Gypsy of Spirits: Prequel to So Fell the Sparrow (4 page)

With the exception of unfortunate accidents. Those were simply an unavoidable part of life.

Funny how that rationalization had never seemed so cold to her before.

She shook off the chill and rolled up the window once again, irritated. She had promised herself she wouldn’t think about it yet. It was too soon, even if it had been three weeks since the accident. Her parents were cozily buried in the earth, beside each other in death just as they had been in life.

Though she knew her trip to Massachusetts would take her within a few hours of her parents’ final resting place, she didn’t have the heart to visit them.

Again, it was just too soon.

Instead, she was taking a trip to some house her father owned, one he’d never told her about. A house five hours from her parents’ main residence in Manhattan.

She only found out about the home because of her father’s will, which gave her sole ownership of the property. He’d left it to her. A house he’d kept secret, one she’d never visited, in a town she’d never heard of, was now hers.

At first it seemed crazy to make the drive out from Chicago to see this mysterious house. But somehow she found herself packing her bags, breaking out her GPS unit, and climbing into her car. She arranged for her neighbor to watch her cat, for her work to consider her on a leave of absence for an indeterminable amount of time, and hastily blocked her ex-fiancé’s phone number from her cell. The last thing she wanted was for him to come looking for her.

Or anyone, really. She had no surviving family members left, though her co-workers and friends at the hospital had all tried to console her. Had pitied her.

It had been enough to drive her crazy within twenty-four hours of the accident.

They say everyone has a different way of grieving. Hers was paved with a truckload of denial, indifference, passive aggressiveness, and a hell of a bitchy temper. It was best for everyone involved that she simply leave. Get some air, some space.

And find out why the hell her father left her some house in Mad Rock Harbor, Massachusetts.

From her brief Google map searches, she’d determined that Mad Rock Harbor was nothing more than a speck on the map. A tiny town with little more than a splattering of pre-Civil War era homes and one main street that linked the east side with the west side. The west side having what looked like a few businesses—a diner, a pharmacy, a veterinarian. A small local market seemed to be the biggest place in town, second only to the courthouse and the paltry sheriff’s station.

The east side of town held the majority of the homes, many of which lined the harbor with tiny docks built on the water. Her father’s home—
her
home—was one of these. She’d looked at it suspiciously from the comfort of her computer a few days earlier, unsure what to make of it. It didn’t look like anything special, certainly not a vacation home she would ever spend money on.

Just why he bought it, she had no idea. She liked to believe her father never had an affair on her mother, but perhaps this was just that. A nest for the mistress. She didn’t even know if her mother had known of this place. If so, then she’d done a damn good job of hiding it from her only daughter.

Which made Grace wonder what
other
secrets her parents kept from her. Many of them she would likely never know. Not now, anyway.

A tear slipped unexpectedly from her right eye, alarming her. She brushed it away callously and turned her full attention back to the road.

No more daydreaming. She was only four hours away; she had to keep driving. Driving toward a future that seemed uncertain save for one, simple truth.

Loneliness would be her new best friend.

CLOUDS HEAVY WITH
rain rolled in as Grace pulled up to the house. She shut off the engine and stared at it through her window, the quaint suburban neighborhood around her eerily quiet.

The house looked just as she expected—two stories, colonial style with pale blue siding and white trim. A wide, covered porch shaded a navy blue front door flanked by a collection of windows on both sides. A white picket fence lined the property, the paint beginning to flake and peel. Weeds grew among the wild grasses in the yard, complemented by scraggly rose bushes along the porch.

There was a much smaller house to the right, almost like a companion to the main house. Grace wondered if it was part of the property, though the lawyer hadn’t mentioned it. Beyond the house she spotted the harbor, the water calm in the cool evening air. A man in a tiny metal fishing boat cut through the gray-blue surface, sending ripples out to the shore.

Grace looked back to the house, uncertainty warring with her curiosity. What if she found out something about her father that she wasn’t prepared to learn?

Not like it mattered at this point. He was dead. It wasn’t like he could explain himself to her or try and justify whatever it was he was doing with the house. The only thing she could do was go in and find out for herself, then try and piece together this strange puzzle he left for her.

Climbing out of the car, she grabbed her purse and the key she’d gotten from the family lawyer. She cast an instinctual glance at her trunk where her suitcase and beloved cello lay inside. She had to stop and remind herself that she wasn’t in Chicago anymore. People didn’t just break into cars on quiet, residential streets in Podunk little towns like this.

People in small towns had manners and morals, and whatever.

Rolling her eyes, she hefted her purse onto her shoulder and pressed the lock button on her key ring before making her way up the brick path to the house.

She was a tall woman, willowy of figure with surprisingly strong and capable hands. They were her greatest tool as a doctor, second only to her sharp mind and iron composure. Well, used to be iron. These days it felt more like tin foil, easily torn and crumbled.

Eyes like the grayest skies could fill with both resolve and sympathy, yet rarely were they prone to tears. She’d learned long ago how to shield herself from emotion. In her line of work it was a matter of survival.

As a result, it wore down her patience and made her quite the cynic. Though, as with her iron composure, she felt her hardiness weakening with each day that passed. Each day that the truth became more real to her.

Her designer heels nearly slipped through the cracks on the porch stairs, and her weight had the wood creaking. She grimaced as she realized if the porch needed fixing, who knew what else needed to be repaired. She paused before the entrance, key out and ready. Her eyes fell on a small, wooden sign nailed into the siding just to the left of the door.

It read:
Welcome to The Sparrow House
.

One of her eyebrows rose as she laughed at the name. Where had her father come up with that? With a disheartened sigh, she shoved the key in the lock and opened the door, surprised it didn’t groan as loudly as the stairs had. Maybe the house wasn’t as dilapidated as she had assumed.

The entryway was high-ceilinged and airy with stairs on the right and a wide hallway leading to what looked like the living room straight ahead. To the left was an open doorway that led into what was likely the kitchen and dining room, and to the right before the stairs was the parlor.

There was no furniture, no belongings, no curtains, no rugs…not even a speck of dust. The house was spic-and-span with white-plastered walls and an ancient looking wooden floor, carefully polished. Grace wondered who had been taking care of the house as she made her way down the hall. She was so distracted that she left the front door wide open.

Her eyes took in every aspect of the first floor hungrily, as if searching for some clue, some evidence to explain why her father had purchased this home. She had expected to find something of his here, maybe a photograph, a book, some silverware. Instead she found nothing. The cherrywood kitchen cabinets were vacant, the smooth white and gray marble counter free of crumbs. The old fridge was empty, unplugged.

A butcher block island filled the middle of the kitchen, its surface weathered and worn. She wondered who had been the one to use it for so many years.

Beyond the kitchen was the spacious living area, the long wall covered with windows and a set of French doors leading to the back porch. Through the glass she could see a beautiful view of the harbor, growing dark in the dimming light.

She even spotted the little dock, sitting boatless in the water. It looked as lonely as she felt.

“Who are you?” A voice barked from behind Grace, startling her. She whirled around to face the intruder.

A short, older woman was standing with her hands fisted on her generous hips just inside the living room, brown eyes mean and distrusting. She had a frizzy mass of gray and white curls atop her head. Wrinkles fanned out from her eyes and lined the grooves of her face, and her mouth was set in a decidedly suspicious glower. She wore faded jeans with weathered work boots and a loose brown and white plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. From the dirt on her knees, Grace imagined she’d been working in a garden somewhere.

“This house isn’t for sale if that’s why you decided to just wander on in,” the woman said with a derisive sniff.

“I own this house,” Grace informed her, regaining her wits. She straightened and stared down at the woman. “Who the hell are you?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Dr. Allen Sullivan owns this house. I don’t know who you think you are.”

“His daughter.”

The hard edges of the woman’s face softened. “Oh. I see. Is Dr. Allen here?”

Grace imagined a fist squeezing the blood from her heart, draining it dry. “He’s dead.”

Now the woman looked completely devastated. Grace took a brief moment to relish it before she spoke again. “He left this house to me. Who are you exactly?”

“My name’s Nellie. I live in the little house next door.” The woman ushered forward and stretched out her calloused hand, eager to shake Grace’s. When they did, their eyes met and held. “I’m so sorry to hear about your father. He was a wonderful man. And your mother too.”

So her mother
had
known of the place…

“She’s dead, too. Car accident.” Grace released her hand from Nellie’s as she turned away. She walked to one of the windows and stared out at the water.

“Oh no,” Nellie murmured. “God bless them. You know, they told me all about you.”

“Did they?” Grace asked, though she found she didn’t really care. All she wanted was to be left alone in this empty house, one that bore no memories of her parents. Had she been hoping it would?

“Dr. Grace. Your father was so proud of you. After he retired, he said he missed being at the hospital with you so badly.”

“How often did my father come here?” Grace continued to watch the harbor, her arms crossed defensively. She realized then just how cold it was inside the house.

“Not often. Once or twice a year, maybe.” Nellie ventured forward to stand beside her. She watched Grace through troubled eyes. “Your father loved this place. That’s why he asked me to take care of it for him.”

“If he loved it so much, why is it empty?” The question seemed hollow, much like the house itself.

Nellie’s face creased with pity. “I don’t know, child.”

Grace gritted her teeth, clutching her arms tighter to ward off the chill she felt from discussing her parents. She tore her eyes from the harbor and looked around the house with a tired sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to go find a hotel. I honestly thought there’d be some furniture.”

“Why don’t I call up Johnny Hayes? He owns the antique furniture store in town,” Nellie offered with a smile. “He may have a bed frame you can use. And I’m sure we can hunt down a mattress for you. No need to go on over to the hotel. This is your house, you should stay here.”

Grace snorted, eyebrows raised. “I need more than just a bed. The damn fridge isn’t even plugged in. I have nowhere to sit, nowhere to eat, no towels, no television…”

Nellie fisted her hands on her hips again. “Don’t you get all ‘woe is me,’ city girl. You clearly haven’t been in enough small towns to know that people like to help one another out. I’ll make some phone calls and get you what you need.”

She left before Grace could argue, though it didn’t matter. She was speechless. The woman had gone from rude to comforting to sassy in the blink of an eye, then steamrolled over Grace’s negativity with good, old-fashioned, hometown hospitality.