Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Wasn’t Fooled
Nathaniel followed Grace through the back door.
“What did you say?”
Grace placed the empty crate into an old green pickup.
“I said I know who you are.”
“You know I'm Nathaniel Whitfield?”
“Yes.”
“And somehow you also know my financial situation?”
“I know you're lying about it.”
Nathaniel stared at her.
“You've known me for approximately forty seconds.”
“Long enough.”
“Explain.”
Grace leaned against the truck.
“Your boots are handmade. Your watch is worth more than my truck. You say thank you when somebody hands you a plate, but you had no idea where Mabel keeps clean forks.”
“That proves I'm not broke?”
“No.”
She studied him.
“You don't move like somebody who lost everything.”
Nathaniel's amusement faded.
“What does that mean?”
“People who lose everything keep looking behind them.”
“Why?”
“To see what else is disappearing.”
Grace nodded toward him.
“You don't. You walk into a room expecting everything to stay exactly where you left it.”
Nathaniel didn't know whether to be impressed or irritated.
“How do you know my name?”
“My father invested in Whitfield Freight.”
“Whitfield Freight is fine.”
“I know.”
Nathaniel frowned.
Grace continued.
“My father received retirement payments from your company. If the Whitfield empire had actually collapsed the way television says, somebody would be bleeding. Employees. Vendors. Pension funds.”
She stepped closer.
“But nobody around here missed a payment.”
“So?”
“So either you're the luckiest bankrupt billionaire in America…”
She smiled.
“…or you're hiding.”
Before Nathaniel could answer, Mabel opened the door.
“Grace! Stop interrogating my dishwasher.”
“I thought he was a waiter.”
“He's terrible at that.”
“I've worked here three hours,” Nathaniel protested.
“Longest three hours of my life,” Mabel said.
Grace laughed.
Over the following days, Nathaniel learned more about her.
Grace Harper was twenty-nine.
Her mother had died when Grace was sixteen.
Her father, Samuel Harper, had died eighteen months earlier.
Grace now ran the family's small farm with her younger brother Ethan, selling eggs, herbs and vegetables to businesses around Millbrook.
She worked constantly.
She complained rarely.
And unlike almost everyone Nathaniel knew in Manhattan, Grace seemed completely unimpressed by wealth.
Mabel's Diner became Nathaniel's temporary universe.
There was Frank, a retired sheriff who ordered two eggs every morning.
Denise, an emergency-room nurse who drank dangerously strong coffee after night shifts.
Tommy, a twelve-year-old boy who waited at the diner each afternoon until his mother finished work at the pharmacy.
Nobody cared about Nathaniel's last name.
They cared whether he remembered the ketchup.
He found that strangely comforting.
One evening Vivian called.
“Where are you?”
“Away.”
“Howard won't tell me anything.”
“He's good at his job.”
“This isn't funny, Nathaniel.”
“I didn't realize we were laughing.”
Silence.
Then Vivian softened her voice.
“I've been thinking.”
“About us?”
“Of course.”
Nathaniel waited.
“I think we should postpone the wedding.”
Not cancel.
Postpone.
“How long?”
“I don't know.”
“Until I'm rich again?”
“That isn't fair.”
“Isn't it?”
Vivian inhaled sharply.
“Do you still love me?”
Nathaniel looked across the diner.
Grace sat at the counter repairing the strap of a produce basket.
“I don't know.”
Vivian went silent.
Nathaniel ended the call.
Later Grace found him sitting behind the diner.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
She sat beside him.
“Fiancée?”
Nathaniel looked over.
“How did you know?”
“You stared at your phone like it owed you an apology.”
Despite himself, he smiled.
Grace looked toward the trees.
“She left when the money disappeared?”
“She's thinking.”
“That's usually rich-person language for leaving slowly.”
“You have strong opinions about rich people.”
“I have strong opinions about everybody.”
They sat quietly.
Then Grace asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Pretending to be broke.”
Nathaniel hesitated.
Then, unexpectedly, he told her.
He told her about Charles.
About his father's marriages.
About the question Charles asked before dying.
Finally he told her what Vivian had said behind the sitting-room door.
Grace listened without interrupting.
“I needed to know,” Nathaniel finished.
“So you tested her.”
“Yes.”
“And your friends.”
“Apparently.”
Grace was silent.
Then she said, “That's a terrible idea.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“You're supposed to say Vivian failed.”
“Maybe she did.”
“Maybe?”
“If someone leaves because you lose your money, that tells you something about them.”
Grace turned toward him.
“But if you lie to someone to see whether they'll leave, that tells you something about you.”
Nathaniel's expression hardened.
“I didn't come here for therapy.”
“No. You came here to wash dishes badly.”
He stood.
Grace called after him.
“Nate.”
He stopped.
“You're so busy trying to find out who's lying to you that you haven't considered what happens when someone tells you the truth.”
Two days later Howard arrived.
He entered Mabel's Diner wearing a tailored suit and immediately looked like a federal investigation.
Nathaniel poured him coffee.
“You look ridiculous,” Howard said.
“You drove three hours to tell me that?”
“No.”
Howard's face became serious.
“We have a problem.”
Nathaniel sat.
“What?”
“Someone is investigating Horizon Ridge.”
“Reporter?”
“Private investigator.”
“Working for?”
“We don't know.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“They've requested property-transfer records, trust information and financial disclosures.”
“Vivian?”
“Possibly.”
Nathaniel looked toward the kitchen.
Grace was standing there.
Howard followed his gaze.
“Who's that?”
“Grace Harper.”
Something changed in Howard's face.
Nathaniel noticed immediately.
“You know her?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Nathaniel leaned forward.
“You just lied to me.”
Howard glanced toward Grace.
Then lowered his voice.
“There is something you don't know about her father.”
“Samuel?”
Howard nodded.
“He didn't simply invest in Whitfield Freight.”
“What did he do?”
“He worked for your father.”
Nathaniel stared.
“For how long?”
“Almost twenty years.”
“Why didn't I know?”
“Charles made sure you didn't.”
Nathaniel's stomach tightened.
Howard continued.
“Three weeks before Samuel Harper died, he contacted your father.”
“My father was already dead eighteen months ago.”
“Not before Samuel first tried contacting him.”
“What did Samuel want?”
Howard looked toward Grace again.
“He wrote a letter.”
“To Charles?”
“Yes.”
“What was in it?”
“I don't know all of it.”
Nathaniel's voice hardened.
“All of what?”
Howard leaned closer.
“Your father gave me specific instructions never to show it to you.”
Nathaniel stared at his oldest friend.
“My father has been dead three years.”
“I know.”
“And you obeyed him instead of telling me?”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
Howard hesitated.
That hesitation frightened Nathaniel more than the answer.
“Howard.”
Howard finally spoke.
“Samuel Harper claimed Charles Whitfield had been hiding something for nearly thirty years.”
Nathaniel felt cold.
“What?”
Before Howard could answer, Grace appeared beside the booth.
Her face had gone pale.
She had heard enough.
“My father wrote Charles Whitfield a letter?”
Howard stood.
Grace looked between the two men.
“You knew my father?”
Howard said nothing.
Grace's voice shook.
“What did he tell you?”
Howard reached inside his jacket.
From an inner pocket, he removed an old envelope.
The paper was yellowed.
Across the front, written in faded blue ink, were four words.
For Nathaniel Whitfield Only.
Grace stared at it.
Nathaniel slowly reached for the envelope.
But before he could open it, Grace whispered:
“I've seen that handwriting before.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
Grace's eyes filled with fear.
“My father left me a letter too.”
She swallowed.
May you like
“And the first sentence said, ‘If Nathaniel Whitfield ever comes to Millbrook, don't trust the story his family told him.’”
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