“Where is all that money?” he squealed. “She must have it stashed away somewhere. Or she has a separate bank account I don’t know about.” He shook his head and continued mumbling. “It’s more likely she stashed it. She never planned for this marriage to last.”

He got up from his desk and stormed out of the room without a glance at his grandparents’ faces. He was too ashamed to look at them. How could he have been so careless?

If she hid that money in this house, I’m going to find it, he thought. I’ll go from room to room and tear everything apart. He stopped in his tracks as he approached the grand staircase. Could she have hidden money somewhere in the loft? He had taken pains to make sure it was completely cleared out on moving day. Everything she’d left there was now in the guest room. Her purses, clothes, yoga mat.

No use thinking about the loft now, he decided as he grabbed the polished wood banister and charged up the steps. First things first.

He knew that money had to be somewhere.

And as Grandpa Spreckles used to say, “It’s not always about the money, it’s about the principle involved.”

You’ve got that right Grandpa, Conrad thought wildly. He strode into the guest room, opened the closet door, and reached for the first in the preposterously long lineup of Lorraine’s designer handbags.

12

B efore the blackout hit, Rod had been chatting amiably with his two employees as they rode home together from Connecticut in the company van. Frank and Wally had worked for Rod for years. They were both single and in their early thirties. Rod had just turned forty and was the father of two young children. The three of them lived not far from each other in northern New Jersey, where they’d all grown up.

“This job is a piece of cake, isn’t it?” Rod asked rhetorically as they tooled down the highway. “And Mrs. Spreckles certainly put out a nice spread at lunchtime. When you think the way some clients don’t even offer us a morsel, not even a drop of water…”

“She likes to talk,” Frank commented, himself a man of few words.

“That she does.” Rod laughed. He was always cheerful which was amazing, considering how often he had to listen to people yell at him, sometimes quite heatedly, for not showing up when promised or still not having their homes finished months after the estimated completion date. Rod let it all roll off his back. His eyes never seemed to stop twinkling and his cherubic face was often lit up with a smile. The work he did, when it was finally completed, was always superb. Satisfied clients soon forgot their fury and recommended Rod to their friends.

“I mean really talk,” Frank said. “I was afraid she was going to fill us in on everything that has happened in her life since we were there ten years ago. She also asked a lot of questions about her ex-husband’s loft.”