Author: Christina Dodd
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/christina-dodd/page,6,485077-strangers_she_knows.html
Kellen smiled back. “I might. Now let’s pay attention to where we go. We have to get back from this adventure.”
The last flight was steep and constricted, and ended in a narrow attic door that had once been painted white. It was now a sort of yellowish color, and creaked like the ominous warning in a scary old movie.
“Mommy, you go first.” Rae stayed close to Kellen’s back.
But nothing ominous lurked behind the door. Here they found a large, airy, white-painted room with casement dormer windows set into the sloped ceiling. Spacious window seats loaded with squishy cushions, two couches upholstered in faded maroon flowered material popular in the fifties, and a worn maroon easy chair with an ottoman. A large bookshelf held well-read paperbacks and hardcovers.
Rae lost her trepidation, gave a delighted gasp, dropped the picnic basket, and ran to one of the west-facing window seats. She crawled in and pulled a throw over her legs.
Luna ran with her and wagged her tail.
“Can she come up?” Rae begged. “Can she? It’s not really furniture.”
Because Luna wasn’t supposed to get on the furniture, except on Rae’s bed when Rae was in it, and not even then…but that was a battle Max and Kellen had chosen to ignore. “Invite her up.”
Rae patted the seat next to her.
Luna leaped and looked out the window, wagging her tail, then turned to face the room. She curled up at Rae’s side, and kept an interested eye on Kellen as she explored.
Luna’s innate loyalty was one of the reasons Max and Kellen elected to let the dog on Rae’s bed; they had not a doubt Luna would protect Rae with her life.
The problem was—with Mara Philippi on the loose, they knew there was a chance Luna would be called on to do her duty.
When Kellen and Rae had together gone on their perilous adventure into the Olympic Mountains, Rae had proved to be stalwart and loyal. Should Kellen now ignore Max’s wishes, take matters in her own hands, and tell her about Mara? Should she warn her of the need to be always vigilant, to be suspicious…to be afraid?
For Mara was a thing to fear. When Kellen first met her at Yearning Sands Resort, Mara had been the spa manager, a pretty, shallow, fit young woman who seemed committed to nothing more than winning the International Ninja Challenge. The image she’d created for herself convinced Kellen, and the whole staff, of her superficiality. Mara had set herself up as rival and friend to Kellen, but when the winter turned dark and storms isolated the resort, Kellen discovered the horrifying truths, and those truths had almost killed her.
She remembered the threat Mara had sent her. I’ll take everything from her, the way she took everything from me. I’ll make her sorry she betrayed me.
Mara was still far away, so whether or not Max agreed, perhaps this was the moment to set Rae on her guard. As Kellen searched for the words, Rae said in a dreamy voice, “I can hear the rain on the roof.”
Kellen looked at her daughter staring out at the showery sky and sea and clouds. With a pang, she realized Rae the child was becoming an adult, a painful process of confusion and wildness, that would someday result in a poised, beautiful young woman who didn’t need her anymore.
But not yet. Right now, Rae did need her mother, and Kellen didn’t have the heart to destroy Rae’s delight in this moment and this place. So Kellen dismissed her dark memories, and looked around for something to entertain them.
Unframed paintings covered the far wall, colorful works of crashing waves, soaring gulls, stands of redwoods and one rather sad portrait of a young man in a World War II US naval uniform, gazing out to sea. “Someone lived up here,” she decided, “and not just one of the servants.”
Rae rested her forehead on the windowpane. “I’d like to live here. It’s a wonderful place.”
Kellen ran her finger along the shelf’s edge. When it came away barely dusted, she said, “I never thought the housekeepers would get this far. They did a really good job. You could live up here.”
Rae turned. “Really?”
Seeing Rae’s hopeful face, Kellen cursed herself. “No. You’d be too far away, and it’s dark up here.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Even when you have a nightmare?”
Yesterday’s belligerent denial was gone. Rae grimaced. “I guess not.”
“Besides, no bathroom that I can see.” Although perhaps it was through the next door.
Rae picked up a pair of binoculars from a shelf in the alcove and pointed them outside the window. “Look! A bird nest in the top of one of the oaks.” Her voice brightened. “There are babies!”
“Let me see!” Kellen grabbed another set of binoculars and crawled into the window seat. These binoculars were heavy, and with her uncooperative hand, it took her a few minutes to gain control and focus on the tree. She found the nest, then the gawping mouths of the infant birds, and then she focused on the mother, tearing bits of meat into shreds to feed them. “Is that an eagle?”
“I don’t know. We could look it up online—”
“There are books on the bookshelves!” Kellen slid out of the window seat, grabbed the first book on bird watching she could find, and shoved it at Rae. “Look it up!”
Rae was interested enough not to grumble, and used the binoculars and the book, back and forth, until she could shout, “It’s a peregrine falcon!”
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before.” Kellen wandered over to a wall of cupboards. “That’s wonderful!”
“They’re a fully protected raptor.”
“It’s a beautiful bird. I’m glad it’s protected.” Kellen opened one door and found a closet filled with art supplies. “Someone painted up here!”
“Yes, Mother, it looks very well painted.” Rae was dreaming; she didn’t want to be interrupted with prosaic matters.
“I meant art.”
Rae didn’t react, so Kellen closed the door and snooped further. The other doors revealed old Christmas decorations, stacks of notebooks and pens, a well-stocked linen closet, and finally a recessed door that looked as if it went into the other part of the attic.
Luna slipped off the cushions and came to Kellen’s side, sat in front of the door and wagged her tail as if expecting Kellen to open it.
Kellen turned the cut glass knob.
The door was locked.
Luna looked up at her as if to say, Come on!
“I’ll see if I can find a key,” Kellen told her.
Rae had followed Luna, and when the door failed them, she went to the desk and rifled through the drawers. “Somebody up here wrote a lot of letters.”
Kellen hurried over and took the pile Rae held. “Three-cent stamps! Postmarked in the 1930s and ’40s.” She wanted to open them, but it seemed vaguely rude.
“Look!” Rae held up a small blue leather-bound book. “It’s a diary!” She felt no qualms; she opened it to the first page. “‘September 1, 1938. Ruby Evelyn Morgade, my book.’” She turned the page and read, “‘I turn fifteen years old today and my sister sent me this journal as a gift. Bessie says to keep it hidden from Father or he’ll read it, and all my secret beliefs and deep emotions will be revealed. He doesn’t deem his wife or children should be allowed private thoughts, and he is the head of this household so he controls us all.’” Rae looked up, frowning thunderously. “I don’t like her father.”
“What a jerk,” Kellen agreed.
“Who does he think he is?”
“He was the rich newspaperman who owned the house. In those days, men did pretty much what they wanted with their families. And to their families.”
“The olden days?”
“Yes.” Kellen hesitated, then reminded her, “Now, too. My first husband abused me. I was lucky to escape alive.”
“I know, Mommy. I’m sorry.” Rae hugged her, and leaned her head against Kellen’s should
er.
When had she grown tall enough to reach Kellen’s shoulder? “So consider your partners carefully,” Kellen said. “No one’s perfect, but no one has the right to hurt you.”
“You told me before. I believe you. Let’s sit down and read Ruby’s diary!” Rae led her toward the couch.
“She wanted her thoughts to be private,” Kellen reminded her.
“From her mean old father. Not from us! She would have liked us!”
“I think she would have.” This was the entertainment Kellen had been looking for: a journal from long ago, and a gentle recalling of growing up in a former time.
Rae thrust the diary at Kellen. “You read it.” She snuggled against Kellen’s side.
“The handwriting is awfully small.” But beautifully formed and clear. Kellen clicked on the floor lamp beside the couch. “I’ll read for a while, then you.”
The world receded as they read:
Father found out that Miss Harriman allowed me to study the business section of the newspaper, and after he raged at her, she lost her temper and told him I had a fine mind and I should be allowed to leave this island and go to school and I deserved to know more than how to make some rich man a pretty wife. He fired her, of course. I cried and begged, but he is adamant. I even asked Mother to intercede, but she refused. She told me Father always knows the right thing to do and we should obey him unconditionally. Then she went out in the garden to putter. Father doesn’t want her to do servants’ work; he dislikes her with dirt under her fingernails, so she wears gardening gloves and never kneels while she plants and weeds. That’s as close to defiance as she ever gets. He has crushed her spirit, if she ever had any. He really is the dreadful beast Bessie calls him. He’s gone off to the mainland to find another tutor. I hope someone runs over him or shoots him. I hope he dies. I hate this house with its empty, echoing rooms, its cowed servants, its secret passages.
“Secret passages!” Rae exclaimed. She looked around at the walls as if her x-ray vision could pierce their interior and reveal their mysteries.
That is not good. Hastily, Kellen read on.
I want to see the world, and I’ll never get off this island until I wed the man he forces on me.
I am doomed.
Kellen stopped reading. She looked at Rae.
Rae looked back.
They were both appalled.
“Poor Ruby. Did she ever get off the island?” Rae asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We can look her up online.”
Kellen waited for Rae to remember…
“No, we can’t.” Rae clutched her hair. “We don’t have service! How am I supposed to talk to Chloe every day?”
“You could do like Ruby. You could write Chloe a letter.”
Rae looked at Kellen as if she’d fallen into madness.
“Yes, you could,” Kellen insisted. “If your daddy ever has to take the helicopter to the mainland—”
“Will he?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Then why are you talking about it?”
Because I want you to feel happy. Because I don’t want you to feel cut off. Because I want you to have a confidante. “If for some reason he does go, he could mail the letter for you.”
“Like with an envelope and stamp?” Rae made it sound so primitive.
“Exactly.” Kellen knew Max probably wouldn’t be happy about her making such a promise, but she hoped, she really hoped, their sojourn here would be brief.
Rae mulled it over. “You know what would be great to tell Chloe? That we found secret passages in the house!”
“That would be exciting.” Kellen considered all the angles, and decided she’d rather be close when Rae discovered her first secret passage, and said, “Shall we look right now?”
“Yes!” Rae jumped to her feet, ran to the wall by the door and started knocking on it.
Kellen examined all the walls, realized the window seat was inset in an inner wall set back three feet from the outer wall, and deduced the passage must be there. “Here, Rae.” Kellen felt around the window trim, found a notch at the bottom, and when Rae had joined her, she pressed it…and with a click, the wall swiveled open and musty air rushed out.
“The secret passage.” Kellen gestured Rae in. “After you.”
Rae stood, wide-eyed, and stared inside.
Dust rested deep on the unfinished boards of the floor. The wall studs were gray with age. Cobwebs draped the entrance, and a spider dropped down to hang as if interested in the new world that had opened to it.
Rae took a breath. “It’s dark.”
“It really is. You first.”
“No.” Rae took a step back, ran into Kellen, jumped. “I’ll wait until I’ve got a, um, flashlight.”
“That’s probably a good idea.” Kellen breathed easier. Rae would not be wandering into the secret passages on her own. “Do you want to read some more of Ruby’s diary?”
Rae looked at the window where rain still washed the glass with gray, and sighed dramatically. “There’s nothing else to do.” She grinned. “Unless you want to go down and practice piano.”
“Right. We’ll eat lunch.”
“Yes. Lunch…”
“And read another entry.” While Rae opened the picnic basket, Kellen opened Ruby’s diary again.
Father decided I didn’t need a governess anymore. He said too much education in a woman is a terrible thing. So he brought me a companion. Hermione Jasper is twenty, an orphan with no resources and only a public school education. Of course he would pick someone like her. She has no family to fall back on, ergo no choice but to obey him in all things. She is to report to him all my activities, keep me on a strict schedule of riding, embroidery, elocution, piano, drawing and—because he doesn’t want me to run to fat—swimming in the pool.
Considering his girth, I find this to be most amusing.
I long for Miss Harriman, with her intelligent insights and constant wit, and I distrust this Hermione.
Father won’t let me read the financial pages, but he wants me to keep up on current events so I can converse with the man he chooses to be my husband. So I know all about Germany and the horrors they are inflicting on Europe. Father approves of their tyranny. He says to the victor go the spoils, and Germany is strong and white, and the Jews and Gypsies deserve whatever Hitler hands out to them. Sometimes, when he doesn’t notice, Mother looks at him as if he is a particularly disgusting form of slug. She isn’t white. Not even he with all his power could make the world proclaim her white. Or me, either. I’m half hers. She has begun to speak to me in Japanese again, as she used to before he forbade her. I remember quite a lot, and am getting better all the time…
“Ruby’s mother was Japanese?” The mere idea mentally knocked Kellen off her feet.
“Is that weird?” Rae had very little experience with prejudice.
Kellen opened the basket and unpacked the sandwiches. “Yes! He seems like the kind of guy who would want a submissive woman of his own race. At the same time, some men find American women, with their education and their free speech, to be too challenging.”
Rae spread the blanket on the floor.
Luna joined them, sitting at the edge of the blanket and watching eagerly.
“I guess he could have gone to Japan and bought a girl.” Kellen loaded Rae’s plate, then her own, and they dug in.
“Bought her? That’s gross.” Rae stuck her finger down her throat and made a gagging noise.
“Disgusting.” Kellen took Rae’s dill pickle spear off her plate.
Rae took it back, polished off her lunch, gave some cheese to Luna (Kellen pretended not to notice) and said, “I wonder if there’s a picture of the lady downstairs.”
“Ruby’s mom? There’s got to be.”
Rae jumped to her feet. “Do you think she’s dead? His wife?”
“Yes. Long ago. Remember? Daddy’s told us.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know them then.”
Kellen loaded the remains of lunch into their lunch basket. “We need the family Bible for the dates. Come on. Let’s find Gerard Morgade’s wife.”
“And Ruby’s mother.”
Picnic basket in hand, Kellen and Rae left the attic and clattered down the stairs. In their hurry, they failed to firmly shut the door behind them.
* * *
Inside the attic, the inner door opened.
The outer door opened.
A soft laugh followed them down the stairs.
They didn’t notice.
9
Kellen and Rae rifled through the library, looking for Morgade family photos, and found a picture of the newlywed couple.
Gerard Morgade was tall, overweight, in a beige suit with a waistcoat, a stiff collar and wide cravat. He was probably forty—and without expression. He showed no pleasure in the occasion or his young wife.
The bride had a pale painted face with red lips, wore a Japanese kimono that gave her shape, yet beneath that she was obviously nothing more than a malnourished girl.
Rae pointed. “That’s them!”
“That’s vile.” Kellen was more upset than she supposed she should be, but the idea of that cold, cruel man taking possession of a teenager to use for breeding and as hostess…
Max stepped into the door of the library. “The sun is out. Do you want to—?” He focused on Kellen. “What’s wrong?”
“Mommy’s remembering her first husband.” Rae sounded too wise and very kind.
Kellen’s mouth twisted. How odd to have her daughter read her so well. But sometimes, she looked at Rae and thought that was what she would have been like, if her parents had lived or Aunt Cora had been loving or…
Or. She’d made choices in her life, not all of them good. That Cecilia/Kellen thing, for instance.