The Breath of Dawn Read online

“Of course. I’m happy to.” And Livie didn’t seem to mind. She had opened up to her, though not, as Morgan claimed, like a baby duck. No question which adult she was attached to.

  Rick came downstairs and went out, apparently to prepare the horse.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been exposed to this.”

  “I’m tougher than I look.”

  Noelle gave in to a cough. In chain reaction, Liam coughed too. They sounded as bad as they must feel. Happy to help but unsure entirely how, Quinn moved over by Livie. She could almost imagine nothing happened with Morgan, almost pretend she was making friends with Noelle, except she didn’t pretend. She couldn’t afford to.

  Rick came inside, wrapped Liam in a blanket, and carried him out. Through the window, Quinn watched him hoist the boy onto the sturdy buckskin and mount behind him in a single motion. They set out through the falling snow. She hadn’t thought about horses as transportation since reading Western stories as a girl.

  “Do you mind very much if I go to bed?” Noelle rasped.

  “Please do.” Quinn saw her shaking, now that her child required no show of strength. “Can you make it up the stairs?”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  As Noelle left, Livie looked up, her face tender with uncertainty and dismay. Quinn took the little waif in her arms with a rush of emotion that softened her belly. “He’ll be all right, sweetie.”

  Livie gulped back tears, far more aware than Quinn had expected.

  “Hey, we were going to play animals, weren’t we?”

  Livie nodded. Quinn led her over and sat. Instead of going for the ark, Livie settled into her lap, the soft curve of her back fitting snugly. Quinn reached into the wooden boat and brought out a cleverly carved aardvark. Seriously? Whoever made this set had talent and ingenuity.

  “Aar-vark.” Livie took the little animal.

  Quinn made her knee a steady perch. “What does the aardvark say?” Whatever sound Livie gave it would be more than she knew herself.

  Livie looked from the carving to her. “The aar-vark says, ‘Hi, elephant.’”

  Quinn burst out laughing. “Of course.”

  Morgan and the professor came inside, Morgan’s gaze homing in.

  Livie squirmed up and ran to him. “Playammals, Daddy.”

  She must have learned that phrase early and retained its babyish pronunciation while the rest of her diction improved. In no mood for a three-way playgroup, Quinn stood up and turned to the professor. “Should we dive back in?”

  He looked over where she’d laid the envelope. “If you’re up to it.”

  In a choice between Morgan and the grim stories of the asylum, the decision was easy.

  Rick had promised to call as soon as he reached the doctor’s. With her head swirling, Noelle waited and dozed and waited. At last the call came. “You were right,” Rick said. “The little guy’s dehydrated.”

  “His throat hurts too much to swallow.” Her own made a sympathetic response.

  “You need liquids too. Doc said it’s crucial to regulate your fever.”

  “I know.” As an adult she could force herself to do what Liam resisted.

  “Okay,” Rick sighed. “I have to go hold him for an IV.”

  “Kiss him for me.” She knew Rick would soothe their little guy as well as anyone could. And he was right that this new baby needed her body to cool down, needed oxygen and nutrients in her blood. Please, God.

  She reached for the water bottle beside her bed and took a sip. She envisioned it going straight to the baby and took another. She fought a cough and took a third, then waited. Let it absorb. Let her stomach receive it.

  At the tap on the door, she turned her head, expecting Morgan, but it was Quinn.

  “I brought you some tea, if you can tolerate it.”

  “You’re a godsend.” Noelle rose to an elbow in the bed and took the mug. This woman she barely knew had graciously slipped into the situation and not only tolerated but took initiative, receiving the hospitality they’d offered her and looking for ways to bless them back.

  Not beating a hasty retreat, Quinn stood for a moment, hesitant.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “You won’t.” Noelle motioned to the chair.

  Instead of sitting, Quinn folded her arms. “Morgan asked me to marry him.”

  “He what?” Noelle stared at her over the steam rising, certain she’d heard wrong.

  “I asked for help with something, and he needs a maid and cook. So he proposed. If you can call it that.” Quinn jammed her fingers into her hair, trying to look stern but only managing distressed. “You might have mentioned he’s crazy.”

  “He’s not crazy.” She moistened her throat with the hot tea, then setting down the mug, rose a little higher in the bed. She didn’t want to say more than Morgan might be comfortable with, but this was more than odd, and Quinn looked troubled. “He’s waking up. But it’s like a foot that’s gone to sleep. There’s pain and awkwardness and uncertainty whether it will hold weight and function.”

  And as Rick said, “If he’s been numb and it starts to hurt . . .” She reached up and touched Quinn’s hand. “I don’t know what you asked. But with Morgan, if you ask, he’ll try to do it.”

  “By any means?”

  “Within his personal parameters. He’s not exactly conventional.”

  Quinn took that in without comment, then nodded. “I’ll let you rest.”

  Pausing midsentence in his conversation with Dr. Jenkins, Morgan watched Quinn come down from Noelle’s room. He hadn’t realized she might have developed feelings for him until he saw her reaction to his pitch. The concept had formed easily and immediately, though maybe he should have thought it through before presentation.

  He wouldn’t have entered a boardroom without considering every aspect. Even so, CEOs didn’t usually care for the fix until, little by little, they realized the benefit and accepted the conditions. Professionally, he shared the risk and reward of each solution. This was no different.

  She’d asked him for something illegal; he’d offered an alternative. And she told him what she thought of him—an antisocial genius who could only seem human so long. It had been a knee-jerk reaction he didn’t take personally. In fact, he rather admired her spunk. Looking at her now, it was clear any comment would make the situation worse, so he said nothing.

  She addressed the professor. “Noelle said there’s less drifting under the trees. Think we could make it to Vera’s on foot?”

  The academic’s face was pure indulgence. “Let’s try,” he said.

  Morgan stretched out his legs. “We can’t dawdle. It’s almost time for Livie’s nap.”

  Quinn half turned. “The professor and I could just go, if you need to take care of things here.” She waved a hand toward Livie.

  Such a nice dismissal, but he rose. “Want to go for a walk, Liv?” He dug her out of the couch-cushion choo-choo and got her coat from the closet.

  Sighing, Quinn donned her own coat as he lifted Livie into the pack, slid his arms through the straps, and buckled the cinch strap. Quinn and the professor went out the door and he followed.

  The snow wasn’t as deep beneath the trees, but it also wasn’t melting as in the sunny stretches. It was thick, fluffy powder that breezes wafted from the tree branches in sugary cascades. Kicking through it, he replayed their conversation.

  He offered her a job. She asked for a new name. He suggested his, no strings attached beyond the aforementioned occupation. While unconventional, it wasn’t as insulting as she made out.

  She had searched him online and had some understanding of his station. There’d be a prenup if she took his offer, but she hadn’t even asked for money. She’d offered to work for nothing in return for his crime.

  That didn’t mean the opportunity wouldn’t sink in. She was shrewd enough to realize the upside. And his upside? Besides the facts that Livie had taken to her and Quinn could cook, she
had a good work ethic. She was easy on the eyes. She had a sense of humor—not at the moment, but in general. He enjoyed her and wanted to help. And he didn’t want her to run.

  Watching her and the professor, laughing as they high-stepped through the snow, he felt the rich timbre of her voice carrying in the woods. While her situation might be serious, if she were terrified, she’d have taken the offer. Since she seemed less frightened for her life at the moment, they might have time to work into it, or come up with something else—an oddly disappointing thought.

  “Let me down, Daddy. Want to walk.”

  He removed Livie from the pack and let her tramp through the trail the other two cut, helping her over areas still drifted. He’d been feeling Quinn out as much as anything, gauging the threat level. He’d learn what else he could about Markham Wilder from Anselm, and about Quinn herself. Hopefully she’d get past her irritation long enough to at least consider his offer.

  Quinn waited as Morgan produced the house key, then opened and held the door. Electricity that wasn’t purely static snapped when he touched her arm, extending the cabinet’s skeleton key in his open palm. A lump filled her throat, remembering the last time they’d done this. She’d been so excited, and he’d seemed warm and real and connected.

  “He’s waking up, and there’s pain and awkwardness and uncertainty.”

  No one could apply uncertainty to Morgan Spencer. He knew exactly what he was doing, all the time. She took the key.

  In the kitchen the professor examined the cabinet. “I can’t believe I missed this.”

  “It wasn’t up here,” she told him. “It was all the way at the end of the cellar.”

  He peered through the glass panes. “I see why it intrigued you.”

  “I was planning to sell the medicine bottles, before I knew what they were. Then Morgan bought it intact to keep in the kitchen.” She unlocked the cabinet and opened the creaking doors.

  Dr. Jenkins removed an ampule and studied it. “That is LSD. It was administered on small squares of blotting paper. There’s actually art devoted to the blotting paper design.”

  Shaking her head, she reached in to a lower shelf and drew out some larger bottles, one labeled morphine and others that held powders and pills with no labels and looked much older. “This is what I was hoping for. Just old . . . whatever it is.”

  Dr. Jenkins said, “I wonder if this cabinet didn’t stand right here once.” He rocked his foot on the popping linoleum. “This room was part of the asylum.”

  She blinked. “I hadn’t realized.”

  “It was, I believe, an examination room, also possibly a treatment area.”

  “And the cellar?” She glanced at the unobstructed door behind the hutch still angled out from her last trip down when Morgan’s panic frightened and touched her.

  “Not a dungeon, I think. Most likely storage and equipment.” He turned. “Should we go down?”

  “Why?”

  “I wouldn’t mind another look.” Something sparkled in his eyes. “It might convince us both our imaginations got carried away.”

  Her heart started to thump. “Morgan has Livie.” The child was prancing in the living room, listening to her own hollow footsteps. No way was that baby going down those stairs.

  “Go ahead,” Morgan said. “I’ll stay up here with her.”

  She cast him a glance. She’d met him in this house. It had been his idea to explore the basement, his arm she’d clung to. They’d laughed; they’d cringed. From that first encounter, hardly a day had passed she didn’t think of him. Silly, naïve fool.

  She turned to the professor. “Ready if you are.”

  As she opened the door, Morgan said, “You’ll want a light.”

  Morgan Spencer, covering the details. From the pantry, she took out the camp lantern and illuminated stairs that now bore countless footprints and few cobwebs. The railing was icy cold, as though the heat of the house had no power over it. She let go and marched down.

  At the bottom, she noticed more of a change than she thought she’d accomplished. In the midst of the work it had seemed never ending, but after being away for a while, her progress showed. The professor joined her. Upstairs, Morgan closed the door, probably to keep Livie from getting curious, but still she shivered.

  Dr. Jenkins took the cellar in. “Ah,” he said, his glance falling on a shackled bed.

  “Was that restraint necessary?”

  “Who knows. Before effective medications, patients could be violent to themselves and others. In a dormitory situation, preventing injury probably came first.”

  She couldn’t bear the thought of patients writhing as forces inside fought the shackles holding them down. She turned toward the darkened end of the cellar. “The electroshock apparatus is over there.” She really didn’t want to see it again—too Frankenstein—so she handed him the lantern, then realized if she didn’t follow she’d be standing in the dark. Bracing her shoulders, she walked behind him through the detritus she had not yet organized.

  He stopped beside the electrical generator with cords reaching to a metal band lying on the narrow pallet. Her insides shrank in as she imagined cries and whimpers. It almost seemed she heard them. “Why is this so horrifying?”

  “Because it suggests torture.”

  A chill traced the bones of her spine. Morgan had said it wasn’t Auschwitz. He was right. The intention wasn’t to cause but rather relieve suffering. Without consciously willing it, she reached out and touched the pallet. “You say it works?”

  “It can.”

  She drew a long breath and nodded. But as she turned away, a sense of malevolence choked her. As a child, she’d been told to stand against evil but had equated it with the wrongdoings of worldly people. This was no person, but a force. She breathed, “Jesus.”

  The oppression lessened, and even the darkness seemed lighter. She shot a glance at the professor where he stood eyeing the old boiler. Her throat felt raw. Maybe she was getting sick. Or else something evil had stripped her voice. Jesus, Lord. “Dr. Jenkins?” The words came clearly.

  He turned, seemingly undisturbed, and said, “That boiler’s a period piece.”

  She nodded.

  “Are you all right?” He tipped his head, concerned.

  “Did you feel something creepy?”

  He looked around her. “Did you?”

  “I . . . um . . . Imagination, I guess.”

  He studied her keenly. “Can you describe it?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  He seemed hesitant to let it go.

  She rasped, “What?”

  “You haven’t read them yet, but more than a few of the anecdotes involve an evil presence. A ghost, perhaps.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Well, the individual who died in the fire . . .” His brow furrowed. “Some claimed she was possessed.”

  Quinn clamped her hands to her ears. It wasn’t the professor’s voice she blocked, but the whisper of laughter. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Of course.” He took her elbow. “I’m sorry to have frightened you.”

  “It’s not you.” A chill like a deep freeze caused a bone-deep shudder. She half ran to the foot of the stairs and charged up and into the kitchen. When the professor joined her, she closed the door and said, “Help me push this.”

  Straining, they shoved the hutch back against the wall. Chest heaving, she moved into the sunlit living room, where Morgan stood with Livie making echoes. Forcing a calm she didn’t feel, she said, “We need to go.”

  “Okay. Everything all right?”

  No, but she couldn’t say so in front of Livie. Morgan glanced at the professor when she hurried to the door. The walk back was no stroll. She felt a serious need to flee.

  Back at the ranch, she saw Rick running the plow. He must have brought Liam home and gotten to work, since there was a good portion of the drive cleared already. She went to the cabin she’d used, stripped the bed and got th
e towel, put them with Noelle’s things into the bag, and hauled it all to the house. She offered to run the wash, but Noelle said no. Friends could cook but not do her laundry.

  Still shaken by whatever had happened in the cellar, she used the snow shovel to finish digging out her truck. She needed distance and a chance to think. Nothing that creepy had ever happened before—except maybe with Markham. At times there’d been a vacancy in his eyes that something else moved behind.

  “Quinn?”

  She turned.

  Morgan joined her at the truck. “Want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “You can’t live there.”

  “What are you talking about?” he said. “What happened?”

  Eyes shut, she shook her head. He’d think her the crazy one.

  He touched her shoulder. “You’ve spooked yourself. The professor said those stories—”

  “It’s not the stories.” She stared into his face. “There’s something there. I sort of felt it before. This time—”

  He didn’t laugh, didn’t scoff. “Go on.”

  “Do you remember your panic attack?”

  “I’m not likely to forget.”

  “Could it be—” She squeezed the handle of the shovel. “Was it from something down there?”

  “No.” His hand cupped the shoulder more firmly. “Not at all.”

  She drew a ragged breath. “Are you sure?”

  “I had another one yesterday—if you recall.”

  So maybe it hadn’t affected him, but still. “I can’t think of you being there with Livie.”

  “And you, if you take the offer.”

  “No. No way.” Her voice wavered.

  He nodded solemnly. “Is that your final answer?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She rested her chin on the foam-padded shovel handle.

  He lowered his hand to her elbow. “I’m sorry I upset you. Maybe that contributed to something in the cellar.”

  She shook her head. The thing in the cellar was altogether separate. “I’m not upset. Only confused, I guess.”

  “My fault.”

  She wanted to ask if he really didn’t feel anything for her, but that would be too humiliating. “I have to go.”