The Cottage on Nantucket Read online

  “Thank you,” Janey said, hoping she could make it through the door of the suite the man was currently taking her to. Her heels seemed to catch on the thick carpet, and she could barely keep up with him.

  After she’d gotten him to the front desk, she’d shown him the page with his name and number on it, and the next thing she knew, he had two coded keycards and had said her room was on the forty-second floor.

  Not a fan of heights, Janey swore she could feel the building swaying in the wind.

  Charles unlocked the door to the suite and held it for her. She’d never stayed in a hotel this nice, and a long foyer showed her expensive artwork on the walls and the best bamboo flooring money could buy.

  “I should be back in about fifteen minutes,” he said, his dark hair salted generously. Janey sure liked a silver fox, but she reined in her thoughts. She wasn’t going to start something with Charles Burns, the Vice-President of the Benjamin Foundation.

  Pure exhaustion filled her as she crossed the threshold of the suite and entered it. Only when the door clicked completely closed behind her did she start to relax.

  She pressed her back into the door and closed her eyes. Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe.

  She kicked off her heels, sending them scattering down the hallway with loud clunks. She followed after them, stepping past them and into the suite. It was more of an apartment, really, with a wall of windows in front of her that overlooked the Hudson River. She could see into New Jersey, though the sun going down painted the buildings in glinting chrome and golden light.

  An expansive living room filled the space in front of the windows, with a full dining room table that seated eight behind it, and then a gourmet kitchen. A hall led out of the room right beside the table, and she went that way to find a bathroom at the end of the walkway, with a bedroom on either side.

  They both held huge beds, but Janey went into the one with another attached bathroom. Lilacs and cotton scented the air, and she sank onto the bed, her mind suddenly recalling what Charles had said. Let me escort you up to the owner’s apartment.

  “The owner’s apartment,” she repeated now. Her shock and adrenaline wore all the way down, and her purse had gained about twenty pounds in the form of a letter and a locket. After releasing it from her forearm, Janey carefully took the sealed envelope Elle had given her from the front pocket.

  She tore it open, her eyes not sending information to her brain fast enough. Her pulse pounded again as she removed a single check, made out to Tessa alone, for just over one hundred thousand dollars.

  Janey sucked in a breath and pinched the check hard enough to crinkle the thick paper. She hated that Tessa’s name sat there and not hers. Why send her to close an account that didn’t even have her name on it? What was she supposed to do with it?

  With her anger building, Janey slid the check back into the envelope so she wouldn’t rip it to shreds. Tessa had already said she’d split everything with Janey; it didn’t matter whose name had been typed on the line.

  Her fingers shook with the amount of money she now had in her inheritance. She’d had no idea Mom had so much money. “There’s this hotel too,” she said. She could easily live here, in this two-bedroom apartment in the city. “There’s a house on Long Island.”

  She removed the blue binder from her oversized purse and opened it again. The address for the house was listed, and she typed it into her phone’s map app. She could see a traffic view or a satellite view, and the house sat right on the edge of the island, the road in front of it across from the Wide Ocean Beach.

  “For crying out loud,” she said, peering at the map. “It’s almost in Southampton.” She looked up, now-familiar shock coursing through her. They owned a house in the Hamptons.

  She shook the thoughts away, because they felt so foreign. The house on the screen definitely wasn’t a decades-old beach cottage in need of a fresh coat of paint. It was a two-story home, with a three-car garage and plenty of flat parking space. It looked well-kept and maintained, with an emerald-green lawn and black shutters against a charming light green exterior.

  It was the type of home Janey only dreamed of or saw in magazines. It was where celebrity chefs lived or the housewife of someone who owned a huge, worldwide Internet storefront.

  And it now belonged to Tessa.

  Janey flipped open the blue binder to the section for the home on Shoreline Way. While she was here, she might as well catch the train out to Long Island and take a look at this house. Everything else had contained the names of people, addresses, and phone numbers, and Janey assumed this section would as well.

  But behind the divider for the house, only a single sheet of paper waited. It bore the words, More information for this house will be provided once you’ve gone to the bank and the hotel.

  Janey had gone to both. She had the money and the pendant. Her fingers automatically reached up to touch where it lay against her collarbone, her thoughts running far into the past for a moment.

  When Charles had introduced himself, he’d said he had an envelope for her, but it was in a time-controlled safe that could only be opened once an hour, and they’d been inside it in the last sixty minutes. He’d brought her up here and promised to bring her the envelope once he could retrieve it.

  She took out the one she’d found in the safety deposit box and opened it, deciding she simply needed all of the information as quickly as she could get it.

  Mom’s handwriting shone up at her, and Janey’s breath caught in her throat. Tears burned her eyes, and the black, sloping lettering blurred. She pressed the letter to her chest, and let her emotions stream from her. She held something her mother had touched, and Janey cherished that.

  “Thank you for my letter,” she whispered. She’d been close to her mother, and she’d walled off the emotions of not being able to talk to her. Part of that strategy was letting Tessa deal with all the details of the inheritance, so Janey didn’t have to feel any sadness, any missing, anything at all.

  Now, though, she realized she needed to allow herself to experience her true emotions. Tears ran down her face as she did, and before she knew it, Janey had left the letter on the bed and gone into the master bathroom to find something to wipe them away.

  She stood in the pristine, marble-endowed bathroom and sobbed. With a white towel pressed to her face, she slid down the wall and curled into herself as her emotions overcame her. She’d broken down like this several times in her life. The first time had been when her kids’ father had left for good. He’d been traveling to Alaska for work for months previous to his final departure, and she’d been fine.

  She knew the marriage had teetered on the edge of a knife for over a year before he’d finally said he wasn’t coming home, but it wasn’t until the finality of it had been spoken aloud that she’d allowed herself to truly feel the loss of her husband.

  She’d had to deal with the fear of being a single mother. She’d had to face the fact that she wasn’t perfect and that she’d contributed to the marriage’s failure. She’d had to find a way to be strong for her then-toddlers.

  Drawing in a long breath, Janey paused the way her therapist had taught her. Just stop, he’d said many times. Stop and think: What’s the worst thing that could happen now?

  She released her breath slowly and ran through the things that helped her focus on what she needed to do. She pictured her son’s face, Cole’s strong opinions and spirit making her smile. She lived for him.

  She pictured his girlfriend’s face. They lived together in Atlantic City, and Janey loved McKenna as a daughter, though her son didn’t really believe in marriage. McKenna had literally saved Cole during a very trying time of his life, and Janey lived for her.

  She thought of her daughter, and Rachel’s sunny disposition and positive outlook on life made Janey smile. She worked at the supermarket, because she was terrified of becoming an adult. She’d graduated a year ago, and Janey was in no hurry to have Rachel step out into the scary wor
ld. She lived for her daughter.

  She thought of her friends in the Lady Tigers, the motorcycle riding group that she really enjoyed spending time with. They were important to her, and she lived for them.

  When she thought of her significant other, one face came forward, and Janey wept again. She hadn’t been thinking about choosing between the men in her life, but a crisis always forced her back to her core. Back to who she was, and what she wanted in her life.

  Milford was the man she wanted, and she knew she’d need to let the others go.

  Mom’s face floated behind her closed eyes, as did Tessa, her husband Ron, and her son, Ryan. Her family had always been important to Janey, and that hadn’t changed because she’d barricaded herself behind her emotional barriers.

  She got to her feet and went back into the bedroom. The letter waited on the bed, and Janey was ready to see what it said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My dearest Janey,

  I’m sure you are confused, scared, and angry. You have every right to be, and I hope you’ll allow yourself to run through all of the emotions you need to feel.

  I want to say that I will miss you terribly once I am gone. That must sound strange to have someone who has died say they will miss the one left behind, but it’s true. I have been worried about how you will handle my death the very most, and I hope it will be a comfort to you to know that I will miss you.

  You have been the very best daughter a mother could ever want. I hope you will not judge me too harshly once you learn everything.

  You will get to decide what you’d like to tell Tessa. I don’t know what she’s told you and not told you. My guess is she’ll share everything with you, simply because I know Tessa as if she were myself, and she loves you dearly and wants you to be happy.

  But don’t tell her anything just because she told you. There is no money involved with this, so you’ll not be cheating her of anything. Just so you know. Make your own decisions, Janey, based on what you feel is right.

  I apologize for putting these new assets in her name only, but there is a very good reason. It’s simply to protect them from Dennis’s children. He has three of them, and they were all estranged from him for the past decade. Not one of them came to the funeral.

  If you haven’t looked at the packet from The Hotel Benjamin yet, all of the details and evidence you’ll potentially need in a court case will be there. I won’t go into them here.

  Suffice it to say, his children did not care for him in life, and he did not want them to profit after his death. He left everything to me, and I’ve been managing it since his death two years ago.

  I have left it solely to Tessa, purely because it will be easier for her to win should Dennis’s children challenge my will to her. And they will, Janey. They have been contesting his will to me for the past two years, and I don’t believe for a moment that they’ll stop just because I am gone.

  I apologize for not telling you and Tessa everything. It is the one major regret of my life, though I have had many, most of them surrounding you.

  The first thing you need to know is that Dennis and I were married. That’s why I got everything upon his death, and I’ve been able to keep his assets out of the hands of his children.

  Please forgive me. I love you, and I have learned so much from being your mother. I am proud of the woman you are and the woman you will become after you discover all of my indiscretions. You are a strong person, Janey, though I know you feel weak. Don’t listen to those negative messages in your head.

  * * *

  Love, Mom

  * * *

  Janey sucked back a sob as she re-read the last paragraph and felt her mother’s love. She’d told her to stay out of her head so many times in life, and Janey really wished her mind didn’t try to sabotage her.

  She gave herself a few minutes to absorb the information. She re-read the letter once more and shook her head when she got to the line about Mom being married to who Janey had believed to only be a boyfriend.

  So much made sense now that she knew that detail. Dennis had been very wealthy, and that was how Mom had kept up her lifestyle. They had lived together in her apartment overlooking Central Park, and Dennis had obviously been paying for it.

  The bank account, the hotel, and the home on Long Island belonged to him.

  Dennis Martin was DM Conway, the science fiction author.

  Relief filled Janey as all the pieces came together. At the same time, her fear remained, as did her confusion and anger. Why hadn’t Mom been able to tell Janey and Tessa about the marriage? Especially after Dennis had passed away? Why wait until now?

  “To protect the assets,” Janey said, answering her own question.

  Her phone pinged, and that was the notification sound for the app she used with Curtis. She sighed, but his face had not come forward during her meditation exercise to calm herself down and focus on what and who was most important to her.

  He wanted to know if she was available that night, and with the time he gave, she knew he simply wanted to have phone sex. She drew a deep breath in and let her thumbs fly across her screen.

  Curtis, I have enjoyed our time together so very much. However, so many things have happened, all of them pointing me in a different direction, and I don’t think we should see each other anymore.

  She paused, wondering if she should apologize. In the end, she didn’t, and the message went flying through cyberspace. Her next breath entered her lungs so much easier, and she felt a great weight lift from her shoulders.

  “Okay,” she said, standing up. “I’ve got more information, with more coming.” She nodded, folded the letter, and tucked it back into the envelope. She’d just put that away when the doorbell rang through the suite.

  Janey lifted her head, her pulse right back to racing. “It’s Charles,” she told herself as she hurried out of the bedroom and into the living room.

  He had an envelope too, and Janey needed the information in it to keep these new assets. She pulled open the door, expecting to see the silver-haired man who’d escorted her up to the owner’s suite.

  Instead, a blonde woman stood there, her eyes sharp sapphires and her lips painted in a deep, blood red.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Janey immediately stepped forward, almost out of the suite, and brought the door with her. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Just delivering something.” She extended an envelope toward her, but Janey refused to take it. She could barely handle the idea of taking another envelope from anyone, least of all this woman, who’d obviously dressed to deliver something deadly. She wore a black tank top that clung to her bony frame, along with a pair of cutoff shorts, and she was at least a decade younger than Janey. She looked as if she’d come to the forty-second floor from the beach, but she’d turn heads wherever she went.

  Footsteps came toward them, and Charles appeared, much to Janey’s relief. He slowed as he realized the blonde stood in front of Janey’s door too, and his grip tightened on the thick, white packet in his hands.

  “What are you doing here?” He scanned the other woman from head to toe. “I’m calling security.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said, dropping the envelope on the floor. “I’m leaving.” She walked away, and Janey stared after her for a moment before looking up at Charles in surprise.

  “I apologize for that.” He bent to retrieve the envelope and stuffed it away inside his inner jacket pocket. He extended the packet to her, and she took that. “Do you need anything? Dinner? Anything you’ve forgotten in your packing?”

  “Can I order from the restaurant on the ground floor?”

  “Absolutely.” He reached into his inner pocket again and withdrew a card, which she also took. “That number goes to our restaurant concierge. She’ll take your order for Blackwidth, and you can find the menu on the screen on your television.”

  “Thank you,” Janey said, giving him a smile. She backed up, then paused. “Who was that woman?�
��

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  Charles shifted his feet and looked over his shoulder, clearly uncomfortable. “That was Aleah Martin.”

  “Ah.” Janey nodded as if she was well-versed with the name and just hadn’t placed the face to it yet. If she hadn’t just read her mother’s letter and seen Dennis’s last name, it still wouldn’t have meant anything to her. But it did now, and she was so glad she hadn’t taken the envelope.

  She lifted the packet. “Thanks.” She slipped back into the apartment and locked the door behind her.

  A couple of days later, Janey stepped off the ferry and back onto the island of Nantucket. She smiled at Sean as he reached for her bag. “How was the flight?”

  “We sat on the tarmac forever,” Janey said, shaking her head. “Sorry I was so late.”

  “It’s actually better for me.” Sean smiled at her, and Janey returned it. A shiver of guilt made her stomach vibrate, but she ignored it. She’d made her decisions for now, and she was going to stick to them.

  Even when faced with Tessa, she told herself. You’re going to stick to what you’ve decided to do.

  Sean put her suitcase in the back seat of his car while Janey got in the front seat. He drove her the mile to The Harbor Gull, an upscale boutique hotel where she was going to be spending at least two nights.

  She’d been in daily contact with Tessa, and she said she had something to tell her when she got back to the cottage. She did; that was true. She’d taken a picture of the check and sent it to Tessa. Using her bank’s online tools, she’d been able to deposit the check with that picture, as well as the others.

  Janey’s bank account held tens of thousands of dollars now, and she hated that the increased amount really helped her smile more easily. But the truth was, money helped. Money helped her stress level decrease, especially because she wasn’t worried so much about who might be calling to get their money.