When I arrived home, I found a Priority Post envelope sandwiched between the screen door and the front door. Mother had actually come through. She’d even had the smarts to courier the information. If her message about finding William Watson was accurate, this should finally lead me to the real owner of Whispers Island.
I immediately opened the package and extracted a small envelope, only to discover Mother had securely enclosed it with layers of scotch tape. I hastened to the kitchen for a knife, slid it through the thick tape, opened the envelope and pulled out two pieces of folded paper. They appeared to be letters written on tissue-thin paper.
I was in the process of unfolding one of them when the doorbell rang. With the letters firmly clenched in my hand, I opened the front door. My heart stopped when I saw Gareth encased in dripping yellow.
“What are you doing here?” I gasped, shoving the letters deep into my jeans’ pocket. I narrowed the opening of the door. “You’re supposed to be with the police.”
“Police?”
“Yeah, didn’t they find you at the hospital?”
“I didn’t go. Got tied up. Besides, why would they want me?”
Annoyed by his continuing pretense of innocence, I just glared back at him.
“Christ, you told them about the bracelet. I told you I had nothing to do with the shooting.”
“Why did you run away then?” I locked the screen door in his face.
“Let me in, Megs,” Gareth said through the screen. “I came to warn you that you might be in some kind of danger.”
“My only danger is from you,” I replied.
“I’m serious. I did some sniffing around after our little fracas this morning and discovered a few things I don’t like. I think you should get away from here until things settle down.”
“You must think I’m really stupid to believe anything you say.”
“I’m telling the truth. Things have gone further than I wanted them to.”
“Yeah, like me refusing to do your bidding.”
His face reddened with anger. “Forget it,” he said. “Just don’t blame me when you get hurt.” He turned on his heels and left.
I watched him get into his car. He’d lied to me one too many times. No way it could be a real threat. He didn’t care what happened to me. He only cared about protecting his own hide. Besides, why would this mysterious partner—if that’s who it was—be after me? No, in all probability, it was a ploy to get me away from my property, so the bastard could resume the search for whatever it was he’d sent Charlie after in the first place.
Then I saw Gareth’s last glance as he drove away and almost changed my mind. For an eye-blink, a sincere concern looked back at me from the man I had once loved, then it vanished into the careless indifference that had become Gareth. I stood for a while longer, wondering what to do, leave or stay, but remained undecided. At least, I could keep him occupied with LaFramboise. I placed a call to the SQ to let them know that Gareth was still in the area.
Afterwards, I returned to the two letters in my pocket. Both were written over eighty years ago, and both were addressed to Grandpa Harris.
The first was from Aunt Aggie; a long letter written in the thin, spidery handwriting I’d come to know well. Dated June 4, 1915, it confirmed what I’d already learned from her diary, her marriage to Baron Johann von Wichtenstein. And like her diary, she was bubbling over with happiness and looking forward to her new life with the man of her dreams.
As I reached the end of the long letter, I wondered why Mother had found it important, for it provided no additional information beyond what I already knew. Discouraged, I was about to set it aside when I realized that more writing covered the back of the last page.
P.S. John, I almost forgot to tell you what my new name will be. As much as you teased me about joining the high and mighty, you won’t be able to call me the Baroness von Wichtenstein. Rather you will just have to settle for plain old boring Mrs. William Watson.
Father advises, and Johann agrees, that until the war is over, he should not use his very German name. So he has settled on Watson. Heaven knows how he came up with that. He says it was the name of a character in some English novel his nanny read to him as a boy. And William is the English version of one of his names.
It seemed just too impossible. Aunt Aggie’s husband was William Watson, who died in 1920. When he died, she would have inherited, and since I was Aunt Aggie’s heir, I was now the owner of Whispers Island. Eric had been right all along.
I let out a war whoop. Gareth, I’ve got you now! And then I went cold. Someone had discovered I was the real owner of Whispers Island, and it couldn’t be Gareth. If he knew, he wouldn’t be issuing warnings. He’d be sitting back waiting for the inevitable to happen. Unless. Unless, somewhere under his calcified hide, he still held a vestige of the love he’d once felt for me. And if this were true, then I should heed his warning and not stay in this isolated house any longer.
The second letter rustled in my hand. I debated leaving it for later but decided it must be equally important for Mother to have included it. This one was from my Great-grandpa Joe. And as I read it, the floor seemed to open beneath me.
Toronto
November 12, 1920
Dear Son
Have you seen your sister yet? How is she taking it? I never did like that damn Hun she brought into the family. I never trusted him, too damn smarmy with his fancy manners, if you ask me. Why, that bastard didn’t even have the guts to fight for his country. He had to hide behind Aggie’s skirts.
And now that damn bastard has gone and left her. Enough that Aggie had to deal with the death of wee Edi, now she has to contend with this. Probably some skirt involved. Didn’t he have some wandering dick trouble in Germany? Good riddance is what I say, but Aggie won’t see it that way. She only had eyes for him.
I’m too busy right now, so I can’t go, but you go to Three Deer Point and see what you can do to help your sister.
For Aggie’s sake, I think we should keep this to ourselves. Lucky we kept the marriage quiet, what with the war and all. No reason why we can’t keep this a secret too. And for the few people that do know about the marriage, just put a notice in the local paper announcing the death of William Watson. It’ll save Aggie having to do any explaining and force him to use his German name.
Write after you’ve seen Aggie, and if you see the bastard, shoot him.
Your father Joe
The last of my euphoria had drained away by the end of the letter. My inheritance of the island was no longer secure. Now it was clogged with ifs. If my great-aunt had divorced the bastard, if he had remarried, if he had children, then I could not be the owner of Whispers Island.
I received some satisfaction from the realization that this was the kind of inheritance squabble that would take years to resolve in the courts. It would spell the end of any quick money for CanacGold, which in turn could kill their interest in developing the mine.
But it was also the kind of squabble that would disappear with the destruction of key documents.
I glanced down at the fragile letters and knew I was looking at the reason for the break-in. Charlie Cardinal had known about Aunt Aggie’s connection to Whispers Island. Maybe he’d also known about William Watson. Suspecting that documents like these existed, he’d searched my house with the intention of removing them before I found them. And he’d taken the wedding picture, the one readily available piece of evidence that could show Aunt Aggie’s link to William Watson. What would Charlie and Gareth do if they knew I now had the proof of Watson’s identity?