by Clea Simon
“Well, I hate to break it to you.” I reached up to pull her hand off my arm. She had a strong grip. “But my place is not your new hidey hole. I’ve got my own life to worry about.”
“But don’t you see? Didn’t you get my message? That’s what I’m talking about.” Her eyes were wide and wild. “Life and…well…death.”
“Hang on.” What was going on with this girl? I did know she was probably not safe out on the road. And that much as I might regret it, I’d feel responsible if anything happened to her. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
Wallis had made herself scarce by then, and I kind of envied her. Still, I got Jill seated and started the coffee. No way was I wasting good bourbon on this girl.
“Spill.” I leaned back on the stove, arms crossed. She had disconcerted me, grabbing my arm. Especially with the buzz I had on, I wanted physical distance between us.
“It’s—you know about the medical examiner’s report?”
I nodded, fixing my eyes on her face. Looking for the lie.
“It said that my dad’s death was accidental, right?” Another nod. This was history. “Because I was looking through his papers and—I don’t know. I’ve been driving around, trying to work it out. That’s what I wanted to talk over with you. Maybe I’m losing it.”
“You’ve been through a lot.” I wasn’t disagreeing, just giving her an out. As if on cue, Wallis arrived with Ernesto in tow.
“I guess.” Jill’s eyes dropped to the kitten. “Oh, he wants to play.”
Wallis glanced up at me as Jill bent over Ernesto. “Yeah, he always does,” I said. Wallis was staring at me, in her eyes the command: “Listen!”
“At least he’s—” I stopped, catching myself. I couldn’t tell Jill that the kitten had been obsessing about a button since I’d taken him in. “I think he’s looking for a toy.” A weak recovery, but the best I could do.
“What a little precious.” Jill seemed grateful for the distraction.
“He left.” The kitten, lamenting the loss of his playmate, his silent “voice” mournful and low. But more than that. Insistent. Demanding to be heard. “He left.”
I was listening. I didn’t know what for. Maybe I was hearing old man Canaday’s final eulogy, I thought, fatigue and whiskey playing up the melancholy.
Only something wasn’t sitting right. Something my buzzed brain couldn’t quite work out. David Canaday couldn’t have been the lost playmate. Canaday had pulled the button off his daughter’s sweater in his death throes. Then he had fallen. He was gone. Jackie had then fled—Jackie who “always” locked her door. All that commotion would have sent the kitten into hiding. So who came back to kick that button, kick it once and back again? It wasn’t me. I’d been too careful, backing out of the house that day. Someone had set it rolling, intentionally or not, once Ernesto had emerged. Someone had spurred the kitten’s urge to play. To hunt. To kill.
“Jill?” I worked to keep my voice calm. “Who else has the keys to your father’s house?”
“We all do.” Jill was holding up a finger for the kitten to bat. “I mean, me and my sisters.”
She glanced up at me, and I turned, to hide my face. To reach for the mugs. No, I realized. Creighton had checked out Jill’s alibi. She had only arrived that morning. Would Judith? Unless…
“Would there be a set of keys with your father’s papers?” Jackie had called the lawyer as her father lay gasping out his life. Even if she hadn’t explained everything, she would have sounded panicked. Desperate to get out of the house. And he would have known it was time.
“I don’t know. But, Pru? I read something—I saw—” I heard a gasp as the truth hit her, too. “No!”
I ignored her, focusing instead on pouring a hefty shot in each mug. We’d need it, I knew, as I tried to organize my thoughts. As I considered what to say next. Something about trust misplaced. About being young. Something that would soften the blow.
I didn’t get to. And nothing softened the blow that bashed me first into the cabinet and then, as I stumbled and grabbed at the counter, to the floor.
Chapter Sixty-five
I woke confused, a child again. Unsure where I was. Frightened. Where was my mother? Where was…?
A wave of nausea roused me, urging me first to my knees and then, struggling, to my feet. I ran for the bathroom without thinking, only realizing once I was on my knees again, heaving, that it was the bathroom on the second floor. I’d woken in my old bedroom with no idea how I had gotten there. But while I washed my mouth out, the illusion of childhood illness—and the childish search for comfort—dissipated, leaving me sore and spitting mad.
“Jill!” I roared, my head aching from the effort, as I stumbled from the bathroom out to the landing. “Jill Canaday!” I didn’t know what the girlish pretender was up to, but as I sank down against the wall, my head swimming, I knew I had let myself be had. Despite the smoking. Despite the affair with her father’s partner. Despite all the warnings I had gotten, her innocent act had finally taken me in. She had attacked me in my own home. She must have—I remembered being in my kitchen. I remembered talking to her, putting two and two together—but I had no idea why.
“Jill!” I yelled again. I was still dizzy, still nauseous. I’d been hit hard. I wanted retribution—and some answers. “Where the hell are you?”
“Pru!” The voice that answered was not that of the youngest Canaday girl. Nor was it entirely in my head. A loud meow reached me from downstairs, turning in my mind to a discernible voice. “Pru!”
“Wallis?” I made myself stand, but the remnants of the bourbon and the blow to my head could not be so easily shaken off. Only a hand to the wall kept me upright.
“Pru…” The voice was fainter now, fuzzy.
“Wallis!” I yelled, trying to find my balance. I’d been wrong—wrong about everything. I’d begun to believe that Jill was truly innocent, manipulated by Wilkins and almost framed by Jackie, back when her scared and desperate oldest sister thought she would surely take the blame for their father’s death. But now—this…I had no idea what the crazed girl would do. “Wallis?”
“Get out, Pru!” The voice was faint, and I whipped my head around, desperate to hear. To see. Big mistake. I stumbled. Found myself on hands and knees. I gulped in air and coughed. Breathed and coughed again. There was something else beside my aching head going on here. There was smoke.
Forcing myself to calm down, I crawled to the head of the stairs. I could see it from here, the white wisps climbing from the old house’s first floor. Had I left the oven on? Had Jill been smoking when she came in? Damn that girl with her fake cigarettes. There was nothing honest about her.
Not that she mattered now. I was letting myself be distracted. Nodding out, while the smell of smoke grew stronger. I needed to get downstairs. To see what was on fire. I could handle this if I just…
No, I couldn’t stand. The attempt made me dizzy. Made the world swirl and retreat. I sat hard, catching my breath. Ignoring the smoke creeping up the stairwell.
“Get out!” Wallis. She must be trapped, too. Calling to me. Her only friend. And I—I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t try standing again. I laughed, a dry choking rattle. Stuck at the top of my own stairs. Helpless as a child.
“Prudence Marlowe.” The memory came to me, clear as day. “You’re a young lady, not an animal.”
Me, on these stairs. Sliding down on my behind. My mother at the foot, hands on her hips. Scolding.
“A young lady…” How fast I’d go. How much fun.
The memory jolted me. Swinging my legs around to hang before me, I started down. One bump, two. I stopped. Another bump and my head would explode. Twenty-odd years had past since I’d scooted down this way. Twenty-five since I had an eight-year-old’s flexibility. No matter. Smoke. Head throbbing, I pushed myself off. One step. Thump. One more step. Thump.
; The smoke grew thicker. The jostling too much for my tired brain. Halfway down, I stopped again. I couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Wallis.” I mouthed the words, even as I leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry.”
“Pru.” The reply was soft. Wasn’t what I expected. “My little animal.” My cheek against the cool, flat wall, I could see her. My mother. Only now she wasn’t yelling. Wasn’t even angry. I saw her at the base of the stairs, looking up at me. She was smiling. With a final push, I made my way down.
“Pru!” The front door burst open, light and air pouring in, blessed air. Creighton was shouting. Running to me, calling my name as he carried me out the door. Already I could hear the sirens. The fire trucks arriving. He held me to his chest. “Pru.”
“Jim.” I buried my face in him, breathing in his solid warmth. And then I pushed away. “Where is she? I don’t know where—”
“It’s okay.” He held me as I staggered. “We got her. The first ambulance took her—she hit her head. Took in a lot of smoke, but she’s okay. Jill’s going to be okay.”
“Not Jill…” I didn’t have the words. I whipped around. Woozy, flailing. “Wallis!” Grabin Jim’s arm. “She’s in there with the kitten. Save her, Jim. You’ve got to save Wallis.”
“Pru. The firefighters…I can’t.” His face looked so sad, I turned away. Saw the streams of water hosing down my sad old house. The smoke billowing out.
“Babies…nest…”
I sank to the ground, buried my face in my hands. He was here. He was safe, but he couldn’t save…I couldn’t save the one other being I cared for. The one who understood me. Who understood.
“What?” A gentle pressure against my thigh—a soft thud—as Wallis dropped Ernesto, blinking and a little confused, into my lap. “I couldn’t carry you, too. That’s what the big guy is for.”
Chapter Sixty-six
The house was saved. As much as I might complain about Beauville, the response had been swift, and by midnight the fire was out. Sure, I had a ton of water damage—my mother’s old couch had finally bitten the dust—but the basic structure was sound. If I chose to restore it, that was.
“We could go back to the city.” Wallis, sitting on an ottoman, tilted her head as she broached the question.
“We could.” I agreed. I had refused to be taken to the hospital. Refused to be parted from my pet or the kitten. Through sheer orneriness and the intervention of a certain cop, I was finally released from the EMTs’ care. Now I was bundled into Creighton’s big armchair, wrapped in a blanket and drinking sweet, milky tea, liberally laced with brandy.
“We could what?” Jim emerged from the kitchen with a plate of toast.
“Just thinking out loud.” I smiled up at him. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving me exhausted but also more clearheaded than I’d been in days. Being with Creighton helped. With Creighton and my cats.
Wallis went back to washing Ernesto. “You never want to tell me what’s going on with an investigation, I get that.” I began to put my thoughts in order. “But usually you give me something, Jim.”
He shook his head, chuckling softly. “Sometimes it’s not that complicated, Pru. Sometimes, there’s just nothing to tell.”
“Then why was everyone talking about this? Old lady Horlick. The guys at Happy’s. I mean, everybody thought, well, where there’s smoke…” I caught myself.
Randy—he’d been the one to spread the gossip. The one person everyone spoke to. With the smoke shop as his base, he’d started the rumors—gotten people talking about Jill, about how she could have poisoned her father. Not because of Judith—that romance was done and gone. But for Jackie. After all those months of casual abuse, of hoping her father would die and leave her. After watching him collapse, she had been scared, scared and guilty, and she had pressured her boyfriend into spreading lies. Vicious, desperate lies.
And the note? SHE DIDNT DO IT. SHE WAS HELP That hadn’t been a last-ditch attempt to tie Judith in with Jill. I could see now—the scrawled writing, the bad grammar—that note was all Randy. He might have been wheedled into helping his panicked girlfriend by spreading a few lies, but he couldn’t stand seeing her little sister railroaded into a murder rap. “She was helping,” I bet he meant to write. Maybe he didn’t have time. Maybe the paper had ripped awkwardly. Or maybe the man was as semi-literate as he seemed.
“I can see the wheels turning, Pru.” Creighton took the chair opposite. Managed to put his feet up on the ottoman without discomfiting Wallis too much. “But we don’t really know what’s happened yet. Maybe once Jill wakes up…” He pointed to my cup. “Drink your tea.”
I sipped, feeling the warmth blend with the fatigue in my body. Feeling it lull me into sleep. It was sweet, sweeter than I would usually like, but this was good. Something Sheila would like. Like catnip to Wallis…
Something was bothering me. Hinting around the edge of my tired brain. Catnip. Which gave Wallis a pleasant buzz, but which—yes, now I remembered—Ernesto seemed immune to. Cats, kittens especially, might react aversely to the herb at first, but most loved it. Unless it had no effect at all on them. But Ernesto had sneezed…
It meant nothing. So many things could make a kitten sneeze. FRV. An upper respiratory infection. Dust. Or an irritating plant. Something like those leaves that Sheila had ingested. Spiky and dark green.
I closed my eyes and the memories flooded over me. The hot tea. My house. Home. I remembered flowers from my mother’s garden. Stalks of cup-shaped blossoms, purple and pink, above such spiky leaves. Foxglove, which re-seeded itself and spread. Digitalis. The source of life-saving medications, used by cardiac patients the world over. By next month, they’d be in bloom.
The plantings where Mack had spilled his coffee. He’d been working. Trying, and I’d been—well, I’d been as judgmental as my mother. All he was drinking was coffee. Sweet, milky coffee. Too sweet for me, but not for someone with a sweet tooth. Unless…
“I knew,” Sheila had said. Maybe it hadn’t been the coffee, or not entirely. All these years, the faithful sheltie had been waiting. Waiting for someone to avenge her mistress. Waiting for someone who would be a friend. Who would understand.
“I knew,” Sheila had said. Now I did, too.
Not that I could explain any of this to Creighton.
Chapter Sixty-seven
I was supposed to stay in bed. To avoid an argument, I may even have promised to do that—at least, to take it easy while Jim went into work. He was going to talk to the fire inspector. Figure out how the fire had been started and, from that, by whom. Hoping to talk to Jill, too, once the doctors let him. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I knew he’d figure it out. Who had wanted to stop us from speaking. What we would speak about.
In the meantime, I had an older mystery to solve. As soon as he drove off, I got dressed and started walking. I ached like I’d been beaten, and every rasping breath hurt. But the fresh air cleared the last of the cobwebs from my head, and by the time I reached my car I knew what I had to do.
***
Judith was packing when I got to the Mont. She told the front desk to let me up, though, and her door was unlocked when I got there. There was no more fight left in the woman. From the look on her face, she was more than ready to leave.
“What happened when you worked for the Wilkinses?” I didn’t bother with any niceties. We’d been through too much for that. “I want to know the truth.”
“It wasn’t my fault, okay?” Judith didn’t look up as she folded a blouse. One bag was already packed, the other sat open on the luggage rack, the picture of neatness and order. “It was an accident.”
My breath caught, and for a moment I couldn’t speak. I’d been meaning to start with the husband. She’d cut right to the wife. “An accident?” I choked out the words.
“I was a kid,” Another blouse, patted and smoothed to lie as flat as her voice. With th
e big shades open on the bright spring day, it was easy to see the care she was taking. The little signs of wear and repair in the once-nice clothes. “A kid,” she repeated. “I was working crazy hours. She was on a ton of meds.”
“There was a mix-up in her medications?”
Judith shook her head. “No, I was careful. We were careful. It was the dosage—or maybe she was just getting weaker faster than anyone knew.” She reached for another hanger. Gave up and sat on the bed, facing me. “Melissa Wilkins was sick for as long as I could remember,” Judith said. “She’d had congestive heart disease for years. She was on all kinds of drugs that were supposed to kickstart her heart—get it going and keep it steady. And one day, it was all too much.”
She brought her hand up to her mouth, as if to stop the words. In the harsh morning light, she looked her age.
“Wilkins blamed you.” I kept my voice even and soft.
“No, no, he didn’t.” I was surprised to see her eyes fill with tears. “He defended me. He told everyone how hard I was working, how diligent I was. But then it came out.”
I waited, although by now I knew. “You were lovers,” I said finally.
“His wife was sick—bedridden.” She looked at me, willing me to understand. “And he was still a vibrant, powerful man.”
“And you were, how old when it started? Eighteen? Twenty?” My voice was soft, but she winced anyway. “Your father must have raised holy hell.”
“Dad did, yeah.” Her voice, low and even, became softer. Hushed. “He was so disappointed. He would have done anything to keep me quiet. To get me out of town.”
“I don’t think so,” I said with growing conviction. “I think he wanted to protect you. To save you. Why else would he keep working with Wilkins except to avoid a scandal?”
She shrugged, but I saw something relax in her. Something give way. All these years, and she had never figured it out. Her father must have seemed so scary back then. So stern. But he wasn’t the one who took advantage. The one who…
