Sanders 01 - Silent Run (42 page)

His father-in-law had told Michael he was worthy of this house, that he knew Michael would take care of his daughter, Angela. He had felt the burden of that generous gift every day of their marriage. The burden had doubled in weight after the birth of the twins, and tripled in weight upon Angela's death at the age of twenty-six.

He hadn't taken care of Angela as he had promised. But he still had the girls to raise. He still had a chance to give the De Lucas back some of the love and respect they had given him.

The sound of voices brought him back to reality. He looked up as the firemen left his house.

"The fire was limited to the stove and the trash can," one of the men said. "You have damage to the ceiling and walls from the smoke. The floor around the trash can is pretty beat up, but that's about it. Otherwise you're okay," He paused. "I hope you'll have a long talk with your kids about fire safety in the kitchen and elsewhere."

"Oh, don't worry, I intend to have a very long talk with them -- about a lot of things."

The fireman grinned. "They sure are cute kids. One of them called 911. Sounded calm as could be. Well, we're off."

"Thanks," Michael said.

"No problem. That's what we're here for."

As the fire engine left, Mrs. Polking returned to the house and Lily and Rose wandered back to Michael, obviously uneasy now that they were alone with him. Lily dug her hands into the pockets of her jeans and tried to look confident. Rose chewed on a piece of her hair, the way she always did when she was nervous. For a few moments Michael let them suffer in silence.

The more he looked at them, the more they reminded him of Angela. They were their mother's daughters, all right, same dark brown hair, same big brown eyes, same stubborn chin, same impetuous, spoiled nature.

Oh, they were cute all right, and dangerous, especially Lily. The older twin by two minutes, Lily was the leader. She was rambunctious, loud, and often clumsy, but she would defend her little sister to the death.

Rose was his sensitive, emotional child, quiet and introspective. She tried to do what was right more often than Lily, but loyalty to her sister always came before anything else.

Looking at them now, Michael wondered which one of them would crack first -- which one would finally break down and talk to him.

Sometimes he thought Lily would be the one, because once in a while she impulsively started to say something, then stopped. Other times he thought Rose might provide the breakthrough, with her guilty, apologetic smiles. Neither one spoke to him now.

"We have to talk about Mrs. Polking." Of course, he'd be talking and they'd be listening, but he couldn't let their behavior go unnoticed. "You know you're not supposed to touch the stove."

No answer. No explanation.

"Maybe if you tell me why you did it, I could understand." Michael tried to be patient.

Lily made some motions with her hand, mimicking eating.

"If you were hungry you should have asked Mrs. Polking to fix you something."

Lily shrugged. Rose smiled apologetically. They were getting nowhere fast.

"What you did was dangerous. This isn't like gluing Mrs. Polking's shoes to the floor, although I'm not happy about that either. You could have been hurt. Mrs. Polking could have been hurt. I know you wouldn't have wanted that."

Rose sniffed as she shook her head.

Lily put her arm around her sister to give her courage.

"Can you tell me why you're giving the baby-sitters such a hard time?"

No answer.

Lily whispered in Rose's ear, loud enough so Michael could hear her. "I have to go to the bathroom. Do you want to come with me?"

"Yes."

"Wait a second; we're not done."

Lily pointed to her pants. Rose too.

"Fine, go to the bathroom, but this isn't over."

With that the girls disappeared into the house.

He knew the bathroom plea was an excuse to get away from him. Maybe it was for the best. He needed time to think. He needed a cold beer. Hell, he needed a new life.

* * *

"I think Daddy's mad," Rose said, opening the bedroom door so she could peer into the hallway. She listened for angry footsteps, but heard only silence.

"Is he coming?" Lily asked.

"No."

"Good." Her sister let out a sigh of relief.

Rose closed the door and sat down on one of the twin beds. She pulled her legs underneath her and rested her chin in her hands. "Maybe we shouldn't have tried to cook the pasta."

"We didn't know it was going to catch on fire."

"And we shouldn't have painted the chair," she added, knowing they'd been really bad.

"We had to, or else Mrs. Polking wouldn't have left."

"He's just going to get someone else to watch us."

"Not if Mama comes back."

"I don't think she is coming back," she said with a sigh. "It's been so long."

"Yes, she is. She promised. Maybe we should look for her."

"We don't know where to look."

"We could go down by the boats, where Mama took us that day. Maybe she's there."

Rose shook her head, feeling her stomach turn over at the thought. She hadn't liked their trip to see the boats. She didn't even want to think about it. "We can't cross the street by ourselves, and we don't even know where the boats are."

"I bet I could find them," Lily said confidently.

"We're not going. Mama said she'd come back. We just have to wait for her."

Lily's eyes sparkled with a new idea. "Maybe Mariah can help us." She took the crystal ball off the dresser and set it on the bed between them. They'd gotten it a week ago for their sixth birthday, a present from their grandmother, Sophia. Inside the glazed blue glass were the head and shoulders of a beautiful lady with long blond hair, a glittery face, and a bright pink wizard's hat. Their grandmother said she had found the wizard in an antiques shop. She told them it had belonged to a little girl who swore it could make magic -- but only for people who believed in it.

Lily rubbed her hand over the top of the ball.

A spark of light surprised her.
 
"What was that?" she asked, her eyes widening with alarm. She felt butterflies in her stomach, the kind that came whenever a new nanny arrived.

"I don't know. It didn't do that when I touched it yesterday," Lily said.

"Well, ask the question."

Lily rubbed her hand over the ball again, drawing another flash of light. "Mariah, we want to find our mother. Do you know where she is? Do you know where we should go to look for her?"

The lady's mouth began to move. Lily looked over at Rose in awe, "Did you see that?" she whispered.

Rose swallowed hard. She felt scared, but she wanted to hear the answer.

Mariah's voice came across, sounding as lovely as a melody. "For children who believe in me, school is just the place to be."

"What?" Lily asked in confusion.

"Go to school?" Rose repeated in doubt. She didn't want to go to school. It was summer, and they'd already done kindergarten.

"I'm going to ask her again. I don't think she heard me right." No matter how many times Lily asked the question, the crystal ball remained dark and Mariah remained silent. "Maybe the batteries are dead," Lily said as she turned the ball upside down.

"Where do the batteries go?" she asked.

"I don't know. I can't find anything."

"Maybe we should ask Daddy."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I don't think so."

"I didn't mean out loud," she said, although it was getting more difficult not to talk to him, especially when he was being nice or when he kissed her good night. But they'd promised their mother they could keep a secret, that they wouldn't speak to their dad again until she came home. She couldn't give up now. If she did, Mama might never come back.

"We'll try Mariah later," Lily said. "Maybe she needs to rest."

* * *

Michael stared at his waterlogged, smoke-filled kitchen in disgust. The cookbooks on the counter had been doused with water. The edges of the yellow-trimmed curtains that his mother-in-law had hung for them just after they moved into the house were charred around the edges. There were puddles on the floor with ashes floating like little boats in a murky river. What a mess -- just like his life.

He wished he had a magic wand that he could wave and everything would be all right again.
 
He didn't know why he kept hoping for a miracle. He'd said enough unanswered prayers to know that magic and miracles did not exist.

He took off his suit coat and tossed it over the chair at the breakfast room table. Loosening the knot in his tie, he rolled up the sleeves to his elbows. Wading through a couple of inches of dirty water, he made his way to the refrigerator and opened the door. The inside was dark. Apparently the firemen had turned off the electricity, but the beers were still cold. Thank God!

He pulled out a can and opened it. One draught went a long way toward easing some of his frustration. As he took another sip he walked into the dining room, eager to get away from the kitchen disaster. That's when he saw the list of summer schools Mrs. Polking had left on the credenza. He reached for the paper, but his foot caught on the carpet and he stumbled, spilling beer all over everything.

"Damn." He shook the beer off the top of the paper, but the ink smeared and only one of the school names remained legible. "Happy Hollow School -- summer school programs, kindergarten through second grade," he read aloud. The school was in North Beach, just a mile away. Maybe he could convince the twins' grandmother to take the girls after school until he could find another baby-sitter.

Of course, he didn't have much credit left with the family. The girls had terrorized their aunt, uncle, and grandparents long before they'd started in on the nannies. And he hated to ask Sophia to baby-sit. She usually spent her afternoons at De Luca's, helping her husband, Vincent, and her son, Frank, run the family restaurant.

School was the best answer, at least until he could find another nanny. With any luck the teachers at Happy Hollow would be tough enough to take anything his girls could dish out.

Buy ASK MARIAH

Excerpt @ Copyright 2011 Barbara Freethy

All Rights Reserved

Prologue

San Francisco-1952

The fire started easily, a small spark, a whisper of breath, and the tiny flame leaped and crackled. It slid quickly down the length of rope, growing in size and beauty with each inch it consumed. It wasn't too late to stop it, to have second thoughts. A fire extinguisher was nearby. It would take just a second to grab it and douse the small flames. But the fire was so beautiful, mesmerizing -- gold, red, orange, black -- the colors of the dragons that had promised so much: prosperity, love, good health, a second chance, a new start.

The fire began to pop, the small sounds lost in the constant boom of firecrackers going off in the streets of San Francisco in celebration of the Chinese New Year. No one would notice another noise, another spark of light, until it was too late. In the confusion of the smoke and the crowds, the dragons and the box they guarded would disappear. No one would ever know what had really happened.

The flame reached the end of the gasoline-soaked rope and suddenly burst forth in a flash of intense, deadly heat. More explosions followed as the fire caught the cardboard boxes holding precious inventory and jumped toward the basement ceiling. A questioning cry came from somewhere, followed by the sound of footsteps running down the halls of the building that had once been their sanctuary, their dream for the future, where the treasures of the past were turned into cold, hard cash.

The cost of betrayal would be high. They would be brothers no more. But then, their ties had never been of blood, only of friendship -- a friendship that some would think had died this night of fire, but in truth had died much earlier.

There was only one thing left to do, grab the dragons and their box of secrets. The back door offered an escape route. The wall of fire would prevent anyone from seeing the truth. No one would ever know who was responsible.

The crate where the dragons were stored beckoned like the welcoming wave of an old friend. It took but a moment to pry off the lid. Eye-watering smoke and intense heat made it difficult to see what was inside, but it was impossible not to realize that something was missing.

Only one dragon was inside!
The other dragon was gone, as was the box. How could it be? Where were they? The three pieces were never to be separated. They all knew the importance of keeping them together.

There was no time to search further. A door on the opposite side of the basement was flung open. A man holding a red fire extinguisher shot a small, helpless stream of chemicals at what was now a raging inferno.

The fire could not be stopped, nor the future. It was done. For better or worse, the dragons would never dance together again.

Chapter One

San Francisco -- Today

"They say that dragons bring good luck to their owners," Nan Delaney said.

Riley McAllister studied the dark bronze statue in his grandmother's hands. Ten inches tall, it appeared to be a dragon, although the figure looked more like a monster with its serpent body and dirty scales. Its brilliant green eyes blazed like real stones, but those eyes couldn't possibly be jade. Nor could the golden stripe that ran around its neck really be gold. As for luck, Riley had never believed in it before, and he didn't intend to start now. "If that dragon were lucky, we'd be at the front of this line," he grumbled.

He cast a frustrated look at the people around them, at least a hundred he estimated. When he'd agreed to help his grandmother clear out her attic, he'd never imagined he'd be standing in the parking lot at the Cow Palace Arena in San Francisco early Monday morning with a bunch of people who wanted to have their trash appraised by a traveling antiques show.

"Patience, Riley." Nan's voice still held a touch of her native Irish brogue even though she'd lived in California for sixty years.