Key of Valor
Page 33

“He did. So did Zoe. Did you hear what she said the other day? She’s never lain in a hammock?” His face clouded as he took his coffee back from Flynn. “How can somebody go their whole life and never lie in a hammock?”
“And now you want to buy her one so she can lie in it,” Flynn decided.
“I guess I do.”
“Which makes you, let’s see”—Jordan stared at the ceiling—“oh, yes, that would be toast.” Then he sobered. “She’s a terrific woman. She deserves a break, somebody to take some of the weight.”
“Working on it. With your mother, if somebody had come along who was serious about her, would that have bothered you?”
“I don’t know. Nobody ever did—or she didn’t let anybody. I can’t say for sure. I guess it would have depended on who it was, and how he treated her. You that serious?”
“It’s heading that way, for me.”
“That brings us back around,” Flynn commented. “The three of us, the three of them. Pretty damn tidy.”
“Maybe sometimes things are meant to be tidy.”
“I know all about that. I happen to be engaged to the queen of neat. But I think it’s something we have to think about. What part you’re meant to play in this production we’re in,” Flynn stated matter-of-factly.
He let that stew while their sandwiches were served.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Brad said. “It seems to me most of the clue deals with things that happened to her, or things she did before she met me. But those things brought her here. Then if we assume I’m part of it, those same clues could apply to things that happened to me, or things I did, before I met her. Those things brought me back here.”
“Different paths, same destiny.” Jordan nodded. “It’s a theory. Now your paths have crossed.”
“What you do now, that’s a question,” Flynn put in. “But also where. The goddess with a sword indicates a battle.”
“She won’t be fighting it alone,” Brad promised. “The sword’s sheathed in the paintings. In mine it’s sheathed and placed with her in the coffin, and in the one at the Peak it’s sheathed and at her hip.”
“It’s sheathed in the stone in the portrait Rowena did of Arthur, too. The one I bought,” Jordan added.
“She never had a chance to draw it.” Brad brought the image of the still, white face in the painting into his mind. “Maybe we’re supposed to give her that chance.”
“Maybe Malory should take another look at the paintings,” Flynn suggested. “See if she missed anything. I don’t—”
“Hold that thought,” Jordan told him as his cell phone beeped. He flipped it out, smiled at the number on his read-out. “Hey, Stretch.” He lifted his coffee. “Uh-huh. It so happens my associates are with me in my office at the moment. I can do that,” he said after a minute, then tipped the phone away from his ear.
“Meeting, six o’clock, Flynn’s place. I have nods of assent,” he said into the phone. “That works for me. Zoe’s making chili,” he told his friends.
“Tell Dana to tell Zoe I’ll pick her up.”
“Brad says to tell Zoe he’ll pick her up. We were going to swing by and give you guys a hand this afternoon . . . Okay, I’ll just see you at home, then. Oh, hey, Dane? So, what are you wearing?”
He grinned, then shoved the phone back in his pocket. “Must’ve gotten disconnected.”
WHILE the chili was simmering, Zoe spread her notes and papers over the kitchen table. The house was quiet for a change. It was time to take advantage of it.
Maybe she’d tried to be too organized, mimicking Malory’s style. Or she’d depended too much on books, trying to follow Dana’s lead. Why not try impulse and instinct with this task as she did with other projects?
What did she do when she wanted to pick new paint for the walls, or new fabric for curtains? She spread out a bunch of samples and flipped through them until something popped out at her.
And then she knew.
Here she had her own carefully written notes, copies of Malory’s, of Dana’s. She had Jordan’s detailed flow of events, and the photographs Malory had taken of the paintings.
She picked up the notebook she’d bought the day after her first visit to Warrior’s Peak. It didn’t look so shiny and new now, she thought. It looked used. And maybe that was better.
There was a lot of work inside this notebook, she reminded herself as she flipped pages. A lot of hours, a lot of effort. And that work, those hours, that effort, had helped both Malory and Dana complete their parts of the quest.
Something in here was going to help her complete her part, and finish it.
She opened the notebook at random, and began to read.
Kyna, the warrior, she’d written. Why is she mine? I see Venora, the artist, in Malory, and Niniane, the scribe, in Dana. But how am I a warrior?
I’m a hairdresser. No, hair and skin specialist—must remember to pump that up. I worked for it. I’m a good worker, but that’s not the same as fighting.
Beauty for Malory, knowledge for Dana. Courage for me. Where does the courage come in?
Is it just living? That doesn’t seem like enough.
Considering, Zoe tapped her pencil on the page, then earmarked it by folding down a corner. She flipped through the section until she came to a blank sheet.
Maybe just living is enough. Didn’t Malory have to choose to live in the real world—sacrificing something of beauty, and Dana had to learn to see the truth, and live with it? Those were essential steps in their quests.
What’s mine?
She began to write quickly now, trying to see the pattern, trying to form one. As the ideas and possibilities clicked in her mind, she wore her pencil down, tossed it aside, and reached for another.
When that went dull, she pushed away from the table to take the pencils to the sharpener.
Satisfied with the points, she stuck one behind each ear and turned to the stove to stir the chili and think.
Maybe she was on the right track, maybe she wasn’t—and she sure as hell couldn’t see the end of the road. But she was moving somewhere, and that was important.
With her mind wandering, she lifted the spoon to taste, then stared at the dull reflection in the range hood.