Carla Neggers - Secrets of the Lost Summer

Jess downshifted as she turned onto the quiet one-lane road. They were only two miles from the village center, but it seemed farther. “Mark says the house should be condemned.”

“At least someone should clear the junk out of the yard. Grace hasn’t seen it, has she? She’d be devastated.”

“I don’t think she’s been back here since she moved out.”

Olivia noticed a rusted refrigerator on its side amid brambles, melting snow and brown, wet leaves. Whoever had bought the house two years ago from Grace Webster, a retired English and Latin teacher, hadn’t done a thing to it.

“How did a refrigerator end up in the yard?” Olivia asked.

“I don’t know,” Jess said. “Kids, probably. The house has sat empty for two years. There’s a washing machine, too.”

Indeed there was.

Olivia had asked her friend Maggie O’Dunn, a local caterer, to find out what she could about the absentee owner. So far, Maggie had discovered only that it was an older gentleman from out west. California, probably. Maggie, however, was sure that her mother, Elly, who worked at the town offices, could produce a name and address.

“Why would someone from California buy a house in Knights Bridge and then disappear?” Olivia asked.

Jess shook her head. “No idea.”

The Websters had moved to Knights Bridge more than seventy years ago, after they were forced out of their home in one of the Swift River Valley towns that was depopulated and flooded for the reservoir. Grace was a teenager then. She never married and lived in her family home alone until a small assisted living facility opened in town and she finally decided to move.

Olivia pondered the situation as the truck rattled down the road to her own house, a gem set among open fields, stone walls and traditional, well-established landscaping. When the house was built in 1803, the road wound into a pretty valley village, now under water. These days the road led to a Quabbin gate, then through what was now a wilderness and eventually straight into the reservoir itself, a reminder that, as beautiful as it was, it was a product of both man and nature.

Jess pulled into the gravel driveway. “Do you want to wait for Dad and Mark to get off work, or shall we unload the truck ourselves?”

“We loaded it ourselves. We can unload it. Unless you have something else you need to do—”

“Nope. I’m all yours for the day.”

“Thanks, Jess.”

“No problem. It’ll be great having you back in town.”

Olivia got out of the truck, herb seedlings cuddled in her arms like little babies. The air was cold, clean, smelling faintly of wet leaves. “Home sweet home,” she whispered, even as she felt a stab of panic at the uncertainty of her future.

Jess joined her on the driveway. “It’s so quiet here. You’re close to the village, but that way…” She paused and gestured down the road, toward Quabbin. “That way, Liv, it’s nothing but wilderness and water for miles and miles.”

Olivia smiled. “I know. It’s perfect.”

“So you say now. Wait until it’s two o’clock on a moonless night, and it’s just you out here with the bats, bears, eagles and mountain lions.”

“There’s been no confirmed sighting of mountain lions yet in Quabbin.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be the first to see one,” Jess said with a grin.

They went inside before unloading the truck. The rustic, homey kitchen, in an ell off the original 1803 structure, was washed in the bright midday light. Her friend Maggie had left a lunch basket and a milk-glass pitcher of forced forsythia on the table, a square, battered piece of junk Olivia had discovered at a yard sale and repaired and painted a warm, cheerful white.

She felt some of her tension ease. It was almost as if the forsythia were smiling at her. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to get her stuff from Boston into the house and make it feel like home.

Jess lifted chocolate chip cookies, apples and cloth napkins out of the basket. “Lunch first, or unload the truck first?”

Olivia opened the refrigerator and found sandwiches and a mason jar of tea. She grinned at her sister. “I’m starving. My question is whether we have the cookies first or the sandwiches first.”

Jess handed her an index card she found in the basket. “Maggie left you a note.”

Olivia glanced at her friend’s messy handwriting: Mom came through with info on the owner of Grace Webster’s old house.

Maggie had jotted down a name and address.

“Dylan McCaffrey,” Olivia said, not recognizing the name. “Ever hear of him, Jess?”

Her sister bit into an apple. “Uh-uh.”

It was a San Diego address. Far away for the owner of a wreck of a house in Knights Bridge to be living.

Olivia slid the card under the edge of the pitcher of forsythia. She didn’t care where Dylan McCaffrey lived or why he’d bought the house up the road. She just wanted him to clean up the place.

Two

The note was handwritten on a simple yet elegant white card decorated with a sprig of purple clover. It came with a half-dozen color photographs in a matching envelope, also with a clover sprig. Dylan McCaffrey pushed back his chair, put his size-twelve leather shoes on his desk and contemplated his twentieth-story view of San Diego, which, on a good day, such as today, was nothing short of breathtaking.

Who the hell was Olivia Frost, and where the hell was Knights Bridge, Massachusetts?

Dylan read the note again. The handwriting was neat, legible and feminine, done in forest-green ink—probably a fountain pen.

Dear Mr. McCaffrey,

We’ve never met, but I’m your neighbor in Knights Bridge. I own the center-chimney 1803 house just down the road from your house.

Dylan stopped right there. What was a center-chimney house, and why was he supposed to care?

He gritted his teeth and continued reading:

You might not be aware of this, but your house is in rough shape. The structure itself isn’t my concern, but the yard is. It’s overgrown and strewn with junk, including, as you can see from the enclosed photographs, a discarded refrigerator.

He had lined up the photographs side by side on his dark wood desk. He glanced at the leftmost one. It did, in fact, show a rusted white refrigerator cast on its side amid brambles and melting snow. The fridge had to be at least thirty years old. Maybe older. He wasn’t an expert on refrigerators.

He returned to the note:

I understand if you’re unable to clean up the yard yourself and would like to offer to do it myself, with your permission. Of course, I’ll waive any liability if I get hurt, and if I find anything of value, I’ll let you know.

My family runs a small business in town that specializes in architectural reproductions and components—doors, windows, mantels and so forth. We’ve been in Knights Bridge for generations. I would hate to get the town involved in this matter. I look forward to putting it behind us and meeting you one day soon.

Thank you so much,

Olivia Frost

Whoever she was, Dylan suspected Olivia Frost thought the man she was writing to was old, or at least feeble. He was neither. He had to admire how she managed to offer help at the same time she threatened to sic the town on him, an outsider. His main issue with her note, however, was more immediate and direct.

He didn’t own property in Knights Bridge, Massachusetts.

He dropped his feet back to the floor and tapped a few keys on his laptop, pinpointing the town on a map of Massachusetts. It was on the northern edge of what appeared to be a large lake, the largest by far in the small New England state.

He sat back.

Knights Bridge and Olivia Frost still didn’t ring any bells.

He was about to zoom in for a closer view when Noah Kendrick entered the sprawling corner office. The door was open. Noah and Dylan had been best friends since first grade in a Los Angeles suburb. Noah, the genius geek. Dylan, the C-student hockey player. Now they were business partners, except it wasn’t that simple. Dylan owed Noah his livelihood and maybe even his life. Noah said the same thing about Dylan, but it wasn’t true and they both knew it. NAK, Inc., was Noah’s brainchild, a four-year-old, highly profitable high-tech entertainment software company named for him—Noah Andrew Kendrick. Dylan had just helped put it together and keep it together. He knew how to fight. Noah didn’t.