Page 21 of The Pumpkin Patch Sisters

Dahlia did not let the matter drop. She waited until Teddy and Prue had moved toward the pantry to fetch the wooden harvest crates, then she followed Nell toward the quiet corner of the rear porch where the older woman had gone to collect her other empty wicker basket from the past two days of deliveries.

"The door on the cabinet is reinforced," Dahlia said, her voice low and steady as she stopped near the porch railing. "It was built directly into the main timber frame of the cider barn, hidden behind the utility shelving. Someone went to incredible lengths to make sure it remained completely out of sight. If there was nothing of importance inside, why would Mom not have told anyone about it. Why if it had been built years ago alongside the barn does it have a new padlock on it?"

Nell didn’t look at Dahlia. She kept her fingers wrapped tightly around the willow handle of her basket. Her dark shawl was pulled tight around her shoulders, her body held in a rigid, defensive posture. When Nell still didn’t say anything Dahlia continued.

“Could the deeds to the extra six acres that are not accounted for anywhere else be there?” Dahlia refused to back off. She was determined to get to the truth. “Or perhaps an explanation to what those old stone cottages are up on the ridge?”

Nell’s head flew toward Dahlia. Her eyes widened with a flash of panic that was quickly masked.

“You do know that this farm is in trouble, right?” Dahlia persisted. “That if I can’t find anything on those extra six acres we are in trouble.”

"The boundaries of this property were never my concern," Nell replied, her voice flat, carrying an artificial calm that did not match the tightness of her jaw. "The deeds, the surveys, the county tax records—those were matters for a lawyer and a land surveyor, not for me. I never involved myself in the technical details of the land or your parents' legal arrangements with the town clerk."

"Come on, Nell.” Exasperation exploded through Dahlia’s chest. Why was this woman so stubborn? What is she hiding? “You know everything that happened on this farm." She moved a fraction closer, trying to catch the older woman's elusive gaze. "You know about the cedar fence line on the north ridge, and you know who helped string that wire. There is no way Mom raised those massive timber beams alone, and she did not build that hidden panel alone. There are six additional acres to this property that do not appear on any official maps, and I know you know exactly why they were left off."

Nell's jaw tightened, her chin rising as she finally looked up, her dark eyes flashing with a sudden, defensive heat.

“Your mother was a woman who kept her own secrets, and she had every right to do so. Some things are better left quiet, rather than being dragged into the open where they can only cause unnecessary trouble. If there is a locked compartment in the barn, it is best to leave it locked," Nell huffed.

"We have a responsibility to know what we are protecting," Dahlia insisted, her fingers curling against the cold iron of the door latch. "The farm is facing severe debts, and we cannot afford to protect secrets that might threaten the property."

"I have somewhere to be," Nell cut her off sharply, her voice final as she pulled her shawl tighter around her frame. She shifted the empty wicker basket to her other hand, her knuckles white. "I have an appointment in town before the midday rush begins, and I’m already running late. I can’t stand here discussing old tax records and ancient history when there is a business to run."

The screen door creaked open, and Junie came onto the porch, carrying a clean bundle of sorting tags. She looked between Dahlia and Nell, immediately sensing the tension that vibrated in the small space. With a calm, placating gesture, Junie set her hand on the older woman's arm, her voice gentle.

"I’m headed out to the cider barn to set up the sorting tables, let me help you with those baskets, Nell," Junie offered, her tone warm as she sought to defuse the rising argument.

Nell nodded, her face relaxing slightly under the younger woman's gentle touch, though her expression remained guarded as she glanced at Dahlia. "Thank you. Please make sure the display stands are ready. The tourists will be here soon."

Dahlia stood silent on the porch, watching them go, the frustration in her chest a cold and knotty pressure. She had spent her entire professional life finding clean, logical solutions to complex problems, but here in the valley, every answer seemed to be hidden behind a defensive wall of silence.

The sound of Nell's car door shutting echoed through the porch screens, a sound that signaled the end of their conversation. Dahlia did not hesitate. The moment the sound of the starting engine began to hum against the gravel, she turned and crossed the dining room, heading straight toward the small parlor at the front of the farmhouse.

The cherry writing desk sat in the corner between the double windows, its dark wood catching the thin morning light. It was the one place where her mother had always kept her personal correspondence, her tax logs, and the old diaries that her sisters had only briefly examined during the initial sorting of the estate. If there was a key to the padlock in the cider barn, it would be hidden here, tucked away in one of the narrow, velvet-lined drawers or behind the secret compartments her mother had loved to use for important documents.

Dahlia pulled out the wooden chair, her fingers catching the cool brass pulls of the lower drawers. The seasoned cherry wood gave way with a dry wood-on-wood scrape. She began to sift through the contents, her hands moving with a methodical, corporate efficiency as she organized the papers into neat piles on the desk surface. There were old seed catalogs from decades past with faded illustrations of pumpkins and squash, yellowed tax bills from the county clerk, and a bundle of handwritten receipts for fertilizer and fencing timber. Every document was labeled in her mother's neat, looped handwriting, but none of them bore any reference to the north ridge, the cabin, or the extra six acres.

She opened the top drawer, sliding her fingers along the back corners where a small key might have been taped or tucked beneath the paper lining. There was only a box of old steel paperclips, a dried inkwell, a small silver magnifying glass, and a stack of blank postcards from Boston. The lack of results only fueled her frustration, a knot of restless energy tightening in her chest.

A sudden change in the engine's rhythm drew her attention. Through the parlor window, Dahlia watched Nell's blue sedan crawl down the long gravel driveway, its tires kicking up small plumes of damp gray dust. The vehicle did not head straight out onto Marchetti Lane as she had expected. Instead, it slowed to a crawl and came to a stop near the edge of the property, right beside the row of three rusted letter boxes that stood near the end of the drive. One was the silver farm box, one was the black neighbor's box, and the last was a pale green box that had been abandoned for years.

Dahlia moved closer to the glass, her fingers resting against the cold pane of the window, her breath fogging the surface.

Nell climbed out of the sedan, her dark wool shawl draped tightly over her shoulders. She did not look back toward the farmhouse. She went straight to the pale green letter box, the middle one in the row, which had been abandoned for years after the postal route had been consolidated. Nell opened the rusted metal door, reaching her hand deep into the dark cavity. She checked the interior, her fingers sweeping the empty metal before she closed the door with a flick of her wrist.

Before climbing back into her vehicle, Nell paused. She stood by the open door of her car, her body turning slowly. Dahlia watched as the older woman cast a long, lingering glance toward the north ridge, where the dark silhouette of the hemlocks rose against the gray morning sky. Then, her gaze shifted, tracking slowly across the open fields until it rested on the weathered siding of the cider barn.

The silence of the parlor was absolute as Dahlia watched the blue sedan finally pull out onto the main road and disappear behind the treeline.

A sudden, chilling realization settled in the chest of Dahlia. The locked cabinet in the barn was not an empty relic of the past, and it was not a hiding place for emergency cash. It held secrets. Secrets that were directly connected to the unrecorded acres on the north ridge. The locked cabinet held the key to everything they had found, and Dahlia knew she would not rest until she found a way to open it.

DAHLIA

The dawn mist cleared slowly, revealing a line of cars already snaking down Marchetti Lane. Dahlia stood under the canvas canopy of the main farm stand, holding a wooden clipboard stacked with printed documents. The paper schedules felt like a necessary shield. If she focused entirely on the placement of pumpkin displays and crowd-control diagrams, she didn't have to think about the locked cabinet in the barn. Nell's silent lies at the kitchen table, or the unsettling sight of her stopping to check the pale green mailbox at the edge of the drive. Most of all, Dahlia didn't have to confront the quiet weight of Beckett's confession from the night of the storm, which had left her chest tight and aching with a suffocating panic she couldn't shake.

Dahlia had spent three days drafting a detailed operating plan for today's Marchetti Pumpkin Patch opening day, mapping out designated lanes to keep visitors moving smoothly from the parking pasture to the pumpkin fields. It was a perfect business solution, a clean division of labor.

But her neat schedules didn't account for the sudden surge of families that poured through the gate the moment the clock struck nine.