Sunny stood with Gabby and Faith as they watched Vicky search the desk for a hidden compartment. Finally, Vicky rose from where she had been lying under the desk. "I don't see anything."
The three women turned to look at Sunny.
"Okay, it's your turn," said Gabby.
Sunny shrugged. "I doubt I can do any better, but I'll give it a try." Like the other women, she started by pulling out drawers and putting pressure on the wood to check for false bottoms or sides. Nothing. Then she moved to the back of the desk, knocking and pressing on the wood. She knelt on the floor to gaze beneath it and search for any anomaly. Nothing. Disheartened, she said, "I can't find anything, either."
"At least we gave it our best shot," said Gabby, as she walked to the parlor door that she'd locked to keep prying eyes away.
Sunny stood and glanced down at her feet. Her tennis shoes were worn and beginning to fray and she needed to buy a new pair soon. Besides that, it wasn't good for B & B guests to see an employee looking so shabby. She would dip into her savings and buy new shoes and jeans. She moved her gaze back to the desk and stared at the ornately carved feet. "Wait?" she said more loudly than she intended.
With her hand on the doorknob Gabby turned around. Faith and Vicky stared at her.
"We didn't check the feet and legs," she said.
The three women's eyes widened and Gabby rushed back to the desk. "Help me turn it over." When the desk was lying upside down on its tabletop, Gabby motioned toward Sunny. "You first, honey."
Since it seemed so important to her new friends, Sunny breathed a silent prayer that if a diary was hidden in a leg, it would be found. She began by inspecting the exposed bottoms of the feet and noticed something strange. Why were the bottoms of the feet stained darker than the desk? Why were they stained at all? She said, "Does anyone have a rag?"
"Yes! Yes!" Gabby rushed behind the counter and pulled out a dust cloth.
Sunny began rubbing the bottoms of the feet to remove the grime of decades. When she got to the third foot, it felt slightly different. Vicky thrust her water bottle at Sunny and said, "Here, wet the cloth." Sunny moistened the cloth and scrubbed harder. As dirt was removed, she could see a tiny ridge along one edge of the foot where some sort of filler had decayed and fallen out. She glanced up and met the gazes of the other women. Vicky unscrewed her water bottle. "Wet the cloth again and rub the other feet to see if they also have a ridge."
After Sunny rubbed first one foot and then the others, nothing similar was discovered, and the women gaped at each other. Faith said, "It looks like maybe this foot has a plug that someone tried to cover up by filling the edges in, and then staining the bottoms of the feet to make it unnoticeable."
Gabby said, "Does anyone have a metal nail file?"
Vicky rushed to where she had set her purse on the counter. "I do!" She dug through the contents and then handed a file to Sunny.
Sunny didn't reach for it. "Maybe you should do this."
"Oh, no, Sunny. It was your brilliance that made the discovery. You should have the honor."
Sunny had never received such awesome praise and she wanted to cry. She accepted the file and began scraping away more filler from the crack. Small chunks dislocated and fell away. She glanced up at Gabby. "If I push the file into the crack and try to dislodge the wood, I may damage or splinter the claw foot. Is that okay?"
Gabby didn't hesitate in answering. "Go for it, girl."
Sunny began gently pushing the file into the crack. At first there was resistance, but then the metal penetrated the remaining filler. She jerked her head up. "It just broke through."
The women leaned closer as she began prying upward, using the file like a shovel. The metal started to bend from the pressure, but then, unexpectedly, a chunk of wood popped into the air, hitting Vicky in the arm. She gasped and stepped backward. "I'm okay! I'm okay!" She returned to stare at the gaping hole left behind.
Sunny held her breath as she reached her hand into the space. About halfway up, where the leg widened, she felt something and wrapped her fingers around it. Slowly she turned the object lengthwise and pulled out a small, flexible, leather pouch. She handed the pouch toward Gabby, but Gabby said to Vicky, "Do you want to open it?"
"No. I want Sunny to finish the task. It's only right."
Holding her breath and taking the pouch to the counter, Sunny set it down and gently eased the button clasp open. Everyone gasped when she removed a book with the word DIARY tooled into the leather binding.
Vicky sat with Gabby, Faith, and Sunny in the privacy of her third floor sitting room as she opened the fragile book to unveil its secrets. After finding the diary, Gabby had suggested that Vicky be the first to read it, but she had adamantly protested. "This diary would never have been found without the three of you. Let's meet at my place tonight and I'll read it aloud."
"Are you sure you want me there," Sunny had hesitantly asked.
Although Vicky had no intention, at least for now, of revealing that the whereabouts of the diary had been given by a ghost, she'd replied, "Yes. We want you there." And the other women had enthusiastically confirmed that.
Now, with her heart pounding, Vicky read the date on the first page.
MAY 28, 1939
BELINDA KATHRYN BEAUFORT HOPE
Vicky glanced at the women to see each of them in various states of alertness. Sunny was leaning forward, Gabby was rubbing her upper arms up and down, and Faith was twisting her hands in her lap. Gently, she turned the page and began reading.
After this night my life shall once again change. And my fervent prayer is that again I shall find happiness. But I must begin my narrative at the beginning so anyone reading this diary will understand my pain and hope for happiness.
I was born in Portland to Paul and Caroline Beaufort in the year of 1898. My parents were loving, and my childhood excellent. I was an only child, and thus, my parents doted on me. However, they did not spoil me. My father, who had a great fondness for reading, noted that I also had the same fondness, but also a love for penning my own stories. Often, I would regale my parents with short adventures, usually something about the Wild West. As I grew into womanhood, my father, who was a successful businessman with many connections in the city, contacted our local newspaper and, although I did not approve, used his influence to obtain a reporter position for me in covering the social scene. As he put it, "It's a doorway into your career as a writer." After I saw the wisdom of what he'd said, I wholeheartedly contacted those in the upper echelons of society about their social pursuits and wrote about them for the newspaper. After a time, although I had yet to reach my nineteenth birthday, I was accepted and received many invitations to parties, soirees, graduations, receptions, weddings, and the like. My ultimate goal, however, was to eventually write stories under a masculine pseudo name.
My aspiration was not realized because during my nineteenth year, I was at a parlor pianoforte performance by a debutante, and met a man in his thirties who made my heart pound. His name was Randall Hope and he said he lived south of Portland in the small town of Somewhere. He said his family had founded the town and that he was traveling and seeking investors to build a resort in the area to establish it a tourist destination. He was very articulate and so handsome he took my breath away. When he began courting me, I was awestruck, and shortly after my twentieth birthday, we married in an extravagant wedding at the largest church in Portland.
When Randall and I returned from Europe after a four month honeymoon and I moved into the house that his father had built for him several years earlier, I was overjoyed, and immediately fell in love with the town, the simple lifestyle, and, most of all, the townspeople, and they seemed to love me in return. Most days I would walk the beach creating stories in my imagination that I started to pen, and my dream of someday becoming a published author returned.
However, everything soon changed.
Vicky glanced up. Gabby blew a breath and whispered, "I think the story is about to intensify."
Sunny and Faith nodded their agreement, and with her heart in her throat, Vicky turned the page and continued reading.