“But she owned it.”
“Technically, yes.”
“Technically?”
“She was the registered owner.”
“That sounds remarkably like ownership.”
“It was held under an old corporate structure.”
“For what purpose?”
“I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes.
“You were her attorney.”
“For estate matters. BDM was handled separately.”
“By whom?”
He hesitated.
“My predecessor.”
“My father?”
“No.”
I opened my eyes.
“Then who?”
“Your grandfather.”
I almost laughed from sheer confusion.
“My grandfather was a surgeon.”
“Yes.”
“He barely understood how to use an ATM.”
Richard chuckled.
“That part is true.”
“Then why was he handling a corporation?”
“He wasn’t doing the legal work. He was the trustee.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Trustee for whom?”
“I don’t know the full answer.”
“Richard.”
“Nora, there are documents I was instructed not to release unless certain conditions were met.”
My pulse quickened.
“What conditions?”
His next words were careful.
“If Eleanor died, and if you ever became involved with BDM directly.”
I looked toward the tall windows.
Across the street, Jason and Brooke were still outside.
From this distance, they looked almost like strangers.
“Apparently I’m involved.”
“Yes,” Richard said.
“I need those documents.”
“I agree.”
That surprised me.
“When can I see them?”
“They aren’t in my office.”
“Where are they?”
Another pause.
Then Richard said, “In the house.”
I turned slowly toward the room around me.
“What?”
“Your grandmother insisted they remain there.”
“Where?”
“She never told me.”
“You’re telling me she left legal documents somewhere in an eleven-bedroom mansion and didn’t tell anyone where?”
“She told one person.”
“Who?”
“You.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“No, she didn’t.”
“According to her written instructions, she did.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“Richard, my grandmother was meticulous. If she’d told me about important documents, I would remember.”
“I believe you.”
“But you also believe she told me.”
“I believe Eleanor believed she had.”
That was exactly the sort of answer attorneys gave when they didn’t want to call a dead woman wrong.
“Do you have any other clue?”
“One.”
I waited.
“She wrote, ‘Nora knows where summer is kept.’”
I stared ahead.
“That sounds like her.”
“Does it mean anything?”
“No.”
But even as I said it, something moved at the edge of memory.
Summer.
My grandmother hated summer.
Humidity ruined her hair.
Mosquitoes adored her.
She refused to eat outdoors between June and September.
Why would she write that?
“Nora?”
“I’ll call you.”
I ended the call.
For nearly an hour, I searched.
The library first.
Every shelf.
Every cabinet.
Then the morning room.
The music room.
The upstairs sitting room.
I opened drawers I hadn’t touched since the estate inventory.
I checked behind framed photographs and inside old writing boxes.
Nothing.
At twelve thirty, hunger finally drove me into the kitchen.
The refrigerator contained bottled water, mustard, and a jar of olives left by the caretaker.
Apparently the heiress of the mansion across the street was going to have a very elegant lunch.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Jason.
Can we talk later?
I ignored it.
A second message arrived.
Not about us. About Martin.
That, unfortunately, mattered.
I called.
He answered immediately.
“I reached him,” Jason said.
“And?”
“He resigned.”
I leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Today?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was dealing with a family emergency.”
“How convenient.”
“I asked him about BDM.”
“And?”
“He hung up.”
That wasn’t good.
“Did you contact your attorney?”
“Yes.”
“Your bank?”
“Yes.”
“Change system access?”
“Yes.”
I smiled despite myself.
“You learned something.”
He didn’t respond immediately.
Then he said, “More than I wanted to.”
There was no self-pity in it.
Just weariness.
I looked through the kitchen windows at the dormant garden.
“I have backup files from before Martin began controlling the finance process.”
“You told me.”
“They might show when the BDM vendor profile first appeared.”
“I thought you weren’t getting involved.”
“I’m not getting involved with Mercer & Table.”
“What’s the difference?”
“This involves my family.”
He was quiet.
“I understand.”
I wasn’t sure he did.
But at least he wasn’t arguing.
“Jason?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you hire Martin?”
“You know why.”
“No. I know who recommended him.”
He sighed.
“I wanted someone who understood expansion.”
“I understood expansion.”
“I know.”
The answer stopped me.
Four years of marriage, and sometimes the words I had wanted arrived only after they had become useless.
He continued.
“You also understood risk.”
“That was my job.”
“I thought you were always finding reasons not to grow.”
I looked down at the counter.
“And now?”
“Now I think maybe I kept calling caution fear because that made it easier to ignore you.”
I didn’t know what to say.
So I didn’t say anything.
Finally he asked, “Are you really staying there?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“Nora, that house has been empty for years.”
“I know.”
“The alarm system probably belongs in a museum.”
“It was replaced last spring.”
Another pause.
“You replaced the alarm system?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been maintaining the house?”
“Yes.”
“All this time?”
I smiled faintly.
“Jason, ownership usually comes with maintenance.”
He let out a soft breath.
“I sound like an idiot.”
I could have agreed.
Instead I said, “You sound like someone who never asked.”
He accepted that.
We ended the call.
I spent the next two hours chasing summer.
Eventually, I found myself upstairs in my old bedroom.
I had stayed there every school holiday after my parents died.
My grandmother had never redecorated it.
Pale yellow walls.
White curtains.
A wooden bookcase.
A narrow desk beneath the window.
On the top shelf sat a row of old children’s books.
The Secret Garden.
Anne of Green Gables.
Little Women.
And one book I had nearly forgotten.
The Summer Book.
My grandmother had given it to me when I was thirteen.
I pulled it down.
Nothing fell out.
No hidden envelope.
No key.
I flipped through the pages.
Halfway through, I found an inscription in my grandmother’s handwriting.
For Nora.
Every house keeps one season forever.
Find yours.
Love,
Grandmother
I sat on the floor.
I had read that inscription dozens of times as a teenager.
I had always assumed it was sentimental.
With Eleanor Whitmore, sentiment was rarely only sentiment.
Every house keeps one season forever.
Summer.
Where was summer kept?
Then I remembered.
The conservatory.
My grandmother called it the summer room because even in January, sunlight warmed the tiled floor.
I ran downstairs.
The conservatory was at the eastern end of the house, beyond the formal dining room.
Most of the plants were gone now.
Only the enormous built-in planters remained.
I walked slowly around the room.
Terracotta tiles.
Rattan furniture beneath sheets.
An old wrought-iron table.
Then I saw the stone planter beneath the south windows.
As a child, I used to hide notes inside a loose panel at its base.
My father had shown me the hiding place.
I knelt.
The panel didn’t move.
I pressed harder.
Nothing.
Then I remembered something else.
Twice.
My father always knocked twice.
I tapped the stone twice.
A ridiculous thing to do.
Except the second tap sounded hollow.
I pushed upward.
The panel shifted.
Behind it was a small recessed compartment.
Inside sat a brass key.
And an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Not in my grandmother’s handwriting.
In my father’s.
I stopped breathing.
The envelope had yellowed along the edges.
I touched the ink.
Nora.
Just that.
No address.
No date.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a single folded sheet.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
My father had written birthday cards in the same narrow slanted script.
My eyes blurred before I had read a word.
I blinked until the page steadied.
Nora,
If you are reading this, then either I finally found the courage to tell you everything, or circumstances did it for me.
If it is the second, I am sorry.
There are parts of our family history your grandmother and I chose to keep from you while you were young. At the time, we believed we were protecting you.
I am no longer certain we were right.
BDM was never intended to make money.
