She lowered the telescope a few degrees. She used averted vision, looking out of the corner of her eye, the best way to see faint objects in the sky. The greenish-gray rings came into view. She blinked hard. Part of her wanted to look away, another part wouldn’t let her. Staring into space, it looked exactly as it had twenty years ago. It even felt the same. Cold. Lonely. The memories were flooding back. The Ring Nebula had opened a window to her past. She could see an eight-year-old girl shivering with fear as she climbed the shelves in her bedroom closet, reaching for the attic that would be her escape…
The ceiling panel popped open easily, quietly. She pushed it up and to the side, opening her passage to the attic. The trapped air felt hot, heavy. With one last boost she was in.
The flashlight pointed the way. She remembered from the last time, when she and her friends had been playing, that another entrance panel was just a few feet away. That one led to the spare bedroom across the hall. On hands and knees she crawled across the rafters, taking care not to drop the flashlight.
She stopped when she reached the other panel, lifted it with one hand, and looked down from the attic. The closet was exactly like hers — a clothes rod on one side, built-in shelves on the other. She tucked the flashlight back under her chin and climbed down, again using the shelves as a ladder. When she reached the bottom, she crouched into a ball and took a minute to orient herself. If there was an intruder in the house, he might not find her here. She could just stay put, hide out. But the thought again crossed her mind — what if Mom needed her? What if she was hurt?
She rose slowly. She had to go out there. And she couldn’t take the flashlight. If someone was in the darkness, it would give her away like the North Star in the night sky.
She switched off the flashlight and opened the closet door. The hall was just a few steps away, beyond the bedroom door. She covered them quietly, then peered down the hallway. She saw nothing. She waited a few seconds. Still nothing. Her heart was in her throat as she stepped from the safety of the spare bedroom.
Her mother’s room was upstairs, like Amy’s, but on the opposite end of the house. It was dark, but Amy found her way. She was relying more on memory than her sense of sight. She could hear the oscillating fan in her mother’s bedroom. She was getting close. She stopped at the doorway. The door was open just a foot. Amy took another step and peeked inside.
The lights were out, but the streetlight on the corner gave the room a faint yellow cast. Everything looked normal. The TV on the stand. The big mirror over the bureau. Her eyes drifted toward the bed. It was a mound of covers. Amy couldn’t really make out her mother’s shape. But she saw the hand. It was hanging limply over the edge of the bed. A sleep far deeper than Amy had ever seen.
“Mom?” she said with trepidation.
There was no answer.
She said it again. “Mom. Are you okay?”
“Mom, Mom!”
The sound of Taylor’s voice roused her from her memories.
“Mommy, let me look!” Taylor was yanking on her arm, climbing up to the telescope.
Amy stepped back and hugged her tight.
Her daughter wiggled away. “I wanna see.”
Amy turned the scope away from the Ring Nebula, away from her past. She trained it downward, pointing toward the Fleming Law Building, just a little farther south on campus. The lights were still burning in the library. Probably someone from the law review. She lifted Taylor up to look.
“That’s where Mommy will go to law school in September.”
“Do you get to look through telly scopes?”
“No. Not in law school.”
“Then why do you want to go there?”
She struggled with the lump in her throat. “Let’s go home now, Taylor.”
They were on the road by ten-thirty, but Taylor was asleep in her car seat before they’d left campus. By day, a drive on U.S. 36 offered magnificent views of Flagstaff Mountain and the Flat Irons, the much-photographed reddish-brown sandstone formations that marked the abrupt border between the plains and the mountains. At night, it was just another dark place to be alone with your thoughts and worries.
Tonight, money was on her mind.
She parked her truck in the usual spot and carried her sleeping beauty up to the apartment. She entered quietly and took Taylor straight to her room. It was a little dream world for both of them. Amy had painted the ceiling with stars and moons. The colors, however, had been selected by Taylor. They had the only planetarium in the world with a Crayola-pink sky.
Amy did the best she could to remove the shoes and get Taylor into pajamas without waking her. She kissed her good night, then switched out the light and quietly closed the door.
It had been a good night, mostly. Overall, the visit to the observatory had only raised her hopes that Ryan Duffy would come through. If the money were legitimate, she could say goodbye to law school and go back where she belonged.
Money — the need for it — would no longer be her trumped-up excuse to run from the demons that lurked in the sky she had loved since childhood.
17
The money was burning. But only in his mind.
The metal suitcase full of cash was heavier than Ryan had expected. He’d carried it down the ladder, then down the stairs. He’d moved so quickly that the flame in the fireplace was still going strong when he returned. He dropped to his knees right at the hearth, unzipped the bag, and jerked back the metal screen. His hand shook as he reached for the money. He was determined to go through with it. And then he froze.
Two million dollars.
Both the heat and nerves had him dripping with sweat. Still on his knees, he looked back and forth from the money to the flame as he weighed his decision. It was making him crazy. It was making them all crazy. His father had been dead less than a week. His wife was clawing at his throat for a huge divorce settlement, spurred on by his father’s dying words. His greedy brother-in-law was threatening to beat up his pregnant sister, prompting Ryan to torch the equivalent of a month’s salary. And some mysterious woman claimed his father might have sent her as much as two hundred thousand dollars for no reason at all. The money was evil, no question about it. Burning it was the right thing to do.
He grabbed a stack of bills and held it over the fire. His brain commanded him to drop it, but the hand wouldn’t listen. Or maybe it was the heart. He just couldn’t.
His eyes closed in shame and anguish. He’d never felt the power of money. He’d never felt so weak.
A sudden noise roused him from his thoughts. It had come from outside. He jumped up from his knees and hurried to the window. In the darkness, he saw Brent’s Buick coming up the driveway.
He’s back.
Ryan turned away in panic. The money. He had to hide the money. He grabbed the suitcase and paused for a split second, searching in his mind for a good place to stash it. He heard a car door slam. No time to spare. He stuffed it under the couch. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fire still burning. The money should have gone with it — which gave him an idea. He grabbed the newspaper from the couch and pitched it into the fire. It burned immediately, leaving the flaky residue of burned paper. It could pass for burned money. Not many people were crazy enough to know what burned money actually looked like.
Ryan stiffened, thinking through the possibilities. It wasn’t likely that Brent would come back to talk. It wasn’t likely he’d sobered up. He was probably even more drunk, more fired up. He’d be looking for the money. He would have come back only for a showdown. Ryan didn’t own a gun, but his father had. Ryan had inventoried everything in the estate. He knew where everything was, right down to the last two million dollars. Down to the last thirty-eight-caliber bullet.