But they did. She’d been a complete and utter fool, prey to the oldest con in the world, and she didn’t grieve the loss of her great aunt’s famous diamonds nearly as much as she grieved the loss of her heart, her soul.
“Miss Morrissey, may I do something for you?” The man suddenly sounded concerned. She must have looked like she was about to faint on his polished marble floor, she thought grimly.
“Just give me my passport. I have to leave.”
“But you’re paid up through tomorrow.”
And who knew if the credit card was real? It almost certainly wasn’t, and she’d end up in jail until she could get through to her father to cover the bill. That was one conversation she wasn’t going to have. She summoned a calm smile. “And it’s been lovely, but I really must leave. There’s been a family emergency.”
“I am sorry to hear that, Miss Morrissey,” he murmured, all polite manners since he’d discovered which room she’d used. He was rifling through something, and belatedly Evangeline remembered how things worked in the US. He probably hadn’t even run the credit card yet, waiting for any last minute room charges, and he would call the police . . .
“Here it is,” he announced, her battered blue passport in his hand. “We hope you will return to the Danieli, Miss Morrissey, you and Monsieur Boussan.”
Monsieur, he’d said. So presumably the passport he’d handed him was a French one, and he was no more French than she was. Out of the deepest, darkest part of her she managed to produce a tired smile.
“I doubt it,” she said. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.”
“We will always be at your service. May we call you a water taxi? Our own launch to take you to the airport?”
She shook her head. The sooner she got away from them the better. “I have things to do in the city. I’ll take the vaporetto.”
“As you wish, miss.”
She’d thought that she could find an empty spot in the vaporetto, duck her head, and cry. She didn’t. She stayed dry-eyed and calm, through the interminable wait at the airport for the next empty seat. Through the short flight to Berlin and then the overseas flight to Boston. She didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, she just sat utterly still, utterly calm. If the authorities had the ability to recognize a human time bomb, they would have isolated her.
She reached her tiny house running on coffee and fumes. It smelled musty from being closed up for so long, and she moved across the living room like a zombie, opening the window to let in the muggy air. She turned and saw the beautiful copy of the David her parents had given her for her birthday. She picked it up and hurled it across the room, smashing it into pieces.
She went through the place methodically—the living room, tiny bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. She broke everything she could find, she threw things, ripped things, smashed things, yanked her bookcases over, ripped her clothes out of her closet, upended her bed so that the mattress lay haphazardly on the box spring. And when there was nothing left to break, nothing left to destroy, she dropped down on the lopsided mattress and wept.
PART TWO—FIVE YEARS LATER
Chapter Five
Evangeline Morrissey Williamson pulled her battered pickup off to the side of the road, carefully maneuvering the ancient Airstream trailer into a stable position before switching off the motor. Merlin, her German Shepherd, cocked an ear but otherwise stayed up on the bench seat, used to her ways. She leaned her head back and took a few deep breaths, dragging the calm around her. She didn’t want to go back. She’d spent the last three months in the Canadian wilderness, documenting the ruins of the luxurious lodges and railway hotels that had been built well over a hundred years ago, making sketches of what they once must have looked like, serving as an amateur archeologist when she came across shards of dishes, tools, abandoned detritus of a long-vanished lifestyle. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know where she was going next. The Laughing Moose Lodge near Glacier Park in Montana had stopped operating in the 1930s, and very little of it remained, much lost in the encroaching wilderness, and she’d allotted a full two weeks to study it during her sabbatical, with more time available if she needed it.
Changing areas of study had been easier than she’d thought. She’d lost her interest in ancient church architecture. When she’d told her department head and nominal boss, he’d looked at her, appalled. “You have all your research done!” he’d cried. “And you did it on your own dime, not even with a grant. You just have to write something, and we both know that writing comes easy for you. Don’t throw all this work away.”
But she’d been obdurate. She’d wanted to burn her research, but her friend, Pete Williamson, had simply taken the boxes and boxes of papers away from her. He was only five years older than she was, one of the university’s shining stars, and he’d made it his mission to guide her through her new area of study.
The guidance hadn’t been necessary, but she’d appreciated the thought. She’d thrown herself into her new work on ancient Adirondack lodges with complete abandon and eventually gave in and married Pete.
It was supposed to be the perfect marriage. Pete already had a book deal, he was handsome and charming, and half his students, male and female, were in love with him.
She’d always known he was too susceptive to flattery, to adoration, and she had no illusions about his fidelity. He needed that adoration to breathe, like air; she knew he took graduate students to bed during the time he was seeing her, while making her all sorts of promises, but having no illusions meant there were none to be shattered. As mistakes went in her life it was far from her worst one—that last summer in Italy won the prize. The following year, before she married Pete, was in its own way even worse. And after nine months of marriage, she and Pete had parted amicably enough. At the time.
The year before they’d married had been bad. She’d fucked anything in pants, trying to get James Bishop out of her system. It hadn’t worked, but at least marrying Pete had put a stop to that. Once settled into the safety of a seemingly stable relationship, she found she could let go of her past.
She found she could let go of Pete, her safety net, quickly enough as well, and her work, so different from her previous area of study, was enough to finish the rest of her healing. She got grants, a quietly respectable book deal, then a job teaching at a small school in northern Wisconsin, and by the time three years had passed, she’d made a peaceful, if slightly wary, life for herself.
She’d never planned on getting a dog. They were too much trouble and her parents had never let her have one when she was growing up, even though she’d begged. But Merlin had found her, and he wasn’t interested in her doubts. He’d just shown up on campus one day, was fed by everyone from the kitchen staff to the maintenance people to half the students, and wandered around with perfect manners, seemingly at random, until he happened to come across Evangeline walking to class.
He’d followed her. At fi
rst the large dog made her slightly nervous, but he simply kept at her heel, almost like a guard dog, and when she went into class he waited outside, lying down peacefully until the students left and she emerged. And he followed her to the library. To her car.
It took her three days before she began bringing dog treats, telling herself she would toss them to him to drive him away. He’d simply catch the treat midair and continue to follow her. She held out eight days before she let him in the car.
“This is a short-term thing,” she’d advised him as he sat beside her, panting cheerfully. “Just till I find you a good home.”