Free The Key in the Attic by DeAnna Julie Dodson

into her purse. “Bob says they close at four o’clock weekdays and don’t have any business hours on the weekends. It’s probably one of those posh, by-appointment places.”
    Annie frowned, thinking. “OK, so we can’t look at it tonight. What do you remember about the desk, Mary Beth. Did it have any hidden drawers or cubbyholes? Any secret places?”
    “What did it look like anyway?” Alice asked.
    There was a sudden wistfulness in Mary Beth’s eyes. “It was really pretty, solid cherry with a little inlaid pattern of teak and ash around the edge. It had three drawers in the front, and on top it had another stack of drawers and slots, and little cabinets with doors on them. Wait a second.”
    She scurried out of the room and came back a few minutes later with a framed photograph in her hands.
    “You can see some of it in this picture.”
    Alice took it from her. “Ooh, isn’t that pretty?”
    Annie looked over Alice’s shoulder at the large black-and-white photograph. It showed a little more than half of the writing desk that looked just as Mary Beth had described it. In front of it, an old woman sat in a rocking chair holding a wide-eyed baby in a lace christening gown. The woman wore a high-necked black dress with a pearl brooch at the collar, and her snow-white hair was twisted into a bun at the back of her neck. Her expression was solemn, but there was something vivid about her eyes, which were dark and expressive, and something still lovely in the curve of her cheek. She must have been a beauty in her day.
    “Is that her, Mary Beth?” Annie asked. “Is that Angeline?”
    “As a matter of fact, it is. She was holding my mother a few weeks after she was born.”
    Annie smiled. “My goodness, how long ago was that?”
    “It was 1922,” Mary Beth said. “Angeline had just celebrated her eightieth birthday. Mom was her first great-grandchild.”
    “Amazing.” Annie took the picture from Alice so she could take a closer look at the writing desk. “It looks like there are a lot of potential secret places in the desk.”
    “I gave it a pretty good going over before Bob picked it up. There is a little cubbyhole with a door on it behind that panel there.” Mary Beth pointed to a place on the right side of the desk. “It has a keyhole, but I never saw a key for it. It wasn’t locked anyway, and there wasn’t anything in it.”
    Annie exhaled impatiently. “And we’re back to the possibility that whatever Geoffrey left for Angeline might not be there anymore.”
    “If that’s the place he meant,” Mary Beth said, “then you’re right. It’s been empty at least since I was a little girl.”
    “I guess we could go ahead and see if the key we found with the clue fits it. If it does, we’ll know that’s where it was supposed to be.”
    “If Park Cambridge Antique Shoppe still has the desk on Monday.” Mary Beth’s shoulders sagged. “I could have used a little good news today. Now the best we can hope for is just knowing it’s a dead end.”
    Annie glanced at Alice and then smiled at Mary Beth. “I know. Why don’t we make a girls’ day out of it? We can drive to Portland and look at the desk. We can have lunch somewhere fun and then do some shopping.”
    “Thanks, Annie, but I really can’t—”
    “Sure you can. You’re closed on Mondays.”
    A little color came into Mary Beth’s cheeks. “I don’t want to spoil the fun, but I really can’t afford a shopping spree right now.”
    “Come on,” Annie coaxed. “We can just window-shop. That’s still free. I’ll drive, and lunch will be on me. You won’t be out anything but a little time. What do you think?”
    There was a little twitch at the corner of Mary Beth’s mouth. “OK.”
    Annie clapped her hands together. “Great. Are you in, Alice?”
    “Sorry, not for Monday. I have a Divine Décor party at eleven and then a Princessa jewelry party at three. Some of us have to work, you know.”
    Annie wrinkled her nose.