by Bobbi Holmes
“What do you mean by that?” Jackie asked.
“Meeting that Chris Johnson got me to thinking,” Chase began.
Seraphina looked up from the cards to Chase. “What about Chris?”
“He’s about the same age as his camera-shy boss. Same first name. And if you look up the photos of Chris Glandon online, it’s not a far cry to imagine they could be one and the same.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Birdie argued. “I’ve seen photographs of Chris Glandon, I knew his parents. He was a homely boy. All that facial hair.”
“Shave off the beard, and you’ll see something different, I’d wager,” Chase said.
“You’re saying that handsome young man is Chris Glandon?” Jackie asked with a laugh. “I can’t imagine anyone could be that good looking and that rich.”
“So what’s your story angle? Camera-shy philanthropist hanging out in plain sight?” Julius asked.
Now turned slightly in the chair, watching and listening intently to Chase, Seraphina unwittingly squeezed the cards she held so tight they bent in her hand.
Chase shrugged. “Glandon’s plight reminded me how when a kid is put in foster care, their entire future is at the whim of the system. In his case, he was a poor child adopted by an insanely rich couple, yet I imagine there are cases where some kids born of shame from wealthy families are dumped in foster care and end up living in poverty for their entire lives. Am I right, Seraphina?”
Seraphina frowned. “Why are you asking me?”
“Didn’t I read you grew up in foster care?”
“She’s not exactly living in poverty,” Jackie said with a snort.
“Do you remember your parents?” Chase asked.
“Of course I do,” Seraphina said. “I was seven when they were killed in a car accident. There wasn’t any family to take me in. I never imagined I was a lost princess who’d been taken from her kingdom.”
“But did you ever know anyone in foster care that might have come from a wealthy family?” Chase asked.
“Why are we talking about this?” Birdie asked.
Twenty-Nine
Seraphina stood up. “I think I’ll go check on Polly again.”
Birdie reached down and picked up her cane. “I think I’ll join you.” She stood up.
Jackie glanced at her watch. “I think I’m going to try calling Bentley’s mother again.”
“I’ll go with them, if you want to stay here,” Eva told Marie.
A few minutes later Chase sat alone in the room with Julius. Marie was also there, yet neither man knew they had an audience.
“I bet you are somewhat relieved this Bentley thing can finally be put behind you,” Chase told Julius.
Julius glared at Chase. “I thought you agreed never to mention that.”
“It’s just you and me,” Chase said with a chuckle.
“And me!” Marie added. “But do tell. What did you promise never to mention?”
“I’m very sad Bentley is dead,” Julius insisted.
“I imagine you are. You two were…close,” Chase said with a snort.
“Chase, I’m not gay. It was that one time. I had too much to drink, and I would rather forget about it.”
Chase put up his right palm. “Hey, I’m not going to tell anyone. Promised then, when I walked in on you, and I kept my promise. But with Bentley out of the picture, you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Must have been damn awkward, having him working with your wife, seeing him all the time. Must have been awkward for him too.”
“We never talked about it,” Julius said. “And I’d rather not talk about it now. But I’m certainly not happy he’s dead.”
When Danielle and Walt returned to Marlow House late that afternoon, they found Joanne already in the kitchen preparing dinner. The others were all in their rooms, and according to Joanne, it had been fairly quiet since she had arrived. Not long after Walt and Danielle walked in the house, Marie popped into the kitchen and told them to meet her in the parlor so she could give them an update.
“I must say,” Marie began, “all those things I’ve heard about Hollywood people are even more tawdry than I imagined!”
“I guess I can understand what you’re saying, considering they seem to be dropping dead right and left,” Danielle grumbled.
“Oh, not that. Sure, we might as well be living in a horror movie, considering the newly departed spirits that have been showing up,” Marie said. “I’m talking about the fooling around! Goodness gracious, doesn’t anyone respect their wedding vows?”
“Who are we talking about?” Danielle asked.
“Julius for one,” Marie said. “And his indiscretion was with someone you’ve met.”
“Who has Julius been indiscreet with?” Walt asked.
“You will never guess this!” Marie said.
“Bentley, right?” Danielle asked.
Both Walt and Marie looked to Danielle and frowned.
“How did you know?” Marie asked.
Danielle shrugged. “Just some vibe I picked up.”
“Who else?” Walt asked.
“We already knew about the other. Teddy and Phoebe. But it’s shameful. Just shameful.”
“Anyone else?” Danielle asked.
“I certainly hope not. Isn’t that enough? After all, there are only two couples staying with you, and both of them have broken their wedding vows.”
“Actually, we don’t know if Polly and Jackie have broken their vows,” Danielle reminded her.
Walt glanced briefly to the closed door and asked, “What’s everyone doing?”
“Chase went back to his rental house. He told Julius to tell you he would not be returning for dinner. Said he was going to be writing all night,” Marie said.
“And the others?” Danielle asked.
“All in their rooms. Eva is with Jackie and Julius. We figure unless the others start talking to themselves, nothing to listen to,” Marie explained.
“And no new ghost sightings?” Walt asked.
“None,” Marie said. “So what did you all decide? Does the chief have a suspect?”
“They’re all suspects,” Danielle said.
“But who does he think did it?” Marie asked.
“Chris doesn’t like it, but Seraphina is one of the prime suspects—at least she was until Teddy’s death. Still trying to figure out why she would want to kill Teddy.”
“Why would she want to kill Bentley?” Marie asked.
“He was sleeping downstairs the night Phoebe went missing. Maybe he saw something, and she had to get rid of him,” Danielle suggested.
“Of course, Polly is also a suspect,” Walt said. “She did have that fight with Phoebe, and she might have gotten rid of Bentley for the same reason as Seraphina.”
“Except we don’t think Polly killed Teddy,” Danielle said.
“No,” Marie said, shaking her head. “Polly wasn’t responsible for her husband’s death. When I went up to her room earlier, she was on the phone calling all the local bars in town, asking if anyone of them had a customer that matched her husband’s description.”
“No, if she killed him, she certainly wouldn’t be calling around looking for him, not unless she was doing it for show. But as far as she knew, she was alone in the room,” Danielle said.
“Poor thing. She’s going to be devastated when they find his body. Although I don’t know why. The man was a putz,” Marie said.
As if on cue, someone began knocking on the parlor door. A moment later Danielle let Polly into the room.
“Joanne told me I would find you in here,” Polly said.
“What can I help you with?” Danielle asked.
Polly walked all the way into the parlor, her eyes rimmed in dark shadows. “Teddy still hasn’t come back.”
Danielle and Walt exchange glances and said nothing.
“Can you tell me again, what did he say when you saw him? Did he seem sober?” she asked.
“He seemed sober,�
�� Walt said, then added to himself, He also seemed alive, and we were wrong about that.
“You see, Teddy’s work is pretty stressful. Ummm…he could be short with me…” Polly began.
“He could be an ass, you mean,” Marie said.
“But I understood…well, at least most of the time. Sometimes, well, frankly sometimes I wanted to kill him.”
Danielle’s eyes widened. “Kill him?”
Polly blushed. “Just a figure of speech. Don’t you ever get so mad at Walt sometimes that you might say you want to kill him?”
Danielle looked over to her husband, who met her with his smile. “Honestly? I might say I wanna clobber him…or smack him…”
Walt’s grin broadened. “Vicious woman.”
“But never ever kill him. I like him on this side.” She flashed Walt a smile.
“This side?” Polly frowned.
Danielle shrugged and said, “Umm…nothing…but yeah, I understand we all get mad at our spouses sometimes.”
“But I would never in a million years hurt Teddy. I love him.”
Danielle frowned. “No one said you hurt Teddy.”
“I’m just afraid. He’s not back. And like I said, his job can be stressful, and some things that have happened the last few days, I think I might have pushed him over the edge. I even said some things to him that could have made things worse. I’m afraid he might have gone on a drinking binge. And I just want to find him.”
“The good news, he didn’t take the car,” Danielle said.
“The bad news, he’s dead,” Marie added.
“I just need to know, did he say anything, anything at all? Did he mention where he might go?”
Walt reached out and touched Polly’s right hand. “No, he didn’t. But we’re going to have dinner soon. Why don’t you have a nice meal. You’re probably hungry because all we had was lunch, and you didn’t finish yours. Maybe by the time we finish dinner, Teddy will be back.”
“Walt, you know he’s not coming back,” Danielle said after Polly left the parlor.
“I know, but what else could I say?”
Dinner at Marlow House was a solemn affair on Monday evening. Everyone retired to their rooms shortly after dinner. No one even discussed Teddy’s absence, as the silent consensus seemed to be he was out somewhere getting drunk.
Danielle headed up to bed early, leaving Walt to close up the house. As he did every night, he walked through the first floor, locking doors, closing blinds, and turning off overhead lights. When he finally headed upstairs, the only lighting came from the night-lights plugged into random sockets.
When Walt finally walked into his bedroom, he had Max in his arms.
“What do you have there?” Danielle asked, sitting up in bed.
“Max didn’t want to be left alone downstairs with a serial killer in the house.” Walt tossed the cat on the bed.
“I can’t say I blame him,” Danielle said as the cat curled up by her feet.
“I just wish they would all go home,” Walt said, locking the bedroom door. “I should never have written that book.”
“Your book has nothing to do with any of this,” she insisted.
“Really?” Walt stood by the side of the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. “Tell me, if I hadn’t written Moon Runners, would we have those guests downstairs? And would those ghosts be flitting in and out?”
Danielle shrugged sheepishly. “No…but…”
Pearl rolled over on her right side and opened her eyes, looking toward her nightstand. The room was pitch dark save for the red glow of the digital numbers on her alarm clock. It was 3:26 in the morning. If she didn’t have to pee, she would close her eyes and go back to sleep. But that was not going to happen. Reluctantly she rolled out of bed, grateful she had forgotten to turn the thermostat down when she had gone to bed that night. It was as toasty warm out of her bedding as it was in it.
When Pearl returned from the bathroom ten minutes later, she walked to the window instead of her bed, to look out into the darkness. She hadn’t bothered to turn the bedroom light on when she went to the bathroom, so if anyone drove by, they wouldn’t see her standing there in her nightgown. Of course, who would be driving by at three thirty in the morning? Pearl thought.
As she was about to turn from the window and return to bed, she noticed the kitchen light go on over at the Marlows’. She couldn’t see who was in the kitchen, but whoever it was, they were opening the door to the side yard. A moment later, the light went off. She assumed whoever it was had just gone outside—but why?
Believing it was Walt or Danielle, she looked to the garage behind their house, yet saw no motion. But then she noticed a light turn on in front of the house. Headlights. It was one of the cars that had been parked in front of Marlow House for the last few days. A moment later it drove away.
“It’s rather late to go out,” Pearl muttered. Letting the curtain drop back into place, she returned to bed and climbed under the covers. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get back to sleep. After a few minutes, she turned on the side lamp and picked up the book she had placed there earlier and started to read.
Some thirty minutes later she began feeling sleepy again. Closing her book, she returned it to the nightstand and turned off the light. Cuddling down in the darkness, determined to fall back to sleep, she heard what sounded like a car door slam. Jumping up from the bed, Pearl hurried to the window and looked outside. The car was back, and whoever had driven it had just entered through the Marlows’ side gate and was running to the back door. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman—just a dark figure running to the house under the moonlight.
Thirty
Adam Nichols, Realtor and owner of Frederickport Vacation Properties and the favorite grandson of Marie Hemming Nichols, was the primary reason Marie hadn’t moved on to the other side. She wanted to see him married—and she wanted a great-grandchild. However, she was beginning to think she would have better luck getting a great-grandchild through Adam’s younger brother, considering Adam and the woman he was seeing both claimed they didn’t want children.
It was a shame, as Adam was a fine-looking young man, Marie thought, fit, good-looking with coal black eyes. Adam had also done fairly well for himself in business, especially for a man in his mid-thirties. Of course, his inheritance from Marie had substantially boosted his bottom line.
On Tuesday morning Adam sat alone in his office, sorting through his email and drinking his first cup of coffee of the day when his assistant, Leslie, walked into the room. He looked up from his computer and asked, “What’s up?”
One hand on her hip, she let out a sigh. “I just got a call from a neighbor across the street from the Marshall house.” The Marshall house was one of the properties in Adam’s rental program. It was also the house he had rented to Chase Wilks.
“Is there a problem?” Adam asked.
“According to the neighbor, she went to take her dog for a walk on the beach. There’s that path that runs along the south side of the Marshall house. When she walked down it, she noticed one of the windows along that side had been smashed in.”
“Damn,” Adam grumbled. “Did she talk to Wilks? See what happened?”
Leslie shook her head. “She didn’t see him and didn’t knock on the door. But his car was out front. She thought it was best to call us instead of the police. Figured the renters had broken the window.”
Adam groaned. “If it’s the neighbor I think it is, she’s not thrilled having that house rented out. I’m sure she’d be delighted if Marshall decided to pull it from the program.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Let me call Wilks, see what happened.”
Leslie started to leave the office, but then paused and turned around to face Adam. “Hey, did you hear what happened over at Marlow House yesterday?”
“There’s no telling with Danielle. What now?”
“One of their guests drowned,” Leslie explained. “I heard it o
n the radio this morning.”
“Drowned? No kidding. Do you know what happened?”
“They aren’t sure yet. Looks like the fool decided to take a late night swim and stripped down to his skivvies.”
“That water is freezing,” Adam said.
Leslie shrugged. “I guess Heather Donovan and one of the other guests found him on the beach when they went jogging.”
“Seriously? How many does that make now?” Adam asked.
“I have no idea. I just know if Heather ever asked me to go jogging with her, I’d decline.”
“You don’t jog anyway,” Adam teased.
“Still. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t go with her.”
“No kidding,” Adam said with a snort.
Leslie flashed him a half smile and then turned and left the office.
Several minutes later, after finding Wilks’s phone number, Adam tried giving him a call. It went immediately to voicemail. He then called his handyman, Bill Jones.
“I was just getting ready to call you,” Bill said. Bill wasn’t just Adam’s handyman, they had been friends since high school. “Want to go out to breakfast?”
“Maybe afterwards. But I need you to meet me over at the Marshall house. We just got a call, and one of the windows along the side of the house was smashed in.”
“Damn. The north or south side?” Bill asked.
“South, where the path runs.”
“Oh crap, not that window. That’s going to be a pain. I’ll have to special order it. Which means I’ll need to take some plywood along to board it up until I can get it fixed.”
Thirty minutes later Adam stood with Bill Jones on the south side of the Marshall house on the pathway, looking up at the broken window. Jones, a forgettable-looking man, had shaggy brown hair that needed a trim and good conditioner. His faded blue eyes would never be described as sparkling. He wore denims and a blue work shirt and, as normal, held a lit cigarette in his hand, which accounted for the yellowing of his teeth.
Hands on hips, Adam looked up at the shattered window and shook his head. “I’m surprised Wilks hasn’t called me about this.”
