Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Absolutely,” I say. “Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Ainsley.”
“Please, call me Ennis, my dear,” he says. “And there’s no need to thank me. I owe the Steel family so much. The pleasure is truly mine. Havisham, please show our guests to the basement.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
BROCK
This is truly the basement that hell forgot.
Dark and dank and more than a little eerie.
I half expect the ghosts of owners past to emerge from the stone walls.
Rory and I sit in front of a stack of cardboard boxes, an electric heater buzzing next to us.
Rory rubs her hands together in front of it. “I didn’t expect it to be freezing down here.”
“This is an old house. I wonder if it’s been in Ennis’s family for decades. Maybe centuries.”
“I doubt it,” Rory says. “I didn’t get the impression that he comes from a lot of money.”
“True. I didn’t get that impression either. You’re probably right. He purchased this house with money from his earnings from my family.” I sigh. “You can say a lot about my family—and based on recent research, plenty of it isn’t good—but they do take care of their own. Ennis was the first winemaker for Steel Vineyards, and now they’re taking care of him.”
“Why would he want to live in such an old house?”
“Because it’s gorgeous,” I say. “Big and beautiful and very English, I might add.”
Rory laughs. “True.” She scoots a box toward her. “I guess we start.” She takes one of the box cutters supplied by Havisham and slides it under the tape securing the cardboard.
I grab another.
“I should’ve known by how heavy this was,” she says. “It’s books.”
“I suppose we don’t need to look through them.”
“I don’t think a shoebox full of trinkets from a long-lost love is in here, but we may find some clue.”
“What kind of clue?”
“I don’t know. A flower pressed between the pages?”
I smile. “I never pegged you for a romantic, Rory.”
“I never pegged myself for one either, but I definitely peg Ennis as one.” She pulls out a book, opens the cover. “No inscription.” Then she leafs through the pages. “And no flower between the pages either. No evidence here.” She sets it aside and takes the next book.
She goes through four more books, until she gasps.
“Brock, this is one of your mother’s books.”
I take the book from her and smooth my fingers over its cover. “This was her first book.” I open it. “Wow, it’s a first edition.”
“Maybe worth some money.”
“I doubt it. I mean, my mother’s a great author, and one of her later books did hit the New York Times list, but books on childhood trauma and psychology are rarely worth what, say, a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird would be.”
“Still,” she says, “it’s pretty awesome to see.”
“We have first editions of all my mom’s books at home,” I say.
She reddens a bit. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t think of that.”
“This is her first book, though, and it was written before she met my father.”
“So Ennis was still living in Colorado then.”
“Yeah. We already knew that. He lived on our land for a while after he retired. But this book was written before my mom and my dad, which means she gifted it to him—” I stop, my mind racing.
“What?”
“Maybe she didn’t gift it to him. Maybe he bought it.”
“You think? Why would he be interested in a book on childhood trauma?”
I open the book. “There’s no inscription. If my mom had given him the book, she would’ve signed it.”
“You should be a detective,” Rory says.
“I’ve just learned a lot from Aunt Ruby over the years. How to look for clues that you don’t think would be clues.”
“So…Ennis most likely purchased this book rather than getting it from your mom. Which means he has an interest in the subject. It doesn’t necessarily mean he has any experience with childhood trauma.”
“No… But he did have a good friend who had experience in childhood trauma. My grandmother.”
“We could ask him about it,” I say. “But it doesn’t really have anything to do with Patty. Not on the surface anyway.” Still, I set the book aside. I’m not sure why, but I feel like it may be important.
Rory continues going through the rest of the books. “Nothing in any of these books. No flowers, no love poetry, no letters.”
“So you’re no longer a romantic?” I gibe her.
“You know? I think maybe I am. I never thought I was until…”
I lift my eyebrows. “You met me?”
“Until I met the infamous Rake-a-teer.” She smiles. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think you’re right. I certainly didn’t set out to fall in love with you.”
“Sweetheart, I didn’t set out to fall in love with you either.”
“Maybe we’re both romantics. Maybe we just never knew it. Maybe it just took the right person to turn us both into mush.”