Finding Laura Read online

  The huge house itself was very Southern, a plantation style more common to the Louisiana river country. Double galleries with six Doric columns on each level extended across the entire front of the main section, while two large wings stretched out to either side. The architectural details of the mansion mixed several periods, from the Doric columns that were classical, through proportions and symmetry that were Greek Revival, and right on into French and baroque touches.

  Laura fell in love with the house immediately, which surprised her. She had never been drawn to places, and though her artist’s eye could appreciate beauty, no other house had ever made her fingers itch to paint it or called out to her soul to come in and explore its many nooks and crannies.

  Not that either was possible, of course. The house hadn’t had its portrait painted since 1840, and during today’s estate sale, the interior of the house was quite firmly off-limits to all but family. There were uniformed guards standing about to make sure no one wandered inside or ventured out into the vast and celebrated gardens of the estate.

  “They’re awfully fussy about having strangers about, considering how much of their business is public,” Laura murmured to Cassidy.

  Bright-eyed with interest, Cassidy nodded. “No kidding. I guess we meekly follow the signs, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  There was a clearly and plainly marked path from where they had been told to park along the wide driveway at the front of the house around the north wing to a rear courtyard near the huge garage that was empty of cars—and filled with the furniture and items that were to be sold. The garage doors were all open, and there were also several long tables set up near the garage, so that all items could be viewed prior to the auction.

  Like everyone else attending, Laura and Cassidy had to stop at a registration table first and present a valid I.D. in order to acquire bidding numbers. With that accomplished, they moved toward the garage, where there were already a couple dozen people moving about even though the auction was still nearly two hours away.

  “It looks like most of the big furniture is at this end,” Cassidy noted as she scanned the area. “The smaller stuff seems to be in that far corner. Listen, since I’m hunting a table for my bedroom and you’re looking for mirrors, why don’t we split up? We can meet back out here where they’ll hold the auction.”

  Laura, who had caught the distant gleam of something shiny, nodded a distracted agreement and angled off to enter the middle garage door in a shortcut that would take her to the far corner. The interior was well lit and, since it was a reasonably cool morning, comfortable. Temporary shelving had been set up in rows at the far end of the garage to hold small items, and it was to that area that Laura was drawn.

  She was virtually alone back there, since most browsers had started at the other end and hadn’t reached this area yet. It was very quiet, auction attendees being serious about their bargain-hunting and tending toward low voices and narrowly focused attention.

  Laura’s attention focused very narrowly. She saw several wall mirrors first, hanging near the garage door in a grouping, and was, as always, drawn to them. She inspected each one, noting only in passing carved and gilded frames that were lovely. Her gaze was drawn to the bright, reflective surfaces of the mirrors. She stood before each one for at least a full minute, looking intently at the reversed image of the room behind her. That was what she scanned searchingly; she never noticed her own reflection, only what lay behind her.

  But whatever it was she hoped to see remained elusive and inexplicable. Sighing, disappointed as always, Laura turned away and began moving along the nearest row of shelves. She saw pretty much what she expected to see, given that an attic and basement had been cleared out after generations of a family had stored away what was broken or disliked. Old vases and figurines, decorative bowls, candlesticks, a pair of nice bronze bookends, several small lamps, ornate picture frames, mechanical clocks, stacks of old books, and so on.

  She walked along slowly, absently noting that some items had been tagged with a price, meaning that the auctioneer would have a floor for the bidding and could not accept less than the tagged price. Other items bore only numbers, for sale to the highest bidder even if that high bid was only a few dollars.

  Laura saw a couple of items she was mildly tempted by, but nothing grabbed her until she reached the last row of shelves. Halfway down the row and on the middle shelf, in a cleared space with nothing near it, was a mirror.

  It was about fifteen inches long and seemed to be made of brass, though the metal was so badly tarnished it was difficult to be sure. The handle bore an intricate, swirling design that was stamped or cut deeply into the brass on both sides, while the nearly heart-shaped mirror was held lovingly between an edging of an even more elaborate pattern. Laura didn’t have to look to know that the back of the mirror would also be stamped with the swirling design; she didn’t recognize it, yet she felt an odd sense of familiarity.

  More than that, she was conscious of a certainty that was immediate and absolute.

  This was the mirror she had looked for all her life. She knew it.

  She felt it.

  Her heart was thudding against her ribs, and Laura saw that her hand was shaking when she reached out slowly to touch the mirror. She merely touched it at first, tracing the complex design stamped into the metal with her index finger. Then, as if the precision of every movement were desperately important, she wrapped her fingers around the handle and lifted the heavy mirror.

  She didn’t realize until she held the mirror before her face that she had closed her eyes. She was afraid to open them. Afraid of what she would see—or not see—when she looked. Afraid, suddenly, to find an answer to the puzzle of her obsession.

  But finally, Laura drew a breath and opened her eyes.

  She saw herself. Red hair and green eyes. A face even more pale than usual. A face that was never quite what she expected to see, somehow. And beyond her face, behind her, were the rows of shelving filled with items, and the square of brightness that was the open garage door.

  Nothing more.

  So. Only half the mystery solved. This was the right mirror, Laura was sure of it. But she still had no idea what it was she expected to see beyond her own reflection. Or if she would ever see it.

  After a long moment, Laura gently returned the mirror to the shelf. She didn’t move away, but stood there gazing down on it, reaching out to touch it lightly again and again, while she waited for the announcement that the auction was about to begin.

  “IT’S UGLY,” CASSIDY said, taking her eyes off the road long enough to glance aside at the mirror held gently in Laura’s lap. “And you got it for five dollars. How good can it be if it costs five dollars?”

  “It won’t be ugly when I polish it,” Laura said. “And you know as well as I do that auctions are great places to find bargains. This mirror is old, Cass. Real old.”

  “Old doesn’t make it beautiful.”

  “You’re just being grumpy because that guy outbid you for the table you wanted.”

  “It was my table,” Cassidy said rather fiercely, her competitive and possessive nature outraged by the loss.

  Laura couldn’t help smiling, however distractedly; she didn’t take her gaze off the mirror in her lap. She still felt as shaken and exhilarated as she had when she’d first seen the mirror, and could hardly wait to get home and polish away years of tarnish. She wanted to see it, to explore the intricate design of the metal, to learn everything she could about it. She could feel something stamped into the brass on the back, numbers or letters set unobtrusively within the intricate design, but due to tarnish and age couldn’t make out what it was.

  There was a nick on the side of the handle, as if the mirror had struck a sharp edge at some point. And a worn spot where many thumbs must have rested over the years. And Laura was certain the original glass part of the mirror had been somehow broken and replaced.

  It could no doubt tell some tales, this mirror,
Laura thought.

  “… then again, I could always just go on talking to myself.”

  Laura blinked, and turned her head to look at her friend. “Oh, sorry.”

  “Never mind.” Cassidy shook her head, her expression wry. “We’re home now.” She was just turning her two-year-old Mazda into the parking lot of the apartment complex where they lived.

  “I’m sorry you lost that table, Cass, really.”

  “Oh, never mind the damned table. I suppose you’ll be drooling over your mirror all afternoon and not be fit for company.”

  “I never drool,” Laura protested mildly. “But as a matter of fact, I thought I’d spend the rest of the day at home.” She didn’t try to defend her desire to close herself away with the mirror, because she knew Cassidy wouldn’t understand. Hell, I don’t understand it myself!

  The two women went into the lobby of their building, waved at the security guard, and went up in the elevator. Cassidy got off on the third floor to go to her apartment, still not in the best of moods and declaring that she was going to order a pizza for lunch and then spend the rest of the afternoon at the pool. Laura continued on to the fourth floor, where her apartment was.

  They had both lived in the building for five years, meeting in the laundry room and hitting it off instantly. Both came from large families they weren’t particularly close to, and with time and space to themselves for the first time in their lives, neither was in any hurry to exchange the single life for couplehood or kids. Cassidy worked in a bank and considered Laura’s job as a commercial artist far more glamorous than her own, while Laura envied Cass her ease with people and her ability to flirt.

  Laura didn’t flirt, and she was by nature a loner. She had always been intense in her emotions, perhaps because she was creative, and that intensity made her wary of any casual relationship. She had friends, of course, but most were acquaintances she saw infrequently, with the exception of Cassidy.

  As for men, in the years since college she had gotten involved with two men seriously enough to contemplate taking them home at Christmas to meet her family. Neither man had made it to the small coastal Georgia town where she had grown up, the relationships faltering and then failing even before the tinsel and lights of downtown Atlanta began to pall on everyone. Laura accepted the blame for the breakups, knowing herself to be moody and emotional around the holidays, but comforted herself with the certainty that someday, someone would sense and understand her peculiar whims and moods.

  Today, however, she just wanted to be alone with her mirror.

  She went into her corner apartment, which was bright and airy due to numerous windows and the southeastern exposure she had requested. The small kitchen was divided from the much larger space of the living room by a breakfast bar with two high stools that took the place of a dining table. There was space for a dining table just beyond the kitchen, but that was occupied by Laura’s drafting table and, sometimes, an easel and stool.

  There was an easel there now, holding a half-finished painting that was Laura’s latest attempt to discover whether or not she could really paint and make her living that way instead of working on ad layouts and the like. The verdict on this attempt was no, a conclusion Laura had dismally reached a couple of days ago. Whatever spark it took to inflame the creative soul of an artist was lacking in Laura. For now, at least. But she refused to give up. Someday …

  To the right of the living room, beside the doorway that led to the short hall and two bedrooms of the apartment, Laura’s collection of hand mirrors was displayed, some on a set of freestanding shelves and some artfully arranged on the wall above it. It was a varied collection, with mirrors fashioned from brass, silver and silver plate, copper, pewter, and two from gleaming wood. They ranged in size from hardly more than palm sized to nearly twenty inches long, and the mirrors themselves were formed in nearly every possible shape. There was even one small triangular mirror set in wrought iron.

  Laura didn’t even glance toward them.

  She went into the living room, dropping her shoulder bag onto the comfortable overstuffed chair and pausing only long enough to set the mirror carefully on the polished wood of her coffee table before going in search of what she would need to clean her prize.

  IT WAS AFTER five o’clock that evening when the security guard downstairs called up to tell Laura that she had a visitor.

  “Who is it, Larry?”

  “It’s Mr. Peter Kilbourne, Miss Sutherland,” the guard replied, unaware of the shock he was delivering. “He says it’s in reference to the mirror you bought today.”

  For just an instant, Laura was conscious of nothing except an overwhelming urge to grab her mirror and run. It was nothing she could explain, but the panic was so real that Laura went ice-cold with it. Thankfully, the reaction was short-lived, since her rational mind demanded to know why on earth she felt so threatened. After all, she had bought the mirror legally, and no one had the right to take it away from her. Not even Peter Kilbourne.

  Trying to shake off uneasiness, she said, “Thank you, Larry. Send him up, please.”

  She found her shoes and stepped into them, and absently smoothed a few strands of hair that had escaped from the long braid hanging down her back, but Laura didn’t think or worry too much about how she looked. Instead, as she waited for her unexpected visitor, she stood near the couch and kept glancing at the mirror lying on several layers of newspaper on the coffee table.

  It looked now, after hours of hard work, like an entirely different mirror. The rich, warm, reddish gold color of old brass gleamed now, and the elaborate pattern stamped into the metal, a shade darker, showed up vividly. It was a curious pattern, not floral as with most of the mirrors she had found, but rather a swirling series of loops and curves that were, Laura had discovered, actually made up of one continuous line—rather like a maze.

  It was around the center of this maze that Laura had discovered the numbers or letters stamped into the brass, but since she hadn’t yet finished polishing the back, she still didn’t know what, if anything, the writing signified.

  A quiet knock at her door recalled her thoughts, and Laura mentally braced herself as she went to greet her visitor. She had no particular image in her mind of Peter Kilbourne, but she certainly didn’t expect to open her door to the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

  It was an actual, physical shock to see him, she realized dimly, a stab of the same astonishment one would feel if a statue of masculine perfection suddenly breathed and smiled. He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome—and more. Much more. Black hair, pale blue eyes, a flashing smile. Perfect features. And his charm was an almost visible thing, somehow, obvious even before he spoke in a deep, warm voice.

  “Miss Sutherland? I’m Peter Kilbourne.”

  A voice to break hearts.

  Laura gathered her wits and stepped back, opening the door wider to admit him. “Come in.” She thought he was about her own age, maybe a year or two older.

  He came into the apartment and into the living room, taking in his surroundings quickly but thoroughly, and clearly taking note of the mirror on the coffee table. His gaze might have widened a bit when it fell on her collection of mirrors, but Laura couldn’t be sure, and when he turned to face her, he was smiling with every ounce of his charm.

  It was unsettling how instantly and powerfully she was affected by that magnetism. Laura had never considered herself vulnerable to charming men, but she knew without doubt that this one would be difficult to resist—whatever it was he wanted of her. Too uneasy to sit down or invite him to, Laura merely stood with one hand on the back of a chair and eyed him with what she hoped was a faint, polite smile.

  If Peter Kilbourne thought she was being ungracious by not inviting him to sit down, he didn’t show it. He gestured slightly toward the coffee table and said, “I see you’ve been hard at work, Miss Sutherland.”

  She managed a shrug. “It was badly tarnished. I wanted to get a better look at the pattern.�
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  He nodded, his gaze tracking past her briefly to once again note the collection of mirrors near the hallway. “You have quite a collection. Have you … always collected mirrors?”

  It struck her as an odd question somehow, perhaps because there was something hesitant in his tone, something a bit surprised in his eyes. But Laura replied truthfully despite another stab of uneasiness. “Since I was a child, actually. So you can see why I bought that one today at the auction.”

  “Yes.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks, sweeping open his suit jacket as he did so in a pose that might have been studied or merely relaxed. “Miss Sutherland—look, do you mind if I call you Laura?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Thank you.” He nodded gravely, a faint glint of amusement in his eyes recognizing her reluctance. “I’m Peter.”

  She nodded in turn, but didn’t speak.

  “Laura, would you be interested in selling the mirror back to me? At a profit, naturally.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was shaking her head even before he finished speaking. “I don’t want to sell the mirror.”

  “I’ll give you a hundred for it.”

  Laura blinked in surprise, but again shook her head. “I’m not interested in making money, Mr. Kilbourne—”

  “Peter.”

  A little impatiently, she said, “All right—Peter. I don’t want to sell the mirror. And I did buy it legitimately.”

  “No one’s saying you didn’t, Laura,” he soothed. “And you aren’t to blame for my mistake, certainly. Look, the truth is that the mirror shouldn’t have been put up for auction. It’s been in my family a long time, and we’d like to have it back. Five hundred.”

  Not a bad profit on a five-dollar purchase. She drew a breath and spoke slowly. “No. I’m sorry, I really am, but … I’ve been looking for this—for a mirror like this—for a long time. To add to my collection. I’m not interested in making money, so please don’t bother to raise your offer. Even five thousand wouldn’t make a difference.”