Hidden Treasures (22 page)

He wanted to go back to Erica’s place, carry her off to her bedroom and pretend nothing existed on the other side of her door. Especially not Rockwell, the place she yearned to make her home.

But Rockwell did exist on the other side of her door. And if he had half a lick of sense, he’d pack his bags and hit the road.

“Tell your lawyer he’d better not make a move against Erica,” Jed said, pointing a threatening finger at Rideout. “The box is mine. If you think you’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of claiming ownership of it, you’re going to have to deal with me.”

Before Rideout could respond, Jed stormed out the door.

I
T TOOK LESS TIME
to plant the rest of the garden than it had taken to plant the row and a half she and Randy had completed last weekend. She no longer cared about spacing the seedlings six inches apart and setting them three inches deep. Nor did she care if the zucchini choked out the broccoli, if the peas shriveled and died, if she wound up with too many tomatoes.

She ought to care. She wanted to care. But she didn’t.

Randy yakked nonstop as they dug holes, nestled the seedlings into them and patted the soil snugly around them. Some new video game had just been released, he told Erica, and all the kids were saying it was the coolest game, but Randy had played it at Nick Hunkel’s house after school yesterday and it wasn’t so great. The cars didn’t skid enough and the blood looked completely bogus.

Once the seedlings were in, Erica realized she needed to water them. She hadn’t hooked up her hose yet, so to irrigate her newly planted garden, she and Randy traipsed in and out of the kitchen lugging a blown-glass pitcher and a plastic milk jug filled with water from the sink. If Erica had planned this whole earth-mother thing better, she would have bought a watering can when she’d purchased the seedlings and the trowel.

Randy emptied the milk jug onto the pea plants and prattled about how computer games were really the way to go and any kid who was still relying on video games for amusement was stuck in the wrong century, while Erica stood swaying, trying not to collapse as she stared at her soggy garden and realized she was never going to make peace with those budding tomato vines, those innocent-looking zucchini plants that might someday consume the entire yard. She was never going to learn to bake zucchini bread. She’d probably never learn to bake anything edible at all. She wanted so badly to fulfill her dream of becoming integrated into this clean, wholesome environment, with its crystalline blue sky, the Moose Mountains shaping proud purple humps on the horizon, the harmony of a rural town awakening to spring. And it just wasn’t going to happen.

She was always going to be Erica Leitner, the Harvard graduate from Brookline, Massachusetts, and she was not going to become one with the world of Rockwell. The only thing she might become one with around here was Jed Willetz—in a strictly physical sense.

Her dizziness left her. Of course she was going to become one with Rockwell, with her garden, with the muddy soil beneath her shoes and the open sky arching above her. Sleeping with Jed, who rejected everything she chose to embrace, didn’t change her goals and plans. She’d made her commitment to Rockwell, and one night of fabulous sex wasn’t going to change anything.

“Stick with the computer games,” she urged Randy as she gathered their tools. “You’re better off sitting
in front of a computer than sitting in front of a TV, even if all you’re doing is playing.”

By one-thirty, the garden work was done and the tools put away. After letting Randy scrub his hands and face at the kitchen sink and devour a few more cookies, she sent him on his way and scanned the phone messages that had accumulated while she’d been toiling outside. A few distant relatives, the boy who’d taken her to the senior prom in high school, an investment adviser—“calling you on a Saturday, Ms. Leitner! Surely that proves how dedicated I am!”—Burt Johnson asking her if she intended to renew her contract for next year now that she was rich, and her mother again, reminding her that with her newfound wealth, she could probably afford a nice little pied-à-terre in Back Bay. No messages from Avery, which meant he was probably still at the Hope Street Inn. He wouldn’t leave Rockwell without the box, and he couldn’t retrieve the box from the bank without her.

She changed from her gardening clothes into a pair of soft black jeans and a rose-hued sweater and brushed her hair. The mirror above the dresser reflected her unmade bed, the rumpled sheets and indented pillows and the stray condom packets caught in the blanket’s folds. A broken sigh escaped her.

He’s gone
, she reminded herself. Even if he hadn’t actually departed from Rockwell yet, he was gone in every way that counted. He’d magnificently ravished her, and now he would return to the big, crowded, noisy city. Last night had never been about love. It couldn’t be, because she and Jed were walking different roads. Hers was a two-lane blacktop weaving over hills and through pine forests, and his was the interstate that led south to Manhattan.

If only he’d stay. He could live at his grandfather’s house—
his
house now. He could collect junk up here, although that would probably entail doing business with his father, the town’s official junk collector, and he wouldn’t like that—but he could do it. He could rehab the junk in Rockwell and transport it to his store in New York every few weeks. And then he could come back. He could help her keep the garden flourishing, and they could learn to bake bread together. And every night while he was in town, every long, loving night…

No. It wasn’t going to happen. She couldn’t keep him where he didn’t want to stay.

Aware that she’d gone too long without consuming anything but coffee, she detoured to the kitchen, searched for inspiration on the shelves of the refrigerator, then opted for a couple of the store-bought cookies she kept on hand for Randy. They weren’t bad, actually. Much tastier than her last attempt at homemade cookies. Next time, she promised herself as she headed out the back door and locked it, she’d eat something healthy and earth-mothery. For the moment, she needed sugar, fat, refined flour and preservatives.

She got into her car, backed it out of the shed and headed in the direction of the Hope Street Inn, promising herself she would think only about Avery and the box. No more mooning over Jed Willetz.

She mooned over him all the way into town. Main Street looked as spruced up as it did on the Fourth of July when Rockwell staged its grand parade, which invariably featured two fire engines, a phalanx of children on bicycles with red-white-and-blue crepe-paper streamers fluttering from the handlebars, a few 4-H kids accompanied by pigs and cows and some con
vertibles with World War II veterans enthroned in the back seat. Erica spotted almost as many flags hanging from storefront brackets today as she saw on the Fourth. On this slightly overcast spring day, however, instead of the sidewalks being lined with folks in lawn chairs drinking iced tea and beer and waving at the parade marchers, the sidewalks were lined with outsiders armed with cameras and notepads, latching on to passersby.

Erica avoided eye contact with townspeople and reporters alike as she cruised down Main to Hope Street. She’d had her moment in the spotlight last night. She didn’t want to be the star of anyone’s story today.

Fortunately, no reporters were visible in the vicinity of the Hope Street Inn. She parked behind the building, climbed the steps to the wraparound porch and went inside.

Nellie Shoemaker hustled into the entry hall wearing an apron marked by multicolored stains that implied that she was engaged in real cooking. “Oh, hi!” she said, obviously recognizing Erica. “Thank goodness you’re not someone looking for a room. We’re booked solid—all these reporters from out of town! I’ve got to tell you, your little box is the best thing that ever happened to my business!”

Erica smiled faintly. Just as she didn’t want to be viewed as Rockwell’s media darling, she also didn’t want to be viewed as its economic savior. “I’d like to see Dr. Gilman,” she said. “Is he here?”

Nellie shook her head. “He checked out last night. I was annoyed about that because his reservation was until Sunday, but then a reporter all the way from Syracuse showed up around 11:00 p.m., desperate for a place to stay, and I was able to give him Dr. Gilman’s
room—at twice the price! So it all worked out just fine.”

Pain played a drum solo inside Erica’s head. Maybe thinking about Avery and the box wasn’t such an improvement over mooning over Jed. “What do you mean, he checked out? Where did he go?”

“He didn’t tell me,” Nellie said with a sly grin.

“He ran off with the redhead,” Derrick Messinger’s mellifluous voice emerged from the parlor.

Erica managed another smile for Nellie, then turned and followed the voice to its source. Derrick was ensconced in one of the chintz wingback chairs in the parlor, a porcelain cup in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other. His hair, as always, was impeccable. His outfit—crisp khakis and a starched oxford shirt—was equally impeccable. Beside him stood a wheeled suitcase. He looked miserable.

“Avery Gilman ran off with Fern?” Erica asked, afraid to consider all the possible connotations of “ran off.”

Derrick took a delicate sip from his cup, then refilled it from the bottle of scotch. “They left here together last night, with his suitcase. You tell me, Erica. You’re the VIP today. You tell me.”

Tell him what? “I’m not a VIP,” she argued, pulling over an ottoman and sitting on it. “I spent the morning planting my garden. No one’s interviewing me—which I like,” she hastened to add, on the chance that Derrick might whip a camera from his suitcase and start taping this exchange. “And Dr. Gilman’s a man with a lot of responsibilities, not the least of which is that he’s supposed to take the box back to Harvard for analysis. And Fern has a job here in town. She’s the school nurse. She can’t just run off.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Erica had to think. “Because when a student loses her tooth in school, Fern’s got these little treasure chest–shaped plastic containers for storing the tooth so it won’t get lost. And she cleans up after kids with stomach bugs.”

“If I were her, I’d run off,” Derrick said before sipping from his cup.

Erica conceded privately that she would, too. If Fern had fallen in love with Avery, why stick around in Rockwell to mop vomit? Even if she
hadn’t
fallen in love with him, why stick around?

“I would have taken her to New York with me,” Derrick muttered. “What does that musty professor have that I haven’t got?”

“A job at Harvard?” Erica suggested. Some people might be impressed by that. Fern had never been impressed by Erica’s Harvard degree, so she probably wouldn’t have been influenced by Avery’s prestigious faculty position. But to list for Derrick everything else Avery had going for him—modesty, intellectual breadth and hair that didn’t appear glued into place—would be tactless.

“He was good on the show, at least,” Derrick admitted. “We did great in the overnight ratings. I guess I should thank you, too.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll return to New York a conquering hero. Fern could have ridden that wave with me if she’d wanted.” He sighed, then focused on Erica. “I don’t suppose you’d…?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so. You weren’t sending out vibes. Fern was. Unless I misread her. That’s the scary thing,
Erica. I’m good at reading people. I’ve got to be. It’s essential for an investigative reporter to be able to read people, and I thought I’d read her perfectly, from the title page to the appendix. Oh, well.” He sipped again, sighed again. “There are plenty of women in New York. Plenty of women with vibes. Countless vibrating women.”

And most of them would undoubtedly be happy to vibrate right out of their panties for Jed Willetz, Erica thought glumly.

Damn—she wasn’t going to think about him. “I’ve got to go,” she told Derrick. “I’ve got to find Dr. Gilman.”

Avery couldn’t have run off with Fern, she knew. Fern was impulsive, but not
that
impulsive. Avery wasn’t impulsive at all. She recalled his patient, methodical approach to opening the box last night. If he’d been impulsive, he would have just broken the lock.

Donning her sunglasses as insurance that none of the reporters would recognize her, she drove down Main Street and then east to Fern’s house, a few blocks from the primary school. She parked alongside the dead grass of Fern’s tiny front lawn and raced around to the back door. No one used front doors in Rockwell.

Fern’s back door was unlocked, and Erica opened it to discover Fern and Avery seated at the kitchen table eating apple pie. The room was warm and tangy with the perfume of hot apples and cinnamon. In fact, Fern’s kitchen looked exactly like the sort of place in which a person would bake apple pies. Copper pots hung on a wall rack. The white walls and pale tiles on the floor enhanced the room’s lighting. The counters were polished granite, which Fern had pointed out was relatively cheap in these parts, since granite was mined
locally. Relatively cheap wasn’t cheap enough for Erica, who was still reeling from the expenses she’d incurred by purchasing her house and signing a mortgage, but perhaps one day, if she ever got a raise and saved a little money, she might install granite counters in her kitchen, too.

Granite counters would not endow her with the ability to make such a gorgeous, fluted piecrust from scratch, however.

“Erica!” Avery leaped to his feet, smiling so broadly his teeth seemed to be biting through his beard.

Fern smiled, too, a subtler, sneakier smile. “Hey, TV star! How about a slice of pie?”

“Did you just make it?” Erica asked, slumping into a chair.

“Avery helped.” Fern stood and fetched a plate and fork for Erica. “He did all the peeling.” She winked at Avery, who blushed. Erica couldn’t believe her fusty professor was blushing. “Have you bought one of the souvenir T-shirts yet?”

“No,” Erica replied. “And I don’t intend to.”

“Oh, but you should! They’re so Rockwell.” Chuckling, Fern cut a slice of pie for Erica.

“The development of a market for T-shirts is really rather interesting, actually,” Avery observed. “The box itself contained coins that are no doubt of substantial value, but the wealth it’s bringing to the town is only indirectly related to that value.”

“All that kitschy merchandise is going to disappear in a few weeks,” Erica predicted. “Derrick Messinger will do some new show about a lottery winner in Idaho and everyone will forget all about Rockwell.”

“I won’t,” Avery said, sending Fern a dewy-eyed
gaze. “It’s only two hours from Cambridge. Less, if I can compel myself to exceed the speed limit.”