they didn’t, she thought, disappointed. “Do you trust Laurent?”
“If he gives me his word. He did promise me Dietrich. Otherwise it’s marginal.”
“Then we’ll wait. But I’ll hate it.”
“I know you will. I’ll let you know as soon as we can move. Just go back to those reference books and try to get your mind off what’s happening in Juarez.”
“Fat chance.”
She cut the connection.
It was absolutely ridiculous having to sit here when she and Lynch could be on their way to Juarez. Besides being a waste of time staring at those boring books when she wouldn’t find anything anyway.
But she would go crazy if she didn’t have something to do until Lynch called her.
She grudgingly sat down at the table and shook her head as she stared balefully down at the pile of books. She felt as if she had the damn things memorized. Particularly all that family history and society stuff she’d been forced to glance through. It was probably a waste of time to scan it again when Dietrich would have had no reason to want to know anything that had happened here seventy years ago…
Her business email pinged and she glanced down at it impatiently. Just a notice informing her that her request was unavailable. She was about to ignore it when she caught the name of the sender. San Diego County Library.
She opened the email and scanned it. It was a polite regret that the two books she’d requested were unavailable. Unfortunately, since the books had been present during inventory two months ago and had not been lent out, it had to be assumed that they would be permanently unavailable.
In other words, stolen.
The library would have been one of the first places Dietrich would have gone to research. If those books had been stolen, he was the most likely candidate.
What had he found in them that made them valuable enough to steal? She couldn’t remember anything of substance in those lightweight history books. But perhaps Kendra hadn’t been giving them her full attention because she’d assumed that Dietrich wouldn’t.
But what if she’d been wrong?
Why all that research, Dietrich?
So close your eyes.
Concentrate.
Assume nothing.
Was there a reason why Dietrich would have wanted them?
Remember that text…
A few minutes later she gasped! Her eyes flew open and she scrambled to find the books on the pile on the table.
One of them was there. But not the right one, she realized impatiently. It must have been one of the books that Olivia had taken home with her.
She punched in her number and Olivia answered in two rings. “I knew you couldn’t do without me. Do you want me to come back?”
“No, I want you to read me what’s in that book you took home that was about the gift of the property by the Woodwards. I think I remember it all but I have to check. It was written by some society reporter, Helena Sanders, and it read more like a family tell-all than a historical document.”
“Wait a minute.” Olivia was gone from the phone. “I have it here.” Kendra could imagine her fingers racing through the text. “I see what you mean. But the reporter is very gushy and verbose. I’ll try to cut it down for you. The deed…” Silence as she read it. “It was very generous and pretty cut-and-dried. No stipulations except for a clause that refused permission for any renovations or outbuildings to be built on a small specified area of the property. Over later years there were several requests to overturn that clause but it was never permitted.”
“Any explanations?”
“Not really. Some people including this reporter thought it might be because any building might interfere with the view of the sea.” She paused. “But she mentions there were dozens of other gorgeous views on the property and there weren’t any clauses forbidding building near them. Regardless, the Woodward family was adamant about it. Or rather, Noreen Woodward, the matriarch of the family, was adamant. Several years later, her son James filed a request to permit the deed to be altered if the custodians of the school gave the family a fat fee.”
“Charming. Yes, that’s what jumped out at me. Trouble in paradise.”
“It didn’t last long. Mama squashed James’s request flat and he was immediately sent off to England. She must have really been pissed off because she also disinherited him.”
“Over that clause,” Kendra murmured. “It must have been important to her…”
“Or her son might have been a total jerk she’d been putting up with for far too