Devoted(17)
Of course I trust Mrs. Champlain and you entirely, Rosa dear, but that room is my most private place, where I keep all my deepest, darkest secrets. You may think I’m a foolish old lady who’s lived a pampered life, with no secrets darker than having shoplifted a tube of lipstick when I was sixteen, but I assure you that I once had a wild side. And if you don’t believe that’s true, at least give me the courtesy of assuming there’s a one percent chance I might not always have been as boring as I am now. Treat the study as if we’re in a Daphne du Maurier novel, as if this house is an alternate-universe version of Manderley, and I am keeping either the murdered and mummified corpse of Rebecca or Mrs. Danvers—or both!—behind that locked door, to spare myself from a long prison sentence.
From a pocket of her slacks, Rosa now withdrew the key to the study door. Dorothy had given it to her the previous afternoon, ten hours before the crisis came, and instructed that it be used within a day of her passing. Rosa had not been told what she would find in the room, other than a computer on which were stored video files that she must watch.
Although she knew there would be no dead bodies, mummified or otherwise, she hesitated. If indeed there were secrets in this room, and if they might alter her opinion of Dorothy, Rosa Leon didn’t want to know them. In the lonely struggle that had been her life to date, she had met few people she admired, none more so than Dorothy. In the unlikely event there had been a dark side to Arthur Hummel’s widow, some ugliness of spirit, that discovery would pierce Rosa hardly less than if an archer put an arrow through her breast.
Yet she had promised to view the files on the computer and do what her heart told her was the right thing. A promise made must be a promise kept.
Rosa unlocked the door and went into the study.
The large room measured perhaps twenty-six feet by thirty, with tall windows offering a view of the fabled lake through descending ranks of pines.
To the right stood an antique Biedermeier desk that was large for furniture of that period. Behind the desk, a wall-length work area had been built to match the desk. On it waited a computer, printer, scanner, and other equipment.
In the center of the room were a Biedermeier sofa and two Art Deco armchairs ordered around a large coffee table fashioned from a Chinese kang bed, on which stood an arrangement of antique Japanese bronze vases. Dorothy and Arthur had eclectic tastes and a talent for making a variety of periods and styles work together.
The most unusual thing was the alphabet painted on the wall to the left, twenty-six one-foot-tall black letters stenciled on a white background, plus a series of punctuation marks. There were also symbols: & and % and + and = among them. On the floor in front of that wall stood a low contraption for which she could not discern a purpose.
Rosa went around behind the desk and sat in the office chair and swiveled to face the computer. She switched it on.
During the weeks that Dorothy lacked the strength to clean the study, a light dust settled on everything, but the system worked.
Dorothy’s password was Lovearthur.
There was a separate file of videos. They were numbered.
Rosa clicked on the first one, and when it began to roll, she was surprised to see a healthier Dorothy than the woman she had more recently been caring for. Dorothy appeared as she had been maybe ten months or a year earlier, sitting behind her desk.
Directly addressing the camera, she said, “Rosa Rachel Leon, you precious girl, I was fortunate to find you in my hour of need, and not merely because you have been giving me excellent care. I’m fortunate also because you’re honest, ethical, and blessed with genuine sympathy, with humility in a world of pride and selfishness. Furthermore, you’re far more intelligent than you believe.”
A blush warmed Rosa’s face, as if she were receiving this praise in the company of the living woman, and tears formed again. She plucked a Kleenex from a box to blot away her blurred vision.
“Within forty-eight hours of my death, Roger Austin will come to see you. As you know, he’s my attorney. He will inform you that I have made you my sole heir.”
This was news to Rosa, and she found herself shaking her head as if this must be a dream, as if she must deny what Dorothy said in order to avoid bitter disappointment when she woke.
“The law forbids a caregiver in a hospice situation to inherit from a patient. That’s why, after five months in my employ, when I had come to know your heart, we changed your title to Executive Companion and did so with such ironclad legal process that my will can’t be undone. Anyway, I’ve no relative to contest it.”
Rosa found herself so nervous that she wanted to move, work off a sudden frantic energy. But she was so weak-kneed when she got up from the chair that her legs failed her. At once she sat down again.
“After taxes,” Dorothy continued, “you’ll receive this house and all its contents plus liquid assets in the amount of twelve million dollars.”
“I don’t deserve this,” Rosa declared, as if the woman on the screen could hear her and be persuaded. “I was only with you for eighteen months.”
Dorothy had paused in the video, as if she’d known Rosa would at this point talk back to her benefactor. Her smile was impish.
“How I wish I could be there to see you now, girl. I know you will feel overwhelmed, maybe even afraid at first. Fear not. Roger Austin and my accountant, Shiela Goldman, are good people. They will give you reliable investment advice. And in time, if I know you—and I do know you—you’ll grow wise enough to handle it all yourself.”