by Lisa Gardner
In the meantime, Kimberly had the office.
Each of the files strewn across the floor bore a name of an employee. The paperwork inside seemed standard: copies of W-2s, photo IDs. Martha Counsel had said her paperwork was in order—and at first blush, she hadn’t been lying.
But then Kimberly noticed what wasn’t present. Hélène’s file. Anything identifiable with their niece. Furthermore, there was an empty folder. Stacey Kasmer was inked across the top. But Kimberly couldn’t find any trace of a photo ID or other paperwork.
Next, she booted up the desktop. Password protected. Meaning she’d have to return to the mayor for info, which she didn’t feel like doing right now, or wait for Keith, who could probably learn more from the machine in ten minutes than she could in ten hours. She wondered what he and Flora were doing for the day. Hopefully keeping out of trouble.
She turned around, noticing one of the volumes was slightly askew on the bookshelf. Kimberly ran her fingers carefully up and down the spines of the old history books. She tugged one. Sure enough, the rest came out to reveal a squat black wall safe tucked behind.
Roughly the size of a hotel safe, the rectangular unit probably didn’t contain large treasures. But important passports, documents, a detailed confession of the kidney operation fifteen years ago—Kimberly could only hope.
But how to get the combination?
She rocked back on her heels, considering. Dates of birth were always possible, but also predictable. In her experience . . . She inspected the inside perimeter of the shelf, seeking for a taped slip of paper. When that revealed nothing, she crawled under the desk, clicked on her pocket flashlight, and repeated the same careful scrutiny of the underside of the desk. Still no dice.
Everyone wrote down combinations as everyone feared forgetting. Furthermore, they kept them close because no one wanted to slog halfway across a house when they did forget. Meaning there had to be the combination somewhere. She just had to think like Martha Counsel.
Kimberly took a seat in the desk chair. Black executive leather. Too big for her slender form, but nice. An instant appearance of corporate power. She pulled the chair up to the desk, took in the view. Computer monitor front and center. Keyboard mounted beneath. Mouse pad to the right. Three beautifully framed photos to the right. The mayor and Martha’s wedding photo. Then a faded, vintage print, maybe Martha Counsel’s mother.
The final photo was a woman with a brilliant smile and shiny black hair. Kimberly didn’t recognize her at all.
But all in all, a tidy space. Everything in its place.
Kimberly swiveled the chair till her back was now to the desk and she was directly facing the safe. The code would be within reaching distance. She was certain of it. Martha was a woman who clearly didn’t like clutter and was much too efficient to want to spend time digging around to find a forgotten string of numbers. Elegant yet personal. Subtle but easy access.
Then Kimberly got it. The first crumbling novel, a dated history of the area. Kimberly grabbed it off the floor and sure enough, discovered three numbers, written in pencil lightly across the inside top cover.
Kimberly spun the dial. Right. Left. Right.
Click.
She opened the door.
* * *
—
THE SAFE MIGHT NOT BE tall, but it was surprisingly deep. First thing Kimberly encountered, a gold box. She drew it out, took one sniff, and knew what it was: chocolate. Judging by the packaging, very high end. And clearly valued enough to keep in the safe, away from greedy staff members.
Kimberly had to smile. She could respect a woman who kept imported chocolates under lock and key.
Next up: a brick of one-hundred-dollar bills, totaling ten thousand dollars. This was stacked on top of three more bricks, with rows of three going back, back, back.
Kimberly pulled out a hundred thousand dollars. All in cash. Significant funds for an inn operator, she thought. And yet more evidence that nothing in this place was as it seemed.
Next, she found passports. Martha Counsel. Howard Counsel. Then two more sets from Argentina. Photos matched Martha and Howard. Names were not the same.
Cash and fake IDs.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Kimberly murmured.
After cash and fake IDs, next up would be a gun. But instead, feeling lightly into the dark depths, Kimberly felt a different shape completely. Several inches long, flat, with narrow grooves and jagged teeth. She figured it out just as she drew it from the felt-lined safe: a brass key. Old and heavy, like they used to have in historic hotels and grand manors.
She looked around the updated office with its modern computer, printer, and scanner. The filing cabinets all contained traditional locks, the door to the room, as well.
Then, she had an idea. Holding the key close, she descended down into the basement.
* * *
—
SHE FOUND D.D. WITH THE girl.
D.D. stood in front of a pair of heavy wooden doors at the end of the long, cold hallway. The girl was moving frantically from door to door, her agitation making it clear that whatever she was looking for, she hadn’t found it.
Kimberly felt like she’d entered a dungeon. If the upstairs of the B&B was the stately Victorian, then this was the dark dank cellar, hastily retrofitted with rooms for the staff. The corridor was narrow, the floor tiled with stone worn smooth from decades of use, the walls lined with old-fashioned-looking sconces that added more shadows than they dispelled.
Bonita appeared in front of Kimberly. She was stumbling worse than usual, nearly lurching on her feet. She took one look at Kimberly with tear-streaked cheeks, then literally shoved her aside and grabbed the next doorknob.
Kimberly looked askance at D.D.
“She’s looking for something, but I don’t know what.” D.D. shrugged, clearly as miserable as the girl.
Kimberly held up the brass key. “Would this help?”
Immediately the girl was in front of her, eyes wide. She grabbed the key, then careened down the hall to the heavy wooden doors.
Even from here, Kimberly could tell the huge brass lock appeared to be the perfect match for the key. The girl inserted the old key and gave a hard twist. A resounding click echoed down the narrow hall.
The girl shoved both doors open, nearly falling into the room. A fresh rush of cold air greeted all of them. Then D.D. and Kimberly moved forward.
* * *
—
COMPARED TO THE CORRIDOR, THE room was enormous. Old. Again the smooth stone floor, colored somewhere between gray and black. A massive stone hearth, which dominated the side wall and featured giant slabs of granite.
Kimberly could smell ash, so the hearth had recently been used—and thank goodness. Given the pervasive chill, she couldn’t imagine staying in this room during any season without a fire.
They were beneath the earth, so there were no windows. Just more of the old brass lights, which she flicked on with a switch. In the back of the room loomed a huge oak table, large enough to seat twelve if not sixteen. Before it sat a long dark leather sofa with half a dozen wingback chairs arranged around it in a semi-circle.
A gathering space. But for what? Kimberly couldn’t see any evidence of a TV, or electronics of any kind. What would make a dozen people want to sit in this room in the bowels of the earth?
The girl stood in front of the sofa. She pointed at the floor. Stomped her foot.
D.D. had moved closer to her. Now the detective reached down, inspected the stone floor. “I don’t see anything.”
Another foot stomp, the girl clearly frustrated.
Kimberly spoke up, “You gave Sergeant Warren a drawing. Of a demon. Was that from you?”
Frantic nod.
“That demon, was he here?”
Very fast nodding now.
“He’s a man,”
D.D. said.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes.
“Is he here now?” Kimberly asked.
Shrug. Fear plain on her face.
“What about last night?”
Yes!
“With Martha and Mayor Howard?”
Yes yes yes yes yes yes.
“Bonita,” D.D. said slowly, “is he the one who hurt Mrs. Counsel?”
Yes!
Kimberly drifted closer. She peered at the floor, then around the room. She couldn’t make out any obvious signs of blood or violence. Then again, the only way to fake a hanging was to actually strangle the victim. A relatively clean death. She would have to bring in an evidence team. There were chemicals that could be sprayed that would reveal traces of blood. Of course, the older the residence, the harder it was to prove that blood was a recent event. It seemed most buildings had stories of violence to tell.
She walked the space, sniffed the hearth, held out her hands for warmth. It had definitely been used recently—though again, that didn’t prove anything. And their interrogation of Bonita wouldn’t be enough. By definition, they had to ask her yes-or-no questions. Technically, that was leading a witness—and given she also was a minor, it wouldn’t hold up in court.
They would have to call in some kind of forensic interview specialist, because this was clearly outside Kimberly and D.D.’s wheelhouse. They were simply doing what good investigators did—making it up as they went along.
Kimberly glanced at the doors. The very large, very heavy, very solid oak doors, kept locked at all times, with a key hidden in a safe. What was it about this room that demanded such security?
Mostly, she thought it was cold and drafty, and even with the furnishings, too dungeony for most tourists’ tastes. Dinner theater? But then, why lock up the set?
Bonita was tugging on D.D.’s arm, clearly agitated again.
“Are you looking for the demon man?” D.D. asked.
Quick no, eyes wide with fear.
“But you’re looking for someone?”
Yes.
“A guest?”
No.
Pause. D.D. clearly trying to figure out how to most efficiently ask the next question. “Is it someone I’ve met?”
Yes.
“Mayor Howard is still upstairs with Sheriff Smithers,” Kimberly provided. “The cook is in the kitchen. Smithers’s deputies are rounding up the guests. Someone broke into Martha Counsel’s office. I’m wondering if there isn’t a fox in our midst. Or maybe,” she considered, looking at the girl, “a demon.”
The girl sighed. Tugged D.D.’s arm again.
“Hélène!” D.D. declared suddenly. “The other maid.”
Yes yes yes yes yes yes!
“Are you worried about her?”
Yes!
“Do you think something bad might have happened?”
Furious head nod.
“The demon?”
More nodding.
Kimberly and D.D. exchanged a glance. “Hélène’s personnel file was missing from Martha Counsel’s office,” Kimberly murmured.
“Top-to-bottom search. Entire place. Between a suspicious death and now a missing woman, we have cause. Let’s tear this place apart.”
“The mayor is going to have a fit,” Kimberly said.
D.D.’s smile was feral. “Let him.”
She took Bonita’s hand. “You stay with me, all right? We’re a team. Where I go, you go. You don’t leave my side; I don’t leave your side.”
The girl looked up at her. In the shadows, her expression was hard to read. Something between longing and fatalism, Kimberly thought. And being a mother herself, that expression on a child’s face broke her heart.
“You’re not staying here anymore,” Kimberly spoke up.
The girl startled. Clearly she hadn’t expected this.
“As of now, you are a witness. We’re taking you away and keeping you safe.”
That look again: wanting to believe but fearing to hope.
“Bonita,” D.D. said softly. “We got you. I swear it. We got you.”
The girl took a breath. She nodded slowly. But as she followed D.D. out the door, still holding the detective’s hand, Kimberly could see nothing but fear in the slump of the girl’s shoulders.
They climbed the basement stairs back to the main lobby.
D.D. took Bonita to a separate room in the inn, so the girl wouldn’t be exposed to the mayor or the cook for one moment longer.
While Kimberly instructed Sheriff Smithers to have his officers tear apart the inn. Which left Kimberly to interview the gathered guests, four ordinary-looking couples who clearly had no idea what was going on, and were rapidly losing whatever initial excitement they’d felt over the situation.
The mayor sat slouched in the corner, lost in a world of grief and guilt.
They didn’t find Hélène.
And by the end of the afternoon, it was clear the cook had vanished, as well.
Kimberly declared the entire inn a crime scene. The guests gathered their bags and were transferred to other hotels, officers logging their IDs and personal contact information. After a bit of discussion, Sheriff Smithers made the decision to take the mayor into custody, charged with failing to provide proper paperwork on his employees. Most likely, the mayor would be out on bail in the morning, but his arrest kept the B&B clear for the evening, enabling the crime scene techs to descend and perform a much more thorough exam. It also gave some teeth to their future warning for the mayor not to leave town.
Mayor Howard didn’t respond. Now devoid of his morning bluster, he’d journeyed to a remote place deep inside himself. Sheriff Smithers informed Kimberly he’d be putting the mayor on suicide watch. Kimberly thought that was an excellent judgment call.
Then it was done. The Mountain Laurel B&B devoid of guests and staff. One set of investigators leaving, another set—including forensic techs—arriving, while the gathered locals finally grew bored of the show.
Kimberly and D.D. walked Bonita down the front steps. They waited patiently for the girl to get her bearings as she stood in the middle of the sidewalk and looked around in a daze. Had she even been allowed outside the inn before?
And the day had been long. They were all exhausted and there was still the taskforce debriefing to come.
They loaded Bonita into Kimberly’s vehicle and headed for the team’s motel, never noticing the shadow draw away from the window across the street.
CHAPTER 29
FLORA
KEITH AND I ARE EXHAUSTED by the time we return to the motel. I’m not even sure what time it is anymore. Six P.M.? Seven? We should probably shower and prepare for some kind of team meeting. I don’t want to shower. I don’t want to move. I want to sink down on the bed and stare at the ceiling till my vision blurs and reality falls away.
After our visit to Jacob’s shack, Walt brought us back to his property. He fed us. Wood-fired fresh fish, topped with lemon slices and microgreens. It was better than anything I’ve eaten in a restaurant. So we sat on the front porch beside the washer and dryer and ate a meal any five-star chef would’ve been proud of.
Keith ate two plates. Given that I was suffering an out-of-body experience at the time, I stuck to one.
“You don’t like it?” Walt asked me anxiously.
“I don’t eat much.”
“You should eat. A girl needs her strength.”
Which of course, completely killed my appetite. Keith got Walt to talk. About his precious microgreens. About all the time he now spent in fancy Atlanta restaurants and the trade secrets he’d picked up along the way. About his plans for expansion, his paranoia about rivals.
He still wasn’t aware of Jacob being in Niche fifteen years ago—or any time prior to Jacob showing up in the bar and introducing himself. Then again, Walt didn�
��t get out much himself. Townspeople didn’t like him and the feeling was mutual.
What was Jacob driving the time Walt had seen him?
Walt had to think about it. A pickup, he thought. Nothing special. Good enough for getting around on dirt roads.
Did Jacob own the truck? Had he rented or borrowed it?
Walt had just stared at Keith. Now why the hell would he ask questions like that?
License plates, Keith insisted. Were they Georgia, or out of state?
He thought Georgia. And oh yeah, definitely local.
This is enough to rouse me out of reverie. “How do you know Jacob’s vehicle was local?”
“Town sticker on the windshield. You know. For the dump.”
So Jacob had been driving a locally owned truck. Maybe something he stole? Or borrowed from a friend? Keith looks at me. I can tell already what he’s thinking: We should get a photo of Walt’s vehicle, including plates. I nod faintly. Keith excuses himself, disappearing quickly off the porch and on mission.
Keith really is good at this stuff.
Walt insists on cleaning up after the meal. I roam the tiny cabin, searching for photos, personal mementos, anything that might tell me something. Mostly, I sneeze at the thick piles of dust and feel increasingly claustrophobic in the dark, musty space.
If Jacob had ever lived here as a little boy, I can find no trace of it. Any remnants of Walt’s family are long gone and all that remains of family photos are the faint outlines where they’d once been hung on the walls.
Keith returns. Clearly, it’s time for us to be on our way. What do you say to the father of the man who kidnapped you? The father who swore he came back to save you, only to discover he was too late? The father who greeted you at gunpoint, before giving you a tour of your greatest nightmare, then feeding you a perfectly lovely meal?
