Shadows in the Starlight by Elaine Cunningham

Author:Elaine Cunningham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER Ten

Gwen found her way into downtown Plymouth without much problem. She drove along the harbor and pulled into the public parking lot around nine o’clock. She got out of the car and stretched, catlike, working away the stiffness that came of a two-hour drive.

Oddly enough, she’d never been to Plymouth before, even though she’d spent her entire life in southern New England. It was a nice place if you liked this sort of thing—a pretty seaside town with lots of old buildings and a couple of nifty historical landmarks.

Gwen watched as a school bus disgorged its cargo. A trio of frazzled-looking teachers tried without much success to interest their kids in the rock entombed in a miniature Grecian shrine. As far as Gwen could tell, Plymouth Rock looked pretty much like any other big hunk of stone. And the reproduction of the Mayflower docked nearby was tiny. No wonder so many of the pilgrims had died the first winter. It was a marvel any of them survived the sea crossing. Hell, if Gwen had been forced to live in such close quarters, she would have been responsible for most of the shipboard deaths.

Having gotten in touch with her national roots, Gwen left her car and walked up a side street, following the directions on the Yahoo! map Jason had printed out for her.

Jason Cross was really getting to know his way around cyberspace. He’d spent the previous afternoon helping her search for Helene Tremaine. Between the two of them, they’d pieced together a partial picture. Helene was born in 1944, which meant she would be in her late sixties. Assuming Helene and Erin were one and the same, that wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, as long as Erin aged as slowly as, say, Ian Forest.

Of course, that was a rather large assumption. Helene’s stylist had recognized Erin’s picture, but she’d insisted that “Helene” looked considerably older than Gwen. The photo was recent, and it showed a girl who could have been in Gwen’s high-school graduating class. The numbers didn’t add up, so Gwen decided to come to Helene’s hometown for a closer look.

The only member of the Tremaine family Jason could track down was an older brother, still living in the house he and Helene had grown up in. It had taken some talking to get the man to agree to a meeting.

Clyde Tremaine sat on the step of a small porch, a rickety affair fronting a tall, narrow house painted barn red. He was tall and rangy, with a craggy, pitted face. Rheumy eyes regarded Gwen with a sour expression.

“You’re the girl who’s asking about Helene?”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t see why. She died in a car crash way back in ’61.”

That date seized Gwen’s attention. After 1962, lists of Social Security numbers for the deceased became a lot easier to come by. Interesting coincidence?

She showed him the picture Kyle had given her. “Is this Helene?”

The old man patted his shirt pocket for glasses, slipped them on, and leaned in close.

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