Falling for you, p.23
Falling for You, page 23
She tugged, unable to loosen it from the clutches of the soil. “Some kind of metal box.”
He peered over her shoulder. “The crowbar will pry it out of there.” Rob wandered away, muttering something about Guinness and how he could have sensed there was something buried there.
When Rob returned, he pried the box out of the hole. The crowbar dented it a bit, and patches of rust speckled the cover. Naturally it was locked.
The small lock didn’t exactly intimidate. “What do we do now?” Faith asked.
Rob shrugged. “I could cut the lock, or pound it open with a hammer.”
Why not? Curiosity would get the better of them before they came up with another solution. She lifted the box. “It’s not heavy. Let’s bring it into the shed.”
Guinness eagerly followed them, clearly relieved they’d gotten sidetracked and he wasn’t in any major trouble for digging up the lawn.
Rob grabbed a hammer off the work bench and flexed his grip. “You sure about this?”
Faith lifted her hands. “What other option do we have?” She placed the box on the same beam that had given Rob the splinter. “Work your magic.”
Rob swung the hammer, bashing it against the lock three times before it snapped open. He took a step back and tossed the hammer into a box of tools. “Where there’s a will there’s a way. Would you like to do the honors?”
During the forty-odd seconds it took Rob to break the lock, Faith’s heart rate had increased to a gallop, and her hands had begun to tremble. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to hide the contents of this box. She shook her hands to try to steady them. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous right now. It’s not like there could be a dead body packed into something the size of a cash box.”
“A hand, maybe.” Rob fluttered his fingers and pretended to gag. “Or it could be full of thousand-dollar bills, for all we know. This was the home of Rocky Romano, after all.”
Faith stepped forward and twisted the broken padlock off the box before taking a deep breath and opening the top, giving way to a squeak. Rob met her at her side, and they both peered into the box.
“No bills or hands.” Faded silk rested in the bottom of the box. After a moment’s hesitation, Faith poked at the pink fabric. When nothing jumped out at her, she moved closer, for better inspection. There was fringe on the edging. “I think it’s a scarf.” She lifted the material, but the weight shifted and a small book slipped from the fabric into the box.
“The missing journal.” Her hand flew to her mouth and she and Rob met each other’s gaze with wide eyes.
Rob crossed his arms and leaned his chin into his fist. His shoulders lifted, then settled. “You think?”
“It’s gotta be. It matches the rest of the journals we found in the attic. This has to be the one with the answers about James and Ella.” She plucked it up and opened it, nodding at the cursive writing she’d gotten so familiar with over the last couple of weeks. The journals gave so much insight into Ella’s life, she’d begun to think of her as a friend. She knew her great-grandmother’s deepest thoughts as though she were living them herself. Ella had become so much more than a limb on her family tree—she’d become a part of Faith. A connection like she’d never had with another family member had been forged the day she found Ella’s story.
She closed the journal and fanned herself with it. “I’m suddenly feeling light-headed. Maybe we should take this inside. Toast it with a drink or something.”
Rob ushered her to the kitchen table and poured them each a glass of wine from the bottle sitting on the cupboard. “Faith, if you’re not ready to read what happened, we can wait.”
She shook her head. “No way. I have to know who James was and why my great-grandmother never ended up with him.”
Rob pulled up a chair and took a drink of his wine. “Okay, let’s read it together. We can take turns.”
Guinness slumped onto the floor at their feet. Faith licked her lips and opened the soft cover.
At first it read much like the rest of the journals. Ella gushing about James and worrying her father suspected they were sneaking around behind his back.
Faith’s heart rate quickened. James sent Ella a present—the most gorgeous dress she’d ever seen, with a note to pack it with whatever else she brought.
He intended to make her his wife.
They crafted a cover-up while planning to run away together.
Dread pricked the pit of her stomach. “That’s the dress we found in the attic.” Tears pierced Faith’s eyes. “It was never worn because they never got married.”
Rob bit his lip and held out his hand. “You want me to take over reading?”
Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded, pressing her fingers to her trembling lower lip and handing over the book.
He picked up where Faith left off and related what he learned. “On the night they were set to run away together, Ella snuck out of the house with her bags and took a path through the woods to meet James, but he never showed. She waited hours, until her father had his men search for her and bring her back to the house.”
Faith could almost picture the whole scene playing out before her eyes. Her breath caught, and Rob looked up from the journal, his expression soft. “Do you want me to keep going?”
Her throat burned. She nodded, choking back a sob.
Rob brought the book closer, squinting. “Um, her handwriting is really hard to read now, but basically she’s heartbroken that he stood her up.” He flipped a couple of more pages. “Wait.” His brows drew together while he tried to decipher the writing. “Now she’s refusing to believe he stood her up and speculating that her father orchestrated his disappearance to put an end to their romance and punish them both for betraying him. That he might’ve sent James away—paid him off.”
No. The small glimpse they’d gotten of James and Ella’s courtship was enough to know that no amount of money would have been worth giving up Ella. Besides, James was Rocky’s right-hand man. He wouldn’t have needed money. It had to be something else.
Something worse.
Faith’s father’s warnings about the Romanos drifted back, and she lowered her head onto the table.
Rob scanned the next page and gave her shoulder a tender squeeze. “Now she’s saying he’s gone. ‘James is gone forever, and it’s all my fault.’”
A tear rolled down Faith’s cheek when she nodded solemnly. “Rocky Romano had James killed.”
“Hey.” Rob gathered her in his arms and smoothed a hand over her back. “We don’t know that. Maybe he blackmailed him or something, and sent him far away from Sapphire Springs. There’s no way of knowing, unfortunately, because I can’t make out any more of her writing, and then Ella’s story just stops.” He held the book out to her. “The rest of the pages are blank.”
“Like she gave up.” Faith sniffed, and took the tissue Rob handed her. “No wonder my father didn’t want me digging into the past. Obviously, he knows at least some of the story.”
“It’s possible.” Rob wiped tears from her cheeks. “We could ask him.”
Faith noticed the glass of wine in front of her and took a gulp. She opened the journal and skimmed it, flipping through the pages filled with Ella’s suspicions.
Toward the end Ella began repeating herself and the handwriting became illegible, as Rob indicated, but Faith was more familiar with the penmanship and could make out more details.
He’s gone, he’s gone. They said it was an accident but I know Father too well. He did this. How can I live without James?
She’d threatened to go to the authorities, and her father threatened her right back—blackmailing her with all the illegal activity she’d been up to her fancy earrings in. Basically, if she threw him under the bus, he was taking her down with him, so she resigned to stay quiet.
For the rest of her life, apparently.
Little wonder the woman lost her grip on reality.
Faith squinted at the words on the last page.
He can threaten me all he wants, and I’ll even let him think he’s won. But I’m planting this journal, so that someday someone finds it and discovers the truth.
The handwriting all started to blur together, until she caught sight of the word roses.
“She planted the rose bush in memory of James because he bought her roses every time he had to go out of town to oversee a shipment.” Faith pressed her fist to her heart and held her page with her finger while she spoke to Rob.
“The day I had lunch with my dad he mentioned how delirious she became in her old age and her obsession with those rose bushes.”
Rob let out a long breath and studied Guinness, snoozing peacefully under the table. “Almost like she was guarding the journal. How in God’s name did Guinness know something was buried there?”
Faith shook her head. “I don’t know. Intuition?” She set the book down on the table. She’d reread it thoroughly later. “I wish we knew who James was.” She glanced at the clock, relieved it wasn’t late. “I need to talk to Dad. Tonight.”
Rob stood and held out his hand. “I’ll take you.”
During the drive into the city, they barely spoke, both of them processing the details of Ella’s journal while the highway grew busier and the city lights dotted the horizon.
They interrupted her father as he was watching a baseball game on TV.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Chip greeted them, gesturing them inside his brownstone. “Rob, it’s good to see you again. Ellen’s at her book club. She’ll be sorry she missed you, Faithy.”
Faith ignored his pleasantries and crossed her arms. “We have some questions, Dad. About Ella Gray.”
Chip paused for a second before closing the door behind them with a click. “Faith, honey, I warned you about probing into the past—”
“We found Ella’s journals in the attic. And we also found a missing journal.”
Her father’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He braced one hand on the banister when his balance swayed. “You found the missing journal?” With eyes unfocused, he moved into the other room and turned off the TV. “Where was it?”
“Buried by the rose bushes.”
Chip shook his head. “I’ll be damned.”
Faith followed him. “I’m too far into this to let it go, so if you know anything about what happened to the mysterious James in August of 1924—who he was, or anything about his accident, then I’m begging you to start talking.”
He went to the liquor cart and poured three scotches on the rocks, and with trembling hands, passed them each a drink. “God, I can’t believe this is happening all over again. This sudden interest in those people’s lives surprises me, Faith. You’re such an advocate for living in the present moment that I didn’t think you’d devote so much time to the turmoil that is the past.”
Rob gripped his glass. “I think what Faith needs is confirmation of what happened, for closure’s sake.”
Chip nodded and sipped his drink. “I’m not going to be much help, I’m afraid. If your mother was here she could and would tell you everything she knew.”
Faith lowered to the couch. “Mom knew the story?”
Rob took her hand and the warmth of it, the strength of it, grounded her.
Chip’s gaze lowered to their clasped hands, and he nodded. “She did, at least in part. She was fascinated by Ella and uncovering the mystery, as you’ve been these past weeks. She obsessed over the whereabouts of that missing journal, convinced it would explain everything.”
“Well, it doesn’t, not really,” Faith supplied. “All we know is that James was in some kind of accident, and that Ella believed Rocky was to blame.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “William Gray knew the story, as his mother, Ella, told it to him, but he was a shifty old bugger. Your mother went to him several times to try to convince him to tell her what he knew, and eventually one of those times he did.” He pushed off the chair to pace. “Iris called me that night she spoke to him. She was upset but said she didn’t want to get into it over the phone—she’d tell me the whole story when she got home. I told her to book a room at an inn, stay the night, so she could drive home in the morning with a clear head, but she just said she wanted to get home.”
His grim gaze met Faith’s and his chin crumpled.
A vise gripped Faith’s heart and squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. “No.” No no no. “Was that the night she…” Because her throat clenched, Faith simply trailed off.
A tear ran down her dad’s face, and Faith crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him.
His voice shook. “I don’t know what William told her that was so upsetting. Maybe it was about the accident you mentioned. She never got the chance to tell me. If she’d stayed the night in Sapphire Springs instead of driving in the rain…” He backed away from Faith and wiped his face. “I hounded William for months to tell me the truth. I blamed him for Iris’s accident, and still do to this day. That’s why I severed ties, and why I didn’t want you to have anything to do with his damn house.”
He lifted his drink to his mouth and drained it with a shaky hand. The overhead light cast shadows over his face, and for the first time ever, he looked every day of his age.
“The minute you mentioned Ella, I knew you wouldn’t give up until you got answers. You’re so much like your mom. Tenacious.”
He got up to refill his drink and leaned against the fireplace. “I’m sorry I never told you this before, Faithy. I wanted to spare you the disappointment, and perhaps selfishly, I tried to shelter you from the Romano part of your roots. In a strange way, I’ve viewed the whole estate as cursed ever since we lost Mom.”
The negative attitude and lack of contact with her mother’s side of the family finally made more sense. Faith’s voice was soft when she spoke. “With William gone, and Mom gone, we’ll never know who James was or any details about his accident.”
Rob’s hand squeezed her shoulder and rested there. “Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe we should let it go.”
“I’ve always wondered,” Chip said, ice cubes jingling in his glass as he set it on the mantel. “The man must’ve had a family. Somebody out there must’ve known who he was.”
Faith glanced up at her father, who simply stared into his drink, oblivious to the fact that he’d given her a fabulous idea. “Maybe somebody still does.” She shifted focus to Rob. “The webisode.”
It was actually kind of brilliant.
She filled her father in on the idea Fuzzy and Lars had about profiling Romano Estate.
Rob exchanged a worried look with her father. “Think this through, Faith. Letting town council do a webisode on Romano Estate is one thing, but dredging up this Ella and James stuff could bring on a whole lot of unwanted attention.”
“Rob’s right. You need to really think about this, Faith, and decide if it’s worth uncovering the secrets of a very prominent family. We can’t jump to conclusions, but the burden of what happened to James pushed Ella over the edge later in life. I wholeheartedly believe that, and your mother did too. There’s no telling what kind of backlash could arise by opening that can of worms.” Her father sat forward and tented his fingers.
“The name Romano was highly eminent in its time. There could be any number of opportunists out there. You could be fed false information from people simply hoping for some kind of handout. I’m asking you to be careful, and if it’s really worth knowing.”
Backlash or not, she owed it to Ella and James to uncover what happened. To give him a name, an identity. William Gray left the estate to her for a reason. He might’ve carried the story with him his entire life, never having the guts to make things right, but she would.
“This might be the only chance we ever have of learning the truth.” Raising her gaze, she looked at her father and then Rob. “Are you with me or not?”
Rob crossed his arms and expelled a long sigh. “You know I’m with you.”
Seconds of silence passed. Finally, her father tore his eyes away from the rug and moved closer to clasp Faith’s hand. “Me too. How do we go about doing this?”
Faith looked from Rob to her father, and back to Rob. “I’ll call Fuzzy.”
Chapter Twenty
Her family is associated with organized crime, Rob.”
The moment the webisode trickled down the pipeline, Issey’s phone calls and texts began. Rob rocked back on his heels, to take a break from the hardwood floors he laid in Faith’s upstairs hall. “Were, Issey. They were. It was like a hundred years ago.”
For crying out loud.
The webisode hadn’t sat well with him, but Faith had a point. The town council’s web channel had a lot of followers. Naturally, Fuzzy was all over the story of the star-crossed lovers, and Tim and Emily had done a great job interviewing Faith and touring the house. The whole thing was shot and edited in a matter of three days and had gone live two nights ago, on the eve of the Heritage Festival kickoff.
“I don’t care if it was a thousand years ago, Rob. How much did you really know about this woman before you brought her into our daughter’s lives?”
Thankfully, he was in a place now where her words didn’t have him jumping to the defense and firing comments back at her. It was refreshing. Rob paced, tuning out her badgering by counting in his head, until she started tossing around phrases like “appeal the custody agreement.”
He pushed off the floor, stretching his aching legs. “Come on, Issey. Faith is not a threat to Carly and Sarah because her great-great-grandfather smuggled booze across the border in the 1920s.” He kept an even tone. “You’re being completely unreasonable.”
“Am I? You’ve known her for all of five minutes. God knows who else she might have out there for relatives.” Her voice grew louder by the second, probably out of frustration that he wasn’t getting worked up. “This is just like you to not even consider how all of this could impact the girls.”
Anger tried to creep up Rob’s chest, and he rolled his eyes toward the new ceiling medallion and took slow and steady breaths. She had no business calling him out like this. After all, her own judgment was far from perfect. He forced himself to remain calm and not raise his voice. “What are you even talking about, this is just like me?” Because he went around dating unsuspecting descendants of crime bosses every day?
