“What if he saw you?”
“He didn’t.” Isaac was confident.
“How long ago was this?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Here’s your BLT, Zander.” Leo slid over a white box.
“Thanks.” Zander grabbed the box and turned back to Isaac. “Why didn’t you call the police when you saw him?”
“I’m telling you.” Isaac flushed, and his gaze went back to his shoes.
“You didn’t know I’d be here.”
The teenager squirmed. “I didn’t want to talk to the police.”
Zander let it go. Whatever the kid’s reason for avoiding the police didn’t matter now. He tucked his sandwich box under an arm, picked up his coffee, and walked out of the kitchen, dialing the sheriff with one hand as he left.
31
Madison found Emily in the diner’s office. She’d seen her sister come in with Zander Wells and then head down the side hall.
She watched Emily dig through files for a moment from the doorway. A wide white bandage was visible on the side of her head, under her hair.
She could have died.
She’s the heart of our unusual family.
Madison had never appreciated the many things Emily did to keep all their lives on track. Until now. “Are you okay?”
Emily started, jerking her head up from her work. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. I talked to Janet at the hospital. Your injury could have been very serious.”
“You need to inform your nurse friend about HIPAA regulations.”
“I’m sure she knows.”
Emily humphed. “Everything running smoothly?”
“Yep. Vina and Thea are keeping everyone company and filling their coffee cups. Dory is on her way in. It sounds like three-quarters of the town doesn’t have power—including the mansion.”
“I figured. Seems like we’re always the first to lose it.”
“What’s that?” Madison pointed at a thick file on the office desk.
Emily’s face brightened. “Simon gave me that yesterday. He put together pictures and documents that relate to the Bartons.” She sat at the desk and flipped it open.
Curiosity and some glossy black-and-white photos drew Madison closer. The first photo was labeled Barton Lumber Mill in crooked writing across the bottom. She touched a familiar man in the image. “That’s our great-great-grandfather.” He stood with a dozen other men, looking rugged and proud as they posed. “This has to be in the early 1900s.”
“Yep. That’s George.”
Madison scanned the other men, wondering who they were and if some of their descendants still lived in Bartonville. Heck, maybe some were eating in the diner right that minute.
“I haven’t seen this picture before, have you?”
“No,” said Emily. “It’s not among any of the photos I’ve seen at the mansion.”
Madison flipped through a few more logging photos. George Barton leaning against a felled fir that had a trunk wider than he was tall. A log truck with the Barton name on the door and a single humongous log on its trailer.
“It’s all gone,” Madison said under her breath, feeling a small pang for the family business that she’d never known. At the end the mill had cut wood only for other companies, its own supply of lumber gone. The mill was sold in the 1980s, and the new owners shut it down, intending to use the property for something else that never came to fruition. Now it was a small, rusting ghost town of buildings. Madison quickly flipped through more black-and-white photos, stacking them neatly, wanting to see the color ones deeper in the file.
The first color photo was a formal picture of the mansion. Emily sighed, and Madison understood. The mansion shone. It was a summer day, and the landscaping was immaculate. The paint perfect and the rails on the porch intact. Someone had set glasses and a large pitcher of lemonade on a table on the porch, waiting for the owners to sit and relax.
Madison placed it facedown on the viewed stack.
“Ohhh!” Emily picked up the next photo.
Four young women stood on the steps of the mansion, their arms hooked together, laughter on their faces. The simple dresses had wide knee-length skirts, the waists were tiny, and the women wore short white gloves. A holiday, perhaps Easter, judging by the daffodils and tulips.
Eagerly studying the faces, Madison recognized each of her great-aunts and her grandmother.
So young.
“She’s pregnant.” Emily indicated their grandmother.
Sure enough, one of the waists wasn’t that tiny. “Do you think she was pregnant with Mom or Uncle Rod?”
“This looks like the late 1950s. I’ll guess Uncle Rod.”
Madison held the photo closer, searching her grandmother’s face for a hint of herself but not finding it. Her grandmother had died when her mother was young. Madison had never known her.
“All girls,” Emily commented.
“The Barton curse,” Madison joked sadly. Male children had been few and far between in a century of the Barton line. Their ancestors typically had many girls and a single boy.
“Look at what’s on Grandmother’s wrist.” Emily pointed. “Do you remember that bracelet?”
Madison did. “The button bracelet. I didn’t realize it was that old.”
All three girls had played with the bracelet in the photo. It was wide, made of a diverse assortment of dozens of brass buttons with a few colored ones mixed in. “Grandmother must have given it to Mom. Remember how we fought over who got to wear it?”
“I’d spend hours looking at each button.” A dreamy expression covered Emily’s face. “I really loved it.”
Madison had too. One more thing lost in the fire.
“All four of the sisters are so beautiful,” Emily said. “Why did only Grandmother marry?”
Madison didn’t know the answer. Each of her great-aunts had brushed off the question in the past. She moved on to the next photo and immediately spotted her father, a big grin on his face.
“Where is this?”
Emily studied the photo of seven men with their fishing gear in front of a small tavern. “Isn’t that the bead store now? But why is this picture in the Barton file? Dad was a Mills.”
“Uncle Rod is in it.” He stood next to their father, an arm slung around his neck.
“I didn’t recognize him.” Emily squinted. “Look . . . isn’t that Sheriff Greer?” She giggled. “And Harlan Trapp—with hair.”
“Simon Rhoads too.” They looked like a rowdy group, ready to cause havoc for some fish.
“I think we could use this picture to blackmail Harlan or the sheriff,” Madison said. “I don’t think this is the image they’re currently trying to project.” She sifted through two more pictures of the same group of men in juvenile muscle poses. “Idiots.”
Emily elbowed her, fighting back laughter. “They were young. And probably drunk.”
A photo of a couple on a lookout high above the ocean made her stop. “Mom and Dad,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen this one.” Their mother was in profile, looking up at her husband, bliss on her face as he laughed at the camera. This was the loving couple her aunts had always described to Madison and her sisters.
A sad, confused wife.
Anita’s sentence echoed in her mind. Aunt Dory had said something similar two days ago. The words didn’t describe the woman in the picture.