“You are too good. Remind me to cal Mother Teresa and tel her to move over. Duncan is pond scum, pure and simple.”
Samantha had to laugh at Arlene's choice of imagery, from Mother Teresa to pond scum.
“Al right, I agree.”
Arlene waved good-bye as Samantha knocked at the front door. Valerie opened it immediately. She was expecting her.
“Come in. How are you feeling? Are you sure you should be back at work so soon?'
“You sound like my mother,' Samantha said. 'I'm fine and I was beginning to get stir-crazy.'
“Come on upstairs. Your check is in my office”
Samantha fol owed her up the spiral staircase, made by one of the last practitioners of this art in the state.
The only thing that distinguished the thoroughly feminine boudoir Valerie ushered Samantha into as an office was the Macintosh on a pale green-and-white sponge-painted table underneath one of the windows.
Beside it was a daybed covered by a bil owy white spread and piled high with pil ows. Samantha imagined how lovely it would feel to lean back into that down sea of rose chintzes and white eyelet. The rug was covered by more roses, woven against a dark green background. In contrast to the rest of the house, the wal s were not painted off-white, but papered in a sage stripe with a Victorian frieze of lilacs above. Two wicker chairs with plump cushions—you wouldn't have marks on the back of your legs from these—
sat on either side of the French doors leading to a smal secluded balcony overlooking the cove.
“I like to sunbathe there,' Valerie said, fol owing Samantha's eye. 'I let myself go in here. I do spend quite a bit of time in this room. Jim hates it. Too much froufrou, he says,' and she laughed.
“Wel , I love it. I'd give anything for one like it!'
Samantha enthused, forgetting her insistence two years earlier that Pix get rid of any and al vestiges of flowers, dotted swiss, and ribbon from Samantha's bedroom.
Valerie was rummaging around on the table, pul ing open the drawer in the middle.
“Your check must be in Jim's study. Why don't you admire the view. I'l be back in a minute.”
Samantha dutiful y sat in one of the chairs. It was as comfortable as it looked. The phone on Valerie's desk rang, then stopped. She must have answered it downstairs.
Samantha stood up and walked around the room, admiring the primitive stil lifes that hung on the wal s. Next to a plant stand with an arrangement of wax fruit and flowers never seasonal mates in nature, under a large glass dome, there was a closet door. Feeling slightly guilty, Samantha decided to open it after first listening careful y to make sure Valerie wasn't coming up the stairs. She just had to see what kind of leisure wear Valerie kept here— Victoria's Secret or Laura Ashley? She giggled and wished Arlene was with her. She'd die when Samantha told her.
She quietly turned the intricately embossed brass doorknob.
The closet was huge, but instead of the negligees, tea gowns, and whatever that Samantha had expected, there was nothing except a large antique armoire. It had an ornate lock but no key. The closet smel ed strongly of potpourri and Samantha sneezed. She reached into her jeans pocket for a tissue. She didn't have one. Yet, there was something else there. Down at the bottom was the key she'd found over two weeks ago, that sunny day when she and Mom had taken the dogs for a walk to see how the Fairchilds' new house was coming along—a sunny day that seemed to have had its start in another life.
Al of a sudden, she felt nervous. She held the key in her hand. It had been so warm, she hadn't been wearing jeans much. This was the first time since that long-ago Sunday she'd had this pair on.
It was an ornate key, like the lock.
Before she could change her mind, she put it in, turned, and heard the click as the doors opened. When she saw what was inside, she laughed in relief. A whole shelf of plastic Mickey Mouse figures, old ones. There were also some folk art carvings of animals and one of a figure that looked like someone from the Bible. On other shelves were piles of quilts. This was obviously where Valerie kept her finds.
Samantha closed one of the doors and bent down to make sure the quilts didn't get in the way. She reached under a bunch to ease them farther into the chest and immediately pul ed back, as if she'd put her hand into a blazing fire instead of a stack of linens. She closed the other door, pocketed the key, shut the closet door fast, and sat back down, looking straight out to sea. Her heart was pounding, her cheeks blazing.
There had been a neat little blue cross stitched on the binding of each of the quilts. They lined up like little soldiers. The crosses again. There had been one on Mitchel Pierce's quilt. There had been one on the quilt her mother had bought, a quilt her mother had told her was a fake. Should she tel Valerie? What should she do? She put her hands up to her cheeks to try to cool them down. They felt ice-cold against her blushes. She took a deep breath.
Valerie was coming.
“The view is real y something. I could stay here forever,' she said in as normal a tone as she could.
“I hope you don't have to, dear.' Valerie's tone wasn't normal at al . Samantha twisted around in the chair.
Valerie might have brought the paycheck, but she had also brought an extremely lethal-looking gun, which she was handling with ease, pointing it directly between her employee's big brown eyes.
“I have to run. I'm already a bit late picking Samantha up, but she's waiting for me at the Athertons' house, and it's certainly no punishment for her to revel in Valerie's company amid Valerie's perfect taste. If anything, she'l probably Oh, Mother' me for getting there too soon.”
Faith laughed—while she stil could. Amy, happily playing next to her adored Mommy on a water-fil ed mat, complete with floating spongy fish, would no doubt put her through this sometime in the future, as wel .
“Al right. I just wanted to check in and hear about the funeral, though this one sounds pretty tame.' Faith and Pix had attended a more dramatic service on the island several summers ago—one that people were stil talking about.
“Yes, poor Addie. Poor Rebecca. But I suppose their lives have been happy ones, if not bursting with excitement.
And Adelaide real y did make a name for herself in the quilt world.'
“Hmmm,' Faith was ready to move on back to the living, especial y her own life. 'If Tom can get away early, we'l be up Friday night. Do you think Seth wil have started the framing by then?'
“He said he would, and even though it's been cooler, we haven't had any rain, so the foundation should be dry soon.'
“I can't wait to see it— and you, and Samantha.”
“Likewise, I'm sure.”
The two women hung up. Faith reached for Amy. 'Your first trip of many to Sanpere Island,' she told her child, who listened intently and replied with a string of appropriate nonsense syl ables. Was it just because she was a mother that Faith thought she could discern the words wanna go, wanna go? Wel , I want to go, too, Faith reflected. With the amount she was spending cal ing Pix, it might have been cheaper, and more sensible, to have shut down the company and gone up in July in the first place. Besides, although things seemed to have settled down on the island, she knew she wouldn't feel easy until she saw Pix and especial y Samantha for herself.
“You'l like it there.' She continued to hold a one-sided conversation with her child, a situation she'd eventual y gotten used to with Ben. In his early days, she'd felt as if she was talking to a cat or some other domesticated pet. 'It has icy cold water, lots of bugs, no place to eat, no place to shop, nothing much to do.' And they were building a house in this Shangri-la.
Pix knocked loudly at the Athertons' front door and, receiving no reply, knocked again. Perhaps they were on the deck in the front of the house. She walked around, didn't see anyone, and went back to the door. She knocked yet again, then did what she normal y did in Sanpere: walked in. She could hear Valerie's voice coming from upstairs.
“It's me, Pix,' she cal ed from the bottom of the spiral.
Taking the silence for an invitation, she went on up. She was curious to see more of the house. At the top of the stairs, she saw an open door and through it Valerie's back.
She entered the room. 'Sorry I'm a bit late ...' Her apology was cut short first by her initial impression of the decor—it was fit for a little princess, or an aging romance writer—
