Shadow Notes by Laurel Peterson (cool books to read txt) 📗

I explained about the dreams of blood and the appeals for help. “Maybe her being wrongly accused is what the dream meant. Or maybe she committed this crime to prevent a greater one? I don’t know. Asking Hugh was my best idea.”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I can’t. She won’t tell me.”

Paul looked at me speculatively. “That’s two different answers.”

Richard threw in his two cents. “Talk to her friends. She had a houseful of them last night.”

“Right. Then the most private woman in the world finds out her daughter is asking questions of everyone in town, and that’s the end of that.”

“The end of what?”

“Good point. There is no there there, is there?”

Richard shook his head. “Lord save me.”

“Fine. Me. It’s the end of me. If I ever want any relationship with my mother, my prying will kill it. Anyway, isn’t that the police’s job?”

Paul said, “Do you want a relationship with your mother? I would have a hard time telling if you did. C’mon, Clara. You show up after fifteen years with some wild story about your mother being in danger, corner her therapist in the bedroom and demand private information. How do you think she’ll feel if she finds out?”

“I’ve tried to ask her directly.” That wasn’t exactly true. “I might be able to draw out some gossip, but Hugh was my best shot—discreet and knowledgeable. I needed him. My dreams are getting worse, and you know what happened last time.”

Paul teetered between irritation and worry. “I remember flying to Switzerland to check out that Zurich clinic for you. I remember you curled up in a hotel bed, where you’d been for a week without eating.” He paused, shook his head. “The dreams will tell you, but you have to give them time. You know that.”

“I don’t want to lose her.” To my horror, I felt myself tear up.

“Oh, honey, of course not.” Richard handed me a paper napkin for my nose.

“At the reading of father’s will, she told me she’d be here when I was ready to come home, only she’s exactly the same woman I left fifteen years ago. It’s still impossible to connect with her!” I blew my nose. “Sorry,” I said. “I’ll get hold of myself, I promise.”

“You know,” Paul speculated, “Maria Leiber might talk to you confidentially.”

“Who’s that?”

“Hugh’s wife.”

“Hugh was married?”

“Sure,” Paul said. “Forever.” He noted my shocked expression. “Forever is about fifteen years, give or take—after you left at least.”

“I never heard about a wife.”

“You haven’t been around to hear about much of anything, have you?” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Hugh and his wife have—had—an open marriage. They used their money and social connections to help each other, but didn’t want to be tied down. They both had open affairs for years, but from everything I saw when she visited, they adored each other fiercely. All very pragmatic. Anyway, she spends most of her time at that monstrosity of a house they own in Helena.”

I said, “You’ve been to her house in Helena?”

“No, hon, she showed me pictures. Wanted to outfit a room for massage and aromatherapy, and paid me to consult.”

Richard said, “I imagine the police called her. When she arrives, I’m sure she’d talk to you.”

“How would she know anything about Mother?”

Paul said, “Maria and Hugh talked all the time. If something was going on that Hugh could talk about, Maria would know.”

I thought about my dreams: the blood on Mother’s hands, her pleas for my help, her locked up in jail, someone seeing her going into Hugh’s house last night. I’d long wondered if she had the same gift I did, and if she did, could she be sending me the dreams—or was that wishful thinking? At least it would be some kind of communication. “Even Maria, it’ll get back to Mother, and she’ll be furious with me,” I repeated.

“She doesn’t have magical powers,” Paul said, eyeing me.

Richard said, “If she’s going to know anyway, you should start with the person who can give you the most information.”

I sighed, resigned. “Fine. Let me know when she arrives and I’ll call her.”

“Maria isn’t who I mean.”

I looked at him, puzzled.

“Think. Who else has the goods and wouldn’t care who she dished to?”

It took me a minute. Then, suddenly, light. “Mary Ellen Winters.”

“She’d be the one.”

“She’ll tear me to bits.”

“We’ll patch you up.” Richard shrugged. “Anyway, you have nothing better to do.”

Chapter 4

Mother was detained by the police overnight, so the next morning I met Bailey at the police station. There had been an eyewitness, a police officer, which gave them more of a case than I’d anticipated. Bailey had taken her retainer from my hot little hand, saying, “You can’t be a party to my conversation with her, and I can’t allow you to see her before they talk to her again this morning. They might want to speak to you, and you need to keep your stories separate.”

“But—”

“You can see her when we’re done.”

Bailey and I had been friends once, but competition interfered. We couldn’t both have the prizes we’d wanted: highest SAT score, lead in the school play, soccer team captain. Sometimes I really missed her; I missed having women friends. It seemed like a long time since I’d had any.

Bailey left me cooling my heels in the lobby, while she and her tight, gray, pinstriped self clicked down the hall on spike heels. Every cop in the place peered after her. I settled myself as comfortably as I could into one of the orange molded plastic chairs that lined the vestibule, and tried not to picture Mother locked in a concrete room with no windows.

At ten o’clock in the morning, station activity amounted to people crisscrossing the lobby, some in uniform, some not. I let their monotonous circling and patter and the sleepy heat put me into a half-dream about Mother and me running in circles with buckets of water trying to extinguish a fire. I was startled awake by a deep voice.

“Miz Montague?”

I