chest full of jewels away within the saggy divan or behind the spotty mirror.
He wandered around, poking into boxes and trunks, tossing dust covers back over chairs. The light streamed in so motes danced in beams, and the silence of the house accented the toss and suck of the surf.
He couldn’t imagine living with the army of servants who’d once slept in the warren of rooms, or gathered in the larger space for meals or gossip. There’d never be true solitude, true silence, and forget genuine privacy.
A trade-off, he supposed. To maintain a house like this, and live and entertain as his ancestors did, required the army. His grandparents had preferred a less elaborate lifestyle.
In any case, the days of Gatsby were done, at least in Bluff House.
Still, it seemed a shame and a waste to have an entire floor occupied by shrouded furniture, boxes of books, trunks filled with dresses layered with tissue and sachets of lavender.
“It’d make a great artist’s studio, wouldn’t it?” he asked Barbie. “If I could paint. Gran can, but this is too much of a haul, and she likes using her sitting room for that, or painting on the terrace.”
Taking a break, doing the shoulder rolls Abra had recommended, he prowled around the former servants’ parlor.
“Still, the light’s great. Little kitchen area over there. Update the sink, put in a microwave, update this bathroom,” he added after taking a look at the old pull-chain toilet. “Or better, have these old fixtures rehabbed. Make use of some of the furniture that’s just sitting here.”
Frowning, he walked to the windows overlooking the beach. Generous windows, great view, a likely architectural decision rather than one done for the staff’s benefit.
He moved off, into the gable, thinking of his first wandering through the day he’d arrived.
Yeah, he could work up here, he thought again. It wouldn’t take much to fix it up a little. He didn’t need much. Move a desk up, some files, shelves—and yeah, update this bathroom, too.
“What writer doesn’t want a garret? Yeah, maybe. Maybe I’ll do that once Gran’s back home. I’ll think about that.”
Which wasn’t addressing the purpose, Eli admitted, and did a second walk-through. He imagined housemaids climbing out of iron beds at dawn, bare toes curling against the cold floor. A butler putting on his starched white shirt, the head housekeeper checking off her list of duties for the day.
A whole world had existed here. One the family had probably known little about. But what hadn’t existed, as far as he could see, was anything worth the breaking and entering, or breaking the bones of an old woman.
He circled back into the wide hall, studied the old armoire against the—to him—unfortunate floral wallpaper. On close examination he saw no signs it had been moved in the past decade or more.
Curious, he attempted to do so now, putting his back into it. And didn’t budge it more than an inch. He tried reaching into the narrow space behind it, then maneuvering his arm from underneath.
Not only would no mischievous little boy be able to shove it clear, but neither could a grown man. Not alone, Eli thought.
On impulse, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contacts Abra had keyed in. He hit Mike O’Malley’s number.
“Hi, Mike, it’s Eli Landon. . . . Yeah, good, thanks.” He leaned back on the armoire, thought it as solid and intimidating as a redwood.
“Look, have you got a few minutes anytime today? . . . Really? If you’ve got the day off, I don’t want to interrupt any plans. . . . In that case, I could use a hand with something. A little muscle?” He laughed at Mike’s question about which muscle. “All of them . . . Appreciate it.”
He hung up, looked at Barbie. “It’s probably stupid, huh? But who can resist a secret panel?”
He trooped downstairs, detoured into his office for a minute to imagine moving his work space to the third floor. Not a completely crazy idea, he decided. More . . . eccentric.
The wallpaper would have to go, and there would probably be some issues with heat and AC, plumbing. Eventually he’d have to figure out what, if anything, to do with the rest of the space up there.
But it was good to think about it.
Barbie’s head lifted. She let out a trio of barks seconds before the doorbell rang.
“Some ears you’ve got there,” Eli told her, and headed downstairs in her wake.