by Mary Brady
“What?” the elderly man asked the person next to him and she explained close to his ear.
“Oh, I can do that, sonny,” he said as he grinned at the boy with a mouth full of pearly white teeth.
A gray-haired woman raised her hand. “We were scared to death. The water made a car smash into our house, and I couldn’t think of any place safer than the police station.”
No one argued with that.
“Is everyone in the town accounted for?”
“Are you really asking if everyone is all right?” Mrs. Quizzenberry said, looking pointedly at Bradley still sitting in the chair beside her.
“I was.”
“Mrs. March is waiting for her husband to come back from his errands,” the teacher continued, this time looking at the woman in the corner who didn’t seem to notice.
Addy nodded. She got it. At least one person was missing, possibly dead.
After two minutes or so of dreadful silence, another woman spoke up. “I’ll tell you what I saw. The clouds were a terrible gray green and they seemed as if they were going to come and just eat the town up. I never been so frightened in my life. My husband wanted us to leave, but I said I was born here and I wasn’t running away ’cause the weather. I’m here, er, well, my husband is in there, reporting our lawn mower stolen.”
The woman’s face suddenly split in a wide grin. “I think it just floated away. It was old. Keeping the awful thing running was kind of like a hobby for him and I’m glad it’s gone.”
One of the men grumbled.
Another woman sat up on the edge of her chair. “The water, it just started risin’. I was out in the street a few blocks from my house.” She pronounced water as ‘watah’ and ‘ah’ was I. “As I walked, it got deeper. It went over the tops of my shoes and then up to my knees. I was afraid. I couldn’t tell where my feet were when I was trying to get home. By the time I got there, the water was almost at my front door.”
She took a breath and continued.
“We should have gone. I should have made my husband leave. Everything on the first floor of our home is washed away. When it wouldn’t stop coming in the downstairs, we ran up to our bedroom. I felt so helpless because we had to run upstairs with only food and water and not everything that was precious and dear to us.” Addy’s sympathy went out to the woman.
“The urn of my dear first husband must have floated around for two days,” the woman continued, “but he’s still snug inside his brass home. Thank God he picked out a brass one and not the pretty ceramic one I liked. He always was good with details.”
Addy tried to look industrious and not amused when she recorded this one.
“Did you see Brown Dog?” asked the man with the hearing aide. He looked expectantly and seriously concerned as he did a visual poll of the crowd.
“Um...I saw a brown dog.” Addy held a hand out to the brown dog’s height. “About this high. Leather collar, no tags. Sleek coat, eyes that sort of have a way of—um, seeming like they can see into your soul?”
A little cheer went up.
“Big George must have bought him a collar,” somebody said.
“Did he come up to you? Did he touch you?”
“He put his nose in my hand, scared ten years off my life, and put his head on my thigh so I’d pet him.”
“Oh!” chorused around the room.
“Does that mean something?”
“Brown Dog wanders around town, never causing trouble and always being friendly.” People looked at one another. “He doesn’t really belong to anyone. George who works up at Pirate’s Roost takes care of him mostly.”
“If he touched you, it means you’re lost,” this from the woman in the corner who had finally looked up and seemed to be able to identify with that fate.
Lost. It sounded right and no one seemed to judge her for it.
Addy heard so many tales of fear and hurt she gained a much better understanding of the plight of the millions who had suffered because of hurricanes. Homes demolished. Every belonging scattered over a wide area. Hours, days of dread and heartache as everything was ripped from them. Being left with desolation and feelings of utter confusion as to what to do next.
Addy hunched over her notebook of little gems. She knew there was a lot more to tell in this town than tales of a man caught in a web of subterfuge and lies.
“Subterfuge and Lies.” That had a quiet yet sinister ring to it. A good working title for the first article about Hale and Blankenstock.
She wondered how Zach was doing, what he was doing? Had he made a run for Boston where he could hide in a swanky hotel under an assumed name? No. He’d stay here and help.
She stretched out the length of her body against his and the warmth of his bare skin against hers...
Ye-ah, think of something else. The box. What was in the box? I should have looked, she thought—the reporter in her was mad.
A pair of brown Italian leather shoes appeared in front of her.
She looked up and her jaw almost unhinged. Drop-dead Gorgeous was wearing a frown aimed directly at her. Lucky the woman he smiled at.
He almost got a word out.
“Wait. Wait.” She held up a hand. Zach would have gone to see his attorney and his attorney would have come to make sure she was escorted from town—in fact, he had come to do it personally.
The man studied her from head to toe.
She raised a finger in his direction. “Hunter Morrison!”
He nodded and Addy knew her stint in Bailey’s Cove was up.
* * *
HENRY MARKHAM, the man next to Zach in the old cellar, stood slightly hunched because of the low ceiling, arms akimbo in the muddy mess that had been the basement of the historic mansion. The place smelled of dirt and wet rock with a patina of age. The only light down there was whatever was carried in. Candles, lanterns and, today, flashlights.
The flashlight in the man’s hand illuminated the nearest wall. “Sorry, Zach. The water is still trickling in. I’ll leave one of the pumps set up, a couple blowers and an exhaust fan. When the emergencies are settled and we can get supplies and materials, I’ll bring the guys up here. Where we start will depend on what materials we can get first.”
The basement, large by early-nineteenth-century Maine standards, was outlined with a series of structural supports carved from hardwood tree trunks, the marks of the ax still present after almost two centuries.
He and Markham were in a small, heavily damaged room at the far end of the basement. The floor of compacted soil meant this room had been the root cellar, the place where winter fruits and vegetables were stored.
Henry had been taking digital flash photos as they moved through the basement in case the insurance company needed them. He took photos of each wall, each section of the floor, giving attention to the areas of the walls that bulged.
When Markham touched the area of split stone, the wall lost its cohesion and slumped, making both men retreat. Large hunks of rock landed with thuds and muted clatters on the floor.
“Sorry, man. I guess demo will be relatively easy.”
“No harm, but look at this.”
As the wall collapsed, something yellow had spilled out from behind the rock.
“What is that?” Zach asked as he shined his flashlight on the smidgen of color.
Markham hunched closer. Then he picked up a shard of something and laughed. “Welcome to a mid-eighteen-hundreds garbage dump. A shattered teapot and a couple of broken plates. I suppose useless stuff had to go somewhere.
“Listen, Zach. We can put the stone back up and seal it tight or we can pour concrete, whichever you want. In either case, we should install drain tiles with a sump pump. I can make the space dry and usable for storage.”
As they inventoried the damage,
Markham had pointed out several other areas where the rocks were ready to fall away as they had done in the root cellar room. “I should have had that pump installed a long time ago, anyway. If I do, I can get Heather to set it up to look like it would have been in the eighteen hundreds.”
“She’ll be tickled.”
“Ah-yuh, I gotta run.” Markham directed his beam toward the cellar stairs. “The guys are finished up at Owen’s and starting on the neighborhoods below. Time to get my hands dirty.”
“Can I help?”
Markham’s gaze went to Zach’s hands. Zach laughed and held them up.
“Yes, they are a bit too neat looking and soft for your kind of work.” His fingernails, though not as professionally manicured as Carla Blankenstock’s were, were neat and trimmed short. “The only calluses I have are from exercise equipment.”
The contractor smiled. “If you have old clothes and boots, come on down. You won’t miss us. We’re loud and we’re messy.”
* * *
AT NEARLY MIDNIGHT, Zach knew he should be tired. He had worked with Henry Markham’s crew, clearing Hurricane Harold’s damage. His hands hurt, but thanks to the spare gloves Markham kept in his truck, were not blistered.
Sleep should have been the easiest thing in the world.
Then why was he still staring at the ceiling?
He knew exactly why. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Addy. He saw her in her drowned-rat look the day he met her.
When he had heated up the soup, he remembered how she almost drooled wondering if he was going to give her any.
He closed his eyes as he thought of her in the shower, her soapy hands slipping smoothly down her chest, her belly...
He threw off the covers and got up.
There had to be something better to do than to torture himself.
In the breezeway, he dressed in the already muddy work clothes and shoes and began carrying the rock that had fallen at Markham’s feet. By the time he’d made his third trip outside, he had created a makeshift trail that may never be able to be scrubbed away. Indelible, just like Addy was in his mind.
He trekked up the cellar stairs with two more stones. The moon showed his way to the pile of hewn rocks. Along with the rocks he had started a separate pile of broken dishes, porcelain shards, a small bent spoked wheel maybe from a baby carriage and several other unidentifiable bits of life. He’d tarp that pile in case there would be pieces of interest to the museum.
He must have been carrying stones for a couple hours when he sat down on the stoop to have a glass of water and clear his head.
He drank half the water in a single gulp and closed his eyes. When an image or a thought came to mind he breathed and let it float off into oblivion. He welcomed the blankness of the space between the stars and let it fill him with nothingness. Peace descended upon him.
Oh, Zach, come to me.
His eyes popped open.
So much for nothingness. He chugged down the rest of the water and went back to work.
He used a hammer and an old railroad spike he had found in the garage to loosen stones that had not yet been liberated by water and the ravages of time.
When he chipped away a few stones in one particularly solid section, he could see something red. More pottery? When he removed another stone, it seemed to be a piece of oilcloth—if a twenty-first-century guy could recognize oilcloth. He pulled on the corner of the piece, but it would not come out.
I have built a wall around my heart... The wall will crumble long after I’m gone... Colleen McClure.
He grabbed his hammer and spike and chipped away at the mortar with renewed energy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ZACH TOOK A step back and surveyed the open area in the rock face of the basement wall. Most of the exposed area in this section wasn’t rock or dirt but mottled red-brown oilcloth.
By the time he had enough of the stone removed to see the size of the wedged piece of the cloth, he had removed approximately three square feet. And the cloth was not merely wedged in place. The very old-fashioned waterproof cloth covered something.
As far as he could tell in the insufficient light of the battery-operated fluorescent lantern, the mottled cloth covered a box of some kind. At the very least something rectangular-shaped approximately two feet long by fifteen inches tall. How deep it was, he had no way of knowing.
The cloth covering the box had been, at one time, tied with lengths of rope or twine. Only small chunks of the ties remained. When he pulled back the layers, it was clear to see the cloth had been a deep red at one time.
This could be a significant find and he wanted to share it with someone.
He wished Addy was with him.
He should get Heather up here. What if it was Bailey’s treasure? It was supposed to be buried up here somewhere. He’d just never known where and he hadn’t needed to dig for treasure.
If it was the treasure...
Addy had to be back in Boston by now.
He’d call her. She’d like to know, and with her safely in another state with a blockade between them, it couldn’t hurt. His hand instantly reached for his mobile phone.
Of course his pocket was empty.
He hurried up the steps from he cellar and shed the muddy clothing.
Having given himself permission to talk to her made doing so suddenly seem like the most important thing in his life.
He raced to the loft, grabbed his phone from the charger and dialed the number Addy had given him.
“Zach?”
As the sound of Addy’s voice swept over him, his heart hammered like a tenth-grader with the homecoming queen on his arm.
“Zach, what’s wrong?” she asked when he had been too struck to speak.
“Addy, sorry. You must have been asleep. Go back to sleep, I’ll talk to you later.”
“You’ll talk to me now,” she said, her tone concerned, not cross. “What’s wrong?”
There was so much wrong he almost laughed out loud, especially since the most ridiculous wrong thing was he missed her and now called her in the wee hours of the morning.
“I found something.”
“In the middle of the night. You found something in the middle of the night. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“You.”
She laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re down in Boston sleeping away. You wouldn’t understand about being lonely in Maine”
“I do...understand...about being lonely in Maine.” Her voice broke with sudden emotion.
She’d be back to her life, with the distractions, the people. “But you’re not lonely in Boston?” Why should she be?
“I’m not in Boston.”
“I must be too tired because I can’t put that together so it makes sense. Hunter Morrison said he’d take care of you.”
“Of getting rid of me? Booting the journalist out of town? Muzzle freedom of the press? Keep you sequestered from prying minds?”
He could hear the teasing in her voice as if she were running a finger down his cheek as she said the words. He smiled and a dawning hope rose in his chest. “Something like that.”
“Well, you’d better get a new attorney.”
“Because you’re still in town.”
“Not only am I in town, I have been vouched for by one of the town’s finest dressed, but I’ve been given a stern warning that I must earn my keep.”
Zach laughed out loud. “You are really here.”
“I rescued pottery this morning and cleaned up shards and a splintered building in the afternoon.”
“Can I come and pick you up?”
“It’ll be quicker than if I walk up that mountain. And it’s kind of dark out there. Did you know this tow
n only has streetlights on Church Street and, of course, none of them are on.”
“Where are you?” He pulled on his jeans as he spoke.
“Cora. I’ll get dressed.”
“Getting dressed is optional. I’ll be there in seven minutes.”
“Seven minutes... You gotta love a small town.”
He snapped his jeans and slid on a shirt. At the doorway he nabbed a cap and headed down the stairs.
Halfway down he stopped.
What in the hell was he doing?
His career, his life as he knew it might be over if he could not extricate himself from the mess at Hale and Blankenstock. By getting too close to Addy, he might well be ruining her chance of restarting her career, repairing her life.
His phone rang. Maybe it was Hunter calling in the nick of time to save him and Addy.
It was Addy.
He let it ring again.
And again.
“Hello.”
“You had better not be having second thoughts, buddy. I know where you live and I have my ways of getting to you.”
Her tone made him smile. “I don’t want to ruin things for you.” He started down the steps toward the row of shoes in the breezeway.
“I’m afraid you already have.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are such a guy.”
“Thank you. I thought I knew what that meant, but enlighten me.”
“As an extremely rich man who also happens to be incredibly good-looking, it might be over the top to tell you this, and I hate to feed your ego too much, but you are amazing in bed and, well, out of bed.”
“Now what am I supposed to say to that?”
“That you’ll be here in six minutes.”
“Five and a half.” He slid on deck shoes, put his phone in his jacket pocket and was pulling out of the garage in another ten seconds.
As he stopped in front of Cora, she ran down the stairs, her nightgown trailing out from under the tail of her jacket and her clothes stuffed in a wad under her arm. She was sexy and beautiful and adorable all rolled into one and he couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms again.
He climbed out of the SUV and she hurled herself at him. He caught her against him.