Finders Keepers Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t sneeze. She stalked around the attic, peering at everything.
    “I’ll show you the quilts,” said Lina, “but please, don’t put them in the story about the yard sale, because they aren’t for sale.”
    Regina tapped her chin with one long, painted fingernail. “Hmmm. Well, if you’ll let me take some good footage of the quilts now, I’ll do a quick report on your yard sale. We’ll just say treasures from your attic are going to be in the yard sale and leave it at that, okay?”
    She talked so fast that it made Violet’s head spin.
    Lina blinked, then said slowly, “Okay, that seems fair.”
    Once again, Lina and the Aldens unpacked the quilts.
    Tom raised the camera, Regina asked questions, and Lina answered as best she could.
    Finally, Regina motioned to Tom to turn off the camera. “Not bad,” she said. “These quilts will make a good story later — once you’ve decided what to do with them.”
    Just then Benny, who’d been leaning against the trunk, said, “Oh!”
    At the same moment, the trunk began to tip over backward.
    “Benny!” shrieked Violet.
    Benny saved himself from falling by grabbing Jessie’s arm. Henry grabbed the top of the trunk right before it toppled.
    There was a ripping sound.
    Everyone froze.
    “The quilts,” whispered Violet.
    But it wasn’t a quilt that had ripped. It was the thin silk lining in the lid of the trunk.
    “I’m sorry,” Henry began, then stopped. He reached down and pulled a folded sheet of paper from the tear in the silk.
    He handed it to Lina. She unfolded it carefully. After a long moment she said, “It’s a letter.”
    Jessie peered over Lina’s shoulder at the beautiful old-fashioned handwriting. She saw the signature at the bottom. “Robert,” she said.
    “It’s one of the letters Robert wrote to Hope,” said Lina.
    “Letters?” Regina tried to push forward to see the letter.
    “There are more,” said Henry. One by one he carefully pulled more than a dozen letters from the torn silk lining.
    “What is this?” Regina demanded.
    In a dazed voice, Lina told Regina the story of Robert and Hope and the wedding that never happened.
    “Now, this is shaping into a story,” Regina said. “What do the letters say?”
    “I’ll have to read them first,” Lina said. “Later.”
    “When you do,” Regina said, “it’s my story, okay?”
    Lina nodded, but she hardly seemed to be paying attention. She held on to the letters all the way down the stairs and to the front door.
    They all watched as Regina stopped at the bottom of the stairs, raised her microphone, and said, “So, viewers, if you want treasure, this is the place. I’ve seen an attic full of it, and it’s going to be on sale here this Saturday in Greenfield. I’m Regina Lott, DocuNews Reports.”
    She switched off the microphone, and Tom lowered the camera. “Okay, I’ll be back,” she called over her shoulder as she walked outside. “Come on, Tom,” she said. A moment later, they were gone.
    Lina walked back to the kitchen and sat down with the letters. She spread them out.

    She looked around at the Aldens. “You helped find these letters,” she said. “So you should help read them.”
    The Aldens gathered around Lina, eager to hear what the letters said. Lina read them aloud, one by one, thirteen in all.
    In them, Robert described the places he saw and the people he met as he traveled. He told Hope over and over how much he missed her and looked forward to coming home.
    “Listen!” Lina exclaimed. She read aloud, “ ‘And how is our Wedding Ring quilt? Is it finished yet?’ ”
    “So there was a wedding quilt,” said Henry.
    “We saw Wedding Ring quilts at the library,” Benny told Lina. “Pictures of them.”
    As she read the next letter, Lina said, “Here’s more about the quilt, I think. It says, ‘I remember how the wedding ring matches your eyes, that rare and beautiful color. It is a shade of green that will always be my favorite.’