“But Brooke was a sharp old gal. She must have had some good reason for willing it to you, rather than to Lucy.”

“But I’m not sure that I can afford to keep it,” Chelsea answered. “The taxes, the maintenance . . .”

“Don’t worry about all that,” Allistaire answered. “There’s enough escrow money—which, by the way, is now also under your control—to cover the expenses for a long time. And there are additional funds set aside in Brooke’s will, should you need them. Plus, the property is completely unencumbered.”

“So I can sell it, if I want?” Chelsea asked.

As Allistaire leaned back again, his chair hinges squeaked pleasantly. “Sure,” he answered. “But you should at least go and look at it. Who knows? You might like it.”

Chelsea doubted that, because she had never been the outdoors type. She didn’t particularly like hiking or boating, the only place she had ever caught a fish was in her supermarket basket, and her most adventurous experience with wildlife had been raising Dolly, her beloved golden retriever.

While Chelsea considered his advice, Allistaire admired her. She was a tall, single, and attractive woman of thirty-three. Chelsea was a respected and tenured art teacher at a local Syracuse high school, and she loved her work. Though he was a confirmed bachelor, whenever Allistaire saw Chelsea, he sharply lamented their insurmountable age difference.

For his part, Allistaire Reynolds had long been a partner at Grayson & Stone, LLC, and he had handled the Enright family’s affairs for decades. The Enrights were wealthy by Syracuse standards, and as is so often the case with people of substance, they had suffered their share of thorny legal issues.

“Okay,” Chelsea said. “So I’ve inherited Gram’s cottage. I know that it’s somewhere up in the Adirondacks, but that’s about all.”

Allistaire opened the folder on his desk and took from it a weathered envelope, which he handed to Chelsea.

“Maybe this will help,” he said. “Provided you had reached the age of thirty, your grandmother stipulated that immediately after her death, you should be given this letter in private. That’s largely why I asked you to come here today. I wasn’t made privy to what the letter says, but perhaps it will provide some answers about all this. It’s been in this firm’s possession for a long time.”

As Chelsea stared at the yellowed envelope, she correctly surmised that it was a product of a different era. In her unmistakable penmanship, Brooke had addressed it with an old-fashioned fountain pen. Curiously, it read, “To My New Granddaughter.”

“I suggest that you read it now,” Allistaire said. “And with your permission, I should probably read it too. There might be something in there that affects my duties in all this.” Smiling, he produced a letter opener and handed it to her.

Her grief suddenly returning in full, Chelsea slit open the yellowed envelope. Inside she found two sharply folded sheets of her grandmother’s personal stationery and a small, nickel-plated key. Like the envelope, the pages had been written upon with a fountain pen:

My Dearest Child,

Forgive me for how I address you in this missive, but you were born just today, and your parents have yet to christen you. If you are reading this, I am at last gone from this world. Do not mourn me unduly, for my life was full—far more so, in fact, than you ever knew.

By now, you realize that you have inherited my property on Lake Evergreen. You may trust in everything that Allistaire tells you, but for reasons that will eventually become clear, you must not allow him—or anyone else—to read this letter. For now, all I can tell you is that I have willed the cottage to you, rather than to your mother, because I am hoping that when you grow older, your capacity for forgiveness will be the greater one.