“A lawyer can only act on his client’s wishes.” Julie frowned. “If your dad left no instructions for what happens if your grandparents died, then his only option would be to place you in foster care.”
“In your case, it might have been the safest option.” Carter’s boots clattered on the wooden floors as they walked along the hallway. “In foster care you become anonymous. It would be difficult for anyone trying to murder you. They could have moved you anywhere in the state.”
Rhett followed Carter into a family room with sweeping views of the mountains. “I gather the final instructions to the lawyer, which passed to Sam Cross when he took over the business, was to notify me prior to my twenty-fifth birthday. All the letter stated was that my father had left something to me in his estate and I should go see Sam Cross in Black Rock Falls to discuss the situation. When I spoke to him, he told me he’d tracked my movements since I left foster care and knew I’d won a full scholarship to UM.”
He stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly. Dust covers hid the sofas but a long sideboard glossy from years of polishing held photographs. Rhett’s stomach clenched and he avoided them, not wanting a rush of sentimental memories to hit him. Right now, he needed to be strong and take whatever fate had in store for him. There could be no going back, only forward and into a life he’d designed alone. He had no photographs of his parents or grandparents. They were a distant memory and the faces had blurred over the years.
Being inside the house had reignited memories with small glimpses of the past. He recalled the beeswax and wood smoke smell of the house. Above the open-hearth fireplace built from local rocks sat the head of a majestic buck surveying the room for all eternity. The carpet under foot had a floral design but a Navajo rug in front of the fire caught his attention. “I remember playing on this rug when I was a kid.” He pointed to the buck. “And him staring down at me. I’ve never been a fan of taxidermy and I figure this place is going to be filled with it.”
“You don’t need to keep anything.” Julie walked over to the sideboard and peered at the photographs, all set in silver frames. “Look at the photos. Maybe you’ll remember some of the people here.”
“I recognize some of the artists of the pictures in this room.” Carter whistled. “I figure one of them would pay my yearly salary.”
As Rhett walked toward the photographs his stomach clenched. Many of the photographs contained images of babies and a toddler. He recognized the woman in one of the photographs and picked it up to examine it more closely. “This is my mom.” He ran one finger over her face and then replaced the frame gently on the sideboard before reaching for another. A man with his face looked back at him with a cocky smile, one arm draped over his mom’s shoulder, and they looked so happy. “I’m guessing this is my dad.”
“This must be your grandparents.” Carter handed him a photo. “There’s another one of a cowboy and a woman on a horse. They look young. Your other set of grandparents, maybe?”
Rhett sighed and took the images, scanning each one. “The young ones would be my dad’s parents. They died young. I don’t know who raised my dad, but the other older people are my mom’s parents. They were killed in a wreck, as far as I’m aware. They never came to get me from kindergarten one day and then everything changed.”
“Let’s explore the rest of the house.” Julie pulled him toward the door. “It will take a week at this pace and we still need to check out the grounds.”
As they moved throughout the ground floor, most of the rooms appeared to be the same until they came to the office. Ledgers lined the walls all packed neatly in leather-bound volumes. The leather office chair was well worn and sat before a rolltop desk. A cup on the desk with a transfer print of Helena on the side and filled with pens stuck out like an unwelcome visitor. Rhett searched the walls. Somewhere in this office was a safe that hadn’t been opened since his father died. “I’m looking for a safe.”
“In the old days they used to hide them behind pictures.” Carter walked to a landscape hanging in an alcove opposite the bookcase. He ran one hand down the side and then the picture swung out to reveal an old-fashioned safe. “Unless you have the combination, you’re not getting anywhere with this.”
Rhett believed his father wouldn’t leave him a letter without including the combination of the safe but maybe he didn’t want to write it down, so maybe he left a clue. He took the folded piece of paper out of his pocket and read it through one more time. When he got to the end and read about his birth being the best thing that had ever happened to his parents, he smiled. He walked to the safe and turned the knob, clicking in his birthday. It seemed too easy but the moment the last number clicked into place, the safe opened. He gaped at the contents. Wads of bills, stacked up on one side, envelopes, and ornate boxes all crammed inside. His father had hidden his possessions from someone—but who?
“Do you want us to step outside?” Carter hovered behind him, hands on hips. “I’m sure what’s inside is your business.”
Shaking his head, Rhett stared at the safe. To him it showed his father was taking precautions by keeping his valuables safe. “Maybe there’s something inside the safe that will point us in the direction of who killed him.” He smiled at Carter. “I don’t figure there’s anything in there that would tempt you.”
“You’re right, but I’m not here as an FBI agent. I’m here as your friend.” Carter moved a toothpick across his lips and smiled with it caught between his front teeth. “I don’t usually get involved in cold cases, but there’s something about this one that has me intrigued. The main thing is that whoever killed your mom and dad hasn’t killed again since or we’d know about it.”
Rhett unloaded the boxes and envelopes onto the desk. “Yeah, but you’re talking about murders. Whoever killed my parents somehow rigged their death as an accident. Maybe there were other accidents that happened since then.”
“I can ask Kalo to hunt down any mysterious deaths in the area since your parents died.” Carter indicated toward the safe. “What do you hope to find here?”
Shrugging, Rhett turned back to the safe. “Hopefully another letter or a journal or something written by my dad in case someone murdered him. I figure he was smart enough not to just leave a letter to me in the hope that I would discover what had happened. He was putting a heck of a lot of faith in the lawyer. If I believed someone was trying to kill me and I needed to leave proof as fast as possible I would leave something in a safe that no one could get into but a particular person.” He turned to Julie, who had been standing back watching in amazement. “Can you take the boxes and open them? If we don’t work together, this is going to take us all day and I haven’t even looked at the kitchen yet. I figure the appliances and the stove are going to be out of date, even dangerous. I need to make a list of what we need and have it delivered as soon as possible if I plan on living here.”
“I’d say you’d need a heap of things, Rhett.” Julie stacked up the boxes in front of her on the desk. “A few things came to mind that you would need: mattresses, bed linen, towels, a coffee pot, a toaster, a kettle or something to boil water. Plates, silverware, and glasses can be washed if they’re still here and, by the look of everything else, I would guess that they were.” She opened a box and gasped. “This is very expensive jewelry, and this one has gold watches in it. Oh, my goodness one of them is a Rolex.” She shot a glance at Rhett. “You had absolutely no idea about this? Sam Cross didn’t tell you?”
Rhett’s attention moved over the boxes as she opened them. All overflowed with men’s and women’s gold jewelry. “No, he told me that the ranch was a productive business and made an excellent income, but all this, no, he didn’t mention it at all. I don’t even believe he knew about it.” His gaze searched the desktop and came to rest on a cigar humidor. He opened the lid and, finding it empty, slid the papers and the small books he discovered inside. “I’ll put the boxes back in the safe and change the combination. I’ll take these with me. I’d like to go through the documents at my leisure.” He tucked the humidor under one arm. “Let’s see if we can find the kitchen.”
Thirty
They found the kitchen easily enough and the mudroom. Along a hallway behind the kitchen, they discovered four separate bedrooms, a sitting room, and a bathroom. The house had clearly been designed for live-in staff. He led the way back into the kitchen and took out his notebook. “One thing this room has in its favor is it’s not a fitted kitchen. Everything in here looks as if it can be picked up and taken outside or moved around. I like the wooden table and the chairs. They’re in good shape and I don’t think we need to replace them, but I figure I need to get a kitchen fitter to rip out everything and rebuild it with the top-quality cabinets, benches, and appliances. I’ll get onto it as soon as I get back to town.”
“The old wood stove is probably over one hundred years old.” Julie shook her head. “It would have been used to cook on and heat the kitchen for all those years and it looks in really good shape.” She bent to open the hatch at the front. “Get a new electric stove for cooking but I think you should keep this for its historical value to the building.”
Rhett nodded, glad to have her along. Being suddenly wealthy was making him reckless. “I’ll need to get someone to check it out before we use it. I’m sure there’s someone in town that deals with old stoves.”
“You might want them to check the furnace at the same time.” Carter walked up and down the kitchen opening cabinets. “Winter will be here before you know it and this place is gonna take a ton of power to keep it warm.” He indicated with his chin toward the cabinets. “There’s more dinnerware than you’re going to need in a lifetime.” He opened a few drawers. “Same with the silverware.”
Staring own at his ever-growing list of things to do and purchase, Rhett lifted his gaze. “I figure a quick tour of the bedrooms and then we’ll head out to speak to Bowman again. I don’t believe we’ll have time to do a complete tour of the property. Maybe when I come back with the kitchen fitters, I can take a better look.”
They dashed upstairs and found eight bedrooms. One of them had been converted into a nursery, and toys still sat on the counters. Brett walked into his parents’ bedroom and it was just as they’d left it on the day they’d died. Their clothes still hung in the closets with shoes neatly in lines below them. The dressing table had makeup and perfume bottles. The bed had been stripped and the mattress covered. They found the same in each of the other bedrooms. He swallowed hard when he saw his parents’ belongings sitting there as if waiting for them to return. Guilt gripped him. Should he feel sad? He noticed Julie’s distressed expression, but he had no actual attachment to anything in the house. It was as if he were seeing everything through another person’s eyes. He had no feeling of belonging, only the obligation to make things right. “I won’t use this room, but I will have all the clothes picked up and taken to Goodwill. I don’t want this room to become a shrine to people I don’t even remember.”
“I figure you should take the bedroom at the top of the stairs.” Carter smiled at him. “When we came up, the last three steps creaked loudly and so do the floorboards all the way to that room. It would be a room I would take because as sure as heck no one is gonna creep up on you at night without you hearing them.”
