But Lori herself was Natalie's legacy. In Lori, Natalie Reed had created, with her love and caring and teaching, a treasure of great value, a treasure to be cherished.

In the second box was a small album, the kind with old-fashioned black pages. Joe, lifting the pages one at a time with his claws, adeptly flipped them. Pausing before four photographs arranged on a single page, he let out a chittering hunting cry, raucous and loud. His yellow eyes had grown huge, his muscled crouch over the pictures as predatory as a stalking lion. "Voila, Dulcie! Look at this! Wait until Harper and Garza see this!" He stared at her, all sparks and fire, his paw pressing on the page. "Talk about the heart of the matter! Talk about cracking the case!" Shifting from paw to paw, the tomcat rumbled with crazy purrs. "I think," Joe said, hardly able to be still, "I think we just cracked both cases!"

29

The minute the weather cleared, Ryan's building crew began to work again on the Harpers' new living room, leaving Charlie and young Dillon finishing up Charlie's studio. Having installed and mudded the drywall, Charlie couldn't wait to paint the walls and move into her new space.

Now it was nearly noon; Ryan's crew had the living room walls framed and were waiting for a lumber delivery, and for the crane to lift the heavy beams into place. She and the four carpenters and her uncle Scotty were kneeling beside the corner of the new foundation where she'd spread out the blueprints when she heard the lumber truck turn into the long drive. Rising, walking out to show them where to drop the load, she was only vaguely aware of the phone ringing inside the house.

Waiting for the truck to back around, she scanned the pasture to make sure the three dogs were safely confined before the lumber was dropped. Rock stood at the fence huffing softly, watching every move in the yard. The big silver Weimaraner was protective of Ryan even in a work situation, and that was all right with her. But the big dog was consumed with interest, too. As curious as any cat, she thought, grinning.

Rock had been a stray, abandoned and uncared for. A beautiful, purebred dog who should have been treasured. She was still amazed by her good luck in finding him-or, in Rock finding her. Motioning the truck into position, she was watching its bed lift and tilt to drop its load when Charlie came out the back door looking distressed, her freckles dark across her pale cheeks. Ryan nodded to Scotty to take over, and turned to see what was wrong.

"It's Genelle Yardley, they took her to the hospital. She fell. Wilma found her unconscious, on the floor by the bookcases. Sprawled out of her walker as if she'd been reaching for a book. Wilma called nine-one-one, and started CPR." Charlie had a large, flat package under her arm.

"No one was with her? I thought the senior ladies-"

"They're in and out all day, they never leave her for long. Susan and Gabrielle are still in the city. Cora Lee fixed her breakfast this morning and ate with her, then left. She said Genelle had unexpected company, a little girl, a neighbor child, I guess. When Mavity went down half an hour later to clear up the breakfast things and make her bed, the child had gone. Mavity left Genelle resting on her chaise on the porch with a comforter over her. She always wants to be outside. See as much of the world as she can, I guess," Charlie said sadly. "Little things, her flowers, the birds…

"Wilma stopped by about forty-five minutes after Mavity left; she found Genelle, lying by the bookcases. She hadn't wheeled her oxygen over with her, so when she fell, she couldn't reach it. Half a dozen books were scattered on the floor around her, volumes of Celtic myth."

Charlie looked at the newly delivered lumber and beams, at the framed walls. "It's going to be a wonderful room, Ryan. I'm going into the village to mail these drawings, then by the hospital, see if I can lend any moral support. Dillon's in my studio, sanding."

"I'll look in, make sure she doesn't sand the paper off the board. Give Genelle my love. I guess she won't get her tea party on Monday."

"I wouldn't bank on that. Genelle's tougher than she looks. That woman wants a tea party, she'll have a tea party. Though she might prefer a smaller group, not all the Friends of the Library."

"What if she doesn't leave the hospital?"

Charlie shook her head. "Then we'll have the party there. If these are Genelle's last few days, then we'll have a catered tea in the hospital. All the fixings, all the flowers and goodies the inn can put together." Clutching the flat package between her knees while she pulled on her coat, she turned away to her van.

Pulling away up their long, private lane, Charlie thought about Genelle trapped in a hospital bed when she'd rather be tucked up under a comforter on her own terrace, the sea breeze on her face, the color and smell of her garden around her. She wondered which of the neighbor children had come visiting. Most kids didn't want to be around sick people, didn't know what to say to them. Turning onto the hillside highway that led down to the village, she looked out at the sea, thinking about death. Thinking about Genelle's tenuous tie to life. And fear touched Charlie, fear of what came after.

What are we? she thought, chilled. Do you just go out like a light when you die? Or is there something more?

If there was an eternal life, was it like that great rolling sea that stretched away below her? Flowing forever to endless shores, carrying uncountable dead souls like swarms of plankton to new lands? Carrying each one to a new challenge beyond their old, discarded life? And she had to laugh at herself. She'd never thought that any one religion was the only right one, that all others were misinformed. That seemed so silly. But she guessed that no doctrine was going to call departing souls "plankton."

Well, her own soul wouldn't be lost just because of her irreverent imaginings, she'd never believe that, either. Any intelligence vast enough to create this world and all in it had to be more easily amused than angered.

Below her the hills were like emerald from the heavy rains. She never tired of their brilliant green curves, which dropped and rolled below her. At home, the horses couldn't wait to get out into the pasture to gobble up the new grass-Max would let them have just so much, then shut them in their stalls again. Horses, like some people, would indulge themselves until they were sick. Like I am with chocolate, she thought. And she thought about the kit, also with a sometimes obsessive appetite, and she smiled and said another little prayer that the kit kept safe.

Crouching over the black page of the album, Joe and Dulcie studied the photographs of Lori's family. Joe was still grinning, like the Cheshire cat. But this wasn't Alice's fantasy, this was real. What they had found was real. Shocking. Amazing. Very real.

The four names were neatly captioned in white ink on the black paper. The photograph showed Lori at about five or six, an elfin child with big, dark eyes. Natalie and Jack were young, a handsome couple with their arms around each other. "That must have been a while before Lori and her mother moved away," Dulcie said. "But who's the other man? Who's Hal?"

"Jack's brother," Joe said. Hal Reed stood with Jack beside a company truck emblazoned with "Reed, Reed, and Vincent." Below the company name was painted "Jack and Hal Reed. Bruce Vincent." Vincent, the third partner, was not in the picture.

Joe looked at Dulcie, his whiskers and ears close to his head, his yellow eyes slitted with triumph. "You didn't see the other pictures, the ones the kit found, that Harper and Garza dug out from under that cottage."