The House On Willow Street

by Cathy Kelly

  “That short cut really suits you. And I like the blonde streaks, very good. They really bring out the natural blonde in your own hair,” pronounced Suki. “Who does it? Not Eileen, I’m pretty sure of that.”

  “No,” laughed Tess, “there’s a fabulous new salon in town. But I doubt I’ll ever be able to go again, there’s no way I can afford it. I’m having to close the business, Suki. We’re officially broke.”

  “No!” said Suki. “That is not going to happen, honey. Look, my book is nearly finished and when I get my delivery money from the publishers, you can have some of it. You’ve got to keep it going. You love that shop.”

  Tess shook her head. “I’ve realized that keeping the shop was some sort of crazy link to home, buying the sort of things that were in Avalon House when we were growing up. It was reminding me of the past. Do you know who’s bought the house?”

  “Who?” said Suki, but she didn’t look at Tess as she spoke.

  “Cashel.”

  “Oh, right.” Suki drained the rest of her Scotch. “I’m sorry, Tess. I don’t think I ever said how sorry I was. It’s partly my fault that it ended with him, and he was a great guy.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Tess said. “It was his fault, and a bit my fault, and the fault of us all being young and stupid. Let’s not talk about that,” said Tess. “It’s water under the bridge. Let’s talk about these biography people: they’re not really that bad, are they?”

  “You’ve no idea,” said Suki. “They’re like hounds on the trail and they’re convinced that I’m hiding a secret, which of course I am. They’re going to turn up here, I know it.”

  “So? We’ll tell them we’re not talking to them, that’s all.”

  “You don’t understand, Tess,” Suki said sadly. “These people won’t give up. The only thing that could possibly stop them is an injunction, big-shot lawyers and the money to back up the threat. I hoped that the Richardsons would help, let the biographer know I had their full protection, but they made it pretty clear that they simply expect me to maintain the family line of silence. No, far as they’re concerned, I’m on my own. So Suarez can write what he wants about me—and he’ll certainly put in stuff about me coming from the once-great Power family, so you’ll be dragged into it too. I’m sorry.”

  The doorbell rang. “For God’s sake,” said Suki, exasperated, “what is this, Grand Central Station?”

  “I don’t know who that can be,” said Tess. “I’m not expecting anybody. Whoever it is, they can go away.”

  She got up, went to the front door, opened it and stood stock still. Standing there, looking faintly uneasy but maintaining his customary glower, was Cashel.

  “Can I come in?” he said.

  “This isn’t a good time,” said Tess.

  She was totally thrown. She didn’t know what to say. Seeing him again was upsetting. Or maybe it wasn’t upsetting, maybe it was something else. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since she’d met him on New Year’s Day at the house, which was ridiculous, she knew.

  “I know Suki’s here,” said Cashel. “I went into the shop. I talked to Zach.”

  Tess’s face softened at the mention of her son, and Cashel thought again how beautiful she was. She looked different from the last time he’d seen her: more polished or something. But lovely, like the beautiful girl he’d loved.

  “He’s great, isn’t he?” said Tess. “If you’d stayed around, you could have got to meet him sooner.”

  Suki appeared behind her.

  “Cashel. Great,” she said. “Perfect timing.”

  Tess looked at Suki in alarm. What on earth was she talking about?

  “I need someone else who drinks Scotch,” continued Suki. “It’s very bad to drink on your own.”

  “I don’t think you should have any more,” said Tess. If Cashel turning up on the doorstep was her idea of perfect timing, Suki must have had several drinks on the way over.

  “Oh stop! Bring the bottle into the living room, Tess, and another glass for Cashel.”

  In the kitchen, Kitty was experimenting wildly. Thanks to the cosmetics in Suki’s bag, her look was part burlesque dancer, part Tinkerbell explosion.

  “Don’t I look lovely, Mum?” she said.

  Tess kissed her on her forehead. “You look beautiful, darling,” she said.

  When she went back into the living room with a pot of coffee and another glass and the bottle of Scotch, in case Cashel decided he did want a drink, he and Suki were talking away as if it hadn’t been years since they’d met. They were discussing lawyers and private detectives, it seemed. Bewildering. Tess poured coffee for everyone.

  Suki took a coffee and then grabbed the Scotch bottle too, pouring herself a healthy measure. “That’s my last one,” she said, “but it’s been a stressful day, folks.”

  Tess took a deep breath. Having Cashel in her house was making her heart beat erratically, and she had her big sister thrown into the mix too.

  “I’ve got some news,” said Cashel.

  The two women looked at him.

  “Good or bad?” said Suki. “Because good has been in short supply around here lately.”

  “This is good news,” said Cashel, but he had eyes only for Tess.

  Strangely she found she couldn’t stop looking at him either. It had all been too rushed, too upsetting when they’d met on New Year’s Day. Now she could see the graying temples, could see the dark eyes with crow’s feet, the dark shadow on his jaw and the strong face of a man, but still with traces of the boy he’d once been. “What’s the news?” she said.

  “A couple of hours ago, the builders found a secret room in the basement of the house.”

  “What?” said Tess. This was all too startling.

  “It was well hidden,” said Cashel. “It was down in the wine cellar. We only came across it when we demolished a wall and revealed an old door. Unfortunately, the room was empty. Apart from this.”

  He held up the dirty, tarnished necklace.

  “I have no idea what it is,” said Cashel, “but it belongs to both of you. When your father sold the house, he sold it with an explicit list of contents. I’ve seen that list. And then, when the place was sold to me, it was only the house. The property that belonged to the Power family continues to legally belong to the Power family. It’s yours.”

  “It looks like junk to me,” said Suki.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Cashel, “but I reckoned Tess would know. Either way, you should have it. It must have belonged to one of your ancestors.”

  “Are you sure?” said Suki, looking at the necklace with more interest. “Because you’re the owner—essentially, possession is nine points of the law or something.”

  “No,” said Cashel, his eyes firmly on Tess. “It’s yours. It could be something.”

  “I doubt it,” said Tess, but she took it from him anyway, “but imagine if it’s great-great-great Aunt Tatiana’s. I’ll have it valued. I know a wonderful diamond man, but I’m sure Suki’s right and it’s yours.”

  She stared hard at him.

  “I’m sure it’s not,” he replied.

  “You pair,” groaned Suki. “Are you ever going to make up?”

  “Suki, you really should stay away from Scotch,” said Tess coldly, sitting up. “It clearly does not agree with you. Makes you a little crazy.”

  “Scotch doesn’t make me crazy,” said Suki, “I am crazy. Hey, we should get Zach. We did rather leave him there in the shop.”

  Redmond Suarez’s hottest researcher, Carmen, booked herself into the Avalon Hotel and Spa. It wasn’t such a bad town, kinda cute really, she thought. Lincoln, one of the very junior researchers, had been here for ages looking through old parish history records and had drawn a blank. There was interesting stuff on the Powers and how they’d once been rich, but no scandal. If there was any, Carmen would find it.

  Redmond wouldn’t like it here. He only liked cities. Anything rural made him nervous;
reminded him too much of his roots. Carmen grinned as she let herself into her room. She knew that Redmond wasn’t really Portuguese nobility, but hey, everyone had their little secrets, she thought with a grin, even her employer. There were plenty of secrets in Avalon, she was certain of that.

  Redmond had done some amazing digging on the Richardsons. His job had been made easier by the fact that there were plenty of people who hated Antoinette Richardson—hated her. People who’d been snubbed by her, staff who’d been underpaid by her: the list was endless. It was going to be his best book yet.

  With so much good material already, she didn’t know why Redmond was so keen on getting this particular angle to the story. Sure, Suki Power was interesting in her own right and Carmen would have chewed off her leg without anesthetic to find out what had gone on during the years Suki lived with Jethro from TradeWind, but there was no point. Anyone who printed rumors involving Jethro got sued; the guy was a multimillionaire, incredibly well connected, and he had libel lawyers on standby 24/7. Redmond wouldn’t like that. Didn’t matter if they struck gold, any stories involving Jethro would have to stay out of the book. And the Jethro years aside, there didn’t seem to be anything else to uncover about Suki. Sure, there had been talk about a few tempestuous years with Kyle Junior and Suki barely talking to each other, but nothing to back it up. Nothing but a little gossip.

  Sometimes a little gossip made for the most amazing chapter in a book, she’d learned that from Redmond. But her instinct told her that wasn’t the case here. Yes, Suki Power had thrown her out of her house, but she hadn’t looked frightened. If anything, she’d looked contemptuous. It wasn’t the first time Carmen had come across that look, and she hated it. One day she’d get away from Redmond and she’d be free to write her own books—and they wouldn’t be smutty biographies either. Smut paid the rent, more than paid the rent, but she wanted to write something else, maybe a lucrative gig like Suki had: something noble, she decided. Something her mother would be proud of, instead of saying: “Why, Carmen, why do you write this stuff? Is this what you went to college for?”

  In the meantime, she had an assignment to complete.

  Tess Power owned an antique shop called Something Old. That was where Carmen was going. She’d changed out of her travel clothes into her interviewing clothes, which were always formal, and thrown a heavy coat on top. It was cold out here. Armed with her digital recorder, notebook and a capacious bag in case she found anything incriminating that she could appropriate, Carmen headed off to find Something Old.

  None of the cabdrivers wanted to take her. “It’s only up the hill love, about five minutes’ walk, wouldn’t be worth the fare to drive you up there.”

  “I thought cabdrivers were supposed to take you wherever you wanted to go whenever you wanted to go,” yelled Carmen in fury.

  “Ha, maybe in New York, love, but not here,” said one guy, and rolled his window up with a snap.

  She trudged up the hill and then she saw it, pretty sign in scroll lettering and hanging on an iron bar: Something Old. Cute, olde worlde.

  There was a little hallway inside the street door and to one side there was some sort of dress shop; older women’s stuff, nothing cool, Carmen decided from her brief look in, nothing fashionable whatsoever. On the other side was the antique shop. The door was shut . . . no, on closer inspection, she realized it was ajar. She was standing in the hallway, listening for voices, when a dog began to growl. Damn dogs, they always figured out when you were snooping around.

  “Hey, anyone at home,” she said, knocking on the door and then letting herself in. She only hoped that the dog wasn’t going to savage her.

  There were four people in the room: a teenage boy; a tall, very good-looking guy—late forties, and rich—that was for sure, Carmen could spot rich ones a mile away—and then a woman with blonde hair cut in a fashionable, short style. She was tall, stunning-looking. Definitely Suki’s sister, but different, sort of finer, more elegant. And there was Suki herself, looking glamorous and self-assured. Damn.

  “Hi,” said Carmen, in her best syrupy voice, “I’m Carmen LeMonte, I work for Redmond Suarez and I’m looking for Tess Power—I assume that’s you,” she said, pointing her finger at Tess, completely ignoring Suki. “I’m trying to find out if the information I’ve got is true.” The digital recorder in her pocket was on. It was set to record anything within radius of her pocket and was very, very sensitive.

  “And what exactly is this information you have?” said the man, and he looked menacing now. Yes, definitely menacing.

  Beside the woman was the other source of Carmen’s problem: some lean houndy thing, and it was snarling at her, teeth bared. Looking at her with nearly as much naked dislike was Suki.

  “That’s the bitch who doorstepped me back home looking for information!” she hissed.

  Speed was of the essence, Carmen decided. You really only got one chance to ask these incredibly tough questions, and when everyone was so hostile, you might as well go in with it straight away. Suki wasn’t going to give anything away—Carmen had to try to shock some information out of the sister.

  “We understand that Suki Power Richardson had a facade of a marriage with Kyle Junior—but the word is that she was very close to his father, Kyle Senior, and that Antoinette Richardson ran her out of the family as a result. We know she came to stay here afterward.”

  It was a wild allegation, but often it was a case of the wilder the better when it came to rooting out a few decent facts. Anxious to defend themselves against the allegation, innocent people had a tendency to get flustered and divulge a lot more of the truth than they otherwise would have in an effort to point out how you’d got it all wrong.

  Tess was rooted to the spot. She had a hand on Silkie’s collar because for the first time in her entire life, the gentle little whippet looked as if she might actually pounce on someone.

  Cashel moved forward until he was right up close to the woman.

  “I know you’re recording us,” he said. “One moment.” He found his mobile phone and clicked on its recording mechanism.

  “Okay, so now we’re all recording. My name is Cashel Reilly and my company is C. Reilly Enterprises Worldwide.”

  “Oh,” Carmen said, feeling a little shiver of doubt. She liked to be the only one in the room recording the conversation: it upped the stakes considerably when anyone else recorded too.

  “My lawyers in New York, Steinberg & Retzen, are in the process of taking out an injunction against Mr. Suarez or his agents harassing any member of the Power family.”

  Carmen winced. Steinberg & Retzen were dangerous—more than dangerous. They had built a fearsome reputation for securing record-breaking damages in libel and defamation cases. And they always, always won.

  “So I suggest you abandon this particular line of inquiry or else it could prove very expensive indeed for your employer. I’m sure Redmond Suarez won’t want to risk ending up back in Puerto Rico without a dollar to his name.”

  Carmen was used to looking impassive: it was part of her job. Redmond had drilled it into her that she had to learn to hide her emotions, but not this time. She knew she’d gone white. She managed a shrug.

  “Of course, I understand. Sometimes, leads turn out to be false. People make up stuff. Sorry for bothering you all.” She picked up her bag and with a brittle smile she was gone.

  “Oh my God,” said Tess, and sat down on a packing box. She was shaking. “I can’t believe that happened.”

  “You were brilliant,” said Zach. “I haven’t a clue what was going on, but it looked good.”

  “Thank you,” said Cashel, making sure the door was firmly shut. He was watching Carmen hurrying down the street, talking on her mobile. Redmond Suarez was not going to enjoy that phone call one bit.

  “How did you know to say those things about the biographer?” Tess said.

  “Suki phoned me and asked for help. The Richardsons had hung her out to dry, so I got my lawyers on to it.
”

  Silkie was whining and Zach excused himself to walk her back home.

  “C’mon,” said Suki, putting an arm around Zach, “I’ll come too. This store is cold, Tess, you need some heating in it.”

  Then it was just the two of them. Cashel was looking at Tess. She was reeling from all the revelations, not least that Suki had reached out to Cashel.

  But suddenly she was aware that she was standing alone with Cashel Reilly, who’d been in her mind so much lately. Would it be worth saying all the things she should have said years ago?

  She glanced at him and his face was stony.

  No, she thought. The time for talking had passed a long time ago.

  “Thank you, Cashel,” she said stiffly. “And about this—” She held up the necklace. “I can have it checked out, but I’m sure it’s yours.”

  “No,” he said. “The contents of the house that were sold all those years ago were listed. This wasn’t on the list, it’s definitely yours.”

  He was waiting for something, anything from her, but she was deliberately not looking at him anymore.

  It was as clear in her mind as if it had happened yesterday, not years before. It had been when Suki was home from America, filled with angst and anxiety over what had happened. “They’re a nightmare, those people, a bloody nightmare,” Suki had raged, striding up and down the old house’s library, creating a breeze as she went.

  Even now, Tess felt sorry that she hadn’t truly appreciated what Suki was going through. Instead she’d felt angry that all Suki could think about was herself and not about their father, who lay upstairs in bed—a cold bedroom, at that—wheezing. He should be in hospital, she was convinced of it. Pneumonia couldn’t be properly treated at home, but he insisted he was fine.