"Letters?" Rosalie asked, taking some from me. She hastily pulled the paper from the envelope and began reading.

"To my dearest, I am truly sorry for having to go away and hope that we will be reunited soon. I do not wish for you to worry for me, as I am able bodied enough to take care of myself. And I ask that you please take care of yourself, and know I think of you often and dream of you always. Please wait for me, I am coming home as soon as is allowed and we will be reunited. All of my love forevermore, Jay," Rosalie read. "Who's Jay?"

"I don't know, maybe he owned the house? Whom is it addressed to?" I asked.

"CeeCee," she replied. "Cecilia? Maybe? I can't think of any other name that has two Cs."

"Yeah, sounds like Cecilia," I agreed. "I wonder if the historical society knows anything."

"I'm good friends with Alice, she works there," Rosalie said. "I'll call her."

Rose took out her phone and punched in the number, waiting. Finally someone picked up.

"Hi, Alice it's Rosalie," she said. She paused. "Yeah, I wanted to know if there was anyone around here over the last two centuries called Jay?"

Rose put the phone on speaker.

"Jay is a somewhat uncommon name," Alice replied. "I'm searching it now on the computer."

We waited, listening to her type and click.

"Three Jay's; Jay L. Wintergreen, Henry Jay Postle Junior and Jay M. Carter," she listed.

"Any of them have to do with seventeen Valor Street?"

"Not that I know of; their listed residences weren't close to or on that property," Alice replied. "Why?"

"I'm at the house with Bella and we dug up some old love letters in the basement. They're all signed J-A-Y," Rosalie explained.

"Maybe it's a nickname," Alice suggested. "I could look up all the people in town with a J in their name?"

"Ok, let's try that," Rose said.

I opened another letter, pulling it out.

To my dearest CeeCee,

I am writing because I have been engaged to the point of not being able to see you for such the extent of time that my heart, it quakes, fragile, at the thought of your sweet smile, your warm embrace. Of you. Oh, how I long to be with you again, I feel I could walk the pits of Hell itself without even batting an eyelash if I could see you at the other end! You make me so calm and so restless at the same time. You burn parts of me down with that soul-dissecting gaze and then raise me up, a better man from the ashes. I miss you, CeeCee, so terribly much! I cannot even describe the feeling in my chest at the utterance of your name. And I live only to see you, to please you, to love you! Those are the sole purposes God created me, regardless of the belief of any other person in this wide world. I am hurrying through my work like a tornado and am thinking of you, only you, every second we are parted. And soon, dear, I will return to embrace you and be comforted by your easy nature and unconditional affections. Please will you have your wonderful cookies for me when I get back? And we'll sit 'neath the starry skies and enjoy your fine cookery and one another's company. Clear your schedule for Wednesday April 4, I know it seems such a long time away, but I will be home before you know it!

All of my love, from the deepest parts of my heart and soul,

Jay

The letters were amazing. These people were really in love; or at least Jay really loved Cecilia. I fumbled with the other letters, searching for one from Cecilia. I found one with different hand writing dated October thirty first 1877.

Jay,

Hello my pet! You shocking creature! You never wrote me for my birthday! How could you! I'm ashamed to say I love you, you forgetful fool! How goes your trip? Is the Fall where you are as pretty as it is here at home? I got a beautiful book for my birthday, my Jay, it is called Anna Karenina. It is about a doomed romance between two lovers who can never be together. I hope that this is not the fate of our love; tragically wasted by false marriages and hateful wives. I miss you severely and wish only for you to come home to me. Why has this trip become so long? When will you be back? I tire of the company here and want, lust, for you my love.

Please come home.

Sincerely,

C.C.

This letter was signed with the initial C.C. rather than the word CeeCee. Perhaps there was some confusion between the two? But it would seem from their words that they had met before. I studied the way the word 'lust' was gone over repeatedly, to make it thick and dark… and urgent.

"Ok, there, in alphabetical order; Jean-Pierre Boudies, Jacques Govian, James Rosenthal, Johann Sturm, John Edgar, John Harmen, Jeremiah Thomas and Jasper Whitlock. All of them were alive around the time the house was built and had permanent residences listed in town, but none were at the house."

"So, maybe Cecilia was the one who lived here?" Rosalie said.

"I'm on it," Alice began typing furiously again. It didn't take long. "Only two Cecilia's in the whole town and none ever lived at the residence number seventeen Valor Avenue."

"Maybe she was a baby?"

"She wrote back," I said.

"Ah," Rose nodded. "So maybe CeeCee doesn't mean Cecilia?"

"Did you say C.C.?" Alice asked.

"That's who the letters are addressed too; C-E-E-C-E-E," Rosalie said.

"I don't know about CeeCee, but there was someone who lived at the house of the initials C-C," Alice said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Dr Carlisle Cullen," she replied. "Built the house for his mother who died before the construction was finished; lived in the home for only two years before he died aged twenty one in the year 1878."

"My God, he died young," Rose said, "How?"

"Hang on one second," Alice clicked a few things and then read what must have been a death certificate.

"Died on December seventh 1878 of exhaustion due to chronic recurring fits with which he battled all through the night only to fall asleep and not wake up in the wee hours of Friday morning," Alice read. "Not in those exact words, says the death certificate."

"God, so he was sick?" I asked.

"I suppose," Alice replied, "Maybe he had a birth defect or something like meningitis."

"Wow, that's so sad," I said.

"You two are missing the whole point of this," Rosalie said.

"What?" Alice and I asked at the same time.

She rolled her eyes, "Unless Jay is short for Jane, he was writing love letters to a man."

"Oh," I said. "Somehow I doubt it was meningitis."

"Me too," Alice agreed.

"Of course," I said, realization hitting me. "CeeCee, that's a cover. It's meant to look like woman's name so that if anyone found the letters, they wouldn't look suspicious."

"You're right," Rosalie said. "And someone signed them Jay so they couldn't be traced if anyone did make the connection."

"Right," Alice said and I could practically see her nodding.

"So there was an illegal romance going on here," I surmised.

"And I think it's safe to say that one party died suspiciously," Alice remarked.

"Did he die in the house?" I asked Alice.

"Yes, in the master bedroom was where they found the body," she answered.

I closed my eyes, feeling uneasy. Someone had died in my bedroom with such unfinished business.

"If you guys want to come down to the historical society tomorrow, we've got a whole lock up downstairs with stuff on Dr Cullen," Alice offered.

Rose and I looked at each other, "Heck yes we'll come!" Rose cried.

This was a mystery and we were both intent on getting to the bottom of it.