but the storm last week did a lot of damage. Much of the house no longer has power, and the heating system has failed completely. Essentially, the house has gone from barely habitable to not habitable in a matter of days.”
Danae pulled at a loose thread on the chair cushion. “So what do we do?” The thought of living in that big, scary house with limited power wasn’t anywhere on her bucket list.
William frowned. “That is a fine question. I have already hired someone to begin the repairs, but the work could take a while to complete. I assume you’d like to get this over with.”
Danae nodded.
He tapped his pen on the desk then jumped up with more speed than Danae would have thought possible for a man his age. He pulled open a drawer in the filing cabinet behind him and removed a thick folder.
He slid back into his chair and flipped through the pages, scanning and frowning as he went. Danae looked over at Alaina, but she just shrugged. Finally, he closed the document and beamed across the desk at them.
“You’re renting the cabin off Bayou Glen Drive, right?” William asked.
“Yes,” Danae replied, “but I don’t see—”
“That cabin is part of the estate,” William said. “The inheritance documents don’t specify that you must occupy the main house, so I’m to assume that if you wanted to pitch a tent somewhere on estate acreage, that would also qualify. But in your case, you merely have to remain where you are for at least another two weeks, subject to monitoring and verification by our friend the sheriff.”
“Oh!” Danae exclaimed. “Well, that’s great.”
Alaina clapped her hands. “I told you William is the best.”
The ring of a cell phone interrupted their celebration. Alaina pulled her phone out of her purse and glanced at the display.
“I’m sorry,” Alaina said. “I have to take this.”
Alaina said very little but Danae could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. Her sister frowned as she slipped the phone back into her purse.
“Is everything okay?” Danae asked.
“No. My mother—the one who raised me—fell yesterday and broke her leg. My father died a couple years back, and my stepbrother and stepsister both work full-time and can’t afford to take off. They know I resigned from the firm and asked if I can stay with her for a week or so until the home health nurse is available.”
Disappointment rolled over Danae and she tried to fight it down. Of course Alaina had to go help the woman who’d raised her, but she’d been hoping for long hours to catch up with her sister—to pick her memory for glimpses of their life before their mother died. Surely Alaina, the oldest of the sisters, had memories of their childhood.
Alaina put her hand on Danae’s arm. “I’m so sorry to have to leave right now.”
“Don’t be silly,” Danae said. “We have plenty of time. I’m not going anywhere, not even after my two weeks are up.”
Alaina leaned over and hugged her before rising from her chair. “I need to book a flight and pack a bag. You gave me your cell-phone number weeks ago, so I’ll call you as soon as I get a chance and you’ll have mine. I think there’s a midmorning flight to Boston that I may be able to catch if I hurry.”
Alaina hurried around the desk to plant a kiss on a blushing William’s cheek, then rushed out of the office, closing the door behind her.
William watched Alaina, smiling, then looked at Danae after she’d gone. “She’s quite a woman, your sister. I think you two are going to get along very well.”
“I’ve liked her since the moment I met her. That’s a real relief for me. That and the fact that she wasn’t disappointed that I’m her sister.”
“Why would she be?”
“I don’t know—I mean, she’s this big-shot attorney and I’m just a café waitress. We’re hardly in the same realm.”
“You had two very different upbringings after you were stripped from your home.” He gave her a kindly look. “In my attempts to locate you, I learned some about your life in California. You’ve done well for yourself, Danae. Please don’t ever doubt that.”
She sniffed at the unexpected kindness. “Thanks.”
A movie reel of where she’d come from up to where she was now flashed through her mind, and she realized that right now was the turning point—the time where she could choose to make everything in her life different or simply fade away into obscurity again. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time.
“I can still have access to the house, right?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. It is—or will be—your property, after all. Is there anything in particular you wanted to do? Alaina made quite a dent in remodeling and cleaning. Her work in the kitchen transformed the room.”
She smiled. “I’m sure cleaning is something I could handle, but what I really want is the ability to go through the papers and pictures—see if I can find stuff about our past with our mother. I was so young...”
“And you want to remember.” William sighed. “It makes me so sad that you girls grew up without your mother. Ophelia was such a wonderful woman and her delight in you girls was apparent. Her death was a loss to the entire community but was devastating for you girls.”
He removed his glasses and rubbed them with a cleaning cloth on his desk, and Danae could tell he still felt her mother’s death. It made her both happy and sad that her mother was such a wonderful person she’d left such an impression, but then died without living her life to the fullest.
William slipped his glasses back on and cleared his throat. “It so happens that I need someone to go through the documents in the house. I haven’t been able to find anyone willing to do the work at the house, so I was going to have everything boxed up and shipped to an analyst in New Orleans. But if you’re willing to do the work, I’d be happy to pay you, instead of removing the documents.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Inventory lists, receipts—anything that gives me the ability to construct a list of property. I need to have it evaluated for tax purposes and such. So much is stuffed in the attic, closets and heaven only knows where else that it would take years to uncover it all. I hoped that the most valuable of objects would be contained on an asset listing or that the receipts would be filed with important household documents. Then I could valuate those items, assuming we locate them, and assign a base value to everything else.”
Danae could only imagine the mess that must be contained inside the massive old mansion. William definitely had his work cut out for him.
“I know you have your job at the café,” William continued, “so please don’t feel you have to accept my offer, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t tell you the rate for the work is twenty-five dollars an hour.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s
