Brass Ring

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Other Books by Diane Chamberlain

  BRASS RING

  a novel by

  Diane Chamberlain

  Copyright © 2010 by Diane Chamberlain

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Originally published by HarperCollins, 1994

  Ebook creation by Dellaster Design

  Dear Reader,

  I’m excited to make Brass Ring available for you as an e-book. Except for some very minor changes, it’s identical to the original novel, which Kirkus Reviews called a “page turner” and the Library Journal praised for its suspense. I hope you enjoy the story.

  —Diane Chamberlain, 2010

  1

  HARPERS FERRY. WEST VIRGINIA

  JANUARY 1993

  CLAIRE HARTE-MATHIAS BELIEVED YOU could be forced to endure only one major catastrophe in your lifetime. Once the trauma had passed, you were safe. Jon had suffered his own catastrophe long ago, and so Claire stayed close to him always, as if she could make his tragedy her own, thereby warding off one for herself. She had held tight to this notion ever since meeting Jon twenty-three years earlier, when she had been barely seventeen.

  So, it never would have occurred to her that the snow falling outside their hotel in Harpers Ferry might present a danger to her and Jon on their drive home. Most of the other conference attendees were staying an extra night at the gently aging High Water Hotel to avoid driving in the storm, but Claire simply couldn’t imagine anything other than safe passage for their sixty-mile trip home to Vienna, Virginia.

  The young woman behind the time-worn wooden counter wore a frown as Claire settled their bill. “It’s treacherous out there,” she said.

  “We’ll be fine.” Claire looked toward the stone fireplace, where an enormous blaze burned, warming the lobby and its cozy assortment of antique and reproduction furniture. Jon sat in front of the hearth in his wheelchair. Behind him, the snow fell steadily through

  the darkening sky. Jon was bending forward, elbows on knees, engaged in an animated discussion with Mary Drake, the vice-president of the Washington Area Rehabilitation Association. He was already wearing his brown leather jacket, and he held his gloves in his hand. The flames from the fire laid a sheen of gold on his cheeks and glittered in the silver that laced his brown hair. Watching him, Claire felt a rush of desire. For a moment, she entertained the idea of spending one more night in the turret room, where their bed was nestled in a circle of windows, where she could be nestled in the warm circle of Jon’s arms. It would be a relaxing night. The conference was over. They could forget about work.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night?” the young woman asked.

  Claire let go of the fantasy, replacing it with thoughts of Susan. She smiled at the receptionist. “No,” she said. “Our daughter’s going back to William and Mary in the morning. We want to be there to say good-bye.”

  She signed the credit card slip with the new, jade green fountain pen Jon had given her for her fortieth birthday and began walking toward the fireplace.

  Ken Stevens suddenly appeared at her side, catching her arm. “You and Jon were an inspiration, as always,” he said. “Doesn’t matter how many times I hear the two of you speak, I always get something new out of it.”

  “I’m glad, Ken. Thanks.” She embraced him warmly, his shadow of a beard scratching her cheek. “We’ll see you next year.”

  Jon was laughing with Mary Drake, but he looked up as Claire approached. “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded, zipping up her red down jacket. Through the wavy glass of the hotel’s front windows, she could see their blue Jeep in the circular driveway. She had moved it there an hour earlier and stowed their suitcases inside.

  “You guys are crazy to drive in this stuff.” Mary stood up and followed Claire’s gaze to the window.

  Claire pulled her black knit hat low on her head, tucking her long, dark hair inside it. “It’s going to be a gorgeous drive.” She gave Mary a hug. “And we’ll have the road to ourselves.”

  Jon zipped up his own jacket. He took Mary’s hand and squeezed it. “Say hi to Phil for us,” he said, and Mary bent low to buss his cheek.

  “Drive carefully,” she said, and as Jon and Claire made their way to the door, those words were echoed by a half dozen of their friends in the lobby.

  Outside, the cold air felt good, and the snow fell quietly from the dark sky. A thick white blanket layered the earth, illuminated by the lights from the hotel windows and puckering here and there over shrubs and other unseeable objects. “It’s so beautiful out here.” Claire stretched out her arms and tipped her head back, letting the snow chill her face for a moment.

  “Mmm, it is,” Jon agreed as he wheeled through the snow. He stopped to look at the snowman Claire had coerced a few people into building with her that afternoon. He laughed. “It’s great,” he said.

  The snowman, sitting in his snow wheelchair, had lost his features under a mask of white. Claire dusted the snow from the round face so Jon could see the gravel eyes and holly-berry lips. Then she turned toward the edge of the cliff, longing for one final view of that steep drop to the rivers below but settling for the memory. She could picture the rivers crashing and tumbling together in a rush of black water and white foam before finally surrendering to each other and slipping quietly into the mountains.

  Jon opened the door on the driver’s side of the two-door Jeep. Claire held his chair while he picked up his legs and set his feet on the floor of the car. He grabbed the steering wheel, gathered his strength, and pulled himself up to the seat. Claire hit the quick disconnect button on the side of the wheel and had the chair disassembled and tossed into the back of the Jeep before Jon had even closed his door. She brushed the fresh snow from the windshield, then climbed into the passenger seat beside
him.

  Jon turned the key in the ignition, giving the Jeep a little gas with a twist of his hand control, and the engine coughed, breaking the spell of the still, white night. He looked over at Claire and smiled.

  “Come here,” he said, and she leaned toward him. He kissed her, tugging a strand of her hair free of her hat. “You did a great job, Harte,” he said.

  “And you were fabulous, Mathias.”

  The Jeep appeared to be the only moving vehicle in all of quiet, tucked-in Harpers Ferry. The roads were covered with white, but they were not very slippery. Nevertheless, Jon used the Jeep’s four-wheel drive on the steeply descending main street through town. The darkened shops that lined the road were barely visible behind the veil of falling snow. Jon would have difficulty seeing the white line on the highway, Claire thought. That would be their biggest problem.

  They had done a great deal of talking the past few days, with each other as well as with the participants at the annual conference, and now they were quiet. It was a good silence. Comfortable. Their part in the conference had gone exceedingly well. It was always that way when there were many new, sharp, fresh rehabilitation specialists in the audience, hungry to see them. Being in a workshop led by Jon and Claire Harte-Mathias was viewed almost as a rite of passage.

  Jon drove slowly along the street that paralleled the Shenandoah, and Claire knew he was testing the road, getting a feel for how bad conditions were.

  The Jeep skidded almost imperceptibly as they turned onto the bridge that rose high above the river, and Jon shifted into four-wheel drive again. The long ribbon of white in front of them was untouched by tire tracks. Overhead lights illuminated the falling snow and the hazy white line of the guardrail, and Claire had the sensation of floating through a cloud. She felt a little sorry for Jon that he had to concentrate on driving and couldn’t simply relish the beauty of this drive across the bridge.

  They were nearly halfway across the river when she spotted something in the distance. Something ahead of them, on the left, resting at the side of the bridge. At first, she thought it was a piece of road equipment covered with snow. She squinted, as though that might help her clear her vision, and the piece of equipment moved.

  “Jon, look.” She pointed toward the object. “That’s not a person, is it?”

  “Out here?” Jon glanced toward the side of the bridge. “No way.” But then he looked again. They were nearly even with the object now, and Claire clearly saw a snow-covered arm lift into the air, glowing in the overhead light before dropping back again to its resting place.

  “God, it is a person.” Jon stopped the Jeep in the middle of the road.

  It was a woman. Claire could see the long hair, clotted white with snow, and she thought: Homeless? Mentally ill? Out of gas?

  “She’s outside the guardrail,” Jon said.

  “You don’t think she’s planning to do something stupid, do you?” Claire leaned forward for a better look. “Maybe she just likes to come up here when it’s snowing. I bet she has an incredible view from there.”

  Jon looked at her with amused disbelief. He might as well have called her Pollyanna, as Susan frequently did.

  “I’m getting out.” Claire opened her door and stepped out of the Jeep, her feet sinking into the thick layer of snow.

  “Be careful,” Jon called as she closed the door behind her.

  The snow was wild this high above the river, caught in the wind that blew wet and blinding against Claire’s face as she plowed her way across the bridge.

  The woman wore a light cloth coat covered with a thick crust of snow. How long had she been out here? She wore no gloves, no hat. Her hair—blond?—was hidden beneath a veil of white. She had to be freezing.

  Claire reached the guardrail and could see that the woman stood at the very edge of the bridge, high above the black abyss, untethered to anything.

  “Miss?” Claire called.

  The woman didn’t turn around.

  Claire leaned over the railing. “Miss,” she called again, but the snow swallowed the word.

  “Hello,” she tried. “Can you hear me? Please turn around.”

  The woman stood as still as an ice sculpture.

  There was a narrow break in the railing a few yards from where Claire stood. She glanced behind her at the Jeep, her view obstructed by snow and darkness. She couldn’t see Jon clearly, couldn’t signal him to call the police on the car phone, but surely he was doing so. Surely he would think of that.

  Tugging the collar of her down jacket closer to her chin, Claire walked toward the break in the railing. She stepped onto the platform, which was nothing more than a few feet of slippery metal separating her from the ice and rocks and water far below. She had the immediate sensation of suspension, of hanging in the air high above the river on a slender thread of concrete. She had no fear of heights, though. She didn’t feel the magnetic pull of the open space the way others might.

  She clung to the guardrail as she made her way toward the woman. Afraid of startling her, she walked very slowly. When the woman finally turned her head in Claire’s direction, though, she didn’t seem surprised to find her there, and for a moment, her eyes locked fast with Claire’s. She was young—late twenties or early thirties. In the overhead light of the bridge, her eyes were translucent, like gray ice on the surface of a midwinter lake. Her lashes were white with snow. Flakes battered her cheeks and her eyelids, yet the woman didn’t blink or make any attempt to brush them away.

  Claire held tight to the rail with one mittened hand and reached toward the woman with the other. “Let me help you come behind the railing,” she said.

  With an air of indifference, the woman turned slowly away from her. She looked out into the darkness expectantly, as though she could see something that Claire couldn’t, and Claire lowered her hand to her side. She glanced down at the woman’s legs. The dark pants were far too short. Her feet were clad only in white socks bunched around her ankles and in tennis shoes. The toes of those sodden-looking shoes extended an inch if not more over the edge of the slippery platform, and for the first time in her life, Claire felt the sickening pull of vertigo. She tightened her hands on the railing, but it was hard to get a good grip with her mittens. The snow had turned to tiny icy pellets that stung her cheeks and blurred her vision, and deep inside the layers of her down jacket, beneath her sweater and her turtleneck, her heart beat like that of a captured bird.

  She swallowed hard and tried again. “Please,” she said, “tell me why you’re out here.”

  “Leave me alone.” The woman’s voice was soft, muffled by the snow, and Claire dared to take a slippery step closer to hear her better. She could touch her now if she wanted to, but she kept the fingers of both hands curled around the metal railing. There was no feeling left in her fingertips.

  “Please come back,” she said. “You’ll fall.”

  The woman let out a soft, bitter laugh. “Yes,” she said into the air. “I suppose I will.”

  “But you’ll die,” Claire said, feeling stupid.

  The woman raised her head to the sky, shutting her eyes. “I died here a long time ago.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “This is crazy,” Claire said. “Nothing can be so bad. There’s always something to live for.” Slowly, Claire let go of the railing with her right hand and reached toward the woman. She circled her hand around the woman’s wrist, struck by how reed-thin her arm was inside her coat. The woman didn’t react to Claire’s touch. She didn’t even seem to notice.

  Suddenly, she cocked her head to one side. “Do you hear it?” she asked. “Chopin?”

  “Chopin?”

  “Nocturne in C-sharp Minor.”

  Claire strained her ears but heard nothing other than the muted sound of falling snow. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t hear anything.”

  “That was his problem, too. He could never hear the music.”

  “Whose pro
blem? Chopin’s? What do you mean?”

  The woman didn’t answer, and now Claire thought she could hear something other than the snow. She listened hard. Yes. A siren, far in the distance. A city sound, out of place here as it sifted toward them through the black-and-white night.

  The woman heard it too. Her head jerked toward Harpers Ferry, and Claire felt a spasm run through that slender, birdlike body. The woman gave Claire the look of someone betrayed.

  “You called the police,” she said.

  Claire nodded. “My husband did.”

  “Let go of me,” the woman said evenly.

  “Tell me what you meant about the music,” Claire prompted. Her own legs were trembling, and the stinging snow pelted her eyes. “Tell me what you can hear.” Tell me anything. Just don’t jump. Please.

  The siren cut through the air, through the snow. Glancing over her shoulder, Claire saw a red light flashing at the entrance to the bridge. Hurry.

  The woman locked her gaze with Claire’s again, but now her eyes were wide and full of fear. Claire tightened her grip on the bony forearm. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “You’re going to be safe.”

  The woman twisted her arm beneath Claire’s hand in its black mitten. “Let go of me,” she said. The first siren was joined by a second. One of the police cars screeched to a stop behind the Jeep. “Let go!” the woman shouted now.