Chapter 2
Heidi Lane
PLEASANT VALLEY
NORTHWOODS OF WISCONSIN, PRESENT DAY
A mortuary had more appeal than the cluttered aisle of the antique store. Heidi Lane edged around a dresser circa 1889 with a mottled mirror that returned to her a distorted image of herself. She paused, staring back at her eyes. Brown with edges of black. Monkey-fur eyes. That was what her older sister, Vicki, had called them, along with her childhood nickname Monkey. Perhaps one of the few semi-fond memories she had of her younger years.
The letter burned in her back pocket. She’d stuffed it there when she’d left Chicago for the drive north. Nine hours later, including a few stops for gas, pizza-flavored Combos, and La Croix water, and she was here. In a town new to her, but her parents’ and older sister’s home for the last several years. Heidi had never visited. Never desired to visit. Until the letter arrived.
She blinked, breaking her catatonic stare into the old looking glass. Mirrors made her nervous. Antique shops intrigued her, yet they also could be unsettling. At least in a mortuary, things stayed dead—presumably—but in places like this? Ghosts loitered in corners, under furniture, were released when one uncapped a cardboard hatbox, or reflected in old mirrors—like this one.
Heidi turned away. She reached for a teacup with a scalloped handle, a pink rose hand-painted down its ceramic side, and a little ledge built inside the cup to protect a man’s mustache.
“It’s a lovely cup.” The unexpected voice beside her gave Heidi pause, but didn’t make her nervous like the mirror had. She welcomed the sound, the company. It was pleasant to be around strangers rather than close family. People who didn’t know her, didn’t judge her, and didn’t care that Heidi covered her anxiety and lack of confidence with recklessness and impulse.
“The hand-painted roses are beautiful!” Heidi infused her customary friendliness into her response and squelched the uneasiness that had riddled its unwelcome path into her spirit. “It’s a mustache cup.”
A smaller woman stood beside her, hair cut in a wedge a bit too young for the age that labeled her face at approximately—Heidi considered, then took a guess—late fifties. She was classy, in a simple, small town, northern Wisconsin sort of way. In other words, blue jeans and a floral button-up blouse. But she seemed warm and welcoming. Unjaded by the bustling world of expectations beyond the Northwoods.
The woman studied Heidi with an authentic smile and a bit of surprise. “Not many people know that’s a mustache cup.”
“No?” Heidi tried to ignore the feeling that this woman was exactly what she would have wanted for a mother. One couldn’t make a judgment like that at first sight. Not to mention, she had a mother, albeit a much older one who’d done her best but still misunderstood every nuance that was Heidi. The letter burned a hole in her back pocket.
“I have a plate in the same pattern as the cup, if you’re interested.” The woman pressed into Heidi’s thoughts.
“Oh, no. No, thank you.” Heidi replaced the cup on the shelf. She’d ducked into the antique shop to avoid her sister, Vicki, who’d been striding down the sidewalk toward her. Heidi wasn’t ready for Vicki to know she was in town. Not yet. The sky would fall soon enough. Why not avoid it for a blissful extra thirty minutes?
“I’m not really shopping, just browsing. I have some time to kill.”
The woman reached out and patted Heidi’s arm. “Ahh. Well, let me know if you need anything.”
Heidi let her eyes graze where the hand had touched her. How long had it been since she’d been touched in a platonic gesture of motherly kindness? As a child she’d craved protective snuggles and cuddles, the kind a little one received from a nurturing mother or doting grandmother. Instead, she’d received a list of dos and don’ts, and the ever-cautious eye of a carefully guarded parent.
“Oh, wait!” Heidi snapped her fingers, the flash of her Fly Free tattoo on the inside of her left wrist reminding her to prepare for Vicki’s condescension when they finally met up. The feathered words wove between and wrapped their green-inked way up the inside of her thumb.
“Yes?” The woman turned.
“Do you have photograph albums?”
“Of course!” The shopkeeper brightened and waved Heidi toward her. “Come this way.” She hip-hugged between two counters with mint-green pottery and china dogs on top. “I’m so sorry for the close quarters.” The words were tossed over her shoulder. “I keep telling my husband to ease up on the estate sales, but he loves our weekend jaunts.”
Heidi gave her a reassuring smile before grabbing at a wooden rolling pin that began its descent off the edge of a porcelain wood stove pushed against the wall.
“I’m Connie, by the way.” Connie edged around a rocking horse.
There was no rhyme or reason to the store. Heidi flicked at the horse’s rope-hair mane.
“And you are?” Connie paused beside another bureau, this one mirrorless.
“Heidi.” No reason to provide Connie with her last name. She’d instantly connect her to Vicki, even if Vicki’s married name was McCoy. The family lodge and cabin resort on the lake was, after all, Lane Landings, the only getaway in Pleasant Valley.
“Well, Heidi. Here are the albums I have on hand for now.” Connie ran her palm over the worn velvet cover of one of the old albums. “Most people aren’t too interested in buying these, so my husband and I are less likely to pick them up. This one, and”—she reached for another album with a hinged clasp that held the cover closed—“this one, we bought at a garage sale here in town.”
Heidi nodded.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.” Connie matched Heidi’s smile. “Let me know if you need anything.”
The next several minutes, Heidi flipped thick paper page after page. They were at least two millimeters in depth, with the cardboard pictures mounted beneath crumbling paper-framed edges. She wasn’t sure why she’d asked for photograph albums. Maybe because in a place like this, Heidi’s own sense of restlessness came to the fore. Piles of household belongings, once common everyday articles, were now displayed and on sale like artifacts of yesteryear. They didn’t belong anywhere. It was a feeling Heidi was all too familiar with. Looking at the photographs gave the antiques in the room purpose. It connected them to people who, now long dead, had once loved. Like hearkening an old-fashioned fairy tale, not of romance but of belonging. Identity.
Heidi turned the page and ran a finger across the face of a young man, his hair parted in the middle, clean-shaven, a boy really. His jacket was cut like a soldier’s. Impossible to tell the true color, but dark like a Yankee’s maybe? With big military buttons. Another page revealed a family photograph. Man, woman, two sons, a baby in a long, white nightgown, its sex impossible to tell since both boys and girls in that era wore dresses until toddler years.
It was as though the photographs sucked her into them. A time machine of sorts. Heidi’s heartbeat lessened in pace, her shoulders relaxed, and she tucked her blond hair behind her ears. Maybe she’d purchase this album. Carry with her the spirits of the dead and revive them in the moments when Heidi couldn’t find anything else to cover up her restless nature.
One more page. One more and then she’d buy the album and make Connie a sale. She’d return to her car, give Vicki a call, and let her sister know she was in town. Then she’d brace herself to listen as Vicki lectured her on how she should have come years ago. When was she going to grow up? She was thirty now. Thirty. They needed her to be responsible. Yadda, yadda yadda . . .
And the letter in her back pocket would explain why she’d come. An explanation Heidi had no intention of telling Vicki.
The page fell with a thud that might’ve sounded like thunder to a mouse but was a whisper to the ear of a human. The impact of its fall, the whiff of musty paper that slammed into Heidi’s attention, was a moment that stole her breath. Her gaze collided with another set of familiar eyes.
“What . . . ?” Her unasked question drifted down the overpacked aisle of the antique store. She stared until a coldness filled her stomach, edging its way up into her chest, until finally Heidi expelled her held breath. She touched the woman’s face. Pale and lifeless, but eyes open with an awkward droop to the lids. Painted-on eyes. Dead eyes. The woman was deceased at the time the photograph had been taken, and someone had taken a paintbrush to try to make her appear alive.
She yanked the open album off the bureau and hugged it against her chest. Looking around, Heidi maneuvered her way through the mess toward the front of the store.
Heidi wished for another human’s presence now. Preferably a living presence. She dropped the album onto the wooden checkout counter with an unintentional firm clap. Connie startled, lifting blue eyes, her graying blond hair feathered around her chin.
“Is everything all right?” Her concerned expression roved Heidi’s face.
“Would you tell me what you see in this picture?” Heidi rested her finger on the face of the corpse’s photograph.
Connie frowned, studying Heidi’s face before dropping her gaze to the picture. “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “Did something—oh!” Surprised eyes flew up and met Heidi’s.
“You see it too?” Heidi pressed. A cold sensation came over her, not unlike a skeletal hand curling around her throat and starting to squeeze. She swallowed, feeling the pressure from the unseen hand. A ticklish curdle in her stomach. The one that hinted of panic before the actual panic set in.
Heidi swallowed again, this time accompanying it with a big breath. She faked a flippant smile to fool not only Connie but herself.
“This isn’t something you find every day in an antique store!” She framed it with a chuckle, but Connie’s eyes narrowed, her attention still on the photograph.
“Well, I’ll be.” She reached and turned the album. Connie leaned closer to the photograph, then pulled back. Her voice held the same disbelief that Heidi had coursing through her body.
“That is remarkable.”
“She looks like me,” Heidi breathed.
“Exactly like you,” Connie echoed her affirmation.
Their eyes met over the photograph. It wasn’t much different, Heidi assumed, than the fictional stories of time travel, having your photograph snapped, and then discovering it when you landed back in present time. Evidence of your time machine, your jaunts into the past, and the manipulation of the future by visiting days gone by.
Heidi closed the album. “I’ll take it.”
She had to. She possessed no such time machine. Heidi hadn’t traveled to the past and yet—she dug in her leather shoulder bag for her wallet—there she was, in the sepia-toned picture, complete with the tiny mole above the corner of her lip.
Connie took the credit card Heidi offered her. Silent, she wrapped the old album in tissue paper before sliding it into a brown paper gift bag.
Heidi slipped her fingers through the bag’s handles as Connie gave it to her.
A ghost had risen from the album’s pages, beckoned to her, and begged to have her story told.
“Here’s your room.” Vicki flicked on a light even as she raked fingers through her thick, straight blond hair and expelled a sigh that rivaled the exasperation of a mother of twelve. Only she wasn’t a mother and seemed perfectly content in her choice.
Heidi gave Vicki a sideways glance as she edged past her older sister. She hugged the antique photo album to her chest almost as a shield, but she was long past needing armor against Vicki. Or the rest of the family, for that matter. She could deflect the negativity by sheer talent now. At least she wanted to believe she could.
“Thanks,” she muttered. Vicki had a way of stealing joy, spontaneity, and outright life from a moment. Like someone sucking the air from a room. Heidi gently laid the album on the twin-size bed with its red bandanna patchwork quilt. Vicki was not going to steal her momentum.
Fly free.
The reminder flashed on her tattoo as Heidi waggled her wrist at her sister with a smile she hoped was both confident and impish at the same time.
“Love it here!” She spun with her arms stretched out, ignoring the momentary pang she felt at the look of disgust on Vicki’s face at the tattoo. Better to get it all out in the open right away, absorb the censure, and move on. “The room is legit.”
Actually, it was Northwoods all the way, which was a complete one-eighty from Heidi’s décor preferences. Quilt already accounted for, it had an unstained pinewood trim that went halfway up the wall and was bordered by stenciled forest-green pine trees. Black-and-white photos of the forest were framed and hung on the wall—regardless that looking out the window gave you the same view—and the furniture was also pine. Brad, Vicki’s husband, crafted furniture. He probably made the dresser, the bed, and the bench her luggage was already piled on.
“Thank you.” Vicki’s voice was tight. Her baseball T-shirt with gray body and red sleeves was casual, as were her jeans, though they didn’t match her uptight personality.
Heidi gave her sister a crooked grin. “So, I have another one too.” She flashed the Free Spirit tattoo on the other wrist like a brazen sixteen-year-old rebel.
Guess not much has changed.
Vicki raised one eyebrow, slightly darker than her hair. “I suppose there’s one on your lower back. And your inner thigh. What? Eagle wings or Chinese symbols?”
Neither, but Heidi nodded with a grin she was sure stretched off her face. She neared her sister and fingered hair on Vicki’s shoulder. “We should get one together. Sister tattoos.”
Heidi was kidding, but if Vicki were to surprise her and agree, Heidi would jump at the chance. She’d always craved Vicki’s approval—no, more than that—her acceptance.
Vicki huffed and spun on her heel. “For heaven’s sake, Heidi.” She stalked down the hallway of the main lodge house. The upper level served as the bed-and-breakfast and the bottom level as the main living quarters.
Heidi danced after her sister’s shadow. Okay then. So, no sister tattoos. Might as well make the best of it.
“Brad is at work.” Vicki’s voice remained tight. She rounded a corner.
Heidi followed. “Is he still working as a mechanic?”
“Yes.”
Well, Vicki was chatty today. “And he still makes furniture on the side?”
“Correct.”
They rounded another corner and walked through the lower level’s family room. More wooden furniture with navy blue cushions. “So, how’s the resort doing?”
“Fine.” Vicki opened a door that led into the kitchen.
“Could I by any chance have a Dr Pepper?”
“Oh, stop it!” Vicki jerked to a halt and spun on her heel.
Heidi bit the inside of her upper lip to keep from smiling. She hadn’t lost her ability to get under Vicki’s skin in 10.5 seconds. She should feel guilty, but she didn’t. If being separated from her family the past several years had taught her anything, it was that she owed them nothing. She shouldn’t change who she was for them. She shouldn’t cease living just because Dad had, and she shouldn’t stagnate today just because Mom was losing her memories. Brad and Vicki had taken on the gargantuan task of running a lakefront resort with cabins and a lodge house in the economically deprived Northwoods of Wisconsin. None of it was her fault, and none of it should be killjoy enough to make life this undeniable pain in the rear.
Vicki’s glare softened a bit—not much but enough to make Heidi feel a tad guilty. Tired lines winged from the corners of her sister’s eyes. An age spot was peeking through any attempt with concealer to hide it. Vicki was forty-five. Vicki was . . . exhausted.
A pang of guilt made Heidi’s flippant smile dwindle. Okay. So maybe she was being a tad over the top and insensitive.
Breath blew from between Vicki’s lips. “I’m sorry. I’m not being very welcoming.”
Ouch. Heidi felt even guiltier now. She searched her mind trying to recall the last time she’d ever heard Vicki apologize.
Vicki gave her an honest stare. “I know you don’t want to be here, Heidi, which is why I’m also equally as confused as to why you are here. You’ve never come, never visited. Even when Dad—well, apparently funerals aren’t your thing. But, since you came, we need you. I need you. I need you to be with the family and do your part. I can’t run this place, take care of Mom, be a wife, and be a nurse four days a week at the clinic.”
Heidi didn’t say anything. She’d be a complete fool if she did. Once she’d graduated high school, she really had left them all behind. It’d been twelve years. She’d seen Mom and Dad twice when they’d journeyed to Chicago to visit her. She’d had distant conversations with Vicki on the phone. One or two visits when Brad and Vicki made it south and Heidi had the stamina to meet them halfway and tolerate a weekend with them. Christmases were phone calls, FaceTime, and a few visits from Mom after Dad died suddenly.
If Heidi were honest, Vicki may be uptight and no fun, but she was also a loyal daughter, predictable, dependable, and everything Heidi wasn’t.
Vicki ran her fingers through hair that looked like she’d washed it maybe yesterday morning. “Mom isn’t getting any better.” Tears glistened in her eyes. She blinked them away so fast, Heidi wasn’t sure she’d seen them.
“I know.” Heidi softened her voice. All glibness aside, Heidi understood this perhaps more than Vicki realized she did. Mom had dementia. Full-on dementia with a prognosis of life that went on for years, but with a mind that was shutting down, and fast. It would hurt Vicki more than it would hurt her. Her relationship with their mother had been rocky. She was the surprise child. The one who came late in life and sort of ruined the happy middle-age years.
Vicki moved to the kitchen counter and opened the fridge, pulling out a Dr Pepper.
Of course. Vicki would know Heidi’s favorite drink and stock the fridge to accommodate her. It was what she did. Notice the details, adhere to expectations. Heidi wanted to feel something—anything—that resembled being touched by Vicki’s thoughtfulness. But taking care of people was what Vicki did. Because it was her job.
Heidi took the bottle of Dr Pepper, but Vicki held on to it for a second, forcing Heidi to look her in the eye. Dark brown eyes like Heidi’s. Like the dead woman in the photograph.
Heidi shivered.
Vicki held her gaze, her exhausted eyes sharpening to a stern squint. “For our sake, Heidi, step up.”
Heidi tugged on the bottle and drew it toward her. Stepping up wasn’t on her list of talents.