We’re way ahead of the rush hour, and holiday traffic is light anyway, so it isn’t long before AmberLea has the Cayenne headed up Highway 400. She’s called her mom, Tina, and told her that the three of us are going to a megamall north of the city and will meet her at the hotel for dinner at seven thirty. With two hours to get to the cottage, an hour to search the place and two hours to drive back, we should just make it.
The mention of dinner reminds us that we’re hungry though. We stop for food and gas at a highway place south of Barrie. “Hey,” AmberLea says, “isn’t this where—?”
“Yup,” I say. We stopped here last summer on our road trip with Gloria Lorraine. Today, a lot of the cars have ski racks and gear on top. The Cayenne fits right in. “This is where you saved our lives the first time.”
“Whaat?” Toby asks from the backseat. I’d made sure to call shotgun.
“A trick with a dog, a cop and a GPS,” I say. “Ever see Red Means Go? Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie?”
“No.” Good, I think.
“From 2008,” Amberlea chimes in. “With Jeff Bridges too. I’ll tell you about it later.” That means when Spencer’s not around. Bad, I think.
We get to the cottage just after four and ease down the lane. I see an SUV at the neighbors’ place. Their cottage lights are already glowing. I figure we have about half an hour of daylight left to make searching easier. Whether there’s anything to find is another question.
We trudge in over yesterday’s footprints. I find the key behind the thermometer on the wall and we tromp into the kitchen, snow on our feet. I throw the breaker, and the lights lift the dimness. Underneath the cold you can smell the cottage, waiting to come to life. I’m not sure what else is about to come to life, except I know it won’t be good.
I lead them into the main room. “Wow,” AmberLea says, “this is so cool. It is a lot like Gloria’s cottage.” Her tone darkens. “Which Aiden Tween says…oh, never mind. Let’s get at this. What are we after? Where do we start?”
I describe the sheet of music. “There’re music books in the piano bench, and we should check in here, where the spy stuff was.” I go to the wall, clear some of the wood we left and tug the compartment open.
“I’ll start there,” says Toby. “Fresh eyes. AmberLea, the piano bench. Spencer knows the place, so he roves.”
I’m starting to hate it when Toby makes good suggestions. I nod anyway.
Where do you start? How do you hide something in plain sight? What haven’t I seen? Everything here is the way it was when my mom was little. The Muskoka Dairy calendar (WE MOO FOR YOU) on the back of the kitchen door is from 1965, for crying out loud. I look behind it: nothing. I look in kitchen cupboards, behind photos and pinned-up little-kid artwork and painting reproductions. I look under the pad on the ironing board. I look under mattresses, behind mirrors, on the bottoms of chairs and tables and drawers, up in the porch rafters. I look behind pennants from places like Old Fort Henry and Upper Canada Village. By now it’s black outside the windows. I don’t want to find anything here, but I don’t want Bunny to die. I keep on looking.
All that’s left is Grandpa’s bedroom. His fishing hat is still hanging from the mirror frame, lurking with the ghost of his aftershave. DJ slept here when we came up; he’s left sweat socks behind. I move as if I shouldn’t be in here, as if Grandpa might step in from the porch and catch me. What would he have done if he did? I feel like a spy just wondering if he was. Across the room, something flickers. I spin to see myself in the window glass. I take a deep breath. This is Grandpa we’re talking about here: Road Runner cartoons, big hugs, LEGO on your birthday, swimming off the dock.
The closet and dresser are empty. Deb and my aunts cleared everything out and gave most of it to the Goodwill. I wonder if I could persuade the SPCA that maybe the music got thrown out then, because nobody knew what it was.
I check under the drawers and mattress and in the bedside table. Nothing. The headboard of the bed has a bookshelf built in, lined with tattered old cottage paperbacks. There are a couple of James Bonds and a lot of other spy stuff: Eye of the Needle, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Ipcress File, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Funeral In Berlin…Grandpa had a little theme running here. The spy stories are propped upright by a bigger, thicker book lying on its side. The Anatomy of Melancholy. I’m feeling pretty melancholy myself. I bump it off the shelf, reaching in behind to see if the music’s there. The book falls to the bed and out tumbles a Colt .45 automatic, the kind I’ve seen in a million World War II movies. A space for it has been hollowed out in the pages. I gasp, then scoop up the gun and shove it in my pocket. I slam the book back onto the shelf, back out of the room and kill the light.