Hidden Treasures Read Online Free PDF Page B

but winter took its time letting go of the central New Hampshire hills. At least the lower-elevation flora—like her scraggly lawn and her soon-to-be garden—showed encouraging signs of life. Next door at the old Willetz place, the field behind the farmhouse had gone fallow, but it was slowly transforming from beige to green. She wondered what he used to grow there. Zucchini?
    While Avery blathered on about the accuracy of dating techniques, she ambled from her living room to the dining room. It contained an old oak table and a sideboard in need of refinishing, but she used the room mostly as a study. The table held neat piles: math work sheets, book reports, spelling tests. She hated having to teach spelling—it seemed like such an idiot-savant skill—but the curriculum required it, so she drilled her kids once a week on twenty spelling words. One of her students, Cammie Merton, had not yet misspelled a single word this year. She gave Erica the creeps.
    The dining-room windows overlooked the broken fence and the abandoned Willetz farmhouse. Only, it wasn’t abandoned tonight. Lights were on in several windows.
    She circled the table and peered outside. One upstairs window was aglow, as were two adjacent downstairs windows, one of which held the silhouette of a man.
    It took her a moment to shake off her big-city panic. This was Rockwell. There was no such thing as a stranger here—at least, theoretically. The silhouette probably belonged to John Willetz’s son, even though he never came to the house at night…and his shoulders weren’t as broad as that man’s, and his hair wasn’t that thick.
    “Erica?” Avery’s voice droned through the line. “I asked if the lock appears to be the same metal as the hinges.”
    She spun away from the window and tried to pretend the house next door was empty. “Um, yeah, looks the same. But it’s really dirty. The keyhole is clogged with dirt. I tried to clean it out with a toothpick—”
    “No, you mustn’t do that. The tip of the toothpick could snap off and get lodged inside the lock. Wait until I get up there. I’ll bring the proper tools.”
    “So, you’re going to come here?”
    “Well, you said you couldn’t bring the box down to Cambridge.”
    Had she said that? She couldn’t really remember anything she’d said before she’d spotted the stranger in the house next door. “I can’t,” she confirmed. “Not until the weekend at the earliest.”
    “I could get there Thursday evening, if you’d be so good as to find me a place to stay.”
    Curiosity got the better of her. She peeked over her shoulder. The silhouette looked larger; he must have moved closer to the window. Was he watching her? Should she turn off the dining-room light?
    “You could stay here,” she offered. “I’ve got a spare bedroom.”
    “I think it would be better if I stayed elsewhere. I’m a difficult houseguest.”
    Erica appreciated the warning. Most difficult houseguests would simply show up and be difficult. “I’ll reserve a room for you. We’ve got some motels and bed-and-breakfasts in town. I’d recommend one of the bed-and-breakfasts.”
    “By all means, then.” The man in the window across the way seemed to be shrugging something over his shoulders. A shirt. Had he been shirtless? Standing in the window seminaked? While she was trying to decide whether to be afraid or offended, Avery broke in again. “So you’ll let me know what arrangements have been made?”
    “Yes, of course. I appreciate your coming, Dr. Gilman.”
    “And I appreciate your letting me get first crack at this treasure,” he said.
    “Assuming it’s a treasure.”
    “I taught you well, Erica. You wouldn’t lure me up to that godforsaken hamlet if you didn’t think your find had value.”
    She considered objecting to his description of Rockwell, then decided not to.
    “Don’t let any museum sneak in ahead of me,” he reminded her. “I want to be the first.”
    “You will be,” Erica