moved back upstairs, checked the back doorknob. No marks. Same thing on the front. No sign of forced entry. Her entire body slumped in relief.
“Thank you, Lord.”
Then she remembered.
“If you ever come and can’t get in, we’ll have a key hidden right here. Nobody will know about it but us.”
Piper flicked on the outside lights, unlocked the door and stepped onto the deck once more. She trod lightly across the deck, stopped in one corner. Her grandmother’s wishing well sat there, unused after the cold winter, cobwebs, dried leaves and dust frills gathered around the bottom.
The day she’d arrived she’d discovered one of her grandfather’s diaries was missing. It contained her grandfather’s thoughts from the last year of his life and it was the only one she hadn’t read, thinking she’d leave it until the grief wasn’t so fresh and it didn’t seem as if he were sitting there, saying the words to her.
Piper bent, tilted the well and slid her fingers beneath, searching for the key. Nothing. She pushed and shoved the heavy wooden piece, propped it up with a piece of wood, then shone her flashlight beneath.
There was no key.
She’d come here once after her grandparents had gone into the home and again after they’d died. The key had been there then. So had the diary. She could close her eyes right now and see the gilt letters etched on the leather cover.
Someone had taken the key and the journal.
Someone like Baron Wainwright?
After a hasty survey of the garden, Piper stepped back inside, closed and locked the door. She made sure all the windows were secure before she phoned the police. Piper felt certain they would find little and she was right. The police left no wiser than when they’d arrived.
Even so, Baron was the top suspect on her list. He’d hated her grandparents because they’d shielded her when he’d tried to force her back home years ago. He’d hated her because she’d told him the truth—that her mother would never have condoned his hateful behavior toward them, threatening them with legal action and lawsuits, but stood up to him and demanded he leave them alone or she’d disown him. And because she wouldn’t bow to his wishes.
Was taking Papa’s diary his way of denying her the solace she might have found in those last beloved words? Or was it a trick, a way to get her to call him and beg for what was rightfully hers?
If he thought she’d come crawling to him, he was in for disappointment. Piper had nothing more to say to her father.
Soft rain began falling, muffling the world outside. Piper lit a fire and curled up in her grandfather’s chair. She opened her briefcase and focused her attention on her plans for Serenity Bay.
But her thoughts kept returning to the tall, handsome mayor and the sense of gentleness she’d felt when he escorted her home.
Jason was a nice man. If she didn’t disappoint him about the Bay they could be good friends. But that’s all they’d be. Her heart couldn’t risk anything more.
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