Page 34 of This Time Around
“Right.” Allie brushed her hair off her forehead and tried not to let the words sting. “Just call me your spinster daughter with fourteen cats.”
“Fourteen?” Her father blinked. “Are there really that many?”
“Apparently.”
He whistled low under his breath. “That’s a lot of cats. I bet the place stinks to high heaven.”
“Actually, there’s a caretaker who’s been looking after them. She keeps the place pretty clean, and the cats have these fancy robotic litter box contraptions. You really don’t notice the smell.”
Good Lord, is this what her life had come to? Discussing litter box smells with her incarcerated father?
She almost didn’t notice her dad’s face had changed. He was frowning now, and it took Allie a moment to realize it had nothing to do with feline odor control.
“Wait, you said there’s a caretaker?” His frown deepened. “You mean someone’s been living in the house?”
A faint prickle fluttered down her spine. Her dad looked worried. Allie licked her lips, wanting to tread carefully. Did her dad know something about the money?
“Yeah, I guess when grandma went into the assisted living place, she hired a student to look after things. Skye someone, I can’t remember her last name.” Allie tried to recall what else she knew. “She didn’t have the bandwidth to handle the B&B, so she’s only been tending the cats.”
Her father’s frown deepened, and Allie watched his face for any hints that he knew about the money. He seemed to be considering something.
Then he cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you’ve been up in the attic?”
Allie held her breath for a second, not sure how to answer. She’d thought about it all the way here, framing questions and subtle hints in her mind, but she hadn’t anticipated being asked about this outright. She glanced at the guard, then at the couple seated on the other side of them. No one was looking at their way, but that didn’t mean they weren’t listening.
She chose her words carefully, struggling to keep her tone casual. “Is there something in the attic that you wanted me to look for?”
“No. I just—” Her father sighed, then rubbed the bridge of his nose. When he looked at her again, he seemed resigned to something. “I suppose you may as well know.”
Allie could hear her heart pounding hard in her ears, and she forced herself to keep her expression neutral. She lowered her voice to reply. “Know what?”
Her dad glanced at the guard, then leaned closer to her across the table. “There’s something stored up there that’s rather—private.”
“What is it?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
Her father’s hand still enveloped hers, and Allie couldn’t tell if he was shaking or if she was.
“It was something I didn’t want your mother to know about,” he said slowly.
Allie held her breath. “Are you able to tell me?”
He seemed to hesitate. Another glance at the guard. “You’ve already been up there?”
She knew she hadn’t actually said, and wondered if this was one of his old lawyer tricks. He’d always been good at getting her to confess, at making her admit something she didn’t want to without her even realizing it. Like the time she and Amy short-sheeted the counselor’s bed at summer camp and her dad asked about it the day he picked her up. Or the spring before college when he noticed a streaky handprint on the glass in the backseat of her car and asked, cool as could be, if she’d been having difficulty rolling down the window.
Allie decided to answer truthfully. “Yes. I was up there yesterday.”
“I see. And did you find anything . . . noteworthy?”
Another glance at the guard. Allie’s hands felt clammy, and she wished she’d worked out some sort of secret code with her dad before they’d hauled him away. How the hell was she supposed to know she’d find a huge chest of money and need to covertly discuss it?
Allie took a deep breath. “Are you talking about that old steamer trunk Grandma used to have in the blue bedroom downstairs?”
Her dad frowned. “Steamer trunk? Oh, you mean that thing she used as a coffee table in the blue room?”
“Right.”
“You found that upstairs?” He shook his head. “Wonder how she got that up there. It had a lock on it, right?”
