Treasure Me (24 page)

“You don’t want to badger me with questions about Justice?” Theodora demanded, bringing her to a standstill. “I reckon it’s a first.”

“Not today. But thanks.”

“Truth be told, there isn’t time for a walk down memory lane.” She took a quick sip of her coffee before rising. Jabbing a finger toward the kitchen, she added, “Tell Finney you’re coming with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Did you load your Saturday Night Special?”

Theodora clenched her buckskin satchel to her sagging breasts. “None of your beeswax.” She lowered what was left of her brows. “Now, skedaddle. Tell Finney I won’t keep you long.”

What was the use of arguing? It wouldn’t stop Theodora from using deadly force. Some people didn’t soften with age. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a lady who insists on meeting you. Awful timing, too. I’d been planning to hunt this afternoon, but some things can’t wait. Tell Finney to make do until you get back.”

Wary, Birdie started toward the kitchen. A thief never trusted the unexpected—it usually meant the mark had noticed his wallet slipping from his pocket or the cops were in pursuit. Surprises were best avoided.

What was this about? She entered the kitchen toying with the idea of making a run for it.

Remembering the old woman’s gun and take-no-prisoners stare, she pulled on her army coat instead.

* * *

Wavering midway across the marble lobby, Birdie hissed, “This is an office. I thought you were taking me around the corner, not to the Cleveland suburbs. Who the hell
are
we meeting with?”

Everything in the lobby wore an intimidating patina, from the silk prints on the walls to the mile-high arrangement of African daisies beneath the skylights. The place was a haven for stylish women with disdainful expressions and too much jewelry.

“We’re here to see Meade. She’s been badgering me for days about making your acquaintance.” Theodora dragged Birdie to the wall, where they stood like jailbirds in a lineup. “She imports cosmetics and whatnots. Does well by it, too.”

“She owns the place?”
She must be loaded.

“Lock, stock and barrel. She’s a thorn in my behind, but I can’t quibble with her success.” Theodora dumped her mohair coat into Birdie’s arms. “She demanded to meet you because she doesn’t believe me. The fool’s got you mixed up with someone else, which is why she asked to eyeball you for herself.”

The explanation didn’t sit well. “If someone’s nabbed her boyfriend, don’t point fingers at me.”

“This isn’t about love gone astray. Her last name’s Williams.”

“Like the abolitionist who helped Justice? You said his family still lives around here.”

“Meade is Landon Williams’s daughter. ” Theodora frowned. “You’re sure you’ve never heard of him?”

The question had already come up during the Festival of Lights. “I really haven’t.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Not exactly a reassuring comment. “Then what’s going on? Can I at least have a hint?” she asked, unsure if she wanted to play along.

“No.”

“Have it your way.” Spotting a coat tree, she hung up Theodora’s coat but decided to keep hers on. She didn’t need some nosy secretary rifling through the pockets of her most cherished possession. “If I were Meade, I’d believe you. I don’t know what we’re talking about but, hey, you’re no one to mess with. Theodora’s law is just one short rung below God’s law, I always say.”

The assessment pleased her. “Now that you mention it, I am uncommonly astute. Honest, too.” She squared her shoulders and seemed to grow taller. With a few more compliments, she might reach five feet in height. “Meade is too pigheaded to trust my opinion. Damn fool.”

“I trust you,” Birdie replied, and stopped in surprise. It wasn’t a lie.

Theodora’s wrinkles eased into a grin. “You should. The way I see it, you don’t have many friends in Liberty. Not yet anyway.” She gave her satchel a pat. “And let’s not forget—there are good reasons to mind me.”

There wasn’t time for a comeback. The secretary spoke into the intercom then motioned them through the gold door she’d been guarding.

Birdie followed Theodora into the office. The door shut with a soft click.

The room was large, the walls an oyster grey that matched the carpeting. Everything was sleek and minimalist. No personal mementos, nothing. There wasn’t even a framed photo on the desk or a cheesy montage on the wall. The spacious room would suit an amnesiac whose personal history was lost to the sands of time.

“Nice digs,” she said to the woman behind the desk. She felt edgy and defensive, mostly because the woman was loaded down with gold jewelry and enough eye makeup to do a geisha proud. Or maybe it was her expression of disapproval. “This place is like walking inside an oyster shell. Me, I’m into bright colors. I guess you go for neutrals.”

Theodora elbowed her in the ribs. “Settle down.” She approached the desk. “Meade, you got your wish. Here she is in the flesh.”

Her forehead damp, Birdie stepped forward. The moment she did, the nerves plaguing her vanished.

Why, she couldn’t fathom. A sensation of expectancy swept through her like a warm summer wind. Nothing in Meade’s expression warranted the sensation. Yet Birdie couldn’t stop the euphoria from expanding out, irrepressible and sudden.

Here. This is it
.

Throwing her shoulders back, she realized she wanted to make a good impression. A first. Since when did she give a damn what anyone thought? Yet
this
woman… she mattered. She mattered a lot.

The thought was crazy. Still, she couldn’t shake it.

“You’re not the Greyhart woman,” Meade was saying. She came around the desk. “Theodora was right. You’re too young.”

Birdie opened her palms. “A case of mistaken identity. Happens all the time.”

“Not to me it doesn’t.”

A note of impatience came across in the retort, and Birdie’s apprehension returned.
Why doesn’t she like me?
“Tough break,” she said. “This Greyhart woman must be on your shit list.”

“She is.” Approaching, Meade narrowed her regard. “How old are you, Birdie?”

“Thirty-one.” She stared into the woman’s eyes.
Hello
. Nervous laughter nearly leapt from her throat. Maybe it was time for the straight approach. “You’re giving me a feeling of déjà vu. Have we met before?”

“I’d remember if we had.” Meade nodded toward Theodora, who’d lowered herself into one of the chairs before the desk. “Theodora says you’re new in Liberty. Is the move permanent?”

“I’m only here for a few weeks. I’m not really cut out to be a waitress.”

“Is your family here?”

“No.”

“You don’t have anyone in Ohio?”

Like the laughter she’d barely suppressed, Birdie resisted the urge to go on the defensive. “I’m sorry,” she said, remembering her manners. “I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but why do you care about my pedigree?”

“I’m merely curious.” Returning to her chair, Meade opened a drawer and produced a manila envelope. “My father has been ill. He saw you in The Second Chance and mistook you for a woman he once knew.”

Birdie’s pulse scuttled. “Did she break his heart?”
Oh God, my mother didn’t scam him, did she?

“She conned him out of a lot of money. Here.” Opening the envelope, Meade removed a series of photographs. “This is the woman.” She tried to smile but failed miserably. “Why don’t you take off your coat? No? I can have Siki bring coffee, if you’d like.”

Theodora fiddled with the hem of her dress. “Do you have beer?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Birdie sank into a chair. “I’ll pass on the coffee.” Miserable, she kept her eyes straight ahead and the air locked in her lungs.

But Meade was persistent, sliding the photographs across the desk and lining them up, side by side. Fire burned in Birdie’s lungs and she took a quick breath. Gripping the armrests, she tried to stay rooted in the conversation. No easy task—the urge to run nearly brought her to her feet.

“As you can see, you do resemble her,” Meade said in a dangerously steady voice. The tension in her eyes was now accompanied by deepening lines on the sides of her mouth. “Probably a coincidence… but then, she does have a daughter. Right here. The little girl beside my father.”

Please don’t let it be Wish.
“This is your father?” Birdie managed to pick up a photograph of the man without trembling. In the close-up, he wore a tuxedo and a bow tie. “He has a nice face.”

“He’s a nice man. You’d like him. Everyone does.” The lightest hint of anxiety wove through her voice but this time, Meade smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes, which clouded with sadness. “Look at the next picture. It was taken a long time ago. I believe the girl was about four years old, which would make her near your age today.”

Blackness threatened. Birdie found an inner reserve of strength. “Lots of women are my age. Thousands of women.”

“Go on—look at it.”

Relenting, she picked up the photograph. The room spun in a sickening whirl. When it steadied, she took in the image of the child she’d once been. Then her gaze latched onto the image of the man standing with his arm across the little girl’s shoulders.

Paw Paw?

He wasn’t familiar. No shred of memory emerged to assure her that he was the man she’d loved like a father. The man who’d played Go Fish with her while she ran a high fever and her throat burned with infection. He’d been a fleeting, stable figure in her tumultuous childhood.

Her ears buzzing, she handed the photo back.

And was immediately accosted by the third photograph Meade slid forward. The man, Landon, was standing in a ballroom with his arm around a scintillating blonde. In the background, party streamers burst from the ceiling in a kaleidoscope of color. Diamonds glittered at the woman’s throat, her practiced look of adoration bestowed on Landon.

Stunned beyond speech, Birdie set down the photo of her mother, the brilliant and immoral Wish Postell Kaminsky.

Leaning close, Theodora asked, “Birdie, do you recognize the woman in the photograph? Take your time, child.”

The bellyful of bees in Theodora’s stomach was pinging tension all the way from her tummy to her feet. The boots she’d worn with her Christmas dress were tight, and she wiggled her toes. Her feet had gone numb, but why wouldn’t they? Meade had sprayed as much tension in the room as a skunk rousted from its nest. Nasty business, all of this.

“I’ve never seen her before,” Birdie finally said, the words little more than a whisper.

Theodora pushed the stack of photos back across the desk. “I figured as much. Meade, I hope you’re satisfied.”

Oh, Birdie was lying, all right. Not that a touch of dishonesty meant she deserved the third degree. Let the child hold to her lies for now. What was the harm? The truth would eventually win out. In Theodora’s estimation, the harder people tried to bury their secrets the easier it was to dig them up.

Which made her wonder: was Birdie the child in the photograph with Landon?

Parsnip
.

Theodora settled her bones deep in the chair. When Landon had been at his worst in the years after Cat drowned, Meade had placed him in a psychiatric lockdown. The normally taciturn man talked incessantly—but only to Theodora. The moment she came through the door, bearing a picnic basket of goodies in one hand and pack of playing cards in the other, he rose from the chair by the window and padded across the room. His hair was every which way and his bathrobe speckled with coffee stains, but his face would regain a shred of its former composure. Watching the transformation was like seeing clay shaped into the semblance of a man.

She’d always suspected the playing cards were the catalyst, bringing him out of depression in short bursts of disjointed, yet vivid, conversation. For reasons beyond comprehension, the cards loosened the memories from wherever he’d buried them, loosened them like so much silt scratched from the side of a hill and sent rolling down into the riverbed of his emotions.
Parsnip
he’d say, the word encompassing all the joy the world contained, and he’d described a little girl as blonde as an angel, a child he’d loved like his own. Clasping Theodora’s hands in a death grip, he took her far from shore, into dreams. She gathered enough from his words to finally understand. The child had been the daughter of Wish Greyhart, the woman who’d wrecked his soul.

Was Birdie the child? Dang it all—was she Wish Greyhart’s child? If so, and Meade ever found out, there’d be a hornet’s nest of trouble.

Meade collected the photographs with the faintest hue of misgiving whispering across her features. “I didn’t mean to waste your afternoon, Birdie. If I’ve been rude, please accept my apology. I’ve been under a lot of stress at work and now my father… the situation is difficult.”

“It’s not like I was doing much—just waiting tables back at the ranch.”

“Should I pay you for the time you’ve missed?”

“We’ll call it even if you’ll get the maid to bring me a Coke.” Birdie laughed shortly, her eyes skittering like violet wrens afraid to land. “I’m awfully thirsty.”

“The maid indeed.” Meade spoke quickly into the intercom. “Siki would kill you if she heard you say that.”

Gingerly, Birdie drew her long legs out and crossed her ankles. She rested her hands in her lap. The normally uncouth girl was sitting as pretty as a lady and the sight was startling. “How is your father?” she asked. “The woman in the photos… does he still see her?”

“God, no.” Lazily Meade brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek, lost in thought.

“When did it end?” Birdie prodded, making Theodora wonder if the child recognized fire when she played with it.

“It’s been years. He doesn’t talk about it and I don’t ask.”

“You thought she’d come back to make trouble for him?”

“Trouble he can’t survive. He suffers from depression.”

Siki brought in sodas, ending the conversation about Landon as abruptly as it had begun. Theodora waved her glass away. Settling back, she let the others make small talk for a few minutes, the conversation stilted. When she grew tired, she announced it was time to go.