by Susan Lewis
Crazy thinking.
That part of her life was over. The business had been sold, renamed, and relocated, and nobody apart from her immediate family knew where she was. She was as certain of that as she could be.
Whoever had sent the email hadn’t actually said what her name was now, or where she was living. So there was a very good chance she was right, it had been sent to intimidate her, for there were no other messages after that, nor, thank God, was there any mention of Lula, and that was really all that mattered.
She was going to close the Portovino account now, once and for all.
After carrying out the necessary steps she pushed aside the shocking start to the day and made herself carry on as though it hadn’t happened. She had details to write up of properties she’d viewed for Sallie Jo; after that she’d upload them onto the website, and take down those that were out of date. She’d done enough by now for Sallie Jo to trust her without checking her entries first.
By lunchtime the storm had abated, so she took Daisy down to the lake. She was such a sweet-natured and obedient little dog that she didn’t really need a leash, but Justine didn’t want to take any risks. It would break Tallulah’s heart if anything happened to her precious pet, and Justine had to admit it would have much the same effect on her.
What a fool she was to have logged into her old account; as a result, memories were escaping all over the place, and she was finding it almost impossible to shut them down. She gazed out at the lake, and through the mist she spotted a small boat with a single fisherman on board. It made her think of Matt and Simon taking the boys fishing, in lakes, rivers, even deep sea. To stop her thoughts felling her with more images of faces, voices, hands, the turn of Matt’s head, the curious look in Ben’s eyes, the sound of Abby’s voice, she turned the solitary figure before her into the troubled ghost of Paukooshuck, the son of an Indian chief, who was said to canoe across the lake on moonless nights in search of his father. It was daytime now, but she tried clinging to the story anyway, needing to conjure it to draw a mask over the troubled details of her own awful past.
“Hey! There you are!”
Justine turned around and felt herself relax with relief as reality returned in the shape of Sallie Jo striding toward her.
“I’ve been calling,” Sallie Jo told her, “but I guess you don’t have your cell.” She scooped up an excited Daisy to give her a hug. “Boy, have I got some news for you,” she informed Justine with a playful grin. “Are you ready?”
“If it’s good,” Justine countered.
Sallie Jo shrugged. “Hard to say for certain, but your grandma’s house?”
Justine tensed.
“It still exists.”
Justine’s eyes rounded, and her heartbeat seemed to flutter and slow. “How do you know?”
“I did it the easy way—a friend who owes me a favor over at the county offices dug through the old records. The online stuff only goes back ten years or so, or I’d have been able to do it myself. Anyways, it turns out the place is on the East Shore and was built in 1951 when William Cantrell owned the land—your grandfather, I’m presuming?”
Justine nodded. That had certainly been his name.
“And following his death in 1973 ownership passed to May Cantrell.”
Justine couldn’t think what to say.
Sallie Jo linked her arm as they continued back to the house. “Now here’s for the best bit,” she continued. “In 1982, when May died, her daughter, Camilla, inherited the place, and I’m going to guess that Camilla is your mother?”
Justine came to a stop. Her mother inherited it? “Camilla Gayley?” she asked, to be sure.
“That’s her. And now here’s where it gets really interesting, because as far as the records show your mother still owns it.”
Justine couldn’t believe it. Her mother still owned it? “That can’t be right,” she protested. “I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t she tell us it was hers?”
Sallie Jo could only shrug.
“She never comes here,” Justine ran on. “She didn’t want me to come either.”
Sallie Jo had no explanation.
“This is bizarre,” Justine muttered.
Not disagreeing, Sallie Jo said, “If you’re interested, we could take a drive over to the East Shore. I’ve got the address right here.”
Justine wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do, except of course she had to go, if only to be able to tell her mother that she’d actually seen the house she owned with her very eyes.
The journey around the lake through Venetian Village, up over Mystic Hills and along the county road past Culver Marina, took no more than fifteen minutes. By then Justine was as intrigued as she was bewildered—and not a little worried, considering the peculiar responses she’d encountered to her grandmother’s name.
What on earth were they going to find?
After passing more multimillion-dollar homes than she cared to count, all of differing styles and vintage, a couple of exclusive golf courses, and a private road right opposite a tumbledown barn, Sallie Jo pulled up alongside an ugly chain-link fence that stretched for about a hundred yards between two solidly built stone walls that fronted the neighboring properties. There was no name or number immediately visible on the fence, and until Justine peered through the trees toward the lake there didn’t even seem to be a house.
“Are you sure this is it?” she asked, trying to pick up a sense of the place, an echo from across the years that might help her to connect with it.
Sallie Jo was studying the map she’d brought with her. “This is it,” she confirmed.
Justine turned to look at her. “Do you know if anyone’s living there?” she asked.
“Not that I could find any details for.”
Justine’s eyes traveled the fence again. “There doesn’t seem to be a way in, no gate or anything.”
“There’s probably access from the lake if it has a mooring, and according to this it does.”
“So you can only get to it by boat?”
“Come on,” Sallie Jo responded. Pushing open the car door, she walked toward the fence.
Justine and Daisy caught up with her as she reached the far end, where a small pedestrian gate was chained and padlocked with a sign reading Private Property, Do Not Enter. Beyond it a narrow stone footpath wound through the trees and disappeared from view at the brink of a slope. The lawns, though strewn with stray twigs and leaves following the storm, were immaculately tended, as were the rockeries and flower beds.
“Someone’s definitely taking care of it,” Sallie Jo commented.
Justine was trying to get a better look at the house. From where they stood all they could see was the upper floor with a modest form of Dutch gables equally spaced in the pitched roof, black beams running through the smeared whitewashed walls and two tall chimneys. The interior shutters appeared firmly closed.
“What do you say we climb the fence and go take a closer look?” Sallie Jo suggested mischievously.
Justine was all for it until she remembered where they were. “We need to be sure no one’s in there first,” she countered. “We don’t want to find out too late that it’s a nutjob with a gun who’s not keen on visitors.” Though how would her mother know anyone like that? How come her mother owned the place at all?
“Good point,” Sallie Jo agreed. “I’ll do some more investigations. If nothing else, we ought to be able to track down the company or person who’s taking care of the gardens. They’ve got to know who’s paying them.”
After using her phone to take some shots of all they could see from the road, Justine was about to follow Sallie Jo to the car when Daisy started to tug toward the dense forestation on the other side of the road.
“What is it, sweetie? Did you see a squirrel?” Daisy carried on tugging, clearly eager to chase down her prey.
Justine waited for a car to pass and allowed herself to be led over to a small opening in the trees. As she ap
proached an odd sensation crept over her: a light-headedness, or a kind of déjà vu that had no actual form or vision but was simply an unsteady feeling.
She’d been here before.
“Did you find something?” Sallie Jo asked, coming up behind her.
“I’m not sure,” Justine replied. Passing Sallie Jo the leash, she gingerly pushed aside some brambles and stepped into a tangled hollow in the trees. As she made to go forward her foot caught on something and she stumbled. Checking what it was, she found a long, solid block of wood, like a railroad tie, snarled up in the undergrowth. There turned out to be more than one—at least half a dozen were randomly spaced around the clearing—and the déjà vu was wafting back in peculiar waves. She glimpsed small feet climbing onto one of the blocks of wood, a boy bowing, a girl wrapped in a blanket for a cape. She and Rob used to play here, pretending to be grand people with servants who came to the lake long before Grandma’s time, bringing their luggage in a private railroad car that the train would unhitch outside their house before going on its way.
Sallie Jo broke into a smile as Justine shared the memory. “That sure used to happen,” she confirmed. “Wealthy people would arrive from Chicago or Indianapolis bringing half their households with them in train cars for the summer.”
“My grandma must have told us about them,” Justine murmured, still sensing the evanescent recollection. She looked around the scrambled web of bindweed, ivy, split tree branches, and rotting leaves. It would have been less overgrown when she and Rob played here. They’d have been able to see the sky; sunlight had poured in on them, which would be right, considering the time of year they used to come here.
“So what are you going to do now?” Sallie Jo asked as they headed back to the car.
“Get in touch with my mother,” Justine replied. “And my brother. He’ll be as stunned as I was to find out Grandma’s lake house not only still exists but is still in the family.”
“Any ideas on why your mother would want to keep it a secret?”
“None, but if you knew my mother…” Astounded all over again, she cried, “I can hardly believe that she’s owned it for thirty years and never told us. I don’t think she’s even been here in all that time.”
“Would you know if she had?”
Only half listening, Justine said, “Do you think it might be built on an Indian burial ground? I know there are supposed to be lots of them around here.”
Sallie Jo looked doubtful. “Why? Are you thinking it might be haunted?”
Justine gave a laugh as she threw out her hands. “I honestly don’t know what I’m thinking, and I guess I won’t until I speak to my mother, and even then…She’s very good at avoiding the issue if she wants to, and the issue of my grandmother is one she’s been avoiding for most of my life.”
As soon as Sallie Jo dropped her and Daisy off, Justine went straight to her computer, uploaded the photographs she’d taken, and sent them to her mother and brother with a message saying,
This is Grandma’s house on Lake Maxinkuckee. It appears to be in very good nick judging by what’s visible from the roadside, especially as it probably hasn’t been lived in for thirty-odd years (still checking that out but if you know anything, either of you, perhaps you’d care to enlighten me). According to the records, Mum, you are the owner. I’m presuming you know that, so intrigued—do we have a mad relative you’re hiding away? What’s the big secret?
Having no time for anything else, she grabbed Daisy again, put her in the car, and set off to collect Lula. She hadn’t even reached town by the time Rob rang.
“What the hell?” he cried. “I just saw your email. Are you sure about this?”
“As sure as I can be. Sallie Jo checked the records and there doesn’t seem to be any doubt—our mother owns the lake house and has done since Grandma died.”
“That is so…Actually, I don’t know what it is apart from beyond stupefying. And it’s in good nick, you say?”
“The garden certainly is. We couldn’t get close to the house, so I’m not sure about that.”
“Do you think someone’s living there?”
“No idea. There’s no front drive as such, so no way to get a car in, and the only gate in the fence is pedestrian and heavily padlocked.”
Rob was clearly having as much trouble taking it in as she was. “You know what I’m starting to think,” he said, “is that Grandma might have ceded the house to Mum—you know, to avoid taxes or something—and maybe she’s still there.”
Justine almost swerved into the ditch. “That’s crazy,” she shrieked. “Why would she say her own mother is dead if it isn’t true?”
“I have absolutely no idea, but unless she comes up with a reasonable explanation as to why she’s never told us she owns the house, I’d say your next task could be to find our grandmother’s death certificate.”
Justine flinched at that. “This is starting to get very weird,” she commented. “Actually, I think the next step is to find out if the place is occupied. Mum should know, but as I don’t have much faith in her telling us anything, I’ll let Sallie Jo carry on with her investigations.”
After a pause, she added, “I don’t suppose you recognize the house from the shots I sent?”
“No,” he replied. “What about you? Did it do anything for you while you were there?”
“Not the house, but I found some old railroad ties in the woods opposite, and they gave me a kind of flashback. We used to play there, making out we were rich people with our own private train car. Do you remember it?”
After trying to conjure up his own memory, Rob said, “Not really, but I’m younger than you…Oh God, listen, I have to go—I just couldn’t wait to ring when I got your email. We can catch up later if you like. If you hear from Mum, get in touch straightaway.”
“I will,” she promised. “It’ll be interesting to see if I do.”
It wasn’t until she was pulling up at day care ten minutes later that she realized she hadn’t told Rob about the email she’d found in her old account this morning.
It didn’t matter. The account was deactivated now, the way it should have been when she and Matt had removed themselves, Abby, and Ben from Facebook and Twitter. So if anyone had any further plans to intimidate her, they’d find their messages either bouncing straight back or falling into a bottomless void.
—
A week later, still having received no reply from her mother, Justine agreed that Rob should go round to Camilla’s Chelsea home and demand some answers. He went that very day and called Justine straight after. “You’re going to love this,” he told her, as soon as she came on the line. “According to the housekeeper, Mum’s away filming on some remote Hebridean island, so it’s possible she hasn’t even got your email yet.”
“And you really believe that?” Justine scoffed as she climbed into Sallie Jo’s golf cart to start a planned tour of the town.
“Let’s say it’s very convenient,” he agreed, “but she’s definitely not there, because the housekeeper invited me in to take a look if I didn’t believe her. Any news on occupancy of the house yet? Ghost, mad relative, or Grandma?”
“No record of anyone being in residence, which the gardening company has confirmed to the best of their knowledge, although one of them said he was sure he’d seen a face at the window a couple of times.”
“Get out of here!” Rob laughed. “Is her name Bertha, by any chance?”
“Bertha?”
“Rochester’s wife. Who pays the gardening company?”
“OK, you’re going to love this, because we just got an answer to that today. Apparently it comes from a firm of lawyers in New York who also pay the property taxes, which—I hope you’re sitting down for this—amount to twenty-eight thousand dollars a year. Every year.”
There was a beat of shocked silence before he said, “You have to be kidding me!”
Justine ran on. “It probably won’t surprise you nearly as much to hear that the lawye
rs are not at liberty to divulge the name of their client.”
“But you asked if it was Camilla Gayley?”
“I did and was given the same reply: not at liberty, blah blah…How about here?” she cried to Sallie Jo as they approached the root-beer stand on North Lakeshore, closed for the winter.
“Where are you? What are you doing?” Rob wanted to know.
Justine knew this was going to baffle him. “We’re in Sallie Jo’s golf cart organizing a scarecrow placement for the Fall Fest,” she replied.
She almost felt his double take. “A what? For what?”
“We’re choosing where to position scarecrows for the autumn festival that Sallie Jo set up last year to promote local businesses and charities. However, if you’re picturing things like Guy Fawkes, or Wurzel Gummidge, or sorry old broomsticks that hang around in fields, think again. These scarecrows are more like giant dolls or puppets, and they’re beautifully made by local kids at school or with their families. Lula and Hazel are making a mermaid.”
“Sounds impressive. So is Lula with you?”
“No, she’s at home working on said scarecrow with Hazel and Petra Yates, one of the high school students who lives nearby. I think you met her while you were here.”
“I believe I did. Tall girl with mousy hair and a bit of a lisp?”
“That’s her, but she recently changed her hair color to a whiter shade of pale.” The erroneous words snatched at her harshly. It was a song Abby used to sing, taught to her by Matt, and she had no idea why she’d said that when what she’d meant was lightish shade of pink.
“I’ve no idea what color that is,” Rob was saying, “but I’m just a bloke. So what’s the next move with the house?”
“You tell me. We can’t do anything without keys unless we break in, and we’re not keen to try that until we’re totally sure no one’s in there. Do you have any idea when Mum’s supposed to be back from this Hebridean junket?”
