April, who’d taken a break from sanding original cove molding she wanted to reuse for its authenticity, heard a car enter her drive. Was it Eric coming back again—to see if he could wheedle the letters out of her?
She jammed the cork into the bottle of white wine from which she’d just poured herself a glass. She glanced at the rows of crystal stemware hanging upside down under a cupboard wine rack she’d added in her full kitchen remodel. If she poured Eric a glass of wine, it might encourage him to think he held a special place in her life, which wasn’t true. She opened her fridge and set the bottle and her full glass on a shelf.
She closed the fridge and waited for the chime of her doorbell. Nothing. An icy feeling slithered up her spine. Reaching for her portable phone, she turned off the kitchen lights, then slipped between the thick plastic sheeting and around the corner.
It was odd, but until she’d found those letters, and Eric and then the Santinis had gotten so snippy with her, April had never experienced a moment of unease about living in unfinished homes in desolate places. Now she wished she had curtains on the two huge picture windows that flanked her front door. Only one dim outdoor light shed any glimmer through the darkness.
Dropping to her knees, she crawled under the window and crept to the door. The sudden shrill ringing of the doorbell made her yelp and fall backward. “Who’s there?” she called shakily, not liking the fright she could hear in her own voice.
“It’s Quinn Santini.”
Bolting upright, April peaked around the window frame, and sure enough, there he stood on her porch, broad shoulders hunched forward to ward off the slanting rain.
“What do you want?” A fast examination of the man on her porch told April he no longer wore his made-to-order tuxedo. But, damn, in the feeble, diffused light shining from the single porch bulb, Santini looked even more gorgeous in faded blue jeans and well-worn sweatshirt than he had in that tux. His sun-streaked blond hair, appealingly tousled, curled around his ears from the rain.
In the silence, he announced loudly, “My grandmother wants the letters you found.”
“Is she with you?”
“No. Listen, let me in so we can talk terms. I know I said I wouldn’t pay…but I brought my checkbook.”
April sucked in a narrow stream of air. “Please go. You’re wasting your time and mine.”
“I didn’t drive all the way to hell and gone just to leave again without those damned letters, Ms. Trent.”
“Well, you’re not getting them,” she shouted.
“I want them.” Clearly frustrated, he slapped a flat palm against the door.
“I’m holding my phone, Mr. Santini. If you don’t leave this instant, I’m going to call the police and tell them you’re harassing me.” She didn’t add “turn about is fair play,” but she wanted to throw his own threat back in his face.
“Don’t do that!” Quinn paced over to the window and cupped his hands around his eyes, attempting to see inside.
When she saw what he was doing, April stepped right in front of his face, misshapen by the rain on glass. She snapped on an interior light and shook the phone in a menacing manner, making sure he got her message. Then she punched out the 9 and the first 1 in 911. Where he could see.
“Stop,” he bellowed, and raised hands in a placating gestures. “I’ll go,” he mouthed. “I am going.” He backed up. “But we aren’t finished,” he yelled again. “You haven’t heard the last about this.” With that final word he stomped down the remaining steps and moved out of sight.
With her finger still hovering over the last number, April stood there until she knew he’d crawled into his expensive vehicle, started the motor and backed up her long muddy drive. When his lights had disappeared and all was dark again, she collapsed against the door. More than ever she needed that glass of wine.
It wasn’t until she’d calmed down enough to retrieve her wine that she paused to reflect on the recent scene and wished she’d let Santini know she didn’t even have the letters here.
Her phone rang. April snatched it up, somehow expecting it to be Santini. Instead, Eric Lathrop’s voice floated across the line. After saying hello, he gave April the same song and dance Quinn Santini had about wanting the letters. “April, my editor authorized me to pay you a thousand dollars cash for the bundle you pulled out of the wall today.”
“Why would he do that?” she gasped. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Because old man Santini, Anthony, did major traveling in Europe for the government before and after the Second World War. The fact that letters written in German were apparently preserved and hidden in a sealed wall in a home he built may implicate Tony in something more unsavory than an affair. What was that guy’s name, the guy who signed the letters? Maybe he was trying to blackmail Santini—or his wife. Let me do some digging on the Internet. If I don’t find anything, you’ll still be a thousand bucks richer.”
“I’m hanging up, Eric. I’m not giving you the letters, so forget it. I have them in a safe place.” She slammed down the phone and didn’t pick up again although it continued to ring. After it finally went silent, she called Robyn, but got her friend’s answering machine.
“Hey, Robyn, it’s April. I left those old letters in your safe. I’ll come by in the next day or so to get them, okay? Meanwhile, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention them to anyone. Not even friends. Above all, don’t let Eric, or anyone from his paper, know you’ve got them. If you have questions, I’m here working on the house.”
Quinn had to get out in the rain and fiddle with the gate to make it lock. That only added to his frustration over having his mission thwarted. He hated coming home empty-handed. Especially since he was no closer to knowing what was going on with his grandmother and those letters than when he’d first learned of their existence.
It was after eight-thirty when he took off his muddy shoes and used his key to enter the big house. His grandmother had wanted to move into the smaller of the two homes after her son’s plane crashed. She’d begged Quinn to sell his and Amy’s modest house in the suburb and move into the mansion. The so-called cottage out back was where his folks had lived. His mom babysat Hayley while Quinn’s wife, Amy, worked for the family firm. Even at Hayley’s young age, Quinn had decided she’d feel less traumatized in more familiar quarters, so he’d moved them into the smaller house.
Two things had saved all six of them from going down on that plane. Hayley had come down with chicken pox, and the court had moved up a murder trial Quinn had been handling.
He rarely let himself think about the events that had led up to the accident. It had rained that night, too. He hadn’t wanted to go on the trip, and felt guilty ever since, which might be why he felt driven to go after the senate seat his dad had dreamed of one day winning.
Norma rose from the flowered couch where she sat next to Quinn’s sleeping daughter. That, too, reminded him of that long-ago evening. Did his grandmother share his twinges of guilt? After all, she’d volunteered to stay behind with the itchy, irritable toddler so Amy wouldn’t have to give up relaxing at the condo on Hilton Head.
Tonight, unlike the night her mother and grandparents were killed, Hayley had fallen into an easy sleep watching TV. Norma had thrown one of the many afghans she’d knit over Hayley.
If Quinn had planned for a late night, Norma would’ve tucked Hayley into the bedroom upstairs that he’d furnished with a canopy bed exactly like the one in her room at home. With his job as attorney and now as a serious U.S. Senate candidate, it seemed that she slept here more than at home. Quinn suffered plenty of guilt over that.
“Mercy, Quinn, you’re soaked. And where are your shoes?”
“I left them on the porch. It was muddy out at the farm. Also, when I got home,