“Who’s there?”
No one answered.
Then a shadow filled the doorway. Her heart all but leapt into her throat.
“Sarah?”
“Oh, Connor.” She stepped into the light. “You scared me for a moment. You find more damage? I’m not surprised.” Her breath was returning to normal, but it hadn’t caught up with her voice yet. “I’d like to bring this trunk into the lodge. It’s awfully heavy. I don’t know how you two managed to haul it up the stairs.”
“We didn’t,” he said, his brow furrowed. “That one was already in here. I didn’t open it.”
“It’s filled with old albums and scrapbooks, keepsakes I think belonged to our great-grandmother. Could you and Matt—uh—uhh.” She raised her elbow to her face and sneezed.
“Sure. But—”
“Connor, what is it? What—?” She sneezed again.
A half-smile crept onto his lips. “I’ll get Matt.”
* * *
In the lodge, Sarah left the journal and pliers on the kitchen counter, then headed for the bathroom to wash off the dust.
A few minutes later, she heard a clatter outside and rushed to open the front door. “Don’t worry about your boots,” she called. The men lugged the brass and leather trunk through the front hall and set it in Grandpa Tom’s office.
r /> “Why don’t you start limbing those spruce?” Connor asked Matt. Sarah thanked the young man, then turned to her brother.
“What’s up? I can see it on your face.”
“I need to explain. About Lucas.”
She perched on the corner of their grandfather’s desk and crossed her arms. “I just didn’t realize he’d done any work for the company. Or that you knew him. But it’s a small town. And from what Nic says, when it came to lawyers in Deer Park, you didn’t have a lot of choice.”
“I know what happened twenty-five years ago, sis,” Connor said.
No, you don’t. Not all of it. Connor had been a kid then, thrilled to meet an honest-to-goodness, real-life college basketball star. Michael had been kind to the gangly teenager, and Connor had been devastated by his death. As far as he knew, as far as anyone around here knew, the wreck was a terrible accident. And he didn’t know what Lucas had done to Janine. His ignorance was her fault; they’d kept their mouths shut.
But now the man was dead. And maybe she’d held her grudge too long.
She raised both hands. “Hey, it’s okay. You had every right to hire whoever you thought would do the best job for the company, and I don’t get to say boo, because I’m not running the business. Unless you killed him. You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“God, no, Sally. How can you say that?”
“Joking. Joking. Seems like most of the people who knew Lucas wanted to kill him, at one time or another.”
“He could be a first-class ass,” Connor said. “But if Jeremy was willing to let it go, maybe you should, too.”
“Jeremy?” She straightened. “What does he have to do with this? And don’t you tell me how my husband felt or didn’t feel.”
“Hey, what’s this mysterious trunk?” They heard Holly before they saw her. She stood in the doorway, looking from one sibling to the other. “What? What’s up?”
Holly’s words echoed Sarah’s own demands. They were all on edge right now. Sarah cradled the top of her head. She was sick of secrets. Parts of the story weren’t theirs to tell. But if it weighed this heavily, it might be time to lift the burden.
They told him about the letters. About Janine racing up to Deer Park to confront Lucas, only to find him dead on his office floor. About Leo’s suspicions and Nic’s attempt to piece together the truth, to bolster Janine’s defense and identify the real killer.
Through it all, Connor kept a closed face. When Sarah finished, he spoke to Holly. “So that’s why you’re here. This isn’t a girlfriends’ week to reconnect and comfort Sarah?”
Holly’s silence was his answer.