Tattered Legacy (A Nora Abbott Mystery) by Shannon Baker Page B

but we can totally use this.”
    “Where did that come from? There were no backups.”
    Nora pointed toward the bookshelf. “I found it, buried.”
    “No! No more. Leave it alone.” She leaped forward. Before Nora could stop her, Rachel grabbed the computer and jerked it off the desk. The attached player dangled from the upraised computer. Rachel brought the laptop down on the side of the desk with all the rage of an abandoned wife. “I won’t have it!”
    She raised her arms and smashed it again and again.
    Nora kept her eye on the external drive that swung back and forth, occasionally smashing against the side of the desk. As long as Rachel’s temper tantrum focused on the laptop and left the player alone, the film would survive.
    Rachel grabbed the cord of the player. She yanked it from the computer and threw the laptop with enough force that it crashed against the bookshelf and fell to the floor, separating the screen from the keyboard. She held on to the drive and ejected the DVD.
    “No!” Nora cried as she lunged across the desk.
    Rachel gritted her teeth and, using both hands, brought the disc down on the corner of the desk and leaned her weight on it. It bent slightly, then snapped with a popping that might as well have been a BB to Nora’s heart.

twelve
    Rachel stood in front of Nora, panting with spent rage. Her flashing eyes dared Nora to challenge her.
    Heat surged through Nora, her hands clenched in their urge to throttle Rachel. The film. The only copy she knew existed. All Lisa’s work—her passion, her talent—destroyed in a tantrum. She stifled the frustrated scream, fighting to understand Rachel’s grief but really wanting to smack her.
    “Why did you do that?” Nora barely restrained her temper.
    Tears glistened in Rachel’s eyes. “Forget about the film.”
    “But it was Lisa’s dream!”
    Rachel flung her arm in the air. “If you’d never given her funding, she’d have had to give it up. She’d be alive now.”
    There it was, the familiar guilt drenching her. Nora fought to keep from drowning in it again. “Her death was an accident.”
    Rachel spit her words at Nora. “You keep believing that.”
    Marlene had said it, now Rachel. Nora kept her voice slow and even. “I understand how you feel.”
    Contempt dripped from Rachel’s words. “You don’t know anything about how I feel.”
    Sadly, Nora probably understood more about it than either liked to admit. She knew because her husband had been murdered. It had felt like her heart had been ripped out, leaving a raw, bloody hole. She’d barely been able to breathe, let alone believe she’d ever smile or laugh again.
    Nora stepped toward her, intending to reach for Rachel’s hand or put an arm around her.
    Rachel stepped back. “I won’t have anything to do with that film.”
    Nora nodded. “Okay. I … ” She was going to say she understood but stopped herself. “Saving Canyonlands meant so much to Lisa. She believed, and I do, too, that her film would make all the difference with the committee. I’d like to finish it for her.”
    “It’s not safe to continue.” Rachel’s thin lips disappeared in her anger.
    “What do you mean?”
    Rachel skirted Nora and stomped into the living room. “You have no clue what it’s like around here. The Mormons—my family and everyone I grew up with—believe they own this land. And why not? They came here when it was empty. Nothing.”
    Sure, empty—except the indigenous people scratching out their existence, migrating and living off the land. The first people to live around here were the Anasazi, and the Hopi believed they were descended from the Anasazi. That would make them Nora’s ancestors. The Anasazi wrote their history on the rocks everywhere throughout this place. They built shrines across the land.
    Rachel spewed in her rage. “My ancestors were persecuted. They were chased from New York to Illinois and Nebraska. They only wanted to live their lives in peace. They