Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) by Alice Loweecey Page B

Giulia, Mac was about to be disappointed. Her upper-management ire was cake compared to one of the convent’s spiritual reviews. Giulia had survived five nuns with the most authority grilling her on how deeply she embodied Franciscan ideals, how the world viewed her as what a true, proper, devout Sister should be, and their dissection of the holiness of her spiritual life. Annually.
    A client going all self-righteous and “I’m in charge” at her? A Care Bear.
    The next moment, the tension snapped. Mac’s lips reappeared as she said, “I’m much too used to ordering people around.” The flush receded. “A hazard of being queen of all I survey, I suppose. Why hire an expert if I’m not going to listen to you? I can’t get those lists until I have my laptop again, but I can get you the possible start date of my troubles. I’ll be right back.”
    Giulia stood and walked back into the entrance hall to inspect the watercolors hanging there. The sunsets and fishing boats and lighthouses in all four seasons shrieked “amateur.” Sure enough, “Mac” and a date hugged the lower right-hand corner of each painting. Eh. Giulia’s hobby was growing her own food. No finger-pointing here.
    “Where are you? I found it. Oh. When I have any free time, which isn’t often, I drag out the easel and floppy hat and go all artiste on the lawn. Here.”
    Giulia took the newspaper dated this past May fourteenth. Mac pointed to the callout above the masthead. “This Week’s Local Spotlight: The Stone’s Throw B&B: Page 8.”
    “The paper ran one article a week in the month before Memorial Day,” she said. “My article didn’t go viral or anything, but I got reservations from a handful of first-timers.”
    Giulia scanned the article as Mac kept talking. “I pulled out all the stops: Great-Grandpa’s lighthouse where none was needed. The legend of the family gold. The family ghost’s death and haunting. The eager young intern was astounded that an old lady ran this place all by herself.”
    “That astonishment comes across in his writing.”
    “I know. He made me into a combination of Wonder Woman and Julia Child.”
    Giulia kept reading.
      
    Mac Stone’s great-great-great-grandfather, Joshua Aloysius Stone, spent his life despoiling rich travelers. That’s right, readers. Our peaceful tourist haven boasts a descendant of a real Wild West highwayman. He was a fastidious highwayman, according to his great-great-great-granddaughter: He only took the travelers’ gold. Alas, the law caught up with him and hanged him for his deeds. But our Mac says the family has an enduring legend of Joshua Aloysius’ secret hoard.
    “No one’s ever found it,” she told this reporter as we stood high up on the Widow’s Walk of Stone’s Throw lighthouse. “As kids we were told our family black sheep revealed the location of the gold to his wife before he died, but no other Stone has ever found it.”
    As Mac finished my tour of her luxurious yet affordable inn, I asked her about the Herculean labor she undertook when she chose to turn the abandoned Stone house into a working Bed and Breakfast.
    “It didn’t come cheap,” Mac said as we watched the sun set over Conneaut Lake from Stone’s Throw’s flagged patio. “People have asked me if I had to discover that stash of highwayman’s gold to pay for all of this, but the truth is I emptied fifty years’ worth of savings to make Stone’s Throw happen.”
      
    Giulia looked up from the newspaper. From that suspicious pocket, Mac brought out a single gold coin. “Behold the Stone family treasure. One Liberty five-dollar gold coin. Depending on which collector I show it to, it’s worth between two hundred fifty and four hundred dollars.”
    “So you’ve embellished a colorful legend?” Giulia handed the paper back to her.
    Mac chuckled. “That’s a polite way of saying I’m a big fat liar.”
    Giulia’s “displeased teacher” face appeared. “That’s not at all what