Provenance

by Carla Laureano

  “You could probably find that out if you really wanted to,” Gabe said. “If there was major work done, there would be permits on file. I noticed the kitchen looked newer too.”

  “Yeah.” Kendall sank down on the bed, inexplicably drained of energy. It was only midmorning and yet she felt as if she had run a marathon.

  Gabe sat down as well, a few feet away. “Are you okay?”

  She rubbed her nose. “I think so. It’s just—”

  “I know.”

  “Part of me would have an easier time of it had this place been a dump. If she’d been living in squalor. At least I could believe that she thought I was better off in foster care than here. But this?” She swept a hand around the room, her throat tight. “She had this beautiful life. Even if my mom didn’t want me or couldn’t take care of me, it’s not like Connie couldn’t have.”

  Gabe’s hand found hers on top of the bedspread and clasped it tightly. It was warm and strong, and rather than recoiling from the contact, she gripped it back. “I know how hard this must be, Kendall. And I wish I could give you an adequate explanation. But nothing will ever make up for the fact that you were raised away from your family, that you didn’t have your mom and grandma. You should have. Does it help knowing that in the end, at least, she was thinking of you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Kendall took a long, deep breath in and let it out in a whoosh. “Maybe she really didn’t know where I was or if I was still alive. Maybe she knew she was dying and so she put me in her will, just in case someone could find me.” Deep down, she knew that was wishful thinking, that she was trying to make herself feel better about having been abandoned. But could it be the truth? Could it simply be that Connie Green had hoped her executor could do what she could not?

  “I know you don’t want to hear it, but that fits much better with the woman I remember than the idea that she just abandoned you.” Gabe squeezed her hand and stood. “I’ll give you a minute.”

  Kendall sat and regarded her grandmother’s bedroom, barely registering Gabe’s departure. She’d thought that she could just come in here, catalog everything, and ship it off to California. She’d thought she could keep her feelings completely separate, make this whole trip transactional, but now she knew that had always been impossible. Here in this house, in this town, she was being confronted by a past she knew nothing about.

  She rose from the bed and went back to the closet, then opened the top drawer that held the jewelry. She ran her fingers over the rows of earrings and necklaces and rings until they touched a simple piece, obviously antique, possibly less valuable than the rest. It certainly showed more wear than the others. The gold band held a cushion-cut aquamarine, and there was an inexplicable familiarity to it, even though there was no way she could possibly remember it. She removed it from its velvet cushion and slid it onto her right ring finger. A perfect fit.

  All this time she had been fooling herself. She would never be able to move on until she knew the truth.

  Chapter Seventeen

  AFTER KENDALL PARTED WAYS with Gabe, she went back to the B and B, a mission forming in the back of her mind. Gabe had said his grandmother was closer to Connie than his grandfather, but surely Mr. Brandt would know something. He hadn’t been particularly forthcoming thus far, but she didn’t know if that was his regular demeanor or if he was being especially closemouthed to her.

  When she arrived at the house, though, the innkeeper was nowhere to be found. Kendall pushed down her disappointment and returned to her room. She had a few more hours to kill until she was supposed to meet Delia and her friends, so she plopped cross-legged on the comfortable bed and opened her laptop. There were still images to download from her phone, furniture to research, and a moving truck to schedule. Regardless of how things panned out with Phil Burton, she was going to have to empty the houses. She might as well do it sooner than later. Though with the amount of furniture she was sending back, she might need to have Sophie rent another storage unit. She doubted that even half of it would fit in the twenty-by-twenty space they maintained for stock, and that didn’t count her purchases from Europe that had yet to arrive via sea freight.

  But instead of doing any of those things, she found herself flipping through the photos that Sophie had uploaded of the Woolridge House. This was truly an impressive get for a designer, and they’d come to her specifically. Why? There were any number of designers in the Los Angeles area that would be ready and willing to take on the project, many of them with longer careers and better reputations than her. But as she clicked from one photo to another, making note of all the original pieces that were missing, all of the restoration work that needed to be done, she understood. There were designers who could work within the Arts and Crafts style, but she had built her reputation on finding authentic and verifiable furniture and millwork for full restorations. She was less of a designer than she was a historian and plastic surgeon and detective, discovering and fixing what time had ravaged.

  If she was really so good at this, she should be able to discover the truth about her past without any problem. Or at the very least, she could discover the truth about her houses. Gabe had said that many of the historical society’s records had been damaged in the flood, but he hadn’t said all . . . and if she recalled correctly, she had passed their offices somewhere while walking through town. Where was that?

  Kendall pulled up the town website and searched the listings until she found Jasper Lake Historical Society. If she was reading the map right, it was only three blocks north and half a block east, situated in a historic home. She pushed the laptop aside, pulled on her boots and jacket, and grabbed her purse, filled with new determination.

  Somehow, when she stepped outside again, it felt like the temperature had dropped a full ten degrees, lending a bite to the cold that stung her skin and seared her lungs, even if the sky was as bright blue and clear as ever. She tugged her gloves out of a pocket and slithered her hands into them. No, it was definitely colder. Must be a front coming in.

  By the time she made it to the historical society, she was thoroughly chilled. She walked up the front steps of the old Victorian structure, stamping her feet to get the blood circulating again, and tried the door handle. It opened easily and deposited her into a large, open room, its walls completely lined with bookshelves.

  Heated air enveloped her immediately, and she took a moment to luxuriate in the warmth. She peeled off her gloves. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  Footsteps sounded on the wood floor in the back, coming closer until a small elderly man appeared, his back stooped but his eyes bright and sparkling. “Well, hello, dear. What can I do for you?”

  Kendall smiled, taking an immediate liking to him. “I’m Kendall Green.”

  He took his glasses from the chain around his neck and propped them on his nose, blinking. “Why, yes, yes, you are. I’m Patrick O’Neill.”

  Kendall chuckled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. O’Neill. I was hoping you might have some information about the houses on Lakeshore. I’ve inherited them, but I know almost nothing about them.”

  He tsked and shuffled over to one of the bookshelves. “I’m afraid that I can’t help you much there, my dear. Gabriel Brandt was in here looking for the same thing not long ago, and we turned up very little. But I will show you what I showed him.” He ran a finger over the leather-bound spines of several thick volumes, pulled out first one and then another, and took them over to an oak desk in front of the window.

  Kendall followed him. She paused at the man’s shoulder while he flipped the first book open and then followed the columns of spidery writing down with a shaky finger. They appeared to be tax rolls from the late 1800s, which was the first place anyone started when looking for the history of a house this old. Details might be lost, people might pass on, but tax records were forever.

  Each line had a date, an address, and a name, followed by the figure. In this case, the line that Patrick pointed to stated, 1-5 Lakeshore
Drive, J. Green.

  She’d been right about all five houses being owned by the same person, at least. And then it sank in. “Green? Who is this J. Green?” The name was common, but surely it wasn’t a coincidence.

  “That’s about as far as Gabe got as well.” Patrick leaned against the table and turned to face her. “Constance always said those houses have family significance, so it’s entirely plausible that he was an ancestor of yours.”

  The sharp eyes bored into hers; the man didn’t miss much. She glanced back at the book and then at him. “Are there any other tax records for those houses besides J. Green?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I’m not sure they’re going to help you.” He went back to the shelves and, after a moment of thought, took three more volumes down. “I personally knew the owners and the houses had passed through several hands. Unrelated to the Green family. Anything after 1960 is digitized and stored at the county courthouse.”

  Which potentially meant another trip to Georgetown. Still, she stood by while he found the past records in the book and took photos of them with her phone. She could always track down the families of the early owners and see if they knew anything about the houses. For a moment, she wondered why she was even bothering, but the answer came to her immediately. Gabe.

  He had dropped everything to help her, even when she wasn’t going along with his plan, even when he had bigger things to accomplish. The least she could do was put her detective skills to work on his behalf.

  She was about to thank Mr. O’Neill and leave when something else occurred to her. “I don’t suppose you keep copies of the county high school yearbooks, do you?”

  Understanding sparked in his eyes. “Ah. No. Unfortunately not. But the high school does. You would just have to call there and make an appointment.”

  She nodded, trying not to show her disappointment. “Okay. I understand. Thank you for your help.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Kendall. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  Kendall smiled, but it was with reluctance that she stepped back out onto the porch of the house. Part of it had to do with how little information she had turned up; the larger part had to do with the cold that hit her, even more bitter for the contrast to the warmth inside. She glanced at her watch. It was still barely two o’clock. She wasn’t supposed to meet the girls for dinner until six. She could go back to the B and B and see if Mr. Brandt was back, find out what he really knew. Or she could walk around town. This was a small town and everyone knew everything about everybody. Surely she could turn up some dirt if she worked hard enough.

  She turned her steps toward Main Street, looking at it with a new eye. She had thought it quaint and charming in an abstract sort of way, but every shop and store and restaurant represented a person who lived and worked here, whose livelihood depended on both tourism and local traffic. Were Gabe’s plans really in the town’s best interest? If they had elected him on a “Save Jasper Lake” platform, that had to mean they agreed with the halt to development and the preservation of their way of life. But sometimes what people wanted wasn’t really what they needed. Tourism would bring a much-needed influx of cash.

  And then she thought of people like Delia, who had moved from Denver to make a quieter life, probably on a shoestring budget. If the town grew, that meant rents would rise, as would property taxes. Soon, the cost of land and commercial space would outstrip what some of these business owners could afford, especially considering that while income was seasonal, rents were not. She had to believe that they knew what they needed better than some outsider like her or Phil Burton.

  The first place she came to was the boat and snowmobile rental, housed in a log cabin–like structure, a few boats on racks, several snowmobiles chained to trailers. Probably the last place she would voluntarily visit, but that didn’t mean she should avoid it now. She pushed through the door with a jingle of harness bells, and a man came from the back, his expression quizzical. “Hi. Can I help you?”

  Maybe business wasn’t all that good if a potential customer was met with surprise. Or maybe everyone just already knew who she was. “Hi. I, um . . .” Now that she had to explain her presence, she realized that I just hoped I could pump you for information wasn’t the best opening line.

  His expression softened. “You must be Kendall Green. I’m Bruce McKay.” He held out a hand, and Kendall shook it, silently blessing him for his kindness.

  “I don’t really need a boat,” she said with a smile. “I’m just trying to get to know the town.” She studied him. He was probably in his late forties, which meant he must be about the same age as her mother. “You lived here long?”

  “Born and raised right here in Jasper Lake.” He paused. “I went to school with your mom.”

  She blinked at him, feeling suddenly dizzy. “Really?”

  Her unsteadiness must have shown on her face because he pulled a stool out from behind the counter and gestured for her to sit. “Yeah. I have to admit, I had the biggest crush on her. I was . . . oh, we must have been about twelve. In fact, I think Carrie might have been my very first crush.”

  “What was she like?” Kendall couldn’t stop the words from coming out, even though she was asking about someone he hadn’t seen in almost thirty years.

  He smiled gently. “She was fun. Pretty. I think I asked her to marry me.”

  Kendall chuckled. “I’m assuming she turned you down.”

  “If I recall, she told me she was flattered, but she knew there were other girls who had a crush on me and she wouldn’t want to disappoint them. She was kind that way. Didn’t want to flatten my young ego by telling me we were both just kids. We were friends through high school, though. I missed her when she left.”

  “When she left town?”

  “When she left school. You know, got pregnant and started showing.”

  “Right.” It was the same story she’d heard her first night in Jasper Lake. In some weird way, that meant Bruce had known Kendall when she was a fetus. Which probably meant that her mom wasn’t the only one he knew. “Did she have a boyfriend?”

  He looked at her oddly, like he was surprised she hadn’t already figured this out. “Yeah. She was dating Daniel Burton.”

  Daniel Burton. Burton. “As in Phil Burton?”

  “Yeah. Dan was Phil’s younger brother.”

  Whoa. If Kendall had not already been sitting down, she would be searching for a chair right now. “So . . . Phil Burton is my . . . uncle?”

  Bruce shifted uncomfortably. “No one really knows. There were rumors that Dan wasn’t the only boy she was seeing. Was it true? Or was it just people being malicious because of her situation? Only Carrie could answer that. I do know that Dan had a football scholarship waiting for him at CSU, and he wouldn’t have let anything jeopardize that.”

  Kendall took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out in a whoosh. So either her mom had been promiscuous and didn’t know who Kendall’s father was, or her boyfriend had been selfish and abandoned them to pursue his college football career. “What happened to Dan? Where is he now?”

  “Died in a car wreck not long after your mother left. They said he’d been drinking. Sad. Waste of a promising life.”

  “Does everyone know all this?”

  Bruce shrugged, once again uncomfortable. “Hard to tell what people remember. It was a big deal at the time, to hear that someone we went to school with had died. I’m not sure how much the gossip spread beyond the high school.”

  “But Phil Burton would know that his brother had dated my mother. That he could potentially be my uncle.”

  “Oh yeah. He would know that.”

  A seething anger boiled up inside her and she hopped off the stool. “Thank you, Bruce. You’ve been more helpful than you know.”

  “Sure.” He paused. “So are you just visiting or are you here to stay?”

  “Just visiting,” she said. “Thanks again.”

  He nodded, and she turned. When she
had almost reached the door, he called, “Don’t miss the bonfire tomorrow. Everyone is going to be there.”

  Whether he was just trying to be friendly or giving her a hint that she’d have better luck digging up information at the gathering, she didn’t know. She just nodded and waved and stepped out into the cold.

  And felt her breath vaporize in a way that had nothing to do with the windchill.

  Burton knew that he might be her uncle. Maybe he cared as little as his brother, maybe he didn’t want her to take advantage of a personal connection, or maybe he was waiting to spring that on her later. But whatever his purpose, it gave her one more good reason to dislike him.

  And one more reason to make sure that whatever happened, those properties didn’t fall into his hands.

  Chapter Eighteen

  AFTER BRUCE’S REVELATION, Kendall had lost her will to question the rest of the store owners, so she went back to the B and B and took advantage of the en suite bathroom’s impressive claw-foot tub. She sank deep into warm, lavender-scented water, courtesy of the bath salts in a glass jar on the shelf, and tried to forget everything she’d just learned. But the thoughts kept coming.

  Her mother’s boyfriend had let Carrie look like the town slut to shirk his responsibility. His brother pretended that he didn’t know who Kendall was so he could take advantage of her.

  No matter who they were, no one wanted anything to do with her.

  Hot tears slid down her face, and she swiped them away quickly with a wet hand, diluting them with lavender-scented droplets so she could believe it was just a splash of bathwater on her face. She couldn’t let this place get to her. She needed to stay strong, finish what she started, get home to her life in California. Her friend and design partner. The Woolridge House. It was all waiting for her.

  But sitting there, submerged in the bath, Kendall couldn’t even articulate what she needed to accomplish here. On one hand, she’d already cataloged the contents of Connie’s house. She could arrange for a truck to arrive and pack things up as early as next week, put the houses on the market for a punishing rate, and let Burton decide whether it was worth it to pay her price. But then it was likely she wouldn’t get any money at all, and they’d be back to scrambling to pay their increased monthly rent on the Pasadena house.