Mabel was still panting from the fifteen minutes they'd just spent outside, him throwing a tennis ball, her bounding through the snow to retrieve it. He played fetch with her at least once a day, no matter how freezing or wet, because she was one of the best things in his life. They were two of a kind—him and Mabel. Both of them mature and calm and responsible. Both had made it their mission in life to better the world.
He narrowed his eyes at the letters. They were from debt collection agencies regarding Gemma's mother's debts. He knew her mother was fragile, and it seemed clear that Gemma was fielding financial correspondence for her family in an effort to shield her mother from stress and pressure. That was admirable of Gemma. But what kind of stress and pressure had this put on her? He'd happened upon these two envelopes, but they probably indicated just a few of the debts Simone Clare was trapped under. It couldn't be easy for Gemma to have debt collectors hounding her.
Since opening the letters, he'd been worried. Worried for the Clare family and for Gemma. So much so that he hadn't slept well.
What could he do about this?
He and Gemma had a business relationship. These papers represented personal matters that went beyond the scope of that. At the Academy and in-service training, it had been drilled into him that agents were not to become friends with their confidential informants or their cooperating witnesses. Getting emotionally involved was an occupational hazard.
Despite the wisdom of that, the need to act on the Clares’ behalf was nagging at him. As an attorney, he had knowledge that could help them.
While his mind ran down potential responses to the letters, his vision cataloged the details of his surroundings. He'd built his modern cabin three years ago on the bank of the Penobscot River. The wooden floors were stained the same medium brown as the support beams on the high ceiling. Large windows let in views of river and forest. His kitchen cabinetry was so dark a green that it almost looked black. He owned high-quality furniture, but not too much of it because he liked space, clean lines, a lack of clutter.
His thoughts pulled back to Gemma. It was like his brain had been infiltrated and set to think about nothing but her. Her sense of humor. Her smile. Her smarts. Her forthright personality. Her curves. She was unfiltered, one-hundred-percent genuine.
Last night she'd said, “Even though you're not into me in real life, you think you can sell Cedric on the idea that you find me endearing?”
Her comment had taken him by surprise. She thought he wasn't into her when he'd never beenmoreinto a woman he'd just met. It would have been a disaster if she'd detected that, though. So he'd told himself he should feel relieved that she couldn't read him well. The skill he'd learned young—to appear impassive even when chaos was happening inside him—was still protecting him all these years later.
So how come he didn't feel relieved?
Irritated, he walked toward his bedroom. Mabel trotted beside him. Her kind face seemed to ask,What's the matter?
Gemma Clare was the matter.
She'd gotten under his skin.
ChapterSix
“This is the desk Mom was referring to the other day at brunch.” Grandma Colette pointed her martini glass at the piece of furniture sitting against a wall in her living room. “She recommended we look in here to find additional details about her love story during World War Two. I already went through it, though. Didn't find anything except the stuff that's been in there for ages. Stevie and I also looked in every closet and cupboard for her diaries. Came up empty there, too.”
It was Sunday and Gemma had come straight here from church. No way was she leaving without searching the desk herself. However, going against the grain with Colette always took the diplomatic skills of a government executive assigned to Russia. “While I'm here, I'm happy to go through the desk one last time. That way, you and I can both tell Great-Grandma that we tried.”
“I think you're wasting your time,” Colette said.
“Hanging out with you, Grandpa, and Mom is never a waste of my time.”
Colette grunted acknowledgment, letting Gemma off the hook with relative ease, then frowned at her daughter. “Simone, you look like you’re about to fall over. Sit down over there with your father.”
Skinny, hard of hearing, and almost always smiling, Grandpa Stevie had assumed his Sunday afternoon golf-watching position on his recliner.
Mom obediently followed orders, perching on the end of the sofa near Grandpa.
Gemma faced Gracie's rolltop desk. Gracie and Paul had lived in this historic, Greek Revival–stye house—with its triangular roofline and columned porch—the whole time Gemma had been growing up. She could still taste the frothy root beer floats they'd sipped while sitting out back in the summertime. Vanilla ice cream fizzing and melting in their glasses, her great-grandparents had passed memories on as if she was their own personal time capsule.
Like the prodigal son in the Bible story, Paul's French family had given him a lump sum when he'd decided to go his own way. Paul had explained to Gemma that he'd invested most of that in this house soon after Warren was born. Paulhad talked about the sleep he'd lost in the early days, wondering if he'd spent the money wisely. But then he and Gracie had lived here for sixty years. Now their daughter and son-in-law lived here. This home had proven itself to be a golden asset.
Every room and piece of furniture stirred recollections of Gracie and Paul, and the desk was no exception. Gracie had often sat here writing letters, balancing the checkbook, talking on her pale blue landline phone, jotting down messages on one of those old-school,While You Were Outnotepads.
Gemma began her examination of the desk by checking places Colette likely hadn't. She stretched out on the floor and studied the desk's underbelly. She didn’t see anything unusual but went to the trouble of running her fingers over all the surfaces, just in case. Next, she pulled out the shallow drawer at the center, got below the desk again, and looked up. Nothing.
Back on her feet, she grunted with effort as she angled the desk to the side so she could look behind it. Nothing. She eased the rolltop section closed and back open three times, watching and listening for anything out of place.
Gemma sat in Gracie's wooden chair with the padded seat and removed the contents of each drawer. Scrutinized every item. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The back of the piece, above the horizontal surface of the desk and below the rolltop, contained slats, cubbies, and miniature compartments. The most central of those compartments had a knob and keyhole. Gemma tugged on the knob, but it didn’t budge. “I’m not able to open this compartment.” Gemma swiveled toward Colette. “Do you know where the key might be?”
“What?” Stevie asked.
Colette never responded to her husband's frequentwhat’s. “There’s never been a key for that. It’s just decorative.”
