Hi,” I said, a little startled to hear his voice on the other end of the line.
“I know we left it that you were going to call me if you needed to talk to somebody,” he began, and I could hear him clearing his throat. “But even though we extend the offer, people don’t always follow it up. So I thought I’d just give you a quick call to see how you were doing.”
I smiled. “I had a meeting with my mother’s lawyer today,” I told him, crossing the room and settling into an armchair. “She wants me to turn Alban House into a retreat for writers and artists during the month of June every year. She wants it to be named for David Coleville.”
He was silent for a moment. “What a marvelous idea. What do you think about it?”
“I’m not quite sure,” I admitted. “It will be up to me to administer it—to run the program, in other words. I’m to choose the participants from a pool sent to me by the university.”
I could almost see him nodding. “Is it something you’d want to do?”
“The more I think about it, the more I like it,” I said, looking around the room, imagining a group of artists and writers gathering for drinks before dinner.
“It’s fraught with meaning, all of it,” he said, and I could hear him pouring something into a cup. Coffee? “In terms of the timing, I mean.”
“How so?”
“She wants it named for Coleville, and June is the month in which he died, at the very house where this retreat is to take place. She wants her one remaining child to spend at least part of her life dedicated to honoring his memory.”
I shifted in my seat. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” I hesitated before continuing. “Obviously, she loved the man. The more I think of it—his death, I mean—the more I don’t like the conclusions I’m coming to. I really don’t think there was any way it was suicide.”
“You’re thinking that whatever is in that manuscript …”
“I turned the house upside down this afternoon looking for it,” I admitted.
“And you didn’t find it, I’m assuming.”
“No. I looked everywhere I could think of—safes, secret drawers, under beds, in the attic. It’s not here, unless my mother had another secret hiding place, which, when you think about my family, isn’t out of the realm of possibility.”
Matthew was quiet for a moment. “Oh, Grace. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”
“Think of what?”
“What you said just now, about another secret hiding place?” he said. “This might turn out to be nothing, but I think I might know of one.”
“You think you know where the manuscript might be?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ve got an idea. Are you busy right now?”
I looked around. Amity was off in the gardens; dinner wasn’t quite ready. “I guess not.”
“I’ll pick you up at Alban House in ten minutes.”