And that was where she left it. With a little something for him to think about. A question posed as a comment. Because she was right, there were very few people who would cause him to react the way he had. So, what did Catherine mean to him?
“She’s Tommy’s widow,” he said softly.
Her quick inhale gave him some satisfaction. Tommy was someone he didn’t talk about. Caleb would like to say he didn’t ever talk about him, but that clearly wasn’t the case. There was one person who knew. Unfortunately, she was standing right beside him.
“Maybe it’s time,” she said.
He turned his head and looked down at her green eyes.
She didn’t blink or back down. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said as if it were a forgone conclusion he would do the right thing.
Behind him, he heard the sounds of the reception grow louder and then quieter again as Jesse opened and closed the door to the barn. His phone buzzed again. His fingers curled around the device in his pocket. It was warm from being close to his body, the edges sleek and sharp.
It vibrated in his hand.
He made his way to a bench at the edge of the patio and pulled it from his pocket as he sat with his back to the reception.
“Caleb?” the message read.
The second message said, “Is this the right number?”
He stared at the phone for a long moment, his fingers feeling clumsy and uncoordinated.
“Hi Cate,” he typed back. “Yes, it’s the right number.”
“Thank god,” came the immediate reply. Then, after a moment, “Are you anywhere near the eastern seaboard? The north part?”
His eyes lifted. The bucolic Hudson Valley spread out before him. It was too dark to see the colors of the leaves but he knew, in the light of day, fall was still making its statement there in the Northeast.
“Yes,” he typed back. Then he waited. And waited.
“Cate?”
“Never mind,” she replied. “Sorry to have bothered you. I’m glad you’re stateside.”
Never mind?
“Cate.”
He could all but hear her sigh.
“Honestly, Caleb, I’m sorry. It’s nothing, just me being paranoid. Give me a call sometime and we’ll catch up.”
Dismissed. Only it didn’t work that way.
“What’s going on?” he wrote. “Where are you?”
Nothing came back.
“I swear to god, Cate, I can track your phone if I need to.”
“Nice to know you haven’t changed. I’m in New Hampshire. Working a job.”
“And?”
She paused again before answering. “It’s weird. Something strange is going on but it could just be the people I’m working for.”
“Strange enough that you texted me after five years?”
“I’m not the only one with a phone.” No hesitation there. He let out a deep breath.
“Where are you?”
“New Hampshire,” she wrote again.
“Where in New Hampshire? Specifically,” he added.
“I’m managing a family reunion at The Washington House. It’s a private home not far from the resort.”
Caleb ran a hand over the back of his neck and turned his attention to the stars. He wasn’t one to really believe in heaven and all that, but he wondered what Tommy would be thinking right now—that Caleb should go to her, or stay the hell away?
Behind him, he heard the shriek of one of the many kids attending the reception. A shriek of laughter and love.
He rubbed his chest then returned his clumsy fingers to the screen of his phone, typing, “I’ll be there in six hours.” Then he shut the device off and slid it back into his pocket, not wanting her to give him any excuses to back out.
• • •
Catherine Thomson stared at her phone for a good long while. She’d texted Caleb back, telling him not to come, but had received nothing in response. She shouldn’t have contacted him in the first place.
Standing in the kitchen of the carriage house that had been converted into a large three-bedroom guesthouse, she listened to her daughter in the bathtub upstairs. Elise was singing a song with her nanny, Jana.
Cate stepped outside onto the small front porch and shut the door quietly behind her. The chill of the night seeped through her light weight sweater and jeans, but she paid it no mind. Reluctantly, her gaze went to the small building about five-hundred feet to her left. Looking at it wouldn’t conjure Caleb, but she could feel his presence already occupying the empty space.
For a fleeting moment, she regretted not having housed any of the five staff members in the renovated ice house, but it hadn’t made sense to put one or two in the one-bedroom guest quarters while leaving the rest in the main house. So all five were housed on the third floor of The Washington House, like servants of days gone by. And the former ice house was vacant.
It wouldn’t be for long.
The thought of Caleb Forrester being so close caused her stomach to tighten and she had to will herself to breathe slowly. It had been five years since she’d seen him. Five years since . . .
Abruptly, Cate switched her focus across the driveway to the back of the main house. Warm light glowed from the windows of the grand dame of a building. Some locals called it a castle, some an eyesore, but there was no denying that The Washington House wasn’t content to be obscure.
Originally built in the late 1800s as the hunting lodge of a prominent Boston family—though calling it a “lodge” was akin to calling the houses of Newport “cottages”—the four-story white stone home boasted sixteen bedrooms, twenty bathrooms, three billiard rooms, two parlors, two bars, servants’ quarters, and much more. It was the perfect location for the Whatley family reunion, an event Cate had been organizing every year for nearly a decade.
Only this year it was different.
Her eyes traveled over the windows at the back of the main house. There were sixteen people inside, twenty-one if she included her staff, some of whom were serving dinner just then.
She glanced at her watch. Caleb would be there in less than five and a half hours.
It was a good thing.
It was a good thing, she told herself. Because she was fairly certain someone inside that house was going to be murdered.
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