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Why would she keep these?
He set the question aside for later. It wasn’t for now. But he wasn’t going to forget it. Leigh Gabler had been the most organized person he had ever met, and organized people didn’t keep other departments’ paperwork in their desk drawer for no reason.
As he turned, his eye caught the framed photo of the young woman.
“And this?” Sam asked. “Do you know her?”
Daniel’s face softened, a smile blooming on his face.
“Oh, that’s Leigh’s niece, Hannah. They were as close as anything. I spoke to her yesterday, and she’s just devastated. Took it harder than just about anyone.”
Sam hadn’t known Leigh had a niece. She’d never mentioned it to him.
“The funeral’s in Boston,” Daniel said. “That’s where her people are. Of course, you’re welcome, as well. I just assumed not many people would travel for it, but it’s absolutely open if anyone wants to come.”
“I understand. We’d like to do a small remembrance for her here, too, if that’s all right with you. She was well-loved in this town. People will want to say goodbye.”
“I’m sure she’d like that.” Daniel hesitated. “I may not be able to come back for it, I’m afraid. I have my own retirement to wrap up with my current clients now. Everything we planned, I’m going to be doing alone.” He took a breath. “But I’d be grateful if you held one.”
“We will. And let me help with something else.” The idea came to him at once, and it felt right. “Let us pack up her place here. We’ll box it carefully and ship it wherever you want. You shouldn’t have to fly back and forth to empty an apartment.”
“You’d do that?”
“Consider it done. Send me the address.”
“That would be a real kindness. I’ll get it where it needs to go and let her niece look through it. She can take what she wants to keep. Thank you.”
“What about people here?” Sam asked. “Friends who might want something of hers to remember her by?”
Daniel considered it, then shook his head.
“I’m not sure she had close friends in town. Did she mention any to you?”
“No,” Sam said. The admission bothered him more than he expected. Thirty years, and he couldn’t name a friend. “She didn’t.”
“She told me once that it was hard, with the hours she kept. She worked so much she never made the time.” Daniel’s eyes were wet again. “There was a book club, though. It was called The Happy Readers. Met once a week. She loved those women. If any of them want her books, and she had so many, I’d be happy for them to go to people who truly cared about her. Please. Send them home with whoever wants them.”
“I’ll see that her books get to the book club myself,” Sam said. “You have my word.”
They shook hands again at the door. Daniel held on a second longer this time.
“She spoke well of you,” he said. “Out of all of them. I thought you should hear it.”
And then he was gone, and the office was quieter than before.
Leigh had been living an entire life that no one else had even known about. A condo, Florida, a partner, and retirement. Even a niece that he’d never heard about. Not once.
Was there anything else they hadn’t known?
Chapter
Nine
Alli sat cross-legged on the guest bed with her laptop balanced on a pillow and four browser tabs open. Daisy was a warm weight against her hip, snoring and growling softly in her sleep. The house had gone quiet an hour ago. Brian and Tara were tucked up in bed.
She told herself she was only being thorough.
That was a lie, and she knew it, but it was a comfortable one. The truth was that she couldn’t stop thinking about Leigh Gabler. A woman who had given thirty years to one office and kept an entire life folded up out of sight. A condo in Florida. A man named Daniel. A retirement no one saw coming. And then someone had hit her over the head and left her in her car.
