“I started having nightmares about being chased,” Karen said.

“I couldn’t tell who it was,” she added, “but there was this face.” She tapped the photo of her vase again. “I woke up in such a panic that I…” She swallowed. “I’d never felt a fear like that. I did the first vase in an attempt to get rid of the nightmare. I never expected to sell it—or that it would be the start of dozens of others.”

“Any idea what the dream meant?” Mason asked.

She frowned. “You mean, like an interpretation?”

“Sure. Remember that the Bible is full of dreams and visions, and most meant something significant.” Mason paused and shoved his hands into his pockets, a little puzzled by his own words. Where had that come from? He knew the Bible, but not much beyond a childhood Sunday-school level. “What if your memory is picking up on someone you really know and plopping it on those vases?” he asked.

Karen turned to him. “It can’t be.”

“Why not?” If her dreams were a memory trying to work its way out, this was the logical response, the only response. He swallowed hard, dropping his voice. “Karen, has anyone ever tried to kill you?”

Karen’s eyes met his, evenly, solidly. “Yes.”

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RAMONA RICHARDS

A writer and editor since 1975, Ramona Richards has worked on staff with a number of publishers. Ramona has also freelanced with more than twenty magazine and book publishers and has won awards for both her fiction and nonfiction. She’s written everything from sales training video scripts to book reviews, and her latest articles have appeared in Today’s Christian Woman, College Bound and Special Ed Today. She sold a story about her daughter to Chicken Soup for the Caregiver’s Soul, and Secrets of Confidence, a book of devotionals, is available from Barbour Publishing.

In 2004, the God Allows U-Turns Foundation, in conjunction with the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA), chose Ramona for their “Strength of Choice” award, and in 2003, AWSA nominated Ramona for Best Fiction Editor of the Year. The Evangelical Press Association presented her with an award for reporting in 2003, and in 1989 she won the Bronze Award for Best Original Dramatic Screenplay at the Houston International Film Festival. A member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and the Romance Writers of America, she has five other novels complete or in development.

Ramona and her daughter live in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. She can be reached through her Web site, www.ramonarichards.com.

The Face of Deceit
Ramona Richards

In the morning, O Eternal One, listen for my voice;

in the day’s first light I will offer my prayer to You

and watch expectantly for Your answer.

—Psalms 5:3

To Sunny,

who first put me on a wheel

and let me disappear into the clay.

Your unparalleled friendship is a true blessing.

With special thanks to Vickie C. Martin

and her team at Goodlettsville, Tennessee’s

Scentaments,

for the first drops of inspiration

for Karen’s “face vases.”

“Before you do anything else,

before you center it on the wheel,

before you think about what you’re going to make,

listen to the clay. God created it;

it’s part of His world.

Honor it. Honor Him.

Listen closely.

The clay has a voice. It has a memory.

It will tell you all you need to know.”

—Jake Abernathy

Lessons to a Young Potter, 1989

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

“Not again!”

Karen O’Neill stared at the pottery shards clustered at the base of the open door, a twinge of fear tightening her chest. Her sudden words, although barely more than a whisper, startled the cat in her arms. The gray velvet half-Persian leaped free in a graceful arc over the threshold and disappeared into the hedges bordering the backyard.

“Lacey!” Karen stepped over the remains of the ceramic vase, her sense of fear escalating. “Wait!”

No good. The cat, cooped up all morning as Karen worked in her pottery studio, wasn’t listening. “As if you ever do,” Karen muttered. She quickly scanned her sloping, tree-covered backyard, searching for any signs of danger, any other human presence…any indication of who could have smashed a vase against her back door.

Karen’s own vase, in fact. One of her own unique “face vases,” a design she had first created a few years ago. Slender and marked by a distinctive white face on one side, the vibrantly colored vases had become her artistic trademark. Recently, they had become increasingly popular among galleries and collectors in the Northeast, a trend predicted by art historian Mason DuBroc, who had published an article on them. Mason, intrigued by the vases, had warned Karen that she needed to increase her output, to prepare for growing popularity. “Everyone will love them,” he’d insisted.

Someone, however, had taken a distinct dislike to the vases. A violent dislike.

Around her, the yard remained silent, revealing no clues. The only motion was from the prowling cat and a squirrel annoyed by the Persian’s presence. Even the pink and gold flowers near the door, their heady scent lured out by the warm May sun, showed no indication of a breeze or a passing human. No lurking villains, no suspicious shadows. Peaceful.

Except for the shattered vase. The third vase this month. Karen hadn’t ever heard a crash, making her think the attacker knew when she was in the house and when she was not. As a result, Karen fought a feeling of being stalked. Watched.

She shivered despite the warmth of the spring sun, then scolded herself. You’re just being paranoid. She pushed the thought away and turned back to the door, bending to look closer at the remains of the vase, careful not to touch any of the pieces. Yep, there it was, as with the other two—the scrap of paper, weighted down by one of the larger shards, that read simply, Stop!

“Stop what?” She straightened and stepped over the vase into her basement studio, still talking to herself. “Stop making vases? Stop these vases? Stop pottery altogether?”

Karen froze at the idea, looking around, her gaze moving from her shelves of pottery supplies, to the worktables, to the wheel. She could no more give up pottery than walk on the moon. Pottery wasn’t just something she did. It was her life. It had saved her life.

She took a deep breath. “Lord, give me strength,” she whispered, then headed up the narrow, wrought-iron spiral steps that led from her studio to her living room. Time to call the police. Again.

“Vandalism? That’s it? After three vases!” The barely restrained anger in the dark male voice on the other end of the phone gave Karen an odd sense of comfort. She had been tense when she’d called the police, but now she relaxed as she leaned back against her couch cushions and stretched her legs. Lacey, who’d scratched at the front door to get in almost as soon as Karen had come upstairs, sensed the change in mood. She leaped into Karen’s lap and started kneading one thigh, sharp claws pricking through Karen’s jeans.

Karen stroked Lacey idly, focusing on the voice in the phone. Mason DuBroc had become a good friend over the past few months, since his arrival in town. Well-known in the art community as half art professor and half adventurer, Mason had been the last person she’d expected to find on her doorstep one dreary January morning. Karen had read his articles and books, had followed stories about him in the press. Mason was art world A-list, and she’d reacted as if a Hollywood star had been standing there. She had stared, openmouthed, at the disheveled man, snow clinging to his floppy hat and weathered hiking boots, his questions flying at her faster than she could answer them. Now Karen found herself wondering if his deep brown eyes flashed as much in anger as they did in excitement.

“There’s not much else the local police can do, Mason. The Stop! isn’t really a threat, and they couldn’t find any fingerprints. They consider it in the same way they would if someone had spray-painted the house.”

A low growl echoed through the phone, and with each word, Mason’s Cajun accent thickened. “But this isn’t a prank. They didn’t spray-paint the house. They destroyed art! Your art! Don’t they think someone’s watching you?”

Karen closed her eyes and curled her fingers in Lacey’s fur. She didn’t really want to face that possibility. “They are going to patrol the neighborhood more often, but with the woods that start at the edge of the yard and go for miles, there’s not much they can do. They only have five patrol officers.”

“Almost wish I wasn’t in New York. Maybe you should stay—”

“I’m not going back to Aunt Evie’s, Mason.” A touch of Karen’s tension returned. “We talked about this the first time.”

“Yes, but—”

“Absolutely not.”

Karen held her breath. Mason knew all too well how tense her relationship was with the aunt who had raised her. They had battled since Karen’s teen years, and now her choice of career made her aunt annoyed and critical.

“What about Jane? She’s your best friend.”

“I’m allergic to her dog.”

Silence.

“Mason, I don’t want to be forced out of my home. I worked too hard to make it my own.”

Mason broke the thick silence that followed by clearing his throat. “Chère, the auction starts this afternoon at three. If it goes as I hope, your profile will be even higher in the art world. Are you ready for that? More orders? More attention?” He paused. “Maybe more broken vases?”

Karen looked down as Lacey settled in for a nap, her purr a soft vibration under Karen’s fingers. Karen, too, felt calmer. Chère. He’d started calling her that a few weeks ago, pronouncing it “Sha,” and using it mostly when they were alone. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but every time he said it, she felt herself relax. “Yes,” she softly. “More orders, yes.”

“And the attention?”

Lacey’s breaths became light and even, her back barely rising and falling under Karen’s hands. The young potter looked around at her cozy living room. Her adored hillside house, with its narrow three stories, barely contained a thousand square feet. Yet it was something she’d craved as long as she could remember: her own home. Her studio took up the entire basement, and a living room and galley kitchen filled the main floor. Upstairs, her office, bedroom and bathroom made up the rest of the space. She loved it here. She’d renovated the small house, made it her own—her first real private space in the twenty-eight years of her life. Built into the side of a New Hampshire hillside, the back walls were all glass, looking out over a backyard that was more vale than lawn. Here in Mercer she had her home, her art, her friends. This, she thought, is happiness.

“Mason, I live in a tiny house in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. How much attention could actually find its way all the way to Mercer?”

“Karen,” he said softly, “you have no idea.”

Karen hung up the phone after promising to say a prayer for him about the auction, once again wondering what it was about her “face vases” that had such an impact on him.

“Why me, Lacey?” she wondered aloud, thinking back to her first meeting with Mason. The sleeping cat ignored her. “It was like I opened the door and found Indiana Jones standing there.”

The comparison with the fictional movie hero wasn’t quite accurate, but it wasn’t all that far off, either. Mason DuBroc, flamboyant and half-Cajun, with an accent that made folks around Mercer pay attention to every word, definitely took the award for oddest character to ever enter Karen’s world. A dubious claim, since a potter’s life, by nature of her chosen career, overflowed with artists, collectors and students, most of whom had the usual quirks that went along with a creative spirit. The author of a bestselling book on art crime, Mason had come to Mercer to take up residence at Jackson’s Retreat, a writers’ colony on the other side of the expansive woods that began almost at Karen’s back door.

He’d discovered Karen’s vases in the window of a local art gallery, and had immediately sought her out. Mason’s fascination with her art intrigued her, but she’d hesitated to ask the larger-than-life character about it, almost as if the interest would evaporate with the inquisition. He thought the vases museum-worthy, and for the past few weeks Mason had been on a mission to raise Karen’s profile as an artist. He’d helped her put up a Web site, and he’d sold an article about her to a pottery magazine, which had been reprinted in other publications. The article had led to the New York Times publishing two inches of coverage on her last gallery showing in SoHo. Then last week Mason had heard about this auction, and it had quickly become his latest effort.

“I just don’t understand, Lord,” she whispered. “Why me?”

The front door shot open with a bang, and Karen leaped off the couch with a screech, sending Lacey flying. The cat hit the ground, claws out, and flashed under a chair on the other side of the room as an alto voice rang out over all three floors. “Laurie’s daily special was lasagna with peach pie. Hope you’re hungry! Are you ever going to start locking that door?”

Karen glared at her best friend as she sailed into the room. “Jane! Are you determined to scare me half to death? What are you doing here?”

Jane Wilson, owner of the Heart’s Art Gallery in downtown Mercer, opened her arms in greeting, to-go bag in hand. “Aha! There you are.” She held the bag higher. “Lunch! I heard about the vase. Knew you’d need company. Have you talked to Mason about this afternoon’s auction?”

Karen blinked. “What?”

“You think he’ll be able to buy the vases? He should. I know just his being there will help, but I mean, if he could buy them, you do think he wants to, right? Why wouldn’t he? Come on. Lunch is getting cold.” Long dark curls swinging around her shoulders, Jane headed for the kitchen.

Karen relented, brushing cat hair from her lap. Jane’s enthusiasm flattered her. Jane’s gallery anchored Mercer’s arts district, and she’d been one of Karen’s staunchest supporters since their teens. When Karen had decided ten years ago that she could, in fact, make a living as a potter, Jane had started putting Karen’s unique vases and clay art in the windows of her gallery—which was where Mason had first spotted them.

“No idea if he’ll be able to buy them or not. I’m still not sure what good this will do.”

Jane set the bag on the counter, then turned to pull plates from a cabinet. “Karen, darling, I love your naïveté sometimes. Why don’t you make fresh coffee? Your special blend Kona has been on my mind since I left the gallery.”

“Jane—”

“No, c’mon, Karen, I’m serious. He’s Mason DuBroc. Dr. Mason DuBroc. Well-known author of a book on art crime in Middle Eastern war zones so full of adventure that it would make Indiana Jones jealous.”

Karen scowled. There was that comparison again. “I know who he is, Jane. I knew that when he first showed up on my doorstep.”

“Look, girl, Mason may not brag about it around you or around the retreat, but he knows the worth of his own name right now. For him to even bid for your vases—”

“Okay, I get it.”

Jane paused in her frenzy of activity. “So what’s the problem?”

Karen stood up and walked to the tall windows at the back of the dining area, looking out over the trees that bordered the lawn. Her property sloped down and away from the house, then back up into woods that stretched into the distance.

She loved those woods. There was a path that led through the heart of them, all the way to the writers’ colony where Mason lived. But it had not been the path that had brought him to her door, and she still couldn’t shake her confusion about what had brought him to her.

Karen cleared her throat. “The problem is that I keep asking, ‘Why me?’ Why did Mason DuBroc, of all the people on the planet, suddenly focus so much of his interest on my vases and me? What does he want with me?”

“Afraid he’ll make you successful?”

Karen turned away from the windows. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me, Janie. You’re not good at it and I’m not in the mood.”

Jane chuckled, a low, throaty sound. “Okay, so you’re a little suspicious. I can’t blame you. It did seem a little odd when he showed up in the shop, bouncing around the displays and asking all these questions about your vases, but he’s an odd bird.” She took a deep breath. “Did I tell you that he tried to lecture two of my customers on the relation of your vases to Southern folk art face jugs?” Jane’s words picked up speed as she resumed emptying the lunch bag. “I mean, this couple hadn’t been in the shop thirty seconds! They fled before I could get out ‘Welcome to Mercer, New Hampshire.’”

Karen bit her lip to keep from laughing. “That sounds like him.” Joining Jane in the kitchen again, she pulled a bag of Kona coffee from the freezer and a jug of filtered water from her fridge. The sight Mason had made standing on her porch that first day drifted through her mind as she prepared a fresh pot of coffee.

His notoriety intimidated Karen, but his peppered questioning cut to the heart of her craft, its history and its techniques. The accent certainly caught her off guard, as well. Southern but not twangy, the slow, easy-spoken combination of Alabama flatwoods and Louisiana bayou had a thick Cajun edge to it, and when excited, Mason would occasionally season his sentences with French words or phrases that Karen never understood. At least…she thought they were French.

His looks had also gotten her attention, almost as much as the accent. Jane made him sound antic and half-mad, but Mason DuBroc was far from an absentminded professor. His brown eyes were intense and held a curiosity that seemed relentless. His lean frame was wiry, and his dark hair hung mostly straight, with a tendency to curl just on the ends. His eyes and skin were darker than most of the men she knew, and he had high cheekbones so sharp they could have sliced bread. He called himself “a mutt, a result of a lot of familiarity between the Native Americans, Cajuns and a conglomerate of English and Scottish folks hanging out in the Delta,” a description that made her own mostly Irish and German heritage sound downright plain.

And the way he smelled. Aromas were vital to Karen, and she didn’t know if he wore a cologne or if his scent came naturally from who he was and what he did. He smelled like…Karen searched her mind for a comparison. Like opening a new book in the middle of a pine grove. Maybe a hint of sage. Whatever. It made her want to stand closer to him, and she inhaled deeply, just thinking about it.

“Do you want Parmesan on the lasagna?” Jane asked as she lifted one of the wrapped plates from Laurie’s Federal Café. The café was known for its home-style meals and white decor, which Laurie kept scrubbed and polished: solid white tables, chairs and dishes. Laurie refused to use chintzy to-go containers, insisting that the locals were honest enough to return real dishes.

Karen snapped back to the present as the thick garlicky scent of the lasagna got her attention. “What? Oh. Yes.”

“Thinking about Mason again?”

Karen sniffed. “No. Yes. A little. Maybe. How is Laurie?”

Jane went with the change of subject as she pulled the wrapped paper off the plates and dusted the Parmesan over the entrées. “Cool as ever. Two of the old farmers who hang out there in the mornings got into some kind of squabble about crop rotation this morning, and she told them she’d start serving only decaf if they didn’t quit. Settled them down right away.” Jane paused, then picked up the plates and headed to the table. “She also wanted to know if you had turned serious about Mason yet.”

Karen pulled two mugs from a cabinet and ignored the question. “How did you hear about the vase?”

Jane barked a laugh. “You’ve lived here all your life. How do you think I heard?”

“The Peg Madison party line?”

“Her only son may be police chief, but I think she mothers everyone in town. She’s worried about you.”

Karen watched as the coffeemaker gurgled out its last drops, steam rising from the pot and the filter bucket. Even the scent of the rich, dark coffee refreshed her and she inhaled deeply. “Please tell Mama Peg that I’m fine.”

“Which vase was it?”

Karen shrugged. “Too shattered to be sure. One of the emerald-green ones I made early last year, I think. The bigger shards were green and orange. I did find the mark, but it was just the KONA, without the diamond.” Every potter scratched a distinctive mark into the bottom of each piece, a way of signing the artwork. At first Karen had used only her initials, KO, but over the past two years, her mark had evolved into a distinctive KONA, which stood for both her favorite coffee and for Karen O’Neill Artworks.” Late last year she’d added a diamond shape to it.

She pulled the coffeepot out of the maker and filled the two mugs. “I just don’t understand—” She broke off and fanned her free hand as if to wave away the question. “I guess there are nuts in every business.”

Jane picked up the plates and headed to the dining table. “Sister, you said a mouthful.”

That afternoon, Karen returned to the studio to get her mind off the auction. She soon lost herself in the work. The whirling pot on the wheel before her so captured her that Lacey finally resorted to using claws to get her attention. Karen jumped, an action that caused one finger to break through the wet clay on the wheel, turning a shimmering vase into a pile of mud.

“Lacey!” Karen stopped the wheel, scolding the gray half-Persian at her feet. She cupped the distorted clay mound in both hands while glaring at Lacey. “Look at that!”

The golden eyes of the annoyed feline didn’t relent, and the ferocious meow and sharp swish of tail that followed told Karen that she needed to forget about ruined art and open the back door now.

“All right!” Karen glanced at a clock near the door and immediately felt a twinge of chagrin. “Four-fifty! No wonder you’re desperate.” She sighed and headed for the door, followed by the prancing cat. “Sorry about that. I should have let you out before I started. You know how I get.”

Meow. Swish.

Karen laughed and used the towel hanging at her waist to open the door to her basement studio. Lacey fled, her thick gray coat a quilt of light and dark shadows as she moved through the fading sunlight. Karen glanced down at the threshold again, but only a light shifting of clay dust remained from this morning. She closed the door again and returned to her wheel, sinking down on the stool behind it, her mouth twisted into a grimace as she gently touched the destroyed vase. It had been on its way to beauty, molded from a brownish lump of clay to an emerald-green work of art. “Sorry.”

Karen molded the wet earth back into a ball but didn’t restart the wheel, suddenly aware of how tense her shoulders were and how much her back and arms ached. “Four-fifty,” she repeated. Almost four hours had passed since she’d sat down at the wheel. Not unusual, though. When the wheel began to turn, the moist clay changing shape beneath her hands, Karen lost track of time, space, even the air around her. Her aunt, Evie, not understanding how Karen could so completely lose herself in the artwork, called it “that thing with the clay.” When she worked, Karen’s world narrowed to the wheel and the clay, and the only sensations that she remained aware of were the musty smell of damp earth and the feel of the water and earth beneath her hands. She’d been known to work five hours straight as her art formed under her hands. As a result, she usually let Lacey out before she sat down at the wheel, but this afternoon she’d forgotten.

Karen stood, rolling her shoulders, and went to the sink to wash her hands. Time for a break, more coffee, maybe check to see if there were new orders on her fax machine. Or e-mail from Mason. She pulled the towel from the waistband of her jeans and dried her hands.

Karen paused, her hands wrapped in the worn towel, looking at a shelf holding nine vases similar to the ones Mason planned to bid on. Each stood about eighteen inches high, broad at the base, a bit narrower in the middle and flared at the top with the edges jagged and wild, points and curves going in all directions. “Face vases” were not unique in the world of ceramics, but what made Karen’s vases distinctive was the face itself. Neither male nor female, it was a horror mask, twisted and grotesque on some, leering and grinning realistically on others. The vase colors were a kaleidoscope nightmare, swirling around the face in stripes and curls. Although each vase featured different colors, the face remained the same, which was especially noticeable when they were lined up together. The same down-turned eyes, full lips and white streaks slicked back from the scalp. Of course they’re the same, she thought ruefully. They come from the same source.

Tossing the towel over the edge of the sink, Karen headed upstairs, pausing to glance out the windows at the back of the studio at Lacey, now in the process of stalking a wayward butterfly. The metal of the stairs chilled her feet, so she scuffed them a bit on the carpet of the small dining area that separated the stairs from the kitchen. She poured the last cup from the lunchtime pot of Kona into a ceramic mug, and headed up the stairs near her front door.

A polite scratching on the door stopped her, and she opened it. “Already?” she asked as Lacey strolled past her, tail held high. “I thought you were on a butterfly hunt out back.”

No meow this time, just a thank-you figure eight around Karen’s ankles. Then both of them headed upstairs to Karen’s office, where an odd-looking sheet of paper slowly peeled its way through her fax. She pulled it off the machine and turned it around.

The fax had rendered it black and white, but the sheet was clearly a page from an auction house catalog, and Karen grinned as she recognized the angular, dramatic handwriting of the phrase scrawled across the bottom.

Lot 21 could be your salvation. Lot 21, which consisted of four unique vases of Karen’s own design.

“Sorry, Mason,” she murmured, her eyes bright with amusement. “My salvation comes from a much higher source.”

Yet she knew what he meant, and she glanced at the Felix the Cat clock on the wall behind her computer: 5:05. The auction must be over by now. The fax machine clicked and whirred again, and a second sheet emerged. This one was white, with only four lines scrawled across it.

$8,000!!! Didn’t get them. Will talk to agent who did. See you tomorrow!! M

The paper fluttered, blurring the words, as her hands shook. “Eight thousand?” Her knees weakened and Karen sat hard in her office chair. Tears blurred her eyes. Two thousand apiece! She’d never gotten more than five hundred for one of her vases. Mason DuBroc had succeeded in almost quadrupling their value.

Velvety fur brushed her ankles, and Karen glanced down as Lacey circled around her bare feet again. Her hands still quivering, she clicked her tongue and, with a rattling purr and tinkling bell, the eight-pound fur ball landed in her lap. Karen scratched the cat beneath the chin and was rewarded with a swish of Lacey’s thick tail.

“Lacey.” The shudder in her voice did not surprise her. Karen felt as if she were shivering from head to toe. “I’d better get back to work.” She nodded, then reached for the phone. “First I have to call Jane.”

Jane insisted on taking Karen to Portsmouth to celebrate, buying her dinner in a cozy boutique restaurant near the water. When they returned, midnight had come and gone, but Karen still felt wired and restless. Wandering into the office, she found fourteen new orders for “face vases” waiting on the fax machine. She glanced through them, overwhelmed. “Oh, Mason. What have we done?”

Sleep helped. The next morning a much calmer Karen awoke early and this time let Lacey out before she even showered. Then she took her first coffee of the day out on the back deck of the house, raising it toward the heavens. “Thank You, Lord,” she said aloud. She settled in one of the deck chairs and sipped again, then set the cup on the deck rail and looked out over the yard, feeling blessed. The sun struggled to get above the tallest trees, barely illuminating the May morning with bands of gold shot through the mist. Karen’s hair, still darkened from its normal red-gold sheen by her morning shower, dried quickly in the early-morning breeze, and she fluffed it before picking up the mug again.

This was her time. Prayer time. The day never felt quite right without it. The sun now winked at Karen over the top of her tallest birch, and she closed her eyes for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she whispered, “Thank You, Lord. I know Your hand is in all this, all along. Thanks for bringing Mason to Jackson’s Retreat to write his book, and thank You for…”

Inside, her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She scowled, then looked upward, waiting for the answering machine to pick up. When it did, she returned to her prayer, moving from praise to requests, the last one for herself. “Help me understand all this and Your will in it, Lord.”

She sat for a few more moments, enjoying the coffee and the morning air, then headed back inside. She hoped Mason would come by early to talk about the auction, but she had not heard from him since yesterday’s fax. Karen left her cup on the bottom step of the staircase, then bounded up, her hair flapping against her neck. Fifteen minutes later, she’d scooted into a pair of jeans and a light sweater, plus her hiking boots in case Mason wanted to walk into Mercer. She’d gone light on the makeup and turned on the blow-dryer long enough that her hair wouldn’t completely frizz out as it finished air drying. A touch of mousse, and she was ready just about the time the doorbell rang.

“Coming!” Karen yelled, her boots clumping on the stairs. She kicked over the cup and fussed at herself as she picked it up, thankful it was empty but wishing with a fleeting thought that she had time for another cup of her Kona. She unlocked the front door, pulling it open.

Her cheerful “Good morning!” faded away as she stared at the two men on the front porch. Mason was there, but he looked as solemn as she’d ever seen him. Behind him, oversized hat in hand, stood Tyler Madison, the local police chief.

Mason cleared his throat, but Tyler spoke first. “I hate to bother you this early, Karen, but we’ve got to talk about your broken vases.” He cleared his throat. “Broken vases,” he repeated, “and a murder.”

TWO

Twice in twenty-four hours, Karen’s world flipped upside down. As the two men sat in her living room and laid out their story, she couldn’t keep from blurting out, “But who would kill over a vase?”

Luke Knowles, a well-known auction agent, had purchased Lot 21, Karen’s vases, bidding the winning $8,000 for an anonymous client. The vases had been delivered to Knowles’s hotel room. Late last night, when Luke’s wife hadn’t been able to reach him, a manager had gone to check, finding Knowles dead and the four vases destroyed.

Karen stared at the two men, a crime scene photo in one hand and empty coffee cup in her other. “Who?” she repeated.

Tyler and Mason shifted uncomfortably and glanced at each other, then Mason touched her arm gently. “We were hoping you could help with that.”

Blinking, Karen looked down at the photo in her hand again, the details registering sketchily on her mind. A hotel room in chaos; in the center, ceramic shards and clay dust—remnants of four destroyed vases—were smeared across a dresser. At the edge of the image, a man’s leg protruded into the scene. The victim, murdered because of vases she had created from her imagination and a bit of raw clay.

The photo quivered as her fingers trembled, and Karen sat hard on her sofa. Her pottery, her art, was her heart, her livelihood and her life. Her vases, beautiful and distinct, sometimes felt like extensions of her very soul.

But they weren’t worth dying over.

Karen stared into her empty coffee cup as the two men sat and Tyler finished telling her about the death of Luke Knowles. She relished the security of the hard, cool ceramic under her fingertips as her eyelids stung and her vision blurred. Tyler sat across from her, his bulky frame wedged into one of her grandmother’s ancient, cane-bottom rockers, his hat clutched in one fist and a file folder in the other. Mason perched next to her on the edge of her fading rose-print sofa, his jeans a stark contrast to the feminine blossoms splayed under his thighs.

The morning sun had broken free of the tall trees of her backyard and now cast bright yellow streaks through the windows. The room seemed to glow, despite the somber mood of the three people clustered there.

“What about his family?” Karen’s voice was a strained whisper. “Did he have a family?” She peered at Mason, then Tyler. Her stomach felt tight, her chest constricted, but she wasn’t sure if she felt fear or grief. Or both. Hot tears leaked from each eye, and she wiped them away quickly.

The young police chief nodded. “A wife and a grown son.”

“I don’t understand.” Her soft voice cracked, and she swallowed again. “Why would anyone do this because of me?”

Tyler shifted in the chair, causing the cane to creak ominously. “Just like there was a note with your broken vases, there was a note at the crime scene.” He pulled a slip of paper from a file folder and held it out toward her. Mason stood quickly and helped the paper make the cross to Karen. He slipped the photo from her fingers and returned it to Tyler.

“That’s a copy they faxed,” Tyler explained. “The detective in New York thought you might recognize the handwriting.”

Karen wiped her eyes again and sat the cup on the floor near her feet. She unfolded the note, her fingers trembling a bit. As if scrawled and smeared with a pen too large for the writer’s hand, the letters swirled in an almost unreadable script in the middle of the page. She studied the note, her shoulders bowing slightly as a tight chill settled at the base of her spine. She recognized the handwriting…but not from anyone she knew. The clumsy block letters were the same as in the notes that had simply said, Stop! This one, however, was more specific.

Evil corrupts mind and soul.

Evil must be stopped.

All that is evil will be destroyed.

Her head snapped toward Mason, then Tyler. “So the killer thinks my vases are evil? Or me?”

Tyler shrugged. “New York thinks it could go either way. He could be a nutcase who has a fixation on your work, or maybe he has a problem with you personally. Or it could be a jealous—”

“But…evil?”

Mason cleared his throat. “Work or personal, this is about you.”

Tyler shifted in the rocker, his mouth pursed around a word that never made it out.

“But why?” Karen stood up and took the cup into the kitchen. Tyler caught the note as she passed by, slipping it from her fingers and returning it to the folder. She continued into the kitchen, her energy surging. She set the cup down with a solid thump on the counter that divided the two rooms. “They’re just vases.” She tapped her temple. “They just came out of my imagination and whatever I’ve learned about pots through the years.” She held her hand out toward Mason. “You know that. We talked about this!”

“I know.” He followed her into the kitchen. “But you’re trying to make sense of something that may exist only in this guy’s head. He killed because of something that makes sense only to him.”

Karen grabbed a dishcloth off the sink and began to wipe off an already spotless counter. “But if he thinks the vases are evil, then he thinks I’m evil.”

“Which is why we’re here.”

“Because evil must be destroyed.”

Tyler’s gaze bounced between the two, and he finally intervened. “Well, it’s clear neither of you is a cop.” He joined them at the counter. “Calm down.” He perched on one of the three bar stools that stood guard on the living room side of the counter. “First of all, New York does not expect you to figure out what’s going on with this murderer. That’s their job. Second, no one really thinks you are in danger. If whoever this is wanted to hurt you…” Tyler paused and shifted on the stool. “After all, he’s already proven he knows where you live.”

“But—”

“Which is why she needs protection!”

Tyler held up his hand to both of them. “And this is a small town. Everyone around knows the first thing you do every morning is make a pot of that fancy Hawaiian coffee you have shipped in and go out on your deck to talk to God. If the killer wanted you, he wouldn’t be wasting time and money buying up vases to shoot. Even a perfect stranger could sit at Laurie’s café for a couple of days and figure out what your schedule is.” Tyler shook his head. “We’ll add extra drive-bys on patrol, but the truth is, even a 24/7 guard probably wouldn’t help. Whatever his problem is, he wants to get rid of the vases, not you.”

Karen felt the heat slowly rise from her throat to her cheeks. “Every one?”

Tyler grinned. “My mom thinks it’s cute that you have a different robe for every season.” He stood, his mood somber again. “I do want you to take extra precautions. Make sure you lock the doors and set the alarm. Don’t wander around alone too much. And call me if you see anything strange—” he looked down at Lacey, who had suddenly started climbing his pants leg “—other than this cat—about the house.” He plucked Lacey off and put her on the stool. “In the meantime, I think you two should go for breakfast.”

Karen’s eyes widened. Food? “You don’t think I can eat now, do you?”

Tyler wandered toward the door, his eyes glancing casually around the room. “I certainly think you should eat. Mason has agreed to talk to you about the vases, see if you remember anything unusual about them. Maybe something about those particular vases strikes a chord with you.”

“But—”

“Protein. Eat some meat. Eggs. Lots of water.” He tapped the side of his head as he reached for the doorknob. “Helps you think.”

Mason followed him, an almost bemused smile on his face, and Karen wondered if the Delta boy thought their local police chief to be a dolt—or small-town clever. She walked out onto the deck again, staring, embracing the way the remaining mist seeped into her bones, as if the sting of it reminded her that she was still among the living.

“Lord,” she whispered, “what’s going on?”

Mason held the door for Tyler, who paused, glancing around him at Karen. Although Mason stood an inch or two taller than the young police chief, he admired the almost graceful way Tyler moved his larger, more muscular frame. Definitely not a man he’d want to oppose in a fight.

Tyler’s voice dropped in tone as well as volume. “You watch out for her. I knew she’d take it hard, but not this hard.”

Mason nodded. “She has a gentle soul.” A soul he had a sudden urge to protect.

Tyler’s eyes brightened a moment but he said nothing, and Mason twisted a bit under the police chief’s gaze. “You really don’t think she’s in danger? This has already escalated from broken vases to murder. That’s quite a leap!”

Tyler straightened. “I meant what I said to her. But let’s not forget something. Luke Knowles died because this guy wanted to be taken seriously—and not just as a crackpot who likes breaking pottery. He wants those vases to go away.” Tyler shifted his weight. “Karen may not be in danger right now, but that doesn’t mean this won’t escalate even more. We’ll do what we can, but watch your back. And hers.”

Mason watched, thoughtful as Tyler’s patrol car backed away, tires crunching on the narrow gravel drive. On the way over, Tyler had explained that since no threat had been made against Karen, he was limited in how much action he could take to protect her. He could add the extra drive-bys, but with only a five-officer force, no one could be there 24/7.

Inside again, Mason shut the door and turned, his eyes focusing on Karen’s back. Her shoulders slumped forward as she leaned heavily against the deck railing, and Mason wondered if she were praying again. She did that a lot, more than he was used to his friends doing, and it created an odd ache just below his sternum that he couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe; he’d accepted Christ as his Savior fifteen years ago, at a youth rally when he was nineteen. His faith, however, was a closely held, private thing. Few of his friends even knew he was a Christian, and he was comfortable with that. He didn’t want to discuss his faith, definitely didn’t want to discuss theirs. His chosen profession, and his public image, didn’t lend themselves to outward shows of belief. Yet the highly visible nature of Karen’s faith left him with a nagging urge to ask questions.

And her faith was not the only thing that tugged at him, almost without explanation. From the moment he’d seen her vases in Jane’s shop, his imagination had been captured by her talent, her sense of color and shape, by how the vases seemed almost organic, as if they had been grown instead of formed from clay. Then, when she’d opened the door that day, covered in mud up to her elbows, hair wild and her eyes dazed, as if he’d interrupted a dream…

Mason rubbed his mouth. He didn’t like that he could not find the right words to the feelings that tightened his chest and made his mind whirl whenever he was around her…troublesome, since words were his business. He didn’t like it at all.

He did, however, like her. Maybe even more than like. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Being around Karen felt like…home. Mason had never quite believed that God had a chosen path for everyone, and that He could guide each person to it. Yet he’d been planning to go to a retreat center in Georgia when he got the call about the opening at Jackson’s Retreat. He’d never been to New Hampshire. The day he saw her vases in Jane’s window he had planned to stay in Boston, but his appointment had been canceled.

True, he could explain all that away, but not the way his heart had jumped when she’d opened the door. The way he longed to stand close to her, protect her. He tried desperately not to crowd or smother her; he’d already seen how carefully she kept people at a distance. Her aunt. Even Jane.

“Lord,” he muttered. “If this is Your path for us, You have a lot of work to do.”

Mason opened the door to the deck and approached Karen quietly, waiting until she raised her head again and turned toward him. Her eyes glistened, and she licked tears off her lower lip.

His heart twisted. “Praying for Luke Knowles?”

She wiped her eyes, smearing her mascara. “And his family. And for guidance.”

“Guidance?”

She nodded. “I suspect we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

“We?”

Karen’s eyebrows arched. “You don’t think we’re going to sit here and do nothing?”

A grin slowly crossed his face. “You? I can’t see you sitting still for much of anything.”

She waved a hand and marched past him. “Then come with me.”

Mason’s curiosity took over. “Where are you going?”

She kept walking, but pointed at the floor. “Down.” She headed for the far corner of her living room, away from the kitchen, where an elegant spiral staircase circled down to her pottery studio. Since he usually entered the studio from the outside, he took each of the narrow steps carefully, especially avoiding the coffee cup she’d left on a step about halfway down. The custom-built steps were barely deep enough for his size tens, and he arrived at the bottom long after Karen had disappeared from view.

Mason paused, looking around. The studio, which took up the entire basement, was Karen’s sanctuary, and she kept it pristinely clean. The house was set deep into a solid granite hillside, and three walls of the basement had been framed directly against the stone, which still protruded through the Sheetrock in places. Shelves lined almost every inch, clustered with baskets of paints, clays, glazes, molds, texturing tools and the round, flat bats for the three potter’s wheels that stood in a line in the center of the room. Every shelf was labeled and each basket neatly organized. At one end of the room stood an extruding table, where Karen pulled thin plates of clay for hand building. Next to the table stood a worktable stained with years of glaze, paint and old bits of clay. At the other end sat two kilns, one for her larger projects and one that wasn’t much bigger than a toaster oven, in which she made the smaller gifts and beads for local jewelry artists. The glass wall that overlooked the hill was spotless and dotted with sun catchers.

The potter, however, could not be seen. “Where are you?”

“Back here.” Her head seemed to appear suddenly out of a space of granite. Puzzled, Mason crossed the room to discover that there was a thin doorway in the rock, disguised by the gray stone directly behind it and revealed only by a yellow light now coming from the left.

Karen stepped out.

“A baffle?”

She nodded. “When the house was built, the owner wanted a darkroom, and the builder tried to carve this Z in the rock as a rough sort of light baffle. Rumor has it that it drove two of his workers completely crazy. Unfortunately, it was all for naught. The owner died before the house was complete. I like it.” She grinned. “When the light’s off, you can’t even tell there’s a room here.” She stepped back and Mason trailed her around the tight corner of the thin, Z-shaped baffle into a room of granite walls with high shelves along one side.

He looked up and around, his eyes widening. “This is amazing! Like a catacomb.” The cavelike room was barely four feet wide and extended back into the stone about eight feet. A bare bulb hung from a hook driven into the stone ceiling, small, but casting enough light that he could read the labels on the neat, clearly marked metal boxes that covered the shelves.

Karen’s smile broadened. “My secret hiding place.” She turned suddenly and pulled a file box from one of the middle shelves. “But this is what I came for.”

He took it from her, and a slightly surprised look crossed her face. “What’s wrong, chère?” he asked.

She blinked. “Guess I’m not used to having anyone help me.” She shrugged, then motioned for him to leave. “Let’s take it back out there.”

They exited the room, and she snapped off the light behind them, letting her private storage room disappear into the wall again. He set the box on her worktable and she flipped the lid up and back, letting it bang against the tabletop. Inside were stacks of small, five-by-seven photo albums. “That was the Wilhelms auction, right?”

When he nodded, her lips pursed. “The four in that catalog were old, earlier versions. I stopped using orange last year, went solely to streaks of green and red…and I don’t remember selling to a Wil…” Her voice faded a moment as her eyes closed. “A set of four. Not a private sale, must have been through one of the galleries. Haven’t sold four at once except…” another pause, then her eyes flew open and she attacked the box, digging through the albums “…2005. A dealer, but not in New York. Boston. Told me he’d sold four as a gift. A woman was giving them to her mother. She bargained him down to about a hundred dollars per.”

“She got a good deal.”

Karen clutched a red binder and pulled it out, plopping it down on the table. She opened it, pausing briefly at the first page, her fingers resting lightly on the first picture.

Mason peered at the yellowed photo. “What is it?”

Her childlike smile reminded him of a young girl caught in an embarrassing moment. “I’d forgotten this was here. These are the first four vases I sold.”

Mason gently pulled her hand back to reveal a shot of four vases in deep blues and vibrant emerald greens. No faces, yet the elegance of their simple lines enchanted the eye. “They’re beautiful.”

She sighed. “I adored them. Almost wish I had them back, but if I hadn’t sold them, I wouldn’t have known I could do this for a living. They were my breakthrough pieces.”

“Who bought them?”

“A dealer on New York’s Lower East Side.” She looked at the far wall of the studio, thoughtful, her gaze distant. “Tiny place. Brand-new. We were both trying to give each other a hand up. He bought them for thirty-five dollars, sold them for fifty dollars.”

Karen sighed as if she were savoring a favorite memory, and Mason touched her hand. “Do you know who purchased them from the dealer?”

She turned to him, her smile sad. “No. I wish I did. It would be like finding out what had happened to an old fri—” Her words faded, and as they continued to look at each other a few moments, Mason felt as if whatever it was between them had gently escalated. Mason felt her tremble, and the urge to kiss her, to hold her, washed over him. He leaned forward, his lips close to hers, but Karen suddenly tensed.

Karen cleared her throat and looked away, turning the album page quickly.

Heat shot into Mason’s cheeks and he released her hand. “Chère, I’m sorry.”

Karen stared at the photos. “No, don’t be. I mean…it’s okay. I just…” She glanced quickly at him, then back at the table. “Not the right time, with Luke Knowles and all.” She patted the photos. “We need to do this.” She faced him again, worry clouding her eyes. “Right?”

You idiot! Mason scolded himself. To Karen, he nodded. “Of course. You’re right.” He squared his shoulders and let out a deep breath. “In fact, we wouldn’t even have to do this if I hadn’t been a dolt and left the catalog in New York. Show me what you have.”

She then flipped several more pages, and Mason watched as the shots passed—pages of pots, plaques, vases, teapots, wall sculptures that flashed by under her fingers.

“You keep pictures of everything?”

“Yep. Polaroids of the older ones. Now I use digital shots, keep them on CDs. Helps me track ideas, sales, if I want to duplicate, or if I want to avoid duplicating…” She stopped and flattened her hand over one page. She took a deep breath, then pushed the album toward him. “Here they are.”

He peered at the picture, which had yellowed a bit with age, remembering the page from the auction catalog. There they were, indeed, identical, the swirling colors and the faces with the dark hair with white streaks distinctive even in this small photo. His bidding duel with Luke Knowles flashed through his head, and Mason swallowed. “They’re remarkable.” He didn’t want to think about what might have happened had he succeeded in buying the vases. Or if the killer decided to turn his sights on Karen. His throat tightened, making his voice more guttural than he’d expected.

She shook her head. “But not worth killing for.” Karen glanced at the picture, then focused on him, her hand closing on his wrist. “What’s the matter?”

Mason’s hand seemed to tingle from her touch, and he felt heat rising in his cheeks. Her eyes were so blue. Almost cobalt, like the Atlantic in the high sun. But he wouldn’t approach her again. Not today. He cleared his throat. “We should probably take a copy of this to Tyler.”

Those blue eyes gleamed. “Of course. But that’s not what’s wrong.”

There was no way…no…he would not talk about…One embarrassing moment a day was quite enough.

Karen broke the moment, pulling away and slipping the photo out of the album. She pointed to the address on the back. “That’s the dealer who bought them.” She paused, looking over him again. “Maybe Tyler was right. Breakfast might be a good idea after all. We could stop on the way to Tyler’s office.”

“Yes,” Mason said quickly. “Some of Laurie’s French toast might just do the trick.”

Karen grinned, then headed back toward the stairs, grabbing her cup as she went. “Absolutely.”

Mason followed her up the twisting steps, pausing briefly at the top. The sun, now slowly heating the living room to a comfortable toast, streaked her hair with gold, and the curls bounced as she walked to the kitchen, making him smile. She set the cup down, then pulled an envelope out of a drawer and slid the picture in. She flipped off the coffeemaker and grabbed her purse from a stool near the bar. “Did you drive?”

He shook his head. “Tyler drove us over from his office.”

“Let’s walk then. Work off a few of Laurie’s calories before we eat them—What?”

Mason hesitated. He didn’t want to say it, but all the girls he’d known would have killed him if he’d held back, especially with them going out. He reached out and touched her cheek, just below her left eye. “Your mascara…the tears…”

Her cheeks reddened, but her smile was one of delight. “You doll,” she said. “Thank you.” She bounded up the stairs, to return only a minute or so later, her face clean and eyelashes darkened again. “Better?”

He nodded, and she paused to set the alarm before shooing him toward the door. She locked it behind them, her key slipping easily in and out of the dead bolt. “By the way, how did you hook up with Tyler this morning?”

“The police contacted me in New York, after Luke Knowles was shot. They had asked the auction house about other bidders, and the auctioneer gave them my name. They said they’d leave contacting you up to the local cop, Tyler, and I called him, asking if I could come with him.”

Karen nodded. “Why did you want to come?”

He hesitated. “To be here for you. I thought you might take it pretty hard.”

She considered this a moment, then he barely heard her quiet “Thank you.”

The hillside cottage was three blocks downhill from the center of town, and as they plodded upward, Mason was glad there was still a slight chill in the morning air. They fell silent for a few moments, the only sound the solid padding of their hiking boots on the rough pavement. Mason shortened his strides to match hers, feeling far too much like a lanky colt next to her elegance. Karen barely came up to his shoulder, but she had a toned, athletic build and she moved with a smooth grace. Occasionally, she’d get focused or forgetful and experience a sudden klutziness, which charmed him even more.

Yet Mason’s enjoyment of Mercer, New Hampshire, extended far beyond the climate and Karen’s friendship. The tight-knit community, with its Revolutionary War history and art district ambience had totally charmed him. Most of the families had been in the area for almost three hundred years, with the exception of a cluster of artists who’d started flocking to the town in the late sixties.

Their presence had given rise to an active local arts society, a number of unique galleries and the writers’ colony, where he lived. There was a lot of encouragement for homegrown artists, including the one who now strolled at his side while he struggled not to stare.

Karen walked with her head up as they moved along the narrow lane toward Mercer’s main street. Her gaze darted along the scenery, as if recording and storing every detail of the morning. She paused occasionally to give an extra second to a squirrel, an unusual red flower or an odd shadow in the trees. After she’d stopped to finger a leaf left over from last fall, one turned to a lacey fringe by bugs and frost, Mason finally gave in to his curiosity. “What do you see in that?”

She held it in her palm, smoothing a bit of mud off the stem. “The pattern. I’ve been making some ‘nature’ trays for one of the galleries. Hand-built. I press plants, berries, grasses, that kind of thing, into the clay to create the pattern. When it’s fired, the foliage burns off but leaves the pattern. I paint the illustrations in and around the impressions.”

He stopped at the crossroad at the end of her street to check traffic, then took her elbow as they turned toward town again. “Is that what you did with the vases?”

Silent, Karen stared down at the leaf, lying featherlike in her hand.

Mason pulled her to a halt. “Karen?”

She continued to look down. “If I tell you this, you can’t ever, ever put it in writing. You promise?”

Mason reached for her chin and pulled her head up. “I promise.”

“I don’t want anyone to think I’m crazy.” Her gaze grew even more distant. “My aunt already thinks…” Her words faded.

He dropped his hand to her shoulder, tilting his head to look more closely at her. “Karen, you are one of the least crazy people I know. So tell me.”

She licked her lips. “Those vases…they’ve evolved. I kinda do my own thing now, trying to keep them new.”

“But?”

She finally met his eyes. “But the first ones came to me in a dream several years ago.”

Okay, so she could surprise him. “A dream?”

She sighed. “A nightmare, actually.” She pulled the envelope from her purse and slipped the leaf in as she pulled the photo out. She ran her finger over the image. “Several of them. This face.” Her eyelids lowered, shadowing her gaze. “It was not long after the first show at that little gallery on East Houston. Small, but I got good notices. Sold those pieces I showed you, and it looked as if I could truly do this for a living.”

Karen took a deep breath and opened her eyes, looking directly into his. “A couple of weeks later, I started having nightmares about being chased. I couldn’t tell who it was, but there was this face.” She tapped the photo again. “This face. So pale, with the white streaks in dark hair. The sharp nose, high cheekbones. And legs. Thick, running legs. Green legs. I woke up in such a panic that I…” She swallowed. “I’d never felt a fear like that. I did the first vase in an attempt to get rid of the nightmare. I never expected to sell it—or that it would be the start of dozens of others.”

“What about the nightmare?”

“It disappeared.” Karen returned the photo to the envelope and put it back in her purse. “I’ve always been able to work out things like that in the art. It’s as if all I have to do is to get it out of my head and into the clay, then things work out.”

“Any idea what the dream meant?”

She frowned. “You mean, like an interpretation?”

“Sure. It’s not as New Agey as it sounds.” He took a deep breath, remembering something he’d heard not long after becoming a Christian. “After all, the Bible is full of dreams and visions, and most meant something significant.” He took her hand. “There are a number of books out there…some people think dreams are one way God answers prayers.”

Karen stared at him a few minutes, then raised her head a bit. “I’ll have to think about that one.” She nodded. “And I know just who to talk to.” Grinning, she slipped her hand out of his and took his arm as they resumed walking. “In the meantime, let’s get some French toast.”

The warmth of her hand against his skin made Mason stand a little taller as they entered downtown Mercer. Laurie’s Federal Café occupied a tiny storefront about halfway between the granite city hall at one end of town and the millpond at the other. Her two “mission statements” hung near the register: Good Food Served Simply and We Trust In God; All Others Must Pay Cash.

The lanky blonde with a red face waved at Mason and Karen from the back counter of the restaurant as they helped themselves to seats near the door. Karen barely had time to drape her purse on the back of her chair before Laurie was at their side with a coffeepot and two cups. She touched Karen’s shoulder as she filled the mugs. “Just plain old coffee, but fresh and hot. Tell me you’re having French toast.”

Mason took a long sniff of the coffee, and his smile grew lazy and broad. “You know it, pretty lady. Your French toast makes life a little better.”

Laurie looked down at him, her eyes bright and flirtatious. “You need to bring your older brothers up here, if they talk like you.” As the heat rose in his cheeks, she laughed. “And especially if they blush like you.”

“French toast is not protein.”

Mason twisted in his seat at the sound of Tyler’s baritone voice to find the officer standing behind him. “No,” he agreed, “but it’s some mighty fine eating.”

“Following us, Mr. Madison?” Karen’s voice teased, but she pulled out the extra chair at the table and motioned for him to sit.

He did, removing his hat. “Not yet. We’re out of coffee at the station, so I came over to get some to-go cups. Mom won’t go to the grocery until this afternoon.”

“Mom?” Mason asked.

Tyler cleared his throat. “My mother is office manager for the police department.”

“Peg’s terrific,” Karen said. “She’s like a mom to the whole town.”

Tyler shifted in his chair, then focused on Karen. “How are you doing?”

She examined her fingernails. “I’m all right. I think.”

Mason touched her arm. “Show him the picture.”

Karen perked back to life. “Oh!” She dug in her purse, pulling out the envelope and handing Tyler the Polaroid. “Those are the four vases. I sold them originally to a dealer in Boston. The name is on the back of the photo, but they moved recently. I’ll e-mail you the new address.”

“Please do. You never know where a clue may pop up.” He held the photo close to his face, studying every detail. “Are they distinctive?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. I do a lot of vases, many of them of a similar design. Each vase is unique, unlike the others in some way, but they are all of the same type.”

Tyler rubbed his thumb over the print. “What’s this face on them?”

Karen shot a warning glance at Mason and shook her head. “Just one of my trademarks. I do a lot of face vases. They’re my bestselling item.”

“Is it always the same face?”

“More or less. As I said, my trademark. It’s what people expect on a Karen O’Neill face vase.”

“That’s what drew me to do the article,” Mason interjected.

Tyler looked up at him. “What article?”

Mason explained about the magazine article he’d written and his own interest in “face vases.” “One of my grandmothers had a couple of ‘face jugs,’ which tend to be prominent in the South. But sculpting face masks on pottery artifacts is centuries old. Usually they’re stylized, even exaggerated or grotesque.”

Tyler peered at the picture again. “So this isn’t anyone in particular?”

Karen shook her head. “No. Like I said, it’s just out of my head.”

The young police chief squinted. “Looks familiar, though. Are you sure this isn’t based on someone you know?”

Karen’s curls trembled and her lips tightened. “Positive.”

Mason watched, his brow tensing. “It’s the same with writers.”

Tyler looked up from the picture, puzzled by the interruption. “Beg pardon?”

Mason spoke quickly. “Novelists, I mean. They don’t usually base a character on any one specific person. Too easy to get sued, especially nowadays. Characters tend to be composites of people they know, folks they think they know and stuff they just make up. Artists do the same sometimes, especially with abstractions or art like this. Not real. A representation of real.”

“Ah.” Tyler looked back at the photo, obviously not completely convinced. “Good job making it look familiar, anyway. Do you mind if I take this? I’ll get it scanned and get it back to you within a couple of days. And don’t forget to e-mail me that address. I’m sure New York would like to know how the vases got to that auction.”

Karen sighed, a touch of relief on her face. “Keep it as long as you need it. But would you e-mail me the scan? I’ve been meaning to get that done to the old pictures anyway.”

Tyler tucked the picture into his shirt pocket as Laurie brought his four coffees to go in a cardboard box. “Sure. I’ll send it over as soon as I have it.” He stood, put his hat on, then handed Laurie a five-dollar bill as he took the box. “Thanks.”

Mason watched him go, then turned to find Karen staring at him. “What?” he asked.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He glanced up at Laurie as she set his plate in front of him. “Thanks, Miss Laurie,” he said, picking up his knife and fork. “It looks better than anything even my mama ever put in front of me.”

Laurie grinned. “Thanks, sugar,” she said, picking up on his accent. She placed Karen’s plate down and winked at her. “Don’t let him sweet-talk you into anything.”

Karen stifled a giggle. “I won’t.”

Mason looked from one to the other, his eyes carefully held wide in what he hoped was an expression of innocence. “I have no idea what y’all are talking about.”

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t.” Laurie refilled their cups and beat a discreet retreat.

Mason watched her for a second, then turned back to Karen. “I didn’t have to do what?” he asked, a bite of French toast crowding one cheek.

“Distract Tyler. Thank you for doing it. That was just weird, him looking at the vase as if it were someone he knew.”

Mason swallowed and looked her over carefully. “Karen, how long has Tyler been a cop?”

She paused. “Not sure. Since college, I know. We went to high school together, but he’s older and I didn’t really pay attention. Maybe ten years. Why?”

“All that time here?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I know how you feel about the vases and that face, but you need to think about something, as well. Tyler’s powers of observation are skilled. Trained. This is a small town. He’s going to know most people in this area. Has to—it’s his job. Cops I knew back home could tell you family histories for every kid at the local high school, including who their granddaddies ran around with when they were kids. If he thinks he recognizes the face, then he probably does.”

Karen stared at her plate. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“Why? What if he’s right? What if your memory is picking up on someone you really know and plopping it on those vases?”

She put down her fork and turned to him. “It can’t be.”

“Why not?”

She took a deep breath and dropped her voice so low that he had to lean forward to hear her. “Don’t you understand? That face was chasing me. I was running away because I was terrified. I was running because the person attached to that face was trying to kill me.” Karen leaned back, watching Mason closely, waiting for a response.

He took a deep breath, not wanting to say the words that begged to come out. But if her dreams were a memory trying to work its way out, they were the logical response, the only response. He swallowed hard, dropping his voice. “So has anyone ever really tried to kill you?”

Karen’s eyes met his, evenly, solidly. “Yes.”

From a car across the street, the cold eyes of Luke Knowles’s client watched Karen and Mason’s intimate conversation. “How cozy. Whispering sweetness to him?” The soft voice spoke in the smooth cadences of a practiced speaker, despite the New England edge it held.

The client had not expected Karen and Mason to leave the house so soon, but this provided an advantage, opening up the time frame for the plan by at least fifteen minutes. The client chuckled. A lot could be accomplished in fifteen minutes.

Those blue eyes finally looked away from the café, scanning the street, the mostly closed storefronts. Watching carefully each movement, each blown leaf or strolling citizen. Despicable little town, actually, with its pretentious quaintness and that laughable “arts district.” When this was all over, leaving would be a pleasure as well as a necessity.

But not yet. There was still much to be done, although the first parts of the plan were already in play. First Knowles, now…

The client watched as Tyler Madison bounded out of his office and ran up the street toward the arts district, more lumbering bull than sprinting elk. Even from this distance, the client could hear the rattle and squeak of the leather and metal belts and instruments hanging from the police chief’s body. An even younger—and substantially thinner—officer soon followed, and the client smiled and sat straighter, starting the car’s engine and slipping the car away from the curb. Time for the next step.

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