39
SUNDAY AFTERNOON at the Atlanta airport, we dropped off quite a different Maggie from the one we’d picked up on Friday. She scarcely met my gaze and barely returned my goodbye hug. I hadn’t told Stephen what she’d said about Bryan, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have mentioned it to him.
Later that night, she texted , then went radio silent for two days, despite both Stephen and I occasionally calling and texting. She finally texted the family thread on Wednesday morning: But I bet she wouldn’t be calling me. I considered hopping on a plane to Denver to try to work through things, but Stephen and even Paige encouraged me to give her time. Easier said than done.
I awakened early Friday morning, only to be greeted soon after by the telltale rumble of Ford F150s pulling into the driveway. I welcomed Alex and the crew, then fixed an espresso and hid away in the office to finish transcribing what I’d read thus far in Charlotte’s journal.
Charlotte and Nettie were never far from my mind, especially when I was in the room upstairs. The time was coming when I would have to say something about the journal. I couldn’t keep it to myself much longer. Nor did I want to. I only wanted to read it in its entirety first.
After transcribing the last of the pages I’d read, I looked ahead and discovered that the remaining pages held the greatest challenge, due to extensive fading and discoloration.
My phone vibrated. A text from Stephen:
Next steps. An odd way to refer to what lay ahead. I responded with a thumbs up.
I’d googled Georgia uncontested divorce, so I knew the basics. “Adultery during the marriage” would be the box we would check. Either that or “The marriage is irretrievably broken.” Both fit. Down deep, though, this still felt surreal. Especially after the funeral and all we were going through with Maggie. It almost felt as if Stephen and I were a team again.
Yet I couldn’t get past what his choices had cost me—all the heartache and doubting, wondering where he was. Life was too short to live that way.
I still loved him, at least the Stephen I once knew. I couldn’t just turn off those feelings like a spigot. But what trumped everything else: Could I trust him? Could I place my heart in his hands and feel safe?
The answer was a resounding no. But working together in Maggie’s best interests was entirely different. I was convinced we could do that.
Later that afternoon, as Alex’s crew pulled out, I saw my opportunity. “Alex, could you stay for just a minute? I’d like to show you something. In the hidden room,” I added in a whisper.
He followed me back upstairs. Using the crowbar, I lifted the trapdoor.
“Are you kidding me?” He peered down inside. “When did you find this?”
“Last week. And totally by accident.” I told him how Stephen dropped a flashlight and the sound on the floor tipped us off.
“And you waited until now to tell me?”
“I’ve been wanting to, but with Stephen’s mother passing, and—”
“My condolences to you both again,” he said softly.
“I appreciate that, and so does Stephen. He told me to tell you.”
Alex nodded.
“So anyway, I didn’t want to tell you about this until I could actually show you. After the crew was gone.”
“Good thinking. Wouldn’t want them to blab about it before the press release. Nanci would have both our hides. So all’s forgiven.” Smiling, he pulled his phone from his pocket. “You do realize what this discovery likely means, right?”
I nodded. “I’ve been brushing up on my Civil War history in recent days.”
“You just wait, Claire. Once word gets out that your house was part of the Underground Railroad, the Thursmann Mansion is going to be the queen of Homes of Christmas Past.”
Alex went belly down on the floor, and before I knew it, his torso disappeared into the opening.
“Don’t fall in! I don’t know how I’d get you out.”
He laughed, the beam of his phone light darting here and there. “Man, this is cool.”
“What do you see?”
“History. Time. And a bunch of cobwebs and dirt.”
“But no exit?”
“Nope, I don’t. Wait! I do see an exit. But the neon sign’s not lit, so . . .”
“If you weren’t hanging in a hole, I’d kick you.”
He chuckled, and I glanced at my phone to check the time—6:14—not wanting to miss Stephen’s call.
“Comin’ up!” Alex announced.
I stepped back as he pulled himself up and brushed himself off.
“Fascinating how they constructed the tunnel. Shored up by beams. There are remnants of a ladder, too. It appears there’s just enough space to climb down the tunnel and then crawl out somewhere, which makes sense. Whoever walled off this room likely wanted the area below to remain hidden too. These old houses sure have their secrets. Don’t you wish you could go back in time and see what life was like here in this house back then?”
“Sure do.” His excitement was contagious, but I could already imagine the grief he would give me once he learned about the journal. “Which leads me to a question,” I continued.
He held up a hand. “How whoever was in here got out down there,” he said. “And vice versa. I won’t sleep now until I know.” He gestured for me to precede him back through the opening, then pointed to the mirror leaning against the wall. “Want me to hang this back up, Mrs. Powell?”
“Yes, please.” He addressed me that way on occasion, likely out of playfulness. But I wondered if there was a chance he did it to let me know he was mindful that I was still married, regardless of what was happening between Stephen and me. If my hunch was right, it raised my estimation of him yet again.
“I have time to look outside now, if you want,” he said.
“Let’s go!”
Downstairs, we exited through the kitchen.
“I bet you’re enjoying this pool in the heat,” he said.
“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but we haven’t used it yet.”
“You do know they found a body there a few years back when they dug the hole.”
“So I’ve heard. But thank you for that memory as I swim laps.”
His laughter was engaging.
“I’d hoped Maggie would help me break it in when she was here last weekend. But she had to get back to school in Denver.”
“DU, I’m guessing?”
“Very good.”
“I keep telling people I’m not just another pretty face.”
I laughed. “But they just don’t listen, do they?”
“They do not. How’s she liking college?”
“Well enough, I think. She’s met someone.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I know. And he’s from Atlanta.”
“A Southern boy? Tell that girl to run!”
I laughed again. “They actually had an online date one night while we were in Savannah. They watched a movie together over the phone.”
“It’s a whole new world, isn’t it?” He scanned the foundation of the house. “One I’m not at all ready to reenter.”
I gathered from his comment that he hadn’t been on a date or seen anyone romantically since his wife died. “It’s been what, almost fourteen months since Livvy passed?”
Warmth lit his eyes, along with grief. “Yes, ma’am. Last year, first of June. Thanks for remembering.” He turned back to the house. “Let’s see what this grand old gal is hiding from us.”
He studied the wall, then faced the massive gardenia hedge standing like a sentinel between us and whatever had been a first step toward freedom so long ago. If it was still there.
“How on earth do we get through that?” I asked.
“Five minutes with a chain saw will do it, if you don’t mind losing some of the shrubbery along the back wall. For sure, we know these aren’t the original plants.” He smiled. “But they could be propagations from the nineteenth century.”
“I’m planning to take clippings from them anyway, so I can replant from those. Regardless, we have to get back there.”
“Agreed.” He paused. “The county records on this place show foundation repair about forty years back. I just wonder if what they did covered what we’re looking for.”
“Foundation repair?”
He nodded. “I pulled the county records on this place before we started. There was some settling on this back side, and they pumped concrete along this wall to stabilize the house. And it worked. But the only way to find out if that exit is still there is to dive in. Let me get my chain saw from the truck.”
“You carry a chain saw?”
“I like to be prepared,” he called over his shoulder. “I was a Boy Scout, after all.”
“I bet you were,” I said beneath my breath.
He paused and turned back. Had he heard that?
“But listen, Claire, if now’s not a good time, we can wait—”
“Now is great. But how about a sandwich before we start?”
“Sure, I wouldn’t turn that down.”
“We can eat outside,” I added, just to be absolutely clear that my offer was in no way suggestive. I knew from Stephen what a slippery slope that could be.
He disappeared around the corner, and I returned to the kitchen. I lay my phone on the counter, checking to see if Maggie had texted. Nope.
As I made turkey sandwiches, I heard the chain saw revving. I added pickles and sliced apples to the plates, then grabbed two yogurts and bottles of water. I set our meals on the patio table and rounded the corner to see the gardenia hedge moving and Alex on his knees, wedged between the shrubbery and the wall.
“Find anything?” I asked, peering through the branches.
“Nothing yet. I really need to cut the shrubs way back, and I hate to do that.”
“And yet we have to find that passageway.”
He wriggled out from under the hedge, covered in twigs and debris. He knocked off the worst of it and followed me to the patio. “I’ll come back this weekend and work a little more, if you don’t mind.”
“Mind? I appreciate it. I want to know what’s back there too.”
He claimed the chair opposite mine, on the other side of the table.
We were halfway through our sandwiches, laughing and trading horror stories about renovations gone awry and clients from the “dark side,” when the back door opened. I turned to see Stephen standing in the doorway.