He might as well have thrown a bucket of ice water in Kaine’s face. She hadn’t predicted that, but it made sense. Far too much sense. The mysterious dead woman, the trafficking of women, the abuse . . . it had followed her through generations. And somehow Ivy must have found Gabriella’s child, a daughter. The hair in the locket had to have been hers.
Mr. Mason read the shock on Kaine’s face, and he tipped his head to the side and winced. The wince deepened the wrinkles at his eyes. “I’m sorry. See? This is why family should be protected, not put on display for all to see. It becomes such a tragic mess.”
“But Maggie is not Gabriella’s family. So her stealing the quilt to preserve it for the family . . . it still makes no sense. Why did she care?” Kaine’s mind raced. She could see the outline of the puzzle, but the inner pieces were still in disarray.
“I asked her the same thing when I confronted her. Told her I knew it was her who broke in. She said it was none of my business. Maggie said Gabriella’s descendents should have it so they could remember Ivy, the woman who saved Gabriella’s legacy, her child. An unspoken hero, Maggie implied. Sort of sickened me, really.”
Tears sprang to Kaine’s eyes, and she blinked them back. Joy’s grandmother had repaid Ivy’s devotion by robbing the museum at eighty-three years old. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so desperately bittersweet.
“Did she steal the missing records too?” Kaine started to push off the floor, but he noticed and his eyes sharpened. She stopped.
“No. I did. I disposed of anything else that would incriminate our family without being too obvious. It was easy to do. I could blame it all on the break-in.”
“Incriminate our family?” Kaine searched her memory, trying to piece together what Mr. Mason was saying. Our insinuated Kaine was tied to Mr. Mason. That was not an equation she was able to add up.
He filled in the gap for her. “My family. Your family. The Fosters. The ones who trafficked women through this place. Do you think that’s a legacy that should be preserved? No. It should be lost in the annals of history to protect our family name. But just like Ivy Thorpe, you had to come to Foster Hill House and unearth the family’s secrets I’ve worked so hard to bury with them.”
Kaine braced herself against her palm. The barrel of the gun was pointing toward the floor now, the conversation distracting Mr. Mason. “What do you mean ‘our family’? I’m Gabriella’s great-great-granddaughter. Not a Foster.”
His head snapped up. The gun lifted. “Oh, but you are a Foster. You are. Who do you think fathered Gabriella’s child?”
Chapter 43
Jvy
Maggie cowered in the corner of the parlor. Ivy had insisted they meet Maggie at Widow Bairns’s in an attempt to make her more comfortable. What would be peaceful about being questioned in the jail? With Arnold Foster in a cell in the next room? The poor girl would be miserable. Of course, there really was nothing tranquil about the situation in totality, but maybe the comfort of a house would seem less intimidating.
Ivy inserted herself as hostess as she poured tea into a cup painted with green ivy and lavender violets. Widow Bairns perched by Maggie, clutching the girl’s hand and tilting her chin forward. The old woman had a stubborn spirit, and for a brief moment, Ivy hoped she was like the widow someday when she was old. She handed the cup to Maggie, who took it with delicate hands that shook. Their eyes met. In them Ivy saw the same fear she had been enveloped with in the closet of Foster Hill House. Dare Ivy hope that Gabriella’s child was the only reason Maggie had stayed in Oakwood and not fled as far away as she could?
Sheriff Dunst shifted on the blue velvet settee. He was as uncomfortable in the Bairns parlor as Ivy would have been in the jailhouse. They had agreed to let Ivy begin asking the questions. Sheriff Dunst had suggested that Maggie might trust someone with feminine sensibilities, but it was evident by the expression on Joel’s face that he’d prefer to commandeer the questioning.
Ivy settled into a wing chair with scrolled wooden arms. She cleared her throat gently. It captured Maggie’s attention, and the girl lifted her head. Ivy was struck even more by the youth still in the face of this young woman. She was barely beyond her sixteenth year.
“Maggie,” Ivy started softly, “thank you for being willing to speak with us.”
Maggie glanced anxiously at the two men, then nodded. Widow Bairns patted the girl’s hand in comfort.
Ivy took a sip of her own tea, and Maggie followed suit. “Will you tell me about Foster Hill House? How did you come to be there?”
Maggie looked down at the floor. She was silent for a long time. Sheriff Dunst coughed, and Ivy held her hand up to stop him from saying anything. Poor Maggie needed time. Time to summon courage. Time to open up the memories. She finally spoke, in a voice barely above a whisper.
“My parents died last year. There was an advertisement in the paper for housemaids, so I applied. When I met the man who was to help place me, he took me and I was helpless to fight him off. I was loaded on a steamer along with some other girls, and we crossed Lake Superior into Wisconsin. That’s where Foster met us.”
“What happened to the other girls? Was Gabriella with you?” Sheriff Dunst interrupted.
“Gabriella?” Confusion filtered across Maggie’s face.
“The dead girl,” Joel supplied before Ivy could say it more tactfully.
“Oh.” Something akin to grief and resignation changed Maggie’s posture. Her shoulders sagged. “She was with Foster and some other girls he already had with him.” Maggie nodded her head. “We traveled south, and Foster left all of us girls at a brothel outside a logging camp in northern Wisconsin.” Her face blanched, and Maggie shut her eyes as if closing away memories, locking them tight and refusing to revisit those moments.
Ivy could only imagine. She didn’t want to imagine, but the leering look she’d seen in Foster’s eyes made the intent of selfish men far too obvious. Ivy swallowed back emotion. Poor Maggie. She was a child. A child. Maggie began to speak again, and Ivy shoved down the inner rage that rose as she pictured Foster sitting less than a mile away in his cell. God forgive her, but Ivy hoped he rotted there—painfully.
Maggie looked between the two men sitting in the parlor and then at Widow Bairns as she spoke. The widow rested her wrinkled hand on Maggie’s shoulder. Maggie continued.
“Gabriella was expecting and she told me it was Foster’s baby. She was having difficulties carrying it and needed someone to assist her. Foster was more invested in Gabriella, as you call her, than the baby.” A shudder visibly shook Maggie. She picked at a fingernail, her eyes focused on it. “So he brought me here, with her.”
“Why you and not one of the other girls?” Joel asked. Ivy cast him a stern look. If they kept interrupting, Maggie might completely withdraw.
“I thought he chose me by chance.” Maggie met Joel’s eyes briefly. “But Gabriella said it was by providence. She wasn’t well. She almost lost the baby on the way to Foster Hill.” Her voice turned watery.
“And Foster cared?” Sheriff Dunst snorted.