“So?” she asked, waiting for the payoff for all the damage he’d caused.
“Well, it is a fireplace…” he began.
Harper gripped her arm and squealed, “A fireplace! Natalie, you can have a fire burning for book club. And for your annual Christmas party.”
“I know! That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Natalie agreed, finally letting the excitement of the fireplace outweigh the annoyance of the wall.
“Hang on,” Liam said, interrupting her joy like a record screech.
She went still. “What?”
“First we have to have a guy from the fireplace shop come inspect the chimney. Make sure it’s safe and usable.”
“That is smart since there is the question of why someone would seal up a perfectly good fireplace if there wasn’t something wrong with it,” Harper pointed out.
Natalie’s hopes began to sink. But with the number of books in the shop, which would become fuel for any accidental fire, she needed to be careful.
She let out a sigh. “You’re right. It probably is dangerous. That’s why they sealed it up.”
Dreams of a toasty warm crackling fire had been nice while they lasted.
“Or, they might have sealed it up to hide all this,” Liam said.
She’d been so busy talking to Harper and dreaming of stockings hung by the chimney with care she hadn’t seen that Liam had pulled a dusty old book and a roll of paper out of the hole he’d made.
“What is that?” She stepped closer but his bulk blocked her view. “What’s in there?”
Liam glanced at her over his shoulder. “Looks like some old as hell books.”
Old books? Those might possibly be the only words that could make this mess worth it.
“What kind of books?” Harper, who loved books as much as she loved wine, stepped closer as well.
“So far, it’s what looks like a ledger. And a map. And possibly some old deeds,” he said.
Everything looked so old. So fragile.
Liam extricated one discovery after the next from the hole. Slowly, carefully. Avoiding letting them touch the soot from the firebox and the plaster dust and broken lathe of the wall like this was a real-life game of Operation.
He placed all the items gently on the floor with the hands of a surgeon, which she supposed he was, even though he only used his doctorly skills on cadavers and not living humans.
“Why would someone wall all this stuff up?” Natalie asked as she knelt next to one of the documents.
“To hide it,” Harper declared. “Because it’s full of secrets. Valuable secrets. Dangerous secrets.”
“I think your writer’s brain is running away with you,” Natalie observed. “But look at this. It’s hard to make out but I think this signature says Mudd.”
“As in Alice Mudd?” Liam asked.
“One of her ancestors, no doubt. The Mudd family were early settlers in this area. They’ve been around here since the beginning. Before the beginning actually, if we’re calling the beginning the year the village was officially incorporated,” Harper explained.
“Still, why hide it all and wall it up? It just seems ridiculous and unnecessary.” Not to mention, it hid what must have been a beautiful fireplace that she could have been using. She shook her head. “I mean, how dangerous or valuable could a bunch of old papers and books be?”
Liam wiped his hands clean on his pants then flipped open the cover of the ledger, letting out a long low whistle. “I don’t know, Nat. I think Harper could be right.”
“Meaning what? These things could actually be valuable?” Natalie asked.
“Or dangerous?” Harper added hopefully.
