Page 40 of A Treasure Worth Seeking

“No!” Melanie said with a newly acquired maturity. “I’ll do this myself. Except I want Erin to come with me.”

Lance looked as if he were about to object on that point, but Erin said, “Of course,” before he had a chance to speak.

His face showed grim acceptance as he checked his wristwatch and said, “I’ll make the airline reservations. It’s six thirty now. Can you be ready in two hours or so?”

“Yes, we’ll be ready,” Melanie stated calmly.

* * *

The events of the next day and a half were forever a conglomeration of hazy recollections for Erin. She couldn’t remember everything, though certain incidents would remain in her mind for the rest of her life.

Somehow she and Melanie managed to get themselves ready for the trip to San Diego in the allotted amount of time. They dressed for comfort and efficiency. Erin wore a navy blazer over an ivory silk blouse. Her skirt was caramel-colored wool. As they left the house, she took her leather trench coat off the hall tree and carried it over her arm.

Melanie was similarly dressed and had pulled her hair back into a severe ponytail. Her face looked naked, scrubbed clean of makeup. But she was beautiful in the way of tragic heroines. Erin’s heart went out to the young woman who exhibited such courage.

Lance drove the repaired government car to the airport. Melanie sat quietly in her corner of the backseat. Erin’s eyes were brimming with tears, but Melanie’s remained dry. Her only evidence of grief was to grip Erin’s hand during the flight from San Francisco to San Diego. They sat on the window and aisle seats, placing their purses and coats in the seat between them. Lance sat across the aisle from them and stared out the window for the entire trip. He was polite to Melanie. He showed the same courtesy to Erin, but it was impersonal and remote.

When they were met at the airport by a man of Mike’s caliber, he ushered them to yet another innocuous automobile. Lance sat in the front seat next to the taciturn driver w

hile Erin and Melanie shared the backseat. The two men conversed in low tones, but their exact words were indistinct. Melanie watched the traffic and passing landscape like one hypnotized.

For hours it seemed they alternately stood or sat in dim, hushed corridors waiting for one official or another. Lance was in and out of offices, conferring with soberly dressed men who looked curiously at Melanie. Every so often she was interrogated. She answered the questions listlessly, but honestly.

Erin was rarely spoken to. Her only responsibility was to provide support to Melanie, who was going through this ordeal with more aplomb than Erin would ever have guessed she possessed.

Thankfully, Erin had to concede that Lance shielded Melanie from many of the unpleasantries. He must have cut through miles of red tape and helped to expedite the endless legal procedures. Every law enforcement agency—federal, state, and local—seemed to be involved to some extent, and each had to be provided with information and answers.

The sun had long since set when they left the last of the austere offices and drove to the county hospital. Erin dreaded this last stop. Although his identity had already been confirmed, they must go to the morgue and look at Ken’s body before it could be released to them.

The man who had met them at the airport was escorting Melanie down the hallway toward a forbidding door at its end. Erin was following them. Lance was behind her.

Before they reached that looming door, he grasped her upper arm and turned her around to face him. “Erin, you’re not going in there,” he said quietly but firmly.

“Yes, I am. Melanie needs me.”

“I’m going with her. You’re not going in there,” he repeated.

“Don’t tell me what I am or am not going to do.” She pulled her arm free of his firm grip. “I want to see my brother.”

“No, you don’t. Not like that.” He took both her arms then. “Think, Erin. You have an image of him. He was a healthy, good-looking young man. Wouldn’t you rather always think of him that way as…” His voice trailed off. Then he urged, “You don’t want your only vision of him to be like he is now. Don’t go in there.”

His pleading eyes and the tense, anxious set of his mouth convinced her he was right. She nodded her assent and slumped against him in defeat. He led her to a vinyl-covered sofa and sat her down. The other two had reached the door to the morgue and were waiting expectantly for Lance. He settled a reassuring hand on Erin’s shoulder and whispered, “I won’t be but a minute.”

When the trio came back out into the hallway, Melanie was crying softly into a man’s handkerchief. Erin rushed toward her and put her arms around the younger woman who seemed to have shrunk in the last few minutes.

In her hand she clutched a white piece of paper. Her tear-streaked face was pitiful as she looked at Erin. “They found this in his pocket. It’s a letter to me, Erin. He loved me. He says so. He loved me.” She fell against Erin’s declining strength and sobbed as she continued to aver Ken’s love for her.

Erin held Melanie against her as they sat on the same uncomfortable sofa while Lance arranged for the transport of Ken’s body to San Francisco. Erin was glad that Melanie was crying. It was a much needed release and tears were cleansing. A weeping griever was better than the zombie Melanie had been all day, merely performing as she was expected to.

During the drive back to the airport and while they awaited their flight, Melanie continued to vent her grief. She was exhausted by the time they boarded the airplane. Luckily the late-night flight wasn’t crowded.

A sensitive, sympathetic flight attendant suggested that they remove the arms separating the individual seats and allow Melanie to lie down. She didn’t argue, and by the time Erin covered her with a blanket, she was subdued and lying with her tear-swollen eyes closed.

Lance, who had been conferring with his associate, was the last passenger to board. He took a seat beside Erin, stowing an ordinary looking suitcase under the seat in front of him. Erin knew what it must be and averted her eyes from it. The brown suitcase was something hideous that had destroyed her brother’s life.

After the plane had taken off into the darkness and the lights of San Diego had become no more than a multicolored blanket, Lance asked, “How is she?”

“The crying helped. She needed to do that. I think seeing his… his body confirmed his death in her mind.” She licked her lips and asked, “Was he…?”

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