Chapter Seven
Chase
Life in Winters House was a little too crowded for my taste, but I couldn't deny the meals were worth the inconvenience. Abel, the Winters’ full-time chef, was a taciturn, burly man. I hadn't been surprised to find out he'd served his time in the Navy in a kitchen.
He might have been a man of few words, but he said all he needed to with his cooking. Breakfast on weekdays was fairly standard. Eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, coffee, and juice.
On a Saturday morning, breakfast was a completely different meal.
All of the usual full-time residents of Winters House were there: Aiden, Gage, his wife Sophie, and their great-aunt Amelia.
Added to them were Violet, myself, and Annalise—who had come looking for food after seeing her husband Riley off for some top-secret project that demanded his attendance at the crack of dawn on a weekend.
In any other dining room, we would have been a crowd. In the dining room of Winters House, we barely filled half the table. The room was spectacular, more suited for a state dinner than a family breakfast.
None of the Winters seemed to notice. I'd been eating there for over two weeks and I still couldn't stop staring.
The long, polished table stretched the length of the room, surrounded by heavy, ornately carved wooden chairs with dark velvet seats. At one end was an enormous stone fireplace, left cold this time of year.
The beamed ceiling rose two full stories above, and along the end opposite the fireplace, an iron-railed gallery framed a library filled with books.
Usually, the majesty of the dining room was a distraction, but after an early morning run, my stomach took precedence over my surroundings.
I wasn't usually a huge breakfast guy, but my sweet tooth and ten miles on the road collided in a plate stacked high with fluffy waffles, butter melting in the crispy indentations, fragrant real maple syrup sinking in.
Bacon piled high. Round, crisp links of sausage.
A fluffy biscuit slathered in homemade blackberry jam.
It was a good thing the Winters had the gym downstairs. I was going to need it to burn off Abel's cooking.
I looked across the table at my sister, and my heart eased at the relaxed happiness in her lavender eyes.
She'd spent too much of her life on her own. Our parents had focused entirely on her after they’d kicked me out and spent most of those years telling her she wasn’t good enough.
She wasn’t worth their time. Their investment.
As if she’d been their portfolio and not their child.
I’d tried to make up for the damage they’d caused, but an older brother can only do so much. Aiden Winters was good for her. Violet was as strong-willed as they came, and she needed a man who could stand up to her. A man who appreciated her strength. She’d found that man in Aiden.
I let the sounds of conversation flow around me as I focused on my waffles. I didn't look up until I heard someone say my name. Aunt Amelia was looking at me, a sparkle in her clear blue eyes and a mischievous grin wrinkling her lips.
The Winters’ great-aunt Amelia was eighty years old, and technically Sophie was her nurse, charged with managing her diabetes and generally keeping Amelia out of trouble.
The first part of her job was simple enough, but the second was apparently a significant challenge.
I'd heard a few stories about Amelia's pranks, and I'd been careful to stay on her good side. Unlike my sister, I didn't want to come home to a snake under my pillow.
Realizing she'd been trying to get my attention, I said, "What's up?"
"I hear you've been going to Annabelle's a lot," she said.
"Huh, you did? Who'd you hear that from?"
"From Annabelle," she said as if it were obvious. "Are you pestering that girl?"
"Depends on what you mean by pestering," I hedged.
"Are you sniffing around her? Have you asked her out yet?"
"Amelia," Annalise cut in. "Leave Chase alone."
She looked at me and rolled her eyes mouthing, Sorry. I shook my head, so she knew I wasn't bothered. Amelia was full of piss and vinegar, and I liked it.
"I wouldn't say I’m pestering her, but I did ask her out. She turned me down."
"You give up too easy then," Amelia said, raising an eyebrow.
"Chase never gives up on anything," Violet cut in.
My sister knew me inside and out. I wasn’t a quitter, and I never walked away from something I wanted.
I wasn't giving up on Annabelle. Not that my feelings for Annabelle were any of their business. But I wanted to dig for information and the best way to get information was to give a little. To prime the pump, as it were.
"I asked her out, she turned me down, and I decided the best thing to do was spend a little time with her. Let her get to know me. That way when I ask her out again, she'll say yes."
Aunt Amelia laughed, the sound more a cackle than anything else. "Good luck with that one," she said through her amusement.
"What does that mean?" I asked, looking at Annalise. If anyone knew what Amelia was getting at, it would be Lise. Annalise looked at the table, rearranging her knife and fork beside one another with precision, avoiding my eyes.
It was Aiden who filled in the gaps. "This is Annabelle's business, but she was married, and it didn't end well."
"He was a jackass," Gage cut in, "and if it hadn't been for—"
"Gage. Enough." Aiden said and Gage, who loved nothing more than to bicker with his older cousin, fell silent.
Aiden gave me a measuring look that stretched almost uncomfortably long before he said, "It's Annabelle's story to tell. I won't go behind her back. She doesn’t need a one-night stand."
Locking eyes with Aiden, I said honestly, "A one-night stand is the last thing I'm interested in with Annabelle."
"Then you're going to need patience. And you need to understand that she has good reason to be wary. Maybe you don't deserve it, but she doesn't know that yet."
I was digesting Aiden's revelations when, from the other side of the table, Lise said, "I wish I'd been here for her. I was halfway across the country and I didn't know. I'm a shitty friend."
Violet, who was sitting next to her, reached out a hand and wrapped it around Lise’s fingers, giving her a comforting squeeze.
Quietly, she said, "Lise, Annabelle understands. Everybody understands. Don't feel guilty. You kept yourself safe. That’s what she wanted for you."
"I know," Annalise said in a near whisper. "I’m still sorry I wasn’t here for her."
Looking to lighten the mood, Aunt Amelia clapped her hands together with a sharp crack saying, "I can feel it in my bones, today is the day. We're going to find what we're looking for."
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was more than happy to change the subject. "What are you looking for?"
Before she answered, Amelia cocked her head to the side, her bright eyes locked on mine and said, "What are your plans for the day? Do you want to help?"
Having no idea what I was agreeing to, I decided I was game for an adventure. "Sure. What's the plan? Are we robbing a bank? Hiding a body?"
Aunt Amelia winked at Violet and said, "I like your brother, Vivi." The Winters family had adopted my childhood nickname for Violet, and by the gentle smile on her face, it seemed she liked it.
"So?" I probed.
"It seems there are secret hiding places in the library," Aiden said.
"We found one of them when William Davis broke in to retrieve a box of letters he'd written to your mother.
My father mentioned them a few times. There are supposed to be three, but he died before he told us where they were, and Mrs. W doesn't know.
We've been looking for six months, but we haven’t found a thing. "
"We've been looking," Amelia corrected pointing at Sophie across the table. "The rest of you lot have mostly been getting in the way."
"Which library?" I asked, looking up to the polished railing and narrow walkway above Aiden's head on the far side of the room. It was a library in miniature, tucked into the second level on the dining room, apparently inaccessible.
The secret library was one of the many unique features of Winters House, but the whimsical pointlessness of it in the elegant, stately home made it my favorite. I'd wanted to poke around up there, but I hadn't found the time to ask.
As one, the group shifted in their seats to look at the library above us. Sophie's eyes widened, and she and Amelia stared at each other in shocked surprise.
"How is it we've never looked up there?" Sophie asked.
Amelia grunted and poked her in the shoulder with a bony finger. "You should have thought of it. I'm an old woman. I'm practically senile."
"Right," Sophie said with a roll of her eyes.
Before anyone else could get there before me, I called out, "Dibs on the secret library!"
"Unfair!" Amelia called back "We've been looking for months. We get dibs on everything."
Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but Aiden got there first. "If you wanted dibs, you should have thought of it first. Chase thought of it. Chase gets to look."
"We can all look," Amelia tried.
"No, you can't. Not enough room," Aiden said, firmly cutting her off.
To me, the side of his mouth lifted in a grin, he said, "Mrs. W has the key.
I'd ask her about the secret compartments.
She didn't remember anything about the main library, but maybe taking a look at the library upstairs will shake something loose. "
"Thanks," I said, rising from the table. "Anyone want to tell me what I'm looking for?"
Gage shrugged a shoulder. "We would if we knew. The compartment holding the box with the letters was about eighteen inches square, hidden behind a row of books. The others could be bigger, smaller—"
"Or they might not exist at all," Aiden said.
"You don't think there are more secret compartments?" I asked.
"Maybe there are, maybe there aren't," he said. "So far, the fun seems to be in the looking."
"Got it," I said, pushing my chair in and heading for the door to the butler's pantry on the far side of the dining room. I hadn’t gotten used to leaving my dirty dishes on the table, but I'd quickly learned that neither Mrs. W nor Abel appreciated my attempts to do their jobs for them.
I didn't hear the voices until the door separating the butler's pantry from the dining room swung shut behind me.
Alone in the small room lined with glass-covered cabinets filled with dishes, wine glasses, and other dining implements, I stood frozen as the argument taking place in the kitchen leaked through the second swinging door.
I should have left. Eavesdropping was rude, and whatever the two in the kitchen were arguing about, it was none of my business. I stayed anyway. I recognized the voices.
Mrs. W's normally smooth, clear tones were jagged with frustration and a note of something I thought might be fear. Or pain. Maybe both. Abel rarely spoke, but I recognized his gruff, low voice immediately. Like Mrs. W, he was frustrated. Angry.
"Helen, how long are we going to keep doing this? There's no point to it. None of those kids mind. They love you. They like my cooking well enough that they're not kicking me out."
"That's not the point," Mrs. W replied, her voice tight, the clink of dishes in the sink chopping up her words. "There's so much going on with the family right now. I just think we should keep it quiet. Wait a little longer."
A thump, like a fist pounding the counter. "There's always something going on with the family. There's never going to be a good time. Now is the time. I love you. I love you, and I'm tired of sneaking around."
"Abel. Abel." Her voice softened the second time she said his name, gentle and anguished.
"Why is that so hard to hear, Helen?"
A long, still, silence, during which I seriously thought about sneaking away. I shouldn't be listening to this conversation. It was private and deeply personal.
But the kitchen was so quiet I was afraid that if I opened the door back to the dining room, they'd know I'd been in here listening.
I stayed where I was, silent and still, and waited.