum floor while children screamed around her.

S
HE
overslept. Zoe couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. Certainly not in the past decade. As a result, it was nearly ten by the time she arrived, boy and dog in tow, at Indulgence.

She parked on the street, as the driveway was already loaded. Flynn’s car, Jordan’s. And one of Brad’s. He had two that she knew of, and probably more.

She managed to snag Moe’s leash before he leaped out of the car, and with a mother’s skill for juggling, grabbed her purse and her cooler, controlled the dog, and kept a sharp eye on her son as she loaded everything up.

“You keep a good hold of this dog,” she told Simon as she passed him the leash. “You make him mind you. We have to find out what Flynn wants to do about him today.”

“He can stay with me. We can fool around out back.”

“We’ll see. You go on, but stay where I can see you from the house until I get sorted out.”

They bounded off while she walked toward the front door.

She loved to look at the place, the big old house with all its possibilities. They’d already put their mark on it, painting the front porch a bright, celebrational blue and arranging pots of mums to flank the front steps.

As soon as she got around to it, she was going to pick up some old pots at the flea market. Clean them up, paint them. Maybe she’d search out half a whiskey barrel as well, and they could plant seasonal flowers in it.

She glanced up at the window above the front door. Malory had hired a glass artist to create a stained-glass panel for that space, using the design from their logo.

That was just the sort of touch that was going to make their place unique.

She set the cooler down, opened the door.

She heard the music. It wasn’t set up to blast, but it was close. Through it, she heard hammering, sawing, voices. The good noise of work in progress.

She stood absorbing it for a moment, looking up the stairs that neatly bisected the main level. Dana’s bookstore on one side, and Malory’s gallery on the other. With my salon over them, she thought. The communal kitchen in the back, then the nice little yard where one day, she hoped, they would set up tables where customers could sit and enjoy refreshments during good weather.

Though it would be weeks before Indulgence could open, it was already a dream come true for Zoe.

“Hey. Where’s the rest of your crew?”

Zoe brought herself back and looked over to see Dana stroll into the little foyer. “Out in the back. I’m sorry I’m late.”

“We’ve already docked your pay. Or we will, once we get a time clock. Jeez, lose the guilty look, Zoe. Nobody’s set hours yet, especially on Saturday.”

“I meant to be here an hour and a half ago,” she said as
she shrugged out of her coat, “but I slept late. I didn’t get up until nearly eight.”

“Eight!” Dana exclaimed in horror “Why, you lazy bitch!”

“I don’t know how Simon kept that dog quiet—or vice versa—but when I got up they were in the backyard. By the time I made them presentable, got them breakfast, pulled myself together, I was way behind. Then I stopped by Flynn’s, thinking I would drop Moe off, but nobody was home, which made Simon’s day.”

She let out a sigh. “Dana, I’m going to end up getting him a dog. I just know it.”

Dana’s dimples appeared in her cheeks as she grinned. “Sap.”

“That’s the God’s truth. I didn’t know everybody was coming over here today.”

“Figured we’d give it a nice big Saturday push.”

“That’s good.” Ready to dive in, Zoe strapped on her tool belt. “What are you up to?”

“I was up to putting the second coat of varnish on my floors, but Jordan claims I don’t do it right. So he’s putting it on, which leaves me painting the kitchen, as the unanimous opinion around here is that painting’s all I’m good for.”

“You’re an excellent painter,” Zoe said diplomatically.

“Hmm. Malory and Flynn were doing the varnish in her spot, but
she
claims
he
doesn’t do it right, so he was sent upstairs to work with Brad.”

“Upstairs? In my place? What’s Bradley doing upstairs in my place?”

“I think he was . . .” Dana decided to save her breath as Zoe was already sprinting up to see for herself.

The walls of the salon area had already been painted by her own hand. They were a deep pink that edged toward
purple. A rich color, she’d thought, a feminine one, but not so girly that a man would be put off by it.

For contrast, on the trim and for the counters she’d begun to build, she was going to go with a bold green, then take these same colors, in softer hues, into her treatment areas.

The floors were already sanded and sealed—a chore she’d taken care of personally, then protected with drop cloths.

She had plans for displays, and had already picked out the fabric to make slipcovers for a secondhand couch and a couple of chairs she had on hold.

She’d decided on the lighting, on the treatment tables, even on the color of the towels she would use. Everything in her salon would have her touch, reflect her vision, and be created by her own two hands.

And there was Bradley Charles Vane IV busily sawing the board for one of her counter stations.

“What are you doing?”

Nobody heard her, of course. Not with Brad’s saw buzzing, and Flynn’s nail gun popping, and the damn music blaring.

She might as well not even
be
there. Well, she would fix that, right this minute.

She marched over until her shadow fell across the board and the template Brad was following. He glanced up, gave her a little head jerk to indicate she was in his light.

She stood her ground.

“I want to know what you’re doing.”

“Hold on a minute,” he shouted right back at her, and finished running the blade through the board. He turned off the saw, shoved up his safety goggles.

“Your laminate came in.”

“I want—my laminate?” The thrill of that had her spinning around in the direction he pointed. And there it was,
that wonderful bold green. “It’s perfect. I knew it would be perfect. It wasn’t supposed to come in until next week.”

“Got in early.” He’d put a rush on it. “We ought to be able to have a couple of these done today.”

“I don’t expect you to—”

“Hi, Zo.” Flynn set the nail gun down, grinned up at her. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s really nice of you to pitch in this way. Give up your Saturday and all. But I can do this if you want to . . . do something else.”

“We’ve got a good start on it.” He glanced past her. “Where are the big dog and the small boy?”

“They’re out back. I didn’t know what to do with them.”

“Plenty of room to run around out there. I’ll go check on them.” Flynn got to his feet. “Want coffee when I come back?”

“Only if you didn’t make it,” Brad told him.

“Ingrate.” Flynn gave Zoe a wink, then left them alone.

“I don’t want you to—”

“You’ve got a good design,” Brad interrupted. “For your stations. Neat and simple. It’s easy to follow your plans, get a good sense of what you have in mind.”

She folded her arms. “I didn’t expect anybody would have to follow them.”

“You do good work.” He paused a beat while she stared at him. “Careful planning, good choices, a flair for design. Any reason why you have to do everything yourself?”

“No. You just shouldn’t feel obligated, that’s all.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Ingrate.”

Defeated, she let out a half laugh. “Maybe it’s more that I know what kind of work I do, but I don’t know if you’re any good.” She walked around the base of the counter he was finishing for her. “I guess you do okay.”

“My granddaddy’d be so proud to hear that.”

With the wood between them, she gave him a quick,
easy smile. “I want to cut the laminate myself. I just want to be able to . . .”

“To look at it when it’s finished, to look at it a year from when it’s finished and say, Hey, I did that.”

“Yes. That’s it exactly. I didn’t think you’d understand.”

He shifted, stood hip-shot, and angled his head. “Do you know why I came back to the Valley?”

“I guess I don’t. Not really.”

“Ask me sometime. You want to get that nail gun? We’ll knock this thing out.”

SHE
had to admit they worked well together, and he didn’t, as she’d assumed he would, treat her as if she wasn’t capable of handling tools. On the contrary, he took for granted that she was capable.

He did tend to be bossy about certain things. If she started to lift something he deemed too heavy, he snapped out an order for her to leave it be. And he insisted on going down himself to haul up her cooler.

But she overlooked it in the thrill of spreading the glue for the laminate on her first station.

Even with the windows open for ventilation, the fumes were strong.

“Good thing we’re working in small sections,” Brad commented. “If we were doing long stretches of this, without a fan in here, we’d be buzzed before we were finished.”

“I got carried away redoing my kitchen counters at home a couple years ago. Got giddy as a Saturday night drunk and had to go outside and lie down on the grass.”

He studied her face, noted that while she was a little flushed, beautifully so, her eyes were clear. “You start feeling it, let me know.”

“I’m fine.” She touched a fingertip to the glue. “Nearly done here.”

“Too bad. I wouldn’t mind seeing you giddy.”

She shifted her gaze to his as she straightened up from the counter. “Plenty of fresh air in here.”

“You’re a little flushed, though.” He stroked the side of his finger over her cheek. “You have the most incredible skin.”

“It’s, ah, like advertising.” She didn’t know if she’d been flushed before, but she could feel the heat rising now. “I use a lot of the products I’m going to carry. There’s this wonderful serum. It’s time release.”

“Is that so?” His lips curved a little as he trailed that finger down her throat. “Seems to be working.”

“I don’t want to carry anything I don’t believe in.”

“What do you do with your mouth?”

At the question, it dropped open. “What?”

“What do you use? Your lips are soft.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over them. “Smooth. Tempting.”

“There’s a balm that I—don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t kiss me. I can’t get mixed up this way. And we’ve got work.”

“You’re right about that. But work has to stop sometime. Glue’s probably set up enough. You ready?”

She nodded. Fresh air or not, she was just a little light-headed now. And could put the cause of it solely on him. She imagined he knew it—knew just how those long, deep looks, those casually intimate touches affected a woman.

So she would just have to toughen up against them before they got her in trouble.

Together, they lifted the laminate. It was an exacting process, one that required teamwork and precision to create a smooth surface. Once glue hit glue, there was no turning back.

When it was down, the edges routed smooth, and the clamps tightened every few inches to hold it in place while it set hard, she stepped back.

Yes, it was right, she’d been right to curve the edges, to give it that subtle flow. Simple, practical, yet with a fluidity that gave it a touch of class.

The clients might not notice the details, but they would notice the effect.

“It’s a good look,” Brad said from beside her. “Smart to put the holes in for the cords of those gizmos you people use.”

“They’re called hair dryers and curling irons.”

“Right. The way you’ve got it, the cords won’t be dangling everywhere, tangling up. Gives you an uncluttered look.”

“I want it to seem upscale but relaxed.”

“Just what do you plan to do to people in the other rooms?”

“Oh, secret rituals.” She gave an airy wave of her hand that made him smile. “And when I earn enough to pump some real money back into the place, I’m going to put a Swedish shower and a hydrotherapy tub in the bathroom. Turn it into a kind of water therapy space. But that’s down the road. For now, I’m going to set up to build the second station.”

SHE
worked like a Trojan, Brad thought. It was more than knowing what she wanted and how to get it, more even than a willingness to sweat to get it.

It was, under it all, a belief that she had to.

She stopped only to check on her son, to see that he was fed and safe.

By the time they were preparing the laminate for the second station, the others were packing up to call it a day.

Malory popped upstairs and fisted her hands on her hips. “Wow! Every time I walk around this place, there’s something new. Zoe, this is looking great. The colors are
just fabulous. This is the station, right?” She walked over to study the completed one. “I can’t believe you built it.”

“I had some help with that.” Absently, she rolled her stiff shoulders as she moved over to join Malory. “It really looks fabulous, doesn’t it? I know I could have bought something for about the same cost, but it wouldn’t have been exactly right. How’s it coming downstairs?”

“Floors are done, kitchen’s painted.” As if she’d just remembered she was still wearing it, Malory tugged off the bright blue kerchief she used to protect her hair. “First coat’s on the cabinets, and the appliances have been scrubbed to within an inch of their lives.”