A Stranger in Wynnedower (17 page)

So May moves in and
brings up food to the suite of locked rooms. The mystery suite. Rooms for which
Rachel had no keys and at the east end of the house—the wing she’d been told to
leave alone.

Her fingers touched her
lips as if to silence them, as if she were in danger of blurting out the answer
to this tricky equation.

She wasn’t snooping on
behalf of David Kilmer. This had nothing to do with him. This was for her peace
of mind and her conscience in case there was a grain of truth in Kilmer’s
ravings.

Stealthily, Rachel
stepped away from the door. May had entered; May would exit. Rachel would still
be locked out and she had no intention of confronting May.

Her face burned. Once
again, she’d inserted herself into business that didn’t concern her. Daisy was
right. She needed a more interesting life of her own. Then she could leave
others to their own affairs.

An engine roared
outside. Rachel went to her bedroom and stood at the window.

She saw a broad
shirtless back, presumably Brendan’s, riding a green mower across the grassy
areas of the yard.

The ordinariness of a
half-naked young man, sweating in the summer sun while cutting the grass, put
David, siblings, and even May, out of Rachel’s mind. She loved the homey sound
and feel of it. It was almost an image from the brush of Norman Rockwell.

****

Brendan tapped the hilt
of his knife on the table. He leaned forward, waving it in the air as he told a
story from his childhood and of his misspent youth.

“Dad grounded me for a
month. I can’t say I didn’t deserve it, but I learned all my evil ways from my
older brothers and then built on the knowledge, so it was really their fault.”

May said, “You took it
too far. You always did. You’re lucky you weren’t killed.”

“No luck to it. Hey, it
worked in
Smokey and the Bandit
, one of my dad’s favorite movies. I’m
telling you, if I’d had a little more slope to the ramp, that Chevy would’ve
made it over the creek.”

May patted her lips
with her napkin, then folded it neatly and laid it beside her plate.

“Your brothers should
have been more mindful of the example they set. Aside from nearly breaking your
neck, you made a mess down by the creek. I remember. By the time they’d dragged
that car back up to the road, what had been a lovely path was a disaster. With
erosion, over time areas of the creek silted up, and mosquitoes started
breeding.”

Rachel stood, and the
chair screeched across the linoleum floor. May gave her a hard glare, but said
nothing. Supper with Brendan was hilarious. May was a wet towel.

Why had May joined them
anyway? Hadn’t she already eaten? Her disapproval of their levity settled
around their little group like a ponderous bank of dark clouds. Rachel was
tempted to ask her why she needed two suppers, but kept her annoyance to
herself.

Brendan stood,
gathering his utensils, and crossed the kitchen to where Rachel was running
soapy water. “I’ll dry,” he said. “May, thanks for cooking. We’ll handle the
cleanup.” He gave her a bow.

May’s cheeks pinked up.
“You’ll put things away in the wrong spots.”

“We can’t go but so
wrong, now can we? The kitchen’s not that big.”

“Make sure the dishes
are dry before they go into the cabinet.”

Rachel tossed a clean
dish towel at him and jumped into the washing. May left, saying she had a book
she was reading.

“Mosquitoes, huh?”
Rachel asked quietly, in case May hadn’t gone far. “So that’s how they came to
flourish in Virginia. Should’ve known it was your fault.”

Brendan leaned close as
he accepted a dish. “Don’t mind May. That’s her job.”

“What’s her job?” She
watched him run the dish towel around and around the plate as if polishing it.

“Keeping us all on the
straight and narrow.”

“You’ve known her a
long time?”

“All of my life, on and
off.” He added the dried plate to the clean dishes he was stacking on the
counter. “She’s lit into me more than once—before I learned how to charm the
ladies.” He turned around. “Isn’t that right, Miss May?”

She was standing in the
doorway, her face pink. “I forgot to take my tea. You deserved every lecture
you ever received.” She paused on her way back out. “And it must’ve done you
some good because I haven’t caught you playing pirate in a few years.”

Rachel couldn’t help
herself. “Pirate? Did you wear an eyepiece? Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum and
all that?”

He eyed her through
half-dropped eyelids and a stern frown. “That was long ago.”

“I’m sure.”

“Gimme a break. I was a
kid. Besides, it was the older kids that put me up to it.”

“Up to playing pirate?”

“Up to the treasure
hunt.” His pained expression changed to a crooked smile. “In fact, I’m still a
pirate at heart and willing to admit it. Yo-ho-ho, yourself.”

May admonished, “You
listened to every tall tale you heard and took every dare. It’s a wonder you
lived to grow up. Every time I see you down in the basement or roaming the
house, I think of it.” With that parting shot, she left.

“Treasure hunt? What
were you hunting?” She looked down as she washed the last of the dishes.

“When I was a kid it
seemed like whenever someone spoke of Wynnedower they got into the treasure
story, about how there’s supposed to be something valuable stashed here.”

She looked up. “Jeremy
mentioned rumors of treasure to me. Is there anything to it?”

“How do these stories
get started anyway? Nah, no treasure, but I’ve yet to meet the kid who could
resist the temptation.”

They took a walk before
full nightfall. They went out by way of the east end vestibule, and he tripped
the motion sensors like it was a game.

“I hear this has made a
difference.”

“It has. Right after we
had them installed, they came on a few times, but then it stopped. The system
is far from foolproof, and we probably scare the occasional deer, but our
uninvited visitors aren’t exactly James Bond. I think word has gotten around
that we’re in residence and armed. Trespassing isn’t tolerated.”

“Armed?” Brendan gave
her a quizzical look. “Are you?”

“Not me. Jack is, and
I’d be willing to pull the trigger if I had to.” Big talk. He couldn’t know
she’d never actually touched a firearm.

He held the door for
her, and they came back inside. As they walked up the hallway, Brendan put his
hand on the small of her back.

Perhaps only gallant or
intended as polite, but it was a personal sort of gesture. She walked faster
leaving Brendan and his hand behind.

“Goodnight, Brendan.
Sleep well.”

****

Late in the night,
Rachel awoke to a distant tapping sound. Or knocking?

She listened and heard
nothing more. She rolled over and buried her face back in the pillow, but had
trouble dismissing the noises. Not likely to be someone knocking on a door and
too well-defined to be house-settling. Rodents, maybe? Bats?

She sat up, checking
her ceiling, then settled back down again, but now she was wide awake.

Intruders, maybe? Quiet
ones?

She groaned and pushed
the covers aside. She donned her robe and slipped her phone in the pocket. This
was what Jack paid her the big bucks for, right? Right. Big bucks. Funny. In
fact, he’d told her NOT to confront intruders, but was she really going to call
the police only to find out the house had rodents?

Leaving the sitting
room door unlocked behind her, just in case, she stood in the hallway and
strained her ears, listening, waiting.

Silence. Satisfied, she
turned to go back to bed and was stopped by a soft thud, thud, thud. But where?
She couldn’t tell the location. Not above, not below. Rachel walked quietly
down the hall, pausing every few yards to listen. She felt her way through the
alcove and emerged in the hallway that led to the old nursery suite.

Another tap. A thud.
Equally hard to place.

Should she wake
Brendan?

Rachel went to the
stairs. As she descended in the dark, she sensed no intruders and heard nothing
more. By the time she reached the window arcade hallway, she realized none of
the exterior motion lights were glowing. The nighttime world seemed peaceful.

If she heard one more
sound, she’d do…something. But there was nothing more.

She didn’t want to wake
Brendan because the memory of his hand on the small of her back was too fresh.
Instead, she dragged herself back up to bed, slept uneasily and woke with the
dawn, wondering if she’d made a mistake this time by
not
following her
intuition.

“Did you hear anything
last night?” She watched May and Brendan for reaction. They were seated at the
kitchen table sharing breakfast.

 “No,” May answered.

 Brendan said, “It’s an
old house.”

“A noise that sounded
like knocking or tapping?”

He laughed and rapped
his knuckles under the table. “Ghosts, maybe?”

She ignored him. With
no sign of damage or intrusion and a clear lack of concern on the part of everyone
else, Rachel let the subject drop.

May said, “There’s
bacon on that plate for you. Would you like an egg and toast?”

“Thanks. I’ll fix it.”
She pulled the egg carton from the fridge.

“I’ll see you ladies
later. I have to run.” Brendan’s pushed his chair back and stood.

May nodded and Rachel
waved. Unfortunately, with his departure the atmosphere in the kitchen soured.
As Rachel fried the egg, May excused herself, too, and left the room.

Rachel ate her
breakfast alone. She was glad not to make small talk with May, but still, it
was an odd feeling to have been left alone so summarily. She dropped her plate
and utensils into the sink suddenly in a hurry to get up to the attic.

She’d intended to
resume the inventory, but i
t was
inevitable she would open the attic door again, cross that dark hallway and
attempt to visit the other side.

The jumbled, disorderly
side of the attic drew her. Jack didn’t care about the attic. Why would he? No,
he only cared because it was located at this end of house. His end. The end he
kept warning her away from. Maybe because it was the end that was located over
the old nursery suite?

If he’d slid those
bolts closed, then she was out of luck. If not, she’d take it as a sign.

Not locked. Practically
an engraved invitation.

Was there a slight
nibble in the back of her mind about Brendan and treasure?

In the attic? Only if
dust was suddenly going to become a hot commodity.

She stepped as lightly
as possible across the attic, pulling the string to the overhead bulb as she
passed. The flash echoed in the stained vanity mirror and caught her eye.

The trunk drew her like
Pandora’s Box.

She knelt and popped
the locks again. Who would know? Jack was gone, May was two floors below, and
Brendan was somewhere else and wouldn’t care, anyway.

Rachel removed the
shawl from the trunk and set it aside carefully. She touched the layers below,
looking and feeling around, until she touched lace. It felt different from the
rest. Gently, she eased it out.

Off-white lace cascaded
across her arms and pooled in her lap. Tiny pearl buttons reflected the weak
overhead light. Peach-colored silk, lace and pearls. The scent of cloves and
ancient fabric enfolded her. She stood and held the dress to her chest. The hem
swirled down to her feet. A few wisps of tissue paper fell nearby. Someone had
taken the trouble to pack the gown carefully.

In this iffy light, she
couldn’t tell if the lace was yellowed with age or originally off-white. As
with the shawl, she stared into the mirror and saw someone else. An image from
an unremembered magazine, or a picture from a book? Her haircut could have been
a sleek twenties bob, but this dress wasn’t from that decade. This was
Edwardian. It was vintage and perfect. She held her breath.

Madness.

This was rude and
wrong. She was prey to her own curiosity and imagination, so much so that she
was violating the most basic rules of respect for others. But what was the
harm? She’d be gone soon, and this trunk—indeed, all of Wynnedower’s
secrets—would be beyond her reach.

With distance, the
temptation would fade and she’d be wondering why this had seemed so intriguing.

In the mirror, her face
was now downcast. Her hair was only straight and short, the dress was a wilted
relic from a time long past.

She folded it and laid
it atop the garments in the trunk, along with the shawl. With a sigh, she
refastened the catches and returned to her side of the attic, hoping she was
leaving foolishness behind.