Pretty soon, I’ll need to rake up the leaves on the back lawn by the cottage and beneath the maple tree in the front yard, too. She didn’t mind: she’d always enjoyed helping her uncle Albert maintain the grounds. Working together had made her feel closer to him, and even though he wasn’t here now, maybe caring for the lawn was a way to recapture that feeling.
Caitlin’s phone buzzed and she took it out of her pocket and shielded the screen so she could see who was calling. “Hi, Shane,” she said brightly. “How are you?”
“Great, thanks. Beautiful morning—did I catch you during your daily walk?”
“Not really. I was just on my way back to the cottage after visiting my neighbor at the end of the cul-de-sac, Marion Graham.”
“I know Marion. She’s a gem.”
“She thinks the same about you. She was the one who gave me your name after I confided in her about the remodel.”
“That was nice. I’ll have to thank her at our next book club meeting.”
“You’re—you’re in her book club?”
“Yes. Does it surprise you that I like to read?”
“Not at all.” Caitlin hadn’t meant to be insulting, but there was a smile in Shane’s voice. “It’s just that… I assumed most of the people in Marion’s book club are women in their seventies and above.”
He chuckled. “You assumed right. Most of them are, although we’ve got a couple guys in the group, too,” he said. “I’m the youngest one by far, but I don’t mind and neither does anybody else. It’s all about the books.”
“As it should be,” said Caitlin.
“Right! So, listen, I was calling to say I stopped by and took the measurements I needed.”
“Already?” Caitlin felt a twinge of disappointment that she’d missed seeing him in person.
“Yeah. The early bird and all that,” he said. “I can write up the estimate for materials and go over each line item with you before I order anything. But I wanted to mention that while I was poking around in the loft, the window stool popped off the back window.”
“The window stool?”
“Yeah, some people refer to it as the windowsill, but technically the stool is the horizontal board across the bottomof the window. It makes a little ledge, if you can picture that? Anyway, it came right off in my hand.”
“I’m not surprised. That old thing was already starting to give way when I was in high school,” she said. “And you’d have to replace it when you install a new window anyway, right?”
“Right, but what I wanted to tell you was that when it came off, I could look down into the wall. See, there’s a… a sort of hollow pocket beneath the window, right between the stud and the plywood. It would be a lot easier to show you in person, but my point is, I found something inside that space.”
“A sac of spider eggs?” guessed Caitlin with a shudder.
“No, no, nothing like that,” laughed Shane. “It’s a small plastic pouch. Or maybe you’d call it a bag.”
“Like what you’d discard trash in?”
“No, it has a zipper on it. Reminds me of something a kid would use for storing pencils. Or for bringing a sandwich to school.”
“Oh, gross—that’s not what you found inside, was it?” asked Caitlin, aware it had been well over a month since the last guests had stayed at the cottage. If someone had hidden food in the loft, it would be rotten by now.
“I didn’t open it. I figured it belongs to you, so it’s none of my business. But it didn’t smell, so I doubt it contains food.” Shane lowered his voice. “I left it on the floor near the entrance to the windmill, and then I made sure to lock the door, just in case it’s valuable.”
Caitlin figured it was more likely something inconsequential that a child had left behind, although she was surprised the guests had access to the windmill. Maybe the housekeeping crew had forgotten to lock the door?
“Okay, I’ll grab it before I go inside the house. Thanks for letting me know about it.”
After arranging to meet the following morning at 10:00 to discuss the estimate for the materials, they said goodbye. Curious to find out what Shane had found stuffed in the wall, Caitlin hurried up the driveway and retrieved the faded blue bag from the windmill. About the size of a paperback book, it was softer and lighter than she’d expected. It was cleaner, too—Shane must have dusted it off for her.That was nice of him.
She carried the pouch into the sunroom to examine its contents. To her frustration, the zipper was rusted shut, but after several minutes of fiddling, she finally got it open. “Ta-da!”Caitlin gleefully exclaimed, feeling pleased with herself.
But when she peeked inside the bag and recognized the familiar snakeskin print material, her vision blurred with tears. Even though the fabric was balled into a compact wad, Caitlin realized it could only be one thing: Nicole’s string bikini, the one her mother wouldn’t let her wear.
