The Long Way Home (5 page)

She dug through the bags for one of the containers of cleaning product and a sponge. She was just about to head upstairs when her phone rang.

“Hey, you. How’s it going? How’s the new home?” Of course, Carly Summit, Ellie’s best friend—her
only
friend, the friend who had opened her home to Ellie, loaned her a car and money, and stood by her when everyone else in her life vanished—would call to make sure everything was okay.

“It’s … different. Different from what I expected, but in a good way. I mean, it isn’t terrible.” Ellie walked into the living room, turned on two of the lamps, and sat in one of the club chairs that faced the Bay. “Actually, it’s quite charming in a shabby chic sort of way.”

“You sound upbeat. That’s good.”

“I am upbeat. I think with some elbow grease and some paint, this place will clean up quite nicely.” Ellie paused. “I’m talking a full crap load of elbow grease
and buckets of paint, but still, the end result should be fine.”

“Shades of Counselor Wilson at Camp Bedlam.” Their shared name for Camp Bedlingham in the Berkshires where they’d spent several summers.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking earlier. Though now I’m grateful for all those hours I spent scrubbing porcelain.”

“So do you have a game plan?”

“Of course. Tonight I’m going to clean the bathroom I’m using on the second floor, then put sheets on the bed, after which I will fall face-first into it. That’s all I’ve got so far. I’m exhausted.”

“Long drive?”

“Not so bad.”

“Look, Ellie, you know that if you need anything—I mean anything—all you have to do is call.”

“I know that, and I appreciate it. But you’ve already done so much for me. I’ll never be able to repay you for everything, Carly.” Once again, that pesky lump tightened Ellie’s throat.

“ ‘Pshaw,’ as my great-grandmother used to say. Have I done anything for you that you wouldn’t do for me, if the tables were turned?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then, there you are. Who knows, someday, when things are super for you again, maybe I’ll be down on my luck and you can give me a hand.”

“Carly, you’ll never be down on your luck.”

“You never know. We’d have said the same about you two years ago.”

“True enough but …” Ellie paused. “Carly, is everything okay there?”

“Perfect, as always. I was just trying to make the point that friends do what they can. Right now you’re in a situation and I’m in a position to help out.”

“But you’d tell me, right?”

“Of course. Who else would I tell?”

They chatted a little longer, Carly exclaiming, “Ohhhh! Waterfront! Fabulous!” when Ellie told her that the house faced the Bay. “I may have to buzz on down there soon.”

“Anytime. Really. Please. I miss you,” Ellie told her.

“I miss you, too, El. I’ll fit in a trip when I get back to the East Coast. In the meantime, you can scrub up one of those bathrooms for me.”

“Will do.”

“Now, tell me all about your new house and that little town.…”

After Ellie had told all and the call disconnected, she sat in the silent room, the phone still in her hand. Hearing Carly’s voice reminded her that regardless of how it felt sometimes, she wasn’t totally alone. Everyone else may have written her off, denied their friendship, and forgotten that she’d existed, but there was always Carly, and while Carly wasn’t physically with her, talking to her had cheered Ellie. Such was the power of friendship.

Ellie locked the front door and carried what she needed upstairs, where she turned on the light in the room she’d claimed as her bedroom and went into the bathroom. She turned on the faucet, and jumped back when a stream of rusty water coughed out.

“Seriously?” She watched it run down the drain in rusty swirls. After a while the color began to lighten, and a few minutes later, the water ran clear.

“That’s more like it.” With cleanser and a sponge and the “all-purpose” cleaner, she managed to get the bathroom in respectable order in a little less than an hour.

“Not bad.” She stood back to admire her work. “Not bad at all. Counselor Wilson, you’d be proud of me.”

She changed the sheets on the bed, then realized she hadn’t looked for blankets. She found a pile of old quilts in a chest in one of the other bedrooms and brought two of them into her room. One went onto the bed, the other she folded at the bottom. They smelled slightly of mothballs, but she decided it wasn’t so bad that she’d risk freezing. She turned off the lights on the first floor and lowered the thermostat, took a quick shower, got ready for bed, and crawled under the covers.

Flat on her back and looking up toward a ceiling she couldn’t see, Ellie relived the day, from leaving Carly’s town house to driving straight through to St. Dennis, to meeting Jesse Enright. Stepping for the first time into the house she now owned, navigating her way to find the things she needed. She thought about the waitress at the Crab Claw who’d given her coffee and steered her away from the fish that might not have been so good, and the young girl at the Laundromat who’d offered to put Ellie’s things in the dryer so that she could do her shopping and buy dinner.

“I told you, it’s a friendly little town,” Jesse had told her. And later, “I hope you’ll think about what I said and that you’ll give the folks around here a chance. Everyone isn’t out to hurt you.”

If everyone in St. Dennis were like the people she’d met that day, she’d concede that he was right. Of course, how kind everyone would be if they knew she was Clifford Chapman’s daughter—well, that would be the test, wouldn’t it?

Not a test anyone would be subjected to. When she’d told Jesse she wasn’t there to make friends, she wasn’t kidding. Friendship required honesty, trust, and Ellie knew she wasn’t going to go there.

She’d trusted Jesse because she had to, but she wouldn’t be hanging around St. Dennis long enough to find out who else she could trust. After she’d been burned so badly by the two people who should have most loved her—her father and her fiancé—trust was hard to come by these days.

Ellie still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that her father—the same father who’d been her champion all her life and had always seemed to have put her, his only child, above everything else—was worse than a common thief because he didn’t steal out of necessity but out of a greed so out of control there had been no end to it. If he hadn’t been caught, she was certain he’d still be stealing the life savings and pensions of people who trusted him.

Ellie, too, had trusted him.

When the charges were first announced, she’d been blindsided. The moment when her father had looked her in the eyes and admitted that he—aided by Henry—was in fact guilty, that he had in fact done everything the FBI and the SEC said he’d done, Ellie had felt her entire world crack and shatter. That both her father and Henry—she’d planned on marrying that man!—had woven the tangled web in which thousands of
people lost everything they had, devastated Ellie. Carly had been in Paris but had flown home the second she heard the news, had stood by Ellie while she was grilled six ways to Sunday by one investigator after another. When the interrogations were over and Ellie had been cleared of any involvement, Carly had taken her home, where Ellie fought off the pain and shame for the next three months.

The entire past year had been totally surreal, had turned Ellie’s world inside out, and made her question everything she knew about herself, her life. What her father and Henry had done went beyond betrayal.

No, best to bury Ellis Chapman so that Ellie Ryder could get on with her life.

C
AMERON
O’Connor parked his aging Ford pickup at the corner of Old St. Mary’s Church Road and Cedar Lane, then walked the half block to the law offices of Enright & Enright. He didn’t have an appointment, but given the foul mood he was in, he’d muscle his way past Jesse’s elderly receptionist if he had to. He wasn’t a man who was quick to lose his temper, but today he was
this
close.

He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself before he opened the firm’s front door. As usual, Violet Finneran sat like a sentry at her desk to the left of the foyer. Cam was tempted to ignore her and just walk into Jesse’s office, but better judgment prevailed.

“Miz Finneran?” he said from the foyer.

Apparently startled, the woman looked up from whatever it was she was reading, then a smile crossed her face.

“Cameron O’Connor, come in here and let me look at you,” she commanded.

Anger was no excuse for poor manners. Cam went into the reception area.

“How have you been, son? It seems like months since I’ve seen you.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m fine, thank you. How are you feeling?”

“I’m doing just fine, too. And your sister? She’s well?”

“Very well,” he replied. “Thanks for asking about her.”

“Of course. Please give her my best.” Violet Finneran lowered her glasses and gazed at Cam. “Were you hoping to see Jesse?”

Cam nodded. “If he has a minute …”

“Let me check on that for you, dear. Why not have a seat?” She stood and walked across the hall, where she knocked softly on the first door. After a second, she went into the office, and a moment later was followed back out by Jesse.

“Hey, buddy. What’s going on?” Jesse was his usual friendly self. “Missed you at the beer tasting the other night.”

“Got tied up with a project.” Cam could have added that he’d been working on a table he was making as a surprise gift for Jesse and his fiancée, but didn’t feel like getting into that right now. “Got a minute?”

“Sure. Come on in.” Jesse led the way back into the office, and Cam closed the door behind him.

“You finally getting around to writing that will, or are you—?” Jesse began as he seated himself behind his desk and pointed to one of the side chairs as an invitation for Cameron to sit.

“Is it true?” Cameron cut him off and ignored the
offer of the chair. “Has Lilly Cavanaugh’s house been sold?”

“Well, yeah.” Jesse looked uncomfortable. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I stopped at Cuppachino this morning and Grace Sinclair mentioned it. She said some woman from up north bought it and she’s—”

“Where did Grace hear about it?” Jesse asked.

“Someone saw lights on in the house and a car in the driveway a few nights ago and called the police. Beck stopped over to see what was what and was informed that the house had changed ownership.”

Jesse nodded. “It did.”

“Why didn’t anyone in town know it was on the market?” Cam folded his arms across his chest. “More specifically, why didn’t
I
know it was for sale?”

Jesse stared at Cameron for a long moment, then said, “The previous owner had given instructions to her lawyer in New York for the disposition of the house. Everything was handled there.”

“By the previous owner, you mean Lynley Sebastian.”

“That’s right.”

“She’s been gone for how many years now? And the house is just now being sold? And sold so quickly that no one around here even knew it was on the market?”

“There may have been some entanglement with the investigation into her husband’s affairs. I don’t know the particulars because as I said, it was handled by the attorneys in New York who handled Lynley’s estate on behalf of her heir.”

“That would have been Lynley’s daughter? I remember she had a little girl.”

“I suppose.” Jesse shrugged. “Want to tell me why you’re so pissed off?”

“I would have liked to have had an opportunity to bid on the property.”

“You’ll still have that opportunity. The new owner is planning on doing some renovations before selling it.”

“Seriously?”

“From what I understand, she has no interest in staying in St. Dennis any longer than she has to. She just wants to clean the place up, make some necessary repairs, maybe spiff it up a little, then get what she can for it before moving on.”

“She a professional?”

“A professional what?” Jesse frowned.

“House flipper. You know, people who buy houses that are run-down or outdated or that have serious problems, fix them up, then sell them for a profit. Such as myself.”

“I didn’t get the impression that she’s done this sort of thing before.”

“So you’ve met her.”

Jessed nodded. “The firm still represents some interests of the estate.”

“What’s her name? The owner.”

“Ellie Ryder. She’s from—”

“Ryder?
R-Y-D-E-R
?” Cam felt a tickle on the back of his neck.

“I think so. Why?”

“Lilly Cavanaugh’s maiden name was Ryder, spelled just like that.”

“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.” Jesse brushed off any possible significance with the wave of his hand.
“But just out of curiosity, how would you know that?”

“I knew the Cavanaughs pretty well when I was a kid. It’s how I came to take care of the place,” Cam said, his voice softened. “We lived on Bay View for a while. Miss Lilly was … well, she was a special lady.”

“If you knew her, you must have known Lynley.” Jesse sat back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Cam hesitated. “When she was in town, we’d exchange a few words about cutting the lawn and raking leaves, looking after Miss Lilly, that sort of thing. I don’t remember how old I was when I realized the connection between Miss Lilly’s niece and that pretty face that was on all those magazines.”

“Cam, if I’d known you had an interest in the property, that you had a history there, I’d have tried to help you out.” Jesse appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “However, the house has now changed hands. I’m sorry. I had no idea that you’d want it, but I’ll make certain that you know when the owner is getting ready to sell.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Cameron felt his blood pressure lower. Of course, not having arrived in St. Dennis until last year, Jesse wouldn’t have known Cam’s family history. One of these days, Cam would have to tell him about the time he and his family lived on Bay View Road. But it wasn’t going to be today. Maybe some night, when he and Jesse were testing beer flavors for Clay Madison and Wade MacGregor, whose local brewery, MadMac Brews, was still in the start-up phase, he’d tell the story.