Treasure of Darkness: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 2)

by S. W. Hubbard

  Ethel and I pick our way up the slippery sidewalk to Claire Dean and hand over her mail.

  “Thanks so much. I knew I shouldn’t try to go down to the mailbox.” She has kind eyes with laugh lines in the corners “But today is my birthday. I thought there might be some cards for me.”

  “Looks like you’ve got quite a few.”

  She looks over her haul. “None from my nieces and nephews. They all send me my greetings on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve got twenty-five so far today.”

  Again, my antennae wave. Claire seems to be plugged into social media.

  She bends down to pat Ethel, who’s displaying remarkable restraint in not bowling her over. “Where in the neighborhood do you and your sweet dog live?”

  “I just moved in to 27 Elm.” The lie pops out with disturbing ease. But I figure by the time she meets the real owners, I’ll be long gone. “I want to get involved in the community. My Realtor told me there’s some kind of neighborhood association with a chat group. Do you know how I’d get information on that?”

  Claire waggles her hands. “Steer clear. It used to be a nice group, organizing the Fourth of July picnic, planting flowers. Now all they do is argue endlessly and spread silly rumors about that messy house on Acorn Lane.”

  To keep her talking, I arch my eyebrows and murmur, “Rumors?” Ethel pitches in by fixing her with a soulful gaze.

  “Oh, for years, people have been speculating about that house, asking what could possibly be in there. But once Bernadette McMartin started her campaign to have it torn down, the rumors seemed to escalate. All of a sudden, some people are claiming there are tremendously valuable items in the house.”

  “Like what?”

  She shakes her head. “Jewels, antiques, cash—the story changes depending on whom you’re talking to. I teach school. Believe me, I know something about gossip. Once someone launches an idea, it takes off with a life of its own.”

  But who launched this idea? And why?

  “Does anyone really know what’s in the house?” I ask, working hard to keep my tone casual.

  “Ha! People claim they’re going to find out.” Claire pulls her coat tighter and turns to go inside. “If you ask me, all they’ll find is trouble.”

  After Ethel and I are back on the street, I think about what Claire Dean said. Did someone intentionally launch the idea that Harold’s house is full of treasure? Or are people just reacting to the presence of the AMT van parked outside every day? And the astonishing decision of the health inspectors? Nora is the only person who knows for sure what we’ve found and what we’re after. But whom would she have told? She seems to be alienated from everyone in the neighborhood.

  Ethel and I trudge down the hill on the final leg of our loop through Summit Oaks. The neighborhood looks like a twenty-first century rendering of a Currier & Ives print. If I could peek behind those frosted windows and snow-draped porches, what would I see? Moms serving hot cocoa and cookies? Gentle souls knitting scarves and listening to Mozart?

  Or zealots hunched over their laptops planning their next assault?

  As Ethel and I turn the corner at the bottom of the hill, Harold’s house comes into view. The Dumpster in a Bag filled by the rioters is still there, a misshapen mound softened by a blanket of snow. I see a bright speck of color on the front door–Jill’s warning note to Bernadette to keep out. But what if it wasn’t Bernadette nosing around in the house? Maybe there’s another faction in the neighborhood just as determined as we are to find a pot of gold.

  Gold that’s nowhere near a rainbow.

  “I stopped by the office on my way here,” Jill says when Ethel and I return from our walk. “There was a voicemail from Emil Swenson.”

  I freeze. “Did he get that other lawyer to take care of Ty?”

  “No. The message said, ‘Mr. Griggs and I are meeting at an undisclosed location to prepare for tomorrow’s interview with the police. We will be unavailable for the rest of the day.’”

  I look down at the snow dripping off my boots onto Harold’s dusty floor. “I’m worried, Jill.”

  “I know.” She coughs, a raw hacking cough. When she resumes speaking, her voice is cracked and wavery. “But Ty is smart. And so is Mr. Swenson. We have to trust they know what they’re doing.”

  Trust. Jill’s got boundless quantities of it. Me, not so much.

  “And there’s this,” she says in a tiny voice, handing me a letter from the pile of mail she’s brought here from the office. The heavy paper and five-name return address warn me that this must be from a lawyer.

  “What?” Jill asks, watching my face anxiously.

  “Martha’s lawyers know the money has been recovered. They want ‘a plan for immediate restitution.’” I hand the letter back to Jill. “You call the guy and work out a way for them to move all that cash from the office safe to Martha’s bank. Maybe that will bring the end of all our mal suerte.”

  She takes the letter and exchanges it for a small cream square that she’s pulled out from the remaining tangle of bills and advertisements. “This looks like something personal for you, Audrey.”

  Too small to be a wedding invitation. Maybe a shower. But why would a friend send it to my office? The handwriting is loopy and dramatic, not familiar at all. I turn it over. The deep blue monogram is a big C flanked by a smaller A and V. The printed return address reads Mendham.

  Adrienne Coughlin.

  Please God, don’t let her be inviting me to a baby shower! Clearly she doesn’t know Sean and I are over. I slit open the envelope like I’m disarming a bomb.

  Inside, the monogram is repeated on a notecard. I open it up and find not a party invite, but a handwritten message:

  Dear Audrey,

  I’m writing to apologize for the terrible scene at my home last weekend. There is so much to explain—much you do not know–and it’s best done in person. Please meet me for lunch in Palmyrton one day this week. I look forward to hearing from you.

  She ends with a flowery Adrienne and her cell number.

  “No way.”

  “No way what? What is it?” Jill asks.

  I wasn’t aware I’d spoken aloud. “It a note from Sean Coughlin’s sister-in-law. She wants to meet me for lunch to talk about the argument at her house. No way am I meeting her for lunch. No way am I calling her.”

  “Well, you have to respond to her note. It would be very rude to ignore it,” Jill says.

  “Who are you? Emily Post with a nose ring?”

  “Good manners transcend fashion,” Jill sniffs.

  “Fine. I’ll text her.” I fire off my regrets and assurance that no further discussion is necessary. Seconds later, my cell phone is ringing.

  “Sonofabitch! You see what politeness has got me?” I stare at the trilling phone, paralyzed.

  “Answer it. She knows you’re there.”

  I hold the phone to my head as I watch Jill watching me. A torrent of words pours into my ear. The whole family is mad at her. They blame her for the break-up. She has to talk to me.

  “It’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it.” I will not allow myself to be intimidated by a woman who possesses monogrammed note cards.

  More pleading. She wants me to meet her for lunch at L'apogée. As if I have time to screw around for two hours in the middle of the day eating fois gras! “That’s really not necessary, Adrienne. Sean and I are too different. We simply weren’t meant to be.”

  Adrienne’s tone changes. I suspect she realizes the lunch won’t happen, so she’s going for the full-court press on the phone. “Don’t be so hasty, Audrey. There’s a lot you don’t understand about Sean.”

  Is there? My hand tightens on the phone. “Did he put you up to this?”

  “No, no! Please don’t think that. Oh, God—this call is going to backfire on me. I’m going to become one of them.”

  “One of whom?”

  “A busybody Coughlin. They’re all in each other’s faces, up each other’s butts all the time. It
drives me crazy. It drives Sean crazy too. That’s why he’s so mad, mad at himself. He knows he should never have brought you to a family party so soon.”

  Despite myself, I’m curious. “If you admit the family’s so awful, why are you so eager to drag me into it?’

  She laughs. “Because I want company. Besides, you’re clearly a calming influence. You take care of business instead of yelling. That’s what we all need.”

  “Look, Sean’s and my argument really wasn’t about the party. It’s more about control. At work, Sean’s always in charge. He seems to think he should run his personal life the same way. I don’t like feeling controlled.”

  Adrienne’s voice comes through the line, low and urgent. “What Sean wants is a partner. He’s watched his siblings pair off and the husbands all go out and work and the wives all stay home and crank out kids. That’s not what Sean wants. He really admires you for running your own business. He couldn’t stop talking about it at Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

  He’s been talking about me that long? I ponder this tidbit, not wanting to be touched.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Where does she get off criticizing? She’s home cranking out babies like the rest of them, right?’

  I cough. She said it.

  Adrienne continues in a gush. “When Jimmy was born, Brendan and I still lived in the city. I went right back to my job in marketing at Estee Lauder after a three-month maternity leave. We hired a nanny. Brendan’s mom and sisters were horrified, but I didn’t care. Then when he was starting to walk, Jimmy pulled a lamp down on top of himself while he was with the nanny and needed ten stitches. They all acted like I’d left my son with an ax murderer. Brendan convinced me to stay at home until Jimmy was in school. We moved out here—the house was my consolation prize. Then I had Larissa and the countdown clock got reset. This September she starts kindergarten, and I am definitely going back to work. Brendan agrees the time is right.”

  “At Estee Lauder?”

  “No, that job is long gone. And I can’t imagine commuting into the city every day. But I’ll find something. I just don’t know what.” She falls quiet, lost in her own thoughts, then speaks again. “Sean and I kinda have a love/hate relationship.”

  I snort. “That’s easy to do with Sean.”

  “Brendan is only eleven months older than Sean. Irish twins. They’ve always been super-competitive: sports, school, career. And love. When Sean’s marriage broke up, his pride was wounded, not only by his ex, but because he lost face with Brendan. He reacted by sniping at me, and I stopped speaking to him for months. Finally, I figured out what was going on, and we patched things up.” Adrienne pauses. “Now this! We all want Sean to be happy, Audrey. Give him another chance. Please?”

  Her voice is so earnest. I wish I had known some of this before the fateful non-dinner at Sean’s apartment. But I can’t let Adrienne get in the middle of the situation. And I certainly don’t want her reporting back to Sean that I’m wavering.

  I take a deep breath. “Look, Adrienne, I appreciate your concern. I really do. But you need to step away. Sean and I are…” I choke on the word “over.” “…both tangled up in other pressing matters right now.”

  “I understand. Maybe you just need a little break.”

  Her voice sounds ridiculously optimistic. No, no, no. This isn’t the impression I want her taking back to the Coughlin clan. Then Sean will think I’m jerking him around some more. “Adrienne, I’m begging you. Please let Sean and me handle this ourselves. Don’t breathe a word to Sean or Brendan or any of them.”

  A beat of silence.

  “Adrienne,” I warn. “You said you didn’t want to be a busybody Coughlin.”

  She sighs. “Right. But remember this. Sean is incredibly loyal. He would never let you down. That’s not a quality that’s easy to come by in a man.”

  Chapter 37

  Keep working.

  That’s the only way to keep all my anxiety at bay. Coughlin, Ty, the busboy, Bernadette—I feel like a planet bombarded by asteroids of uncertainty. If I could vaporize just one of the rocks heading toward me, I’d feel a whole lot better. While Jill continues excavating above, I settle in for a little detective work. First, I call Fiorello’s Restaurant. The busboy who threatened me was a substitute. I wonder if there could be any connection between the restaurant and SuperStar Cleaning.

  Luckily, I’m calling in the lull between lunch and dinner, and Mr. Bonini, the owner, is willing to talk to me. I know that when Coughlin first talked to him about the busboy, Mr. Bonini was pretty vague about how the guy happened to be filling in there. I take a shot in the dark.

  “Hi, I’m checking the references of a cleaning service I’m considering hiring. SuperStar Cleaners, Estrella Camion—have you had experience with them?”

  “Estrella! Oh, yes, she’s been cleaning for me for years. Started out cleaning house for my wife, and now her ladies clean the restaurant too. Wonderful woman. You can’t go wrong with her.”

  “Thanks, that’s good to know. I hear she can find you workers to do other jobs too.”

  Mr. Bonini chuckles. “That’s kind of an informal sideline. You’ll have to ask her directly. But I’ll tell you, she’s eager to please. Once I was complaining about having to have my mother-in-law over for Thanksgiving. Estrella said she’d find a family who would take her.” Now he’s laughing so hard, I can barely understand him. “I told my wife, ‘Your mother better watch her step or she’ll be eating beans and rice for Thanksgiving!’”

  Mr. Bonini is still chortling as he hangs up.

  Jill shuffles into the kitchen and collapses in the chair opposite me, coughing that barking, raw cough again. “I think people were in here again last night. I took pictures of how I left things at the end of yesterday, and when I started today, they were moved.”

  “That does it,” I say. “We’re getting out of here.” I stand and begin tossing the personal items that have accumulated in Harold’s kitchen into my tote bag. “I’m more and more certain that someone in this crazy neighborhood is responsible for the guy who threatened me. They’re breaking into the house looking for treasure. I bet one of them was the person my neighbor saw trying to break into my condo. And on top of everything else, this place is making you sick. It’s crazy to keep working here. We’ve got to quit.”

  “No-o-o-o! I’m very close to breaking through to the master bath. I think we can do it tomorrow. There’s a big metal thing I can’t budge—I think it might be a chick incubator.”

  “We don’t even have Ty to help us. We’ve got to stop. You’re exhausted. Let me make you some tea.”

  Jill rotates her neck and drops into a gravity-defying yoga pose. “I just have a headache. My qi is out of whack.”

  “Maybe it’s the flu. You should go to the doctor.”

  “I’m meeting the lawyer at our office in half an hour to hand over the money, then I’m going to see my acupuncturist.” She switches yoga positions. “Should I say anything about the bad on-line reviews?”

  “No. I figure I’ll give Martha some time to be cheered up by all that cash. Then I’ll contact her about taking them down. But I’ll take care of the money. You’d better go home and rest.”

  Jill staggers as she gets up from her yoga and leans against the table in a paroxysm of coughing. “No, I can do it. It’s on my way to the wellness center.”

  “This house is making you sick, Jill. We need to get out of here.”

  “I’m fine, really. We’re so close to breaking through upstairs, Audrey. We can’t quit now.”

  “We can if the lamp sells for a million bucks.”

  Jill shakes her head so vigorously that dust flies out of her hair. “Finding out where Harold bought the lamp is just the first step in proving its provenance. You know that money is not a sure thing at all. And Harold needs every penny we can find to fix this house up enough that the neighbors leave him alone.” She spreads her arms wide. “This is his ho-o-o-me, the only place he feels s
afe.”

  “What about your safety? I’m worried about you, Jill. You never get sick. You’re the healthiest person I know.”

  “I just have a little cold.” She sips the tea. “It can’t be related to the house. After all, you and Ty aren’t sick.” She shivers.

  “Do you want me to shut this window?” The kitchen is the only room where we can take off our respirators. I’ve been keeping a window open for fresh air despite the cold.

  “No, leave it.”

  I sit down across from Jill. Her eyes are bloodshot, her face pale. But I’ve never seen her look more determined. I reach for her hand. “Why is saving Harold so important to you?”

  “Why was finding out what happened to your mother so important to you?” she counters.

  “You’re comparing Harold—who’s an acquaintance, a customer—to my mother?”

  “Harold means more to me than an acquaintance.” She squirms in her chair, but keeps holding my hand. “I’ve never told you much about my father, right?”

  “Just that your parents got divorced when you were a little girl, and you only saw him a few times after that, and now he’s passed away.”

  Jill lifts her head and locks her eyes with mine. “My Dad had schizophrenia, Audrey. At first, he thought people at his job were sabotaging his work, so he quit. Then he thought the government was pursuing him. Finally,” Jill’s voice cracks, “he thought my mom and I were trying to kill him.”

  “You? How old were you?”

  “Eight,” Jill whispers. “He would disappear for weeks at a time. One day, I was staying with a neighbor after school until my mom got home from work. We were playing in the yard when my dad showed up, and I ran to him because I was so happy to see him. He offered to take me for ice cream, and the neighbor let me go. My mom had never told her what was going on with my dad—she was embarrassed, I guess.”

  Jill—who tells me more than I want to know about her love life, her finances, her tattoos and piercings—has never mentioned any of this. I feel a sick dread anticipating what’s coming next.