The Will (The Magdalene Series) (Volume 1)(198)

“Fuck,” he muttered, disconnecting, his heart again thumping in his chest. He moved around the house, trying the key in each lock and looking in windows.

She’d changed the locks on all the doors and was nowhere to be seen.

At the back, he moved beyond the greenhouse and took in the landscape. The sea. The arbor. The empty garden.

He turned and looked up at the house.

He saw her in the light room.

She was in the window seat staring down at him and he began to lift a hand but went solid when he watched her stand up, turn away and disappear.

“Fuck me, f*ck me, f*ck me,” Jake whispered but moved swiftly to the greenhouse, trying the door he knew was locked and looking through.

She didn’t appear in the kitchen.

She didn’t appear in the family room when he walked by.

Or the living room.

Or at the front door when he went back to it and hammered.

Jake hit her number on his phone and when he got voicemail, his chest was burning and his jaw was tight.

“Baby, call me. We got shit to talk about. I’m drivin’ away now, givin’ you time. Tomorrow, we’ll meet at The Shack for an omelet. Nine o’clock.” He drew in breath and finished, “Kids miss you, Slick, and so do I.”

He disconnected, moved into the lane and looked back up at Lydie’s house. Josie’s house.

Fuck, he should have just told her.

Then he got in his truck, his chest still burning, his jaw clenched, his gut tight, and he drove away.

* * * * *

At nine fifty-five the next morning, after getting a coffee and standing at the end of the wharf for nearly an hour, Jake Spear walked away from The Shack.

And Tom watched him do it.

Then he slid the steel shutter over the window.

* * * * *

“I’ll leave you to it,” the bank manager murmured as he took his leave.

“Thank you,” I replied, took a deep breath and looked down at Gran’s safety deposit box.

Keeping my mind off things I should have my mind on, I opened it.

I’d found the key I’d completely forgotten the day before when I was going through my bag, again keeping my mind off things I should have had them on.

This precisely being the fact that I’d done much the same as what Donna had done.

I’d had a drama, made a silly decision, stuck my feet in and refused to look at the facts.

These being I was in love with Jake, Jake was in love with me, we were happy and whatever it was between him and Gran was between him and Gran.

He wanted to keep it that way and I had to trust he had his reasons. He told me it was important that I let it go and he’d also told me it was not that big of a deal.

These two contradicted each other.

But even as they did that, I knew two other things.

Gran loved me.

As did Jake.

And the first time he told me that, I’d walked away.

I just didn’t know how to fix it even though he’d told me how.

Call him.

Meet him at The Shack.

I didn’t do either.

The last boyfriend I had I fought with and the results were very unpleasant.

Jake was not him.

I still didn’t know how to go about seeking someone out to admit you’d been a fool and apologize.

Jake had not called again.

Jake had not called after I didn’t meet him at The Shack.

And now it was past one o’clock, which was a long time since I should have met Jake at The Shack, and I was going from feeling imprudent to being scared.

Thus, on a kind of autopilot, I was carrying on with inconsequential things when I should be finding Alyssa and picking her brain in order to sort out the mess I’d made.

“I’ll do that after this,” I murmured to myself as I looked through the things in Gran’s box.

Stock certificates. A goodly number of them. Jewelry. A great deal of it, all high-quality and expensive. Birth certificates. Hers. Mine. My father’s and uncle’s. Surprisingly, a deed to a plot of land in Florida.

And, at the bottom, a plain white envelope.

I pulled it out and saw that there was not a letter inside but something else.

And on the outside was written For my Buttercup in Gran’s hand.

I felt the envelope and noted it felt like one of those small tapes from a dictation machine.

Either Gran had a message for me or this was a tape that exposed such as the identity of Deep Throat from the Watergate scandal.

I was suspecting it was a message from Gran.

Oh God.

Hurriedly, I replaced all the items in the box and shoved the envelope in my bag. I moved to the door, opening it, and caught the bank manager’s eyes.

“I’m done.”

He nodded, came in, grabbed the box and we went back to the vault where he returned it. He turned his key. I turned mine.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Certainly,” he replied.

I gave him a small smile and directly left.

With care, I drove home thinking about Gran’s desk. I hadn’t scoured through the drawers but I didn’t recall seeing a tape machine in there.

However, if she’d recorded something for me, she had to have one somewhere.

I just had to find it.

This was on my mind when I drove up the lane, seeing a rather well-kept but nevertheless very old white pickup truck in the drive. Closing in behind it in my Cayenne, I saw a tall, sturdy, somewhat older man step out from the entryway of the front door. The wind was whipping his silver-gray hair and his jacket, his eyes in his (it had to be said) rather weathered face squinting in the sun.