Shadows on a Maine Christmas (Antique Print Mystery Series Book 7) by Lea Wait Page A

but he was happy to be a good listener to someone with three young children?
    “I do. But you’re here to see this wonderful home. Or business,” Jo added quickly. “I always think of this place as a home, but of course, it was set up as a business and that’s what Will has in mind, too.” She hesitated. “The electricity is on, but the heat is turned just high enough so the pipes don’t freeze. Will, you’ve been here so many times before. Would you like me to leave you here by yourselves for an hour or so? I could come back and lock up then.”
    “Thank you. I’d like that, Jo,” said Will.
    “Then I’ll go and do my grocery shopping before they’re all sold out of the kids’ favorite cereal and popcorn. That always seems to happen when we get a snow day. And I have a couple of errands for Santa to do, too. See you in about an hour. If you finish before then, turn off the lights so I know you’ve left, and close the door.” She touched him on the arm (does a businesslike realtor do that?) and left.
    “She seems…nice,” said Maggie.
    “She is. She’s a friend of my cousin Rachel’s. And she’s been very patient with me. I’ve been in and out of here for a couple of months now. Luckily, no other buyer has been as interested, so I haven’t had pressure to make up my mind. But if I’m going to get any kind of business up and running by next summer I have to make an offer soon.”
    “You’ve done some serious thinking about this,” Maggie said, resolving not to make any other comments about Jo unless she knew more. No matter how tempted she was. But the way Jo Heartwood had looked at Will definitely had put her on high alert.
    She swallowed hard and walked into the room on the right. “I remember this place when it was crammed with antiques. It looks a lot bigger empty.”
    Will grinned. “Enormous, isn’t it? Almost every room has a fireplace. None of them are lined so they’re not safe to use now, but they’d be showcases for my fireplace and kitchen inventory. And come back to the main hall again.” He pointed up. “The front staircase goes all the way to the third floor, and then a smaller staircase goes to the tower room above that.”
    “I remember that.” Maggie smiled. “I loved that little room. Glass all around, and a great view of the harbor and the village. If I’d lived in this house that would have been my hideaway.”
    “All the rooms on the second and third floors on the south side have great harbor views. Walter English squeezed as many dealers as possible in here, so no one ever noticed. If each dealer had one room, we could emphasize the views.”
    Maggie walked down the hallway, peeking into what had been the dining room and the sitting room. “But the work these rooms will need, Will. Taking down the layers and layers of wallpaper. Removing the heavy paint on the wonderful old woodwork so you can really see it. And the size and numbers of windows are wonderful, but dealers would want even more light. The place might have to be totally rewired.”
    “It would. I’m thinking of starting on the first floor, and trying to get that, and the new roof, taken care of so I could open at least a few rooms by summer. The second floor could be worked on more gradually, and other dealers added later.”
    Maggie found herself getting more enthusiastic as they walked through the house, and Will pointed out details like the laundry chute and the dumbwaiter, both of which went all the way to the third floor. “Probably to serve the needs of a nursery,” said Maggie, musing about why such things would have been installed. “I can’t imagine servants being provided with a dumbwaiter.”
    “There are only a few closets, of course,” Will pointed out. “But for a business, that isn’t a problem. And I keep hoping to find a secret passageway. But so far I haven’t pressed the right spot on the woodwork.”
    Maggie looked at him. “Of course, if the business doesn’t do