by Jill Sanders
She was going to have them printed out and turned into a photo album for Eve’s birthday party so guests could glance through the pages and see the progression of the little family.
“But it’s not done.” Palmer frowned up at her from her perch on Eve’s lap.
“I know, but your daddy needs to show me something.” She smiled. “Besides, I bet Kathrine has a fresh batch of cookies and will give you one.”
“Really?” Palmer did a little bounce on her leg. “Okay.”
How had Eve come to love the little girl so much so quickly? Hoisting her up, she carried her to the door.
“My stuff?” Palmer said, nodding towards her bag.
“It’s okay, we won’t be gone long. I’ll lock my door behind me. No one will mess with it,” she assured the girl.
“Okay.” Palmer relaxed and held onto Eve as she made her way down the back stairs towards the kitchen.
Stepping inside, she looked around for Dylan, but realized they must have beat him there.
“There’s my favorite girl.” Kathrine rushed towards them from across the room, taking up a plate of cookies as she crossed the space.
Palmer laughed and took one. “Eve too,” she said.
Eve picked one up, too concerned at what Dylan wanted to show her to really taste the gooey goodness.
“Is Dylan—”
“Here,” he said, stepping into the room a little breathless.
Earlier, when he’d brought Palmer down to her office, his work clothes hadn’t been dirty or dusty. Now, however, they were covered with cobwebs and dirt, and he had a few scrapes on his arms as if he’d brushed up against something sharp.
“Oh no, you can’t come in my kitchen looking like that,” Kathrine said, shaking her head. “Out.”
“I’m just here to collect Eve. Do you think you could watch Palmer for a while?” he asked Kathrine.
“If it means getting you and the dust pile you rode in on out of here quickly, yes.” Kathrine took Palmer from Eve’s arms and disappeared into her office area.
“What happened to you?” she asked, taking a clean rag and dabbing the worst of the cuts.
“I’ll show you.” He took her hand and then stilled. “Um, do you have something you can put over your clothes. I don’t want you to end up looking like me.”
She glanced around the room and, finding a chef’s shirt, removed her sweater and slipped the shirt over her tank top. Folding her sweater, she set it where she’d found the other shirt.
“Better?” she asked, but he’d tugged her arm and was leading her down the hallway.
“It’s in here,” he said. “I would’ve never found it, but… well, I was pulling on the bookshelf pretty hard and…” He stopped in a small offshoot off the main hallway and smiled. Then he pulled on a piece of trim at the top of the wall. Eve jumped back as the entire wall slid open.
“I had to push it the first time. It’s obviously not been used or opened on this floor in a while. The other passages are easier,” he was saying as she leaned into the darkness in shock.
“Where does it go?” she asked.
“Where doesn’t it?” He motioned. “I started on the top floor in room four-thirty-two.” He gave her time for that bit of information to sink in. “And ended up in the boathouse.”
She felt her stomach roll as his arms wrapped around her.
“This is how they got around,” he was saying when her hearing returned from the loud buzzing that had filled her head.
“They?” She shook her head.
He sighed. “The servants, I imagine. When this place was built.”
She relaxed a little. She’d believed he’d been talking…
“I think whoever killed Steve and your aunt and attacked you in the boathouse used it to get around as well.” He held onto her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded slowly. “But… I didn’t even know about it. I’ve lived here my entire life.” She swallowed.
“I know. But obviously someone in your family does.” He dropped his arms and then bent down to pick up a black bag. “They didn’t think anyone else knew about the passage and left this at the base of the stairs in the boathouse.”
He unzipped the bag, and she saw Steve’s camera and laptop inside.
“That’s it.” She took the bag. “That’s Steve’s camera and laptop. I’m not crazy.” She sighed.
He chuckled. “Why would you ever think that?” He shook his head. “We’ll take this upstairs and…” He glanced around. “See what we find out.”
She nodded and started down the hallway. “I thought,” he broke in, “that we would head up this way.” He motioned to the hidden passage. “After all, I could use your help determining where each door goes. Here.” He handed her the flashlight and pulled out another one for himself.
She stepped into the narrow passage and would have been fine, but then the doorway shut behind them, shrouding them in darkness.
“Are you okay?” he asked directly behind her. Just hearing his voice had her relaxing.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Be careful, the stairs are narrow and small,” he said as they started moving forward.
“Maybe for someone of your size. For me, they’re perfect,” she answered after taking the first set of stairs up to the next floor.
She turned back to him, shining the flashlight on him, and laughed as his shoulders got stuck rounding the corner.
“Damn it,” he grunted, “it’s harder to go up than it was to go down.”
She smiled and held the flashlight on him as he moved around. Since she’d taken the bag, he used his hands to loosen himself and break free.
“Only four more to go.” He groaned and followed her down the hallway. “The lower floors only have one exit, while the guest room levels have several.”
“If this was used by the servants, then they would lead to each room on the level.”
“I thought so too, but it only goes between so many rooms.”
“Could there be more passages for the other rooms?” she asked.
“Maybe, or these rooms were used by the owners initially. You said your great-grandfather built this place, correct?”
“Yes.” She thought about it.
“He and his family lived here?” he asked as they started up the next set of stairs.
“Yes, they…” She stopped. “My grandfather told me that they filled the entire west wing.” She glanced around and sighed. “We’re in the west wing.” She glanced over her shoulder. “They must go to all the rooms the family used.”
“One mystery solved,” Dylan grunted out as he twisted his body around the next set of stairs. “What did your great-grandfather hire? Oompa Loompas to work for him?” he asked, causing her to laugh again. “Shh,” he whispered and warned her. “The walls are thin. You don’t want to spook any guests in the rooms.” He motioned towards the walls.
“Right,” she whispered back, and continued up the next set of stairs. “Most of the servants back then would have been women or children,” she suggested.
“Right,” he agreed. When they made it to the top level, he showed her which door he’d come in.
Stepping out into her aunt and uncle’s room, she frowned.
“Sorry, I thought it was…” He glanced around. “It must have been the other side. I got turned around.”
“This is Gerald and Louisa’s room.” She pointed towards each door. “Logan’s room and Liv’s room.” She did a little spin, taking in the huge bookshelves on either side of the fireplaces. How many times had she been in this room and looked at the shelves, not knowing there was a passage behind them?
“My grandfather’s room has the same bookcases,” she said.
“Yeah.” Dylan nodded. “It was the first door as we came up the stairs.”
Eve felt her stomach roll. “Someone… the killer could have…” She felt all the blood leave her as she thought about what could have happened.
“Easy.”
Dylan rushed to her, setting the bag down at their feet as he held onto her. “I’ve got you. Breathe.”
She did as he suggested and, when she felt slightly better, glanced around again. “That night, the one someone hit you on the head. That’s how they got into my rooms.”
“Yeah, I already figured that out when I opened the passage to your grandfather’s rooms.” He nodded.
“I don’t think I want to go to the other room. Let’s see what we have here.” She motioned towards the bag.
“Sure.” He bent and picked it up, then set it down on a makeshift work benches made from two sawhorses and a sheet of plywood. Dylan pushed aside some power tools and set the bag down.
She took the laptop from him. “You check the camera. I’ll see if I can get into this.”
She was surprised when the laptop turned on immediately. “The battery was dead last time,” she told Dylan. Checking it, she noticed it was half charged. The cable was in the bag, and she plugged it into the extension cable where they had plugged in the table saw.
“Find anything?” she asked Dylan.
“Yeah.” He held up the camera and she noticed the blood and chunks of hair. The huge camera lens was cracked and sitting at an odd angle. “Guess we found the murder weapon.” He reached over and pulled on a pair of work gloves, then turned the camera over and looked into the tiny screen.
“The footage from the rocket is still on here,” he said. She moved over and watched as he hit play.
DarCee hadn’t been lying. She heard her cousin clearly on the video.
“Go ahead, DarCee, go set up the rocket. Right there,” her cousin directed her.
“It can’t explode or anything?” DarCee turned to the camera and asked, just as Steve chuckled and held up the remote.
“No.” DarCee screamed as he hit the button.
Eve glanced away, not wanting to watch what happened next. Dylan shut the camera off.
“That bastard,” he said in a low tone as he set the camera back in the bag and removed the gloves. “I would’ve killed him if someone hadn’t gotten to him first.”
Eve took a couple of deep breaths and nodded. “Ditto.” She moved back over to the laptop. She was surprised there wasn’t a password on it. Normally, her cousin had locked everything he owned.
“What’s wrong?” Dylan asked.
“Steve was always really protective of his stuff. He used to lock his bike up with a huge padlock. There wasn’t a password on this.”
Dylan shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t think he needed one.”
Seeing a folder on the desktop called Fray, she opened it.
“There’s a bunch of videos,” she said as she started going through them.
She watched the people being filmed without their knowledge, people from town.
In one, Steve had put grease on the handle of shopping carts and could be heard laughing as people tried to grab them to shop with. They could be seen wiping the grease on their clothes when they discovered it.
“Stupid,” Dylan said in her ear.
“Yeah,” she agreed and moved on.
More practical tricks, more stupid stunts DarCee had obviously filmed.
She was slightly shocked to see a video of her standing in the electric closet, flipping the breaker each time it turned off.
“He must have switched the breakers out as a stunt.” Dylan sighed. “Real genius.”
“Childish.” She shook her head and played a few more videos. She stilled at the footage of Steve unhooking her battery cables on the ferry.
“That answers that. What did he expect? That he would film you struggling to start your car?” Dylan shook his head.
“There’s nothing here.” She sighed after watching the last video.
“Think someone erased something they didn’t want anyone to find on here?” he asked.
“I can check…” She scanned the drive for recently deleted files. The trash was empty. Leaning back, she thought about the last time she’d deleted an important project from her laptop and smiled.
“What are you doing?” Dylan asked.
“Last year, I worked almost three weeks on the ads for the McKenzie project.” She glanced at him. “You know, the spring water company?” He nodded. “Well, the day before they were due, I accidently deleted the folder where everything I’d created had been.” She smiled when all the recently deleted videos started returning to the folder. “So, I called tech support. You see, I’d backed everything up before shutting down my computer each day.” She opened the first video. “And Steve, being tech savvy, did the same. So, I did a restore on this file from the day he died.”
The next video started, and Eve quickly shut it down. “Was that my…” She closed her eyes.
“Aunt and uncle going at it,” Dylan supplied.
“Gross.” She shivered. “Why would Steve video that?”
“He was a piece of work.” Dylan shook his head.
She clicked the next video and almost shut the X-rated video down again.
“Hold on.” Dylan stopped her.
“Hey, we can make our own for you to watch,” she joked. “I’m not watching my aunt and uncle…”
“That’s just it. That is not your uncle.” He pointed to the screen.
Eve glanced over and, sure enough, the man currently banging her aunt Louisa was not her uncle Gerald.
She leaned a little closer, then gasped as she heard her uncle’s voice from somewhere off screen. “That’s it,” he said. “Now spank that dirty slut for me.”
“Oh my god.” Eve shut the video.
“Hey, at least your aunt and uncle keep things spicy,” Dylan said sarcastically.
“You call a threesome keeping it spicy?” She shook her head.
“Try another one,” he suggested.
“Do you really think Steve was killed because he hid in the passageway and videotaped his family’s porn activities?” she asked, opening another video.
When this one started playing, Eve knew instantly it was different.
The man who had been spanking her aunt in the previous video stood face to face with her grandfather, yelling at him. Her grandfather looked pale and a little lost.
“I don’t give a shit. I’m due something. After all, if you’d kept your word, I would be running this hellhole by now,” the man was screaming.
“That’s Mr. Strommen.” Eve pointed to the screen. She hadn’t seen his face in the previous video, but now she knew exactly who it was. She stilled and felt her heart kick in her chest. “He normally stayed in room four-thirty-two.”
“As I said before, until the blood work comes back, I only have your word,” her grandfather said, calmly.
“And the word of my mother. Are you calling her a liar?”
“No, but I have my own family to think—”
“As I said, I am your family. This is the last time I’ll come here. Next time I step foot in this place, I expect to have at least half ownership.”
The man disappeared off the screen, leaving Reggie alone in his living room.
“I don’t get it.” Eve shook her head as the video ended. “Was he saying he was Reggie’s son?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Are there any more?” Dylan asked.
“I’m sure there are.” A calm silky voice came from behind them along with the distinct sound of a gun being cocked. “But you’re done with your little movie time.”
33
I see the light
Dylan jerked around and instantly put himself between the barrel of the gun and Eve. Then his eyes traveled up to see Eve’s aunt Louisa standing in the hidden doorway by the fireplace. The one they had exited a few moments earlier.
The woman’s short dark hair was pulled back from her face by a pair of designer sunglasses. A dark bronze scarf was wrapped around her neck and the low cut of the black shirt she wore showed her impressively large breasts. Her dark slacks and shoes showed no signs of dust from
the hidden passage, as if the woman was very used to coming and going through the hidden corridors.
A designer handbag was slung over her arm as if she was stepping into a department store instead of a construction zone with a gun.
“Aunt Louisa?” Eve shook her head in disbelief. “Is this because of the affair?”
Louisa laughed, tossing back her head and making a show of being very sarcastic.
“No, of course not,” the woman said smoothly.
“Then, why?” Eve asked. Dylan could feel her shaking with fear behind him.
“You know why. You saw the last video,” Louisa answered.
“Mr. Strommen?” Eve said.
“Yes,” Louisa said with a smile. “He’s Reggie’s brother,” she said smoothly, “and the rightful heir to the inn.”
“What does he have to do with you?” Eve asked.
“Me?” She laughed. “Not much, other than he was a good lay for a very long time, but unfortunately, he is the father to my children. Both of them. You see, Gerald found out early on in our marriage that he was… well, shall I say, not complete.” She shook her head. “So, we had an arrangement.” She glanced down at her free hand, inspecting her long well-manicured nails. “One that I rather liked. All these years I believed he’d been coming here for me. For… a good time. He knew about the children and didn’t care.” She waved her hand as if shooing the thought away. “He was only after a good time, and, I found out more recently, the inn.” She shrugged and glanced back up at them. “When Steve showed me the video, the proof of why he’d been coming around, how he had gone behind my back…” Dylan saw the woman turn colder and more out of control. “Naturally, I confronted him. He was trying to go behind my back, our backs, and take everything we deserved away from us.” She shrugged again. “So, I flipped.”
“Why did you kill Steve?” Eve asked.
Louisa chuckled. “Because that little snake somehow videotaped our argument and me strangling Clark with one of my silk… undergarments.” She smiled.
“Clark?” Eve asked.
Louisa let out an impatient breath. “Mr. Strommen.”
“You… killed Mr. Strommen?” Eve gasped.
