Fall 2012, the Krause family farm
As soon as Will’s car pulled in the driveway, Agnes Forsyth came running out of the house and headed toward her car.
Kate caught the fearful glance Agnes had cast toward Will’s vehicle. Wonderful. Agnes would have the gossip mill churning before nightfall, and she’d be judged just as Hannah had been.
“I’d better not go in,” Will said over his shoulder as Kate exited the car. “I don’t want to upset Trudy.”
“No. According to Joe’s will, the house is mine, at least for now. And I’m tired of worrying about who’s allowed in and who isn’t. We’re friends and Trudy needs to learn how to deal with it,” Kate insisted.
Reluctantly, Will followed Kate and Rose into the house. Inside, Trudy took one look at him and, waving a finger in his direction, whirled on Kate.
“What’s he doing here?” she bellowed.
“As of today, the feud is over,” Kate said wearily. “Will is a friend and as long as I live here, he’s welcome.”
Trudy’s lips thinned into a straight line. “Joseph Krause is rolling in his grave,” she declared, then flew over to the music box and grasped it in her hands. “If you’ve come for this, you can’t have it. Joe’s grandfather gave it to me. It stays here.”
“I don’t want your music box,” Will said calmly. “I don’t want anything that belongs to you.”
“Liar,” she cried out. “Hannah gave Joseph the farm and your family has never gotten over it.”
Will shook his head. “Not true. I think we’ve been better off without it. I can’t see where all this land has brought your family much happiness.”
Rose placed a hand on Will’s arm. “Maybe you were right, Will. We’re upsetting Trudy. We’d better go.” She walked over to Kate and gave her a hug. “You get some rest. And if you need anything, call.”
“I will,” she replied with a hesitant nod.
Saddened, Kate watched Will’s car slowly pull out of the drive, leaving her alone with Trudy. She heard her come up behind her.
“The sheriff was here,” she said brusquely.
“I know,” Kate replied, continuing to watch out the window.
“They searched the house.”
“Know that, too, Trudy.”
“They think you killed Joe,” she said with a malicious note in her voice.
Kate whirled and faced her. “Well, I didn’t,” she said, moving past her. As she headed for the stairs, she heard Trudy muttering.
“Just like Hannah.”
Unwilling to tolerate Trudy’s glaring presence or listen to any of her nonsense about curses or Will and Rose, or how Kate might be a murder suspect, she hid out in the back bedroom. She tried to rest as Rose had recommended, but Hannah’s story kept buzzing through her mind.
What happened in this house? she thought as she stared up at the ceiling. Will was right—owning this land hadn’t brought Joe’s family much happiness. Their history was littered with tragedy—almost as if a judgment had been rendered against them.
Sounds from downstairs caught her attention. Trudy was playing that stupid music box again. Her son was dead, but it seemed that all she cared about was that music box.
Kate swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to ignore the music. The way the tune skipped a note was driving her insane. If it weren’t so valuable, she’d steal it away from Trudy and smash the damn thing. At least have it fixed so it plays properly.
She stood and paced to the window. Pulling back the curtain, she stared out over the farm. Whether or not she’d be arrested again was out of her hands. She’d told the truth and it was going to be up to Mr. Brown to build her defense.
Turning away, she looked at the boxes stacked in the corner and the empty storage containers sitting next to them. She couldn’t do anything about the present, but she could try and make sense of the past.
She picked up a nail file lying on the dresser, then knelt beside the box containing the photo albums. Carefully, she went through each album, running the file under each picture. She hoped to discover another article or maybe a note—something that would shed light on Hannah’s mystery.
Finally, she’d finished the last of the albums and found nothing. Only the shoe box containing the portrait of Jacob and Hannah remained. Reluctantly, she picked it up, took off the lid, and began to remove the pictures.
Once that box was empty and all the portraits were stacked on the floor, she noticed something. The one of Jacob and Hannah had disappeared. She peeked into the larger box. It was empty, too.
When she’d entered the room earlier, she’d noticed that the room had been searched and had assumed her bedroom was listed on the warrant, but that picture wouldn’t be considered evidence in a murder trial. She sat back and looked around the room but didn’t see it lying about.
She hated that picture. Handling it spooked her, so she should be relieved it was missing.
What next? Her attention wandered the room. The attic. She’d never been up there.
Once she’d climbed the narrow stairs and stood in the dust-covered room, she wondered about the wisdom of her idea. The area was packed with stuff. Boxes were stacked haphazardly in the corners; old trunks sat in the middle of the room. She spied a moth-eaten dressmaker’s dummy leaning precariously against a chair, its stuffing sticking out in puffs.
With a sigh, she crossed to the first trunk and began her quest.
Two hours later, all she had to show for her trouble was a lot of sweat and a lot of dirt.
The Krause family had thrown nothing away in the 140 years that they had lived in this house. The trunks and boxes were full of nothing but junk—broken dishes and toys; books with the covers gnawed by mice; pieces of material that fell apart when touched.
Kate stood and shoved her hands on her hips while she thought about where she could search next. She snapped her fingers. The old cabin.
After washing the dirt from her face, Kate went to the kitchen. Trudy stood at the sink peeling potatoes.
Kate walked over to the key rack and began to thumb through the various key rings hanging there.
“Which one is the key to the padlock on the old cabin?” Kate asked.
“It’s empty,” Trudy replied, tossing a potato into a pan. “Nobody ever goes in there.”
“Which key?” Kate repeated.
“The one with the red tag,” she answered in a disgruntled voice.
Kate grabbed it and headed out of the house. When she reached the cabin, she inserted the key and unlocked the padlock. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The pale light shining through dirty windows revealed an empty room. Cobwebs hung in swaths from the beamed ceiling while dust obscured the wide plank floor. A fireplace was at one end and a long work counter at the other. Stairs to the left of the fireplace led to a loft. The air was cold yet at the same time musty, and if Kate wasn’t mistaken, it also smelled of dead rodents.
Wrinkling her nose, Kate eyed the stairs. While she was there, she might as well check out the loft. Mindful of any skittering creatures that lurked in the corners, Kate crept toward the stairs and gingerly tried the first step. It stayed solid under her weight. Step by step, she climbed until she was in the loft.
Because it was chillier here than the floor below, Kate shivered as she swatted at cobwebs in front of her. Squinting, she spied a tarp covering something in the corner. Again she tested the strength of the old boards, and once she was convinced that she wouldn’t tumble through the floor, she crossed to the tarp. She grabbed it and tossed it to the side.
Another trunk—much older than the ones in the attic. A name had been scrawled on the side, but the spidery handwriting was too faint for Kate to read.
She knelt and opened the lid. A blackened set of cutlery lay on top. Next she found a stack of books. She opened a cover and, holding it up to the light, saw the copyright listed as 1850. With a shake of her head she carefully laid the book on the dusty floor. One by one, she gently removed the objects from the old trunk and placed them next to the book. She discovered a graceful figure of a shepherdess, a fragile blue vase, a box of buttons. These things really should be in a museum.
When she’d reached the bottom of the trunk, only one more item remained. Another book—only it was in sad condition. Kate ran her fingers over the cover. Deep gouges obliterated the title and its author. Flipping it open, she saw that both the title page and copyright page had been ripped out. She slowly turned the pages, scanning them as she went. The book was a series of essays, but without the two missing pages, she couldn’t tell when it had been written. She abruptly stopped when one chapter title caught her eye.
“The Sins of the Father.”
Kate quickly read the first paragraph. The author was making a point about how, in families, violence can perpetuate violence. Immediately her thoughts flew to Joe and the revelations he had made about his childhood. She anxiously turned the page.
Nothing.
The rest of the chapter had been ripped from the book. She could still see the ragged edges sticking out from the binding.
Wanting to make a closer examination of the book, she quickly replaced the rest of the objects back in the trunk and stood. She had taken one step when she heard a noise from the main room of the cabin. Not the scraping of mice running across the floor, but the clump of heavy boots.
Alarmed, she clasped the book to her chest and held her breath. When she heard the sound of the door slamming shut, a lungful of air came out in a whoosh. She tore out of the loft and down the stairs, still clinging to the book. She pushed at the door.
It didn’t budge. She was trapped in the old cabin.