“I will. As soon as I can.” They kissed, slowly and sadly, a kiss drained of the fire of their previous embraces.
Evelyn watched Will climb into his car and drive off. She felt more alone than ever before. In a few moments, she would take responsibility for her husband’s death. If her plan failed and she had to tell the truth instead, there was no way of reaching Will to ask for his help. There would be no witness to confirm her side of the story. Will could disappear forever, leaving her to pay the price.
Evelyn thought of Charles’s body only a few feet away. She closed the front door and ran to the telephone in the parlor.
“Operator!”
“Mrs. Brewster? How are you this evening?”
Evelyn recognized the voice. It was Agnes, a chatty woman who treated the Brewster family like royalty.
“Please, call the police,” Evelyn said. Her voice shook. She wouldn’t have to put on an act to sound upset. Already, tears were welling up in her eyes. “There’s been a terrible accident.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ALISSA STOOD with Danny on the wooden walkway at the top of the house. She looked out over the surrounding landscape: the town of Oak Hill directly in front of them, trees and fields intersected by country roads in the distance. Off to the left, the highway cut a dark gash through the grass. Alissa clutched the railing with both hands, unnerved by the height.
“I can’t think of any other house around here with an overlook like this,” Danny said.
“If we were closer to the water, I’d call it a widow’s walk,” Alissa commented. “You know—the place where women would watch for their husbands who’d gone to sea.”
Danny stared out at the horizon. “All that used to be Brewster property,” he said. “Maybe they wanted a place to gloat.” He walked farther out, then stopped, leaning over to examine the railing more closely.
“What is it?” Alissa asked.
“Look here.” Danny pointed to the section in front of him. “Most of the wood up here is cedar. Pretty expensive, especially for a part of the house most people would never see. But this part is cheap pine. Shoddy workmanship, too. You can see the nails sticking out.”
Alissa decided it wasn’t worth walking out to see for herself. Straying too far from the doorway made her nervous. She told Danny she’d see him back downstairs, and he followed her to the bedroom shortly afterward.
“Looks like it was a rush repair job,” he said. “The original railing must’ve broken somehow.”
Suddenly, Alissa pictured a body crashing through those narrow beams as the wood disintegrated. It would be a three-story fall to the ground below. In the dark, Charles could have lost his footing easily. Would he have realized what was happening or would it have been too fast? Evelyn could have been here in the bedroom when her husband climbed those stairs for the last time. Had she heard him scream?
Or maybe it was more sinister. If Roger Blake was right, Evelyn might have followed Charles to the roof. The railing was so thin, it wouldn’t have taken much to push a man through if he was caught off guard. Alissa didn’t want to believe it, but it was possible.
Evelyn. It always came back to Evelyn. Where had she gone? Why had she left the house?
Of course. The house. A person could vanish, but real estate didn’t. Turning to Danny, Alissa asked breathlessly, “How late do you think government offices stay open?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, puzzled. “Five o’clock?”
Alissa glanced at her watch. “I think we can make it. Meet you downstairs—I’ve got to look up an address on my laptop.”
“What about this?” Danny asked, pointing to the staircase behind him.
Alissa doubted she’d ever go to the roof again. She certainly didn’t want that doorway in her bedroom as a daily reminder of what she suspected had happened up there.
“We’ll plaster over it,” she said. “But it can wait. C’mon.”
Danny looked down at his sweaty T-shirt and filthy jeans. He saw Alissa’s bright eyes watching him expectantly, and his exhaustion lifted. He suspected this mystery trip would end in yet another dead end, and he dreaded seeing Alissa disappointed again. But she was reaching out to him, and for now, that was enough. Maybe that kiss in the kitchen had meant something to her after all.
“Where exactly are we going?” he asked as he followed Alissa from the bedroom.
“We have to find out what happened to the house after Charles died,” Alissa called to him as she raced down the stairs. At the bottom, she turned and stared up at him.
“Don’t you see?” she asked urgently, as if the force of her words could propel him faster. “There has to be a paper trail. It might tell us where Evelyn went.”
THE HOME-OWNERSHIP records for the town of Oak Hill were kept in the basement of the county courthouse. A cheerful young woman who looked like she belonged in high school appeared delighted to welcome visitors to her dimly lit domain. The ID tag clipped to the waist of her skirt identified her as Polly Martinez.
“What can I help you with?” she asked Alissa and Danny in a jarringly peppy voice.
Alissa gave Polly her address and said she was looking for the home’s records. Once the clerk realized the records in question went back a hundred years, her face fell.
“Oh, we’ve got some digging to do,” she said. “Those will be in the storeroom somewhere.”
The storeroom turned out to be a long, narrow space lit by only a few hanging bulbs. Industrial metal shelves formed three narrow aisles, and were stacked with identical brown storage boxes. The clerk led Alissa and Danny down one aisle before climbing on a step stool to peer at the labels on the boxes above their heads.
“Okay, here are the records for Oak Hill,” Polly said finally. She dragged a box from the shelf. Danny reached up to take it from her, then placed it on a table at the edge of the room. The young woman opened the box and rummaged around inside, eventually pulling out a large book bound in green leather.
“This covers the years from 1900 to 1965,” she said. “From 1965 to 1985, the records are in this other ledger.” She pointed to another, similar book. “After that, we’ve got everything on the computer.”
“Great,” Alissa said, taking a seat at the table. “We’ll start with these.”
Polly opened the first book. “The addresses are organized geographically, so you’ll have to find your street first.”
“I’m sure we can figure it out.” Alissa smiled politely but she was impatient to get started. She leaned over the book and began flipping through the pages as Danny watched over her shoulder. Handwritten addresses were listed in the first column on each page, followed by dates of sale and the names of both buyers and sellers. A fair number of addresses on each page had no sale date listed. Many families in Oak Hill, it seemed, lived in the same house all their lives.
“What does this mean?” Danny asked, pointing to a notation that reappeared occasionally.
“The letter T means the deed was transferred to another name without a sale,” Polly said. “Usually when a house was left to someone in a will. We close in half an hour, so I’ll let you get to work. I’ve got to get back and cover the phone.”
Alissa hadn’t heard the phone ring since they arrived, but she nodded and said they’d be fine. She turned through the pages, pausing when she saw familiar street names. Her eyes scanned the entries until she saw her street, Washington Drive. But her address, number fifty, wasn’t listed.
“Where’s the house?” she asked, mystified.
Danny looked over the page, trying to reconcile hundred-year-old addresses with the town he knew.
“None of the houses around yours are in here, either,” he said. “It looks like Washington ran for only a few blocks.”
“Oh, I know!” Alissa declared. “The house wasn’t part of the town back then. It was on the Brewster estate. How do we find that?”
Frustrated, she flipped to the end of the Oak Hill listings. The next section was headed Oak Hill Env
irons. And there she saw it, written in precise, angular handwriting: Edward Brewster and Alma Brewster home, Brewster Drive. The first date that appeared after the address was 1910, when the property was transferred to Lavinia and Winslow Preston. Charles’s sister and her husband. They must have moved into the mansion after Charles’s mother died. The next date marked a sale, in 1945, to the Sisters of St. Mary Mercy. The home was sold to the State of Maryland in 1962, followed by one last entry: Demolished, 1963.
Alissa moved to the next line: Winslow and Lavinia Preston home, Brewster Drive. The home was sold in 1910 to a Mr. J. Clayton Marsh. It had been sold a few times afterward until, like the main house, it was demolished in 1963.
On the next line, she saw it: Charles Brewster home, Brewster Drive. Alissa pointed to the words, and Danny nodded.
“Why isn’t Evelyn listed as an owner?” Alissa asked. “The other wives were.”
“Maybe Charles moved in before he got married,” Danny suggested.
Her heart racing, Alissa stared at the page, searching for a clue to what had happened next. But there was no mention of a change in owners in 1905, the year Charles died. Only a few blank lines, followed by a notation that the house passed to Lavinia in 1910, then Beatrice Healey in 1950. The name sounded vaguely familiar. Alissa tried to remember the newspaper clippings she’d copied at the library. Beatrice. Lavinia’s daughter. A few years later, ownership was transferred to the Paulson Trust at the First National Bank of San Francisco.
“What do you think this is?” Alissa asked. “A charity?”
“I guess,” Danny said. “But why would a group in California want a house in Maryland?”
“Let’s keep going.” Alissa closed the book and picked up the next ledger, covering the years 1965 to 1985. After some fruitless flipping back and forth, Alissa realized that her house might be listed under its current street address, since the Brewster estate no longer existed. Sure enough, she found an entry for 50 Washington Street. In 1973, the San Francisco bank sold the property to Samuel and Melody Foster.
“Do you know them?” Danny asked.
Alissa nodded. “I haven’t met her, but Melody Foster’s name was on the papers when I bought the house. She lived there with her sister.”
This was it, the end of the trail. Alissa closed the ledger, keeping her head bent so Danny wouldn’t see her disappointment. Respecting her silence, Danny carefully placed the books back in the storage box. He put a hand on her shoulder and gave a quick squeeze.
“They’re about to shut off the lights on us,” he said. “Wanna grab some dinner?”
Alissa shook her head. “Thanks, but I just want to go home.”
She stood abruptly, anxious to escape the dim, claustrophobic room. She tossed a quick thank-you to Polly at the front desk before hurrying down the front steps of the courthouse with Danny trailing behind.
It wasn’t until they were on the highway that Alissa felt up to talking.
“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” she lamented. “Thinking I’d find some overlooked will or letter in a dusty old basement.”
“It was worth a try,” Danny said.
“According to those records, Evelyn never existed. The harder I try to find her, the further away she gets.”
Danny tried to change the subject by talking about his search for a decent electrician, but Alissa answered in monosyllables. Given her morose mood, she assumed Danny would make a hasty getaway when they returned to the house. Instead, he waited by the car as Alissa walked around from the driver’s side.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said. Even if it was only a ploy to distract her, Alissa managed a smile to show she appreciated the effort.
She followed Danny through the foyer and along the hallway past the dining room. Pushing open the door to the kitchen, he ushered her in with a dramatic flourish. Alissa stopped, stunned by the bright, open space in front of her.
“I installed the last of the cabinets this morning,” Danny said, leaning against the doorway and grinning proudly.
For the first time in months, the room looked like a kitchen rather than a workshop. Late-afternoon sunlight poured through French doors that had been installed in the opposite wall, looking out over the garden. Danny had removed the plastic sheeting that had hidden the floor, revealing the new hardwood below. Smiling with delight, Alissa opened cupboards and drawers and declared everything perfect. The walls still needed a coat of paint and the ancient yellow stove had yet to be replaced, but the kitchen had become what she’d envisioned: a place that welcomed her.
“This calls for a celebration.” Alissa took a half-empty bottle of white wine from the fridge, and Danny found some plastic cups by the sink. After they toasted the new kitchen, Alissa suggested going outside. Pulling open the French doors, they walked out to the patio and settled in two Adirondack chairs Alissa had found at a secondhand store and refinished.
“Thanks for coming with me today,” Alissa said. “Even if it was a total waste of time.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with some other way to track down the mysterious Evelyn Brewster.” Danny covered her hand reassuringly with his own.
“I don’t think so,” Alissa said. “It’s not like I can hire a private investigator to find someone who vanished a hundred years ago.”
Danny laughed.
“What?” Alissa asked defensively.
“Listen to you,” he said. “Does it really matter?”
Alissa felt her face flush. Gearing up to defend herself, she saw the gentleness in Danny’s eyes, the way he leaned back calmly in his chair. He wasn’t mocking her. He was simply asking a question. Did it matter?
“Maybe that wacko Roger is right and the woman killed her husband,” Danny said. “Or maybe not. Either way, he died, and it’s a sad story, but it’s over.”
“I can’t explain it,” Alissa said, “but I feel like they’re still here, somehow.”
“Now that’s more like it.” Danny’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “You’ve seen the ghost of Charles Brewster!”
Alissa laughed along, but the truth was more complicated. She’d sensed a certain spirit in the house from the very beginning, but it was never threatening. The house had always made her feel safe. As if she belonged here.
“Forget about the Brewsters,” Danny said.
He leaned over toward her, his voice urgent. “You’ve earned this place, don’t you see? I’ve never seen an owner work as hard as you have. It’s not the Brewster house anymore. It’s yours.”
Alissa let the words sink in as she watched the fading sunlight shimmer through the trees. She might never find out exactly how Charles Brewster died. She might never know what happened to Evelyn Brewster. She would have to be at peace with that.
Danny was still leaning toward her, holding his empty cup in one hand. Alissa couldn’t know for sure what would happen between her and Danny. But she realized with a rush that the house felt most like home when he was there with her. The Brewsters belonged to the past. Her new life was just beginning.
Alissa took the cup from Danny’s hand and met him halfway. Reaching across the space between them, they kissed so intensely that Alissa forgot about Evelyn and Charles, forgot about the list of repair projects that hovered constantly in the back of her mind. Tonight, she wanted to be with Danny. Everything else could wait.
This time, Danny was the one who pulled away. He looked at Alissa, his concern written on his face.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked.
Alissa shook her head. “No.”
“Good. Me neither.”
They laughed, and in her mind, Alissa could already hear the words they would say later that night: “I love you.” For the first time in months, she felt free. She was in a place she loved with a man she loved. The rest would work itself out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IN THE DAYS immediately after Charles’s death, Evelyn kept herself isolated from the rest of the family. The
events of that dreadful afternoon unfolded again and again in her mind. The policemen arriving, examining Charles’s body. One of them coming back to the house, holding the gun, asking her if she recognized it. The silent walk to the mansion to break the news to her mother-in-law. Alma’s face, shifting from confusion to horror. Her features tightening with rage as she cried out, eyes fixed on Evelyn: “What did you do?”
Evelyn turned away, terrified Alma might mistake her fear for guilt. She ran home, sobbing so heavily that pain rippled through her chest. When two policemen knocked on her front door the next morning, Evelyn assumed they had been sent on Alma’s orders to question her further. She recognized the younger one, who had inspected the body the day before. The older man introduced himself as Detective Collier and apologized for intruding and treated her with gentle sympathy.
He asked Evelyn to repeat her account of what had happened and wrote down her statement in a small notebook.
“This is very helpful,” he said reassuringly. “I’m sorry to trouble you. However, it is important that we make our inquiries as close as possible to the time of the incident.”
Evelyn wondered if Alma had voiced any suspicions about her. “My mother-in-law,” she said carefully. “She was quite distraught when I told her.”
The detective nodded. “I’ve spoken with Mrs. Brewster. She feels the loss deeply, as any mother would.” He leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “I’ve made inquiries in town, and more than one person has mentioned Mr. Brewster’s temper. A person of that disposition doesn’t always think clearly. He may act rashly, with no thought to the consequences. Would you agree?”
Evelyn nodded mutely, afraid to guess at his meaning.
“Based on our conversation, I’m prepared to file a report of accidental death. For Mrs. Brewster’s sake—and your own—there won’t be any mention of the gun, or possible difficulties between you and Mr. Brewster. However, I must tell you, in strictest confidence, I think you’re quite a brave woman. It can’t have been easy, living with such a man.”
The House of Secrets Page 17