Secrets of the Lost Summer

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“That’s one old house that should be condemned,” Mark Flanagan said, emerging from behind an SUV. He was angular and long legged, his dark blond hair cut short. He wore pricey jeans and a black windbreaker over a flannel shirt, his usual outfit even through a good chunk of summer. “There’s no point in sinking money into trying to renovate it.” He stood next to Jess. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

“When did you get here?” Jess asked, regaining her composure.

“A few minutes ago, but I’m not staying. I just need to check on an order. I saw you two talking and figured I’d say hi.”

She yanked open the door. “What were you doing, sneaking up on us?”

He gave Jess a mystified look. “You probably couldn’t hear me over the water.” He left it at that and turned to Olivia. “I ran into Dylan McCaffrey at breakfast this morning. I understand he’s the new owner of Grace Webster’s old house, but I can’t believe he’s staying there. That place is a dump. I’m not sure it’s even safe there.”

For no reason that could possibly make sense to her, Olivia felt her cheeks flame. “He looked alive and well an hour ago. He was digging out a drain, and the house was still standing.”

“What’s he doing here?” Mark asked.

Jess either hadn’t noticed his mystified look or was pretending she hadn’t. “Olivia wrote to him.”

Mark raised his eyebrows at Olivia. “You wrote to him? Why?”

“I asked him to clean up the yard,” she said, trying not to sound defensive. “It’s an eyesore. It sends a bad message to people passing by—”

“What people passing by?” Mark asked, amused.

“No one now, but I am opening a business. My clientele will want a picturesque country setting. They won’t want to go by rusted appliances and cast-off mattresses.”

“Relax, Liv,” Mark said. “People who want to eat chive soup won’t mind passing the Webster place. You can tell them it’s authentic country.”

“Not funny, Mark,” Olivia said good-naturedly as he continued across the parking lot to the mill entrance. “Not funny at all. And it’s not chive soup. It’s potato-leek soup sprinkled with chives.”

He laughed. “I feel so much better.”

Jess watched him disappear inside the mill. “Don’t mind him, Liv. He’s getting to be as big a stick-in-the-mud as Dad. I can’t wait to try your soup.”

“Thanks, but he was just teasing. Jess—”

“I have to get going. I’ll see you later. Good luck with McCaffrey.”

She climbed into her truck. Olivia shook her head with bemusement and returned to her car. She drove the short distance into the village, turning onto another of Knights Bridge’s narrow roads, this one dead-ending at a popular gate that fishermen and hikers used to access Quabbin. She pulled into Rivendell, a small assisted living facility situated on open land dotted with sugar maples and white pines, with views of the waters of the reservoir in the distance. Audrey Frost, Olivia’s grandmother, lived in a one-bedroom apartment down the hall from Grace Webster.

Grace had been entirely unhelpful in tracking down the new owner of her house, which Olivia had attributed to her advanced age. Grace was, after all, in her nineties. With Dylan’s arrival, Olivia was no longer as sure age had anything to do with it. The story of how he’d ended up with the house had too many unanswered questions.

Maybe Grace was hiding something. Maybe whatever she was hiding had brought Duncan McCaffrey to Knights Bridge—and now his son.

“Or maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night,” Olivia muttered under her breath as she passed the sunroom. She spotted Grace in a chair, alone in front of a wall of windows, and went in. “I thought that was you. Good morning, Miss Webster.”

Grace beamed, her eyes sparkling at her visitor. “So good to see you, Olivia. You know you can call me Grace now. I was always ‘Miss Webster’ to my students, but I’m no longer a teacher. We live in a more casual age than when I was younger.” She set a small but powerful pair of binoculars on her lap. She was a tiny woman with snow-white hair she kept neatly curled, and light blue eyes that added charm to what could be a stern demeanor. Her attention was on birds fluttering at feeders outside. “I just saw a male cardinal. We’ll have to take the feeders down soon, though. Now that the weather’s warming up, they’ll attract bears and mountain lions.”

“Mountain lions, Grace?” Olivia asked with a skeptical smile.

“Darn right,” she said, clutching the binoculars with her arthritis-gnarled fingers. “I heard that catamount scat was discovered in Quabbin. Mountain lions are shy animals. They stick to the wilderness and avoid human contact. Who would have thought bald eagles and moose would return to the area? But they have, so why not mountain lions?”

Olivia wasn’t arguing about mountain lions in Quabbin. There had been periodic reports of their return to the back areas of the protected, limited-access wilderness surrounding the reservoir, but no confirmed sightings.

“The bird feeders are a nice touch,” she said.

Grace sank into the cushions of her high-backed chair. “We take care of them ourselves. How are you, Olivia? Your grandmother and I have yoga class together in a little while. She’s younger than I am, but I hold my own.”

Of that, Olivia had no doubt. “I’ll stop by and say hi, but I also wanted to see you. I’m wondering if you’ve thought more about the man who bought your house.”

She gazed out the windows as three chickadees darted at the feeders. “I haven’t, no.”

Stonewalling, Olivia thought. “Apparently he died and left the house to his son in San Diego. He’s here.”

That got Grace’s attention. She peered up at Olivia. “He’s in Knights Bridge?”

“He arrived yesterday and spent the night at your old house.”

“You asked him to clean up the yard?”

Olivia nodded. “I told him it’s become an eyesore since you sold the house.”

“Hoodlum teenagers. I left the washer and refrigerator on the back porch for the new owner to get rid of. That was part of our deal. I didn’t want to be bothered with taking them to the dump…” Grace sniffed, a touch of the old-fashioned, formidable teacher coming out in her. “I wish I’d been there to catch the little devils having their fun. I’d have had every one of them arrested for criminal mischief.”

“Just as well you weren’t there, Grace.”

“That’s why kids run wild these days. There’s no one to take a firm hand. We don’t want to be bothered. Look at me here, holed up in an old folks’ home, watching birds....”

“You did your bit for the youth of Knights Bridge.”

Grace loosened her grip on her binoculars and raised a hand, pointing one finger at Olivia. “I don’t believe for one minute the brats who vandalized my house were from Knights Bridge.”

By their own account, some of the adults in town who had been students of Grace Webster back in her days as an English and Latin teacher were still afraid of her. Olivia could understand why. Grace in her prime must have been something.

She was something now, Olivia thought, and steered the conversation back to her reason for being there. “The son—the man who inherited your house—is named Dylan McCaffrey.”

Grace lowered her hand, her brow furrowed as she waited a moment before speaking. “McCaffrey. Yes, I remember now. His father was also a Dylan?” She shook her head, stopping Olivia from responding. “No, it was something else.”

“Duncan,” Olivia said.

“That’s right. Exactly so.” Grace kept her eyes on the bird feeders. “This Dylan McCaffrey—he’s a scoundrel, isn’t he?”

Scoundrel? Olivia bit back her surprise, as well as a smile. “Why would you think he’s a scoundrel?”

“His father was a treasure hunter.”

“A what? Grace—”

She raised her binoculars again. “Spring’s here despite last night’s storm. I’ve seen robins. I’m sure I saw a bluebird, too, but your grandmother isn’t so sure.”

“Grace,” Olivia said, “if you know of any reason I should be wary of Dylan McCaffrey, you need to tell me.”

“I would think you would be wise to be wary of any man who mysteriously inherited a house on the other side of the continent from a dead father.” She set her binoculars back in her lap and fixed her gaze on Olivia. “Is this Dylan McCaffrey single?”