she locked the door. Then, as an added safeguard, she wedged the extra kitchen chair that she always kept in her bedroom beneath the doorknob.
When Charlotte awoke on Thursday morning, she allowed herself the luxury of simply lying in bed a few minutes, and doing nothing more than staring up at the ceiling. After months of getting harangued by her son, Hank, to cut back her hours, she had finally given in and decided to take Thursdays off, as well as the weekends. Hank would have preferred that she retire, but Charlotte had put her foot down and flat-out refused.
“Humph, that’s like ‘the pot calling the kettle black,’” she grumbled. Her son should think about taking his own advice and cutting back, especially considering all the hours that he’d been working lately.
She might not be an important surgeon like her son, but she liked what she did for a living and she was good at it. As long as she was physically able to continue working, and as long as she enjoyed it, she couldn’t see the sense in retiring…at least not yet.
A slow smile pulled at Charlotte’s lips. Of course once her little grandbaby was born, she might have to rethink her position on the matter of retiring, especially if her daughter-in-law, Carol, decided to resume her nursing career and needed help with the baby. And who knows? Maybe Hank would consider cutting back his hours once the baby was born.
Spotting the beginnings of a cobweb in the corner near the window, Charlotte made a mental note to dust the edges of the ceiling when she did her weekly cleaning on Saturday. Then her gaze slid to the door. The sight of the chair wedged beneath the doorknob was an unpleasant reminder that she wasn’t alone in the house.
Hmm, maybe she would confront Joyce today about all of the lies she’d told. Or even better, maybe she would work up enough courage to tell her she had to find another place to stay.
After a trip to the bathroom, Charlotte’s nose detected the scent of freshly brewed coffee, and like a cat drawn to catnip, she headed for the kitchen. Her thoughts still on the situation with Joyce, she finally decided that she would give Joyce one more day to find her own place, and if she hadn’t found somewhere else to live by then…
Charlotte sighed and shook her head. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t just throw Joyce out on the street. She walked over to the cabinet and poured herself a cup of coffee. No, she couldn’t throw her out on the street, but she could speed Joyce’s departure by helping her find somewhere else to live.
With her thoughts occupied by possible places that Joyce could live, Charlotte didn’t notice the piece of paper on the kitchen table until she sat down right in front of it.
“If it had been a snake, it would have bit you,” she whispered as she leaned forward and read the scrawling handwriting on the piece of paper. It was a brief note from Joyce letting Charlotte know that she had left early due to an appointment to look at an apartment.
“At least she had the decency not to wake me,” Charlotte muttered, her eyes straying to the Thursday Times-Picayune folded neatly beside the note. That Joyce had even thought to bring in the newspaper was another surprise. “Probably so she could look at the rental ads,” Charlotte muttered again.
For Pete’s sake, Charlotte, stop being so distrustful and such a cynic about everything.
Not liking what her conscience was telling her, Charlotte sipped her coffee. She didn’t like being distrustful or cynical. She didn’t used to be that way. So was it part of getting older, or was it from being around Joyce?
Charlotte stared out the window as she finished her coffee. She didn’t have an answer, but, cynic or not, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Joyce was stealing from her. With a sigh, she set down her cup. There was only one way to know for sure.
Charlotte didn’t have a lot of valuables, just a few nice pieces of jewelry that she’d inherited from her mother, a gold watch that had belonged to her father, and some silverware. She kept most of her valuables scattered in little hidy-holes throughout her house. That way, if a thief found one place, he might think that was all there was and leave the rest alone.
“Auntie, you really should get a nice strong safe….”
Her niece’s words played through her mind as she headed for the first hiding place, a bedside-table drawer in her bedroom that she’d lined with velvet.
When she first opened the drawer, she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her, so she pulled it completely free from the table and set it on top of the bed to get a better look.
“Oh, no,” she groaned.
Her mother’s rings were there, and her own diamond pendant necklace was still there, along with her pearls, but where was her father’s gold watch?
That watch is just the sort of thing that might bring a good price at a pawnshop. But are you sure that you put the watch in the drawer?
Charlotte’s eyes squinted in thought as she searched her memory. She was 100 percent sure that she’d placed the watch in the drawer…. Well, almost 100 percent, but just to satisfy the tiny doubt niggling in the back of her mind, she quickly checked the shoebox in the bottom corner of her closet, where she’d stashed most of the silverware. Not finding the watch there either, and with just one last place to check, Charlotte headed for the guest room.
At the closed door, she hesitated. It was her house, so why did she feel like she was the intruder if she entered the room and looked around, almost like she was invading Joyce’s privacy?
After a moment, she finally grabbed the doorknob. “Get over it and just do it!” she retorted as she twisted the doorknob and shoved open the door.
But in the doorway, she froze, her eyes wide with disbelief. “What a pig,” she whispered when she finally found her voice.
Joyce hadn’t bothered making her bed, there were clothes on the floor, the closet door was standing wide open, the trash basket was so full that wadded tissues had fallen on the floor around it, and a dirty plate and glass…
“Oh, no!” Charlotte rushed over to the beautiful oak night table that her grandfather had built for her mother as a wedding gift. She snatched up the plate and the glass. Sure enough, beneath the glass was a huge white water ring.
Charlotte groaned. If only she’d known ahead of time just how carelessly Joyce would treat her things, she would have covered the tabletop with a scarf or hand towel, anything to keep Joyce from ruining the finish of the beautiful old table.
Plate and glass in hand, Charlotte hurried to the kitchen. After putting the dishes in the sink, she took out her special polishing compound and a clean polishing cloth from beneath the sink cabinet, then hurried back to the bedroom.
Grumbling to herself, she spread the compound and began rubbing it into the wood with the cloth. Though the water ring was slowly disappearing, Charlotte frowned when she saw the indentation in the wood.
“What on earth?” she exclaimed, staring at what appeared to be writing of some kind. Charlotte rubbed harder, but the indentation didn’t go away.
Then it came to her. As quick as the sting of a bee, Charlotte realized what she was looking at. Joyce had to have been using a ballpoint pen to write notes on the table, and of course it never would have occurred to her to put something under the paper to protect the wood. But what kind of notes?
Charlotte squinted and
