Their Virgin Secretary (Masters of Ménage #6)(45)

She hoped she could find a store nearby. It would get dark soon.

"All right. I love you. Promise me you'll think about calling them, at least to let them know you're all right."

Belle bit her lip. In some ways, hearing their voices would be so tempting, but what would it accomplish? What she wanted hadn't changed. "They're probably on their flight home to Chicago." Then something occurred to her. If Kellan was spearheading some effort to find her, then …  "They did catch their flight, right?"

"I don't know. They checked out of the hotel and caught a cab. You know what I know."

"But if you had to guess?"

Kinley hesitated. "I don't think they're folding up their tent and going home."

The answer filled Belle with both dread and an insidious thrill. "Thanks."

The phone clicked, and she was alone again. Belle had a feeling the night would be long.

A loud bang shot through the room. She started and let loose a little shriek. Sir scurried to huddle against her breast and buried his face.

What was that?

Dead silence followed. The roof didn't cave in. No murderous fiend jumped into the room. Nothing.

About thirty seconds passed before Belle let out a breath. A nervous laugh shook her chest. She would have to get used to the sounds this old house made. Maybe the furnace had kicked in.

"Some guard dog you are," she teased Sir.

When she turned back toward the desk, she noticed a piece of molding hanging from the bottom, just under the alcove where she'd tuck her knees when she sat. Belle frowned. Weird. She hadn't noticed it when she'd been dusting or sat there earlier.

With a puzzled frown, she knelt and tried to fit the piece back in place. Belle hoped this wasn't a sign the desk was falling apart and would need replacing. That would be a huge shame. Her grandmother's antique was a stunning, one-of-a-kind treasure.



       
         
       
        

As Belle fiddled with the molding, her fingers found a hidden niche the wood had concealed. It was deep under the desk. She set Sir down and crawled under, the Persian carpet a soft cushion for her knees. Though the space under the desk was too dark to see, she could feel the open compartment with her fingers. As she reached into the little space cautiously, she immediately encountered two items tucked inside. With a wince and a ginger tug, she pulled them out and crawled back.

Two old, pocket-size journals, one slightly more faded than the other. Belle frowned. This was her grandmother's office and her grandmother's desk. She flipped open the cover of one and glimpsed the handwriting. Decidedly feminine.

"Looks like Grandma wrote her memoirs. Or hid some secrets," she said absently to Sir as she sat on the rug.

Sir plopped himself down on her lap and immediately went back to sleep. She opened the other volume, the smaller of the two, and rifled through it a bit.

Belle frowned at the slightly yellow pages. Maybe her grandma had been on the crazy side because all she'd written in this journal was a list of long, random numbers that corresponded to even more random words, like "sunny," "backdoor," "raincoat," and "canceled." None of it made a lick of sense. What did 10056 00099873 have to do with "pink" and "fuzzy?"

Even more strangely, the latter half of the book had been written by a different hand. Same sorts of odd codes, but different penmanship for sure.

Frowning, she laid that one aside. Maybe the odd entries in this book had something to do with her grandmother's psychic business, though Belle had no idea how. Maybe the code protected her clients' anonymity? The second book was bigger, and Belle knew what it was the minute she skimmed the first page.

Grandma's diary.

Belle's heart skipped a beat.

September 27th, 1955. Her father's birthday.

Oh, my baby boy. How I love you.

Tears pierced her eyes as she realized she was reading her grandmother's uncensored thoughts-those of a stranger related to her by blood about the birth of her own father. Belle thumbed through the pages, her wonder growing. She'd wanted to figure out who her grandmother had been. Well, this would probably be a good start. In fact, after skimming ahead a few pages, it seemed the whole volume was a book of letters written from mother to son.

Her grandmother hadn't been heartless or indifferent. She'd loved him very much, based on just the first page or two alone. So what had happened? Why the rift?

Belle was willing to bet the answers lay in this book. She slid the one filled with gibberish back in its hiding place and jimmied with the molding until she felt a little groove slide back into a seemingly corresponding tongue. It locked in place easily, as if made for just that purpose.