The Last Chance Matinee

by Mariah Stewart

  “Not at all.” Des glanced at Cara, who nodded in agreement.

  “First things first. Find out what the building needs and what it’s going to cost,” Barney told them.

  “Since none of us knows how to assess the extent of the renovation or to estimate construction costs, we’re pretty much stuck on square one,” Cara pointed out. “Obviously we’ll need to get a professional opinion on just what has to be done.”

  “I have a friend whose grandson is a contractor. We can get him to take a look, tell you what needs to be done, how much it’s going to cost. I’m guessing Pete told you that your father put money aside for the renovations.”

  “He mentioned that, but how did Dad know what it would take?” Des asked.

  “There’s a bank account with an amount he estimated the renovations would cost, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. You’ll have to decide between the three of you how to spend it, and who will hold the purse strings. It isn’t going to be me. I’ll open my home to you—it’s your home as well. I can offer suggestions, but I can’t do any of the work.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” Cara asked.

  “I promised my brother I wouldn’t interfere, that I’d let you all figure it out for yourselves. But if I can make phone calls, point you in one direction or another, I’m happy to help where I can. So if you want me to call my friend . . .”

  “Yes, please. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish,” Cara said.

  Barney smiled. “I like your positive attitude.”

  “We came here to do a job,” Cara reminded her. “We didn’t come here to fail.”

  “Well, then.” Barney stood and took her empty bowl to the sink. “Who’s ready for a tour of the old family homestead?”

  All three rose and followed Barney through the butler’s pantry, with its glass-doored cabinets that went almost to the ceiling, which had to be at least eleven feet high. The counter was an unbroken slab of marble, and the sink was old soapstone. A quick peek as they traveled through revealed china, glasses, and serving bowls and trays behind the glass doors. Cara would have to revisit those lovely things later. She adored old china.

  If the china in the pantry had drawn her interest, the cabinet in the dining room mesmerized her. The piece was almost seven feet tall, made of solid walnut, with roses carved across the top. A large silver tray on the equally impressive sideboard held a cut-glass decanter and several small matching glasses. The dining table could easily seat twelve, but extra chairs set around the room hinted that leaves could be added to increase the number of guests. The large crystal chandelier hung from the center of a plaster medallion covered with painted roses woven around plump cherubs. Underfoot was a dark Oriental rug that looked like the real thing. A fireplace with an ornate mantel stood along the wall adjacent to the kitchen and the wainscot was shoulder-high, of dark wood. But the most stunning feature in this grand room was the mural painted above the sideboard.

  “Barney”—Cara pointed to the wall—“the mural . . . it’s . . .”

  “Yes, exquisite. I agree.” Barney stopped in the doorway, where she’d been about to move into the next room, apparently without planning on commenting on what Cara considered the focal point of the magnificent room.

  “The colors . . . the greens and the blues . . .” Des stepped forward for a closer look. “The waterfall is so realistic.”

  “Those are the falls the town was named for,” Barney told them with a surprising lack of interest or enthusiasm.

  “Who painted this?” Even Allie appeared awed as her eyes swept from one side of the mural to the other.

  “Alistair Cooper,” Barney replied.

  “The Alistair Cooper?” Cara asked.

  “Who’s Alistair Cooper?” Des wondered.

  “He was a well-known landscape artist. I read about him in an art history class I had,” Allie replied.

  “Yes, he was very well known. He spent some time here in the early 1930s. He’d met my great-aunt Josephine at college and fell head over heels in love with her. Of course, a penniless artist wasn’t cutting it with her parents. When my grandparents were abroad on vacation, Alistair painted the mural to prove to them how talented he was.”

  “What happened when they came back and found he’d painted their dining room wall?” Allie asked.

  “He and Josephine were married in the backyard, with her parents’ blessing.”

  “It must be very cool to have dinner in here, with the fireplace and the chandelier and candles all glowing,” Cara said. “I’ll bet when you have dinner parties the mural is the topic of conversation.”

  “I don’t have dinner parties. I don’t use this room at all. If the mural hadn’t been done by a famous artist, I’d paint over the damned thing so I would never have to look at it again.”

  The three young women stood in stunned silence even as Barney walked through the arched doorway into the next room. “This is the sitting room. The small one, actually. The larger one is on the other side of the hall. . . .”

  “How weird was that?” Des whispered to Cara as Barney’s voice faded and Allie followed their aunt.

  “That she hates the mural? Yeah. Strange. You’d think if you had a mural painted by a famous artist on your dining room wall, you’d want to show it off,” Cara replied.

  “. . . and my mother liked to sit here by the fireplace and do needlework. Which is probably why she was damned near blind by the time she died.”

  “It’s a pretty room,” Cara noted as she and Des caught up. “Those two dark pink chairs and the green loveseat and that fancy lamp on that white table make the room feel so feminine.”

  “Well, I’ve never thought of it that way, but yes, I see what you mean.” Barney appeared to be looking at the room through new eyes.

  “This room is so sweet and cozy,” Des said. “I’d sit in here and read if I lived here.”

  “For the time being, you do live here,” Barney reminded her, “so feel free to sit and read anytime. Now, let’s move on to the main parlor.”

  The larger parlor across the hall was furnished in the same Victorian style as the other rooms they’d seen, the pieces heavily carved, the upholstery on the chairs and settees dark blue velvet, and the tables topped with marble. Paintings on the walls were of landscapes, dogs, and still lifes with dark backgrounds. Another dark Oriental rug covered the floor.

  In contrast, the front parlor was strictly contemporary in décor.

  “This is my living room,” Barney announced as she swept aside the heavy pocket doors. “I preserved most of the other rooms as they were when we were growing up. Mostly because it would’ve been a pain in the ass to try to lug the dining room pieces up to the third floor, and I couldn’t face selling them. The furniture in the main parlor isn’t especially comfortable—I’ve had it redone so that at least the seats aren’t filled with horsehair—but still, none of it was made for curling up with a good book, watching TV, or chatting with friends.”

  “Wow. It’s like a Pottery Barn showroom,” Des exclaimed as they filed into the living room.

  “They have a decorating service that was most helpful,” Barney said.

  “You have lovely views from here,” Cara noted. The side windows faced the woods on the other side of the driveway.

  “This sofa is very comfy.” Allie sat on the end cushion of the off-white sectional. “I’d spend a lot of time here if this were my house.”

  Barney smiled and led them into the library, which had floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a huge brass chandelier, a solid oak mantel over the fireplace, and lots of leather seating.

  “My dad furnished this room,” Barney told them, “and I’ve never been able to bring myself to change a thing.”

  “Why would you?” Cara ran a hand over the buttery leather of a deep brown chair. “It’s just how I’d picture the library in an old house. The bookcases, the fireplace, the leather sofas, the perfect lighting.” She paused, then added, “The portraits.”

&n
bsp; “Who are all these people?” Allie asked. “These and the ones in the front hall?”

  “Relatives,” Barney replied with a grin. “Lots and lots and lots of relatives. Don’t worry, before too long, you’ll know them all and you’ll know their stories. But we’ll do the ancestor thing another day. You girls must be tired from traveling.”

  “I don’t know about you two, but I’m exhausted,” Allie said.

  “Wait, what’s through this door?” Cara pointed to the door that stood next to the fireplace.

  “Oh, that’s the office.” Barney opened the door and turned on the light. “My grandfather’s, my dad’s, now mine.”

  This room, like the others, had a fireplace, tall windows, and dark wainscoting. The oversize desk was oak, and behind it stood an imposing high-backed black leather chair that, while not shabby, looked as if it had seen plenty of use.

  “Did you work, Barney?” Des asked.

  “Yes, for a long time.” She walked into the room and re-arranged some papers on the desktop. “I’ve been retired from the bank for about five years now.”

  “What did you do there?” Des asked.

  “I was the president, like my dad and my granddad and my great-granddad.”

  The revelation took Cara by surprise. Judging from the looks on Des’s and Allie’s faces, they hadn’t expected that news, either.

  Barney moved to the door, her hand on the light switch. “Are we done here? We can talk more in the morning.”

  Allie tossed her bag on the double bed in her designated room and tried to calm herself. It was bad enough that she was here—that she’d driven from the airport not in the nice-size sedan she’d specifically reserved but in a tiny economy model that barely held its own around the treacherous mountain curves on the drive to Hidden Falls. Whoever had designed that road was insane: In some places there was barely a foot between the guardrail and the edge of the cliff on that last leg into town. And the town! Hidden Falls was barely a blip on her GPS. The shopping district was a joke. She hadn’t seen one store she’d be interested in checking out. There’d been no cute boutiques, no pretty little café, no spa, no upscale anything. There wasn’t even a nail salon, and she needed one immediately. She’d broken the tip of her index fingernail trying to lug her suitcase up that endless stairwell.

  She really could kill her father for this ridiculous scheme. If he thought spending however long here would make her like or even accept Cara when she barely liked her real sister, well, he was just proving himself to have been crazier than she’d ever suspected. She couldn’t bring herself to even consider the timeline Barney had suggested. Spend a year in this place? Not gonna happen. And what grown woman called herself Barney when she had a perfectly nice name like Bonnie?

  And then there was the cop. He’d been on her tail since she left the Bullfrog Inn, a hole-in-the-wall bar but apparently the only place in town to get a drink. God knows she’d needed one once she’d driven past this house and thought about what awaited her. Des. Cara. A ramshackle theater that stood between her and her inheritance. One shot of vodka had somehow become three, and when she left the bar, the cop was leaning against his cruiser watching her walk to her rental. When she got into her car, he got into his, and when she started the engine, he’d done the same. When she pulled away from the curb, so did he. He’d followed her all the way to Hudson Street. Of course, she’d driven slowly, trying to make damn sure he didn’t have a reason to pull her over. If she hadn’t been so focused on watching him in her rearview mirror, she never would’ve blown that stop sign.

  When she got to the house, she’d parked as far up in the driveway as she could, mostly to establish her right to be there. He’d parked across the entrance to the drive as if to block any attempt she might make to escape. Before she even had a chance to remove the key from the ignition, he was standing at the side of her car.

  He’d made a rolling motion with his right hand, and when she lowered the window, he’d asked to see her license, registration, and insurance papers.

  “Have I broken any laws, sir?” she’d asked with a calm she didn’t feel. Of course she knew she had.

  “Your license, registration, and insurance information, please, ma’am.”

  She opened her wallet and removed her license and handed it over. She’d learned a long time ago that when a law enforcement officer asked to see your license, you could save yourself a whole lot of headache by simply handing it over.

  “The car’s a rental,” she told him as she opened the glove compartment. “The papers are in here. . . .”

  She handed them over as well. He took them back to the cruiser and got in. Meanwhile, Cara and Des had both gotten out of their cars and were watching.

  Of course they were.

  When the cop walked back to her car and handed over her paperwork, she asked, “Why did you follow me?”

  “Just wanted to make sure you got safely to your destination, ma’am.”

  “Why would you think I wouldn’t?”

  “Three shots in twenty minutes, and you blew the stop sign at the top of the street.”

  “How do you know how many drinks I had?”

  “Small town. One bar. Woman comes in alone and tosses back shots like that, someone’s going to notice.”

  “And someone’s going to call you?”

  “If she’s jangling car keys and headed out looking like she’s planning on driving, yes, ma’am. Someone will call me. Every time.”

  Allie put her head in her hands and willed herself not to cry. “Okay, so you’re going to give me a ticket for the stop sign. Just get it over with, Officer”—she looked at his name tag—“Haldeman.”

  “It’s Chief Haldeman, and I’m going to let you off with a warning this time. Don’t make me regret it.” He lowered his voice, and his eyes narrowed and darkened, quietly threatening. “And don’t ever drink and drive in my town again.”

  Before she could thank him for letting her off easy, Barney had appeared and yelled at him, and he’d turned his attention from Allie.

  All in all, it’d been one hell of a start to what she was certain would be an ugly chapter in her life. How annoying that someone had actually tattled on her, as if they were in kindergarten. Then to have the cop—sorry, the chief of police—follow her as if she were some kind of criminal. It was doubly annoying, because under other circumstances, she was pretty sure she’d have taken a second look at chief of police Benjamin Haldeman. True, he wasn’t her usual type—that rugged look had never really been her thing—but there was something about him that might’ve appealed to her if he’d been just a guy and not a smirking cop who’d chided her about having had a few drinks and then driving a mere block.

  And then there was that threat: “Don’t ever drink and drive in my town again.” The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes told her very clearly that it would not go well for her if she did.

  God. Deliver me from small-town cops. Even—especially—ruggedly handsome ones with brooding dark eyes.

  Allie plopped on the bed next to her luggage, pulled her phone from her pocket, and swiped at Nikki’s number in the directory. The phone rang several times before her daughter’s voicemail picked up. “Hi, you’ve reached Nikki. Leave a message and maybe I’ll call you back.”

  Allie took a deep breath and left a variation of the message she’d left many times before.

  “Nik, it’s Mom. I just wanted to let you know I arrived safely, and I’m here in Hidden Falls, at my dad’s house. You’d love this place—it looks like one of the Victorian mansions you see in movies or magazines. I’ll take some pictures tomorrow when it’s light and send them to you. Anyway, I’m here and I’d love for you to call me. I know you have a test to study for tonight, so tomorrow is okay. ’Night, sweetie. Love you . . .”

  Allie disconnected the call, feeling worse than she had before she’d made it. She could picture Nikki at her desk in her pretty room at Clint’s house, her history book open in front of h
er in case her father peeked in, her phone in her hand as she and her friends exchanged texts. For a fourteen-year-old girl, trading gossip with your besties always trumps a phone call from Mom.

  She found the brown bag in her suitcase and took out one of the two bottles she’d purchased at the liquor store in a shopping center on the edge of town, opened it, and took a quick sip. The vodka trickled down the back of her throat, familiar and reassuring. Another sip; then she curled up in the chair that sat in the bay window overlooking the backyard, and waited for the tension to abate. She felt miserable and sorry for herself. She was someplace she didn’t want to be with people she either didn’t know or didn’t like, to do something she didn’t want to do.

  Wrapping herself in the colorful throw that had been left over one arm of the chair, most certainly by Barney, Allie took in the room she’d been assigned. There was the double bed with the carved high head- and footboard, covered by an off-white matelassé spread, and a chest that stood almost six feet tall. The dresser had a marble top and a mirror that was as wide as it was tall. The rug was another ancient Oriental—the Hudsons apparently had a thing for those—and the drapes were a slightly faded damask. As in every other area of the house Allie had seen so far, the moldings around the heavy chestnut door were wide and elaborately cut. An earlier poke into her bathroom had revealed a claw-foot tub in perfect condition; a pedestal sink over which hung a large mirror in a gilded frame; a toilet; and a closet, in which she found extra towels and some cleaning supplies. All in all, while not the fanciest place she’d ever stayed—not by a long shot—the room was lovely and elegant in its own way.

  Still staring out the window, Allie wondered why it was so hard for her to think like Des, to find something good in the situation. But right at that moment, she couldn’t come up with anything that even seemed remotely good. Except that if they were able to complete this asinine task, she’d inherit a lot of money, with which she could buy a house closer to Nikki’s school and could have Nikki back on their original custody schedule. That would be very good, she reminded herself.