Barbara’s eyebrows rose. “There is?”
“Bribery,” Theo said without any sign of guilt. “Your dad promised to take me to his secret fishing spot once it gets warmer.”
“Dad! That’s not fair.” Barbara’s outrage only added to their dad’s amusement.
Katie glanced at Peter. Before he agreed with Theo, she pulled him to his feet. “Count us out. I promised Peter I’d show him the dresser Ethan made.”
“I’ll come with you,” Barbara said quickly. “At least that way I won’t have to watch Dad bend the rules.”
Theo held onto the back of her sweater. “You can’t go anywhere. We need your general knowledge to beat your dad.”
“You took a bribe from him.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to win. Between you, Aunt Beatrice, Penny, and your mom, no one else stands a chance of winning.”
Mabel handed everyone in her team a notepad and pen. “Theo’s right. We have the best team this family has ever seen.”
That won Katie’s mom a chorus of good-natured boos and laughter from the other family members vying for the title of Charade Kings.
Before anyone enticed Peter back into the game, Katie nudged him toward the guests’ living room. “The dresser is this way.”
Barbara gave a resigned sigh as they moved past her. “I can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”
“It’s for a good cause,” Katie said with a grin. “Besides, Dad might have trouble beating Zac and Willow’s team. They won the Christmas charades competition at the church.”
A glimmer of hope appeared in her sister’s eyes. “And they might stop Dad from giving everyone clues.”
Katie didn’t think anyone could do that, but she wouldn’t spoil Barbara’s newfound optimism. “Good luck. We won’t be long.” Holding Peter’s hand, she led him into the adjacent living room. “When we remodeled our grandparents’ home, we converted one of the living areas into a space our guests could enjoy and left the other one for us. So far, it’s working well.”
He looked around the heavily decorated room and grinned. “I can see why you needed all the tinsel. This room is even more colorful than the one we left.”
A warmth spread through Katie as she absorbed Peter’s smile. “I tried to make our living area as festive as possible. Even though we don’t spend a lot of time in here, we wanted it to be special.”
Peter stood in front of the replica dresser. “Is this what Ethan made?”
She didn’t blame Peter for sounding so surprised. Very few people knew her brother-in-law was such a good furniture maker. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Usually, the dresser is in our guests’ living room, but we moved it in here a couple of days ago.” Katie opened the top drawer and handed Peter a folder. “We put some photos and information in this folder. A lot of people who stay here either read about the letter we found or saw one of the television stories about it.”
Opening it to the first page, Peter studied the photo of the original dresser. “You wouldn’t know the dresser standing in front of us isn’t the original one.”
Katie ran her hand over the gleaming mahogany case. “The real dresser has a few scratches and dents. Ethan didn’t want to damage the wood on this one, so he polished it like a new piece of furniture. The brass handles are exact replicas of what’s on our great-grandparents’ dresser.”
Peter turned to the next page and looked at the second photo.
“That’s the drawer where we found the letter.” Katie kneeled on the floor. “Ethan made a secret compartment, just like in the real dresser.” Carefully, she opened the hidden drawer and handed Peter a sheet of paper. “This is a replica of a letter Abraham Lincoln sent to his son, Robert Todd Lincoln. It contains the last draft anyone has found of the Gettysburg Address. The Smithsonian Institute has the original.”
She enjoyed seeing the wonder on Peter’s face. Her sisters had felt the same way when they’d realized what they were holding.
“How on earth did the letter end up in a dresser in your grandparents’ home?”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out. Our great-grandmother’s journals held some clues and Chloe at the Smithsonian has been amazing. Her team has spent weeks looking in places we don’t have access to. From what we’ve discovered, it looks as though our great-grandfather, Patrick Kelly, faked his death to get away from his gambling debts. But that didn’t stop him from visiting gambling houses throughout America. We think he met Abraham Lincoln’s son in Chicago and won the letter during a game. A few months later, Patrick gave his wife the letter.”
Peter inspected the hidden compartment. “She must have known how valuable it was.”
“That’s what we think, too. Before my great-grandmother died, she gave Grandma a key in a blue and gold snuffbox. She said as long as she kept it, she’d never need anything else. Grandma tried to find what the key opened, but it didn’t fit anything in the house. After she died, we found the dresser in the old steamboat museum. She must have stored some of her furniture there when she was reorganizing her home.”
“It was just as well you contacted the Smithsonian.”
Katie thought about all the phone calls and meetings they’d had with Chloe and her team. “We wouldn’t have learned about our great-grandfather’s life without their help. On February 12 next year, the Smithsonian is opening an exhibition about the letter and our great-grandparents’ lives.”
