When she returned to Wendell’s that night, she took a hard look at her bank account. She’d taken a break from work when Jeremiah had first come to stay with her. And now she’d taken another six days away from her studio.
Her last vacation had occurred almost a year ago and she was due for time off, definitely. Yet the Remy of a month ago would have scoffed at the idea of spending her “vacation” assisting a man without a memory who could not be her boyfriend and helping another man with a messy house hunt for his lost love. This wasn’t exactly Tahiti, was it? Even so, she wasn’t ready to end her time here which is why it was disconcerting to watch her balance tick lower and lower. She figured she could afford to stay another few weeks—tops. As soon as Project Wendell ended, she’d go.
On the fourth day of searching, Jeremiah suggested that he might have saved his notes on a digital platform. They pulled chairs up to his computer and visited the most prominent cloud storage sites to see if typing his email address into the log-in screen revealed that he had an account at any of them. Remy was infuriatingly distracted by how sinfully good he smelled and the sight of his adept hands moving over the keyboard. They located an account at Dropbox. After resetting his password, they accessed the account. There were documents there but none pertaining to Alexis.
On the fifth day of searching, they combed his bank statements to see if he paid either for office space outside his home or storage space anywhere. He did not. Though it was intriguing to see where he spent his money. On normal things, it turned out. Food, clothing, his house, utilities, entertainment, travel. It washow muchhe spent on those things that left her breathless.
September had given way to October and where were his notes?
Also, would he notice if she disposed of the soap he used here at Appleton? No woman could be expected to be productive in the company of a man who smelled that enticing.
Remy wished she could hit a button and an automated voice would respond by asking, “What about this?” so she didn't have to voice the words. She’d spoken the sentence on repeat to Wendell as they'd continued their donate/keep/store sorting process.
She held up a wooden box after lunch on Sunday. “What about this?”
“That,” Wendell replied with gravity, “is the cleverest box that ever was.”
It didn’t help that Wendell was sentimental and wanted to hang on to much more than he should have. From where he sat, on a chair in his bedroom, he extended age-spotted hands to her.
She passed the box over.
He cradled it. “This belonged to our son Elliot. It was passed down to him by Ruth Ann’s father. And it had been passed down to Ruth Ann’s father by his grandfather. It’s a feat of workmanship that you’ll appreciate, seeing as how you’re a woodworker yourself.”
Remy, sitting cross-legged on the floor, pushed her tongue against her back teeth to keep herself from saying that the box did not look to her like a feat of workmanship. It looked like a simple rectangle with a hinged lid and a piece of trim at its base.
“Elliot used to keep his bottle caps in this.” He opened the top and his leprechaun face creased with delight. “They’re still here. It’s good to know that some things don’t change.” She sensed Wendell’s thoughts traveling back in time to when Elliot had been young enough to collect bottle caps in his bedroom on Islehaven. Elliot was now fifty and a city controller in Maryland. “This box has a secret. It’s not as it appears at first glance. See if you can figure it out.” He handed it down to her.
Remy poured the bottle caps onto the floor, then took her time examining the box. She tested the different surfaces, tugging gently on the flat planes. The inside right wall of the box slid upward. She drew it higher until the piece of wood came out in her hand. On its bottom edge, a metal column similar in size to the point of a tack protruded. Now that she’d removed this piece from the box, she could see two depressions in the bottom corner of the box that awaited metal columns.
She chewed on her lip, thinking.
“You’re on the right track,” Wendell encouraged.
“Don’t tell me the answer.”
“And ruin your fun? I wouldn’t dare.”
So . . . if she turned the piece of wood around, then fit it back into place, the column would slot into the hole it had not been resting in before.
She tried it andthere.
Aclick. Instantly, the piece of trim on the right side jutted out, revealing a shallow hidden compartment. Inside, Elliot had kept his most prized bottle caps. One orange Fanta and one root beer.
Wendell clapped. “Well done.”
Remy revised her earlier mediocre opinion of the workmanship involved in creating this box. Hats off to the person who’d had the imagination to add a secret drawer.
A niggle grew at the edge of her mind, whispering to her that there was something more here—a connection she should see.
What did an old box, bottle caps, or a secret storage space have to do with anything relevant to her?
And then in a wash of tingles, the answer occurred to her.
Jeremiah was in his home gym—riding his Peloton, listening to indie rock, and watching sports—when he registered banging coming from somewhere else in the house. He slowed, silencing the music.
Yeah, definitely banging. On his front door.
He wiped his face, hair, and hands with a towel, then made his way toward the sound.
