Unspoken by Dee Henderson

still miss him. Hang back a moment while I say hello and get them settled.” Charlotte walked to the porch, and the oldest of the dogs brought her a knotted rope. She knelt and played tug-of-war for a moment, then ruffled his ears and kissed him. She tossed tennis balls for the other dogs to chase. “Come on up. They’re friendly, just rightfully cautious of strangers.”
    Bryce joined her on the porch and hunkered down to greet the older one.
    “The dogs are content now living with the foreman, but I’ve asked if he would bring them out here when it’s convenient for him so they can enjoy the lake and what used to be their home. He’s fishing at the moment—that’s his van and boat trailer down by the dock. He’ll take them home with him when he’s done.”
    Charlotte unlocked the back door to the house and turned off the security. “I’m in the middle of packing up the house. It’s been hit or miss on my priority list depending on what elsewe’ve found to deal with, so some rooms have been emptied out, others I haven’t touched yet. I’m currently working in what was previously the library.”
    Bryce followed her into a large room, where built-in bookshelves on two of the walls were now nearly empty. He saw the coins John had mentioned neatly lined up on a table in the center of the room. Several dozen more coins were stacked on the bottom shelf of one of the bookcases.
    “What’s here is the start of group three. I’ve packed the first hundred-plus coins”—she gestured to the boxes on the far wall—“but you’re welcome to open the boxes and go through them. The ones here still to be wrapped will get me up to about two fifty, the rest I’m still gathering out of various safes. Fred believed in numerous safes, well hidden, instead of one general vault.”
    She glanced at the time. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some dinner. I’ll go over to the diner and get something to bring back for us. Do you mind if I leave you here for about an hour? The trip is twenty minutes; the conversations that will inevitably happen with people are the other forty.”
    “I’ll be fine here, Charlotte.”
    “There is surprisingly good internet access in this house. Feel free to check your email, call your office—whatever you need, the computer is on. The kitchen is fair game too, although I think I packed the glasses last week by mistake. There should be sodas in the refrigerator, and a stack of paper cups beside the paper towels. Help yourself to whatever you can find.” She left with a smile, and after she left, the sounds of an empty house settled around him.
    Bryce walked over to the table to look at the coins. Several caught his attention, but he stopped when he saw the middle set. The first of the Flowing Hair half-dollars he had seen in the collection. She had two of them. Only 294,000 ever minted in the year 1795, and she had two. He just stood and lookedand let that realization settle inside. He’d never seen an estate like this one. He’d have a buyer at eighteen thousand for one of them, and probably get a bidding war for the other at twenty-six thousand.
    He scanned the other coins on the table, ran the math. Three million, maybe three million two, if the rest of the coins in group three were like these.
    He wished Charlotte had simply called him and let him do this work for her. She should have a staff of people helping her, and yet she was ordering her days to do the work herself. Part of it he was beginning to understand. She thought of the coins in the same way she thought of the hurricane lamps and the Mason jars—as responsibilities to sell for her grandfather. Because somewhere under the weight of this was the realization she was now very wealthy, and this wasn’t a woman accustomed to being wealthy. How did you help someone accept wealth? Then again, he wasn’t sure he wanted her to learn.
    Bryce picked up the roll of tape and put together another box. He could at least