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She approached and looked at the stacks of journals Adam was perusing. “I’d never heard of her, but apparently, she was a schoolteacher and very involved in town life. But she didn’t leave any belongings or letters behind, so we don’t know too much about her. In several of his letters and diaries starting in 1892, Captain Marcus refers to someone asM, and I couldn’t help wondering if he was talking about Millicent.”
“Does he mention her anywhere else?”
“Not that I know of. But I don’t know nearly all of the people he corresponded with and wrote about. He has so many letters and journals that it would take months to read them all.”
“I don’t see it here.” Adam stepped aside to let Bee look at the stacks of diaries on the shelves. “Does he have documents anywhere else?”
“Yes, at the museum and the archives at Skyline College. I can go back to the museum tomorrow and also ask my friend Callie to check at the college.” Bee turned to the desk, where she’d left the box Edith had brought over. “This is all from an exhibition about the women of Bliss Cove, which included a display about Millicent.”
She took out the scanned newspaper articles, turn-of-the-century textbooks and primers, a sewing box, embroidered handkerchiefs, a little china statuette, and a volunteer badge from WWI.
“Apparently, all of her belongings were either donated or destroyed.” Bee picked up an article and studied the picture of a group of women in front of the town hall. “It’s funny that Captain Marcus left so much behind, yet Millicent Pepper left almost nothing. But then…he died unexpectedly, and she lived well into her nineties. So maybe she just wanted to get her affairs in order.”
“Did they know each other?” Adam moved closer to her, and she caught a whiff of his masculine scent—oranges and spice. Her blood warmed.
“Possibly.” She fought the urge to turn her head and inhale a deep lungful of him. “Edith didn’t know for sure, but she said everyone in Bliss Cove was acquainted with the Marcuses, so it’s likely.”
Adam squinted at the newspaper photo. “Which one is she?”
Bee checked the caption and pointed at an attractive woman in the back row, her face framed by her large hat.
Adam tugged his phone out of his pocket and swiped the screen. He brought up an image of a Victorian woman, her smile wide enough to crease her eyes and bring out the dimples in her cheeks.
“I found this in one of the photo boxes.” He gestured to the shelf. “It said unidentified woman, but it looks like it could be her.”
He brought his phone closer to the newspaper photo. Although the newspaper reproduction was grainy and slightly blurred—and the woman in the photo was at least twenty or thirty years older than the Victorian woman—the shape of their faces and eyes were the same.
“What do you think?” Adam asked.
“They certainly look similar.” Bee searched in the box for the other newspaper articles and spread them out on the table. Two had accompanying photos—one about an event at the school and another about the women’s league and their rules and regulations for the boardwalk.
Millicent Pepper was identified in both photos, and Bee took a magnifying glass out of the desk so she and Adam could look at her more closely.
After several comparisons, they both agreed that the Victorian woman and the schoolteacher were one and the same.
“I wonder why she wasn’t identified before.” Bee put the magnifying glass back in the drawer. “Or why her photo was among Captain Marcus’s belongings.”
Her heart jumped. She turned to look at Adam. “What if they were romantically involved?”
Skepticism rose to his eyes, and he shook his head. “That’s a stretch. Just because her photo was with all his other stuff doesn’t mean they were an item.”
“But it also doesn’t mean that theyweren’t.”
“Good point.”
“He wrote about the mysterious M with a lot of romantic feelings.” Bee put the photos back into the box. “Stuff about her favorite foods and flowers and about how many times he’d danced with her. I’m going to read more of his October entries later. Somewhere he has to mention her full name.”
“And if it’s Millicent?”
“Then we’ve found something about Captain Marcus that no one else has.” Bee set the lid on the box and gave him a smile. “Dinner?”
“Definitely.”
They went into the break room, and Bee unpacked her basket. She’d brought plenty of extras tonight, and Adam made no apologies about putting his fast-food burrito aside and digging into her sandwiches, quiches, and cheese twists.
As they ate, he told her openly about his parents—and the conflict of love, appreciation, admiration, and frustration that had colored his relationship with them in recent years.
His expression softened when he spoke about his older sister, who’d never wavered in her loyalty or her belief that he’d been wronged. He was leaving the day before Halloween to attend his parents’ big fortieth-anniversary party, which Laura had been planning for several months.
