The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

He longed to plead with her for more details, but he could see the toll on her body from their conversation thus far.

Suddenly, she reached for him. “You need to go back. And give Cora a message from me.”

“Of course.” Finn cocked his head. “What is it?”

She beckoned to a clerk, and the woman rushed over to stand behind the case.

“That one.” Sylvia pointed with conviction, and Finn remembered that although her body was failing, her mind remained needle sharp.

“What message?” Finn asked

“That it’s time to tell him.”

“Who’s him?”

“She’ll know,” Sylvia said and set a folded square of paper on the glass counter. “I’d like this engraved on the back, please.”

Baffled, Finn waited silently as the woman processed his mother’s purchase and gave him the receipt.

“I’ll pick it up for you when it’s ready,” he said, tucking the slip into his wallet.

“Good, because I want you to take it to Cora.”

“Why?” Finn asked, taken aback. The watch had cost thousands of dollars, and it was far too big for Cora’s wrist. “Then what will you give Kristian?”

“Something far more precious,” she murmured.

The first day of the new heron nesting season

March 21

inn scrutinized the duct tape on the underside of his rubber glove, this time covering a switchblade instead of her scalpel. Adhered to his other glove was pepper spray. If she noticed, he would remind her of the ticks and chloroform. Although she was a victim, he’d been foolish to view her as one. He wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

So much has changed since the first time I came here, Finn thought as he took in the scent of the sandy loam. In the days after his talk with Sylvia, he’d revisited the times she’d encouraged him to stand up for the oppressed. Someone has to be the hero. It had hit him with an almost physical force that throughout all those years that Ulrich and Rollie had been grooming Kristian to inherit the project, Sylvia had been preparing Finn to take on the role of Cora’s protector.

All those superhero comic cards and magazines she’d bought him . . . God, he loved her. Finn silently vowed to show her that she hadn’t failed. At least not at raising him. But he felt like he had a brick wall to punch through before he could make that claim.

To gauge how much longer he would have to wait beside his kayak, he studied the tree line beyond the field. Still, only Brooklyn’s halo glowed above the canopy.

A low, trilling whistle replaced the calm, and Finn spun toward its source.

He could just make out the morgue, coal house, and smokestacks of the physical plant.

The noise could have belonged to a bird—Lily would know which type.

In January, she’d had another grand mal seizure, this one on the subway. Thank God a doctor had been in the next car. That night they’d agreed it was too risky for her to return here. She’d understood that meant Finn would go, but as far as she’d known, he hadn’t finalized the date. To avoid causing her days of undue heightened stress, he’d planned to tell her the night before. Yesterday evening, however, she’d gone with her mother to see a Broadway show and spent the night at her mom’s Chelsea apartment. Finn had left Lily a note on the kitchen table, next to a bouquet of daisies that would likely provoke more ire than romance, he now realized.

The birdcall sounded again, and Finn knew it had come from Cora, somewhere amid the cluster of buildings.

She must have been watching for him. Today marked the start of the heron nesting season; she’d accurately predicted he would return as soon as possible. Maybe he should have waited a week to prove her wrong. No, he would never add his name to the list of Gettler men who’d played mind games with her.

Although the noise didn’t repeat, he knew she was expecting him to find her.

He shouldered his pack and lifted a duffel bag from his kayak. Since he couldn’t use his flashlight while crossing the overgrown meadow, visible from the river, he would have to rely on the thickness of his rubber boots, and luck, to avoid ripping his hazmat suit.

As he carefully crossed the weeds, still beaten down from last winter’s snowfalls, a hint of sunlight colored the horizon.

Reaching the cover of the buildings, he turned on his flashlight and swept the beam from one to the next. She could be lurking behind any one of their pitch-black doorways.

Irritated that she already had the upper hand, he considered dropping the supply-filled duffel and leaving. Taking a deep breath, he thought of his mother. “Now what?” he asked, turning off his light so he wouldn’t be such an easy target.

Again, she whistled shrilly, and Finn spun to face the physical plant.

Silence filled the biting cold, an implied command for him to enter. At the threshold, he pointed his flashlight into the space. As he arced his light, eerie shadows danced like demons. Dark doorways led to other chambers, and a spoked valve wheel rested in the center of the room.

“Come in, out of the cold,” said Cora from somewhere above.

He looked up at the rafters, crisscrossing an otherwise absent roof. In the fading night, he couldn’t make out a single star, reminding him just how alone they were.

Finally, he spotted her perched on a joist.

“You do love heights,” he said, keeping his light fixed on her. “Can you please come down?”

“If you stop blinding me with that thing,” she said, her arm shielding her eyes.

“Sorry.” He shifted the beam, and, like a spider, she worked her way down the maze of pipes bolted to the brick wall.

Her willingness to expose her backside made Finn feel slightly more confident that he would live through this day.

Appraising him, Cora smacked her gloves against each other, then straightened her “I [heart] NYC” sweatshirt.

Comforted by the ten-foot gap between them, Finn waited for her