Chapter Three
A Deepening Mystery
Carla woke. She was lying in Quinn's bed. Quinn was gone. She wondered how he did that? He seemed to waken before her every day. He must need far less sleep than she did. As she became aware of her surroundings, she realized two things. She was surrounded by the smell of old sex and sweat. Her chains had been removed. For a brief moment, she felt a pang of disappointment at the lack. They had somehow made the sex all the more exciting.
Rolling to her feet, she made her way to the door. It was a sign of how used to her current circumstances she was, that she never thought twice about walking out into the hall in her present state to go to her room. That was where her bathing supplies were and that was where she needed to be. She met no one on the way and didn't even realize what she had done until she was in the tub soaking.
Quickly determining that her clothes were still gone, she padded to the dining room. She knew from the fact that she could not see the sun through her window that it was well after breakfast, but she was hoping to arrive in time for lunch. The dining room table was empty and clean. Peeking her head into the kitchen, she saw Juan fixing something.
"Juan. How long until lunch?"
"Miss Carla. Good morning. Lunch is still two hours away."
"Thank you. Could you ask Bonita to come and get me from upstairs when it is ready. I don't want to miss two meals in a row."
"Yes, miss. I will have her do that."
"Is Quinn in the house?"
"No, miss. He is in the fields."
"Thank you Juan."
Carla walked upstairs to the rooms of secrets, secrets that would hopefully tell her who Quinn was. She went over what she knew so far as she made the short trip. Quinn was a man who believed that he was entitled to whatever he wanted. That was clear from the way he kept her captive. He was also a man in pain. There was an M in his past, someone he apparently lost in some way. Carla was his "second chance." Quinn had loved M, that was clear from the jewelry. The missing piece; what was the significance of the brooch from the set of jewelry that was gone? What happened to M? What was behind the locked basement door? How did Quinn's mother fit in to everything?
Carla had searched only one room of boxes so far, and that was the smallest. She decided to leave the room with the boxes of books for last. Not only did it have the largest quantity of boxes to search, she knew that she would be unable to resist perusing the books themselves. It also struck her as unlikely that a woman who loved to display her books so openly would have a secret that needed to be hidden behind locked doors.
There were seven rooms on the second floor. Two were bedrooms with en suite baths, including the one that she had already searched. One, located in a corner, was entirely glass on every exterior wall. She mentally called that room the conservatory. The fourth room she labeled the gaming room, since it had a pool table, a casino style card table and a dart board in it. The fifth room became known as the exercise room, thanks to several modern pieces of exercise equipment stored in it. The last two rooms were full of boxes. The one with all the books she named the library and the last room, based on the presence of three separate walk in closets (all empty) was christened the changing room.
The conservatory seemed to be the easiest room to go through. It only had five boxes in it. The heavy drapes that had covered the windows were already gone, placed on a shelf in the changing room closets when she had cleaned. Opening the first box, she found clay pots, dozens of clay pots stacked inside one another. Lifting one out, she saw that it had holes in the bottom. It seemed this may well have been a conservatory. Looking around, she saw the numerous shelves along the walls in a new light.
Not certain why, just knowing that it was what she
should
do, Carla unpacked all of the pots, setting them on shelves. At the bottom of the box, under the pots, were shallow clay dishes of various sizes. She quickly put two and two together and recognized the bases for the flowerpots she had just unpacked. In short order these were placed under the pots.
Opening the other four boxes, she found two more full of flower pots, more than the shelves could accommodate. The other two had an assortment of chains, planks and metal in them. Sorting the chains, she realized that they were in triples and must have been intended to hold flower pots. Looking closer at the ceiling, she noticed hooks. "Ah," she thought to herself. "Hanging flower pots." She set each chain hanger and a pot for it aside, unable to reach the ceiling right then.
Laying out the planks and metal items, she tried to make sense of them all. A close look at the planks showed that they all had screw holes in the sides. A memory came to her and she rearranged the pieces she had. There was everything needed to create three sets of shelves, five feet high, three shelves on each. Everything, that is, except for screws. Whoever had packed these things away had not kept the screws. Why keep the shelf materials but not the screws to rebuild them with?
Carla left the room and headed downstairs. She met Bonita on the stairs.
"Miss Carla. Juan asked me to tell you that lunch is ready."
"Thank you Bonita."
Quinn was there for lunch. He seemed somewhat subdued, less talkative. He was clearly distracted by something. She didn't say anything and after lunch, went outside. She found the man she was looking for outside. Carlos was using a hand trimmer on the shrubbery along the fence.
"Excuse me Carlos. May I ask a favor?"