Traces

by Betty Bolte

  “Raise it up? It’s already built.” His frown deepened. “I’m confused.”

  “Not raise up,” Meredith said, her words measured. “Raze flat.”

  “The hell you say.” Her dad’s brows rose so high, she was surprised they stayed attached to his face.

  Her mother gasped and stared at her as though Meredith had lost her mind. How could she make them understand? She hadn’t seen them in person for years, and now that they were here, they learn that their architect daughter intended to destroy their family home. They hadn’t been here for five minutes and already the tension shimmered in the spring air.

  “What do you mean, raze it?” Dina asked slowly. “You cannot possibly be serious.”

  “Sadly, she is.” Paulette opened her palms to the spring sky. “She feels that returning the property to nature will help her move on, to overcome the grief and pain of losing Willy.” Paulette crossed her arms, a familiar gesture by now. “Not that I agree with her, but there it is.”

  Paulette, of all people, had come to her rescue. Sort of.

  Her father recovered first, snapping his mouth closed into a flat line. “You’ve obviously lost your mind, young lady. I don’t care what you think you’re going to do. I’ll not allow you to destroy our family’s heritage.”

  “Unfortunately, Dad, it’s hers to do with as she wishes,” Paulette said, frowning. “The lawyer dude, Max, said so. The will didn’t specify any limitations for what she could do with it. Not that he agrees with her ideas, either.”

  “Max?” Dina asked, focusing on Paulette. “He’s the lawyer? Good.”

  “You know him?” Meredith shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow she’d thought they wouldn’t stay in touch with who was who in the small town of Roseville.

  “Of course. Mother spoke very highly of him.” Dina shook her head, tears loitering in the corners of her eyes. She swiped them away and drew in a ragged breath. “Mother is probably rolling over in her grave at the very idea that you’d even consider—I can’t even say it. How could you even contemplate such a thing? Do you realize what you’d do to this family with your selfish actions?”

  “I’ll contest the will, that’s what I’ll do,” Brock fumed. “This can’t happen. I should be the rightful heir, and no court in the land would deny me.”

  Looking at it from her family’s viewpoint, Meredith would feel the same way. But from inside, where the black hole of pain and loss waited to be filled in, like the rock foundation of this house, she couldn’t see any other way to end the journey through grief and move on.

  “Speaking of Max, he’s invited us to the high school concert tomorrow night.” Maybe changing the subject would help. She hoped. Three pair of eyes blinked at her. “He’s playing the piano.” As if that explained her reasoning perfectly. She sighed at the unbelieving stares aimed in her direction.

  “Changing the subject doesn’t make it go away.” Paulette glared at her. “You’ll have to face the fact nobody agrees with your atrocious plan.”

  “Nobody has offered another way to handle the grief I carry inside like a cancer, either.” Meredith shrugged. “I’ve delayed my plans because I want to solve the mystery of great-great-great-auntie Grace’s disappearance. But it’s only a delay, not a cancellation.”

  “Who’s Grace?” Brock asked, pacing. “Who the hell cares about her?”

  Meredith summarized what she had discovered in the journals and letters thus far. “I don’t believe she left willingly, but that’s a gut feeling more than anything else.”

  Could there be a connection between the occasions of the honeysuckle scent floating on the air and the fact Grace used to wear a similar perfume? After all this time, how was it even a possibility? She kept mum on her speculations. Her family already thought she’d become daft. Why give them more ammunition?

  “Why don’t we go inside?” Paulette suggested. “Meg should have your room ready. We can gather in the double parlor after you settle in and have some lemonade and discuss all this.”

  “Okay with me, but don’t think we’re letting little Miss Demolition Expert off the hook regarding her intentions. Delayed or not.” Brock stomped over to the back doors of the truck, pulled them open, and withdrew two large suitcases and two matching smaller ones.

  Looks like they plan to stay awhile. Meredith sighed and shook her head. “Fine. I’ll meet you inside in a few minutes. First, I have a little mystery I’d like to solve.”

  “Another one?” Brock asked. “What this time?”

  “Before you arrived, we discovered one of the columns sounds different when we bang on it. Any idea, Oh Construction Guru, why?” Meredith cocked her head to one side as she puzzled in her mind over possible reasons for the column to not sound as hollow as the others.

  “While you two work on that,” Dina said, snagging her bags from Brock’s lax grip, “I’m going in. I haven’t seen Meg in ages.”

  “Let me carry one for you.” Paulette took the heavier suitcase and led the way inside.

  Meredith started toward the front of the house, Brock trailing behind her, still carrying the two remaining suitcases. When they reached the porch, he dropped them with a thud onto the floorboards. “Show me what you mean.”

  Meredith walked to the farthest column and banged on it. “This one has a nice ringing sound.” She moved to the next column. “As does this one and the next.” She demonstrated to him as she spoke. “But this one on the end is different. It doesn’t echo as much.”

  She pounded on the last column, and the sound died away like a muted note on a piano. He pursed his lips in thought as he repeated her experiment with each column, finding the same result.

  “Interesting. I wonder if there’s something in there. Maybe an animal crawled inside?”

  “How would an animal find its way in?” Meredith examined the exterior of the column from bottom to top. “It’s sealed at the bottom, and there’s a cornice at the top to seal it off up there as well.”

  “But maybe the top of the cornice wasn’t always sealed.”

  She gazed at the ornately decorated top of the column. “What if the cornice is hollow as well? Could something fall through it and into the base, do you think?”

  Brock shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose. Does it really matter?”

  Meredith hugged herself, trying to fend off the chill sweeping through her. This odd column held a clue to the mystery of Grace’s whereabouts. The thought entered her mind as a fact. How did she know? Cold air brushed her legs, raising goose bumps on her skin. “Do you have your jigsaw with you?”

  “You want to cut it open?” Brock stared at her, eyes wide yet again. “You really have lost your mind.”

  “A little hole.” Meredith unwound her arms from her waist. She approached the column and with one finger drew an imaginary rectangle. “Merely twelve by six inches. Not big enough to compromise its integrity, but enough to see if there is anything inside.”

  * * * *

  Max had returned to his office after depositing his few groceries at home. His need to know all he could about the mysterious Meredith compelled him to close his office door and open his laptop. His search yielded an array of links that had taken a while to sort through. He reread the Architecture Chronicle article slowly, understanding dawning. Meredith’s husband, William “Willy” Reed, had been killed by some guy over the astronomical amount of twenty bucks in his wallet. The shot that killed the renowned landscape architect preceded one that struck Meredith in the stomach. She’d been rushed to the hospital, her life at risk due to the amount of blood she’d lost. Willy died at the scene.

  He lowered the lid of his laptop computer and sank against the cushions of the leather sofa in his office. She really did want to bury the past, but demolishing Twin Oaks wouldn’t help her move on. Closing a door on painful events instead of burying them allowed one to live without ever truly forgetting.

  He’d unearthed a plethora of articles in various professional journals a
nd national newspapers touting her fresh and innovative designs. She’d blueprinted everything from bungalows to mansions for billionaires. She’d been the belle of the building industry. Until her husband of three years, at the prime of his life, was killed in cold blood by some punk who was never brought to justice.

  Max clenched his hand into a fist and beat it rhythmically on the lid of his laptop. One and two and three. He’d like to find the bastard and bring him before a judge for the pain and grief he’d caused Meredith. She did not deserve to have her life’s dreams and plans uprooted in such a horrific way. Damn lowlife. Because of delinquents like the creep, Max focused on noncriminal cases. He lost his temper each time he contemplated the damage caused by unthinking, uncaring people.

  Every crime came back to one point. People hurt each other, and the injured party demanded recompense. Maybe monetary penalties. Maybe revenge. Maybe, like Meredith, to lash out against expectations to create a new path for her own life.

  That being the case, he could help her find a path. Help her walk away from the pain and focus on tomorrow without destroying yesterday. She possessed too much talent, spunk, and integrity to turn her back on her creative endeavors in order to destroy others’ works. Helping her would also provide him an excuse to spend more time with her. To know her as an architect instead of a demolition expert. As a beautiful, evocative woman instead of an angry, prickly widow. He’d relish the opportunity to be with her more often, speak with her about ways to deal with the grieving process. She’d occupied his thoughts long enough. In fact, he’d follow up on her suggestion.

  He set aside his laptop and strode to the calendar blotter on his desk. His scribbled notes bespoke of the many irons he had poked into various fires. He grabbed his pen and added “start dating Meredith” on the first night of the high school concert. He’d begin with asking her out to a private place. He tapped the pen against his chin. Assuming she’d agree to go with him, of course. He laid the pen down and picked up the desk phone, dialing her number from memory.

  “Hey, Meredith, can you talk?”

  “Um, yeah, I’ve got a minute.”

  “I’ll keep this brief. Would you care to join me for dinner after the concert tomorrow night?

  “I, uh…Over here, right about there. No, a little to the left. That’s it. Um, sorry, Max, what were you saying?”

  “What’s going on?” Max stilled the pen, intent on hearing the scraping and shuffling in the background on Meredith’s end.

  “Just a little investigative demolition, nothing to worry about.”

  “Damn it, Meredith, we talked about this.” Max cringed. “You’re not already taking Twin Oaks apart, are you? Please, Meredith, reconsider this line of action. We can find another way.”

  “I’m merely trying to solve a little mystery. Nobody will ever know. Dinner tomorrow would be okay, I guess. We can talk about the Register and what you’re doing about it.”

  That would be a very short conversation. He’d done nothing about removing the house from the Register because in the long run it made no difference. If Meredith wanted to destroy the house, she had the legal right to do so. At least for another ten days or so. But he hoped to help her see how immoral such an act would be. How taking it apart would not put her life back together again. Either way, time was draining away faster than he liked, and he had to do something to try to plug the drain.

  “Fine. Meet me in the music room after the concert, and we’ll go try the new steak house—the one with the deck overlooking the river.”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you then.” Her voice grew distant, and right before the line went dead, Max heard her say, “You could cut there…”

  * * * *

  “Why does it matter so much to you?” Brock walked up to stand beside Meredith. He peered at her. “You’re shivering. Are you cold?”

  “A little. But I have to know.” She slipped her phone back into her pocket, choosing to put off contemplating Max’s motives for asking her on a date. A real date. And she’d accepted without thinking, without considering being alone with the man. Her resolve must have tripped, but she could do something about that. “I can’t explain, but I know there’s something relevant inside.”

  “Come here.” Brock wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. “You’re chilled. Let me help you go inside where it’s warm.”

  She shrugged him off and shook her head. “Please, Dad.”

  He gazed at her a long moment, and then slowly nodded. “One small hole, that’s all I’m agreeing to do.”

  Without another word he sauntered in his loose-hipped way down the steps and to his vehicle, where he retrieved his jigsaw and attached the battery pack. Before long he had the thin blade ready to pierce the exterior skin of the column. Meredith stood to one side, trying to quell the shivers racing through her. The whir of the small engine obliterated the sounds of the birds and the insects as the saw bit into the wood. Once the rectangular hole was outlined, Brock stopped the blade. The sudden silence shocked her ears. Her father laid down the saw and carefully pried the inset out of the column.

  He peered inside. “There’s something in there all right.” He waved her closer.

  Meredith approached cautiously and leaned down to look into the hole. Though dimly lit by the incision, she made out the glint of what appeared to be very tarnished silver and a pile of dusty blue fabric. The same vibrant though dirty color as the dress worn by the Lady in Blue. She inhaled and nearly vomited when she smelled the sweet scent of honeysuckle and roses.

  “No.” It couldn’t be. The terror a person would have endured in such a place made dark spots form before her eyes. No way could this happen. Could it? She placed a hand against the column to steady her quaking knees while tears streamed down her face. “It’s Grace. It has to be. But how did she end up in there?”

  Chapter 13

  Gravel pinged the exterior of Max’s truck as he steered the vehicle into the driveway of Twin Oaks. Slowing to avoid any more damage to the paint, he tapped a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel. Meredith’s voice had quavered and then steadied when she’d phoned him several minutes after he’d invited her to dinner. The mystery she’d been working to solve apparently involved bones and a dress and a silver tea service. In one of the impressive columns standing sentry for generations. She’d wanted to know what they should do, and he’d told her to leave everything in place. He’d made a call to the county sheriff and the medical examiner’s office to relay the findings. The officials should be arriving shortly to collect the remains.

  He parked beside a steel-gray Lincoln Navigator, a beautiful piece of machinery that made his mouth drool. He darted a glance back at his own F-150 XLT, fully decked out but not nearly as elegant as the SUV. Maybe when he made senior partner, he’d trade in his pick-’em-up truck for something more refined. But he liked his truck. He hurried to the back door. He knocked on the doorjamb, avoiding the door itself since he had forgotten to locate the hardware needed to repair the frame. But he’d tackle the job first thing Monday.

  He knocked a second time and then let himself in. “Hello?”

  Footsteps hurried down the hall toward him. He crossed the kitchen, reaching the door as Meredith pushed through it.

  “Max.” Meredith’s expression danced before him, her eyes alive in a way he’d not seen before. Their intensity drew him in; he could gaze into them forever. “Can you believe it?”

  “It does stretch the imagination.” Her beauty stretched his credulity as well. He heard his heartbeat in his ears, pulsing like the rush of a river heading toward a falls. Her lightly freckled cheeks glowed with excitement, eyes animated, lips perfectly shaped for kissing. So he did.

  When his lips met hers, she didn’t protest. Her eyes closed for a moment before flying open. He didn’t end the press of their lips for another heartbeat. When he did, a flick of her tongue moistened her lips, first upper, then lower. He smiled, a deep sense of peace emerging inside. “I needed you.”
<
br />   “Max…”

  He stopped her words with a finger laid to her mouth. “Hold that thought. Now you have a hint of what I plan for later. So tell me, what’s this about a body?”

  “Remains, definitely. Looks like human bones to me. Especially since there’s a dress. And jewelry, I think.” She gripped his arms and stared at him with wide eyes. “Oh my goodness, it’s the blue dress both Paulette and I have seen in our dreams since we were kids. How? What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’m here to help figure out, sweetheart.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I’m with you every step until we know who it is who ended up buried alive in that place.”

  “It’s so Poe-like, isn’t it?” She shuddered. “How dreadful for the poor woman. I can’t bear to think what she went through.”

  “Don’t torture yourself, Meredith.” He lifted her chin with one finger. “The sheriff and the ME are on their way. They’ll help us sort this out.”

  “Come on, everyone’s in the main parlor.”

  “Everyone?” Max followed dumbly. Stunned first by the vibrant beauty leading him through the hallways to the front right of the house and then again by the intensity of the kiss they’d shared. Voices drifted down the hall toward them. Who, exactly, was everyone? Meg. Paulette. Sean, perhaps? Who else? Meredith’s luscious hips swinging in front of him with each step distracted him momentarily. What was that country song? The “Badonkadonk”? Fit her motion perfectly. They stopped, and he glanced into the parlor.

  She paused at the doorway. “Hey, look who finally deigned to honor us with his presence.”

  Her family sat chatting among themselves until they noticed Max behind Meredith. They stared at the pair for a moment before Brock stood and crossed the room to shake hands. “Max, how have you been?”

  “Good, good.” Max returned the greeting, feeling the strength of the hand gripping his own and glad he’d been exercising his fingers on the keyboards. Otherwise, his handshake would have crippled him.