Page 37 of Saltwater Secrets
When they investigated, they discovered that most of the shirts in the closet had been stitched with the same lettering: William France, William France, over and over again.
Aria shook her head with wonder. “He lived here, all right. But why?”
The mystery spilled out between them, heavy with memories they weren’t privy to.
They checked online again and found no record of whether he was alive or dead. It meant that he was either still alive and incredibly old or that he’d died before obituaries were published online. It suddenly felt like the internet was a very recent invention and ineffective when discovering the past.
Logan brushed his hand across the fabric of the shirts, looking mystified.
Aria called her mother right away to tell her the news.
Hilary was so excited that she couldn’t speak at first. “Wow. Wow, wow,” she said, over and over again.
“What do we do?” Aria asked.
She could picture her mother, shaking her head, bent over. “Let me think,” Hilary said.
Aria echoed what Logan had said. “Do you think we should stop? Do you think we’re going too far into this story?” Do you think it’s dangerous?
“I don’t know, honey,” Hilary said. “We’re just interior designers. We aren’t doing any digging we shouldn’t be doing. We’re supposed to clear out these places, right? And we can’t help but notice the things we do.”
“Right,” Aria said. “We can’t help it.”
Chapter Seventeen
For a little while, Hilary didn’t see anything of Renée. Weeks, actually. After the Coleman family party earlier in the month, Renée had woken up the following morning, packed her things, and run off somewhere, telling Hilary in a faux-authoritative voice that she would be back to check on Hilary’s progress. “I have things to tend to. Elsewhere.” Hilary hadn’t dared to ask where she was off to. She’d seen something in her eyes that had scared her.
She hadn’t dared ask about her mother’s connection to William either.
It felt like they were playing with fire.
For a little while, Hilary had told Aria to leave the story of the Wagners alone and burrow herself in work. “Maybe we were wrong to try to help her,” Hilary said over the phone, imagining Aria hard at work on the brownstone, her vision unfolding day after day.
Aria had seemed more than willing to focus on the brownstone—and on the handsome stranger she’d met in Greenwich Village. An animator who made Aria sound like she was already beginning to forget Thaddeus and her broken heart.
Already!
Hilary thought of Dorothy numerous times.Your last act was saving Aria from her own broken heart. I don’t know how to thank you for that. How many months did you save her? How many years?
It was like Dorothy had known. It was like she had gone through it herself.
She hadn’t wanted Aria to grovel. She’d wanted her to live.
As Hilary was so consumed with normality, it was a surprise to find Renée on the veranda that late afternoon on the Fourth of July. The island was bustling in preparation for the Fourth of July celebrations later that evening, and there was a smell to the air like fire and ash. Renée looked suntanned and trim, as though she’d been on a yoga retreat, and she wore a red dress that made her look patriotic.
“Hilary, hello,” she said. “I just talked to one of the guys about the progress.” She took a breath. “I think it looks really sophisticated so far. I can’t imagine how much longer this will go. It looks like a long, long process.” She laughed gently. “But of course, take all the time you need. It’s what my mother wanted. And we all know that Dorothy Wagner always gets what she wants.”
Her sarcasm made the air sizzle.
Hilary’s hired guys had finished painting and putting down hardwood in the living area, kitchen, and dining room and were moving on to the room directly beyond the parlor, which had marble flooring. It had been a toss-up for Hilary whether to keep the marble floor or trash it. Ultimately, after a long conversation with Aria, she’d decided to keep it, but her plan was to knock out two of the walls in that particular room and make them glass to allow the marble flooring to really glow with the light coming in over the ocean. In her mind, the room would have the feeling of being almost outside, directly in whatever weather was happening over the Nantucket Sound.
The Wagner Estate was her favorite project she’d ever worked on, she was pretty sure. But this was also due to the fact that Dorothy had basically given her a blank check to do whatever she pleased. Hilary saw this as her magnum opus. It would be featured in multiple magazines and discussed in numerous interior design circles. It would probably propel the business she’d started with Aria into a more elite realm. She imagined it.Oh, Hilary and Aria Coleman, who worked on the Wagner project. Yes. Unforgettable. We must get them for our apartments in Paris, Manhattan, and Malibu.
“I’d love to catch up,” Hilary said to Renée, feeling jittery. She knew she needed to please this woman because it was Renée’s “job” to watch over her progress.
Hilary went to the garage, where a fridge remained for both Hilary and the construction crew. It was filled with pitchers of water and lemonade and white wine. She poured herself and Renée some lemonade and returned to the veranda. “I hope you don’t mind if I take a break,” Hilary said to Renée.
Renée laughed. Hilary burned to ask where she’d been the past few weeks. She knew she hadn’t been in Manhattan, that Aria had been allowed to work herself to the bone without Renée around to distract her.
