Brooke tried to open the top drawer. Stuck.
Finally, after prolonged jiggling, one side of the drawer loosened, and as she inched it open, she could see stacks of papers and notebooks inside. She worked on the other side, and after five minutes of tugging and cussing, the whole drawer pulled free of the cabinet, landing on the rug with a dull thud.
“Damn,” she whispered.
The drawer was about eighteen inches deep and was as crammed with papers as the bookcase above it. There were stacks of rubber band–bound canceled checks and bills, spiral-bound notebooks and black-and-white composition books, and bundles of letters and cards tied together with faded blue ribbons.
Brooke dug around in the drawer until her fingers closed on something that felt like leather. As she lifted the address book from the drawer, shards of the palest pink rose petals showered down on the faded rug, releasing their faint, musky scent.
***
She sat cross-legged on the floor and lifted out a rubber band–wrapped bundle of likely looking correspondence, each with the same handwriting on the envelope. Opening one, she saw that it was an anniversary card.
“To My One True Love” was written in thick gold script on the outside of the card, beneath an image of red roses. The inside right side of the card had a treacly Hallmark verse, beneath which the sender had written in a strong, slanting script: “My darling Jo, with love from Preiss.” On the opposite side, the sender had copied a poem called “Always Marry an April Girl.”
Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger.
Ever changing, ever true—
I love April, I love you.
—OGDENNASH
“Ohhh.” Brooke let out a long, involuntary sigh and looked again at her would-be employer, her crepe-like eyelids closed, nearly bald head slumped sideways, a tiny bead of saliva trickling from narrow, colorless lips. Of course, Josephine Warrick had been young once, with slender limbs and a laughing smile. She had won the love of a much-younger man, this Preiss Warrick, who called her his April Girl.
9
An hour later, she’d finished her sandwich and chips and made what she thought was a decent start on completing the old woman’s assignment.
“Well?” Josephine was awake again. Her dark eyes glared accusingly. “What did you find?”
Brooke looked down at the notes she’d scrawled on her yellow legal pad. She’d drawn circles around the namesVarina ShaddixandRuth Quinlan.
“Josephine, if I find Ruth’s relatives and Varina, what do you want me to tell them?”
“Whenyou find them, I want them to come to Talisa,” Josephine said. “I want to see them. Your mother too, of course. She was Millie’s only child, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Brooke said cautiously. “And what will you tell them—if they agree to come here to see you?”
“I want to leave this island to them—in a trust,” Josephine said promptly. “And I want you to set up the trust and administer it.”
“But that’s impossible,” Brooke said quickly. “If my mother is to be included in the trust, that would present a clear conflict of interest.” She shook her headsadly. “I wish you’d told me that from the beginning. I can’t represent you, Josephine. It’s a matter of ethics.”
“Ridiculous,” the old lady snapped. “I can hire whomever I want to help me dispose of my property.”
“You can, but that person cannot legally benefit in any way from such a relationship,” Brooke said. She was already thinking of the $25,000 check. She was going to have to give it back.
So, goodbye to paying down her Amex bill. Goodbye to replacing the bald tires on the Volvo, and goodbye to making a dent in Henry’s hospital bills.
