On Tuesday afternoon, Marie Nichols took a break from babysitting and spirit watching to check in on her grandson, Adam, leaving Eva at Marlow House with Walt and Danielle. When Marie arrived at Frederickport Vacation Properties, she found Adam and Melony getting into Melony’s car. Marie wondered where they were going and why Melony wasn’t at her office in Portland.
Marie joined the pair in the car and sat quietly in the back seat, eavesdropping. From their conversation, she pieced together that they were on their way to Pier Café to have lunch and that Melony had taken the week off. Marie joined them for lunch.
At the café, Marie sat next to Adam on his side of the booth while Melony sat on the opposite side. Right after they all sat down, Carla brought iced water to their table, took their drink order, and left the table.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I saw Danielle and Lily yesterday,” Adam told Melony. “They stopped by the office.”
“Just the two of them?”
“Yeah. Lily, wow, she looks really uncomfortable.”
“And she has two more months.” Melony picked up her glass of iced water.
Adam cringed. “I don’t envy women having to go through that. And Danielle. Wow.”
About to take a sip of water, Mel paused and looked over at Adam. “Wow, what?”
“Oh, come on, you’ve seen her. She looks like she should work at Hooters.”
“Adam!” Melony scolded before taking a sip of water.
“Mel, she is majorly stacked now! I’d like to see her in a bikini.”
“Adam Nichols, that is a totally inappropriate thing to say,” Marie scolded right before grabbing hold of his left earlobe and giving it a violent twist and pull.
Adam let out a squeal in pain, briefly drawing the attention of the other diners, while he quickly clasped a hand over his injured earlobe.
Setting her glass on the table, Melony frowned at Adam. “What is wrong with you?”
Hesitantly, Adam moved his hand from the injured ear, leaned over the table toward Melony, and turned his head slightly to show her his ear. “Did something bite me?”
Narrowing her eyes, Melony leaned over the table and examined Adam’s left earlobe. “Well, it is red, but there’s no bite mark.” She looked down at his shirt. “I don’t see any bugs on you.”
Adam rubbed his earlobe and leaned back in the booth. “It reminded me of my grandma.”
“Marie?”
Adam nodded. “Yeah. When I was little and did something naughty—”
“Which was probably all the time,” Melony snarked before he finished his sentence.
Adam rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, she never hit me or slapped me, not like my parents did. But when she’d get pissed with me, she would grab hold of my earlobe and give it a twist and a yank.” He rubbed his ear one last time and dropped his hand back to the table.
“Well, maybe it was your grandma, and she came back because she heard your sexist crack about Danielle,” Melony teased.
“What? I said nothing bad. Just saying the truth.”
“Of course Danielle’s bustier now.” Melony rolled her eyes. “She’s a nursing mother, you idiot. And she’s nursing for two.”
Before Adam could respond, Joe and Kelly Morelli walked by their booth and stopped to say hello.
“Are you guys following us?” Melony teased. “You showed up the last time we were here.”
Joe laughed. “It seems that way.”
“We haven’t ordered yet. You want to sit with us?” Adam offered.
“Drat, I’m going to have to move again,” Marie grumbled, remembering the same thing had happened on Sunday. Instead of finding another place to sit, Marie returned to Marlow House, leaving her grandson and his wife to have lunch with Kelly and Joe without her.
Carla showed up with Adam’s and Melony’s drinks by the time Adam moved to Melony’s side of the booth, and Joe and Kelly sat down next to each other. Since they already knew what they wanted to eat, Carla took their orders and then left to get Joe’s and Kelly’s sodas.
After Carla brought Kelly’s and Joe’s drinks and left again, Adam told Joe and Kelly about Danielle and Lily stopping by his office on Monday, without mentioning his observation involving Danielle’s increased bust size. He told them about Danielle’s interest in exploring the history of the quilt Lily had given her, which sounded like a boring way for them to spend their few free hours.
“It’s not as boring as you think,” Kelly told them as she picked up her soda.
“Oh please, don’t start, Kelly,” Joe groaned.
Kelly sipped from her straw, set the glass back on the table, and looked at Joe. “You saw it yourself.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Adam asked.
Kelly told Melony and Adam what had happened since they had last seen them on Sunday. She ended by saying, “We all wonder if the quilt is the key to everything. From what we’ve discovered, sometimes the negative energy of an event attaches itself to an object, like the quilt. And this all started around the time Lily gave Danielle the quilt. So not a haunting, but trapped energy.”
Joe groaned again and looked at Kelly. “Yeah, what you discovered on some website. And anyone can make a website.”
Melony looked at Joe. “Kelly just told us you saw the rocking chair rocking on its own, and all the stuffed animals flew across the room. Did that not happen?”
Joe shifted uncomfortably in the booth seat and shrugged. “Yeah, but, well, there has to be a logical explanation.”
“What, that Walt’s the next David Copperfield?” Adam asked with a snort.
“David Copperfield performs some pretty convincing magic tricks,” Joe reminded him. “And I can’t believe you think this could be anything but a great trick.”
“Like Brian and the chief?” Kelly asked Joe. She then told Adam and Melony what the chief and Brian had said to Joe regarding the incident.
When Kelly was done, Joe said, “I don’t think you should have told them all that. After all, the chief shared that with me in confidence, and I don’t think he wants it to get out that he believes in paranormal mumbo-jumbo.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Mel told Joe. “Eddy and I go back a long way. And as we told you the other day, Adam and I have seen things.”
* * *
Across the diner, Robyn Lyons sat down at a table with her sister and two nephews. The server working the shift with Carla brought the table iced water, took their drink orders, and then left them to look over the menu.
“I have no business going out to lunch,” Debbie muttered as she looked over the menu.
“Oh, Debbie, I’ve got this,” Robyn insisted.
Debbie let out a sigh, closed the menu, and set it on the table. “You’ve already done so much.”
Robyn grinned at Debbie. “Don’t be silly. What are sisters for?”
Fifteen minutes later, after their drinks had been served and food orders taken, Eric and Zack sat quietly at the table, playing on their tablets. Their mother hadn’t let them bring their earbuds to the restaurant, and she wouldn’t let them turn the volume up, so they had to play games that didn’t require sound.
“Life really isn’t fair,” Robyn mused.
“That’s for sure.” Debbie picked up her water and took a drink.
Robyn slumped back in her chair. “You remember Marlow House?”
“Yeah, it’s a B and B now, right?” Debbie asked.
“Yes, but they aren’t open right now because she just had her babies.” Robyn paused a moment and glanced briefly at her nephews and then back to her sister. “She had twins. Anyway, she inherited that house. So it’s paid for. I told you about the gold coins and the Missing Thorndike.”
“Yes. Does she still have them?” Debbie asked.
“She does, and I think that’s the stupid thing. She has them sitting in a safe-deposit box at the local bank. They’re worth a fortune. She doesn’t need the money. I heard she also inherited a fortune from her cousin. It’s just unfair. She should sell those things and do something with that money to help people. It’s such a waste. If someone cleaned out her safe-deposit box, she would never miss it.”
“I agree. Life’s not fair,” Debbie muttered.
Zack looked up from his tablet. “What gold coins?”
“Nothing that concerns you,” Debbie told him.
“Are you talking about Marlow House with the secret tunnel?” Eric asked.
Robyn smiled at Eric. “Your uncle told me you boys got a sneak peek at the tunnel exhibit at the museum.”
“What about the gold coins?” Zack asked again.
Robyn looked at Zack. “They were old gold coins that were found hidden in a house across the street from Marlow House, under some floorboards. They belonged to Walt Marlow, who used to live at Marlow House years ago. Danielle Marlow, who now lives in the house, well, they determined the coins belong to her. And she keeps them in the local bank.”
“Too bad she doesn’t keep them at Marlow House,” Eric said under his breath.
* * *
“Let’s go see the house,” Kelly told Joe. Adam had just told Kelly and Joe how he was listing the Crawford house, and that he was taking Melony over to look at it after lunch. When Melony saw Kelly perk up when Adam mentioned the listing, she suggested they join them.
“I’ve already seen the house,” Joe said. “And we can’t afford it.”
“Aw, come on, don’t be a party poop,” Kelly nagged.
“We’re going over there anyway,” Melony told Joe. “I’m curious to see what the Crawfords did inside the house. I heard they made a lot of changes.”
“Oh, that’s right, you…umm…” Kelly didn’t finish her sentence.
Melony smiled at Kelly. “It’s okay.” The previous owner, Pete Rogers, had been good friends of Melony’s parents until he had murdered Melony’s mother and tried to kill Melony.
* * *
Bill had fixed the front-door deadbolt before they left the house the previous day, so Adam unlocked the front door at the Crawfords’ house to let them all in.
“The place hasn’t been cleaned yet,” Adam explained as he opened the door for Melony, Joe, and Kelly to enter.
As they walked through the house, Kelly asked Melony, “It doesn’t bother you walking through this house?”
She shrugged. “Not really. Like I said, I kind of wondered what changes the Crawfords made. When I was a kid, we used to have cookouts here. It’s always weird to think about those days because there were some wonderful memories. But as we get older, we learn people aren’t who we think they are, and that can go for our parents too.”
While Melony and Kelly walked through the bedrooms together, Adam took Joe into the living room and was telling him how Bill planned to bolt the metal door to the tunnel shut. Joe had already been in the tunnel and was familiar with both entrances. As Adam discussed the tunnel with Joe, he paused a moment at the bookshelf and stopped talking.
Noticing Adam’s sudden silence, Joe asked, “What’s wrong?”
Adam pointed to the bookshelf. “The books. Someone moved them. The romance books are on the bottom shelf now.”