“This is personal, Quinn.” His grandmother gestured with the glass, but her clearly worried gaze focused on the dark, rain-flecked window, as if by staring she could bring April Trent back.
“I know you were never at the farm, Quinn. I loved it so much, and I hated to leave it. But your grandfather decided he needed better freeway access. Tony bought this place and moved us here, right before Brett started elementary school.” She sighed. “I’m sure by now Ms. Trent is well on her way home. Quinn, dear, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding the farm. It’s the only house at the end of Oak Grove Road. The tracts of land adjoin federally reserved forest, which is why there are so few homes on that road.”
He expelled a breath. “I might be more inclined to rush out after that woman if you’d explain why a few old letters are so vital. And a passport? It can’t be yours. I’ve seen your passport, Gram. It might be decades out of date, but it’s locked in a drawer at the office.”
Norma drained her dainty glass and carried it to the sideboard near the compact bar. “Your grandfather filed to replace my lost passport probably a year after we moved to this house. I saw no need. I never planned to travel out of the country. But he insisted and even filled out the paperwork to request a new one in my married name. The passport in Ms. Trent’s possession is in my maiden name—Marsh. It should be destroyed, Quinn.”
“I shouldn’t think that it’s urgent. Unless you’re worried about some unsavory person getting hold of it and using it to try and steal your identity. Someone even more unsavory than April Trent.”
“Quinn, it’s unlike you to be this unpleasant to anyone. Especially to an attractive young woman.”
“Attractive? It must be time for your yearly eye exam.”
“Are you talking about the lady who was just here?” Hayley Santini sat cross-legged on the upper landing and took that moment to enter the conversation. Her little face peered down at the adults through ornate banister spindles. “I wish I had curly hair like hers. If my hair curled, I wouldn’t have to sit for hours ev’ry time Ethel or Gram say I need my hair to look nice for pictures and stuff.” Ethel was Quinn and Norma’s shared housekeeper. Ethel Langford had been a middle daughter in a family of eight children, but she’d never had kids of her own. Hence the housekeeper tended to dote on six-year-old Hayley.
“Exactly how many times a year would that be, Hayley? Easter and Christmas?” Quinn asked jokingly.
“Attractive means I consider Ms. Trent very pretty, Hayley,” Norma Santini said. “Your father disagrees.”
“She is pretty, Daddy.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be playing with your dolls?”
“It’s boring up here, and ’sides, Daddy, you guys were yelling.”
Instantly contrite, Quinn hurried up the stairs and hoisted his daughter into his arms for a hug. Hayley had been barely a year old when Brett Santini’s small plane had been struck by lightning and crashed in a rugged part of the Allegheny Mountains, killing Quinn’s father, mother and wife. At the time, Hayley’s pediatrician said he thought Hayley was young enough not to be affected by the accident that had nearly devastated Quinn. Actually, neither one had been quick to recover.
Two women Quinn had tried dating three years after the accident, accused him of overcompensating for his losses by spoiling Hayley. His daughter was bright and sensitive and his spoiling just meant he wanted her with him when he had free time. So his response to both women had simply been to stop dating them—or anyone. Dating simply cut into his role as dad.
Since Hayley had entered kindergarten, though, she’d started to notice and exclaim over women she thought were pretty or nice. Last week she’d picked out a clerk in a store, and later during that same outing, a waitress. In a voice the women had to have heard, Hayley declared them very pretty and asked if her dad thought either one was married.
But April Trent? She wore boots like a lumberjack.
Quinn tickled Hayley’s ribs as he carried her down to the main floor, and deposited her in a chair by the fire. “Listen, hon, Gram thinks your dad was too hard on Ms. Trent. I guess I’d better go see what I can do to smooth her ruff led feathers. I’ll change my clothes and make a few phone calls before I head out. You can pop in one of the DVDs we brought over.”
“Is ‘smooth ruff led feathers’ like saying you’re sorry for yelling at her?”
Adjusting the knife creases in his tux pants, Quinn straightened fully and began to rub the back of his neck. His troubled eyes sought his grandmother’s.
“Apology might be a bit much, since she showed up here uninvited. But Gram wants me to, uh, discuss something with Ms. Trent.” Crossing to where Norma sat, he crouched to speak softly. “I know you said you’d pay her for the return of the letters,” Quinn said, “but I won’t…can’t do that. Gram, think how that could be misconstrued?”
Norma lowered her voice. “Maybe you should listen to Hayley’s suggestion. You were rude to Ms. Trent. A simple apology might achieve our goal.”
“If I knew the goal,” he muttered, and left her with a look that said plainly it was against his inclinations to go after April Trent.
On the way to his house out back, Quinn spent more time mulling over what excuse he’d give Hoerner for skipping out on his generous cocktail party. After changing clothes, Quinn called the kindly state representative and explained that his grandmother urgently required his help.
Not until Quinn drove out the gate did he realize it stood wide open. Only then did he feel less hostile toward the woman who’d disrupted his evening. Yesterday, Joseph Langford, Gram’s driver, had reported to Quinn that he’d had trouble closing the electronic gate. So April Trent hadn’t scaled the fence as Quinn had all but accused her of doing. She’d strolled right through.
Now he’d probably have to apologize. And tomorrow get onto the perimeter-fence firm to fix the system. The company should have phoned him when they detected a breach. Quinn paid dearly for a firm to monitor the gate’s daily operation—one more nuisance to add to a growing list, at a time when election meet-and-greets, donor balls, et cetera, were exploding into high gear.
And now this…this letter debacle of his grandmother’s. The Trent person had referred to them as love letters. What kind of nonsense was that? Although his grandmother hadn’t rushed to deny that claim, or anything else April Trent had said.
Quinn’s head pounded as he considered even the hint of a skeleton popping out of his family closet this close to the end of a bitter campaign. His opponent was the king of muckrakers.
Or was he dodging shadows where none existed? After all, they were talking about Grandmother Santini. As far back as Quinn could remember, she’d epitomized grace and dignity. As well, she’d been happily married to the grandfather he’d never met for—what—more than two decades? He’d heard his dad brag that Anthony had rubbed elbows with Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. Quinn was probably worrying about nothing. Besides, trying to throw dirt on an eighty-two-year-old woman was bound to backfire.
God, those letters must be ancient. Quinn’s grandfather had died before Quinn was even born. 1968, he thought. Gram had always lived alone in the big house, but her only son had lived close by. Quinn grew up running in and out of both places. Until he went off to college. Right out of law
