Chapter 23 Rose

CHAPTER 23

ROSE

"I can't believe you two," Rose said from where she sat at the counter, her gaze moving from Luke to Tay and then back.

The two of them stood where Lulu's chair and table used to sit, the wood floor now exposed. Lulu had protested mightily when Luke had told her they'd have to move her things and had been appeased only when Tay had promised to read a book to her a little later.

Rose shook her head. "Who on earth would hide a secret under the floor of a newspaper office? Reporters tell secrets. They don't keep them."

"Reporters keep plenty of secrets," Luke retorted. "They have to, in order to protect their sources."

"This isn't about sources," Rose said, trying not to sound old and testy and realizing she'd failed. "You really think the gold is hidden here?"

"Gold?" Lulu inched closer. "Are we looking for treasure ?"

Luke and Tay both shook their heads. Tay said, "This is something else."

"Like what?" Rose asked impatiently.

"We won't know until we look."

Luke rubbed his hands together. "I'll fetch a crowbar."

He turned to go to the storage room, but Rose snapped, "Oh, no you don't! No one is getting a crowbar. I refuse to sacrifice one floorboard of this place just to find out some best-forgotten family secret."

"Grandma Rose!" Lulu hopped up and down in a circle. "Find the treasure! Find the treasure! Uncle Luke, find the treasure!"

Rose scowled. When Tay and Luke had rushed out to tell her about their belief that they knew where Sarafina's—heck, Rose didn't know what to call it— stuff was hidden, she'd been properly flummoxed. But that was just the beginning, as she quickly realized they were hell-bent on ripping up a portion of her beloved bookshop's antique floor.

She'd made them wait until their regular closing time, hoping their rampant enthusiasm would cool off.

It hadn't worked. So now, here they were. She was sitting in her usual place, feeling a little attacked, while Lulu happy-danced circles around Luke and Tay. Rose asked sourly, "Can't you get some sort of X-ray machine in here to see what's under that floor so you don't ruin these original floorboards?"

"That would take days to arrange," Luke said. "And I don't know who has that sort of equipment."

Neither did she. She crossed her arms over her chest. "I can't allow this."

Tay came to the counter. "Rose, please. I promise I'll pay for the repairs. And Luke will be super careful not to hurt the flooring any more than necessary. Won't you, Luke?"

He made a Boy Scout pledge sign. "I promise."

Lulu was still hopping in circles. Rose supposed she shouldn't have gotten her great-granddaughter that huge bear claw from Ava's new tearoom. Sugar, thy name is hyper.

"I just don't understand why you think it's here," Rose muttered for the umpteenth time in the past hour.

Luke cut her a frustrated gaze. "Look at the map. It's obviously this building. The windows and doors and walls match everything on the page."

Rose stared at the map yet again, turning it this way and that. "I suppose it does. But why would Sarafina hide her family secret here? This place has been a Day family business since the beginning."

Tay's smile slipped a bit, and Rose could see she'd given the younger woman something to think about. Good. Someone needs to be thinking.

Luke rubbed his chin. "That's a good question. All we know is that Sarafina and David Tau came back to town for just that one week. During that time, they did all the work it took to set these clues in place. Maybe this was the only building they could readily access? Sarafina would have been familiar with it, too. She once worked here, after all."

Tay nodded. "That makes sense."

"It does, doesn't it? I'll get the crowbar."

He was gone before Rose could open her mouth. Darned fools, both of them. She muttered under her breath, "I've never seen two people more excited to demolish something."

Luke returned with the crowbar and grinned at Tay. "Should we?"

"No," Rose repeated. "I don't like you all tearing things up!"

Tay said quickly, "Come on, Rose! We're so close to figuring this out!"

"That's a ‘you' problem, not a ‘me' problem."

Luke frowned, while Tay placed her fingertips to her temples and started rubbing.

After a moment, Tay dropped her hands to her sides. "How about this? What if I don't just fix this part of the floor, but I pay to fix all of it."

Rose eyed Tay suspiciously. "What do you mean, ‘all of it'?"

"I'll pay to have the entire bookshop floor sanded and refin-ished."

Well, that put things in a new light. "Even the offices?"

"Grandma!" Luke protested, cutting her a disappointed look.

"What? She offered."

Tay grinned. "Those too."

"That's too much," Luke said.

Tay waved her hand. "I'm almost related to a contractor."

"Ah. Dylan. He'd probably give us the friends-and-family discount if we asked nicely."

"We?" Tay asked.

Luke smiled. "We're partners, remember?"

Rose cut them a curious glance, some of her outrage subdued by the little smile they were sharing. Well, well, well. That's nice to see. A tug on her sleeve made her look down.

Lulu stood at her side. "Grandma Rose, pretty please with sugar on top, let Uncle Luke look for treasure."

They were all ganging up on her. She grimaced. "No one is listening to me, are they? Fine. Do it, then. It's stupid, but if you want to, I won't stop y—"

"Great." Luke carried the crowbar to where Lulu's table used to be and tapped the floor at his feet. "Here, right?"

"Yay!" Lulu yelled.

Tay held up the map and did the calculations again. "Right there."

There was no X in the floor, which would have been far more exciting, Rose decided. She watched as Luke found a space between two boards and went to work.

It took him about ten minutes to pry the old, tight boards from their spots, but after just four floorboards had been removed, Luke paused. "I see something."

"What?" Lulu asked, rushing forward.

Tay caught the little girl by the waist and hoisted her up, out of danger.

Rose had to send Tay an approving nod. The woman did very well with Lulu. She did well with Luke, too. "Thank you."

Tay smiled, pulled out a nearby chair, and set Lulu on it. "Stay here until your uncle is done. You'll be able to see everything then."

"I'm going to stand," Lulu announced. She stood in the chair and leaned against the high, padded back, staring at the hole Luke had just made.

Rose grabbed her cane and went to perch on the arm of Lulu's chair so she could help keep the child in check. It was the perfect place from which to view Luke's handiwork. There, at the edge of the fourth board, was the rusty corner of an old tin box.

Luke hurried to pry up the next two boards and free the box. He bent and picked it up, swiping decades of dust off before handing it to Tay.

She pressed her hand flat on the rough cover, and Rose could see the excitement in Tay's eyes.

"If it's gold, it's not much," Rose said, fighting to keep the disappointment from her voice. Tay had said there wouldn't be any, but Rose hadn't been able to banish every bit of hope she'd been holding on to.

"Maybe there are diamonds in there!" Lulu's eyes couldn't have been any wider. "Or cake!"

Luke came to stand with Tay, peering over her shoulder as she set the box on the counter. Rose got up and came closer as Tay pried the cover off the old box. It took some work, but it finally popped open and revealed a small, leather-bound book.

Rose leaned in closer. "That's it? Just a book?" She gave a disgusted sigh. "All of that searching and all you got was that?"

Tay set the tin aside and ran her hand over the leather cover. She took a calming breath and opened it, her eyes widening.

"What is it?" Luke asked before Rose could say the words.

Tay looked up, tears in her eyes. "It's William Day's diary."

Oh my gosh. Rose couldn't tear her gaze from the book. "If it's William Day's, then it belongs to our family."

"Of course it does," Tay said. "But I need to look at it first."

"No. Not until I've read it." It was silly, and she knew it, but she'd worked hard for so many years to keep their family's dirty laundry from being aired.

"Why?" Luke asked. "Grandma Rose, let Tay see it for a few minutes and then it's yours."

"If that diary proves that William wasn't involved in the robbery, then I'll let all of you take a look. Heck, you can have it printed in the Register if you want. But if not—" Rose scowled. "I'm not saying what should happen then, but I won't want it printed anywhere."

"Where are the diamonds?" Lulu hopped off the chair before anyone could stop her. She went to the counter and, standing on her tiptoes, picked up the box. She turned it upside down and shook it. "It's empty."

"Lulu, don't—" Rose began, but Lulu had already dropped the box and was now on her hands and knees, peering into the hole Luke had made in the floor.

"What's that?" Lulu pointed.

Luke went to look. "What's what? I don't see— Oh." He bent down and reached back under one of the boards. When he straightened back up, he held a large, empty-looking canvas bag.

"Whose is that?" Rose asked, eyeing the bag.

"I'm not sure," Luke said. "But judging by its proximity to the box, I'd say they were boarded up together."

Rose noticed how large the bag was. "Maybe that once held the gold."

Luke turned it here and there, examining it. "Perhaps." He untied the bag and looked inside. "There's something here."

Tay, the diary still in her hands, came to look. "What is it?"

He reached in and pulled out a dirty, faded, striped shirt, the numbers 4-5-1 sewn where a breast pocket should have been. "It's… a prison shirt."

Rose's heart sank.

Luke showed it to Tay. "Did prisoners really wear things like this?"

Tay nodded. "It made them easy to spot if they escaped." She reached out and touched the numbers. "This was Marcus McCleary's."

Rose pressed a hand to her heart and realized she'd been holding her breath. "How do you know?"

Tay said, "They were recorded in the prison records. William's number was 9-0-1. Is there anything else in that bag?"

"No." Luke returned the shirt to the bag and set it aside. "I guess the diary is the real treasure."

Rose held out her hand. "Let me have it."

Tay hugged the book. "Rose, please let me—"

"No! Hand it over!"

"Grandma," Luke said, frowning. "She can't let you have it. We all know that if you don't like what you read, you'll hide it."

Rose huffed. It stung to hear the rebuke in Luke's voice. "It might be wrong, but it's the way I do things. Besides, this has nothing to do with Sarafina. Why would William Day's diary be of interest to her and David Tau's daughter— Oh! " Rose blinked. "Is it possible that Lucy was William's illegitimate daughter?"

Tay shook her head. "Lucy was born years after William died in jail. But, Rose, that's exactly why the diary should be public. You keep wanting to hide the fact that William Day was involved with the robbery, but you can't erase him. He existed and who he was, and why, are important even if you don't like the things he did. The answer to everything is in this diary. We just have to be brave enough to face it."

Blast it, why did Tay have to go and say something like that? It wasn't fair. And yet… Rose's gaze dropped to the stack of floorboards Luke had pried out of place. Maybe… maybe it was time she faced all the truths in her life, those of her current family as well as those who'd gone before them.

A tug on her sweater made her look down. Lulu looked up at her. "Let Tay read that book. She really wants to. I can tell."

Oh Lord, who had given this child such beautiful, thickly lashed blue eyes? Rose couldn't say no to those.

She bent down and gave Lulu a hug before straightening back up. "Okay, Tay. Go ahead and read it. But just promise you'll go easy on William in that book you're writing, no matter what's in there."

"I promise I'll be fair." Tay sat down at the counter beside Rose and opened the diary.

Rose pointed at Luke. "You! While she's reading, put those boards back in. I'd better not be able to tell they were ripped up to begin with, either."

"Will do. Lulu, do you want to be my helper?" Lulu ran to Luke and he set to work.

Rose pulled a chair close by so she could see everyone, and sat.

At the counter, Tay opened the book and took a deep breath, but instead of reading it, she rested her fingers on the inky pages. Her face tightened and then changed, and for an eerie second, Rose had the impression she wasn't looking at Tay at all, but at someone else….