“Something about a couple of rugs that needed to be replaced,” Tessa said, trying to wrap her head around everything.
“Right.” Esme scoffed. “The family that was here had two teen girls that were nothing but respectful. The father works in cybersecurity, and the mother baked the most delicious cherry pies.” Esme laughed again, and Tessa found herself liking the older woman. No wonder Mom had trusted her.
“Oh, anyway, I’m supposed to give you something.” She practically danced out of the kitchen and down the hall. Tessa gazed into her cup of tea, trying to find the next step she should take. She should probably call Janey, and Ron, and the management company.
“The management company.” She owned the house, not Minnie, and she’d tell them not to rent the house for the rest of the year, the exact same way her mother never had. Before she could dig the card out of her purse, Esme returned.
“Here you go, sweetie.” She carried a box wrapped in brown paper, and Tessa took it with some measure of trepidation tripping through her. She was tired of opening things and finding surprises, especially because the surprises she’d been getting hadn’t been the type she’d normally associate with something good.
“Do I want to open this?”
“I have no idea,” Esme said. “She gave it to me a few weeks before she passed away, and she said to give it to you when you came to the house.”
Tessa nodded, feeling the heft of the box. It wasn’t light, but it also didn’t weigh a whole lot. Anything could’ve been inside, and the only way she’d know was to open it. “Should I wait until Janey and I can open it together?”
Esme cocked her head. “Who’s Janey?”
Tessa opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Her thoughts wouldn’t align, and the doorbell rang before she could come up with an answer.
Esme kept her pinned with a look for another moment, and then walked toward the front door. Tessa heard her say, “It’s about time you showed up. I called over an hour ago.”
She got up from the bar, leaving her tea behind, and followed Esme into the foyer. She continued to chew out the two cops who’d come to the door, while Tessa stood there listening, trying to explain about a sister she’d known her whole life.
Why hadn’t Mom mentioned her to Esme? They obviously knew each other quite well.
“You come faster next time,” Esme said. “That woman does not own that home, and she’s trespassing whether she has a key or not.” She closed the door after they agreed, and she turned back to Tessa.
“Now, have you had lunch? There’s a great little place right around the corner here. Your mother loved it. Bluebird? Did she tell you about it?”
Tessa shook her head, because Mom hadn’t told her about her life here in Long Island at all. She lived here for four months out of the year, and Tessa didn’t know. How was that possible?
She’d visited her mom in the city at Christmastime. They’d gone shopping in November for Ron’s birthday together. She’d never come to Long Island and Mom had never breathed a word about a beachside cottage.
“I have not heard of the Bluebird,” she said weakly, fighting back tears and wishing she could throw the package into the churning surf across the street.
“I don’t know,” Tessa said for the fifth time. She sat on the ferry, away from everyone else, her eyes trained out over the dusky water. “It’s a package, Janey. I didn’t open it, because I wanted us to be together.”
“Okay,” Janey said, resigned. She’d asked a dozen questions about Minnie, the house, the management company, and Esme. Tessa had told her everything she knew, and she’d told her she didn’t know several times too, the last one about what was in the package.
The one question Janey had not asked was why Esme didn’t know about her. Tessa hadn’t been able to find an answer to that, nor had she been able to stop thinking about why. The only thing her mind had been able to come up with was that Mom had only put Tessa on the will for the house, as she was clearly trying to keep Dennis’s children from getting it.
The story had to be complete and elaborate, and no one could know Janey existed.
But they already do, she told herself. Dennis’s children knew about Janey, because one of his daughters had been at The Hotel Benjamin.
Janey said, “I’ll be there to pick you up. Eight-forty-nine?”
“Yes,” Tessa said, and the call ended as she lowered the phone to her lap. The last of the sunlight cast everything in gold and gray, and Tessa loved this time of night. She loved that it didn’t get dark until late, and she loved that she didn’t need a jacket at all.
She shook her head to get the thoughts to settle. She just wanted to clean up the garage and yard, make the necessary repairs to the house, and be ready to entertain her husband and son on Nantucket Point Beach. They’d enjoyed several summers there together, and she needed to get all of these questions answered and mysteries cleared up before they arrived.
From the look on Minnie’s face as she rose from the car to meet Tessa told her that the fight for the hotel, the IP, and the house wasn’t over—or even really beginning. But Tessa had Ron on her side, despite some of the irritating things he said. He was incredibly smart, and he’d always been a light in the darkness for her. An anchor when she wavered. A voice of reason when she turned irrational.
She’d called him after lunch with Esme, and he’d calmed her down, pulled the title for the house, and coached her through her meeting with the management company.
When the ferry docked, she disembarked and found Janey waiting inside the station instead of the parking lot. Relief filled Tessa, and she rushed into her sister’s arms. “I love you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve been irritated the past few days.”
“It’s fine,” Janey said. “We’re allowed to be annoyed with each other, with the situation, with anything.” She held her just as tightly as Tessa gripped her, and the moment reminded Tessa of what mattered most.
Family.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Here’s the package.”
Janey took it, a dubious look on her face.
“I met with Abigail Methesda at the management company, and we’re rekeying the house. They’re not going to rent it until the New Year, unless we change our minds. They’re not going to talk to Minnie or any of Dennis’s other children.” She exhaled heavily, glad the meeting had gone so well. Her possession of the title with her name on it had really helped.
“Mom never rented the house from September to January. She lived there during those months, Janey. That’s how she knew Esme so well.”
“She lived there from September to January?”
“That’s what Esme said. She knew me on sight, and she knew a lot about Mom.”
“Did she live there with Dennis?”
Tessa frowned. “Dennis didn’t come up, actually.” She met Janey’s eye. “Besides Esme saying Minerva was his daughter. Other than that, she didn’t mention him. Not at her house, and not during lunch. That’s weird, right?”
Janey gave a one-shouldered shrug. “This is all a little weird, honestly.”
“I agree.” Tessa faced the exit and squared her shoulders. “Let’s go open this package.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“You do it,” Janey said once Sean had left, but Tessa didn’t want to. In the past few days, a new floor had been laid, and a new kitchen table and chairs had been delivered that day while Tessa was in Long Island.
She and Janey both sat at the table, the brown-paper package in front of them. “Tell me why Sean was here. You said you two weren’t dating.”
“We’re not,” Janey said. “I asked him to come last night, because I was uncomfortable staying in the house alone.”
“Was he here last week too, before I came?”
“I stayed with him, actually.” Janey regarded her coolly. “We’re not involved in anything physical. We’re friends. He helped me, because I heard something last night that scared me.”
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“What?”
“A car kept coming down the lane, parking, and then leaving.”
“The same one?”
“No, different ones.” Janey shook her head. “It was nothing. Sean came, and he slept in the master suite. I felt safe.”
Tessa nodded, remembering the rustling grasses from the other night. “All right.” She exhaled and reached for the box. She peeled the paper back to reveal an old shoe box. Nothing remarkable or expensive, and she cut a glance at Janey. “This can’t be a pair of shoes, right?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” she said.
Tessa removed the last of the paper and lifted the lid on the box. Inside, envelope after envelope of photographs ran from one end of the box to the other. “They’re pictures,” she said, tilting the box so Janey could see. “From a film camera.”
“Mom always had a camera in her hand while we were here at the Point,” Janey said, reaching for the box. She took the first packet of pictures from the end of the box closest to her. “Twenty-four pictures per roll. Remember Daddy complaining about the cost?” She smiled as she looked at Tessa, and the memories streaming through her mind were sweet and special.
Janey flipped open the top of the packet, and the negatives had been tucked into the back of it. She pulled the pictures out and started flipping through them. “They’re still in good shape too.” She looked up and back down again. “Look, here’s us building a sandcastle.” She put the picture on the table, and it was more yellow than pictures nowadays. Grainier too, but Janey and Tessa were unmistakable.
“How old do you think we are?” Janey asked. “I look to be about eight. Look at my teeth.”
Tessa picked up the picture and looked at it, getting transported back about forty years to that sandy beach, all of that sunshine, the blue sky, and the carefree days of building sandcastles with her sister. “That’s got to be close. Did Mom mark them?” She flipped over the picture, but no one had written on it.
Janey examined all the pictures, front and back, and found no notes. “The envelopes have nothing on them either.”
Tessa had sat silently while Janey looked through the two dozen pictures. She didn’t reach for another packet. There had to be at least twenty or thirty of them packed into the box, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with them.
Relive the past? Reminisce with Janey? Why couldn’t Mom just give them these pictures herself?
Her head pounded, and she stood up. “I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed.”
“Okay,” Janey said, clearly distracted as she tucked the first packet back into the box and took out another one. Tessa went down the hall, hoping Janey would be able to find something in the box that would answer some of the questions today had produced. She was eternally glad she didn’t have to deal with this cottage and all of these secrets alone, and her gratitude for her sister doubled as she laid down and let her thoughts finally settle into silence.
Days on the beach, birthday cakes, that one time we had a picnic on the roof. Janey went on and on detailing the pictures in the box.
“So basically our childhoods here at the cottage,” Tessa said, pulling the last item out of the shed. They’d been working all morning, and thankfully, the shed was shaded by a couple of very large trees that separated the cottage from the house behind it.
The new tools waited against the back of the cottage, and they started loading those in next.
“Yes,” Janey said. “Dinner parties with Bobbie, Riggs, and their kids. Remember Dale and Joan Harton? They were in there. There were several packages of a time when Mom and Daddy came without us. We must’ve been adults, off at college.”
“Mm.” Tessa hadn’t seen, heard about, or thought of the Hartons for decades. They’d been good friends of Daddy’s from his days at the hospital at Johns Hopkins. Once Daddy had died, Mom hadn’t talked about Dale or Joan at all.
Janey finished talking about the pictures, and said, “What about the house? Was it nice?”
“Immaculate,” Tessa said. “Someone takes really good care of it.” She smiled at her sister and ignored her growling stomach. “Honestly, I think one of us should live in it. It’s one-hundred percent paid for. It’s only fifty-seven minutes to Ron’s office instead of over two hours. It’s a longer commute for you when you have to go to your office, since you’re in Jersey.”
Tessa picked up the weed eater. “Do you want to trim or mow?” Their conversation would have to cease, but Tessa was ready for some silence anyway. Janey had been talking for hours.
Janey frowned, her dark features clouding over. “Sounds like you want the house on Long Island.”
“I’ve mentioned it to Ron,” Tessa said, her defenses flying up. The house was in her name, and Mom had left it to her. Technically and legally, she didn’t have to discuss this with Janey at all.
She pushed against those thoughts, because she didn’t want to go down that path. It felt dangerous and sinister, and she didn’t want to find herself there alone.
Janey turned away. “I’ll mow. You trim.”
“Then can we take a break? I’m starving.” Tessa pulled out her phone. “I got an email from the Nantucket Tourism Bureau, and there’s a food truck rally at The Lighthouse Inn today. Started an hour ago and goes until two-thirty.”
“You get emails from the Tourism Bureau?”
“Yeah,” Tessa said. “I’m here, and I don’t want to cook my own lunch.” She flashed a smile at Janey. “Let’s get this done and go find some mimosas and shrimp scampi.”
Janey made a face again, but she smiled immediately afterward. “You get the scampi. I’ll search for crab cakes.”
“Deal.” Tessa plugged the weed eater into an outdoor outlet, praying she wouldn’t get electrocuted, and pressed the button. It started just fine, and she adjusted her sunglasses and got to work. The area around the house went quickly, and she buzzed her way down the white wooden fence that separated the yard from the beach, the tall grasses waving merrily on the other side.
She looked up as she approached the shed, crying out at the sight of a person in the grass. Crouched down. She dropped the weed eater, and she looked down as she jumped back, hoping her shins wouldn’t get eaten. The machine whined before turning off, and the handle landed on her foot soft enough that it barely hurt.
Looking back to the grass, she searched for the individual who’d been there. Her mind screamed at her that someone had been in these grasses a few nights ago too. Listening. Watching.
Had it been a man or a woman? Tessa couldn’t tell.
The roar of the lawn mower stopped, and Janey called, “What’s wrong?”
“There was someone here,” Tessa said.
“What? Really?” Janey came over, clapping her hands together. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” Tessa pointed to the grass, where she had definitely seen a face. “They were right there.”
“Let’s go look.”
“Janey.” But her sister had already started toward the shed, twenty feet away. She slipped through the gap between the building and the fence, but Tessa wasn’t sure she could.
She did, though, and she and Janey walked back along the fence when Janey said, “Stay over here. We should be able to see if the sand has been disturbed or not.” She paused in front of the weed eater. “Right there?”
Tessa positioned herself the same way she’d been standing when she moved the weed eater back and forth. “Yes,” she said. “Right there.” Slightly to her left, and right in those grasses. She leaned forward and examined the sand. “There’s definitely been someone here,” she said, her heartbeat turning into hummingbird wings now. “The sand is all mushed up.”
Janey peered at it, and when her eyes met Tessa’s, neither of them had to say anything.
“Hey, girls.”
Both Janey and Tessa yelped—fine, Tessa’s cry was more of a scream—and they grabbed onto one another as they turned toward the sound.
Riggs Fr
iedman stood there, his blasted fishing pole in his hand. His smile faded as Tessa took in the ugly camouflage bucket hat and his bright orange T-shirt. He probably scared the fish to death with that color and then reeled them in easily. “What’s going on?” He looked at the grasses and then the yard behind them. “Is everything okay?” He seemed genuinely concerned, but Tessa didn’t want to involve him.
“Yes,” she said quickly, in tandem with Janey. “Just lost my…pendant. Janey was helping me look for it.”
“Oh, I have a metal detector,” he said. “I like to go along the beach after the tourists leave.”
Tessa bet he did, and she wasn’t surprised by his statement.
“I found it,” she said, patting her pocket. “The clasp broke, so I’m keeping it safe in my pocket.”
“Oh, good.” He smiled again and whistled as he started walking away. Tessa stood very close to Janey as they both watched him until he couldn’t be seen anymore.
“Was it him?” Janey whispered.
“I don’t know,” Tessa said. “He was wearing a hat, and the person in the grass wasn’t.”
“And that shirt could’ve been seen from space.”
“Exactly.” She still didn’t turn away from where Riggs had gone. “Strange how he’s always around though.”
“More than strange,” Janey said. “I’m going to ask Sean about him.”
“Good idea,” Tessa said, and with some reluctance, they finished cleaning up the back yard.
Three days later, the garage, shed, and yard were done. Tessa laid on the beach, her legs straight out in front of her, while Janey cracked open a diet cola and tapped away at emails on her phone.
“The roofers will be here next Tuesday,” Janey said.
The Cottage on Nantucket Page 14
