Shaken by what might have happened, Amanda sank down on the rug and put her arms around the dog. If she’d lost him, too...
It seemed an eternity until the doorbell rang. She peered out the side window. Reassured by the sight of the uniforms, she opened the door.
Much ado about nothing, she told herself a half hour later, when she closed the door behind them again. One of them had been obliging enough to help her tape cardboard in place over the broken panes and sweep up the broken glass while the other filled out a report.
Their attitude said she’d been lucky. Nothing missing and only minor damage that her insurance would most likely cover. With a parting admonition to use the alarm system at all times, they’d gone.
“So that’s it,” she told Barney. “Let’s see how bad the damage was to the painting.”
He woofed as if he understood and followed her back to the den. Amanda shivered a little when she paused inside the door. This room, at least, wouldn’t feel like a refuge again for a time. While Barney nosed around the broken frame, Amanda lifted the painting gingerly. She turned it over and let out a sigh of relief. The only damage was to the frame.
Odd, that the thief had gone straight to the painting. A burglar would probably look for expensive electronics, rather than a painting. Unless he’d thought it hid a safe. Or perhaps the thief knew whose house this was and had some idea of the value of a Juliet Curtiss painting.
Amanda smoothed the canvas out flat, trying to look at it as if for the first time, but it had become so much a part of the surroundings that it was impossible. The falls were very realistic, as was the dark water at the base and the jagged rocks that interrupted the water’s flow. A little shiver went through her. She’d always found the tone of the picture rather ominous. Her mother must have loved it, since it had pride of place in the room where they usually spent the evenings. But there had been times when she’d regarded it broodingly, her face set, maybe dissatisfied with her own work.
Amanda started to put the painting on the side table until she could arrange to have it reframed, but something on the back caught her eye. Along the bottom, in her mother’s impeccable printing, ran a tiny line of text, so tiny she had to carry the painting to the lamp to make it out.
In memoriam. M, April, 1989. Echo Falls. Too young to die.
It was the date that jolted Amanda: 1989. She’d been born on February 10, 1989. If that date, at least, was true.
Amanda sank into the desk chair, studying the face of the painting, then turning it again to read the words on the back. It was too much of a coincidence. Or was she thinking that only because of the shocks she’d had?
No. She couldn’t buy that. It had to mean something. She had no idea where Echo Falls might be, or who M had been. But she intended to find out.
* * *
IF SHE WERE PUNCTUAL, the new client should be showing up in the next few minutes. Theodore Alter, Trey to his friends, straightened his tie and prepared for the novelty of a new client. New clients had been thin on the ground for the firm of Alter and Glassman since the scandal broke involving the former head of the law practice. He wanted to make sure this one didn’t slip through his fingers.
Unfortunately, he had no idea what Ms. Amanda Curtiss of Boston wanted with an attorney in tiny Echo Falls, Pennsylvania. The contact had been made by someone he’d met at a conference last year. He and Robert McKinley had sat and talked one evening, exchanged business cards and parted, sure they’d never see each other again. Until his call came out of the blue.
McKinley had been downright evasive on the phone when he’d set up this appointment. It was the sort of approach Trey might have instinctively refused back in the day when they’d had more business than they could handle. Not now. He could only hope this Amanda Curtiss wasn’t a nutcase.
The intercom buzzed, and he stood as the door opened. “Ms. Curtiss, Mr. Alter,” Evelyn Lincoln, their office manager, murmured.
She closed the door discreetly, and Trey had a moment to assess the woman who came toward him. Slim, average height, with blond hair pulled back in a tie at her nape and intensely blue eyes that were looking him over, as well. And perhaps a bit disapprovingly. He had a quick impression of expensive casual clothes and an assured manner before they were shaking hands and murmuring conventional greetings.
“I see you brought a friend to our meeting.” Trey nodded to the yellow Lab that followed at the woman’s heels.
“I didn’t want to leave him in the car. Your receptionist said it would be okay if I brought him inside. I hope you don’t dislike dogs.” She sounded as if that would end this meeting in a hurry.
“Not at all.” He held out the back of his hand to the animal. “I hope he likes attorneys.”
“Barney’s quite indiscriminately affectionate.” The tight control she’d been exercising over her expression became evident only when her face relaxed in a smile as she looked at the animal. The dog proved the truth of her words by licking Trey’s hand with enthusiasm.
She took the chair Trey had indicated, and the dog sat obediently next to her. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” The reserve had returned.
“No problem,” he said easily. “Tell me what I can do to help you. Robert McKinley didn’t say much, just that you needed an attorney here in town.”
“Yes.” She frowned, studying him so seriously that he began to wonder if he had something on his face.
When she didn’t continue, he raised an eyebrow. “I’m not what you were looking for?”
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face. “I expected you to be older.”
“Sorry I can’t oblige.” If that sounded flippant, too bad. The woman’s attitude didn’t bode well for their relationship.
But her lips twitched, and she looked human again. “Sorry. I just assumed a friend of Robert’s would be around his age. And this is...rather complicated. I’m not sure you can help me.”
“We’ll never know unless you tell me what it’s about, will we?”
Amanda Curtiss was actually quite attractive when she relaxed her guard for a moment, with those mobile lips and long, slim legs. Not that he ought to be noticing anything of the kind about a client. Oddly enough, there was something vaguely familiar in the oval face and regular features, but he couldn’t place it.
“No.” She paused, as if not sure how to begin. “This situation arose when my mother died a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Maybe that explained the air she had of holding a tight guard on her emotions.
Amanda nodded, accepting the words of condolence. She’d probably heard them often recently. She couldn’t be more than about thirty herself, so her mother had apparently died young.
“She had been caught in the cross fire of what the police thought was gang violence. In the course of the postmortem, it was determined that she’d never given birth to a child.” She met his gaze briefly and then looked away. “Robert and I assumed I was adopted, but we couldn’t find adoption papers anywhere. He’s started a search through court records, but without knowing where or when, it seems impossible to trace.”
Trey tried to imagine himself in that situation and ran up against a blank wall. He couldn’t even begin to think what it must be like. His family roots went deep here in Echo Falls, where everyone knew everything going back several generations. “But you must have a birth certificate.”
“I have a baptismal certificate from a church outside Boston that appears genuine, but that’s when I was three. What we thought