Sheila Connolly - Reunion with Death (33 page)
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Authors: Sheila Connolly
Tags: #Mystery: Thriller - Class Reunion - Tuscany Italy
“Yes, he was determined to put his stamp on it. I can show you some of the newspaper articles about it. William Flagg brought in woods from all over the country, and if you look around, you’ll see that every doorknob is different. There’s some really beautiful work here.” He took another sip of his tea. “And then something happened—after about ten years, he ups and sells the place to the school next door. After all the fixing up he’d done.”
Abby’s curiosity was piqued. “Did he lose all his money or something?”
Ned shook his head. “He may have—I haven’t done any detailed research. But I do know that he stayed in Waltham—in fact, he ended up living in a smaller house about a mile south of here, for the rest of his life, and he’s buried here.”
“Did he have a family?”
“Yes—a wife and two daughters. The younger one went to the school here. His wife outlived him, but she’s buried next to him. Don’t know what happened to the girls.”
Abby shut her eyes for a moment, trying to remember. “Was one of the girls a lot younger than the other?”
Ned looked at her quizzically. “Yes, I think so. Why do you ask?”
“Because that’s what I saw. There was a man and a woman, and I think they were fighting, or at least they were very angry. And there was a younger woman with a baby. I didn’t think the baby was hers, from the way she held it. Like she wasn’t used to babies.”
Was that baby the one they raised as a daughter? And why was the wife so angry?
Ned gave her a long look. Finally he said, “I see. That’s intriguing.”
“You don’t think I’m crazy? Or at least hallucinating?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ve seen—or felt—too many odd things in old houses to brush off experiences like yours. Have you ever had an experience like this before?”
Abby shook her head vehemently. “No, never. In fact, people have accused me of having no imagination. I’m usually the practical one in any group—you know, the designated driver, the one with the maps and all. That’s why this is so weird.”
Ned was silent. Abby watched him anxiously and wondered what was going through his mind—like calling in professional help to take her away. She was relieved when he finally spoke.
“Miss, uh—you know, I don’t even know your name?”
“Oh, right. Abigail Kimball—mostly Abby.”
“I’m Edward Newhall, mostly Ned. Well, Abby, you’ve certainly come up with a pretty puzzle.”
“Why? What do you think that … experience was?”
“At a guess, I’d say you stumbled on a past scene that somehow got stuck here. No, that doesn’t make sense. You had a vision of something from the past? Or you have an extremely overactive imagination that filled the room with people, like it was a play. Are you sure you’ve never been here before?”
“Never. I’ve never even been in this state before, or at least not since I was a kid, and then it was just passing through on the way to somewhere else. I’ve only been here a few weeks, and I’ve been so busy getting settled that I haven’t seen much of the neighborhood, much less Boston.”
“What brought you here, if you don’t mind telling me?”
“I came with my boyfriend. He got a job offer, and in a couple of weeks, here we were.” Was it her imagination, or did Ned look a little disappointed when she mentioned the “boyfriend”?
If he had, he recovered quickly. “Well, Abby, do you want to explore this phenomenon a bit further, maybe find out who you were seeing, or would you rather just go home and try to forget the whole thing?”
Abby thought for a moment, teetering in indecision. And then it seemed as though she heard her own voice:
No, I’m not just going to forget about this. I want to know what happened, and why.
“If I wanted to learn more, what would I do?”
He smiled. “Well, first of all, you could go to the library in town here, find out as much as you could about this place, and about the family. You should talk to Jane Bennett. She runs the local history section, and she’s very good. And there are a lot of local records—microfilms, city directories, that kind of thing. Unfortunately only a portion of it is online, but the library’s a nice place to spend time. There might even be pictures of the people who lived here—maybe you’d recognize someone.”
Abby shivered. “And if I found pictures and they really were the people from my dream? What then?”
“Well, at least you’d know something, that what you saw was real. Look, why not stop in at the library and see what you can find—if you have the time, that is. Do you have a job yet?”
Interesting that Ned assumed she’d be looking for a job. Well, she did plan to, once she and Brad were settled. Their current apartment was merely a stopgap until they could find a house—or one they could afford. “No, I’ve got the time right now.”
Ned looked pleased. “Then maybe we could get together over the weekend and compare notes? If you’re not busy.”
Abby thought about her own total lack of plans. No, she was not busy. Brad had already declared he would be gone, playing golf with his buddies. “Sure. Where?”
“How about we meet at the library, on Saturday at ten?”
“All right. Oh, I should get your number, in case something comes up.” Like Brad’s foursome was canceled.
He pulled out a wallet and extricated two cards. “Write your name and number on the one—you can keep the other one. I’ll put my home number on the back.” He scribbled on the back of one, then handed the two to her. She wrote her number on the back and handed it to him, and he carefully stowed it in his wallet.
Abby stood up and looked around. No strange figures lurking in the sunny corners, at least in this room, which caught the light of the setting sun through the big front windows. She didn’t want to go back to the dining room and see if there was anyone there. Brad would be wanting his dinner. What was she going to tell him about this little misadventure?
“I really should be going now. But I will go to the library, I promise.”
Ned stood as well. “So I’ll see you Saturday. And you can tell me then if you’ve seen anybody else during the week.”
“Like a ghost, you mean? I hope not. Saturday, then.”
He saw her to the door.
I didn’t ask him if there was somebody waiting for him at home.
She didn’t remember a wedding ring. But it didn’t matter: this wasn’t a date, this was a history consultation. And she had something to do now—a trip to the library to do research, and then the meeting with Ned on Saturday. Things were looking up.
Books by Sheila Connolly
“The Rising of the Moon”
Once She Knew
Relatively Dead
Reunion with Death
Orchard Mysteries
One Bad Apple
Rotten to the Core
Red Delicious Death
A Killer Crop
Bitter Harvest
Sour Apples
“Called Home”
Golden Malicious
Museum Mysteries
Fundraising the Dead
Let’s Play Dead
Fire Engine Dead
“Dead Letters”
Monument to the Dead
County Cork Mysteries
Buried in a Bog
Scandal in Skibbereen
Writing as Sarah Atwell
Glassblowing Mysteries
Through a Glass, Deadly
Pane of Death
Snake in the Glass
All of Sheila Connolly’s books
are available now at
Amazon
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About the Author
After collecting too many degrees and exploring careers ranging from art historian to investment banker to professional genealogist, Sheila Connolly began writing mysteries in 2001 and is now a full-time writer.
She wrote her first mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime under the name Sarah Atwell, and the first book,
Through a Glass, Deadly
(2008), was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel;
Pane of Death
followed in 2008, and
Snake in the Glass
in 2009.
Under her own name, her Orchard Mystery Series (Berkley Prime Crime) debuted in 2008 with
One Bad Apple
, followed by
Rotten to the Core
in 2009,
Red Delicious Death
in 2010,
A Killer Crop
later in 2010,
Bitter Harvest
in 2011,
Sour Apples
in 2012, and
Golden Malicious
in 2013.
Her Museum Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), set in the Philadelphia museum community, opened with
Fundraising the Dead
in 2010, followed by
Let’s Play Dead
in 2011,
Fire Engine Dead
in 2012, and
Monument to the Dead
in 2013.
Her new series, the County Cork Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), debuted in 2013 with
Buried in a Bog
. The second book in the series,
Scandal in Skibbereen
, will be released in 2014.
Her first short story, “Size Matters,” was published by Level Best Books in 2011, and was nominated for an Agatha Award.
Sheila is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America. She is a former President of Sisters in Crime New England, and was cochair for the 2011 New England Crime Bake conference.
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