A Wicked Snow

minute Hannah stared and wondered why she had even bothered to search for her mother in the first place. Why did she care? What had she wanted from a reunion? All of that had been made all the more confusing with the extraordinary revelation that Ethan had just provided. Not only where was Claire Logan, just who was she? Was she her mother at all?

“Mrs. Wallace?” Hannah called out across the yard. Her voice was a little timid, and she cleared her throat. The sprinkler clacked and sprayed a ribbon of mist. When the woman didn’t respond, though she looked right at Hannah, she called out once more.

“Hello?”

Marge Morrison looked over and smiled. She hadn’t worn her glasses and she squinted at the visitor emerging from the pink Mary Kay car. Morrison might have been wary at the sight of a stranger, given the incident at the sheriff’s office, but it wasn’t her nature to be unfriendly or indifferent. “I didn’t hear you, dear,” she said, removing a straw garden hat and letting her silver ponytail swing freely. “Louise is inside. Are you a friend?”

“Yes,” Hannah replied without thinking. She was more nervous than she’d ever been—and she knew she had good reason to be. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She’d waited for this moment a long time.

“I’m not surprised,” Morrison said. She dusted off her hands. “They’ve been coming in droves. Lou has more casseroles and salads than a supermarket deli.”

Hannah forced a smile. “I didn’t bring anything. I actually came to talk with Louise.”

“That’s all right,” Morrison said, stepping over a little sprinkler-made stream running across the front of the flowerbed. “Let me turn the water down and I’ll be right with you.”

Two minutes later, they had their shoes off, borrowed slippers on, and were inside. Morrison led Hannah to the room with the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the icy-blue waters of the bay. Hannah searched the household bric-a-brac as if there would be a clue from Rock Point. A hint of the past. The place was beautifully appointed with matching furniture in striped and checked fabrics, but strangely cold. Nothing hinted at the owner’s personal interests. It had that distinctly Pottery Barn ambience, matchy matchy, but completely soulless. Nicely done. Neatly done. Baskets of pinecones and framed oil paintings of lighthouses and the like, but nothing seemed to be culled from some-one’s real life. Amid all of that was an elderly woman. Hannah’s eyes fixed on her. Louise Wallace sat in the blue wingback chair. Her ashy blond and gray hair was pulled back. She was not the woman who had accosted Amber back in Santa Louisa. Her hair had been black. Good, Hannah thought.

Her eyes were hidden behind the glare of eyeglasses. A combination magnifying lens and light fixture swung over her lap where she was working on a counted cross-stitch pattern depicting a basket of red apples.

“Lou, someone…” Morrison looked a little embarrassed because she hadn’t bothered to ask the younger woman’s name. “Someone’s here to see you.”

Hannah’s heart was beating like a sparrow’s. “My name is Hannah Griffin.” Perspiration rolled down her side.

Louise Wallace looked up to meet Hannah’s eyes and offered a friendly smile. Hannah froze the image and ran it through her mind like a computer in search of a matching file. What about her face? What about her eyes? Her teeth? Was there anything that matched?

“Why, let me think,” Wallace said, setting down her cross-stitch. “I don’t think we’ve met. Have we?”

Hannah’s brain was still scanning. Nothing hit. Nothing was saying to her that Wallace was anyone she knew. Her mother, adoptive or otherwise. Zero recognition. Hannah felt weak with relief. “Can I sit?”

“Certainly,” Wallace said. “But you’re not a reporter, are you?’

“No, not a reporter. I’m an investigator.”

“An investigator? That sounds interesting.” Wallace swung the magnifier to the side of the chair. Her movement was swift and a little startling. She smiled at Hannah and called to her friend.

“Marge, would you bring us some tea? More of that lovely chamomile we had earlier this morning?”

Her glasses on so she could get a good look at the visitor, Morrison nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

“I’ve been sitting all morning,” Wallace said, “but I’ve been through so much lately, there’s not much more I feel I can do.” She shifted her wiry frame in the wingback. “Are you—Hannah, is it?—from the law office? They said they’d be sending someone over here. I thought it was going to be someone I knew. I know everyone on Kodiak Island.”

Hannah shook her head. “I’m an investigator, but I’m not involved in your case and I’m not from your lawyer’s office. I’m here on my own. I’m looking for my mother.”

Wallace barely glanced at Hannah. Instead she admired her cross-stitching; her scarred fingers smoothing the red of an apple. “I have no children.”

“Now? Or never?”

Wallace gazed out the window, the bay a frosty blue line to the horizon.

“Look at me, please.” Hannah moved closer. “Don’t you know me?”

“I can see that you are troubled. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

“There is something about you that—”

“—reminds you of someone? That’s sweet. But I’m so sorry. You’re not one of those children searching for their birth mothers? Are you?”

Hannah’s face was red with anger, and she fought for composure. “No, thank God. If you are Claire Logan, then I know you’re not my biological mother. And I thank God for that.”

Wallace fiddled with her cross-stitch, the silver needle glinting in the stream of sun that had sent streaks across her lap. It was the first time her visitor—her pretty, young, and apparently motherless interrogator— had mentioned the Logan name.

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” she said.

Hannah listened to each word as if each syllable could provide an answer. Morrison brought the tea in and set it down. Louise thanked her and said the two of them would be taking their tea out to the gazebo.

“This girl’s searching for her mother. She thinks I might know her.”

“Be her.” Hannah corrected, only to see the reaction. But there was none.

“I see,” Morrison said, uncomfortable with the obvious tension in the room. “I’ll pick up in here; you two go on and enjoy the morning. I’m sure you’ll sort things out just fine.”

Balancing fine china cups and saucers, Hannah and Louise slipped on their shoes on the front steps, and Morrison went looking for the vacuum. When she couldn’t find it anywhere, she poked her head into Louise’s bedroom on the west side of the house. A grand four-poster bed with a damask canopy and a pair of matching chairs commanded the room. It was the bedroom of a queen, and Marge Morrison doubted any woman in all of Alaska had such a splendid boudoir. Morrison ran her hands over the silvery fabric. In doing so, she noticed a suitcase on the opposite side of the bed from the doorway. It was heavy with clothing and slid halfway under the platform of the bed, out of view. She gave it little regard and got the vacuum from the walk-in closet.

Out in the gazebo, Louise Wallace took a seat first and indicated Hannah should sit next to her in order to take in the view of the garden. A clematis vine climbed over a rail, and the heavy, earthy scent of marigolds wafted through the air.

“Now really, what do you want from me?” she asked, her genteel smile fading into a cold stare. “I assume you are here to ‘get the story’ like that awful Hoffman woman?”

Hannah could hardly believe her ears. The name caught her off guard. Dog Face was faster on her feet than she’d have ever guessed.

“Marcella has talked to you?”

“You know her?” Wallace let out an impatient sigh. “It figures. She phoned me last night, and I’ll tell you what I told her, the damned FBI, and anyone else with half a brain. I am not Claire Logan. Never have been. Never will be.” She sipped some tea and looked around her yard; a tapestry of flowers filled every bed. “A couple days ago my life was as peaceful as all of this. And now my world’s being turned upside down by a bunch of outsiders.”

“Maybe I’m not such an outsider.” Hannah was tentative, but she pressed on. “Maybe, in some twisted way, I’m a part of you?”