“Maybe Aunt Addy promised Caleb to find out. Who knows?”
“She wasn’t that old.” Alix followed him to the back of the truck. “Wait a minute. You don’t believe what Dilys said about Aunt Addy talking to a ghost, do you?”
He looked up from the truck. “Would you like to see the inside of the house?”
“Are you trying to make me stop asking questions about your family? Are there lots of secrets?”
“Walt Harwood had me design a bedroom in this house for his grandson. It’s like the interior of an old whaling ship. Or a movie version, anyway. And photos of the room have never been put in any book.”
Alix very much wanted to know more about Valentina and Caleb and even Obed. And she wanted to know for sure how her mother came to know so much about all the Kingsleys. Could Aunt Addy have known so very much about the family? All the way back to the 1700s? That didn’t seem likely. And why had Alix been asked to do this research? Why not her mother? But then her mom would have hired someone from the Smithsonian.
But as much as Alix wanted to ask questions, she knew this could be her only chance to see a room—an interior!—designed by Jared Montgomery. She knew he was trying to distract her, but still…
“I have a sixteen-megapixel Nikon in the glove box of my truck,” he said. “You can take all the photos you want.”
Alix stared at him.
“Think your friend Izzy will want to see them?” he asked enticingly.
“Okay, you win,” Alix said. “Lead me to the room. Have you done many interiors?”
“On island,” he said. “No questions.”
“You’re a rat, aren’t you?”
“With a long, strong tail,” he said and walked ahead of her.
Alix watched the backside of him as he walked away and agreed. Quite strong looking.
Alix thought the house’s interior was very ordinary. There were big windows looking out to the sea and that was nice, but there was absolutely nothing in the house that was unique or even very interesting. The crown moldings were insipid, and what woodwork there was came from a millwork catalog.
However, she noted that the kitchen cabinets were the very expensive kind made in Germany, the granite had fossils in it, and all the tile had been handmade. To her it was odd that the walls were Sheetrock but the marble was Carrara.
She looked back at Jared. “You mind if I ask how much your friend paid for this house?”
“Twenty mill.”
Alix took a moment before she could get her mouth closed. “Twenty million dollars? American dollars? Twenty of them?”
“That’s right.”
“Why in the world did it cost that much?”
“Because it’s on Nantucket.”
“I know that. But if it were in Indiana …”
“If it were in Indiana it wouldn’t cost even one million,” he said. “But it’s on Nantucket.”
“Yes, and it’s on the water, but isn’t twenty million a bit excessive?”
“Not if the house is on Nantucket,” he said firmly.
“Okay,” she said, “what would this house cost if it were on, say, Martha’s Vineyard?”
“Who’s she?”
“I don’t know who Martha was. I’m talking about the island that’s about thirty miles west of here.”