They ate in silence for a moment, and Grace thought about Henry’s call. Did he also believe Stark? “So, between Bryce, Winston and Stark, word’s gotten around that I’m a deadbeat client and I may not own the house I’m working on.”
Mosley smiled. “You also accused your contractor of assault. Bound to make other firms skittish. Are you sure you don’t want to sell?”
Grace glared at him but decided it was just his awkward sense of humor. He’d eaten prime rib and was tucking into an apple dumpling and vanilla ice cream. For Mosley, it appeared to be a big night out.
Around a mouthful of dessert he said, “Perhaps if you enlist Avril to help you, you might make headway with one of the specialty contractors. The ones that are Bryce’s direct competitors. Any of them should want to see their name on a historic building like Delaney House.”
Grace toyed with the last of her Cobb salad and resisted the urge to lean over and wipe the dollop of cream from his chin. Mosley had definitely grown on her. Probably because he was the only person who was speaking to her.
“Afraid that won’t work,” she said. “Avril thinks I’m lying about Bryce and she isn’t happy with me. I don’t think anyone will ever believe me unless he attacks me again in front of witnesses.”
“Are you afraid, my dear?” Mosley stopped eating and studied her. “I can have the protection detail reinstated if you’d like.”
She blinked at the change in conversation. “Protection detail? You make it sound like I’m the president. The police watched my hospital room for a couple of days, but they’re not likely to start up again.”
Mosley gave the ice cream his full attention.
“Cyrus?”
He waved for the waiter and pointed to his coffee cup.
“Cyrus!” She waited while the waiter poured more coffee but put her hand over the sugar bowl when Mosley reached for it. “Whatever it is, tell me.”
He slurped his unsweetened coffee before answering her. “You’re a Delaney. Or an Anders. I don’t know which bloodline influenced your mother more. Ford and Emma were the most obstinate people I ever knew and their offspring are just like them.”
“Tell me.”
“Lee McNamara likes you. And since he’s a police officer, he distrusts Winston. But there was no proof to substantiate your claims. Henry Cutter’s statement all but completely alibied his cousin. Bryce and Winston backed each other up and now Winston’s gone off the wagon and Stark and Connie say it’s due to your allegations. He’s back in the substance abuse center, and it’s an expensive place.”
“Don’t change the subject. What does any of it have to do with the police officer at the hospital?”
“You need to understand. It isn’t whether or not Chief McNamara believed you. He simply couldn’t give you protection based on what you could tell him. The emergency room doctor couldn’t say if your injuries were from a fall or a beating.”
“I know what she said,” Grace blushed. How could she forget the doctor’s words? Do you drink regularly? Are you allergic to alcohol? Have a sensitivity to sulfite? Do you pass out often? There are drugs that leave the system quickly, Ms. Reagan. Are you sure you don’t remember taking something…? “But there was a police officer in the hallway the whole time I was there.”
Mosley glanced around, then leaned toward her. “I convinced the hospital to keep you an extra day and I arranged for their security to post one of their officers at your door. Private detail.”
Grace stared at him. “I see. Please send me the bill and I’ll reimburse you,” she said as she carefully folded her napkin and placed it on the table.
It was Mosley’s turn to stop her. “Please let me take care of you, Grace. This situation, I mean. It would be my honor to do that for Julia’s child.”
His honor to take care of her. To keep her safe. To continue where Emma Delaney had left off.
She wanted to ask why, but she said, “I’ll be fine, Cyrus. I’ll be careful. I’ll stay in touch and I’ll come to you when I need help.” She reached out and patted his spotted, leathery hand. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Chapter Forty-Five
Injuries which aren’t fatal eventually heal, in one fashion or another.
Grace’s aches and bruises faded, aided by regular sessions in the hotel’s sauna and long walks under gray January skies. She continued to call contractors, but the word had spread. Those who knew Delaney House were suspicious, and those who didn’t put her on a waiting list for an opening. A half-completed project at a standstill was not an attractive proposition. Time and again, Grace considered calling the contractors she had used in DC, but they were all small firms who operated in a small footprint. And the Mallard Bay rumors might spread back home to her professional circles. No, it was better to contain her humiliation to the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay.
Each day she went to Delaney House and worked. Sooner or later, the talk would die down, or a contractor would need work and the renovation could start up again. Until then, she would get as much painting done as possible. At first, it was awkward, working one-handed, but as her left arm healed, she picked up speed. After three days of solitary work, and listening to every sound she made echo through the old house, she was delighted to find Benny Pannel on her doorstep.
“Hey, Miz Grace. Hope it’s okay that I didn’t call first. I was in the area on another job and thought I’d take my chances on finding you. Henry said I should pick up the rest of the traps.”
She’d completely forgotten about the mice. She watched while Benny brought out empty traps. After a quick inspection, he declared the house to be critter-free. “I guess the little guys we found got into something they shouldn’t have and crawled inside to die. Doesn’t look like there are any more.”
As they walked to his truck, Benny said, “I saw the big room in the basement is still sealed off. I thought Bryce was gonna handle that.” His faced reddened a bit at Bryce’s name. “Anyway, I stayed out of there but sprayed around everywhere else - my own blend, non-toxic. It won’t hurt anything but the creepy-crawlers.”
Grace shuddered. “You said you knew someone who might be able to clean up the front room?” she asked.
Benny broke into a wide smile. “Maybe. I could make some calls if you want.”
On a whim, she asked if he knew any contractors looking for work.
“Yeah. Heard about your troubles.”
“Then you know I don’t have anyone to finish the house.”
Benny didn’t avoid her gaze. She decided when he wasn’t being the Verminator, he looked older.
“Can’t you get someone from over the bridge? Heard you had a company, and you being a lawyer and all, I figured you’d be set for help.”
“I’ll have to make some calls if I can’t find someone local soon. But the added expense of using a western shore firm will knock out a lot of the finishing touches I wanted to add. I’ll have to sell it as a shell, not a turnkey property.”
“You’re selling it?”
“I was always going to sell it, Benny.”
“I wasn’t sure. You hear things, you know?”
Grace said she surely did.
She couldn’t tell what was going on behind Benny’s guileless expression, but wheels were definitely turning. “Hard to sell a house with a contractor’s lien,” he finally said.
And easier for a contractor to get paid through settlement on a sale, Grace realized. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She felt a glimmer of hope.
Benny said, “I need to ask something if you’ll forgive me for being blunt.”
Grace suppressed a smile. He was actually waiting for her answer. “Oh, Benny. I know what people are saying. I can prove I own the house free and clear.”
He nodded slowly.
“So,” she prodded, “do you think you might know a contractor who’d be interested?”
“Contractor? No. But I know some people.”
The glimmer faded. Grace shook her head. “I
can’t compromise on the quality of work. I need licensed tradespeople.”
“But you don’t need a license to be a general contractor in Maryland. You could act as your own contractor and hire your own licensed subs. Not like you haven’t done it before. From what I understand, I mean.”
Benny was wrong. Her mother had been the general contractor. “I guess I could,” she said, and immediately thought of a dozen reasons why this was a bad idea.
“Let me make some calls.” Benny climbed into his van and leaned out the window. “If I can put some folks together, I’ll call you in a day or so. If not, maybe everything will die down before long and you can get a local crew.”
It was a wobbly plan, but a plan nonetheless. Things were moving again.
It was nearly a week before Benny called. A week in which Grace finished scraping the woodwork in the butler’s pantry and begin the tedious job of painting it. An ad in the help-wanted section of the newspaper solved her immediate problem. By agreeing to pay cash at the end of each day, she secured three workers to finish the landscaping and the reconstruction of the brick walk. If she couldn’t complete the interior renovation, the exterior would have to be a show stopper.
She was putting the first coat of paint on a built-in linen cupboard when her cell buzzed. She caught the call and heard Benny’s voice over a background of crowd noise. “Do you still want to be a general contractor?” he shouted into her ear.
Did she? She could hear the voices of the workers in the yard. The progress they’d made so far gave her hope. She walked out to the entry hall, looked up to the domed ceiling and slowly turned in a circle taking in the turret window, the circle of ruby glass over the front door and finally, the cantilevered staircase. It was the crooked doorway near the second floor landing that made her decision. If she did nothing else, she’d remove that abomination.
“I’m listening.” She sat on the bottom step and admired the staircase while the Verminator talked.
Benny, it seemed, had always had a plan. Lining it up had just taken a while. “You’re gonna need some imagination. And faith. You’re gonna have to trust me, Miss Grace.”
Grace rolled her eyes. He’d ‘ma’am’d’ her, ‘Miz Delaney’d’ her and eventually wrapped his head around ‘Reagan’. Now that he had a plan, she was ‘Miss Grace’. She smiled in spite of herself.
And then she saw it.
“Benny! I have to call you back. I want to hear all your ideas, but I have to do something.” She disconnected as he was offering to come to the house.
It was in plain sight at the base of the crooked doorway. A slight recess under the lip of the threshold; a shadow to the casual observer. Grace scrambled up the stairs, dropping to her hands and knees as she drew even with the doorway. Reaching under the threshold, she felt along the narrow edge, gasping as her fingers found the gap between the wood and the wall plaster below it. The next surface she touched was different, rougher. Sticking her fingers into a dark hole was nerve wracking, but she couldn’t wait to find a flashlight. She wiggled a forefinger into the gap and felt something shift. A moment later she had a small, flat box in her hands.
“Good one, Mom,” she whispered. Or was it Emma’s?
The front end of the cardboard box was painted the same color as the wall and was only visible to someone sitting on the steps below. Even then, it looked like a crack in the plaster from the haphazard construction of the doorway. But as soon as she’d seen the ‘crack’, Grace had known it was a hiding place. She carefully pried the stiff lid off the little box and looked at the treasures it held.
A thin gold ring caught the weak afternoon sun streaming through the turret window. She picked it up and let its blue stone wink and sparkle in the sunlight. Sapphire. Her mother’s birthstone. Grace slipped it on her pinky finger and caressed it before turning back to the box.
The photographs were clear enough, in the slightly murky, overly orange tones of old Polaroids. Her mother couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. She vamped for the camera in an off-the-shoulder ball gown, her golden hair fluffed out in a cloud of curls. Prom night? A man stood in the background, caught mid-laugh, hands clapped together. Julia was entertaining, as usual.
It was the second picture, placed face down in the box, that stopped Grace’s heart. Seconds and then minutes ticked by as she sat and stared at her mother wrapped in the arms of a man who was kissing her forehead. The man from the first photo. Two words were written in faded blue ink on the white paper band at the bottom of the Polaroid. Love always.
Her mother and Cyrus Mosley.
Chapter Forty-Six
It all fit so nicely. Or would have, if it had made any sense.
Her mother in a middle-aged Cyrus’ arms, the tenderness between them captured on film and hidden away with a ring. Love always.
By the time a knock on the front door brought her back to the present, Grace had run through dozens of explanations for the photographs. She didn’t like any of them, and a couple made her nauseous. She tucked the box and the photos into her tote before answering the door to find Aidan Banks.
“Niki isn’t here,” she snapped and immediately felt ashamed. He hadn’t done anything to deserve her tone of voice. Yet.
His jaw worked, but he didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he handed her an envelope. “Chief McNamara told me to drop this off. I thought Mr. Mosley would be here. The Chief said he was your agent.”
Any other time Grace might have wondered at his deferential tone, but as it was, she only wanted him to leave her alone with her discovery. “Mosley, my agent? Of course.” She’d give everything she owned if that’s all he was.
“It’s your occupancy permit,” he gestured to the envelope. “You’re cleared to live here again. If you aren’t already.”
“I’m willing to bet you know I’m staying at the Egret.”
“Yeah, well, now you can live here.” It wasn’t only that his tone was different, the belligerence was gone. As he spoke, his eyes kept drifting to her mouth. To her scabbed-over lip, which was all that remained of her injuries. The visible ones, anyway.
“Thank you for bringing it by,” she managed. “I guess you heard what happened?”
“Yes.” He flushed and lowered his gaze.
“I didn’t - I don’t know what they’re up to. Bryce Cutter and Winston.” It seemed important to tell him that.
Banks nodded once and turned to leave.
As she was closing the door behind him, she heard him say, “I did.”
“Wait! What?” She yanked the door open and ran after Banks, catching his arm as he reached front walk. “What do you mean? You knew what?”
“What everybody knows.” He pulled out of her grasp but didn’t move away from her.
“What! What does everyone know? You’ve been hostile since day one, and I want to know why.”
She’d gone too far. His face hardened. “Ask your cousin.”
He got into the truck, slammed the door and was rolling down the driveway before she thought to ask which cousin he meant.
She found Stark at Niki’s house.
She hadn’t meant to force a showdown so soon, but the sight of her uncle’s sleek Mercedes parked in front of the Victory Manor Inn made the decision for her. She drove around back to the guest parking and pulled in next to a gold Lexus. Mosley.
Could she barge in there and demand answers? Did she really want the truth she might hear? In Julia’s snapshots, she might have found her father. Or she might have a lot of misconceptions. The pictures could be innocent. Cyrus had certainly tried to step into the role of father and protector for the Delaney offspring. A teenager would hug her dad like that, wouldn’t she? Grace realized she had no idea.
Wailing sirens blasted her out of her inertia. Instead of fading away, the noise reached a crescendo before cutting off. She tucked her tote with its dangerous contents under the passenger seat and ran, rounding the front of the inn as paramedics entered the front door.
The house was in chaos. Connie was crying while Stark shouted over her, demanding that someone give him answers. The paramedics blocked Grace’s view of their patient’s face, but she would have known the lime green golf pants anywhere. Mosley was the only quiet person in the room.
She found Niki in the kitchen making coffee.
“They’ll all need some when they bring him around,” Niki insisted when Grace tried to get her to sit down. “Cyrus likes his coffee and Dad will always take a cup.” Grace watched her cousin heap scoop after scoop into the brewer basket, stopping only when the can was empty. Niki shoved the basket into place then walked out of the room, leaving the coffee maker to chug fruitlessly with an empty water carafe.
Grace turned the machine off and followed her cousin into the living room. Connie had finally quieted and even Stark was silent while Mosley was rolled out to the ambulance.
“Why’re you here?” Connie asked Grace when the door closed after the last of the emergency personnel.
“It’s not important now,” Grace said. “What happened?”
“What do you think?” Stark answered. He rubbed his face with his hands and abruptly sat down on the arm of the sofa. Connie moved toward him as if to offer comfort, but he made a swatting motion in her direction.
“What happened to Cyrus?” Grace demanded.
“He stopped by uninvited like you just did.” Stark again made air-swatting motions when his wife and daughter protested his rudeness.
“We don’t know, Grace,” Connie finally answered. She sank onto overstuffed brocade couch near Stark. Niki came to sit next to her and held her hands. Stark got up as if they’d crowded him, walked to the windows overlooking the side garden and turned his back to everyone.
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