by D. L. Wood
An uncomfortable chill fluttered through Chloe at being pulled into the melee, but part of her was thrilled to be able to back Deidre up. Widening her eyes and shirking back in her best impression of someone unnerved by the spectacle she was witnessing, she nodded her head in confirmation.
“Consequently,” Deidre continued, “you are impacting our business. Our lawyers will be seeking an emergency restraining order to prevent you from returning to Stonehall Estate. Given the video evidence we now have of your antics”—without removing her gaze from Kingsford, she blindly pointed to the camera mounted above her right shoulder—“I doubt we’ll have any trouble securing it.”
Kingsford’s face burned a deeper crimson, a low growl resonating from his throat.
“Now, please leave, or I’ll ask the deputy to escort you,” Deidre finished.
Chloe was surprised that the deputy actually made a preemptive movement toward the offensive man. But Kingsford jerked his arm away before there was contact.
“Don’t touch me,” he barked, then whirled away and strode out the front entrance.
As it turned out, Deputy Collier was there in response to Deidre’s call to the police for assistance when Kingsford showed up. Conveniently, since he was also the sheriff department’s liaison with the New York State Police in the investigation into Nate Lewis’s death, Chloe could just tell him about the light she saw and he could pass the information along.
Chloe, Deidre and the deputy moved into Deidre’s office, a small but elegant room off the foyer just behind the front desk. According to the map of the house Chloe had uncovered in the gallery items the day before, it used to be a receiving parlor.
It didn’t take long to explain the short but simple event she had witnessed.
“And you don’t remember anything else? Just a light?” Deputy Collier asked, jotting down notes on a small spiral notepad.
“No, just the light. But it could’ve been near the time at issue, right? I mean, I guess it depends what the time of death was. Regardless, I thought I should mention it.”
“Did you see what happened to the light? Did it cut off suddenly or move away? What about how long it lasted?”
Chloe felt a grimace crease her face. “I don’t know. I got distracted. There were…well there were noises. In the wall.” When Deputy Collier’s forehead wrinkled, she explained. “Pipes or something.”
The corner of his mouth went up. “Sure it wasn’t Lily Stone?”
“You’ve heard that, too, about her searching the house?”
“Everyone’s heard that story,” he said. “It’s called a legend for a reason.”
“Deputy Collier grew up here,” Deidre chimed in, and then as if needing to explain how she knew that, added, “It’s come up before—on his previous visits regarding our other pre-opening troubles.”
“This is visit, what, fifteen? Sixteen?” he commented. “Nate Lewis was right about one thing. You people have had more than your fair share of mishaps. I won't speculate on why or who might have caused them, but it sure seems like someone, or maybe something, doesn't want you opening this place.”
Chloe couldn’t keep a smile from slipping onto her face. “You don’t believe that, do you? About ‘something’ being behind it, as in Lily’s ghost?”
Deputy Collier shrugged. “Just a lot of trouble for one place to run into. And now Lewis’s death? Which…I forgot to ask,” he said, “why didn’t you say something about the light when we talked to you yesterday?”
Embarrassment flooded her, but there was no way around the truth. “All I can say is that I’d forgotten about it. I know it’s stupid, but between the mysterious night noises distracting me and my immersion in the history of the estate and the robbery, it didn’t occur to me until the middle of last night. It wasn’t like I was even sure the light was coming from the outbuilding, so I guess my brain didn’t make the connection.”
“Well,” Deputy Collier said, slapping his notepad shut, “I don’t know how much it’ll help, but I’m sure one of the state police detectives will be in touch. They’ll be coming by later anyway to update Ms. Nolan here and finish up with the scene.”
“You think they’ll release it before guests start arriving this afternoon?” Deidre asked.
“Beats me. I hope so. They know your situation, though. I’m sure they’ll try. They’re supposed to remove the loader today, so that should be the last of it. We all want the resort to be a success. Good for the area, you know?”
Deidre nodded, and after insisting he take a hot cup of coffee and preparing it for him at the antique sideboard across the room, he headed out. Once he was gone, Deidre seemed to cave a bit, looking worn to Chloe, a little frayed at the edges.
“That wasn’t exactly how I planned to start the first day of officially receiving guests,” Deidre said.
Chloe offered her an understanding smile. “I’m sure it wasn’t. I didn’t want to ask him, but have they said anything about whether what happened to Nate was an accident or not?”
“Not yet. For all our sakes, I hope it was an accident. A murder here, just days before the grand opening on New Year’s Eve…I can’t imagine what that would do to business.” Deidre bit her lip. “Oh,” she said, her tone rising a notch. “By the way, I’m having the gallery exhibit curtained off until you’re finished. Fewer questions that way, and then we can even have a little unveiling ceremony during the New Year’s Eve Ball.”
“I promise I’ll have it ready to go.”
Deidre squinted. “I hope you’ll enjoy doing it. That it won’t become drudgery.”
“Not at all. Throwing myself into this kind of project is exactly what I need right now. Besides, I’ve got a little surprise for Jack that’ll keep him plenty busy and help with his writing.” For weeks leading up to the trip, part of her had worried that the surprise she was planning might have been a miscalculation. But after hearing Jack moan about his lack of progress, she was praying this would be the spark his creativity needed. “If it works, he won’t even notice I’m gone.”
“I doubt that. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.” Deidre grinned, and heat crept up Chloe’s neck. She wasn’t wrong. And it went both ways. After two years of marriage, Jack could still melt her with one of his focused, emerald-eyed stares.
Maybe she wouldn’t work too hard on the gallery after all.
14
Chloe zipped back upstairs to find Jack well into the room service breakfast they had ordered the night before. While explaining her absence, she traded her walking clothes for a cozy white robe and snuggled next to him while they dined from a half-circle table covered in white linen. Breakfast consisted of a silver carafe of coffee with milk and sugar in a tiny silver pitcher and bowl, berries with homemade whipped cream, Belgian waffles with Vermont maple syrup, crispy thick bacon, and scrambled eggs mixed with ham and mushrooms.
“I didn’t think you were going to make it back before I finished it all,” he joked.
Chloe snorted. The idea of Jack even making a dent in that much food alone was laughable. “I would have been back sooner, but I needed to fill Deputy Collier in on the light I saw two nights ago.” She scooped a forkful of egg scramble into her mouth.
Amazing. Her stomach rumbled in happy confirmation. She was hungrier than she’d realized after her walk.
“What light?” Jack asked, and Chloe realized that in forgetting about it, she had never mentioned it to Jack either. She quickly explained what she had witnessed.
“It’s a shame you didn’t see where it was coming from,” Jack said.
“Or who it was coming from,” she countered. If only she had seen who was wielding the light. Her heart sank as her gaze returned to her plate. Poor Nate.
“Well, you were fairly preoccupied with the ghosts haunting the walls,” he teased. She looked up to see a gentle warmth behind his eyes. He obviously could tell she felt bad about it and was trying to lighten her mood.
“You have to admit the story’s c
ompelling. I can’t wait to dive into the history behind those ghosts.” She stabbed a blackberry and swirled it in whipped cream.
He leaned back and looked at her, a smile stretching across his stubbly face. He hadn’t shaved since they arrived, and a substantial shadow of beard was coming in. She loved that shadow.
“What?” she asked.
“I haven’t seen you this keen on anything in a while.”
She shrugged. “I’m not good without something to pour myself into at the best of times. Now, without work and all this waiting on something that may or may not happen…” She realized her hand had unconsciously drifted to her stomach and reached for a napkin instead, hoping she’d sufficiently disguised the move. One look at his face told her she hadn’t. “It’s just nice to have a purpose.”
“Waiting is hard for everyone, Chlo.” He took her hand holding the napkin. “Especially when the wait is for something so dear to your heart. But ‘wait’—”
“Isn’t ‘no,’ I know,” she interrupted, “but it is ‘not right now.’ And it is ‘not telling you when.’ And I guess for someone who spent most of her adult life working to control everything around her to avoid more pain, not depending or trusting anyone because it inevitably caused more pain, that’s tough.”
Jack put an arm around her waist and side-hugged her.
“Present company excluded, of course,” she acknowledged. “Putting myself in the position of wanting something I have a complete lack of control over is like ripping off all the armor around my heart and painting a bullseye on it. And every day of waiting is another arrow plunged into the center.”
“You know control is an illusion, right?” he asked before taking a sip of coffee.
“Knowing that in my head and getting my heart to understand it are two very different things.”
“That control you thought you lived by—you know it never existed. It wasn’t protection, and it wasn’t armor you could wrap yourself up in to avoid being hurt.”
“Then why does it feel like I’ve let go of safety and given myself over to something that has the power to hurt me?” she asked, laying her fork down.
He squeezed her hand. “Because love is vulnerability. And the love of or hope for a child is one of the greatest vulnerabilities. Look, our lives include pain and loss whether we ever let down our guard or not. But now that you’ve done that, the possibility of loss and pain is coming through a door you’ve willingly opened. It makes it incredibly hard to wait to see what ends up walking through that door.”
“And what if it isn’t what we wanted? What if, after all the waiting, the answer is no.”
“Then it’ll hurt. And we won’t like it. But we’ll face it together.” He slid an arm around her. “And we’ll trust that the ‘no’ that feels like a knife stabbing us in the center of the target painted on our hearts is actually carving out room for something else we can’t even imagine.”
“I’m not crazy about that answer,” she said, fidgeting where she sat.
“Me either. But it’s the only one I’ve got. Trust is never an easy prospect.”
“I trust you.”
“You didn’t always. As I recall, there was a time you pointed a gun at me.”
“I didn’t know you as well then.”
“I suspect it works that way with God too. At least in my limited experience,” Jack said.
She leaned back to eye him warily. “Always so quick with the clever responses.”
“You married a pretty clever man.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry we landed on this conversation again. I know I sound like a song on repeat.”
“No, you sound like someone figuring things out. And I want to be the one you figure them out with. Besides, you’re my favorite song, so play on.”
She threw a pillow at him. “That was cheesy, even for you.”
He stabbed a piece of waffle with his fork. “Yeah, not my best.” He popped it in his mouth, and muttered quietly, “But still true.”
Warmth spread through her like a welcome sunrise, and for the thousandth time she thanked God in her heart for sending Jack Bartholomew into her life.
Chloe took a deep breath as her eyes ranged over the mounds of documents, photos, and other paraphernalia contained within the gallery exhibit. Deidre had erected a free-standing curtain around all four sides of the dedicated space, so at least she wasn’t on display. Although initially the collection seemed haphazardly stored, it turned out that almost every piece was numbered and catalogued on a computer being used by the prior curator, which helped tremendously.
I need to call her as soon as possible. Maybe even meet with her. I don’t need to start from scratch.
But as it was still morning and Chloe wanted to get a footing before calling, she decided to wait until that afternoon to reach out. For now, she was going to start exploring. It was hard to know where to begin, but she decided it was crucial to get a sense of the Stone family first and hoped the photos would give her that.
She started by scrutinizing the family photograph taken the night of the robbery. At first glance, it appeared both Mr. and Mrs. Stone wore austere expressions. But looking closer, she realized that Florence Stone’s wasn’t severe, just resolute. A proud mother with a firm grasp on her elevated station in life. Harold Stone’s face held something else though. Something about the way he held his mouth, so that his mustache was perfectly straight, seemed harsh. And his eyes…they carried the look of a man who was never satisfied with anything.
The little girl, Cora, gave off a sense of sweetness and a bit of shyness from the way she clung to her sister’s hand, almost leaning into her, one leg extending out, the toe of her shoe pointed away from the group. Lily’s gaze seemed on fire, full of zest and possibility, and it pierced Chloe to her core. They certainly were not the eyes of someone who would be dead in a matter of hours. It was so unfair, Lily being cut down in her prime like that. And the family, torn apart by grief. Devastated. Destroyed.
Next, Chloe turned her attention to the photographs of the family through the years. These had already been compiled into a leather-bound album. Being wealthy, the Stones had more photographs than Chloe suspected most families would in that era, but still there weren’t a lot, and what they did have were mostly formal. There were shots of Lily as a toddler in a dainty, frilly frock, her hair held back with a giant bow. There was another family portrait, pre-Cora, dating Lily as five, then another at ten and fifteen. There was a posed shot of the two sisters, shortly after Cora was born, with Lily in a large white wicker chair holding the baby. There were a few shots of Harold as a younger man—one as a telegraph operator, one in a dapper tuxedo and one with him standing proudly beside a Ford Model T with almost the hint of a smile on his face.
His first car maybe?
There were a few of Florence too. One showed her as a young schoolgirl, the dark shadows and contrasts of the tin-type photograph lending it an eerie quality. Another depicted her dressed in the flapper-garb of the early 1920s.
Was this from a party? A special celebration?
And then there was the Stones’ wedding photograph taken in New York City on April 2, 1901. Henry wore tails. Florence wore a dress with a high neck and long sleeves with buttons down the seams, and a train that draped out to the side, well beyond the borders of the photograph. They didn’t look happy, exactly. But then, people rarely did in photos from those days. They didn’t look unhappy either. Blank was a better description.
There were a handful of photographs that were not formally posed. Candid shots, if there was such a thing back then, as one would still have to hire a photographer to take them and remain completely stationary in order to achieve clarity in the end product. One was of the family in what looked like a parlor room. Lily with a book. Cora on the floor playing. Florence doing needlepoint, and Harold composing a letter at a desk. In another they were seated in what must have been the family car with Harold at the wheel, Florence beside him, and
the girls in the back, as if headed out for a ride. There were a few others, similarly staged to look like they weren’t, and then Chloe found one of them all standing at the entrance to the maze, obviously taken here, at Stonehall Estate. Which meant it must have been snapped sometime between the estate’s completion and December 31, 1930.
Was this more of Harold Stone’s doing? Photographs to prove the glory of the Stone family—elegant, upper-class, at home at their enormous estate worthy of a Vanderbilt?
The family photograph collection exhausted, Chloe moved on to those of the estate itself. There were plenty of those. Apparently, Harold thought it much more worth documenting than his relatives. These consisted of shots of the architecture mostly but did capture many of the rooms, including one Chloe recognized as the room Jack was presently using as his writing study. Whatever condition the company had bought the property in, they had done a fantastic job of restoring it to the state it had been in during its heyday. The study looked nearly identical to the photograph. As did the foyer, the grand staircase, the library, and the other rooms. The most marked differences were the areas in the basement, which had previously housed a lap pool, changing rooms, exercise rooms, and relaxation areas. These had been converted into the modern spa, somehow managing to not violate historic preservation laws in the process.
The spa.
At that moment, a hot soak and massage sounded amazing, and she realized just how much she was looking forward to getting in there sometime soon.
She briefly reviewed the photos taken on the night of robbery but quickly moved on, having already gone through them with Deidre. Next were documents related to the investigation into the robbery. Her heart quickened as she untied the brown cord on the accordion file and pulled out its contents.
