She ran her finger down the last page, where her grandfather had several entries. Each one was sloppier than the one before it. That was one unusual thing. Her grandfather never hurried, and he was proud of his handwriting, and most of the notes were written with a flourish. The last three appeared to have been scribbled. At first she entertained the idea that someone else had written the last few logs, but she knew every swirl of her grandfather’s writing, and these had all been written by him.
He’d been agitated, or his writing wouldn’t be such a mess. She put her head back to look at the stars. They were desperately trying to peek out through the swirling clouds. “Think, Ania. Put the pieces together. Who called to hire a driver?”
She tapped the pages in the journal while she considered. Ordinarily, whoever had the package called and paid to have it delivered. She sat up straight. Her grandfather had come into the kitchen to taste the spaghetti sauce his wife was making. She had laughed and playfully slapped at his fingers. He’d told them—her mother, grandmother and her—how Bartolo Anwar had asked him to go pick up a package in New Orleans for him. He hadn’t wanted to go because he was getting older and he didn’t like the distance he would have to drive. Bartolo had promised him double his normal fee. That wasn’t unusual, but the fact that the caller sending out the package hadn’t been the one to ask for a driver was.
For the first time a little frisson of excitement slid down her spine. Bartolo had to have had a name and address where her grandfather would go to pick up the package. Someone had to have that information. Her grandfather couldn’t have stood on a street corner and called out that he was there to drive for someone. She could ask Bartolo.
She pulled out her phone and hit the light to better see the entries in her grandfather’s journal, specifically the one written to her the day before his death.
I love your smile, my angel, so sweet. Do you remember the day I found your bed frame? We lay on the mattress together laughing in that old secondhand store when they told us we couldn’t be on the furniture. Your laughter warmed my heart then as it does now. I am blessed to have you for my granddaughter.She loved that entry and she would always treasure it. A part of her wanted to frame it and hang it on the wall of her bedroom. She remembered that day they’d shopped together. Her grandfather had been the king of looking for old furniture. No one had found better pieces or better bargains. He’d promised her a “magnificent” bed, one she would want to keep her entire life. The frame he’d found was unique, one of a kind, and she’d fallen in love with it.
She ran the pad of her finger over the entry in a little caress, blinking back tears. She missed his booming laugh. She missed everything about him. The way he’d loved his wife and daughter. He’d been so close to her father, treating him as a son, and he’d been so proud of Ania. He hadn’t cared that she wasn’t a boy. They’d raised her to take over the business, as if she’d be fully accepted by their clients. Now she knew better. Most wouldn’t have accepted her, but it was what she wanted—and needed—from Mitya. It shouldn’t matter that she was a woman.
She traced the little sketches her grandfather had made around the entry with her finger. Naturally, it was the bed frame. He’d done a much more complex drawing than he usually did, and although he wasn’t the best of artists, he was good. She recognized every twist and turn in the intricate artwork adorning the carved frame. Vines and leaves ran around the spindles in the headboard, continued along the thick, wooden sides and around to the footboard. The lianas and plants continued to spread across the wood and into the small drawers that couldn’t be seen because the carvings hid them so well. That had been the biggest selling point to Ania at the time.
She sat up straight, tapping the drawing. Looking at the entry. Was her grandfather trying to tell her something? Could the package be so small that it could be hidden in one of the little drawers in her bed frame?
The kitchen door opened and Vikenti carefully carried a mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream swirled artfully on the top. “Here you go, sweetheart. Josue has a small plate of cookies for you.”
Josue placed them in front of her. “Enjoy.”
“Who made them?” she asked. “They look delicious.”
“I think it was Evangeline,” Vikenti said. “If Mitya tells you he did, don’t believe him. He’d burn down the house if he tried to cook.” Vikenti stepped back and then frowned down at her. “Are you all right?”