Authors: Mariah Stewart
She paid for the coffee and the cupcake and took both to a table that sat off by itself next to the wall, then carried the mug to the cart, where she added milk and a packet of raw sugar. She sat, sipped, and took a bite from the cupcake.
Bliss.
It was excellent, with tiny bits of strawberries in both the frosting and the cake. The coffee was equally good, and she sighed. If St. Dennis had nothing else to recommend it, at least there was great coffee and baked goods to be had.
The door opened and three chattering women entered the shop and went directly to the counter, where they were served coffee in mugs from what appeared to be a special shelf along the wall. Ellis watched surreptitiously while the ladies fixed their coffee at the station.
“… so really, Grace, what else could I have done?” one woman was saying as she added two pink packets of sweetener to her coffee.
“I don’t know that I would have done anything
differently, dear.” The oldest of the three—Grace, apparently—shook her head slightly. “Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.”
“My gut would have told me to smack her over the head with something,” the third woman said drily. “She’s lucky that you have more patience than I, because, really, Barbara …”
The voices trailed away as the women passed by. The woman called Grace, who had white hair tucked into a bun and a gentle face, turned to smile at Ellis.
“Hello, dear,” she said softly without breaking her stride.
Ellis returned the smile and felt an unexplainable lump form in her throat. She turned her attention back to the cupcake and her coffee. So far, it seemed that St. Dennis was much like her mother had described: a small welcoming town populated by nice people. For about the one-thousandth time, Ellis wished she’d accompanied her mother on at least one of her trips here, but for Ellis, there’d always been somewhere else to go.
“Why waste your summer in some little nowhere place,” her jet-setting father would say, “when you could be in London …?”
If not London, then Rome or Madrid, or on the small island they owned off the coast of Greece. There’d been summer classes in Cairo when she’d been majoring in archaeology, and another in Paris the year she’d thought about majoring in French. Her father would take Ellis anywhere she wanted to go, as long as it wasn’t St. Dennis, a place that
no one
who mattered had ever heard of. In retrospect, it seemed
that her father had been manipulating both her and her mother for more years than anyone realized.
Well, those days were gone—not just the travel, but the manipulation—along with her mother, and any chance Ellis might have had to see St. Dennis through her mother’s eyes.
She downed the last of the coffee and bused her table as she’d seen another customer do, before returning the plate and mug to the counter.
“Thanks,” the young man told her. “Come back again.”
“I’ll do that.” Ellis tossed her crumpled napkin into a nearby receptacle and started toward the door, stood back while other patrons entered, then stepped out into the sunshine. She was standing on the curb, waiting for the light to change, when she had the inexplicable feeling that she was being watched. She turned back to the shop, and saw the white-haired woman seated next to the front window. The woman raised her hand in a wave. Ellis waved back, then realizing that the light had changed, crossed and went directly to her car.
She slid behind the wheel and glanced back to the window. The woman had turned from the glass and appeared to be once again engaged in conversation with her companions, but there’d been something about the way she’d looked at Ellis, almost as if she knew her. Impossible, of course, Ellis reminded herself, since she’d never set foot in St. Dennis before today.
She pulled away from the curb and drove east, watching for the street where she’d make her turn.
The sign for Old St. Mary’s Church Road was larger than the others because it also sported a plaque that marked the historic district. She made a right and drove three blocks, made another right, and parked along the street, as per the instructions she’d been given. She got out of the car, locked it, and stood on the sidewalk reading the sign over the door on the brick Federal-style building.
ENRIGHT & ENRIGHT, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
.
This would be the place.
Ellis took a deep breath and walked along the brick path to the front door, pushed it open, and stepped into a quiet, nicely furnished reception area where an elderly woman sat behind a handsome dark cherry desk. The woman looked up when she heard the door, glanced at Ellis, then did a double take.
“I’m El … Ellie Ryder. I have an appointment with Mr. Enright.”
Ellie Ryder
, she reminded herself. From now on, that was who she’d be, at least for as long as she stayed in St. Dennis, and possibly longer, depending on how much time it would take before the shit-storm subsided.
“I believe he’s expecting you.” The woman at the desk smiled warmly and got up from her chair. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”
The receptionist disappeared into a room across the hall and stood behind the half-closed door. A moment later, a man who appeared to be in his midthirties emerged and came directly into the reception area, his hand outstretched to her.
“Ms. Ryder, I’m Jesse Enright. How was your trip? Can we get you some coffee? Have you had lunch?”
His hand folded around hers with warmth and strength, and Ellis—
Ellie
—felt herself relax for the first time in days.
Reminding herself that he already knew the story, she smiled as she stood.
“The trip was fine. I arrived here in town with time enough to spare for a stop at the coffee shop in the center of town,” she told him. “I had a great cup of coffee and a delicious cupcake.”
“Vanilla with strawberry frosting?” he asked.
Ellis nodded. “You had one, too?”
“One last night and another at lunch. My fiancée is the baker.” He patted his waist. “It’s good news and bad news.”
Jesse turned to the receptionist. “Violet, hold my calls, if you would.…”
He led Ellis to his office and closed the door behind them.
“So how do you really feel?” He held out a chair for her, and she sat.
“Strange. It’s strange to introduce myself as Ellie instead of Ellis. Ryder is my middle name, but I never use it, so that’s strange, too.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Jesse sat behind his desk in a dark green leather chair. “I think you’ll find people here to be much less judgmental than you assume.”
“Over the past year, I’ve had more judgment passed on me than you could possibly imagine. Friends I thought for sure I could count on stopped returning my calls as soon as the news broke.” Her best effort not to sound bitter was failing her. “My father had
very little family, but what he has turned their backs on me, as if somehow this whole thing was my fault. My home was confiscated, my car, my jewelry, my bank accounts—I lost everything I worked for. If not for the one friend who stuck by me, I wouldn’t even have had a car to drive down here.”
“The Mercedes you parked out front belongs to a friend?” Jesse raised an eyebrow.
When she nodded, he smiled. “Nice friend.”
“The best,” she agreed. “I don’t know where I’d have been this past year without her.”
“I understand that you’ve had a rough time these past ten months or so, but I’m asking you to keep an open mind as far as the people in St. Dennis are concerned. You’ll find them welcoming and friendly, if you let them.”
“I’m not here to make friends, and frankly, I hope I’m not here any longer than it will take to sell the house my mother left me.” She looked at him across the desk and added, “You don’t know what it’s like to have people judge you because of something your father did.”
“Oh, but I do.” Jesse leaned back in his chair. “My father was the black sheep of the Enright clan. Still is, actually. Suffice it to say, I had to earn my grandfather’s trust to join this firm, prove that I was good enough to call myself an Enright here in this town where Enrights have practiced law for close to two hundred years. So yes, I do know what it’s like to be judged because of something your father did. I overcame it, and so will you.”
“But you were still able to work as a lawyer somewhere, right?”
“In Ohio, before I came here, yes.”
“I can’t get anyone to even give me an interview or return my calls. I ran public relations for a major corporation for eight years, and I can’t get anyone to hire me. Granted, the company was owned by my father—hence the confiscation of my worldly goods, since everything was considered ‘fruit of the poison tree,’ as the FBI told me repeatedly—but still, I was very good at what I did. One of the investigators even said that one of the reasons the entire scheme came as such a shock to everyone was that I’d done such a good job creating the company’s image. So even though I had no hand in the fraud, I did have a hand in the public’s perception of CC Investments.” She blew out a breath. “When I think about all of the lives my father ruined, I get sick to my stomach. All the retired people who’d trusted him with their pensions, their mortgages, their futures …”
“What your father did was unconscionable, but you’re not responsible for the decisions he made. As I recall, both the FBI and the SEC have totally exonerated you from any involvement in your father’s scheme.”
“Intellectually, I do know that I’m not responsible. I do. But then I think about all the suffering he’s caused, and I just feel sick all over again.”
“I understand,” Jesse said. “But you’re here to pick up the pieces and put your life back together again. I want you to know that you can call on this firm for anything, anytime.”
“I appreciate that, Jesse. You’ve already done so much. My mother was wise to have entrusted the Enrights with her estate.”
“Actually, it was your mother’s great-aunt, Lilly Cavanaugh, who first came to us, as best I can determine from reading the file and from talking to Violet.”
“Violet?” Ellis tried not to panic. Someone other than Jesse knew …?
“My receptionist. You may have noticed she’s a bit … advanced in her years.”
“She knows who I am?”
“She knows that you are Lynley’s daughter, and that you’ve inherited the house, yes.” Jesse held up a hand. “There’s no way she wouldn’t have known. Violet’s been here forever—she worked for my grandfather for many years. She typed up the original wills. But she also knows there’s a confidentiality issue here, and she will not discuss it with anyone, I can assure you of that. That woman has kept more secrets than either of us will hear in a lifetime. Your identity is safe with her.”
“I trust you, so I will have to trust her, I suppose. Though the way she looked at me when I came in …” She paused, remembering the woman in the coffee shop. “There was another woman, one in the coffee shop, who greeted me as if she knew me—”
“Don’t let your imagination run away with you. I told you, it’s a friendly little town.”
“Still, I’d like to stick to the explanation we discussed on the phone.”
“That you purchased the house from Lynley Sebastian’s estate and you’re fixing it up to sell it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the client.” Jesse pulled a thick folder to
the center of the desk. “Now, I suppose you want to get on with the business at hand.”
He pulled a sheaf of documents from the folder, explained each, and showed her where to sign. Twenty-two minutes later, he handed her a small envelope with the address, 1 Bay View Road, written on the front in blue ink. She could feel the shape of keys inside, and her heart took an unexpected leap.
“The keys to your house,” he said. “I drove over this morning and turned up the thermostat, so it should be nice and cozy for you. There’s wood stacked outside if you feel like building a fire. The chimneys were all cleaned out four years ago, and to the best of my knowledge, none of the fireplaces have been used since. The bank accounts your mother set up years ago have paid the taxes and utilities and periodic repairs, and from time to time we’ve had the place checked inside to make sure that all was well, that the faucets weren’t leaking, that sort of thing. It’s been vacant for quite some time, you know. The house is fully furnished, everything just as it was the last time your mother saw it, I suppose. She had an alarm system installed but it kept shorting out, so I think it’s been deactivated.”
“I can’t thank you enough for looking out for the place all this time. I’m sure my mother appreciated it.”
“She was the one who made it possible. She set up the accounts a long time ago, with money she made during her modeling career. Once it was verified that she’d earned that money before she was married and that she’d set it aside before your father even started
up his business, the feds weren’t able to touch the account. Because your father’s fingerprints weren’t on any of it, you still have that money to work with. I never personally met your mother, but Violet spoke very highly of her.”
“Violet knew my mother?” It had taken a second or two for it to sink in that there were people in this town who had actually
known
Lynley. Ellis had been under the impression that the time her mother had spent in St. Dennis had been brief, and that she’d been very young.
“Sure. I imagine there are more than a few of the old-timers who knew her.”
“But she left so long ago, I didn’t think about people having known her.”
“I didn’t grow up here, so I can’t attest to how much time she spent here, but I assure you, I remember Lynley Sebastian. After all, she was one of the first supermodels. Back in the day, every boy on the planet had one of her posters in his room.” He smiled. “I know I did.”
“Let me guess. The one where she’s leaning on a fence and she’s wearing a very thin pale pink dress.”
“And the wind is whipping that long blond hair around her.” Jesse grinned. “The very one.”
“If I had a dime for every time someone brought that up to me …” She rolled her eyes.
“Speaking of money …” Jesse pulled another stack of papers front and center on the desk. “Here are the bank accounts I told you about. One savings, a separate account for checking. There’s not a fortune left at this point, but if you’re careful, I think you
can easily manage until the house is sold, and barring disaster, should have something left over.” He looked up at her. “You are still planning on selling the house?”