"Let me help!" Together, we pulled out the rock and laid it down on the stone floor. Bethany shone the light of her phone into the opening.
"It looks like some kind of old radio," she said as the light flashed on brass dials and a dusty wooden case.
"It is," I said. I could tell from the size of it that a few more rocks would have to come out to use it; sure enough, the ones beneath the one we had moved were also unmortared. "It's even got headphones."
"Why would someone hide a radio down here?" she asked.
"Rumrunners needed to communicate," I said. "I'll bet this is how he hid it from his wife."
"Wow," she breathed. "I wonder what else is here?"
"Let's find out," I said, and together we removed the rest of the loose stones. When we were done, she shone her light around the radio. There were a few cigarette butts in one corner, and something shiny. I picked it up and turned it over in the light from Bethany's flashlight. It was a Wheat Penny from 1913. "No one's opened this for a long time," she breathed.
"Nope. It's not treasure, but it's an indicator that not all the rumors are wrong."
"Let's put the rock back and look some more," she said. As she spoke, the bell rang upstairs.
"Coming!" I hollered, and together we heaved the rock back into place and headed up to the shop.
We didn't make many sales, but we had a lot of what my mother used to call "lookie-loos" in and out. Bethany had to go home, so we abandoned further inspection of the cellar for now, but my interest was definitely piqued; I planned to do some research on rum running soon, to see what the radio was all about.
Things were slow for a bit, at least long enough for me to get the baking started. I'd just started measuring out flour when the bell at the door downstairs rang (I hung it on the doorknob when I had to go upstairs) and I heard Denise's voice ring out.
"I'm upstairs baking!" I called down. "Come keep me company!"
"I brought scones," she said. "We can eat them while we wait for whatever you make to come out of the oven. What are you baking?"
"Chocolate toffee bars," I told her as she bounded up the stairs, bringing a buoyant, sunshiny energy with her. I smiled just seeing her; for a moment, it was as if all the decades, with their joys and heartbreaks, had never happened, and we were both twelve years old again. "Tell me more about those scones!"
"Cranberry walnut," she said. "With clotted cream on the side."
"No. Really? I haven't had that since I visited England and went to a tea room in the Cotswolds!"
"Good for the soul, if not the waistline," she said. "I brought coffee, too, of course."
"Of course," I said, smiling. "I made a big pot of French Roast this morning; it was amazing. I don't know if you heard about the excitement here last night, but it made it hard to sleep."
"No. What happened?"
As she pulled two plates from the shelves above the sink and laid out the scones, I told her what had happened.
"And the police think you somehow faked the break-in? Why?"
"I don't know," I said. "But there was no broken window when someone was in the store the other night, although I can't swear that the back door was locked."
"Maybe they got lucky the first time and had to break in the second time," Denise suggested.
"Maybe. But what were they looking for?"
She shrugged. "Hard to know, but maybe we should do some poking around for secret compartments ourselves."
"Bethany and I did that today," I said. "In the cellar. We found an old radio hidden in a rock wall; I'm guessing the rum runners used it to communicate."
"Not exactly treasure, but that's really cool," she said. "Think that's what whoever it was was looking for?"
"I doubt it," I said. "But who knows?"
"I'm just glad they weren't in your cozy little apartment here," she said. "It does look good, by the way. That sea glass mobile in the window is gorgeous!"
"Thanks," I told her with a smile, looking at the mobile I'd made from a piece of driftwood we'd found on the beach when the girls were little, with strings of blue, green, and brown glass dangling down from it: blue at the top for sky, green in the middle for the water, and brown at the bottom for the sand. “I made it with my girls many years ago," I said, "from glass we picked up in on the shore in the summers."
"How are they doing with everything, by the way?" Denise asked as I combined the flour, brown sugar, and salt for the cookie base.
I sighed. "I think they're both okay," I said, "but Caroline is struggling with it more than Audrey. I get the impression she's not sure who to be angry at. I don't know if Ted is having the same experience I am—we haven't talked much the past few months, trying to get some separation—but I know it's been hard on her."
"And Audrey?"
"She seems relieved that the tension is gone," I said as I cut butter into the flour mixture and reached for the eggs. "Honestly, I wish I could say what went wrong. I still care for Ted, and he cares for me... we just hit a point where all the years of disconnection and frustration built up so much that neither of us could figure out a way to break down that wall. It's like once you have so many bricks, it's no longer possible to see over it to the
