Pieces of You

DEDICATION:

To my siblings, Bill, Mark, and Ann – miles may separate us but you are always just a phone call and a heartbeat away.

Prologue

People talked about the disappearance of Evie Arbogast Burnes for years. How had it happened? When? Where? And in the good Lord’s name, why? They pieced together a story bit by bit, an eventual telling that eased them back to a manageable level where they could send their children to the grocery store without following them half-way there, just in case. Evie had been a woman, full grown when she vanished, the wife of Rupert Burnes, mother to Quinn and little Annalise.

There’d never been any answers, despite the diligence of the town and Rupe himself, driving a one-hundred-mile radius in his Ford pickup to distribute flyers, talk to local officials, go door to door – anything to find his wife.

Evie Burnes just disappeared and no one ever learned the truth behind it, though many guessed, or, after a time, filled in their own tales. Most didn’t want to know for fear the answers would be too stark to accept into a town like Corville, Pennsylvania, population 5,298.

Generations of families lived there; grandfather, father, son, and so on, painting their names on trucks, buildings, and lawn service vehicles. Corville provided safe harbor from cities like Philly and Pittsburgh, whose next door neighbors remained nameless and faceless by choice, where destruction and violence plastered headlines daily.

Evie hadn’t been born there, but the town embraced her once she married into the Burnes family. No one baked a better bumble berry pie than Evie, the kind with a crust that melted in your mouth and made you hold out your plate for seconds. Painting was her true gift, though it took years for anybody, including Rupe, to discover it. She gave lessons in her attic on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, watercolor, though on occasion she used oils, but only if the student asked. She taught them how to paint streams, evergreens capped in snow, and fields of sunflowers dazed by summer sun. Her paintings were always entered in St. Michael’s annual silent auction and had become one of the Church’s largest money makers, right along with Rupe’s ninety day snow removal certificate.

Evie Burnes was a blessing to the town, a tender heart with a gifted hand. She’d become one of them, and losing her had been tragic. But the not knowing, the
never
knowing, that’s what still made people shiver when they talked about it. Some said maybe she was too trusting, even for Corville; maybe she saw so much good in people she missed the tiny scraps of evil that clung to most everyone at one time or another.

And maybe that’s what snatched her from them, they said, left a husband and two children behind, broken and grieving, and a town that could not forget.

Chapter 1

Eighteen years later

Philly was brutal in July. There were too many sightseers clogging the streets, snapping pictures of Ben Franklin’s house or stuffing shopping bags with giant nickels from souvenir shops. They infiltrated the eateries and made the lunch crowd quadruple.

Quinn Burnes pulled his Audi into the reserved spot, thankful at least he didn’t have to battle a minivan from Idaho for a parking place. Owning a law firm had some advantages though his sister would disagree, but she disagreed with him on a lot of issues. As a matter of fact, right now she wasn’t speaking to him.

Two days and counting since she’d stopped returning his phone calls, right after she found out he was the attorney on the very controversial personal injury case, Appleton vs. Rothford’s Department Store. He wished she would bend a little and try to understand how a woman might go after five hundred thousand dollars of compensation after she fell on an escalator. Okay, maybe she was going
up
the escalator, but still, she’d lost a tooth, suffered image problems, pain and suffering . . . His ‘save the world social worker’ sister refused to hear any of it, calling him a sellout. Maybe he was, but there’d been a time when he’d been just like Annie; trusting, open-hearted, compassionate. Then he’d learned the truth that destroyed it all.

Quinn squashed those memories and rode the elevator to the eleventh floor and his penthouse office. If only he could get Annie to see there was more to life than trying to rescue crack mothers who didn’t want to be rescued. Not likely to happen. The only answer was a truce. He’d stop at
The Silver Strand
after work and pick out something nice. Maybe an opal bracelet or a jade necklace with all those little beads around it.  

His mind was still on his sister when he stepped off the elevator and into the suites of Burnes and Wightman. There was no Wightman anymore, not since Bernie keeled over in the courtroom four years ago during his closing argument. That’s what defending the supposedly innocent got you - dead at fifty-four with a nice pension for your widow and a cheesy bronze plaque.

Quinn shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the coat tree. In exactly seven minutes, Sylvia would sashay in with a Starbuck’s, black, no sugar, and a copy of the
Philadelphia Inquirer
. She’d read him his horoscope, translated into the Sylvia Freeman version which usually centered around intrigue and love, two of her favorite pastimes, and then she’d give him his messages, And of course, she’d bring him lunch; sushi, a Mediterranean salad, or maybe if he were very lucky, a Philly Cheesesteak. All of this, and it only cost him an occasional headache and $38,000 a year plus benefits.

He eyed the phone wishing Annie would call. Her name used to be Annalise but she chopped it to Annie when she went into social work so she wouldn’t sound too high brow. Quinn could’ve called her Gladys after their mother vanished and their father wouldn’t have noticed. Rupe Burnes had only cared about one thing; finding a wife who was not going to be found. He died eight years ago, tired, broken and still waiting for his wife to come home.

Annie had given up years ago and quietly accepted the fact that her mother was dead. In the early days, Quinn had dried her tears, removed the barrettes from her long brown hair before tucking her into bed with Penelope, the pink hippo, and sometimes, he even read a few poems from Shel Siverstein’s,
A Light in the Attic.
He did this because ten year old brains were not equipped to handle death or loss, unless it was a squished worm or a sick hermit crab, and even then the tears and questions could resurface for days. But parents didn’t die in a ten year old’s mind and they never just disappeared; washing t-shirts and underwear one day, gone the next.

And eighteen years later, Quinn was still there for Annie. He’d always protect his sister, no matter how many lies he had to tell to keep her safe.

***

What Quinn liked most about
The Silver Strand
was the smell, a honey-cider spiced mix that reminded him of Thanksgiving morning, not patchouli or lavender, or any other New Age relaxing nonsense to trick a person into a meditative state so he’d open his wallet.  

The Silver Strand
lay tucked between a candle store and a vitamin shop on Chestnut Street, clever and curious, with its bright red appendages; hands, fingers, legs, artfully arranged, sporting opals, rubies, jade, and sapphires. Quinn opened the door, immune to the silver string of bells tinkling his entrance and inhaled deeply.

Arianna was with a customer but she looked up and smiled, reminding him of a Nordic princess with her tall, silver-blond beauty and casual grace. He’d never understood how a guy could leave someone like Arianna Sorensen ten days before the wedding, but Ash Revelin had done it two years ago, with a half-baked excuse and a mediocre apology. She was better off without a jerk like that but the sadness in her eyes said she might not think so.

Quinn moved toward the far end of the store where there were several rectangular cases housing a variety of jewels and jewelry. The more expensive pieces were in the smaller room in the back but he still liked to ease his way through each case. Just a simple cut could change the way a topaz sparkled in its setting, not as arresting as a black opal but there was a fluid beauty in the deep golden color unique to the topaz. Some nights as he watched Arianna shape metal into intricate designs, he had to clench his fists to keep from grabbing the torch and forming his own design.

Arianna was still with the customer, a middle-aged woman in spandex, and from the indecision on the woman’s face, it could be awhile. Quinn decided to make his way to the studio and pour a whiskey while he waited. He didn’t realize anyone was in the studio until he had his hand on the knob. That’s when he saw her. Much of her face was obscured by huge goggles as she clutched a blow torch and bent over a piece of metal. He studied the long, lean frame, the black braid reaching down her back as she aimed the blow torch and a bright orange-blue flame spat out, illuminating a slice of pale skin.

The woman’s slim fingers mesmerized him as she worked the torch with practiced skill, making him think of sex and lots of it.
Who was she?
Quinn clutched the doorknob, caught between desire to go to the woman and rip off the goggles so he could see her face and the equal need to stay right there, watching.

She leaned forward further and he could make out a swell of small breast beneath the black turtleneck sweater. They’d be round breasts, firm, full. He imagined her naked, the long waist, the slim hips . . . The woman turned off the blow torch, set it on the workbench and held up the metal she’d been soldering. His gaze fell to her lips. Full. Red. Perfect.  

He turned the knob just as she disappeared behind a screened panel. What would he say when she returned?
I like the way you work a blow torch?
Maybe he wouldn’t say anything, he’d pour a drink, no two, and go for the casual,
Hi, I’m Quinn, Arianna’s friend
.

He waited. Three minutes, five, six. Finally, he opened the door and stepped inside, expecting the mystery woman to materialize from behind the partition. When she didn’t, he edged toward the screen and looked behind it. A tiny hall snaked toward a door that led to the street. The woman was gone.

“Quinn? There you are!”

He swung around to find Arianna, smiling at him, two glasses in hand.

“Whiskey or wine?”

“Whiskey.” He glanced at the door one last time and followed Arianna to the workbench. What color were her eyes? Blue? Green? Maybe they were amber, the same color as the whiskey he drank, hot and burning . . .

“Sorry it took me so long. Sometimes customers have a difficult time knowing what they want.”

Quinn knew what he wanted – information about the mystery woman. “Who was the woman in here working the blow torch?”

Arianna lifted a shoulder and toyed with her necklace in a way that told him she didn’t want to talk about it. “Just a friend of a friend.”

“I’ve never seen her before.”
But I plan to see her again.

“No.”

Why such stingy answers? What was she hiding? Quinn’s lawyer instincts kicked in. “Is she working for you?” He wondered about her name, something exotic no doubt. Ellysa. Anastasia. Veronica.

“Sort of.” She uncapped the whiskey and poured two fingers in each glass. “It’s temporary.”

That could mean anything. Or nothing. “So, who is she?”

“She’s too quiet for your tastes.”

What was that supposed to mean? So, he’d dated some
Cosmopolitan
types who oozed sex and loved the limelight almost as much as they loved him. That didn’t mean he was a complete caveman. He had manners. He had style. Besides, the mystery woman had her own brand of sex appeal. “The way she was working that blow torch did not look quiet to me.”