Gretchen paused in her sweaty climb to admire the desert scenery. Her mother had taught her the names of the plants growing along the trails: saguaros, ocotillos, barrel cacti, and palo verdes. Rattlesnakes, scorpions, and gila monsters also liked the mountain environment, three poisonous reasons to wear hiking boots and to stay on the designated trails.
Gretchen didn’t think she could handle an encounter with any of these three creatures. But spiders were her worst nightmare. A black widow would provide a perfectly good reason to jump off a cliff. It was a good thing they liked dark, remote holes and rarely ventured near humans.
Cautiously she moved over the rocks, well above the cluster of tourists milling around on the boulder below. She forged ahead, picking her way up, using the binoculars to scan the cliffs, remembering with each step the warnings about lizards and snakes. Sweat soaked her shirt and glistened on her face. Gretchen stopped to catch her breath and get her bearings. She could see the top of her mother’s house in the valley below. Using the ledge that Nina had pointed out as a guide, Gretchen calculated that Martha had fallen from a ridge directly above her.
Gretchen’s heart pounded against her chest cavity, and her throat felt tight and dry. She looked down at her feet, searching for signs that she stood where the woman’s body had been discovered, but all she saw were clumps of red rock and a few straggly desert plants.
What if her mother lay injured somewhere up here? Could she be crumpled in the shadows beneath a rock outcropping? Gretchen continued climbing upward, sweeping the binoculars along the far reaches of Camelback until she was satisfied that she’d thoroughly covered the climbable part of the mountain.
She slowly began her descent, pausing again where she thought Martha had fallen.
When she raised the binoculars and spotted a small patch of color in the rocks above her, she thought she’d stumbled across her first sighting of a Gila monster. Her mother had shown her pictures of the venomous reptiles: massive heads and small, beady eyes, with orange, pink, or yellow blotches covering their bodies. She knew they moved sluggishly and couldn’t chase her down the mountain, but she was nervous nevertheless as she edged closer for a better look. And closer. Until she stood a few yards away.
The orange coloring wasn’t the scaly back of a lizard.
She was looking at a French fashion doll’s paisley shawl.
Despite adrenaline pumping through her veins, Caroline fell asleep, a dreamless and heavy retreat from the world. The flight attendant gently placed a hand on her shoulder, startling her awake. “Please return your seat to its original position,” she said quietly. “We’ll be on the ground in a few minutes.”
Groggy and disoriented, Caroline adjusted the seat and noticed for the first time that her bracelet was missing. Her lucky bracelet. Where could it be? She fought back the feeling of panic threatening to overcome her and forced a weak smile. It’s only a bracelet, she thought. You’re getting superstitious in your old age, like Nina.
She wondered what was happening at home right now. Were they hunting for her? Had they searched the house yet? She smiled to herself, feeling stronger and more confident.
No one could match her ability for concealing things. Thanks to her daughter’s inherited competitive nature, their games had been played at a highly skilled level. Scavenger hunts. The traditional Easter basket searches. The challenge, each time, to be better than the last time.
Caroline grinned at the memories.
Let them look. They would never find it.
3
Paris was the birthplace of the first fashion doll. The doll’s attire imitated the leading dress styles of the time. Since middle- and upper-class Parisiennes changed their outfits throughout the day, some fashion dolls came with trunks filled with gowns, ankle boots, tortoiseshell dressing sets, and other accessories.
Because little French girls played with these miniature versions of their mothers, few dolls survived in good condition. Most of the trunks and accessories were lost or destroyed.
A French Bru fashion doll in mint condition, with no cracks or repairs and in original costume, sold on eBay sans trunk. Starting bid: $24,950. An original trunk would have made the doll worth much, much more.
– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch
“Ohh, isn’t it cute,” Nina cooed, holding up the multicolored cotton shawl. It was about the size of a baby’s terry washcloth.
“I wonder what this is worth?” Gretchen said in disbelief. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s in perfect condition except for a tiny bit of ground-in dirt where it must have hit the rocks and settled in. It’s a miracle I found it.”
Nina looked up from admiring the shawl. “A miracle? No. This is a sign. You know that most of my psychic predictions come to me in dreams. Well, last night I dreamed about this very thing.” Nina frowned. “In my dream your mother was the size of a doll and wore the shawl over her shoulders with a dress from this exact historical period. I wonder what the dream means.”
“The problem with your dreams,” Gretchen said, “is that you can’t interpret them. You should take a class on dream analysis.” Preferably one that doesn’t allow dogs in the classroom, Gretchen thought with a watchful eye on Tutu.
Nina scanned a creased photograph lying on the table. “You found this next to the shawl?”
“The shawl must have been in this bag,” Gretchen said, holding up a brown paper lunch bag. “It was lucky that it had fallen out so that the colors caught my eye. The picture was inside the bag, and I almost missed finding it because the bag blended so well with the rocks.”
Gretchen gazed at the photograph. A French fashion doll with startling blue eyes, wearing a green silk gown, smiled serenely up at her from a compartment inside an open doll trunk. A straw hat with a green ribbon and white flowers rested in her arms, and she wore glistening black earrings.
She noted the trunk’s domed shape, its brass-headed tacks, and brass handle.
Nina sat fingering the doll shawl, surrounded by her entourage, Tutu and her latest purse dog trainee. The trainee, a white fluff ball puppy named Rosebud, peered out from a large cloth purse slung over the workshop doorknob. Occasionally it emitted a shrill bark.
“Maltese like this one are so easy to train,” Nina said, leaving the table to give Rosebud a little attention. “Especially little females.” The tone of Nina’s voice curved upward. “Don’t feel jealous, little Tutu. You’re smarter than all of them put together.”
Nina looked at Gretchen. “Everyone thinks they can just buy a little dog and stick it in a purse. They don’t realize it has to be trained to stay there. That’s where I come in. Most of my clients are easy to work with, but Chihuahuas?” Nina shuddered for emphasis. “They’re more like vicious little purse attack dogs. I charge extra for them.”
“Can’t you take time off from dog training?” Gretchen asked. “Considering the circumstances.”
Nina gasped. “I’d lose my clients. I’m in the early, most important stage of my new career. If I started canceling training sessions, word would get around, and no one would come to me anymore. That would be the kiss of death.”
Wobbles, wide-awake after his long nap, was cautiously exploring every corner of the house. He made a brief appearance at the workshop door. Tutu’s ears perked up.
“Watch Tutu,” Gretchen warned Nina, reaching down and hooking a finger through Tutu’s red collar to restrain her. “She’s mesmerized by Wobbles, and she’s licking her lips.”