The house seemed to have nothing in common with the others she’d passed on her travels through town, those imposing Colonial and Federal and Queen Anne styles that appeared on every block. This house was set at an odd angle to the road as if to gaze out upon the Bay and looked like an overgrown cottage, with misplaced gables here and there. The front porch didn’t look original but it was impossible to tell when it had been added. It stretched across the entire front of the house and sagged a little on one side. The white clapboard siding could use a new coat of paint and the shutters were faded. Three brick chimneys—one of which listed slightly to the side—protruded from the roof. At the end of the driveway—which was covered in what appeared to be crushed shells—stood an outbuilding, a garage or a carriage house, the windows of which had been painted black. The shades in every window of the house had been pulled down, making it look as if it had something to hide. Two sides of the property were bordered by some of the tallest trees she’d ever seen. All in all, the impression was far from inviting, and yet something about the scene felt oddly familiar.
Like it or not, this was home.
She eased the sedan into the driveway and sat for several long moments before bursting into tears.
Chapter 2
Eventually, Ellie told herself, she was going to have to get out of the car.
“Why delay the pain any longer …?”
She opened the car door and walked across the crushed shells to a path that wound its way leisurely from the driveway to the front steps. Her fingers traced the shape of the key inside the envelope Jesse had given her as she approached the porch. She ripped open the envelope, took out the key, and stuck the paper into her pocket.
“Here goes.”
She fitted the key into the lock and turned it, pushed open the door, and stepped into a square foyer. The house was dark, as much because of the approaching dusk as because all the shades were pulled down to the windowsills. In spite of the chill outside, the house was warm—Thank you, Jesse—and very still, as if it had been holding its breath, waiting for her.
Ellie stood for a very long moment in the hushed foyer, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. The stairs to the second floor stood directly in front of her. Straight ahead to the left of the stairs was a long hall that led clear through to the back door, which also had a shade tightly pulled. There was a room to her right and another to her left. The furniture in both was covered with white sheets, giving what she could see of the downstairs the appearance of a ghostly landscape.
“Well.” She spoke aloud to break the silence. What to do first, now that she was here?
After some deliberation, she walked into the room to her left and lifted the shades from the four windows—two facing front, one on either side of a fireplace. Paintings on the walls were draped with fabric and it took Ellie a moment to realize that the only things in the room that weren’t covered were the carpets and the andirons on the hearth. She backed out of the room as if afraid of disturbing it, and went across the hall, where she found more of the same. There was no way to disguise that this was the dining room. A crystal chandelier, its ovoid drops covered with dust, hung over a long flat surface that lay beneath the expected white sheet. Against one wall, furniture lay hidden beneath more sheeting, and a peek under the draping on two smaller shapes revealed a sideboard and a tea cart. Peeling back the thin quilt from the side of the tallest piece of furniture, she found an empty china cupboard, the former contents having left round marks in the dust on the shelves. The placement of the windows and the fireplace exactly mirrored the room across the hall. The architect, she thought, clearly appreciated symmetry.
A feeling of déjà vu swept over her, and was promptly dismissed. Her mother must have described it all to her, she reasoned, and somehow she’d retained the images.
A door on the back wall swung open with a push and led to a butler’s pantry that had glass-doored cabinets on one wall, and an expanse of counter with a small soapstone sink on the other. The cabinets were crammed with dishes, plates and bowls, and cups and saucers, all stacked haphazardly on top of one other.
The kitchen, a large square room, lay behind the pantry. Ellie pulled up the shades and looked for a switch for the clumsy overhead light fixture. Near the back door were the controls for a security system that obviously wasn’t on, and the black push-button switch that served to turn on the light.
She wasn’t sure the room hadn’t looked better in the dark.
Chipped Formica in a truly terrible shade of yellow covered the counters. On the floor, there was dark linoleum of indeterminable age and a dreadful mustardy color. Wooden cabinets were built in along one long wall.
“I’ll bet there isn’t a thing in this room that isn’t older than I am.” She paused to consider the refrigerator, which looked much newer than everything else. “Well, maybe that. But not much else.”
She walked to the stove. It, too, appeared newer than she’d expected. Not brand-new, but not 1950s, either. Curious, she thought.
A table with four chairs stood against the side wall under the windows. When she raised the shade, the last bit of afternoon sun spilled across the floor, high-lighting the cracks in the old linoleum and the faded paper and paint on the walls.
Ellie stood in the center of the room, her hands on her hips, feeling more than a little bewildered, and stared at the wallpaper, blue-and-white-patterned teacups on a background that was probably once white but was now yellowed with age. She’d seen that same paper—those same teacups—somewhere, but couldn’t remember where.
She went to the back door and unlocked the dead bolt, which looked relatively new compared to just about everything else she’d seen so far, then stepped outside onto a small porch where she found nothing but a stack of wood. Like the shutters and the downstairs rooms, the porch needed a fresh coat of paint.
The yard was much deeper and wider than it looked from the house. Remnants of garden beds ran along the porch, the right side of the property, and the outbuilding—carriage house? garage?—that faced the driveway. A large shed with a door flanked by a window on each side stood in the back corner. She’d leave investigating that for another day. And there were those trees, huge things with long bare branches.
Bare branches where there’d been leaves not too long ago—but where were the leaves? She stepped off the porch and walked the length of the yard. She thought of the lawns she’d passed on her way into town, where the fallen leaves had carpeted the ground. Not here, though. She looked up at the trees and wondered if they were dead. She reached up to break a twig from the closest maple, and found it supple, not dry as one might expect from a dead tree. So where were the leaves?
A trip around the yard revealed a thick layer covering the flower beds.
Birdseed on the ground under the feeders that hung from the branches of several dogwoods meant that someone had filled them.
Raked leaves. Filled bird feeders. Wood stacked near the back door.
She glanced at the house nervously. Could someone be inside, hiding, perhaps, on the second floor? A squatter, maybe, someone who knew the house was empty, had been empty for years?
There was an outside entrance to the basement, double wooden doors that were God knows how old. Maybe …
Ellie took a deep breath and walked to the doors and gave one a good yank—but they didn’t budge.
“Okay, locked is good.”
She went back up the steps and stared at the pile of wood. Must have been Jesse, she decided. Of course. Hadn’t he said they’d been looking out for the place? She hadn’t thought that would mean raking the leaves into the flower beds and keeping the bird feeders filled, but those were nice touches. She exhaled and went back inside, making certain she relocked the door.
She walked softly on leather-soled flats back to the foyer. At the bottom of the steps she stood, as if listening, waiting to see if there was any sound from the second floor. Convinced there were no squatters—surely Jesse would have noticed�
��she climbed the steps slowly, almost on tiptoe. At the top of the stairs was a landing and a hall that, much like the one below, led to the back of the house. She counted the doors—there were five, all closed. Her hand paused at the one closest to her before grasping and turning it. She pushed it open and peered inside.
“More sheets. Where,” she wondered, “did they find so many sheets?”
The wallpaper was peeling from one corner, the flowers fading to the palest of yellows. She picked up a strip that had flaked off and fallen to the floor. The flowers, like the teacups on the paper in the kitchen, seemed to ring a very distant bell in her memory. She slipped the paper into her pocket and left the room.
One by one she opened the other doors, took a long studied look inside before closing them again. There were four good-size bedrooms and one large bath accessed from the hall. Two of the bedrooms had their own baths, all were fully furnished and had closets. Ellie resisted the temptation to open those doors, not sure of what she’d find hanging there.
She stood on the landing, looking at the doors she’d moments earlier opened then closed. She had to pick one to sleep in, and she needed to do that now so she could find sheets—no problem there—and hopefully, blankets. All of the bed linens would have to be washed, of course. Did this house have a washer and a dryer? She hadn’t seen one on the first floor. Perhaps in the basement.
The basement where the squatters were hiding.
“You’re being ridiculous. You’ve got the imagination of a ten-year-old,” Ellie chastised herself as she returned to the first bedroom on the left, opened the door, and turned on the light switch. She pulled the sheet off the double bed and was happy to see there were pillows with pillowcases already on them. She removed the cases, punched the pillows a few times. A couple of feathers fluttered out, but no discernible dust.
“Real feather pillows,” she noted.
She stripped the pale pink fitted sheet from the mattress and rolled it up with the top sheet and the pillowcases. On her way out of the room, she pulled up the shades and leaned on the sill to look out the window.
At the end of the street, a stone’s throw from the house, was a dune, where tall grasses swayed in the light breeze, and beyond the dune, the Bay rolled onto a narrow stretch of beach in easy waves. Ellie dropped the bedding onto the mattress and forced open a window. When she raised the sash, the scent of the Bay flowed in as gently as the water nudged the shore. It was salt and pine and something she couldn’t put her finger on, but the combination was pleasing and she smiled. Her mother had once mentioned how the Chesapeake smelled, and now here Ellie was, filling her lungs and experiencing the Bay much as Lynley had.
“You were right, Mom. It’s delicious. At least, tonight it is.” After a few minutes, the room grew cold, and she closed the window and locked it. “Not sure how it smells on a hot muggy day in August, but since I will be long gone by then, it won’t be my problem.”
She gathered up the bedding, turned off the light, and made her way back downstairs. She dropped her bundle on the floor, then went into the living room.
“Time for the big reveal,” she announced. “Let’s see what we’ve got hiding under all these covers.”
She found a vintage dark green mohair sofa under one sheet, three club chairs—one green, two maroon—under others. She ran her hand over the upholstery and traced her fingers over the plush fabric. It was soft and velvety and comforting. She sat for a moment, her head resting back against the cushions, and closed her eyes, feeling strangely at home.
She got up with a start and turned on the lamps—grateful to find they all still had bulbs—and removed all the protective coverings.
“Not bad, actually.” She nodded when she was finished. “Not my taste, but I do know that there’s a solid market for 1950s and sixties furnishings, so I should do all right here.”
The paintings on the wall were an odd mix: a few landscapes and a dark painting of the Bay. The tops of the wooden tables were bare, but the bookshelves that ran along one wall were filled to overflowing. Ellie figured she’d have plenty of time to peruse the family library, since there was no TV. She could watch on her phone, but really, with everything that had to be done in the house, who would have time for television?
She added the sheets from the living room to the items she’d brought downstairs and carried the whole pile to the basement door. She found it locked; the sliding bolt opened easily. There was a switch at the top of the steps, but when she turned it on, the light-bulb downstairs popped.
“Crap. No way am I going down there in total darkness.” She closed the door and relocked it. “Uh-uh.”
She paused to think. It hadn’t occurred to her to bring laundry soap, so she’d have to find a Laundromat anyway. Had she passed one in her travels today? She didn’t recall seeing one.
Her grumbling stomach reminded her that she had to find dinner as well. She didn’t know the lay of the land well enough to simply charge out the front door, so she consulted her phone. She discovered there was a Laundromat out on the highway and several restaurants and a food market nearby. Perfect. She could coordinate the washing/drying with grabbing some dinner and stocking up on some staples to take back to the house.
She followed the directions she got from her phone—so grateful for modern technology—and arrived at the Laundromat right before the sun set. She found the place empty except for an attendant who appeared to be in her late teens. Apparently Tuesday was not a big wash day in St. Dennis.
The young attendant extracted herself from the book she was reading long enough to make change so that Ellie could purchase a small packet of detergent. She loaded the nearest washer with the sheets and the required amount of cash and turned on the machine.
“Excuse me.” She approached the attendant again. “How long do the wash loads usually run?”
The girl shrugged and took a sip from an almost empty bottle of Diet Pepsi. “I dunno.”
“I need to do some food shopping at the market across the road. That’s why I’m asking. I need to know how much time I have.”
“Maybe thirty minutes?” The girl shrugged again. “I don’t usually pay attention. But we’re not busy. If you want to leave money for the dryer, I’ll put the stuff in for you when the washer’s done.”
“That would be so nice of you.” Ellie smiled gratefully. “Thanks so much. That would really be helpful.”
The girl shrugged.
“I noticed there are several restaurants right along the strip here.” Ellie paused near the door. “If I wanted to grab a quick dinner, which one would you recommend?”
The girl raised her head and appeared to think over the question.
“Real dinner or just like, you know, a sandwich or something?” she asked.
“I think real dinner.”
“The Crab Claw at the end of the shopping center has pretty good stuff. Not as good as what you get in town, like at Captain Walt’s or Lola’s, but okay, I guess.”
“Thanks. I’ll give it a try.”
Her itinerary set—market then pick up dinner then back to the Laundromat—Ellie drove across the road to the market. She hadn’t made a list, and hadn’t really thought too much about what she needed. Now that she was here and behind a cart, she felt overwhelmed.
Food staples first, she decided. Milk, eggs, bread, cereal, butter. Peanut butter. Maybe a can or two of tuna. Mayonnaise. She hadn’t seen a coffeepot in the kitchen and doubted she’d find one, and she could not abide instant coffee. Which meant that she’d be driving into Cuppachino in the morning for a large take-out coffee until she could purchase a coffeemaker. In the meantime, she tossed a box of tea bags into her cart.
Purchasing food turned out to be much easier than selecting cleaning supplies, something she hadn’t ever done before. There’d always been a housekeeper to dust and vacuum and clean the bathrooms and the kitchen—even when she was camped out at her friend’s Boston town house this past year. Scanning the seemingly
endless rows of cleansers and plastic bottles threatened to give Ellie a headache until she decided to take the product that professed to be “all-purpose” at its word.
She hadn’t cleaned bathrooms since that summer camp she’d gone to when she was thirteen. The counselor in charge of their cabin took her duties very seriously, and required all of the girls to clean not only the cabin but the communal bathrooms as well. At the time they’d lamented their bad luck in having drawn Judy Wilson’s cabin, but in retrospect, at least Ellie had learned some lessons she’d never forgotten.
She picked up a second bottle. Who knew when the house had last been cleaned? She grabbed a jumbo pack of paper towels, cleanser, a large package of sponges, a sponge mop, and a plastic bucket.
That should pretty much cover everything.
She checked out, loaded up her car, drove back to the shopping center, and pulled in front of the Crab Claw, which seemed to be doing little more business than the Laundromat. She entered through a red door that had a giant crab painted on it. Inside the lighting was dim and the square wooden tables were set almost exclusively for four people. There were only a few parties scattered throughout the room and music played in the background. A plump waitress with short curly strawberry-blond hair and an overabundance of eyeliner approached with a menu.
“You gonna be meeting someone, hon?” the waitress asked.
“Ah, no. Actually, I was hoping for takeout,” Ellie replied.
“Anything on the menu can be made for takeout.” She handed Ellie the menu, a large slick number with a shiny picture of the same crab that graced the door.
“Thanks.” Ellie opened the menu and began to scan it.
“The burgers are really good here,” the waitress told her softly.
“I was hoping for more than a sandwich,” Ellie said without looking up.
The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge Page 153