Never Kiss Me Again by Christine Rimmer

Author:Christine Rimmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Published: 2011-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

At nine a.m. Friday morning, Annie stood in the downstairs front sitting room of the north wing with her mother and Marilee Putnam.

Tuesday, when Chief Anderson and his boys had finally left, Marilee and her two college-age assistants had cleared out several rooms in the unoccupied wing. Three days later, the sitting room was packed with antiques from the south wing attic.

The plan was to proceed methodically through the house, from attic to basement in each wing, carting everything in storage—junk and treasures alike—to the north wing sitting room. There, each piece was to be thoroughly examined and sent on to a room reserved for storage, or the one where they cleaned the pieces, or to another area in the back of the wing designated for restoration and repair. If Ruth and Marilee decided the piece wasn’t going to the museum, it would be sent back where it had come from, consigned to the trash, or donated to any number of second-hand charity stores.

The storage and restoration areas were filling up fast. Both Ruth and the curator had asked Annie if it was all right with her for them to take over more rooms to use for cleaning and restoration.

“Go for it,” she told them. The faster they got the job done, the faster she could return to New York.

Or so she kept telling herself.

Since Monday, the idea of getting out ASAP was looking less and less likely. The fact that her grandma had been murdered changed everything. There wasn’t only her duty to the museum wing now. Until the murderer was caught, Annie knew she would go nowhere. It simply wouldn’t be right to leave her family alone in the mansion with a killer on the loose.

Ruth said proudly, “It is just spectacular, isn’t it, Marilee?”

Marilee nodded. “Very special. I must tell you, I’m excited.”

“I knew you would be.”

They were admiring a rustic-looking pie safe with punched-tin door panels.

“There is a mouse hole.” Ruth swung open the doors and pointed at the lowest shelf. “A very small one. On the left. In the back.”

Marilee bent down to peer at the offending flaw. “Still. It’s just in wonderful condition. Perfect for our Daily Territorial Life room.”

Ruth agreed that it absolutely was. They beamed at each other.

Though Annie’s mother had yet to speak to poor Lola after the nurse’s revelation Monday night, Ruth wasn’t letting depression drag her down again. She loved working with Marilee. She was up at the crack of dawn every day now, ready to go. It seemed to Annie as if a new Ruth had emerged from the dry shell of the old one.

Or maybe, now that Carlotta was no longer there to belittle and abuse her, Ruth was finally finding her true self again, the woman Annie remembered from back when she was a small child—a bright-eyed, happy person with boundless energy.

“Oh, and Marilee, you must have a look at these.” Ruth lifted an oval object wrapped in butcher paper from a tattered-looking box. She

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.