The Cliffside Inn

by Jessie Newton

  Alice said nothing, and Kelli reached into her purse and pulled out a folder.

  “I printed these at Alice’s the other night.” She handed Kristen a piece of paper. “That has my dad’s name on it. Rueben is mentioned as the architect. And Zach Oakwood as the art student.”

  “His name isn’t Watkins?” Eloise asked, peering over Kristen’s arm.

  “Not in that article,” Kelli said. “He knew my father though, obviously.” She took out the other paper. “This article says they worked on the children’s wing of the library in Savannah together.”

  “That was years ago,” Kristen said, looking over the top of the paper. “Probably twenty years.”

  “Eighteen,” Kelli said.

  “That means Zach isn’t in his thirties,” Robin said. She scanned the paper with the article on it. “This says he was a senior. Plus eighteen years…he’s probably almost forty.”

  “Everything he said isn’t true,” Alice said.

  Eloise took the article and read it, and her frown only deepened with every passing second.

  “Kelli?”

  “I was wondering if you knew anything about it,” Kelli said to Kristen. “I wondered if I should go talk to Rueben about it.”

  “He’s out on the claw today,” Kristen said. “He’ll be back late tonight after he checks the lantern.”

  Robin remembered how rough the waters could be in the rowboat out to the claw, which was just a patch of stand shaped like a rooster’s foot where a light tower had been erected. It was part of the lightkeeper’s job to make sure that lantern stayed lit too, and Kristen had worried over Joel rowing out to the claw several times.

  “But we can talk to him as soon as he gets back.”

  “Do we really need to?” Alice asked. “This is obvious, Kel. He’s not who he says he is. He’s not your half-brother.”

  “Alice,” Robin said softly. Alice turned toward her, and the fire in her eyes went out.

  “Okay,” Alice said, holding up her hand. “Okay, I’ll stop.”

  “She just doesn’t need to hear it.”

  “I haven’t been able to find a birth certificate in Maine for him,” Kelli said. “But I’ve just been using my phone.” She looked around nervously. “He knows about the Glassworks.” Kelli zipped her purse and looked around, vulnerability in her expression.

  “I need help to figure out who he is and what he wants.”

  “Of course we’ll help you,” Eloise said.

  “I think we know what he wants,” Alice said. “Money. He thinks you have some money, because your father was a famous artist.”

  “He should’ve seen us after my dad lost everything.” Kelli accepted Robin’s hug, and something suddenly occurred to her.

  Robin pulled away and studied Kelli’s face. “Do you think he even knows your family lost everything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you should show him some pictures,” AJ said, and Robin turned toward the phone. She’d forgotten AJ was even there.

  “I’ve burned them all,” Kelli said. AJ burst out laughing, and that broke the tension in the cottage.

  “We’ll make a plan of attack,” Eloise said. “Maybe I can ask Aaron if he can find anything with some of his resources.”

  “No,” Kelli said quickly. “I don’t want the police involved. It has nothing to do with anything legal.”

  “Are you kidding?” Eloise asked at the same time Alice said, “Sure it does, Kelli.”

  Kelli looked at Alice. “It has legal ramifications?”

  “If he forged a birth certificate in order to claim some inheritance he thinks he has? Absolutely,” Alice said. “I’d have to do some research, and this isn’t legal advice at all, but yes. I think we need to find out about this birth certificate—and anything else we can.”

  “Okay.” Kelli took the printouts from Kristen and Eloise and tucked them back into her purse. “That’s my problem.”

  “Come tomorrow afternoon,” Kristen said. “We’ll go talk to Rueben together.”

  Kelli nodded, and all eyes turned to Eloise.

  “I need legal advice for sure,” she said. “I’ll hire you, Alice.” She crossed the room to her purse and pulled an envelope and a wooden box from it. “I found these hidden in the wall at the Cliffside Inn…”

  No one moved, not even Alice.

  Robin took the first step forward, and she looked at the envelope. “Bank accounts?” she read.

  “My father was a gambler,” Eloise said, her voice barely loud enough to be heard. “I think these are things he swindled from other people, but I need to know if they’re legal contracts or not.”

  She opened the box and took out several more envelopes, most of them quite bulky with folded papers.

  “Galveston Distillery?” Kelli read.

  “Proffit Beach Property,” Alice said. “Stevenson Ranch.” She held up the two she’d picked up. “What are these?” She started to open them, so Eloise didn’t answer.

  Alice read the papers, her eyes alive and bright as they moved from left to right.

  She looked up, her gaze meeting Eloise’s. “I think these are legit,” she said. “They’re dated and signed. They have property addresses on them. They say the properties are being transferred to pay a debt, and that that debt will be forgiven with the transaction.”

  “It makes no sense,” Eloise said. “Who’s been managing these properties for the past twenty-five-plus years?”

  Alice flipped a page and then another. She folded them and put them back in the envelope before opening the next one. “Someone is,” she said. “Or whoever these people are could still be there.” She looked up. “Have you looked any of these up?”

  “No,” Eloise said. “I found them an hour ago and came straight here.” She met Kristen’s eyes. “I wanted to get some insight from Kristen on them.”

  Kristen smiled at Eloise, and they stepped toward each other and embraced.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Alice said.

  “What are the properties?” AJ asked. “I’ll look them up right now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  AJ typed and clicked, her eyes scanning for anything that would stand out. Her mind raced, and more than just with the items Eloise had read to her over the phone.

  So much in her life had changed in the past four months, and she hated that she was the only one not in Kristen’s cottage right now. That alone was a huge marker for where she’d been in April and where she was now, this first week of September.

  She would’ve never answered a video chat in April. She would’ve still been with Nathan, and still chasing that elusive career high she still hadn’t found, even now.

  She’d returned from Denver, hopeful she’d get on the air from her performance there. She’d landed two exclusive interviews for the on-air talent, and her contact base had both expanded and come through for her.

  She’d met with her boss, but he’d said he wanted her to “keep up the good work,” and that “there might be a spot opening up in a month or two.”

  AJ had heard language like that before. It meant they were happy with her on their team, but she wasn’t at the top of the list to move into an anchor spot, if one even became available.

  A month or two could mean tomorrow or in a year, and AJ wondered if she even wanted to wait that long. She wondered if she even wanted to have this job when everyone else was in Five Island Cove.

  After all, she had no one here in New York, and her four best friends were together. Even though she’d abandoned them years ago, without hardly a look back, they’d all been there to greet her with open arms. Where else could she find people like that?

  Nowhere, she thought, finally seeing two words that belonged together. “I see a Stevenson Ranch just outside of Billings,” AJ said, clicking and leaning closer to her laptop screen.

  “Does it have a website?” Alice asked, coming into the picture on AJ’s phone.

  “Loadi
ng now,” AJ said.

  “See if there’s an About section,” Alice said. “And see if you can right-click to bring up the source material. We can usually see something from that.”

  AJ had no idea about things like that, and she was honestly surprised Alice did. The woman was a brilliant lawyer, though, so she probably knew all kinds of things AJ didn’t even know existed.

  The site loaded, and she clicked. “They’re a six-hundred-and-twelve-acre cattle ranch,” she said, skimming the text on the About page. “Owned and operated independently, with a caretaker and general manager who lives on the property.”

  “Who’s that?” Eloise asked, crowding into the frame with Alice. The anxiety in Eloise’s voice unsettled AJ. Eloise was always so calm and so rational. She didn’t let emotions rattle her, and AJ had never known her to operate from a place of panic. She could practically feel Eloise’s anxiety pouring over the video though.

  “Uh, let’s see,” AJ said, finishing the About page. She looked back up to the menu, and underneath Contact Us, she found a sub-tab for Employment. She clicked there, and a picture of cowboys and cowgirls came up. The all looked unreasonably happy given what AJ knew about working a ranch, which admittedly wasn’t much.

  She did know how cold it got in Montana, and there was no way these people grinned through those temperatures.

  “You can only apply for a job every other month,” she said, scanning the words again. She wished she could speed-read, because it felt like she was right on the cusp of getting the information she needed and she simply couldn’t read fast enough.

  “When the general manager isn’t there, his foreman conducts interviews.”

  “Who is it?” Eloise asked again.

  “Maybe we should just call,” Robin said. “Pretend like we want a job and ask.”

  “How do you do that?” Alice asked. “Hey, I need a job right now, and I see your general manager isn’t there. What’s his name, by the way?”

  “I don’t know,” Robin snipped back. “I’m just saying that AJ obviously can’t find it online, and it feels like we’re wasting time.” Her face came into the screen too, replacing Eloise’s. “Is there a phone number, AJ? I’ll just call.” She glared at Alice, and AJ loved it when the two of them went at it. They were very clearly best friends who knew each other a little too well, because they did not hold back with one another.

  AJ wished Kelli was on-screen, because she missed her best friend. She wished she was there to hug her and tell her she’d find out everything she could about Zach. The traitor. Didn’t he know she and her family had been through enough? How dare he try to steal something from her that wasn’t his?

  Even taking her peace of mind made him a complete villain in AJ’s eyes.

  She clicked on a link at the bottom of the page that led to available jobs while Eloise joined the argument about calling the Stevenson Ranch. Another picture loaded, and AJ sucked in a tight breath.

  It must have been loud enough for everyone to hear, because they all stopped talking, and Eloise nudged Robin out of the picture and asked, “What is it, AJ?”

  Her insides quaked, and her mind automatically rejected the things she was seeing. They couldn’t be true.

  “AJ,” Eloise barked, and AJ flinched away from the two men on the screen. It had been a very long time since she’d seen either of them, but she had a memory for faces and names. It was what allowed her to be so good at her job. When she remembered an agent’s name or a B-level athlete, they felt important.

  “I’m going to share my screen with you,” AJ said. “I could be wrong, Eloise. I haven’t seen—” She couldn’t say it.

  “Seen what?” Alice demanded.

  AJ just shook her head, making it match with the air as it entered her lungs. She just had to be wrong. She clicked the button to share her screen, and her picture flew up to the top right corner.

  “Can you see it?” she asked.

  Alice swore, and Robin yelped. Eloise said, “That’s my brother,” in a voice that hardly belonged to her.

  AJ pressed her eyes closed. She hadn’t seen Garrett Hall in a very long time, but he’d been tall, dark, and handsome, and no one had been off-limits for AJ in high school. Of course, with the age difference, AJ had been in junior high when she’d first kissed Garrett. She’d been willing to go all the way, but he’d stopped way before that.

  “I can’t,” he’d whispered into her neck. “You’re my little sister’s best friend.” He’d backed up really fast after that. “I can’t.”

  AJ had never told Eloise; she’d never told anyone about that particular incident. A keen sense of self-loathing came over her, and she hung her head.

  Why had she done all of those things in her youth? She’d hated herself so much that anyone who could make her forget that for even five minutes was welcomed into her life.

  “And my uncle,” Eloise said, confirming what AJ had first thought.

  Chaos erupted on the other end of the line, and AJ just listened while tears gathered in her eyes. She didn’t dare navigate away from the ranch website, but she really wanted to book the first flight to Five Island Cove so she could hug Eloise and the others.

  As they started to calm, AJ said, “I’m going to take off the screen share.” She did, and she got part of the ceiling and part of the living room in Kristen’s cottage. Eloise had obviously set the phone down.

  Someone cried, and AJ suspected it was Eloise. Robin said, “Shh, El, it’s going to be okay.”

  “We’ll make it okay,” Alice said.

  “I’m going to be on the flight there in the morning,” AJ said. “Robin, can I stay with you?”

  Robin grabbed the phone, and AJ got a little dizzy from the movement and shuffling until she filled the video frame. “Of course,” she said.

  “Take me off speaker,” AJ said, and confusion crossed Robin’s face.

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Then go outside for a second.”

  Robin nodded and AJ had to look away from the screen as Robin lowered the phone to her side and started walking.

  “Okay, I’m outside,” she said as if AJ wouldn’t know from the new silence that came through the line.

  “I need the honest truth,” AJ said. “How’s Kelli?”

  “She’s hanging in there,” Robin said. “She’s afraid, but in the past, she wouldn’t have told any of us. She’d have let this thing with Zach go, because she didn’t want the confrontation. But…now…she’s changed. She’s going to see this through.”

  AJ nodded. “And Alice?”

  “Alice will always prevail,” Robin said. “She’ll get through it, and she has clients now, so even if Frank does skip some months, she’ll be okay.”

  “Eloise?”

  “She just broke down. Those documents have been sitting in the walls at the Cliffside Inn for over twenty years. Her father willed her all of his properties and bank accounts, and that includes those properties, if he did in fact, own them.”

  “And she just found out her brother obviously knew about the properties and has been benefitting from them since her father’s death.”

  “And her uncle,” Robin said.

  All the pieces fell into place. “Didn’t they know about the paperwork?”

  “Obviously not,” Robin said “Eloise just said before she dissolved into tears that her dad kept the inn, and the bank repossessed it and sold it at auction. If Garrett had known about the paperwork in the walls, he could’ve bought it.” Robin shook her head, pure concern and displeasure mixing in her expression. “They’ll appreciate you coming.” Her voice tightened. “I appreciate it.”

  AJ started clicking to get to the airline. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “You should bring Peterson,” Robin said. “Stay for a week and help Eloise at the inn. Alice and I have been going almost every day.”

  “Sure,” AJ said just to placate her. “I’ll ask him.”

  Robin turned
back to the cottage door, her eyebrows raised. “Do you want to go back in, AJ?” she asked, already moving.

  “No,” AJ said. “I have lots to do if I’m going to take a week off. Tell everyone goodbye and that I love them.”

  “Will do.” Robin opened the door to more noise, and AJ quickly clicked on the red hang-up button.

  She twisted slightly toward her fish bowl and Peterson. “You can’t come, Petey,” she said. “I’ll text Claire next door to come feed you.”

  She got busy booking a flight and emailing in her request for leave paperwork. She texted her boss and Claire and while she waited for confirmations on everything, she pulled out her suitcase and started packing.

  In times like these, she really wished she could drink, because it would take the edge off. The last time she’d been in Five Island Cove, though, her friends had staged an intervention and thrown away the full suitcase of alcohol she’d brought with her.

  She wasn’t going to put them in that situation again, nor would she go through that humiliation again.

  “Only the one suitcase,” she muttered to herself, putting in two swimming suits just in case. It was still warm in Five Island Cove, and maybe they could discuss everything on the beach.

  AJ’s phone buzzed, and she returned to her desk to check it. Her boss had texted that if she could call in on Tuesday morning for their roundtable, that would be great, and to otherwise enjoy the cove.

  Thanks, AJ sent back. With her bag packed, her ticket printed, her leave approved, and her phone charging, all AJ needed to do now was come up with a reason why Peterson hadn’t come with her.

  And maybe that Peterson was a goldfish and not her boyfriend.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Laurel Baker took Paul’s hand as they strolled along the boardwalk that bordered this part of the beach. She could feel him scanning the area too, and she wondered if they’d ever be able to simply go out without acting like cops.