Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
ELLA
A va reached the cottage at the same time as me, and I instantly went in for a much-needed hug. “What’s happened, El?” she asked as she squeezed her arms around me. “Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”
We held hands and walked inside. Ava walked right into the kitchen to put on the kettle. I carried my backpack to the sofa and let it slide off my shoulders, so I could do a proper plop on the couch. The smell of cinnamon filled the house as Ava took out two packets of cinnamon apple tea and dropped them into cups.
Her cheeks were pink from the cold. It made her eyes green like emeralds. She sat down next to me. “So, tell me. What has you so upset?”
“It’s nothing really.” I was feeling a little silly for making such a big deal about everything.
“That hug wasn’t nothing.” She sat up straighter. “Was it him? The man who bought the old house? Did he?—”
“No, Rhett didn’t do anything. It was me. You know how I can be overly nosy.”
“Inquisitive,” Ava added with her brilliant splash of a smile. “That’s what Nonna called it.”
“And sometimes she told me I was nosy. She was right. Rhett has this terrible burn scar on his left arm, and he’s made it clear that he doesn’t like to talk about it, but you know me—can’t keep my nosy nose out of other people’s business.”
“Sometimes wounds like that are so profound and personal and life-changing, people don’t like to think about them. In Ghana, I worked for this team manager named Kyle. Nice guy. He had a deep, Frankenstein-style scar across his forehead. I swear it looked as if he’d given himself brain surgery and then stitched it up all by himself with a needle and thread. The other team members who’d been on site for a few weeks before me immediately warned me not to ask about the scar.”
“Did you ever find out what happened?”
Ava shook her head. “Nope, there was all kinds of speculation, and if he’d told us what happened that would have stopped us from coming up with our own theories. It would have been much easier to ignore the scar, too, because whenever we were talking face-to-face it was hard not to stare at it, trying to figure out what’d happened.” She hopped up to pour the water for tea and returned a short time later with two fragrant, steaming cups. She placed them on the coffee table and sat back down. “That can’t be all. Did he get angry with you? Did it ruin your chances to get your story finished?”
“Actually, I’ve got all I need.” I patted the backpack. “All thanks to Rhett.”
“Why were you so upset?”
I took the tea and settled into the cushions. “Well—” I started. I knew I wouldn’t have to finish because Ava would figure it out. We Lovely sisters were mind readers when it came to each other’s innermost thoughts.
Ava sat forward fast enough that some of the hot tea splashed on her thumb. “You like him. You like the strange owner of creepy manor.”
“It certainly takes the shine off the crush when you refer to him as ‘the strange owner of creepy manor.’ But yes, guilty as charged. I realized it today at lunch. But that’s all right. You know how long my crushes last.”
Ava picked up her tea, turned to the side and bent her knees up on the cushion. “You do have the attention span of a six-week-old puppy when it comes to men.”
“Look who’s talking. I learned from the pro.”
“That’s true. Neither of us has a great track record. I envy Isla and Aria. They really have found their soulmates this time.”
“They have.”
The scent of cinnamon, the hot tea and the cozy chat with my sister was just what I needed. I was feeling much better and eager to get started on my article.
“Do you think you’ll go back to the house?” Ava asked. “Or was that it with the mysterious, scarred owner of Grimstone?”
The question produced an ache in my chest. Was that truly the last time I’d see Rhett other than passing in town occasionally with an awkward nod and hello? Maybe this crush wouldn’t be as easy to erase as I thought. “I need more information about the next owners of the house, but I suppose I can find some of that in the library. Margaret had no children, so she passed the house and family fortune on to a cousin. I’m sure I can find more about him because he was a man. The papers couldn’t be bothered to write about Margaret even though she had numerous accomplishments.”
“I suppose that’s not surprising. Especially back in the late Victorian period. You never answered—was that your last visit to Grimstone?”
I snuggled back farther into the cushions, looking for more warmth in the drafty room. “I don’t know. He certainly is a man who is full of secrets. Dark secrets, at that.”
Ava laughed. “Maybe he has a crazy wife living up in a secret wing on the top floor. You’ve always dreamed of a Mr. Rochester type. And didn’t the story end with Rochester getting severely scarred in a fire that his nutty wife started?”
I raised a brow at her. “I think I would have heard her cackling and lurking around upstairs. So, no, I don’t think he has a crazy wife hidden in the house. But something happened to him, something that messed up his previous life, something he obviously doesn’t feel comfortable telling me about.” I yawned. “I got up at the crack of dawn. I think I need a nap and then I’m going to start my story. I’m going to push everything else out of my mind. I need this piece to be brilliant, so I can wow the editors … and the readers.”
I walked into the bedroom, hopped onto my bed and pulled up the quilt, ready for the earlier drowsiness to sink back in. Instead, I tossed and turned for twenty minutes before finally throwing back the quilt and sitting up. The morning had started brilliantly, and the afternoon ended gloomily. I was still stinging from all of it, and I’d found that sometimes I did my best work when my emotions were running high. I hurried out to grab my backpack and laptop. Ava was on a video call with a friend. I tiptoed out of the room and settled back under the quilt as I sat up against the green wooden headboard. Layla had covered it with unicorn and pony stickers when she was little, and we’d never peeled them off. I sat right between Sparky, a glittery white unicorn, and Emmie, a black-and-white pony with pink ribbons in her mane.
I opened the computer and a new document. More often than not, I’d stare at the blank page and chew my lip deciding how to start, but not this afternoon. I knew exactly where to start my article about Margaret Grimstone:
We’ve all grown up hearing urban legends. Stories about things like Chupacabra, an odd creature with leathery gray skin and a bony spine, lurking in the dark, sucking the blood of livestock. What teen hasn’t at least once stood in a dark bathroom and repeated "Bloody Mary" into the mirror, only to run screaming in terror after seeing their own reflection? Or what about the most famous urban legend of all—the giant hairy creature who strolls through backwoods and forests, and whenever he’s caught on film, he manages to make even the best, most professional camera equipment spit out blurry, smeared photos.
Urban legends can also take the form of a curse, a superstition born of a repeating pattern of unfortunate events, like the Curse of the Bambino, the only rational explanation that baseball lovers could come up with to explain why the champion Red Sox started a decades-long losing streak after they traded the incomparable Babe Ruth to the Yankees. While diamonds are generally considered to be spectacular and certainly bring joy and happiness to people all over the world, the Hope Diamond was said to be cursed because it was rumored to have been stolen from a spiritual Hindu statue. Some curses have historical names, like the Curse of Tippecanoe, which follows a pattern of presidential deaths through history. And then, of course, there is the most famous of all, mostly due to Hollywood and old-time horror movies—the Curse of the Mummy. When the fifth Earl of Carnarvon died of a blood infection just months after funding the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, word instantly got around that the whole team was cursed for disturbing the tomb.
A curse may also be localized, but that doesn’t make it any less worthy of note. Take Whisper Cove, for instance—a scenic, sleepy coastal town wrapped around a cove. Its steep cliffsides jut out over the Pacific. Visitors flock there in summer and early fall to enjoy some of the best views on the coast. In the center of town, atop a well-sloped hill overgrown with dune grass, snowy aster and violet and purple wildflowers, sits Grimstone Manor. The old house’s shingles now hang sloppily like an ill-fitting suit, and its windows are gray and dingy with time, but it once stood tall and proud and elegant, an architectural masterpiece whose every detail had been painstakingly planned and chosen by a woman—something unheard of at the time. This woman suffered a heartbreak that changed the trajectory of her life—a heartbreak that brought her to Whisper Cove.
V oices pulled my attention from the keyboard, and the spell was broken. I’d gotten a good start, but I heard Luke’s deep voice in the living room. I hadn’t seen him in a week, and I had a question to ask him. I closed my laptop and hurried out to the front room.
Luke and Isla were still both bundled in their winter gear. He was wearing a sharp black coat and leather gloves and, as always, looked dreamy. Isla spotted me first as Luke helped her off with her coat.
“Hey, Ella, how is the story coming? Find anything interesting in that old house? What’s the owner like?”
Isla’s hurricane of questions was the perfect springboard for my own question. “The story is going well. Yes, I found lots of interesting stuff, and the jury is still out on the owner. But I’m hoping Luke can help me with that.”
Luke looked over his shoulder as he hung up the coats. “Me?”
“Yes, you.” I waved my hand at the empty couch. Isla shrugged at Luke, and they walked over to sit down. Ava was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a book on her lap. I sat behind her on the big chair.
“How can I help?” Luke asked.
“The new owner of Grimstone Manor is an acquaintance of yours. Rhett Lockwood.”
Luke looked confused for a second and then his face smoothed with recognition. “You mean Edward Lockwood? I think Rhett is his real name, but he used his middle name, Edward, when he started his business.” Luke paused and sat forward. “Rhett Lockwood bought that old wreck of a house?”
“So, you do know him,” I said.
“Not well, but we traveled in some of the same social circles, at least, back when we were in our twenties.”
It was my turn to sit forward with surprise. “The same social circles—as in the billion-dollar boys’ club circles?”
Luke chuckled. “Not that we called it that, but Rhett is worth a great deal of money, especially now. He sold his company, Lockwood Navigational Software, last year for three billion dollars.”
I sat back so hard a puff of air blew out of my mouth. “Three billion dollars?”
“That’s what I’ve heard, anyway”—Luke lifted a brow at me— “through the ‘billion-dollar boys’ club.’”
“What on earth is a billionaire doing with Grimstone Manor?” Ava asked.
Luke rubbed his brow in thought. “Hmm, my information is less clear on the rest of his life, but I do know that there was a car accident. His business partner died in it. They were best friends growing up, and they started the business together.” Luke nodded as if he remembered something else. He did. And it was a doozy.
“The police arrested Rhett on suspicion that he’d caused the accident. It was all very vague and, of course, the rumors ran rampant.” Luke looked pointedly at me.
I finished the sentence for him. “In the billion-dollar boys’ club. Yes, I’m regretting that phrase now. But continue. I’m mortified and, at the same time, beyond intrigued.”
Isla laughed. “You’re intrigued that you’ve been hanging out with a possible murderer?”
“That’s right. I’m a journalist now. Can’t think of a better way to earn respect in the business than by endangering myself on my first assignment. Wait. He’s not really a murderer, is he?”
Ava laughed. “And the shine wore off that moment of intrigue very quickly.”
“He was released shortly after, so I assume there was nothing to the arrest,” Luke said.
“Or he just had a very good, very expensive lawyer,” Isla noted.
The front door opened, and Layla came in with a burst of energy. “There are lights on in Audrey’s cottage,” she blurted as she struggled to shed all her layers.
“Really?” Isla pulled out her phone. “Audrey owns the cottage on the right side of us,” Isla explained to Luke. “Her husband died three years ago, and she moved in with her daughter, but she kept the cottage. Her husband built it with his own hands, so she didn’t have the heart to sell. She rents it in summer, so it’s unusual for there to be lights on at other times. We keep an eye on the place for her.” Isla sent off a text.
Audrey’s cottage held little interest for me at the moment. I’d learned some incredible details about the man I’d spent the last two days with, the man I’d formed somewhat of a crush on, the man who seemed to be an endless river of secrets.
Isla got a return text. “Interesting,” she said as she looked at the screen. “Audrey says she rented the cottage to a woman for the next month. She said she warned the woman that the weather would be cold and wet and that some of the beaches down south would be warmer, but she insisted she wanted to stay in Whisper Cove.” Isla looked up. “That solves the mystery.”
“One mystery, anyway,” I muttered mostly to myself.
“Is everyone hungry?” Isla asked.
“Yes!” the others answered. Except me. Not that I wasn’t hungry. I was starved. But I had a lot of other things on my mind. This first assignment was getting more interesting by the minute.