Free A Groom wirh a View by Jill Churchill Page A

somebody would have found it by now. And Jack must have gone through his father’s records very closely. It would be tricky to convert very much cash to something secret without having a paper trail. Oh, Jane, turn left here.”
    Wanda’s Bait and Party Shoppe was something of a disappointment. It was a tiny combination of convenience store, old-fashioned dime store, and sports shop. Everything was dusty and antiquated, including the elderly clerk who they assumed was Wanda herself. Shelley bought a fishing reel for her husband Paul in the belief that it might actually be an antique that he’d get a kick out of.
    Jane found a tube of Tangee lipstick. “It’s probably dried up into a little orange pebble,“ she admitted, “but I used to love the stuff. My mother wore it and the smell was wonderful.”
    When they got back in the car, Jane said, “I don’t suppose there’s a McDonald’s anywhere near, is there? I need a hash brown. Comfort food.”
    Eden wrinkled her nose. “Those things are greasy, salty, and starchy.“
    “That’s what I said. Comfort food.”
    They found one on the main highway and Shelley and Eden had coffee while Jane wolfed down her food. “I’ve been thinking about this treasure,“ Shelley said. “What could you convert cash into that wouldn’t be obvious?“
    “Jewels?“ Eden suggested. “They’d be easy to conceal without taking up obvious space. Or a rare stamp collection? Stamps are small and flat and can be worth a lot.“
    “You could buy bonds and hide them,“ Jane said after some thought. Suddenly her eyes lit up. “The missing pictures!”
    “What missing pictures?“ Eden asked.
    “Those hunting scenes in the main room of the lodge,“ Jane explained. “Last night they were missing. This morning they were back in place. If the aunts really do believe there’s a treasure, they might have been taking the pictures apart to see if some kind of valuable documents or stamps were hidden behind them. That would explain all the rustling and whispering.“
    “Wait a minute,“ Shelley said. “We’re putting the cart before the horse. Why would O. W. have hidden anything in the first place?”
    Eden had the answer to that. “Tax scam.”
    Shelley nodded. “Oh, right. To pass valuable stuff on to his heirs without paying estate and inheritance taxes. Of course. Okay, I’ll buy that. But if he had invested big sums in something secret, why didn’t he tell them about it?”
    Eden shrugged. “If it happened at all, maybe he just told Jack, not trusting the aunts to manage their money well without Jack supervising.“ She thought for a moment. “No, probably not. After O. W. died, Jack did some pretty heavy borrowing to bring Novelties up to speed. New warehouses, computerized ordering, color catalogs instead of the old crummy newsprint black and white—that kind of thing. My dad invested in Jack and Novelties back then, and has always been pretty smug about how well it paid off. If Jack had possessed a secret fortune, he could have used it instead of borrowing.“
    “Maybe not,“ Shelley commented. “That would have been a tip-off to the I.R.S. that there was some financial hanky-panky going on.”
    Eden leaned back and frowned. “It’s all so long ago. And because my dad didn’t believe there was a treasure, I guess I didn’t either. It would be fun if there were one, though. Oh... I think O. W. went a bit gaga at the end. A stroke or something. Hung on for another six months or so, but was a bit on the vegetable side.“
    “Which could account for why he didn’t tell anyone about the treasure—if there really was one,“ Shelley said. “He could have simply forgotten about it.“
    “I still don’t see how you could hide a lot of money from the I.R.S. that way,“ Jane said. “It would be bound to show up in the bookkeeping somewhere, wouldn’t it?”
    Shelley shook her head. “Not if you’re patient and determined. Say the old boy had taken a thousand