Page 25 of Moonshine and Magnolias
“May, nineteen twenty eight,” Hal said in a reverential whisper.
“What was that?” Rob glanced over.
His brother held a gloved finger to one of the guest books. “I found him.”
Rob forced himself to gently put down the journal, then leapt to Hal’s side. Sure enough, the name Louis Upshaw was scrawled in the same familiar script that Rob had been reading in the diary.
His uncle had been a guest at the Inn at Fountenoy Hall.
The search for the Angels Eyes might finally be coming to an end.
An effusive greeting from the lobby echoed in the library. The voice was too low to be Brandi’s, and it lacked Ms. Eulalee’s distinctive drawl. The two men exchanged glances. “If that was Wendy Marsh,” Hal said, “I’ll sprint naked through the orchard on the next full moon.”
Rob took one last glance at his uncle’s signature and went to crack the door open. Sure enough, a tall, red-haired man stood with Wendy, his long limbs wrapped around her is if he was trying to meld their bodies into one. An unexpected possessive streak prepared his limbs for battle, and he wanted to hurl the door open and rip that man away from her. Instead, he calmly gave the embracing couple their privacy. Damn. “Looks like Wendy Marsh has a boyfriend.”
“Well, that sucks,” Hal said. “Maybe it’s just casual.”
Rob didn’t share, regardless. “It’s getting crowded, with this guy and the two new guests at breakfast.”
He took out another journal to find more stops on the tour. Silence filled the small room, the only sound the slow turning of pages. Rob walked around thelibrary a few times to keep from getting stiff while Hal used the chair to stretch his back. The information was plentiful. Almost too plentiful. Finding what he needed was taking way longer than he anticipated.
A couple of hours later, Hal stood up and looked around the room. “This is crazy. Uncle Louis must have written down every tiny detail of his day. We’re never going to find what we need in his retelling. I need a break.”
“Give that back, first.” Rob pointed at the diary.
Hal closed the journal with exaggerated care and handed it over. It didn’t matter what he thought, as long as the book remained safe.
“I’m going upstairs to follow a lead completely unrelated to anything I just read.” Hal moved toward the library exit.
“Hold it,” Rob said. “I know you’re supposed to be my research assistant, but since when were you interested in actual research?”
His brother’s eyes were too wide and innocent to be anything but purposefully insincere. “I just want to look into something I saw on a message board that may or may not have been hinted at in the journal.
“And what’s that?”
“Thar’s gold in them there hills.” Hal grinned. “Okay, maybe not gold exactly. And not even hills. Hypothesize, if you will.”
Rob just grunted.
“Uncle Louis stumbled across long-forgotten buried valuables when he was hunting bootleggers in the secluded woods and took them.” Hal held up his hands. “I know we want to believe he was the model of gallantry and honesty, but face it. He was a G-man.”
“Go on.”
“Since he was here on the government’s dollar, he would have had to report it. But he didn’t, or even write about it in his journals. And then it was stolen when he was assigned to Fountenoy Hall.”
It wasn’t unusual for a family to bury its treasure when fighting was reported nearby. If they never returned or if their homes were damaged, the silver tea setsand jewels and candlesticks and coins would have been left behind, their locations forgotten over time. “It’s plausible,” Rob said.
Hal widened his eyes. “Wow, Mr. History agrees with me.”
“Let’s not get too crazy. But it’s a pretty good idea.”
“Someone on a message board was talking about this part of Georgia and the prominent families that used to live here. Ones that would take care to hide their stuff during the Civil War.” Hal ran a hand through his hair. “There would be old news articles about what families in the area did during troubling times or what happened afterward, right? Claytons recover lost family treasure or something like that. I could go investigate at the newspaper or the O’Hara County historical society when you’re giving the tour to the kneebiters.”
“They’re preteens, not toddlers.” Rob turned his attention back to the trove of books. There were still many journals to go through, and some of them might have been his uncle’s, but he had to finish the work for the tour. His ethics were getting in the way of the goal.
Hal saw where his thoughts were headed. “They’d never know while we were here if we took Louis’s journal. Hide it under your shirt and carry it upstairs.”
Wendy’s intent features floated to his mind, her mouth twisted in disapproval. Rob could only betray her so much. “No. We don’t need to steal anything.” He kept the smaller box for Uncle Louis’s diary on the sofa and put the others back. “I can just tell them I got caught up in reading and forgot to take notes for the tour. Go see what Ms. Eulalee wants us to do with the box while I finish putting everything away.”
