Page 28

As I hang my trench coat in the reception room, I hear Beatrice talking with a couple of people in the parlor. I’m late for my first meeting of the day.

Conversation stops when I step into the doorway, and three faces turn in my direction.

Along with Beatrice, there’s Lillian, the sixtyish designer, wearing a Chanel suit and red lipstick. She openly gapes at me. Then there’s Matt, the young furniture restorer.

Given their matching stares of curiosity, they must be current on the local news.

“Sorry I’m late,” I say, my cheeks flaming. “What did I miss?”

Lillian frowns at the easel she’s set up by the windows. Like she can’t remember what it’s for. “Upholstery,” she says eventually. “We were discussing the original upholstery.”

Matt says something about armchairs, and Beatrice sends me a searching look. Are you okay? she mouths.

I give her a quick nod and look away. Nothing to see here. Just your average morning when you get the news of your ex’s arrest for murdering your other ex.

“I want to come back to the conversation couches,” Lillian says. “The original parlor had two of them centered in the space. And they were spectacular.”

“Oh yes!” gushes the restorer. “We couldn’t live without the conversation couches.”

I’ll bet you can , says my uncharitable mood.

“They’re very unique,” Beatrice says carefully. “But the parlor requires a flexible floor plan. None of the furniture can be wider than the door frames, since we’ll need to remove pieces for larger events.”

I sneak a look at the easel and discover that Lillian’s plan calls for two couches, both large and donut-shaped.

Lillian purses her lips. “What are the dimensions of the doors?”

Everyone turns to me, and it takes me a beat to reach for my laptop. “One moment. I think they’re thirty-three inches.”

With my computer balanced on a folding chair, I find the precise measurements, and Beatrice and the decorator begin to argue about whether or not a conversation sofa could be constructed as a sectional on wheels.

This morning, I’m finding it hard to care. We’re almost literally rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic right now.

“What if we widened the doorway?” Lillian offers. “Problem solved.”

“That would be structurally inadvisable,” I say, finally tuning in.

Matt says, “Then is it time to take a look at the dining chairs?”

“They’re in storage in the servants’ quarters,” Beatrice says. “Follow me. And Rowan? We’ll need the diningroom dimensions.”

“Of course.”

With my computer under my arm, I follow them out of the parlor and toward the back of the house. Beatrice opens a door that leads to a double stairway—the choice is five steps down to the left or seven steps up to the right.

We climb, and the half flight brings us to a new corridor of servants’ rooms.

Beatrice unlocks a door, and I’m the last in line as we file inside. The room is filled with stacks of old furniture, much of which dates to the mid-nineteenth century, and with four of us vying for space, it feels claustrophobic.

The first time I saw these rooms, they still held metal bunkbeds—four beds to a room for the girls of the Portland Magdalene Home.

I think the Home’s directors were hoping for a summer-camp feel, but the close quarters resembled a prison. Metal beds and lockers. Cheap bedside tables. Everything was depressingly spartan.

Now I look at the room with different eyes. Did Tim’s birth mother ever stay here? Did she give birth upstairs in the West Room—the one with the paintings of horses on the wall? That’s where we’d found a baby scale, high-beam lights, and an obstetrical bed with stirrups still pointing toward the painted ceiling.

I have to wonder why Tim didn’t simply tell me about the deeply personal connection he had to this place. Was he ashamed? Or maybe he thought he was protecting me from something dangerous.

But that doesn’t track, either. What secret could’ve gotten him killed? The Wincott who ran the home has been dead for over twenty years. I know because I googled it at four in the morning the other night.

Matt stands by a stack of chairs, lifting one chair after another to study the bottoms of their seats. This is a thing furniture people do. The manufacturer’s marks are always on the underside of the chairs.

“This is a French piece, mid-nineteenth century. You see this dark spot?” His tone is scandalized.

I peer at the cross pieces under the seat. “Sure?”

“Chewing gum,” he says distastefully. “That’s a tragedy.”

I’d agree with him, except my definition of a tragedy has shifted since last week.

I join Lillian at another grouping of furniture. “These are battered,” she says, examining a side chair. “How does a chair get scarred like this?” She runs her fingertips over the chewed-up outer edge of the piece.

I lean down and peer more closely. The scars are deep, the finish and some of the wood grain scratched away, as if something abrasive was dragged repeatedly against the edge. The abuse seems purposeful. When I examine the opposite side of the chair, I find more of the same thing. “It’s symmetric.”

“ Both sides?” Lillian raises her eyebrows. “Even my sister’s cats couldn’t do that kind of damage. But maybe teenagers are worse. You know the house was used for a maternity home?”

“I’m familiar.”

***

The morning drags on, punctuated by texts from Natalie.

Natalie: Did you hear anything about Dad?

Rowan: Heard some technical stuff about his arrest. We’ll talk tonight. Did you write to your bio teacher about the retake?

No response.

When the designer and the furniture guy finally leave, Beatrice corners me and asks her favorite question. “Are you okay? You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine. Natalie is a mess, though.”

She cringes. “That poor kid.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I can’t imagine what’s in her head right now.”

“Do you think he really did it?” Beatrice whispers. “Because if he did...”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but we both know what she means—I ought to feel grateful that he’s off the streets again.

“I don’t know what to think. I can’t picture him killing a man for dating me.”

“Are you sure?” she asks warily. “Men are so...” She sighs. “He wouldn’t be the first one, you know? Abusers never change their stripes. The best you can do is get away.”

I’ve heard this many times, including from both my parents. “Listen—has Hank said anything about my connection to Harrison? Do you think he knows?”

Hank is so hung up on optics that I’m bracing myself for more of the anger he showed to Beatrice earlier in the week. And I’m due in the man’s office in an hour.

“Well...” Beatrice frowns. “I didn’t mention it to him. And I won’t. And he’s pretty pumped up to see some progress from the police.” She makes a thoughtful face. “But Rowan—he’s likely to find out. He knows a lot of people in city hall.”

God . “And how do you think he’ll react?”

“I’m not sure,” she says slowly. “The family name means a lot to him. He won’t be too thrilled if your private drama brought a murder to his doorstep.”

“ My drama? All I did was date a guy who asked me out in a coffee shop.”

Beatrice winces. “I know, I’m sorry. That came out wrong. But you asked me what Hank would think.”

I guess I did. “So you’re saying Hank might need someone to blame, and I could be the convenient target.”

“For a minute, anyway,” she says. “But he’ll get over it. He chose you for this job for a reason. Because you’re one of them. Part of the inner circle.”

“One of... Sorry?”

“The Chatham Prep crew. And then an Ivy League degree. From an old Portland family. The Wincotts care about two things—pedigree and loyalty, in that order.”

I blink. “That’s a pretty generous interpretation of my place in the world.”

She gives me a funny little smile. “When your résumé came in, I put it right on top of the pile. Because I know how Hank works. It worked out fine. But I’m going to have to campaign twice as hard to get the director’s job here.” She pats the desk. “It will be hard enough to get them to accept a woman in the role. And yet if my degree said Princeton on it, or if my last name was Wincott, it would be an easier sell.”

I don’t even know what to say to that, because she probably has a point.

“So don’t let him rattle you,” she says. “If Hank has another tantrum, you’ll remind him that nothing on the news is your fault. And that if he wants his mansion finished on schedule, he should get over himself.”

“Okay,” I agree. As if I’d ever speak to Hank that way.

She smiles suddenly. “I can tell you don’t believe me, and I love you for it. But this will blow over.”

“Sure hope so.”

She picks up her purse to head to her next meeting. And on her way out, she gives me a squeeze on the shoulder. “Hey—make sure Natalie comes to yoga tomorrow? I’ll buy the poor kid a donut after class.”

This is why Beatrice and Natalie are friends. They can both eat donuts and still wear spandex. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

***

By noon, I’m hurrying to Hank’s office, a little sweaty, the walk longer than I’d bargained for. At a traffic light, I pull out my phone to see how late I’m going to be.

I find a text from Beatrice.

Beatrice: Call me. Change of plans.

I call immediately. “What’s happened?”

“Hank took a meeting somewhere else, last minute. He’s not in his office. He wanted me to tell you that he’ll have to reschedule for next week.”

My heart plummets. “Did he say why?”

Her brief silence makes me uncomfortable. “He didn’t. But he sounded like he was in a mood.”

The light changes, and I cross the street on autopilot, the phone still pressed to my ear. “Any reason he didn’t call me directly?”

Another beat of silence. “I really couldn’t say.”

Can’t or won’t? Pressing Beatrice for details won’t solve anything, and this isn’t her fault, so I say, “Okay, thank you for telling me.”

“Don’t panic, Rowan. This could be unrelated to the arrest.”

And yet I don’t think it is. “I’m going to drop off my budget at his office. And then maybe get some lunch. See you later?”

We hang up, and I find myself in front of another building designed by Amos Wincott. Old copper letters spelling WINCOTT are arranged in the pediment at the roofline.

Amos built this one a decade after the mansion. It doesn’t have the same ornate splendor, but it’s still very attractive, rising to four stories, with a brick facade. The Wincotts have been counting their money inside this Congress Street address for a hundred and fifty years.

Beatrice is probably right about the way that Hank sees the world differently from most people. How strange it must have been to grow up seeing your name splashed across office buildings, university libraries, and monuments all over Maine. Even the private school Hank and I attended has a Wincott Terrace on the campus.

I push through the revolving door and enter the lobby. An elderly security guard in a blue suit with gold buttons blinks at me from behind a desk.

“I’m here to leave a file for Hank Wincott,” I tell him. “Isn’t that the fourth floor?” A few months have passed since I last visited Hank here at the office. He usually comes to the mansion.

The old man nods, and I walk over to the elevator and press the brass button.

When the car arrives, I step inside and fish the file folder out of my bag. Maybe if I leave my carefully annotated budget revision at his office, we can Zoom this meeting next week, and I won’t have to return here.

I get off the elevator on the fourth floor and proceed to the C-suite. On my first visit, Hank explained how the entire Wincott shipping empire had been housed in these offices before the corporation relocated to the mid-Atlantic in the eighties.

Now the Wincott Foundation is the major tenant, with Hank occupying the best office suite in the building. As I step inside, I realize two things, and they’re both startling.

First, this office is nearly identical to the library in the mansion. The dimensions of the room are a little different, but the paneling, the fixtures, and the ornate ceiling are just the same. As if Amos Wincott only had one idea in his entire life.

It’s a little eerie.

The second striking thing is Hank’s assistant, who’s seated behind a mahogany desk. She’s in her mid-twenties and ravishingly beautiful, with straightened blond hair, perfect red lipstick, and beautiful shoulders. Like a ballerina.

Hank Wincott has a type . The dataset may be small, but I’ve noticed that he surrounds himself with beautiful young women. Beatrice fits the same mold.

“Oh, Rowan,” she says softly. I guess she’s not quite Beatrice’s twin, because this one lacks my friend’s confidence. “I’m sorry to say that Hank has left for the day. He was supposed to call you.”

I open my mouth to say hello, and then I realize I’ve forgotten her name. It’s something delicate and a little unusual. Hank always calls her the new girl .

So now I’m just as bad as him, because I can’t remember it.

“Um, I heard about the meeting. Beatrice just called me on my walk over here.”

Her quick smile is apologetic. “I’m so sorry you came all this way.”

“It’s fine. I thought I’d just leave my report for him. So he’ll get it on Monday.”

“Oh sure.” She rises from her chair as I hand over the folder. “I’ll just put it on his desk.”

As she turns toward the door to the inner office, I’m struck by an idea. A risky one, but I might never get another chance like this. “Actually...”

She turns.

“While I’m here, I thought maybe I could sneak a peek at the mansion archives? I’m preparing a presentation for Hank about our lighting restoration, and there are some relevant documents in Hank’s office. Could I see those, please?”

She frowns, and I brace myself for her refusal. “They’re in a file box, I think? Let’s see if I can find them.” She’s already crossing through to the inner office. “Let’s just look in the cabinet. If you could follow me.”

I trail her inside. Again, it’s just like the library’s setup—except a little larger, and with a killer view. Casco Bay sparkles in the June sunlight. It’s almost blinding.

Everything else, though, is weirdly familiar. Last time I was here, the mansion was still in the demo phase, and Beatrice and I weren’t working in the library yet. That’s why I hadn’t noted all the similarities. The same cabinet drawers. The same leaded-glass windows. The same brass hardware on every file drawer.

Hank was right—Amos Wincott was a hack. Not only did he knock off the European countryside. He plagiarized himself .

Hank’s assistant drops my report on his enormous desk—a mahogany monstrosity by the window. It’s exactly the piece of furniture you’d buy if you wanted to show the world how rich you are, and how large your penis is.

On the other side of the room is a meeting table for six. Hank’s assistant crosses to the cabinets on the adjacent wall and opens a couple of them tentatively.

“This is it, I think?” She lifts out a familiar archival box.

“Yes ma’am.” My heart beats a little faster as she sets it on the table.

“Since he’s not around, you can work right here. Just poke me if you need the copy machine, but you’d need to check with him before removing anything from the premises.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I just want to refresh my memory on a few details of the original plans. Maybe I’ll take a photo or two with my phone?” I’m babbling. Espionage doesn’t come naturally to me.

Or so I used to think.

“I’ll be right outside,” she says. “Let me know if I can bring you anything to drink.”

“Thanks so much!” I say with too much enthusiasm.

The moment she’s gone, I lift the top off the box and peer inside. Hank and I pored over this stuff together before I began the renovation. There’s a set of old blueprints from when they’d upgraded the plumbing in the 1920s. Other documents are as old as the mansion itself—bills of sale for original fixtures and furnishings. Letters between the architect and the painter.

I pull out an archival album and find many of the documents carefully stored in acid-free sleeves. This isn’t what I came for, but I briefly page through the album in case there are cameras watching me. Knowing Hank, it’s entirely possible.

For show, I unfurl the old blueprints and spread them out on the table. The remaining items in the box include a set of old photographs of the facade, as well as a few 1940s postcards featuring the mansion.

What I don’t find, however, is a small leather book full of babies’ birth details.

I poke around the blueprints for a few minutes, idly taking photographs, trying to decide where Hank might have put the journal. Time’s wasting, so I hold my breath and quietly open several cabinet doors, looking for the old book.

And—bingo—I find the small metal strongbox behind door number three.

It was me who’d plucked this from its hiding place in the mansion on that winter day back in March. I’d been lurking in the library, watching the contractor pull up the rotting floorboards so I could assess damage. A glint of steel caught my eye. “Wait! Stop!” I said to the men wielding crowbars. “There’s something under there.”

I knelt on the joist and extracted the box. After carrying it to my desk, I had a Nancy Drew moment. Inside the box I’d found the Wincott family Bible and the leather journal.

Old books hidden under the floorboards would make anyone’s spine tingle. This is why people like old houses. It’s not just the handcrafted details. It’s the history.

Not my history, though. And since Hank wasn’t around that day, I’d carefully taken some photographs of these treasures and sent them along.

Later, without my knowledge, Tim had helped himself to those photos. And now I might finally learn why.

I open the lockbox and pull out the journal. Fresh goose bumps rise on my arms as I open the cover. It’s an old-school, leather-bound volume with ruled pages. And someone’s crisp handwriting trails down each page. Given the location of the lockbox in the mansion’s office, and the history of the Home for Wayward Girls, I have to assume that the handwriting belonged to Marcus Wincott.

The first pages are from the 1950s, and I’ve already photographed them. Only the bare facts are recorded, but it’s still a poignant record of the babies’ births.

4 April 1951—Baby girl—7 pounds, 4 ounces—to Miss M. Wattford

7 June 1951—Baby girl—6 pounds, 9 ounces—to Miss L. J. McManus

11 June 1951—Baby boy dead-born—to Miss J. Connelly

Poor Miss J. Connelly.

With occasional nervous glances toward the door, I continue to flip through the book and the pages that I didn’t photograph the first time. The pace of births increases over time. There’s a baby or two born every month during the 1960s. Hospital births were the norm then, but I’m pretty sure that these babies were born in the mansion.

And now I’m going to figure out if Tim Kovak was one of them.

By the late seventies, births tapered off to five or six a year. I’d like to think that this is because the world was changing. Maybe unmarried women didn’t feel quite so much pressure to hide themselves away at the Magdalene Home.

I’m biased, though. I got pregnant in college. That first week after I missed my period, I already knew. But I didn’t take a test for three more weeks, because I was nervous about telling Harrison.

But then I gathered my courage, made a batch of cookies, and peed on a stick while they cooled. When the + showed up, I wasn’t even surprised.

Harrison came home at four thirty, tired from a shift at his low-paying coffee shop job. Before I could lose my nerve, I sat him down and handed him a cookie. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but...” I showed him the test.

The look on his face. I’ll never forget it. Not anger. Not even shock. Just wonder. “Wow, baby. That’s amazing. Don’t look so scared. It’s gonna be great.”

“Do you promise?” I begged.

“Oh, I promise,” he said.

There’s a reason I have trust issues.

I continue to page through the ledger, watching other girls’ stories flying past as I search for Tim’s birth in early 1979.

And suddenly there he is.

1 February 1979—Baby boy—7 pounds, 7 ounces—to Miss L. Peoples.

An Aquarius , Natalie said. The irrelevant detail swims into my mind. I’m not a fan of astrology. It makes no sense that all the babies born on a cold February day in 1979 should have similar personalities.

But I have the chills even so. We’re all born under a sign, regardless of the position of the stars. Some of us are born into a family like the Wincotts and end up running the world. While some of us are born to Miss L. Peoples and are quietly adopted by another family.

Surely more than one baby boy was born in Portland, Maine, on that date. But I’m willing to bet that this baby boy was Tim. Why else would he care so much about the ledger?

I pull out my phone and take a photo of Tim’s page. And then I flip through to the end of the book. The ledger’s last record is from 1989. Then nothing. Marcus Wincott spent a few more years running the foundation before he retired. Then he lived on in the mansion for a few years until his death.

The building sat empty after that, a mansion only for the mice.

And possibly a ghost.

“Did you find what you needed?”

My chin snaps upward at the sound of the assistant’s voice, and I spot her in the doorway. “Yup! Almost done!” She turns away, even as my heart gallops.

I’ve overstayed my welcome. Quickly, I close the book and place it back into the lockbox. After tucking it in place in the cabinet, I carefully stack the rest of the materials into the archival box.

I’m all smiles when I emerge from Hank’s office, twenty minutes or so after I’d entered it.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Hank’s assistant asks.

“I absolutely did. You’ve been very helpful. Have a great weekend.”

She checks her watch. “It’s not long now.”

***

After snagging an outdoor table at a nearby café, I pull out my phone and begin composing a text to Jules the journalist.

Rowan: I think I found her.

But then I hesitate before sending it. Who is Jules, really? All I know about her is that she used to work with Tim. She didn’t even give me a business card—just a sticky note with her first name.

Is that weird? Or am I paranoid?

I switch to a browser and google Jules journalist Wall Street Journal .

Nothing.

She gave me so little to go on, possibly by design. On a whim, I google Jules journalist Timothy Kovak . And then the results load, and I let out a little gasp of rage that makes the hipsters at the next table look up from their falafel.

The first result is a wedding notice from 2006. For Jules and Tim.

They were married . And I am the worst judge of character who ever lived.

For a minute all I can do is seethe, and shuffle through all the clues I missed. Like when she’d mentioned Tim’s mother. I was over there offering to help clean out his place in New York .

Wait. Did he even have his own place in New York? What if they were still married when I dated him? For a long moment I sit here, dumbstruck, wondering why I never learn.

Nobody can be trusted. Not Tim, and certainly not Jules. She played her hand so well. As a journalist, I’m appalled at his death . A journalist who was married to Tim.

The worst part is that I remember asking Tim if he’d ever been married. He’d said no.

I pick up my phone again and delete the text I’d been writing to Jules. If she wants the name of Tim’s birth mother so bad, she can find it herself.