Marta Perry - Where Secrets Sleep

“I’m Anna Schmidt, owner, chief cook and just about everything else at the Buttercup. I’d recommend the chicken potpie. It’s the special today, and I made it fresh this morning.”

Allison had intended to order a salad, but she sensed it might be more diplomatic to agree. “That sounds lovely.” She handed the menu back. “Just water to drink.” She’d resolved to cut down on caffeine, although possibly this stressful time wasn’t the best for healthy changes.

Allison glanced up, caught an elderly man staring at her and fished in her bag for her cell phone. Maybe she’d have to resign herself to being a subject of curiosity for a time—not that she’d intended to stay long enough to become familiar to the denizens of Laurel Ridge.

Propping her arm on the bright yellow-and-white tablecloth, she checked her messages. Nothing from either Di or Greg. Maybe that was just as well. She opened a text from Leslie, her closest friend. An attorney, Leslie’s reaction to news of an unexpected legacy had been to advise caution.

Don’t sign anything without reading it thoroughly . That was the gist of it.

The text was brief. Call and tell me all about it.

Smiling, she responded. Nothing ever as it seems. Talk later, okay?

She couldn’t expect Leslie to rush to Laurel Ridge to represent her, but Leslie would be generous with legal advice. If there was a way out of this tangle, Leslie would find it.

Anna Schmidt returned a few minutes later, bearing a steaming bowl of what appeared to be a chicken stew rich with square noodles whose uneven sides declared that they were homemade. The woman lingered until Allison took a cautious first bite. At Allison’s involuntary exclamation of pleasure, she beamed.

“Never had real homemade chicken potpie, ain’t so?”

“No, I haven’t. It’s delicious.”

“Your daadi love my chicken potpie. I was certain sure you would, too.” Still smiling, Anna turned away to attend to another customer, leaving Allison bemused.

Odd, that she hadn’t even thought of her father since arriving in Laurel Ridge. The more she considered it, the stranger it seemed. Hugh Standish had walked out of her life when she was six. She’d trained herself not to dwell on him, because doing so inevitably led to pain. That was yet another good reason for not taking up a new life in this place.

Allison had just about succeeded in dismissing her father from her thoughts by the time she returned to Blackburn House later that afternoon. She’d brought Hector along in the carrier, deciding she’d relieve the innkeeper of his presence.

Before she talked with Leslie this evening, she really needed to have a better grasp on the economics of the situation. She couldn’t expect advice if she didn’t have the facts, and Leslie was a glutton for details. She’d want to know the assessed value of the property, the taxes, the expenses and the amount of rent that came in each month before venturing an opinion as to the best course of action for Allison. The logical place to look for those answers was in the office her grandmother had maintained upstairs.

Early spring daffodils curtsied in the cool breeze that swept across the lawn in front of Blackburn House. Care of the grounds was undoubtedly her responsibility. She could only hope her grandmother had a service in place to deal with such things.

The stained-glass detail in the transom pane above the front door glowed as a slant of sunlight hit it, and the brass door handle echoed with a gleam of its own. The meticulous care that had been taken of the building seemed to indicate that Evelyn Standish had been fond of the place. Odd, surely, that it didn’t bear her family’s name.

Allison went inside, the cat carrier dangling from one hand, and nearly ran into Nick, who was just turning away from the door to his showroom, keys in his hand.

He smiled, eyes crinkling, and nodded toward the cat carrier. “You’re not going to attack me with that again, are you?”

She couldn’t seem to stop herself from responding to that smile. “I was just defending myself, remember?”

“True enough.” He reached out to test the cat carrier door, earning a hiss from Hector. “Is it holding together all right?”

“Fine, thanks.” She glanced at the door to his showroom. It bore a hand-lettered placard. Out now. Leave a note or try the workshop in back. That reminded her of her disapproval.

“Closing early today?”

Nick blinked, as if not understanding her for a moment. Then he shrugged. “I can’t waste time sitting there hoping someone will come in. If anybody does, they know to look for us back in the shop.”

She couldn’t help frowning a little as she glanced at the shop door. “Wouldn’t you get more business if you kept the showroom open?”

His brow lifted in that infuriating manner. “Know a lot about cabinetmaking, do you?”

“No, but—”

“Then maybe you ought to let me run my own business while you tend to yours.” He strode off toward the back of the building, obviously having had enough of her.

She clutched the cat carrier and stalked to the stairs. All right, fine. She’d take care of her own business. That’s what she planned to do right now. Avoiding the gaze of the bookstore proprietor, who had come hopefully to the entrance to his shop, Allison hurried upstairs toward her grandmother’s office, heels clicking on the marble stairs.

* * *

NICK, PROPELLED BY what he considered righteous indignation, stormed to the back door, but before he could reach it Ralph Mitchell darted out of the bookstore and intercepted him. Ralph’s thin pale face was anxious, his nose twitching so that he looked like an elderly rabbit.

“You were talking to her. What’s she like? What’s she going to do? Did she tell you?”

Nick curbed his annoyance with Allison and tried to look reassuring. “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s decided yet what her plans are for the building.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Ralph about the restrictions to Allison’s ownership, but he held back. Ralph’s reputation as a gossip was well deserved. He talked to everyone who visited Blackburn House, to say nothing of all the people he encountered on his daily trips to the post office and the bank. He collected tidbits of information everywhere he went, sometimes sewing them into a fantastic array of speculation, but more often than not into something very close to the truth.

Ralph would undoubtedly find out about Allison’s provisional ownership from someone, but it didn’t have to be him.

“But how can you be sure? If she sells, what’s going to happen to us?” Ralph was close to wringing his hands. “You know Evelyn hasn’t raised our rents in years. How could we find comparable places for our businesses at those prices?”

“We probably couldn’t.” That was the truth, and Ralph knew it as well as he did, but it was hardly reassuring. “Look, we don’t know anything yet. For all I’ve heard, Ms. Standish may intend to just turn the business over to a property manager to handle and head back to her job in the city. That would be the easiest thing she could do.”

“True.” Ralph pushed his glasses back up on his nose with a characteristic gesture. Usually they clung to the end of his nose and he peered over them nearsightedly. “Still, I don’t understand why she hasn’t come to talk to me yet. It makes me nervous.”

That was a good question. As far as Nick could tell, Allison seemed inclined to avoid her responsibilities here.

“I’m sure she’ll be around to see you soon.” He patted Ralph’s slumped shoulder. “No need to start worrying before you have to, right?”

“I suppose you’re right.” Ralph sounded reluctant. “But do you think—”