Chapter 34
She shouldn't have been startled. It was stupid for her to stay as long as she had. As if she didn’t have enough Velascos staring her down and asking questions. Rowan had to walk right into the room and shatter all her carefully constructed reasoning.
She'd shown up on the doorstep almost on a whim. She should have called first or something. But she’d just taken the turn and pulled up the long drive to the beautiful house that was bigger and nicer than anything down on the river road.
When Vienna answered the door, there was a look in her eyes—something furtive, something she wasn't quite willing to tell Annalise. It was tempting to turn around and walk away. There was nothing that said she had to do this.
When Vienna said, “Rowan's not here,” it was stated with a tone that said you can go, as if Annalise was the cause of any of this trouble. The irritation startled her. She’d not expected it.
It hit her then: She'd struggled with her animosity for Vienna. It wasn’t the same as what she held for Rowan.
Vienna supported her husband and her family.
Though it might be the same way her son did, Annalise didn’t hold it against her as harshly.
Then again, Vienna hadn’t promised she and Annalise would grow old together, or that Annalise was the most important person in the world to her.
She didn't know why, but a hard knot formed in her chest, and it seemed important to let Vienna know her irritation was misplaced. This woman had once been a second mother to her, and it was still hard to reconcile. “I'm not here for Rowan. I actually came to see you.”
The words shouldn't have been curt, but she was a little disgruntled by the almost sharp greeting and the undertone of suggestion that she’d done something wrong. Maybe because she’d broken Rowan's heart, but he'd broken hers first, and nobody in this house seemed willing to admit that.
However, none of that was at play tonight. She hadn't seen Rowan's car in the drive, and she told herself she wasn't disappointed. Though Vienna looked at her oddly at the statement, she'd opened the door wider and motioned Annalise in, the almost-distrust turning to almost-curiosity.
“Is there somewhere we can sit, somewhere with a clean surface?”
Vienna's eyebrows flew up as if insulted, and Annalise wanted to roll her own eyes and shake her head. Vienna Velasco certainly knew what she did for a living. She was not insulting the woman's home or her cleaning skills.
Indie appeared over her mother's shoulder then, a smile on her face as she said, “Of course. Does it help if I wipe it down with a disinfectant?”
“That would be wonderful,” Annalise said, and she offered a small, tight smile to Vienna, who was finally catching on.
“You have something.”
Annalise ignored her. It was petty, and juvenile, but it felt a little good. She followed the two women to the table, watching as Indie pulled a Lysol wipe from somewhere nearby and cleaned the entire surface, asking if that was good enough.
Annalise's anger deflated. Whatever she and Martin had done before, the Velasco matriarch had opened her home to everyone during the flood, including Story and Annalise.
No questions asked. They'd been given dry clothing, delicious food, and a place to sleep until the rain stopped and the waters receded.
When Vienna offered it, there was no telling how long the storm would last. It could have been a week.
It wound up being three days. Vienna never faltered in her hospitality—even toward Annelise.
She and Story, who would not have survived in the cabin they'd passed or in one of the houses halfway up that had lost power, owed Vienna that much. She tucked the history away in favor of other history. Turning to Indie, she said, “You have to let a disinfectant sit for several minutes.”
Hopefully that explained why she waited. With one hand on the strap of the leather bag over her shoulder and the other holding on to the bag itself as if the flap would fly up and the contents would pop out if she didn't control it, she motioned them to the table.
Indie asked almost gleefully, “What did you find, and why do you think we need to see it?”
“This was brought to me by a client,” she told them. “They travel and collect, but I have no idea how they came across this particular piece. Also, I shouldn't have it here. I would ask both of you the favor of not mentioning that this meeting ever occurred.”
At that, Indie only smiled and nodded sharply, happily on board, while Vienna looked at her intrigued, the last of her distaste also finally having diffused. Maybe the two women could find some common ground after all these years.
Vienna had been family until the split with Rowan, and of course Vienna sided with her son and her husband.
As Annalise looked at her now, she realized it was difficult to fault a wife and mother for that loyalty.
For the first time, Annalise wondered if she should have been at Martin's funeral.
For all that she harbored a deep anger and resentment against him for what he had done, Martin had been the father she never had.
He'd taken her and Rowan fishing when they were kids.
When he taught Rowan how to drive, he taught Annalise, too.
Though Melissa attempted to teach her daughter those basics, it was Martin Velasco whose teachings had gotten through.
On the ride over here from Charlottesville, she had driven in the defensive manner Martin taught her. She always did.
These last few weeks had offered smack after smack of revelation of the things she’d held at bay for fifteen years. She wasn't quite ready to apologize to Vienna for disappearing, for not showing up to Martin's funeral, for any of it. But she could do this genuinely.
Indie waved a hand over the table as if to see if the disinfectant had dried and Annelise finally sat down.
“When someone brings an item to me for appraisal or for sale, it doesn't leave the shop until and unless I purchase it from them.
That is not the case with this piece. We cannot damage it in any way.
We cannot leave any marks on it that let anyone know it left the premises.
But I believe it's a piece of your family history.”
Like Indie, she checked the table and found it dry. The disinfectant had surely had enough time, and honestly, the book would stay on the protective fabric. She set her bag carefully in the chair next to her, then pulled on her gloves, motioning to the other two women not to touch.
Carefully, she set it fabric-bound onto the table, her white gloves protecting it from any oil on her hands. Slowly peeling the fabric back, she saw the moment the two women recognized it was a book, but with no markings on the outside whatsoever, they both frowned at her.
She felt a bit like a magician as she carefully lifted the front cover, pointing her covered finger to the front page.
It seemed clear to her, but she realized maybe neither of the other women could read it.
The slant was sharp, the curves small, some of the letters had loops and hooks not normally found in today's English, and some of it was in Spanish.
“Launa Velasco?” Indie asked.
Annalise nodded and saw the moment Vienna made the connection.
Annalise offered what she could. “I'm not a genealogist. I haven't checked, but I believe it's possible Martin is a descendant, maybe even a direct descendant, of this woman.”
Vienna was on her feet, disappearing into the shadows of the main room. Annalise watched as she pulled out a stool, reached up to the top shelf of the built-in bookshelves along the wall. Once she returned, she held a book almost as old as the one Annalise had—a family Bible.
Hit by yet another revelation, Annalise took a breath and tried to stabilize her heart rate. The family Bible was stored on the top shelf, the way someone who had lost everything in a flood would keep their valuables up high.
She wanted to shake her head. This house was so far above the river there was no chance it would ever flood, but they’d carried the trauma of it right up the mountain with them.
Martin had bought the family's way out of disaster, and he'd bought it with her mother's life.
But Melissa was long since gone, and Martin was gone now too, and she reminded herself this was simply about the book.
She watched as Vienna turned the bible pages slowly. As the Velasco matriarch checked through the family logs, Alder came into the room. He looked between the three of them and asked what was going on.
Bringing him up to speed, Annalise explained the piece again, motioning that he wasn't to touch anything.
He settled himself into a seat looking over it.
Peeking at the variety of handwriting in the bible, Annalise saw dates of births and deaths, children, many of whom had gone before their fifth year, and more than one Martin.
“His great great grandmother was Launa Velasco.” Vienna pointed to an entry.
Indie shook her head as Annelise answered. “Unless this is forged—and all the non-invasive testing I can do appears that it's not—the dates don’t match. This book is older.”
Vienna turned back more pages as the three women put their heads together over the family Bible, then looked again to the dates on the bound diary and back.
“This one?” Indie asked. “This is my great-great-great-great-great-great-whatever grandma.”
“I think so.”
Vienna was reaching to check the date in the diary as Annalise held her two white-gloved hands out in a stop motion. “You can't touch it.”
Just then, she heard the sounds that she hadn't quite placed—footsteps on the stairs. As Rowan peeked around the corner, he couldn't hide the expression that he was startled to see her there.