Midnight Sun (Sinclair Sisters) (23 page)

If Charity could have imagined the perfect great-aunt, Mavis Doakes would have been it. Silver-haired and wrinkled, she was thin and slightly bent, but her smiling face carried a wealth of warmth and it surrounded Charity and Call the moment she opened the door.

“Charity, my dear, come in, come in.” Mavis hugged her as she walked into narrow entry. “Emma’s grandchild. I can hardly believe it. And look at this handsome man you brought with you. Who is he, dear, your husband?”

Charity’s cheeks went warm. “He’s a friend, Aunt Mavis, my next-door neighbor, actually. Call Hawkins.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Doakes,” Call said, gently clasping the old woman’s hand in both of his. “I know how much Charity has been looking forward to seeing you.”

The older woman actually blushed. “Well, both of you come into the parlor and make yourself comfortable. I’ve got the kettle on the stove. I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea.” She shuffled out the door in her lavender flowered housedress, freshly washed and neatly pressed, a little white Peter Pan collar at the neck.

The old, wood-framed house she lived in at the bottom of a hill was probably built in the ’20s, the kind with the gabled roof overhanging the porch. The parlor had built-in bookshelves encased by lovely old leaded-glass doors. A colorful knit afghan spread across the back of an overstuffed sofa and hooked rugs covered the hardwood floors.

Mavis brought tea and poured it into pretty little china cups while Charity told the woman something of herself and her family. She talked about her adventures in the Yukon, and the search she had been making into her past.

“My mom died when I was ten. I knew about Emma, my grandmother, but I only found out about you and Annie Mae a couple of days ago.”

A shadow moved over the old woman’s face. “I’m afraid my sister passed on last year. She’s buried in a cemetery in Seattle.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”

The shadow lifted, slowly faded. “It’s all right, dear. We all have to leave this earth sooner or later and Annie had a wonderful life while she was here.” Mavis told her a little about the life her sister had led and Charity understood that the women had cared for each other deeply.

From there the conversation moved back into the past.

“From what I could piece together, your mother’s maiden name was Sarah Thankful Baker. Is that right?”

“Yes, dear. She married my father—your great-grandfather, Sean Doakes—on May the third, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and twenty. I remember because they always celebrated that day as if it were very special to both of them.”

“What about your grandparents? I’m particularly interested in Thaddeus Baker, your mother’s father. I know he was born in 1878. He would have been in his twenties during the Gold Rush. I’m trying to find out if Thaddeus went north in search of gold.”

“You mean to Alaska?”

“Skagway, yes. Then on to the Yukon.”

Mavis chuckled. She took a sip of her tea, then set the cup back down in its saucer. “No, child, my grandpa never went much farther than that old farm of his just outside Portland. He dearly loved that place. They buried him under a pine tree up on a hill there when he died.”

Charity’s heart sank. She hadn’t realized how much she was counting on this.

Call spoke up just then. “How about someone else in the family? Did anyone you know of take off for the goldfields?”

“Well, now, that’s a different question altogether. Granny Frances—she was a Fitzpatrick, you know, Grandpa Baker’s second wife—he married her after his first wife died of the pneumonia.” She glanced up. “Where was I?”

Charity sat forward on the edge of her chair. “Granny Frances and something about the Gold Rush.”

“Oh, that’s right. Granny used to talk about her sister Rachael going up there.”

Charity almost spilled her tea. “She did?”

“It was kind of a scandal at the time. Granny only talked about it after she got older. Guess it doesn’t matter much anymore.”

“Why was it a scandal?” Call asked.

“Well, Rachael wasn’t married, you see. She fell in love with some no-account gambler named Ian Gallagher and the two of them ran off together.”

“And you’re sure they went to the goldfields?” Call pressed.

“Oh, sure enough, they did. I’ve got proof, you see.” She levered herself to her feet and trudged out of the living room.

Charity looked hopefully at Call. “At least it’s something—isn’t it? You don’t think it’s just coincidence?”

“It’s interesting. No doubt about it.”

But she knew what he was thinking. Even if Rachael Fitzpatrick had gone to the Yukon, it was Frances who was her blood relation, not Rachael.

Mavis shuffled back into the room. “Rachael brought this back with her all the way from the Klondike.” Taking Charity’s hand, Mavis set a fat gold nugget in the middle of her palm. “She kept it all her life … gave it to Granny Frances just before she died. Granny never sold it … not even when times got tough. She said her sister paid a high price for it and she was gonna keep it no matter what. I always thought it was beautiful, so she willed it to me when she passed away.”

Charity’s fingers closed around the smooth chunk of gold, far bigger than anything they had found on the Lily Rose. She thought of the photo above The Miner’s Bar, of the Stampeders trudging up the icy Golden Staircase, and imagined what Rachael must have suffered to get it.

“What happened to Ian? Did he and Rachael ever get married?”

“Not that I know of. Granny never mentioned him and I never thought to ask.”

Charity held out the nugget. “Thank you for showing me.” She tried to hand it back, but Mavis shook her head.

“I want you to keep it. I’m getting on in years. Never had any children of my own. It would make me and Granny Baker very happy if you would give it to your own children some day.”

Charity’s eyes filled with tears. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure, dearest.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do—I promise.”

Mavis rose from her chair to walk Charity and Call to the door.

“I don’t have much family left anymore,” Charity said to her aunt. “I wish I didn’t live so far away.”

“So do I, dear.” Mavis turned to Call, reached her bony arms up and hugged him. “You take care of her, now, you hear?”

Call just nodded. Since the successful conclusion of his meeting, he’d been relaxed and at ease, enjoying their celebration lunch, smiling more often than Charity had ever seen him.

Now, with her aunt’s harmless words, there was tension in his face once more. Charity sighed, knowing what that tension meant.

You take care of her.
The words settled on Call’s chest like a six-pound nugget as the limo drove along the hilly streets, returning them to the Four Seasons Hotel. Taking care of someone was a responsibility he no longer wanted. He had failed at the task before and wound up getting his family killed. He never wanted to risk that kind of failure again.

He said little on the ride through the scenic mountain passes back to Seattle. When they reached the hotel, they left the car and went straight up to the suite. Charity cast him a glance as he walked over to the desk in the corner, sat down, and simply went to work.

Dialing Steve McDonald, the investigator he had hired, Call gave him a rundown on the meeting with Fredrico Ransitch, but didn’t pull him off the job. Instead, he instructed the detective to continue his efforts, hoping to confirm Fredrico as the man responsible for the attempt on his life.

Though Call was confident he had put an end to the threat, he wasn’t a man who took things for granted.

McDonald said that he would keep digging.

Next, Call dialed Peter Held. He had phoned Peter a couple of times before he left the Yukon, but Held wasn’t there and the answering machine had picked up. He’d left a message asking Peter to contact him, but so far hadn’t heard from him. With Held still recovering from his injuries, Call had assumed he’d be in town.

Dammit, if Marybeth Allen still worked for him, the meeting would have been set. She would have dogged Peter’s tracks until she found him.

The hours slipped past. Determined not to fall into the old, hectic routine that had ruined his life four years ago, and feeling a little guilty for breaking his promise to show Charity the city, he left the desk and walked over to where she sat reading one of her adventure novels. She had changed into jeans and a lightweight sweater, perfect for what he had in mind.

“We’ve got a couple of hours before we need to get ready for supper. Why don’t I have Joseph bring up the car and we’ll take in a few of the sights, maybe stop at the Pike Street Market and look around a little?”

Charity gave him one of her heart-stopping smiles. “I’d love to.” She set her book down and took hold of his hand and he felt the jolt of awareness she always made him feel.

It was a shot of warning.

Call chose to ignore it.

At least until they got home.

Seated behind the sleek rosewood desk in the spacious office of his San Francisco headquarters, Gordon Speers turned away from the wall of glass and spectacular view of the Oakland Bay Bridge and turned his attention to his computer screen.

A couple of clicks of the mouse and the latest market data on platinum appeared on the screen in front of him. Today’s value, given in U.S. dollars per troy ounce of weight, four hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Platinum, already one of the world’s most expensive metals, was getting more costly every day. It was a soft, ductile material, resistant to oxidation and high temperature corrosion. And one of the valuable metal’s most rapidly growing applications was in the production of hard-disk storage.

Somewhere around ninety percent of all computer hard-disks contained platinum in their magnetic layers. With the constant need for more and more storage, the demand—and the cost—had no place to go but up. It was a dilemma all manufacturers faced, though ultimately the burden would be borne by the purchasers.

Unless someone discovered a way to use a cheaper metal with the same or even higher degree of efficiency.

In which case, Gordon’s company, Global Microsystems, and every other manufacturer still forced to use the more expensive product, were going to find themselves in a world of hurt.

The thought stirred a thread of irritation. Reaching into the drawer, Gordon picked up his cell phone and dialed Tony King.

He answered on the first ring.

“I’ve been expecting to hear from you,” Gordon said, letting his annoyance show. “What’s going on?”

“Take it easy, everything’s under control.”

“Is it?”

“I said it was, didn’t I? First of all, after a little friendly persuasion, Peter Held decided to take his girlfriend to Hawaii for a long vacation. That buys us some time.”

Some good news, at any rate.
“Even if it does, it won’t stop Hawkins … not in the long run.”

“I’m still working on that. I’ve got a man in place.”

“The same guy you used before?”

“Stan’s good. He just doesn’t like being rushed. He likes things neat and clean and so do I.”

“That makes three of us. Tell him to take his time. Tell him we want it done right this time.”

“Anything else?”

“Everything on this end is running smoothly,” Gordon said. “Give my best to Alice and the boys.”

Gordon signed off, feeling a little better, grateful as always that Tony was on the job. They made a good team, the two of them. In the next few years, they were going to make millions of dollars. Far more than that, if everything went the way they planned. He could retire in the style he had dreamed of—hundred-foot yachts, magnificent villas, plush private jets.

And his wife’s obscenely rich, old money family would finally have to give him the respect he deserved instead of looking down their noses as if he manufactured cheap suits instead of sophisticated software.

Smiling at the thought, Gordon relaxed and turned back to the computer. If he wanted this to go off smoothly, he had his own problems to solve.

At his office in the Bank of America building in downtown L.A., Tony King placed a call to Stan Grossman in Dawson City.

“I’m working on the problem,” Stan said from his room at the Aurora Motel. “The guy’s a little unpredictable. I’ve got a couple of possibilities in mind. I’m gonna have to play it by ear.”

“I thought you liked to have everything in place.”

“I do. Unfortunately, sometimes, you gotta be flexible.”

“Held’s left town for a couple of weeks. That gives us a little more time.”

“Two weeks oughta be enough.”

“Make certain it is.” Tony hung up the phone. Stan didn’t like his chain being jerked, but hey, shit rolled down hill.

He leaned back in his chair, looking at the small, silver-framed photo of Alice and his twin boys, Roger and Tony, Jr. Good-looking boys, he thought—a good-looking family, in fact. Opening one of the drawers, he pulled out a photo of himself and Bridget, his long-time girlfriend, taken last New Year’s Eve. She was a tall, voluptuous blonde, a former starlet with tits the size of melons and a mouth like a silk glove.

He didn’t keep both photos on the desk in case Alice walked in, but he had a fondness for that particular snapshot of Bridget. In the eye of his mind, he could see her seductive smile and shapely body. He thought of how much money it took to keep her happy and hoped to hell Stan finished the job this time.

Life returned to normal on the Lily Rose. The chopper had brought Call and Charity home late last evening, and Kodiak, who had been staying with Smoke and Toby, came bounding into her arms the minute he saw her. Charity hugged his small wriggling body and ruffled his thick brown fur.

Call walked the two of them home, but declined her invitation to stay for supper and the unspoken offer to join her for the night. Something to do with a project he needed to finish, he’d said, and she hadn’t seen him since.

She knew it was the closeness. It was always too much for him. She could feel him withdrawing from the moment they left Seattle, knew he was ready to run, but she had hoped this time he wouldn’t.

Though she worried about him, she left him alone and settled into her work.

Unfortunately, before they got started, the first problem arose.

“It’s that durned dredge,” Maude said, sucking on the stem of her empty pipe. “Somethin’s wrong with the engine.”

“How can there be something wrong with the engine? The darn thing’s practically new.”

“Well, sometimes you just get a lemon.”

Charity walked up the hill with her cell phone to call a mechanic. D. K. Prospecting specialized in mining equipment, but the repair guy couldn’t make it out till the end of the week.

“Fine,” she said, “then we’ll just have to bring it in.”

With Toby and Jenny’s help, they dragged the heavy dredge out of the water and up on the bank of the creek. It wouldn’t fit in the back of the Explorer, so Toby went over to borrow Call’s Chevy three-quarter-ton pickup. Call came back with him to help them load it—rather reluctantly, Charity thought—but with all of them lifting, they were able to get the engine into the bed of the truck.

Charity, Jenny, and Toby made the hour-long trip down the mountain to town to drop the engine at the repair shop. As luck would have it, the mechanic found the problem while they were still there.

“Sand in the gas tank,” he said. “Looks like somebody got careless.”

Charity frowned. “That’s all that’s wrong with it?”

“Far as I can tell.”

“I should have thought of that,” Toby said. “We’re always so careful I didn’t think to look. I’m sorry, Charity.”

“It’s not your fault.” She sighed. “Crummy buttons—that cost us a whole day’s work.”

Toby smothered a laugh and even Jenny grinned. “Crummy buttons?” Toby teased.

Charity tossed him a look. “What’s wrong with that? It’s what my mom always used to say.”

Toby chuckled all the way to the truck.

With the dredge running again they decided to make a chow stop at Klondike Kate’s—fortunately, the redhead was nowhere in sight—and pick up a few supplies before making their way back up the hill.

Call must have seen them driving past his house. He showed up a few minutes after their return to help with the unloading.

“That was fast,” he said. “I thought you’d have to leave it a couple of days.”

“Nothing but sand in the gas tank,” Charity said.

“I’m surprised Toby didn’t find it. He’s pretty good with engines.”

“I should have,” Toby said regretfully. “We’re always just so careful when we fill it.”

Call helped them get the dredge back into the water, sloshing down from the bank in a pair of khaki hiking shorts that showed off the long, hard muscles in his terrific-looking legs. They were all soaking wet by the time they got the flotation collar back on the machine and had it positioned correctly in the creek.

Call’s gaze ran over the wet tee shirt clinging to Charity’s breasts, but he made no comment, just excused himself and walked back down the path to his house.

Two days passed. Work was going smoothly but she’d seen no more of Call. She wondered what he was doing, wished he would come over, but didn’t really expect him to. She missed him more every day, missed sleeping with him, missed making love to him. It was dangerous thinking, she knew. Eventually she would be leaving the Yukon. Once she returned to New York, she would probably never see Call again.

The thought made her chest ache. It was the first time she had allowed the truth to completely surface and now that it had, it shook her to the core. She was in love with Call. Crazy in love, and she didn’t want to leave him. But she couldn’t stay in the Yukon forever and even if she could, Call wouldn’t want her to.

Her mood grew darker. At night she had trouble sleeping and when she did, she dreamed. Earlier that evening, she had been thinking of her meeting with Aunt Mavis and perhaps that was the reason.

Rachael Fitzpatrick, Aunt Mavis had said, had gone to the Yukon more than a hundred years ago in search of gold. She had returned with a glittering gold nugget as proof of her journey. Rachael was not in Charity’s direct line of descent, only a far distant aunt, but considering the search Charity had undertaken and her belief that she had some connection, perhaps even memories of the North, it was interesting nonetheless.

Perhaps thoughts of Rachael were the reason for the dream. Certainly the calm, rational side of her nature said that it was. That night, as she lay deep in slumber, she had dreamed of an avalanche, a crushing mountain of snow that cracked away from the rest and slammed down the hill. She had dreamed of a man dressed head to foot in heavy woolen clothes being buried beneath the tumbling weight of the snow. People rushed toward him, digging furiously in the place he had been.

In the dream, she seemed to be one of them. She could feel their pain and frustration, feel their terrible grief at his loss.

One woman in particular stood out, though she couldn’t see her face. Even after Charity awakened, her heart pounding wildly and her nightgown damp with perspiration, she could see the woman frantically digging in the snow. Her skirt was wet and clinging to the soggy woolen petticoats she wore to keep warm, her fingers frozen, and her heart … her heart felt as if it were breaking in two.

Charity sighed as she thought about it later. Dreams were funny things. Anything could set them off.

Still, as she lifted the shiny gold nugget out of her dresser drawer and watched it gleam in the morning sunlight, she couldn’t help wondering if she had missed something in her search, and if in some deep, hidden corner of her mind, the dream wasn’t part of a long-ago memory.

Another day passed. Call never appeared and her black mood continued to spiral downward. Not one to mope around, she decided to do something about it and finally suggested they quit work early Wednesday afternoon, make the trip into town, and take in a matinee.

“Besides, we’re getting low on vegetables and milk,” she said to the small group standing at the bottom of the porch. “I should have picked some up when we went in to Dawson to fix the engine, but I was thinking about the dredge and I forgot. What do you say?”

“I need to check with Call,” Toby said, “see if he needs me this afternoon. If I can get away, that’d be great.”

Even Maude agreed to go. As soon as they spotted Toby returning down the path, grinning and giving them two thumbs up, they all jumped into the Explorer. Charity put the Ford in gear, circled around, and they were off.

They were crossing the rickety wooden bridge over the creek when she heard a loud, wrenching, groaning sound and the back of the Ford seemed to simply drop out from beneath them.

Charity and Jenny both screamed as the bridge collapsed at one end, a drop of about four feet, hit with a bone-jarring jolt, and the car started sliding backward into the stream. Water began rushing past the wheels, lifting the rear end up and moving it off the bridge, angling it sideways till the tires wedged into a cluster of rocks. Fortunately, it was summer and the water wasn’t all that deep. Charity realized they weren’t in any real danger and heaved a sigh of relief.

She glanced across at Maude, sitting next to her in the passenger seat. “Guess I should have got the bridge fixed like I planned,” she said.

Maude looked out the front windshield, which angled upward, giving them a view of the sky. “Good thing it ain’t the rainy season.”

In the backseat, Jenny giggled.

Charity looked over at Maude and all of them burst out laughing.

They finally brought themselves under control and Charity sighed. “Come on, guys. I guess we aren’t going to town after all.”

They got out of the car, sloshed through the water, and climbed up onto the road on the opposite side of the property to study the problem.

“Got any ideas?” she said to the group.

“Call’s got a winch on his Jeep. I’ll go get him.”

Charity’s heart kicked up as Toby jogged off down the dirt road toward his house. She hadn’t seen Call in days. She knew he would come to their aid and anticipation poured through her. Damn. She was in worse shape than she thought.

It wasn’t long before Call’s black Jeep appeared. When he reached the bridge, he pulled over and turned off the engine. Charity watched as he got out of the car to study the problem and raked a hand through his hair.

God, he looked so good.

“Can you help us get it out?” Charity asked, trying to act casual and praying that he could.

“Yeah, no problem.”

Relief filtered through her and something more, something that made her heart flutter oddly. Dressed in a dark green tee shirt and khaki hiking shorts, he unrolled a length of cable from the big metal winch on the front of his Jeep, walked over to the Explorer, and attached the hook at the end of the line to the tow hook under the front bumper.

As soon as the controls were engaged, the wheel began to turn, recoiling the cable, dragging the Ford out of the water and back up on the bridge. Little by little, the winch hauled the Explorer up the ramp formed by the old wooden planking onto the dirt road on the far side of Dead Horse Creek.