Hide Yourself Away Read Free Page A

markdown at the DSW Shoe Warehouse, looked second-rate and hopelessly boring.
    “Yeah, Newport can be fun, if you know where to go and what to do.” Jocelyn swept her hand back through her long, black, expensively cut hair.
    “Well, that should keep you in good stead with the folks around here, Jocelyn.”
    “Call me Joss.” She brightened. “And, yes, I’m counting on that. In fact, I’m going up there tonight so I’ll be there a little early to help out. I want to make myself invaluable to them when we’re there next week. I really want to be the one who gets the full-time job when the internship is over.”
    You’re not the only one, thought Grace, her heart sinking at the idea of Jocelyn’s advantage. You’re not the only one.
    Just one was going to be selected from this summer’s intern crop to get a staff position as an assistant producer. Everything depended on performance, and Grace was determined to give it her all. She really needed to get that job.

  CHAPTER  
2
    Professor Gordon Cox pulled the document from his faculty mailbox and scanned the faxed information. He would go over the KEY News schedule in depth later. Right now he had a class to teach.
    He paused before the large, ornately framed mirror and checked his appearance. A full head of silver hair complemented his dark eyes and golden tan. He may have gone totally gray a bit prematurely, but he liked the effect. A distinguished, debonair scholar, attractive to the impressionable coeds.
    If only he could impress Agatha Wagstaff the way he did the coeds. With the discovery of the bones, Agatha was threatening to pull the plug on the renovations of the old slave tunnel if it turned out to be her sister’s tomb. Gordon’s pet project for the seventeen years he had been teaching at Salve Regina Universitywas going to come to a screeching halt, and he was in knots about it.
    Opening the Shepherd’s Point tunnel to the public was a cause célèbre in history circles, and Gordon, as the driving force behind the project, had made a name for himself in the preservation community. He had heard he was up for the Stipplewood Prize, but he supposed he could kiss that and his legacy goodbye now. Agatha was as crazy as a loon, and she had always been skeptical about opening her precious tunnel for the delight of the masses. What chance was there that she’d go ahead with the plan if the tunnel turned out to have been her own sister’s final resting place for the last fourteen years?
    The thought that all his planning, and cajoling of Agatha, and attention to her niece, Madeleine, and her mother, Charlotte, before her—not to mention all his research, monographs, and speaking engagements—that all of it would come to naught had depressed him, deeply.
    Still, Gordon knew that his was a dream job. To have the opportunity to open the eyes of others to all the cultural and historical splendor that surrounded them. To revel in his passion— and be paid for the privilege.
    Of course, the pay could be better. That was why he always volunteered to teach during the summer session. He had no desire to leave Newport anyway, in this, the high season. If millionaires had chosen the historic City by the Sea as the place to build their “summer cottages,” it was certainly good enough for him. Why should he go away in the most gorgeous months? No,he took his trips during the winter and spring breaks. In July and August he was content to stay right here.
    Just like Charlotte Sloane.

    Gordon hadn’t called ahead of time to see if it was all right to bring a group of students to Shepherd’s Point. He didn’t want to risk Agatha’s refusal to allow entry to the grounds of the rambling Victorian mansion built atop acres of rolling farmland at the tip of Newport.
    “Go ahead,” he instructed as the driver slowed down at the gates. “Drive right through and over to the playhouse.” As the van rocked across the dirt road worn by the excavating equipment,