sifted through his papers until I found a more formal letter from Dr. West, this time with his letterhead. He had an office in Richmond. Later, when Kane came over, I told him about what I had found.
“What does it mean?” he asked, shrugging. “The house is really being built for this doctor and not the Arthur Johnson who was mentioned in that news story a while back? Maybe one of his handicapped relatives or something?”
“I don’t know, but you’re right about Arthur Johnson. He was never really the owner.”
I told him that my father finally had found out that the owner of the new house was involved in a trust managed by a hedge fund Arthur Johnson ran, but I knew nothing more. Because the property was so different from Foxworth Hall and because of the changes in the landscaping, neither my father nor I gave it very much thought. Kane knew how much my father wanted to put Foxworth Hall into the past. I explained that he was then introduced to this Dr. West, and he and I both concluded that Dr. West had treated Corrine Foxworth when she had been put into a mental clinic.
“My father suspected that, because it was Dr. West who seemed to know so much about the interior of Foxworth Hall, something he would have learned from Corrine.”
“So . . . okay. You think he’s the real owner now?”
“No. That CC at the bottom of his letter makes me think he’s acting on behalf of someone else, this William Anderson.”
“But . . . why should we care?”
“What if it’s a pseudonym?”
“For whom?”
“What if it’s Christopher Jr. who’s moving back to Charlottesville—something had happened to him and he’s handicapped now?”
His eyes widened. “You really think that’s possible?”
“I think we need to find out,” I said. “My father has always been a little annoyed at the effort to hide the real buyer and builder. Don’t you see?” I said. “Look at how much trouble whoever it is has gone through to hide his identity. First, it looks like this Arthur Johnson is doing it. It’s even leaked that way to the press. He’s wealthy enough, and he’s involved, visiting the site. Then my father discovers there’s a trust involved, and the manager of the trust is kept secret. All of a sudden, as more detailed decisions about the interior have to be made, he is introduced to this Dr. West. New designs are introduced to facilitate access to the home for someone who’s handicapped. It’s almost as if it wasn’t until much later in the construction that the real owner and resident decided to go through with it. And now we have this name . . . Anderson,” I added.
Kane thought, nodding to himself. “What should we do?”
“I don’t want to say anything to my father, of course. We’re getting out of school Tuesday. It’s a half day. Let’s go to Richmond to see Dr. West.”
“What makes you think he would tell us anything? And he’s sure to tell your father that you went to see him.”
“I’ll take the risk. If I say something to my father now, he’ll forbid me to go or something, and then I’d have to tell him everything about the diary, about reading it with you.”
He thought a moment and then gave me that famous Kane Hill shrug and smile. “You could go as a patient, and there would be doctor-patient confidentiality,” he kidded. Then he changed expression quickly, seeing the way I was reacting. “We just appear? This does sound crazy. Maybe we’re the ones who need Dr. West.”
“If you don’t think we should, I’ll—”
“No. We’ll do it,” he said. “We’ve come this far with it. We need to see it to the end.”
Because I was so nervous about it and already feeling so guilty that I had revealed the diary to someone else, I was afraid my father would see this new deception in my face and ask me the questions I couldn’t answer. Of course, I would have to, and it would be a terrible moment between us. I didn’t even try to come up with a fictional story for why I wouldn’t be home Tuesday after school had let out for the holidays. I would do it all first, and then I would confess everything.
Luckily for me, my father was very occupied, both with the construction project and with Laura. He rattled off some plans for us over the Christmas holiday and mentioned that Aunt Barbara was going to come visit us again. He then mentioned the possibility that Uncle Tommy would drop by on his way to a Caribbean vacation, staying at some film producer’s villa on St. Martin. I thought that would mean using the sofa bed in the den, and I thought I would volunteer to give him my room, but he added that Uncle Tommy was bringing his newest Hollywood girlfriend along, and they would be staying at a hotel in Charlottesville. He laughed about it, but I could see he was more excited than he had been in years.
And here I was, about to disappoint him more than I ever had.
* * *
It occurred to me that this was going to be the first time I had taken the diary out of my house since we had found it in the rubble of Foxworth Hall. Kane picked me up in the morning, and to be sure I didn’t expose it to anyone at school, we hid the diary under the front seat of his car. I worried about it all day, the way someone might worry about leaving his or her wallet under the seat. I tried to be as excited about the holiday as everyone else in my school, but I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding every time I looked at the clock and realized how soon Kane and I would be on the highway to Richmond. When my girlfriends asked me why I was acting this way, I referred to my uncle’s and aunt’s arrivals and how long it had been since we had all been together. I didn’t say that the last time was my mother’s funeral, but I think some realized it.
It wasn’t until I was in Kane’s car and we were heading for Richmond, which was just a little more than an hour away, that he asked me, “So what are you going to say to this psychiatrist?”
“The truth,” I replied. “What was found and what we read. I’ll make it clear how much we want to return it to Christopher Jr.”
“What if Dr. West refuses to see us?”
“We’ll camp out on his front doorstep,” I said, and Kane looked at me, smiled, and nodded.
“I believe you would. So what if we convince him about the diary and he says he’ll take care of it?”