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“They belonged to my mother.”
Timothy picked up the page and handed it to Rory. “Then this is yours. Take the painting too.”
“Oh, I couldn’t take the painting. You purchased it.”
But Timothy smiled. “It’s fate. I assume this is what you were sneaking around our home looking for.”
Rory looked down but nodded. “I thought you might be my father,” she said to Maynard Siggins. “I’m very sorry we were dishonest. This was my fault, not Gage’s.”
Maynard shot me a look but smiled kindly when he set his gaze back on Rory. “Having children wasn’t in the cards for me. For us. But you seem lovely. I have no doubt your father will claim you with open arms.”
Fifteen minutes later, our heads bent close together, the diary entry held under the interior light of my car, we began reading.
Lys has a secret that she won’t share. I can see it’s eating her up inside. When we’re together, her eyes drift off and I can tell that whatever she’s thinking about makes her both happy and sad. It reminds me of the way she acted before she ran away from that awful home for girls. Scared and jittery, but excited too, a look of barely-contained hope in her eyes. I was with her when she chose Pelion straight off a map of Maine. She told me it’s the name of a mountain in Greek mythology and she always loved those stories of gods and mortals. Lys always did read too much, if you ask me. So that’s how she ended up in the small lake town on the other side of Calliope. And I didn’t dare even visit until her father died, may he rest in hell. I wonder if it’s true that we’re all attracted to the familiar because that husband of hers has the same mean look in his eyes that her father always did, especially when he got up to drinking. It breaks my heart to know she ran from one devil only to end up with another.
But… her husband did give her that boy of hers and God but does she love him. She looks at him like he hung the moon and all the stars. I wonder though, because it’s the same way she looks at her husband’s brother. What a mess. A god-awful mess.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rory
Gage pulled up across the street from a white stone building with two massive pillars out front, a poster with a For Sale sign in the window. I stepped from the car, craning my neck to look up at what appeared to be an old bank, as he joined me and we crossed the street.
It had been almost a week since I’d seen Gage after we’d gotten caught snooping in Maynard and Timothy’s closet, and had found another piece of my father’s artwork which unfortunately spoke of someone else I didn’t know. I’d spent the time since finishing the last of the fake appraisals so I could return the artwork to the families that had loaned it to me and walking my temporary brood on the lakeshore. I’d sat on a rock at the edge of the lake just the day before, the dogs lounging next to me, and was struck by the feeling of pure contentment. I’d closed my eyes and soaked in the unfamiliar sense of deep calm that was unconnected to my current circumstances. I hadn’t found my father yet. I’d only managed to cross one possibility off the list and the time was drawing nearer that I would have to leave. But for a moment in time, none of that seemed to matter as I gazed out at that peaceful water, framed by trees and hills and cool, shaded shores. I felt anchored in a way I never had before. I felt…a connection that I couldn’t explain.
I’d also called my uncles about the woman named Lys my mother kept mentioning in her diary entries, but they didn’t remember hearing her name. Who was she? And why had she disappeared completely from my mother’s life after she returned to Mud Gulch?
“This is the property your company owns?” I asked. Gage had called me out of the blue, asking if I wanted to check out the sunset from the roof of a property his company had recently purchased. It’d seemed like a semi-odd invitation, but in all honesty, and to my own great dismay, I’d been hungry to see him, just like I’d been when he’d called about the bridge night, and so I’d accepted immediately.
“Yeah. It was the old Calliope Savings and Loan. It closed many years ago and another company bought it but whatever they intended for it never materialized. Anyway, we obtained it from them.” He smiled somewhat tightly. “It’s a fantastic location. My father plans on demo’ing it and building here. Our other hotel location in Calliope is several miles away, so this makes sense.” He stuck a key in the lock of the massive wooden door and pushed it open. “Anyway, it’s in rough shape. But I thought, being the sunset-lover that you are, we might take advantage of the view while it’s still here.” He glanced at me. “While we’re still here.” We both stepped inside and Gage pushed the door which squeaked closed and then shut with a solid thud that echoed in the mostly empty space. He smiled, and though it was dim where we were standing, I swore I still saw something that looked like apprehension in his gaze. Why does this old building make you nervous, Gage?
I stepped forward, tipping my head back to gaze up at the carved ceiling and the elaborate trim. The marble counter stretched all along the right side of the space, wrought iron teller windows with numbers at the top separating the spaces where bank employees had once stood. “It’s incredible,” I murmured. “The things someone could do with a space like this. Your father’s really planning on tearing it down?”
Gage gave a singular nod as he massaged a spot on his chest like he might have strained a muscle there. “Well, the lot is more valuable than the building. Anyway, the view…it’s this way.” He pointed to a rickety spiral staircase that wound up to a second floor and when I followed him over to it, I caught a glimpse of the massive vault just around the corner.
I sucked in a breath and headed in that direction instead. “Wow,” I said as I entered. But then I looked back at the wide-open door, ensuring that it wasn’t going to swing shut at any moment and lock us inside. The thing was about three feet thick and made of steel. If we got stuck in here, no one would ever hear us scream. I walked to the back where there was a wall of safe-deposit boxes and ran my hand along the numbers. Here was where the original crème de la crème of Calliope kept their treasures, whatever those were. “What is it about old buildings that’s so fascinating?” I asked, turning to Gage. “Even when they’re practically empty?”
“The stories,” he said as though he’d already considered my question and come to his own conclusion. “There are stories here, ones we’ll never know.” He walked forward, joining me where I stood. “But maybe part of them lives on as whispers in the walls, ones you can feel, more than you can hear.”
I tilted my head. “Why, Gage Buchanan, who’s the romantic now?”
He laughed and pushed off the wall. “I’m full of surprises, Cakes.”
I smiled. I didn’t disagree, although I had a feeling he was more full of secrets than surprises, and perhaps ones he even kept from himself. What is that intensity radiating off of you right now, Gage?
“We’d better get upstairs if we’re going to catch that sunset.”
Gage and I clanged up the spiral staircase and stepped onto the second floor. Whatever had once been up here had been demolished as it was just an open space, taken down to the studs. “Careful,” Gage said as he stepped over a discarded board and started climbing a second staircase situated near the back. I followed him up, and then exited through the door at the top where we walked outside into the soft summer breeze. I blinked as I looked around.
It was gorgeous.
Faith had a charming outside area set up behind her gallery. It was pretty and cozy and she told me she often hosted intimate cocktail parties there. But that space was nothing like this.
Oh, the possibilities.
And yet Gage’s father couldn’t see that? What a shame to demolish something with so much potential.
A stone railing enclosed the entirety of the area, black and white tiles laid out in a diamond pattern under our feet. The space was mostly barren right now, but beautiful and full of potential though it was, that wasn’t what I was looking at. It was the view. The building that had once served as a grand bank was only three stories, but because of the massive ceilings inside, it was taller than the buildings surrounding it, and situated on a downtown street right across from the shore. As I looked out, I could see clear across Pelion Lake to Pelion itself, where quaint cottages dotted the water. The lake glittered in the glow of the tangerine sunset, the outline of the trees and the hills adding to the scenic perfection so that it looked like a painting. “My God, it’s stunning,” I breathed. “This place…it’s pure magic.”
