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Frequently, he made notes in his ledger. Every once in a while, he caught himself thinking, as soon as I get that new medication, I won’t have to use this ledger anymore. I’ll remember everything again. It wasn’t logical, maybe. But he loved thinking about it.
Sam came and went and came back again. He watched the baby in the afternoon so that Amanda could take a shower and have a nap, then hurried back to the Sunrise Cove to chat with Zach about the approaching dinner menu. Everything about the day felt smooth and glowing with expectation for whatever came next.
The news crew came out of nowhere.
Wes couldn’t help but smile at Rhonda Evans as she entered the foyer. She was one of the news anchors who’d shown a video of the Sunrise Cove last night, and she wore a smart navy blazer and her hair in a sharp bob. She strode toward him with a confidence she must have trained herself to have. Or were some people born with that much confidence? Wes had never had it.
“Good afternoon! Welcome to the Sunrise Cove Inn,” Wes greeted her.
Rhonda smiled. “Are you Wes Sheridan?”
“I am!” Wes was surprised she knew his name. A blush crawled up his chest. “And you’re Rhonda Evans.”
Rhonda laughed in a big and brassy way and waved for her camera guy to get the shot. “Do you mind if I interview you for a little special on Sunrise Cove tonight?”
“Not at all.”
Wes had decided long ago that he wanted to be filmed as much as possible before his brain gave up on him. He wanted to be remembered. It was vain, but it was the truth.
Rhonda smiled, fixed her already perfect hair, and raised her microphone to her mouth. The cameraman said, “Action,” and Wes smiled goofily. When he tried to stop, he smiled even more.
“Good evening. Welcome to the Sunrise Cove Inn on Martha’s Vineyard. As we mentioned last night, a secret room has been discovered in the basement of the old inn that was, according to some reports, sealed off after the original building burned to the ground and the Sunrise Cove Inn was built in its place.” She turned to look at Wes. “I’m here with Wes Sheridan, the longtime owner of the Sunrise Cove Inn. Wes, how long has your family owned this property?”
Wes’s neck was slick with sweat. “Oh, hundreds of years,” he said. “My father always told a story about his long-ago coming here from Ireland to whale professionally. My grandparents were the ones who built the Sunrise Cove Inn back in the day. That was after the fire.”
“And they didn’t know anything about the secret room?”
Wes raised his shoulders. “They never mentioned it to me.”
“Is it possible that they covered it up on purpose? To hide a secret?”
This hadn’t occurred to Wes. “I don’t see why they would have done that.”
Rhonda’s eyes flickered. It felt like she dug through his mind, searching for a potential story. Wes was having second thoughts about being on television.
“But it’s possible, isn’t it?” Rhonda said. “I’m sure your grandparents didn’t tell you everything.”
“I was a kid. Probably not,” Wes said.
Rhonda smiled. “Can you tell us your plans at the Sunrise Cove now that the room has been discovered? Will there be a public reveal? Will you make the inn a historical site?”
Wes felt flustered when he realized this wasn’t a question for him. It was for Sam. But as he pondered what to say so as not to look like a fool, the foyer door burst open again to bring in two balding men in suits. Wes couldn’t forget that his main job right now was to operate the front desk. He put on a smile and said, “Good afternoon! Welcome to the Sunrise Cove Inn.”
The men in suits didn’t care that Rhonda was filming. They strode right into the shot and blocked her.
“Excuse me?” Rhonda cried as her cameraman turned off the camera.
“Are you the owner of the Sunrise Cove Inn?” the man on the left asked Wes. He removed something from a manila folder and licked his lips like a cat who’d just eaten a mouse.
“I am,” Wes said, although the legalities of that were more complicated now.
The man put a document in front of him. Wes blinked at it but needed his reading glasses to see it clearly.
“We hereby state that the Sunrise Cove Inn is closed for the foreseeable future,” the man said formally. “It is a historic site in the State of Massachusetts and requires a thorough analysis before reopening. If it ever reopens in the same capacity again.”
Wes gaped at him. “What are you talking about?”
The man set his jaw. “It is up to us to uphold the historical nature of all Massachusetts sites.”
