by Wendy Webb
I wasn’t so sure about that. But I was willing to let her have the last word. For now.
CHAPTER 21
After Richard went upstairs to gather his camera gear for his first day of shooting and Cassandra returned to her writing desk, I made my way into the kitchen. I had just finished nibbling on a croissant, but I had a craving for something and I wondered if we had any on hand.
Harriet had her hands in a ball of dough.
“Do we have any olives?” I asked her.
She looked at me as though I had just asked if we had any human heads. Apparently, impromptu visits to the kitchen for snacks were not encouraged. I winced at yet another faux pas.
“Why?” she said, finally.
“I’ve been craving them for a couple of days now,” I said. “It’s weird, I don’t mind them in a Greek salad, but I don’t usually crave them. Maybe I’m low on sodium or something. Anyway, do we have any?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Green or black?”
I cringed. She was really not happy with me. “Black. But if it’s too much trouble . . .”
She stopped me by pulling her hands out of the dough and washing them in the sink before crossing the room to the panty, where she found a can of black olives. She opened the can, dumped the olives into a bowl and handed it to me, all without saying a word.
I popped one into my mouth. The salty, briny taste was like heaven.
“Thanks!” I said. “I’ll take this and put it on the sideboard in the winter garden. Let’s leave it out in case anyone else wants some.”
And then I hurried out of the kitchen, wishing I had never gone in there. But, at least I had my olives. I popped another into my mouth, and then a third before I went out into the gardens to find Henry.
“Beautiful,” I said, looking over his shoulder at what was shaping up to be a landscape painting that, to my eye, was reminiscent of Monet. “I’ve never seen the gardens looking so lovely.”
He turned to me and smiled. “It’s getting there,” he said.
“I’d love to be able to do what you do,” I said to him, still entranced by the painting. “I’ve never been much of an artist.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, putting his brush on his easel and wiping his hands on his painter’s shirt. “You organized this lovely gathering. And you were a writer for your whole career before this, at least that’s what I’ve heard.”
“That’s right,” I said, segueing into the reason I had sought him out. “I came to Cliffside quite unexpectedly. I was a journalist for twenty years, but I lost my job at the newspaper. It was right about the time Penelope Dare announced her retirement, and I thought I could use a change, so I applied for the job.”
He gazed at me, a look of concern on his face. “Out of the frying pan,” he said. “Isn’t that what they say? I was so shocked to get your letter saying that Penelope Dare had died. You’ve had your hands full, I daresay.”
“I have, indeed,” I said. “So many things fell through the cracks after she passed. I’ve been muddling my way through.”
“Beautifully, if I may say so.”
I smiled. “Thank you. But I never did get to see your letters of application, for example. I’m supposed to know your backstories, but I really have no idea how you came to Cliffside. It’s embarrassing, when people have brought it up, to have to admit that I don’t know.”
“Oh, nobody thinks anything of it,” he said, brushing the gray hair from his eyes.
For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to take the bait and I’d have to ask him outright, but then, mercifully, he continued. “My story is a little unusual, actually,” he said. “I’ve heard about Cliffside my whole life, since I was a little boy.”
“Oh?” I said. “That is unusual. You’re from the South—quite a ways away. I would think you hadn’t heard of Cliffside’s reputation down there.”
“All of the stories came from my mother,” he said, a sad smile crossing his face. “She’s gone now, of course. Cancer. Ten years ago, already.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting a hand on his arm.
“She was a nurse here,” he went on. “And if you want to know the truth—I suppose it doesn’t hurt to say it, now that everyone concerned is gone—I was born seven months after she left Cliffside.” He raised his eyebrows. “Yes,” he said. “Apparently, I was conceived right here.”
My mouth hung open for a moment until I realized I must have been staring at this poor man as though he had just confessed the original sin. “That’s incredible” was all I could manage.
“I know,” he said with a laugh. “That’s how I felt, too. I never knew my dad, and she never divulged who he was, but I have a suspicion”—he leaned in and lowered his voice—“that it was either Chester Dare, whom she idolized, or the doctor working here at the time. Davidson was his name. Of course, he’s long gone by now.
“Or, she could have fallen in love with one of the male patients and had an affair,” he continued. “I’ll never know for sure.”
I knew one way to find out, I thought. Nate was the doctor’s son. Their blood tests would reveal if they were siblings. But I didn’t say it to him, not just then. I wanted to mention it to Nate first.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s some history with Cliffside. Did Penelope Dare know any of this when she accepted your application?”
“It’s why she accepted it,” he said. “I had been putting this off for a long time, always wanting to come, but too . . . I don’t know if afraid is the right word, but reticent. Hesitant. Here was my past, my origins, waiting for me. But, somehow, I just couldn’t put pen to paper to get it done.”
“So, how did it happen, then?”
“My husband, Stephan, filled out the application, unbeknownst to me.”
He had a husband? The look on my face must’ve betrayed my feelings, because he burst into laughter.
“Thirty years now,” he said. “We were married just last year.”
“But—” I couldn’t help laughing myself. “You know everyone thinks you slept with Brynn last night.”
“They don’t!”
“They do!”
“Well, that would have been a first.” Between bursts of laughter, he fished into his pocket for a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes. “I can’t wait to tell Stephan I was part of the first scandal of our session at Cliffside. I’m twice her age, for goodness’ sake, and not to mention, that poor girl is not my type.”
This sent us both into another fit of laughter. “Miss Penny told me there would be days like this,” I managed to say.
And then, at the mention of her name, I remembered why I had come to talk to him. I cleared my throat and continued. “Say, about that. You said Stephan mentioned your connection to Cliffside, and that’s one of the reasons your application was accepted.”
“Yes, that’s right,” he said.
It might have been the laughter we had just shared, or it might have been something else, but at that moment, I trusted this man.
I sighed. “I’m finding out that Penelope Dare had personal reasons for wanting everybody at Cliffside this session. Including me.”
He squinted at me for a few moments. “That’s curious, isn’t it? What sort of reasons?”
“I’m not sure, but everyone seems to have a personal connection to the place, beyond just their artistic endeavors,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to Diana yet, but it’s true for the rest of you.”
“Stephan did show me the application letter, after the fact,” he admitted. “He definitely played up my connection to Cliffside. It took about a year, maybe a bit more, to hear back from her. She called me several weeks ago and asked me to come to this session.”
“So you, too,” I said, taking a deep breath in.
“When Brynn was reading out of her journal last night, I started to get a little—I don’t know—uncomfortable,” he said. “I didn’t mention my mother being a nurse here because . . .” His words
trailed off into a sigh.
“You didn’t want anyone to suspect that she was the nurse who gave Temperance that injection.”
“She would never have done anything like that,” he said, his voice catching. “She was the most caring, wonderful person I’ve ever known.”
I put a hand on his arm. “We don’t even know if what’s written in that journal is true,” I said. “Brynn could’ve made up the whole thing, even the existence of the journal. She is a fiction writer, after all, and that’s one hell of a hook to sell a story to a publisher.”
It made me wonder if I might be overreacting to the whole thing, even though the handwriting on the torn-out pages was identical to Miss Penny’s.
I left Henry to his painting and retreated inside to find Diana. I wanted to talk with her about how she had come to Cliffside, but in truth, I didn’t need to know, not really. Everyone else was summoned by Miss Penny personally, and I would have been stunned to find that Diana was the exception.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor and knocked lightly on her door, cringing a bit because I knew she was here for the isolation and solitude. Well, I told myself, this wouldn’t take long, and then I’d leave her to it.
She opened the door a crack and peeked around it. “Yes?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you, Diana, but may I come in for a minute? It won’t take long, I promise.”
She opened the door wide. “Of course,” she said. “I can use a break. Do come in.”
I found her room in complete disarray—clothes everywhere, stockings balled on the floor, her suitcase open in the middle of the room, a fluffy, white towel hanging over one of the bedposts. She had only been here one day, and already the room looked like a hurricane had passed through. I tried to suppress a grin. She saw my amusement and let out a laugh. “I can’t help it,” she said, opening her arms wide. “It just happens. I open my suitcase and things fly out.”
“A place for everything and everything in its place, it is not.” I smiled at her.
“How boring that would be,” she said. “I never was a black-and-white sort of person. There always seems to be a wild tangle around me.”
She perched on the edge of the bed and gestured to the wing chair. I moved the shirts that were hanging over the armrest and sank into the seat.
“Now, what can I do for you, Eleanor?” she asked. “Is this about our conversation at breakfast this morning?”
“Sort of,” I said and dove right into it. “I’m wondering how you came to be at Cliffside during this particular session. You see, all of your letters of application are missing. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem, but—” I stammered over my words. “Diana, I’m starting to believe that Penelope Dare wanted all of the fellows here together during this session for some particular reason. And me, too.”
“And not just because we’d mesh artistically,” she said, nodding.
“Exactly,” I said.
She shook her head. “I hate to break up your matched set, but I’m the odd girl out, it seems,” she said.
My heart sank. Maybe I wasn’t onto the truth after all. “No special summons, then?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “I was accepted back in December for this session.”
I saw my theory collapsing and falling to the ground like a house of cards.
“Oh,” I sighed. “Well, then.”
“You look disappointed,” she said, smiling at me.
I took a deep breath. “It’s just that . . .” My words trailed off.
“Why would you be concerned about people getting special invitations to attend this session?” she asked, squinting at me. “I think there’s more to this than you’re saying.”
“You might say that, yes,” I began but didn’t quite know how to continue.
“You said it had something, sort of, to do with our conversation at breakfast, and . . . let’s see. We were talking about what happened in Brynn’s room, and spirits at Cliffside,” she pressed. “Now you’ve piqued my interest. What is this all about, Eleanor?”
I decided to be honest with her. What could it hurt? After all, she was the one who’d said Cliffside—and the world at large—was full of spirits. At least she wouldn’t think I was crazy for what I was about to tell her. I was about to just blurt it all out when I had a better idea.
“Will you come with me to my suite?” I asked her. “It won’t take long. I just want to show you something.”
She hopped to her feet. “Why not?”
A few moments later we were sitting in my study, me at the desk, she in the armchair beside me.
I took a deep breath and began. “You know that Penelope Dare died shortly before you arrived, but you don’t know the whole story.” I opened the drawer, pulled out the letter and handed it to Diana.
As she read it, her eyes grew wide. She looked up at me and mouthed, “Suicide?”
“Nobody else knows,” I told her. “Well, Harriet and the police know, obviously, but this isn’t public knowledge.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You thought she assembled all of us here for a purpose . . . but, why? She killed herself before any of us arrived.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” I said. “But, now I’m not so sure there’s anything to it. You didn’t receive a special invitation.”
She locked eyes with me. “I was thinking about that,” she said. “Maybe I was the first one on deck, so to speak. I applied through the regular channels and was accepted for this session, and she then invited the others.”
“That could be,” I said, my mind whirring around that theory. “But what I still can’t fathom, is why.”
Diana turned her eyes back to the letter and read part of it aloud. “In my wake, I have left a puzzle for you to solve, Eleanor Harper. You, the would-be sleuth. You, of the curious mind. I know you will latch on to it, just as you latched on to the murders of my father and sister all those years ago. I trust you’ll be more successful this time.”
“She wants you to solve a mystery she’s left for you,” Diana said. “That’s crystal clear. And you think last night is part of it.”
“I do,” I said, my stomach seizing up at the thought of it. “I had a conversation with a friend of mine, the doctor on staff here, actually, earlier yesterday and he had me convinced all of this was nothing more than my imagination. But then there was the incident in Brynn’s room.”
I opened the desk drawer and pulled out the journal page. “This is what I wanted to show you,” I said. “Look at this.” I held the page next to the letter she still had in her lap. “What do you make of it?”
She gasped. “Oh, Lord,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “This is the same handwriting.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” I said.
“There’s no doubt,” she said, still looking from one page to the other.
“Richard is convinced Brynn did this herself for attention or drama or whatever it is that drives her, and I would tend to agree . . .” I said.
“If not for this handwriting,” she finished my thought.
“Exactly. I thought it looked familiar, and she might have fabricated it somehow, but I took a page to compare it with the suicide note. When I saw them side by side, it scared me to death.”
“It scares me, too,” Diana said, reaching over and putting her hand on top of mine, her eyes wide. “This scrawl on Brynn’s journal was written by Penelope Dare. And she’s dead.”
CHAPTER 22
“This is what you really wanted to bring up at breakfast,” Diana said, her hand still clutching mine.
“It is,” I said. “I just couldn’t find the words. It sounds crazy. I mean, if this is really true, then it implies—”
“That the dead at Cliffside are out for vengeance?”
It was a little dramatic, but basically true. “Something like that,” I said. “There’s no earthly way Penelope Dare could’ve ripped
up Brynn’s journal and written on it. But somehow, she did.”
“So it would seem,” Diana said, nodding. “But why would she do it?”
“That’s one question we don’t have to puzzle over,” I said. “I was stunned when I found out what Brynn is writing. There is no possibility that Penelope would sanction that novel. No possibility at all. It would ruin the reputation of her adored father and tarnish, if not ruin, Cliffside’s reputation as well. To see their names dragged through the mud with a scandalous book like the one Brynn is intending to write . . .” I let out a sigh. “I’m here to tell you, that’s a motive for murder.”
I could almost see the wheels turning in Diana’s mind. She crossed her legs and leaned in toward me.
“Maybe,” she said. “But maybe not. I still stand by what I said before. This seems juvenile to me. Childish. I say we wait and see what, if anything, happens next.”
“And what if that’s somebody winding up dead?”
She shook her head. “I really don’t think it’s going to come to that,” she said. “I think the best thing to do is to get us all together and talk about this. Knowledge is power. You’ve already found out that everyone but me received special, last-minute invitations directly from Penelope Dare to come to Cliffside this session. That’s a fact. We know she called us all here, but we don’t know why. Maybe we can all brainstorm and figure that out.”
I wished, in that moment, that I had never come to Cliffside. That sense of dread and fear I had been feeling for months had been starting to abate in recent days, but now it was awakened from wherever it had been lying dormant. I could feel it grow inside of me until I was shaking from deep in my core.
I felt Diana’s hand rubbing my back. “Don’t worry, Eleanor,” she said. “It’s all right.”
I looked up at her. “How do you know?”
“Because,” she said, smiling at me. “What people never seem to understand when dealing with the dead is this—we hold all the cards.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, squinting at her.
