She nodded.
His frown deepened. “Obviously you didn’t steal it, since you weren’t born when it went missing. Do you have any idea of someone who may be interested in obtaining this quilt?”
Kaine matched his frown and exchanged glances with Grant. How was Ivy’s quilt and tonight’s attack connected? “No. I brought it with me from California. My great-great-grandmother was Ivy Thorpe, the one who originally owned the quilt. I thought it was just a family heirloom and”—she avoided looking at Grant—“I just recently found out it used to be a part of the Oakwood Museum.”
The detective grunted. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take the quilt into evidence.”
Grant cleared his throat. “Detective, are you implying the quilt is somehow tied to this?”
Carter paused, then gave a quick nod. “There was a note wedged between the cracks in the porch floor.”
Kaine sucked in a breath. “What does it say?”
The detective’s mouth tightened. He shook his head. “It’s a cliché. It says, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ And there was a swatch of material stapled to it. We checked the quilt, and the material matches a missing section.”
Instantly the warmth drained from Kaine, leaving her chilled inside and out. Hadn’t Detective Hanson from back home implied that Danny’s death was somehow related to her career? But this? Never in a million years would Kaine have thought her personal circumstances could be tied to Great-Great-Grandmother Ivy. To a woman who was remembered in Oakwood for her obsession with a dead girl.
Chapter 28
Jvy
She breathed deep of the fresh air that poured through the window she’d just opened. Foster Hill House needed a good airing out. Ivy jumped when a gust of wind swung the door behind her, closing it with a resounding bang. While it ushered away the moldy smell of the barren library, the suction had caused the door to slam shut. She eyed every corner, as if at any moment the attacker would return to finish what he’d started the night he shoved her down the stairs. She’d had no compulsion to argue with Joel when he arrived that morning to bring her with him to the house. Enough had been said the night before. Words, feelings . . . so much better if just left alone. She would try to remember any detail she may have locked away inside from the night of the attack. For Gabriella, and maybe for Joel.
“Is everything all right? Have you found something?” The door opened, and Joel poked his head through. His hand still sported her neatly applied bandage, but the way he looked at her was distant and professional. It turned her cold, the chasm between them enlarged to insurmountable proportions.
Ivy shook her head. “No. No, I was just attempting to let in some fresh air.”
“Has the window been disturbed in any way?”
“I didn’t see anything.” She knew enough to have checked first.
Joel stepped into the library. “So there were no handprints or fingerprints? Was the dust wiped away? Remember, we’re looking for any clues that might help us understand what exactly happened in this house.”
Certainly, she remembered that. “Nothing to make note of.”
Joel rested his hands on his hips and blew out a breath of air. He shook his head as he scanned the room. Ivy followed his gaze. The bookshelves, the warped molding at the base of the shelves, and the faded, mouse-eaten wing chair in the corner. It was all so hollow and deserted.
“I’ll remember something,” she insisted before Joel could speak his mind. She had to. But her attacker’s face was still dark and shadowed. Only the memory of the page from Great Expectations was vivid.
Ivy tugged at the cuffs of her goldenrod-yellow wool dress. It was soiled, on the hemline and the bodice. Even the piping on the bodice had taken on a tinge of gray. A poor choice of garments for today. Yet something in her had wanted to wear the color that suited her skin tone and dark hair, brought out flecks of yellow in her eyes, and made her more attractive than a twenty-six-year-old spinster could normally boast. It had done little to bring a flicker of admiration from Joel. He had retreated from her, probably for good now. It was what she’d orchestrated.
Joel ran his hand along a shelf. He passed his fingers over a few old hardbound books, then dropped his arm to rub the hand against his pant leg, brushing off the dust.
Feeling chilled, Ivy moved to close the window now that fresh air had invaded the room. “If I were Gabriella, I would have found the copy of Great Expectations here. In the library. Maybe even a writing instrument. One I would have kept hidden if I were being held captive.”
“Stands to reason,” Joel nodded.
“I would keep my infant somewhere as warm as possible.”
“The attic?” Joel said.
Ivy crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought so, at first, but where would she sleep? I think the cradle was moved, after Gabriella died. It only makes sense she stayed in the bedroom, where I found the book to begin with.”
Joel wasn’t convinced. “Its bedcover is old, moth-eaten, and dirty. No mother would wrap a baby in that.”
Theoretically, Joel was correct. “But, to keep the baby warm, she would. She would do anything for the child.” Ivy tried to put herself in Gabriella’s shoes, imagining what she herself may have done had she been in the woman’s predicament. “The nights are frigid, and there aren’t any signs of recent fires in any of the fireplaces. Necessity takes priority over preference. We need to search the bedroom again,” Ivy concluded.
It didn’t seem Joel had any intention to argue. Rather, Ivy could sense he wanted her to take the lead, in case she remembered any detail, any smidgen of a clue that might bring life to this dead search. In a matter of seconds, they were climbing the familiar stairs to the bedrooms. Ivy shivered, reliving her tumble down them. She wrapped her right arm across her middle to where her ribs had been bruised. The skin was still yellow beneath her dress and corset.
Joel’s footsteps echoed behind her on the stairs. Once in the hallway, she bypassed the first two bedrooms, so stark and empty. The portrait of the woman hung on the wall, only this time it was crooked. That’s right. She had bumped it in her tussle with her attacker. Ivy paused and stared into the lifeless eyes of the lady. Her dark hair was capped with lace, and her black dress, obviously of rich silk, was typical of a widow in mourning.
“Mrs. Foster, I’d guess.” Joel’s voice in her ear made Ivy jump.
She stared at the matriarch of Foster Hill House. “I wonder what she was like.”
“Crazy,” Joel stated. “So I’ve heard, anyway,” he added. Reaching out, he swiped at a cobweb from the corner of the frame. “She was originally from Georgia and relocated here when she married Billy Foster.”
“And that’s why she was sympathetic to the Confederacy?”