"Get things worked out, Zoe. Because if you don't, I'm going to work them out for you."

She let out a small laugh. "No, never anyone like you. This is a big week for me, and by the time it's…" She trailed off as she looked at the portrait again.

Her heart began to thump. "Oh, God, could it have been that simple all along? Could it have been right there?"

Trembling, she walked toward the hearth, staring at the painting, her gaze riveted now to the three keys Rowena had painted, scattered over the ground by the coffins.

She stepped onto the hearth, held her breath, and reached up.

Her fingers bumped canvas.

She tried again, closing her eyes first, imagining her fingers reaching into the painting, closing over the key as Malory's had done.

But the painting stayed solid, the keys only color and shape.

"I thought…" Deflated, she stepped back. "For a minute, I thought maybe… It seems so stupid now."

"No, it doesn't. I tried it myself." He walked to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "A few times."

"Really? But it's not for you to find."

"Who knows? Maybe this one's different."

She kept her eyes on the portrait. "It isn't one of them. Rowena painted those keys, years ago. And they're, well, they're despair, aren't they? And loss. Not hope or fulfillment. Because they lie there where no mortal can find them, and no god can use them. It's not despair that leads to my key. It's getting through it. I understand that."

But when she slept that night, she dreamed she stepped into the portrait, walked beside the still and pale shells of the daughters inside their glass coffins. She dreamed she picked up the three keys and took them to the Box of Souls, where the blue lights beat sluggishly.

Though she put each key into its lock, none would turn.

It was despair she felt when those blue lights winked out, and the glass of their prison went black.

Chapter Eighteen

Malory rushed into Indulgence the following morning, waving one of several copies of the Dispatch . "The article! Our article's in the morning edition."

She looked right, left, up the stairs, then huffed out a breath when no one came running. Flynn's article on Indulgence, and its "innovative proprietors"—oh, she loved that part—was front-page news in the Valley, and she couldn't get a rise out of her partners?

With her coat flapping behind her, she hurried into Dana's section. As always, the sight of the color, the books, the pretty tables, the things , made her want to do a happy dance. So she boogied her way into the next room, grinning when she saw Dana behind the counter with the phone at her ear.

Adding a little bump and grind to the dance, she waved the paper, only to have Dana nod and keep talking.

"That's right. Yes, I have that in stock. I'll be happy to. I could—yes—well, I don't… mmmhmm." She mimed acknowledgment, delight, then did a bootie shake when Malory slapped the article on the counter in front of her. "Just let me transfer you to the salon."

She took a deep breath, stared at the new phone system. "Please let me do this right, please don't let me cut her off." She punched buttons, crossed her fingers, then hung up the receiver.

An instant later she heard the faint ring of the phone from upstairs. "Thank you, Jesus. Mal, you just won't believe it."

"Forget that. Look at this! Look, look." She jabbed her finger on the newspaper.

"Oh, that." When Malory's jaw dropped, Dana pulled a stack of the Dispatch from under the counter. "I bought five copies. I've read it twice. Would've read it again, but I've been busy manning this phone. Mal—God, there goes yours, I think." "My what?"

"Your phone." Dana swung around the counter, grabbed Malory's arm, and dragged her to the other side of the house. "I got in ten minutes ago, and the phones were already ringing. Zoe said—never mind. Answer it."

"My phone's ringing," Malory murmured and stared at it as if it were an alien device.

"Watch this." Dana cleared her throat, picked up the receiver. "Good morning, Indulgence, the Gallery. Yes, one moment, please, let me put Ms. Price on the line."

Dana punched Hold. "Ms. Price, you have a call."

"I have a call. Okay." Malory wiped her palms on her coat. "I can do this. I did this for years for somebody else, I can do it for myself." She engaged the line. "Good morning. Malory Price."

Three minutes later she and Dana were doing a fast polka around the room and out into the hallway.

"We're a hit!" Dana shouted. "We're a hit and we haven't even opened the doors. Let's go up and get Zoe."

"Should we leave the phones?"

"Let 'em call back." Laughing like a maniac, Dana pulled Malory up the stairs.

Zoe sat, tipped back in one of her salon chairs, an expression of shock on her face. Still flying, Dana charged over and gave the chair a wild spin. "We kick ass."

"I have appointments," Zoe said dully. "I'm nearly booked solid for Saturday already, and there's two manis, a pedi, a cut and color, and two massages for Friday. I have a mother-daughter facial booked for next week. For next week ."

"We need to celebrate," Malory decided. "Why don't we have any champagne around here? We could make mimosas if we only had champagne and orange juice."

"The phone was ringing when I walked in," Zoe continued in the same dazed voice. "It wasn't even nine o'clock and the phone was ringing. Everyone's saying how they read the article in the paper. I want to marry Flynn and have his babies. I'm sorry, Malory. I feel I must."

"Get in line." Malory grabbed the newspaper Zoe had on the station. "Look at us. Don't we look great?"

She held up the page that carried the photograph of the three of them, arms around each other's waists, as they stood in the hallway that linked their three enterprises. "Price, McCourt, and Steele," she read, "the beauty and the brains behind Indulgence."

"I have to say, he really did a solid job on the article." Dana leaned over Malory's shoulder to scan it again. "We come across great, but then, hey, that's a given. But he really got the point of our place across. The fun factor. Then there's the whole local women, revitalizing property, giving a boost to Valley economy, blah blah blah. That gets people interested."

"And we look really hot," Zoe added. "Which never hurts. I read the article before breakfast, then I had to pull over on the drive here and read it again."

"I'll have it framed," Malory said. "We'll hang a copy in the kitchen." She pulled a notebook out of her purse to write it down. "Oh, while I've got this out, we need to make sure we check on the refreshments we're serving at Friday's opening. I'll take the bakery. Dana, you've got the drinks, Zoe, the fruit and cheese."

"My phone's ringing again," Zoe said, and shocked everyone by bursting into tears.

"Uh-oh. You take her." Malory pointed at Dana. "I'll get that." She dashed to reception as Dana yanked tissues from the box on the station and pressed them into Zoe's hands.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Why do I keep doing this?"

"Don't sweat it. Go on, let it out."

She couldn't stop, and only managed a choked sob and a wave of her hand when Malory came back.

"Let's go down to the kitchen and have some tea." Briskly, Malory pulled Zoe to her feet, and tucking an arm around her waist, led her out of the salon.

"Okay, good. God, what an ass." Zoe blew her nose fiercely. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"It might be having a business about to open, a quest coming up on deadline, a man. And the combination of those bringing just a little hint of stress into your life. Here, now, sweetie, let's all take ten."

"I feel so stupid." Still sniffling, Zoe let Malory ease her into a chair in the kitchen. "What have I got to cry about? Everything's great, everything's wonderful." Tears flooded again, and she simply laid her head on the table and wept. "I'm scared out of my mind."

"It's all right." Standing behind her, Malory rubbed her shoulders while Dana put on the kettle for tea. "It's all right to be scared, honey."

"I don't have time to be scared. I have my own salon. I've been thinking about how I could build up to this for almost ten years, and now it's real. My phone's ringing. It makes me so happy, so why am I falling apart?"

"I'm scared, too."

Zoe lifted her head, blinked at Malory. "You are?"

"Terrified. When I first started reading Flynn's article, I got this buzzing in my ears and this metallic taste in the back of my throat. The happier I got, the louder the buzzing, and the more I had to keep swallowing back that taste."

"I keep waking up in the middle of the night." Dana turned from the stove. "I think: I'm opening a bookstore, and the butterflies wake up in my stomach and have a party."

"Oh, thank God." Outrageously relieved, Zoe pressed her fingers to her temples. "Thank God. It's okay when I'm busy, when I'm doing something or thinking about all the things I have to do. But sometimes when I stop and it all hits me, I want to lock myself in a nice dark closet and whimper. And at the same time I want to turn cartwheels. I'm making myself crazy."

"We're all in the same boat," Dana said, "and it's been christened Neuroses. "

Zoe managed a watery smile as Dana set colorful cups on the table. "I'm really glad both of you are crazy, too. I was feeling like such an idiot. There's more. I think I know where the key is. Not exactly," she said quickly when Malory's hands jumped on her shoulders. "But I think it's at Bradley's. There's something about the house, and when I turned that angle over in my head yesterday, it just seemed to open up. It feels right to me. And because it does, because it feels as if I'm one step away from finding it, I'm all twisted up inside."

"Because you're close to finding it?" Malory asked. "Or because it's Brad's?"

"Both." Zoe picked up her cup, held it in both hands.

"Everything's coming to a head. The quest, this place. I've been so focused on both things since September that now that they're both so close to finished, I know I have to start looking beyond that, to what happens next. And I can't see it. Having this, well, these big purposes, pushed me along. Now I'm going to have to deal with the results."

"You won't have to deal with them by yourself," Malory reminded her.

"I know. That's another part of it. I'm used to dealing with things on my own. In my life I've never been as close to anyone, other than Simon, as I am to the two of you. It's like this incredible gift. Here are these two wonderful women, and they'll be your friends. Your family."

"Jeez, Zoe." Dana picked up one of the scrunched tissues. "You're going to get me started."

"What I mean is, I'm still getting used to knowing I've got you. To realizing I can pick up the phone if I need to, or just go by and see you. Come here and see you. That I can tell you I'm scared or sad or happy, or I need some help— anything, and you'll be there."

She soothed her raw throat with tea, set the cup down. "Then there's the guys. I've never been friends with men before. Not really. With Flynn and Jordan… to be able to talk or hang out, flirt and know there's nothing there but friendship. To have Simon be able to be with them, to have that kind of adult male influence, it's another real gift."

"You haven't mentioned Brad," Malory pointed out.

"Working around to it. I'm nervous and excited about finding the key. About this certainty that I will find it, and that it's connected to Bradley. At the same time, the certainty that it's connected to him scares me as much as anything ever has."

"Zo, have you considered that it could be the fear that's blocking you from finding the key?"

She nodded at Dana. "Yeah, but I can't push through it. He thinks he's in love with me."

"Why do you qualify it?" Malory demanded. "Why can't you just say he's in love with you?"

"Maybe I want it too much. And I want it not just for me, but for Simon. I know that's part of it. Bradley's wonderful with Simon, but it's all still, well, novel between them. The reality is this is a nearly ten-year-old boy, another man's son."

Saying nothing, Dana walked over, opened a cupboard, and took out their box of emergency chocolate. She set it on the table in front of Zoe.