AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You could have said something.”
“I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “Because it’s not for me. It’s for my grandma.”
I steepled my fingers against my mouth. “This is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen…and you’re telling me we get to see inside it?”
“I thought you’d like that.” Duncan gave me that smirk before nodding to Clive and exiting the car. “This house used to belong to my grandfather.”
No way. “You’re acting like it’s just some random house.”
“I’ve been a little distracted,” he said with a grimace.
“By what?”
I stared at its buttercream color, at the front tower with a pointed roof that reminded me of a dollop of cream. The circular window that was surrounded by stone. The chiseled details in the shutters. The signs of age on the front steps.
I slapped my senses back into place and scurried up the steps to stand beside him as he reached for the heavy door knocker. Clearly, he wasn’t going to answer my question.
The door opened, and an elderly woman with a scarf wrapped around her head like a turban answered. She wore a purple dress beneath an orange vest the same length as the dress’s skirt.
And an impolite slur escaped Duncan’s lips.
“Eudora?” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Hawthorne,” she said.
SEVENTEEN
duncan
When I’d scheduledthis meeting with the owner of The Painted Lady house, Eudora Wilson was the last person I expected to see. Every communication had been done through a man named Cameron, and in every email or text, he’d only referred to her as “the owner.”
But Eudora Wilson, the woman who’d owned the fraternity the guys and I had been a part of, the woman whose sons were the reason for the genesis of The Pact all those years ago, the woman who’d supposedly disappeared around the same time Adelie’s grandma had—she owned this house?
What was she doing in Eureka Springs?
I should have asked more questions. My brain was raging through the last details I knew about her. Adelie’s grandma had been a part of this whole godmother club, The Godmother Gals, and when her grandma had gone missing, they’d asked the GGs what they knew about her disappearance.
During that visit, Maddox had said the old bags knew Eudora. She’d been a part of their group but had left this random postcard saying how she was bowing out. The women were all pretty upset about it and hadn’t known where Eudora had ended up.
Rosabel placed a hand on my arm, shaking me from my stupor.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” I said, leveling a glare at the woman who once owned the fraternity that had ruined so many of my friends’ lives. “She’s an old acquaintance.”
Someone I never thought I’d see again.
Eudora was slightly hunched over, but she kept her attention on me, which gave her the overall look of a vole.
“I can tell you weren’t expecting me,” Eudora said.
My fingers went to my suit buttons. It was a nervous habit. “But you knewIwas coming.”
“I did,” she nodded. “Who’s your friend?”
I glowered at her. Ridiculous. I felt like I was being played, like something more was going on here than the simple exchange of information and funds for goods. I needed this sale to make things right with Grandmother. But introducing Eudora to Rosabel when I’d brought Rosie with me to keep her safe?
I should never have brought her with me today. I could have had her stay at the house with my staff. Pat would’ve loved that.
