Read Last Fairytale, The for Free Online Page B

while she still had the strength.
    Bree had watched Lilia weep as her eyes raked the museum walls, covered with vintage photos of exhausted people in ragged clothing. Now she understood. That day, Lilia had cried for her own mother and father. No one ever arrived from the old country to hold their babies or share in her parent’s good fortune.
    Perhaps her tears also fell because she looked into those dead eyes and saw her future.
    “Penny for your thoughts,” Gen said.
    Bree looked to the side and watched her passenger sip at a Starbucks Grande. Why had she conjured up that old trip?
    “I was thinking about Marin,” Bree replied. “And the last time I visited this side of the bay, about a hundred years ago. Now here I am, skimming along in my VW bug with the sunroof cracked open.”
    “Sophocles said ‘old age and the passage of time teach all things.’”
    “Are you saying I’m old, or that I have much to learn? Or both?”
    “You’re not old, and don’t we all have things to learn?”
    Bree glanced aside. “I’m not sure that applies to you. It’s like you were born intact with everything you needed to know, and all the tools to get where you wanted to go. It’s hard to think of you with concerns.”
    “Oh, come on. I have my share of worries, just like everyone.”
    Bree turned her attention back to the road. It didn’t seem the proper time to question Gen about what they might be.
    The Redwood Highway cut a swath through the area, then curved onward to offer a peek at its fringe of ritzy communities. This morning connecting roads spat the swanky vehicles of well-to-do residents onto the famous highway. Most of the mid-morning traffic was turning south, but Bree drove against the flow, past Sausalito and Marin City.
    She ejected a CD from the player and tapped in Boz Scaggs’s favorite hits. As the music began, her mind wandered back to her childhood trip to North Bay. What she’d told Gen was true; she seldom allowed herself to think about her mother anymore.
    Not the way she laughed and sang to them while she was cooking, or how her lustrous sheet of straight, dark hair rippled down her back like a waterfall. She used to think her mother’s hair was a mirror, and Bree was Snow White.
    The fairest of them all.
    Once again she felt a hollow, brittle sphere of sadness in her chest. To block it, she jabbed her index finger at a button and stopped Boz in his tracks, then forced her thoughts out of the rearview mirror and back to the scenery.
    “Hey, what?” Gen said. “I was enjoying that, it’s such a romantic song. I always wonder if he was thinking about the Golden Gate when he wrote it.”
    “Sorry. Pick another CD, will you? Boz is making me sad today.”
    “Well, then, forget the music for now. Let’s review the day’s agenda instead.”
    “Perfect.”
    “Okay, so as you know, my property tax record search turned up the address of a house Vonnegon owns in Tiburon. I did a little more digging and found that Andrew Ducane kept a boat in Richardson Bay, just up the road from our friend Taylor. We’ll look for that after we check out the house and see if we get lucky.”
    “I’m curious about Ducane,” Bree said. “What we’ve heard so far doesn’t really jive with him being a nautical guy. Boat people are usually so into the cruising life and being on the water. But I don’t think there was a single picture related to sailing in his office, and Vonnegon didn’t mention anything about it.”
    The 131 appeared ahead. Bree turned onto the southeast off ramp and merged onto Tiburon Boulevard.
    “Maybe he didn’t know,” Gen replied. “According to Vonnegon, Andrew didn’t share much. Was he hiding that part of his life? That’s what today is about. We’ll track both places down and look for a chance to talk to neighbors.”
    Bree caught a glimpse of the water and her thoughts wandered. “Did you know that Tiburon means shark in Spanish? Legend says a Spanish explorer named this