Part 4 (1/2)

”There's got to be more,” Caroline said, and clicked back to the historical society's main page. Gracie leaned back in her chair, watching Caroline search through page after page. Max came out of his hiding place behind a purple hydrangea planted in the corner of the small backyard and sprawled on the patio between Gracie's and Caroline's legs. Fog started to roll in.

”Maybe we should call it quits for the night,” Sam said at last, ”and look some more tomorrow.”

Gracie was getting tired, but she had to admit, she was now more than a little curious. She was not at all interested in buying the inn, but she sure would like to find out what happened to Hannah Montague.

Caroline stood under the rose-covered arbor, mesmerized by the b.u.t.tercup yellow inn and its garden in spite of their fading beauty. Max lay on the crushed sh.e.l.l path at her feet, panting after their run on the beach. After goofing off all day yesterday, hitting up one antique shop after another, staying up until too late looking for information about the inn, and sleeping away most of the morning, Caroline really should have stayed back at the cottage to work on her article. But she wanted to check out the town library, and she couldn't stop thinking about the inn.

Last night, Caroline thought for sure Gracie and Sam would want to come see it again after what they had learned, but her sisters had wanted to laze about today-Gracie reading in the overstuffed chairs in the cottage's living room, Sam doing counted cross-st.i.tch and watching cooking shows. She'd promised to be back in time for dinner at six and had headed out, taking Max with her. She headed straight for the Misty Harbor.

Caroline couldn't have stayed away even if she'd wanted to. The last time she'd been this intrigued by a place was when she set eyes on the twelfth-century Norman tower of St. James Church in Chipping Campden. Caroline sighed. She'd miss Briar Rose if she moved away, but something told her this would be a whole new adventure.

She held Max's leash loosely in her right hand and let her canine companion lead her around the garden. She steered him clear of the th.o.r.n.y English roses. They reminded her of her own garden back in Chipping Campden, and she drew in a deep breath.

”You know, Max, this could make an awfully nice home for you and me.”

Max barked twice and danced around a few times, but then with his attention caught by a b.u.t.terfly fluttering from flower to flower, headed for a periwinkle-colored hydrangea, overgrown but incredibly beautiful.

Caroline's foot caught on a vine, and she stumbled. She grabbed the arm of a marble Grecian G.o.ddess mostly wrapped in ivy to catch her fall. Was this Aphrodite? Athena? Persephone? Whoever she was, she was beautiful, even though the marble was cracked and chipped in a few places.

Oh, how she wanted to buy this place. It felt magical; it had wrapped around her, making her feel as warm as her own Briar Rose Cottage had. She'd thought she'd never find another place that could give her that sense of home, but the Misty Harbor Inn was inching its way into her heart.

She and Max headed for the porch that crossed the entire back of the house. They climbed the creaking steps and stopped, stunned once again by the view. The afternoon sun splintered across the deep blue ocean. A couple of boats in full sail raced across the water, and the waves rolled gently back and forth. The soft roar sounded almost like a lullaby. If there'd been a hammock hanging out here, she could easily stretch out and fall asleep.

It was heaven here. The scents of salt.w.a.ter and overgrown flowers wafted around her.

The shutters on this side of the house had been closed up tight, nailed or screwed into place, just as they had been in the front. As Max went sniffing around the yard, she jiggled one shutter after another, looking for one that might be a little bit loose, and found one at last. She jiggled it again and again, trying to get the shutter open far enough so she could see what room this window looked in on.

”Back again, I see.”

Caroline spun around. She hadn't heard any footsteps, but the woman with the Gibson Girl hairdo was standing right behind her. Her hands were on her hips. She wore a pale blue polyester pantsuit today; the black rhinestone brooch fastened to her wide lapel looked like a leopard. Its red rhinestone eyes glared at Caroline.

”This old place seems to have a hold on me,” Caroline said, smiling warmly, hoping to ease the woman's suspicions. ”I couldn't help but come back. I just wish I could get inside, or at least peek through the windows.”

”A simple call to the real estate agent would remedy that,” the woman said. She cautiously eyed Caroline up and down. Then, she slowly stuck out one hand, while her other hand held on tightly to her cane. ”I'm s.h.i.+rley Addison.”

Caroline reached for her hand. It was cool and dry, like old paper.

She had lost some of the bl.u.s.ter from their first encounter, but Caroline was still cautious. ”My mom brought my sisters and me here nearly fifty years ago,” she ventured. s.h.i.+rley watched her carefully. ”But I still remember the wallpaper in the parlor. It looked like a million peac.o.c.ks were marching around with their colorful feathers spread out for everyone to admire.”

”Yes, I suppose the old wallpaper did look like that. The company that turned the house into an inn back in the 1950s had a thing for peac.o.c.ks. They even had a few real ones here. 1960, I think it was.”

The woman looked around the yard, as if imagining them parading around the garden today.

”It liked to have scared me to death the first time I heard them. They were quiet as cotton blowing in the breeze during the day, but in the middle of the night, when their tail feathers got ruffled, they'd start their screeching. Mr. Addison, my husband, G.o.d rest his soul, might have taken a shotgun to them if they hadn't been so pretty. Don't know what the owners ended up doing with those birds, but one day they were gone, and they've never been back.”

Max chose that moment to barrel up the stairs, nearly knocking over Mrs. Addison. He started to run circles around her. He liked attention, and he wanted Mrs. Addison's. ”This is Max,” Caroline said, grabbing the rambunctious c.o.c.ker spaniel by the collar. After ordering him four times to sit, Max finally plopped down on the porch.

Mrs. Addison eyed him, and then she turned her stare from Max back to Caroline and gripped her cane with both hands.

”You're going to buy this old place, aren't you?”

Mrs. Addison said it with so much conviction that Caroline wondered if she had some sort of sixth sense. Caroline didn't know if it was possible, but she wanted to. She'd need both of her sisters to go in with her, and Gracie was so set against it, but she would keep trying to convince her.

”I've thought about it.” Caroline chuckled. ”My sisters think I'm out of my mind.”

”The people who are out of their minds are the ones who walked away from this place. I don't see how they could just let it get in this condition.” s.h.i.+rley shook her head, tsking her disgust. ”I've seen a lot of changes here over the years. Mr. Addison and I bought our place, Quincy Court, in 1952. Takes a lot of work to keep up a home built in 1799, but when you love a place, you do what you have to do.”

”It doesn't look like the owners of the inn were in love with the place.”

Mrs. Addison tsked. ”The current owners had one spat after another with the historical society and the buildings department. They wanted to paint the place red, which would have been fine and dandy if they'd opted for Cottage Red.” Caroline nodded. She knew that there were only eleven colors a building in Nantucket could be painted. The Nantucket Historic District Commission had determined the handful of shades that were historically accurate for the island, and it was against code to paint a home or business anything else. Cottage Red was one of the approved colors.

”But no,” s.h.i.+rley continued. ”They wanted something that looked like the candy apple red Mr. Addison painted our fifty-seven Chevy, and that was an absolute no-no.”

”That's it? The issue of paint colors caused them to walk away from the inn?”

s.h.i.+rley tucked an errant strand of long white hair back into the pouf of her bun. ”Oh no. They also wanted to add false dormers to the outside and put a bra.s.s weathervane on top. It would have looked like a barn by the time they were finished, instead of a nineteenth-century colonial.” s.h.i.+rley shook her head, tsking again. ”Plus, the inn had been going downhill for a while. I've talked with many a guest over the years, and found out that the mattresses were hard, the plumbing creaked, the pillows were polyester instead of the down that was advertised. And the food! I could tell you stories about the food that would set your stomach to churning. Suffice it to say, the number of guests dwindled.”

This information was no surprise. It jibed with the reviews Caroline had found online. ”So the new owners gave up?”

”It was the previous owners who had trouble keeping it up. In way over their heads, if you ask me. They sold it to the California couple who had issues with the historical society. They were rather snooty, to say the least. Thought they could turn this place around by turning it into a unique property, something very un-Nantucket-like. That didn't go over well, and while they fought against the commission, they just let the building fade. Absolute shame, if you ask me.”

”It is a shame,” Caroline added. She leaned against the white railing around the edge of the porch. ”So the California couple still own the building?”

”As far as I know. I haven't seen them in a few summers, and nothing's been done to the inn since then.”

”Do you know if anyone's tried to buy it?”

”Oh, there's been interest, or so the real estate agent says, but it's going to take a lot of time and money to get it back in s.h.i.+p's shape,” s.h.i.+rley said. ”Whoever buys the inn this time around will have to work hard. It won't be easy to rebuild the place's reputation.”

”No, I imagine it won't. Do you know much about the history of the inn? I mean, older history, like from the last century?”

s.h.i.+rley stared at her. ”Exactly how old do you think I am?”

Caroline laughed. ”Oh, I didn't mean that you'd remember the history, of course.” She gave s.h.i.+rley a grin. ”But we've heard that the original owner's wife disappeared from this house, and we're interested to know more.”

”I don't know about all that.” s.h.i.+rley waved her hand dismissively. ”They never did find poor Hannah. It was such a shame. She was a good girl”-Caroline suppressed a laugh as she heard s.h.i.+rley talk about the second Mrs. Montague as if they were friends-”but I've always a.s.sumed the stories about her disappearance and the hidden rooms and all that were just wild speculation.”

”So you don't know anything about it?”

”That's what I just said, isn't it?”

Caroline choked back a smile. If they ended up buying this place, it was going to be fun to try to win over the neighbor.

Caroline looked at her watch, remembering her promise to be back at the cottage before six. She still wanted to go to the library, get a visitor's card, and check out books on Nantucket history. She had just a couple of hours to spare. She'd better not be late. Gracie and Sam would never forgive her.

”I've got to run, but it's been really nice talking with you, s.h.i.+rley.” Caroline smiled. ”You don't mind me calling you s.h.i.+rley, do you?”

”I prefer young people calling me Mrs. Addison.” She sniffed. ”But for you”-she eyed Caroline up and down-”s.h.i.+rley will do.”

”I'll be sure to call the real estate agent if I can talk my sisters into coming out here to look inside the inn,” Caroline said, clipping the leash back on Max. ”I have a flyer with her name and phone number.”