Falling Darkness--A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Karen Harper

  They held hands as they walked quickly through the tombstones to catch up with the others now standing under a canvas awning above the open grave. Some headstones were old, worn ones with praying hands and long-past death dates; some new ones of polished marble had the person’s picture etched or mounted on them.

  Nick said, “The last time we were in a cemetery...”

  “I know. I about lost it when I saw the statue of that Cuban saint holding the dead child. It still gets to me.”

  He squeezed her hand. At least she and Nick were working together again, no secrets, except their identities here.

  As they stopped at the edge of the group of mourners, Claire turned her head to survey the sweep of gravestones clear to the iron fence and jolted.

  “What?” Nick whispered.

  She turned toward him and nodded toward the iron gate. Almost hidden by the parked wagons, she’d seen Wade Buxton, leaning there against the bulky, short stone wall.

  “Wade Buxton, watching from afar,” she whispered.

  “Where?”

  When she looked again, Wade was gone.

  26

  The Somewhere in Time convention was like stepping back in time. As Claire, Liz, Gina, Nita and Lexi mingled with guests who were waiting to go in for their Saturday evening cocktails and dinner, it seemed everyone was dressed in costumes from the so-called Gilded Age.

  “Except for the corsets, we blend in pretty well,” Liz told Claire as they meandered through the buzzing crowd, passing out publicity postcards and chatting. They had Lexi in tow, while Nita and Gina were nearby looking every bit like Edwardian ladies they were not. They had to avoid stepping on long skirts and toes. Several women carried parasols, and, though they’d closed them, their tips and spikes needed watching. Several gentlemen had tall hats. One man’s fell off when he turned fast to ogle Liz in her corset. She was putting on a good show with smiles and chatter, but Claire could see she was still hurting.

  “How are you and your father getting on together after everything?” Claire had slipped in the question earlier.

  “You might know, when he could be so helpful, he told me his wife is coming. I said, ‘Please, no. Not now.’ We had a few words about his moving out. All I need is her underfoot in my mother’s house, near her things, her horses. I swear, he never did get over Mother, and they could have put things back together, but then he found that woman and—”

  It was all she could say—but it was a lot—before the next cluster of people came along and they began handing out postcards again. Claire overheard a thin woman say, “Did you see that TV tabloid type show Inside Edition sent a camera crew here? That just shows how important this wonderful movie still is. Deborah Norville’s not here though. I think she looks amazing for her age, in her upper fifties if she’s a day. You know Jane Seymour actually attended one of these conventions recently, and wouldn’t it be awesome if she came in person and...”

  Gently herding Lexi ahead of them, Claire and Liz moved on to another group. But for swollen eyelids, Liz was amazing as she began smiling and chatting again.

  But when the three of them approached the next group of women, Wade Buxton stood in their way.

  “Oh, Wade!” Liz said. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “You’d wanted me to help, remember?” he asked, tipping his bowler hat to Claire and winking at Lexi. “I still had these duds you loaned me.”

  “But that was before—before... I assumed you’d know better now.”

  “But knowing involves the brain and not the heart. I’m doing this from the heart.”

  Claire was tempted to roll her eyes, but she just stood there like a chaperone—like Julia might have done if she was here.

  “Well, thank you for the effort,” Liz said, “and you do look handsome as usual, but—”

  “I’ve had more than one woman tonight stop me to say I looked like Christopher Reeve in the movie. I get noticed.”

  “You do, indeed,” Claire cut in. “Guarding the cemetery gate but not coming in.”

  “Again, Jenna—that was your name, I think—it was a matter of the heart. I knew Liz was suffering but that I’d best stay away right then.”

  “Like now,” Claire countered. She had promised Nick she’d steer clear of this man, but he’d put himself in her path and he annoyed her. He was as slick as oil, the kind of man who liked to live off his looks. He didn’t need to circle back to Liz like a vulture the moment her mother was gone. And if he was in WITSEC, that didn’t make her feel any better. She recalled again that Rob had said a huge percentage of the hidden witnesses were criminals—if this man was a WITSEC refugee.

  Wade turned his shoulder to cut Claire off from Liz. “Liz, look. You’re of age,” he said quietly, but his words carried to Claire. “We have that special something between us. I’m sorry your mother is gone,” he went on, his voice almost swallowed by the crowd noise, “but you don’t need another protector to stand between us, so why don’t we get rid of her.”

  Claire knew she was being overly sensitive, but somehow that sounded like a threat. She shuddered, despite how warm it was in this costume. Maybe she should not have come.

  “Please, Wade,” Liz said, “it was my decision too. I just—”

  “Excuse me,” another man’s voice cut in. A third man lifted a video camera and turned on very bright lights in their faces.

  “You all look perfect,” the first man said. “Inside Edition here and we are shooting a segment that will run on Monday. Oh, a child too. How darling. Go ahead, Greg. Shoot.”

  Instinctively, Claire ducked her head to cover her face with her bonnet brim as the camera rolled. She pulled Lexi to her and lowered her basket of postcards in front of the child’s face.

  “Mommy!” she said. “Don’t. They’re taking my picture!”

  Claire was grateful when Liz stepped forward to give a short interview, modeling her costume, talking about her corset shop, giving her name, mentioning the Kardashians had bought her specially designed, hand-finished products. Claire was happy for her. What a break for Liz. And again, after doffing his bowler and smiling for the video camera, Wade seemed to suddenly have disappeared.

  * * *

  Just before dusk that evening, the wind was up and there was no precipitation, so Claire talked Nick into going into the attic to access the widow’s walk. She had mixed feelings about it when, the moment they started up the stairs, Jace joined them. It had already been a hard day. She’d dreaded telling Nick about both Wade Buxton and a TV film crew materializing from the crowd at Grand Hotel, but, when she’d explained, he’d said none of that was her fault.

  Still tugging on his outdoor jacket as they climbed, Nick said, “Jace, I told Bronco and Heck not to come up with us, because we don’t know how much weight that old structure will hold. You’re not as big as Bronco but you weigh more than Heck.”

  “Your leg isn’t completely healed yet,” Jace countered, keeping right behind them up the stairs and zipping up his own jacket. Claire wondered how he overheard they were going to do this because he wasn’t downstairs when Nick discussed it.

  Jace went on, “After all, if it’s at all iffy up there, I’ll go out on the walk and you and Claire can enjoy the view from inside. I think that howling is louder back by your room, but it drives me nuts too. Like a cry for help.”

  “In that case, it might have been me,” Claire said. “I could use some help, because I’m going crazy waiting for Pat Robart to contact us again about whether we’re staying.”

  Jace said, “Odds are good since he signed everyone up for snowmobile lessons to get us through the winter.”

  “I looked at the door to the walkway earlier,” Nick said, as if to stop the chitchat. “Let’s do this while we still have daylight.”

  Claire held the flashli
ght they’d brought to navigate the dark attic, and Nick tried to turn the rusty-looking metal bolt. “It turns hard,” he said as he twisted it, then the knob. “Maybe that’s a sign. We should have had Julia show us this when she mentioned it and not waited this long.”

  “Need help?” Jace asked.

  “Nope. Got it.”

  “Here, let me go out first,” Jace said as Nick opened the door. “Damn highest I’ve been since our plane went down, so I just might take off from here.”

  “Don’t joke about that,” Claire insisted. “It’s high, and we don’t need anyone to fall in this coming darkness.”

  “Darkness Falling,” Nick said. “I’ll use that for the working title for the murder mystery I’m not writing.”

  “Falling Darkness makes more sense,” Jace said as he leaned out to reach one hand to the railing and just one foot down on the walk at first. Then he stood, carefully, slowly, on both feet.

  “Fabulous view of the harbor,” he called back in to them, “but I guess that’s why the widow kept watching from here.”

  “The point is,” Claire said, stepping out carefully beside him, while Nick fussed with the door to be sure the wind wouldn’t close it on them, “I don’t believe she still watches from here and moans when the wind’s up. Let’s look for whatever it is that makes that sound. I don’t hear it right now.”

  “The wind direction shifted,” Jace said. “Be careful up here. You go around that way, and I’ll meet you at the back.”

  “It looks sturdy enough,” Nick said and stepped out on the three-foot-wide walkway as Jace and Claire walked slowly away in opposite directions.

  “Watch your leg,” Jace called back to him. “We’ll look around the corners.”

  Claire didn’t see anything amiss and met Jace, waiting for her on the other side. “I think I see where it is—the spot,” he told her as they faced each other on the narrow walkway. “See that northeast corner back there? Its flashing is broken. Go back around. It’s too narrow for both of us at once.”

  Jace called to Nick, “I think I see the culprit, and with a hammer, nails and something curved to nail down, maybe we can get a good night’s sleep again. Can you yell down to Heck or Bronco to find something like that?”

  Nick looked at Claire as she came back around from her side. “Sure,” he said and stepped inside again.

  Awkwardly, Jace and Claire stood side by side, looking out over the backyard, the slant of grass below where she’d heard Heck courting Gina, then the harbor, breakwall, lighthouse and lake beyond.

  “Don’t get sick up here,” Jace said.

  “What? You know heights don’t bother me.”

  “Not even on a day when you’ve had morning sickness?”

  “What?”

  “Claire, Jenna, whatever I’m supposed to call you, you’re not eating breakfast well and you look green in the gills in the a.m. I’ve seen it all before, remember? I think you’re pregnant and telling no one. Wow, fast work for starting a family since you two never really had a honeymoon—unless you count the weeks you’ve been here and there running from Clayton Ames. Hey, maybe my brother, Jack, can put that in his mystery novel.”

  She was stunned. It seemed Jace knew a lot of things, as if he’d been spying on them.

  “My pregnancy is no one else’s business right now,” she insisted, holding on to the railing and not looking at him. “Well, I didn’t mean that as harsh as it sounded. I’ll tell Lexi later, when some of these challenges have passed. I’d really appreciate it if you’d keep that a secret.”

  “Sure.”

  “I know you told Lexi about Julia’s death before I could, so I hope you mean that.”

  “No one else will notice for a while. Can’t say you have a glow—more like you look too pale.” His voice was husky and intimate even in the sweep of wind as it shifted again and the very place he’d pointed out began to moan. “Besides,” he added, “I’m a dedicated Claire watcher.”

  “You and someone else, I’m afraid.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Nick lurking?” he asked and turned around to the attic door, which still stood empty.

  “Wade Buxton keeps turning up, then disappearing, and he’s no ghost. I’m just wondering if he did that to Julia.”

  “You need a bodyguard, let me know.”

  “Very funny.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be. Claire, you and I may have had tough times, but Nick Markwood has had you in trouble from the first day you met him, so watch your step—up here, everywhere.”

  “Hey,” Bronco called from just inside the door where he’d suddenly appeared with Nick behind him, “I found an old bathtub mat that should work. I cut it in half. Want me to do it?”

  Claire spun around, worried they’d overheard, but evidently not.

  “Just hand it out since I know right where it is,” Jace said. Claire took a last look at the bird’s-eye view of the area while Bronco handed the hammer and nails out to Jace and handed her the rubber mat and some duct tape.

  She sidled along where Jace knelt and handed him the tape and mat.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the corner where he was going to work.

  “What’s what? This corner edging just came loose and traps the wind. Now that it’s shifted again, hear it?”

  “No, I mean that little piece of material caught there,” she said and leaned carefully over to pluck the small square of dirty, torn and windblown cloth and lace from where it had snagged.

  “Beats me,” Jace said and started to fit the mat to the corner.

  Claire held the remnant of fabric close to her eyes in the fading daylight. A puckered piece of white cotton someone had shirred with tiny hand stitches and attached to a strip of antique-looking lace, which was now ripped. It was as if someone walking here had caught and torn the hem of an old-fashioned slip or fancy dress, even like the ones they’d worn at the Somewhere in Time conference earlier today.

  27

  Sunday morning, Nick took Claire and Lexi back to the church where Julia’s funeral had been held. He’d liked the place and the minister, but—God forgive him—that wasn’t why he came today. He’d learned Sheriff Archer was a member and was hoping to corner him informally after the service. Which he managed, sending Claire and Lexi to wait for him in the entryway. It was snowing outside, and Lexi was antsy to play snow games, whatever those were.

  Luckily, Nick thought, the sheriff opened the topic he wanted.

  “Hi, Jack. So how’s your wife holding up after finding Julia like that? I saw you both at the funeral.”

  “She’s been trying to support Liz. And, of course, wondering if any of the three men who look like they might have had motives for harm—I know the coroner ruled the cause undecided—look like persons of interest. They’re all in the clear, of course, but that worries Jenna. So they are of interest to us.”

  “Everybody knows cop talk from TV and movies these days, don’t they? I mean like, persons of interest.”

  Nick nodded. If this guy only realized that he knew cop talk, attorney talk, prosecution talk, even constitution talk. It hurt his pride to have to play dumb, but he kept his mouth shut on all that and said only, “Julia was kind to us the few days we knew her, and Jenna feels sorry for Liz.”

  The sheriff looked around before he said, “She was a compassionate contact. Helpful and kind to me too. Actually, each of the three persons you refer to have alibis, though hardly ironclad. Fuzzy time frames. Each elsewhere but alone at that time. I’m not letting it go, no matter what the ruling, but you should. I can tell you the coroner found no signs of trauma such as gunshot or stab wounds. Leave it to the professionals, Jack. Tell Jenna that, and I thank her for her clear and complete testimony. Have a good day.” Instinctively, he reached up to touch the brim
of a hat he didn’t wear and headed back into the crowd.

  “Well?” Claire asked as they started walking home and Lexi ran ahead, kicking up snow from the grass and sidewalk.

  “Well what? We’d better step up our snowmobile driving if it’s going to keep falling like this.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “Michael, Kirkpatrick, pretty boy Wade—all have alibis, but hardly ironclad, as the sheriff put it, so we’ll see what unfolds. Carefully. Quietly. That’s our deal, right?”

  “One of them,” she said, linking her arm through his.

  “If we have other, more intimate deals,” he said, his voice husky, “I’d like to see what unfolds there too. Now that we’ve quieted the woman on the roof, I can give more attention to the one in my bed, if you’re comfortable with that.”

  “Very. Just because I’m with child doesn’t mean we have to be strangers.”

  “I know you haven’t felt well in the mornings.”

  “Jack Randal, I haven’t felt well about Julia, but it makes me feel a lot better we’re working together on this. Are you sure you want to go to Liz’s this afternoon with Bronco and me to see if we can jog his—or Hunter Logan’s—memory?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Lexi turned back. “If you go there, I want to go to see Scout too.”

  “Not this time,” Claire said. Nick could tell she was startled Lexi had overheard them. “Remember our deal? We play snow games, and you go to see Scout later this week, not today. Sunday is the day of rest for horses too.”

  For one second, Nick thought Lexi was going to flip back into what Claire called the “bad Lily” routine. Her pretty little face crumpled into a scowl. “Just so long as no one else feeds him apples,” she said.

  He told Lexi, “I’ll make sure of that. So what’s this snow game we’re going to play?”

  “We’re going to play fox and geese, right, Mommy?”

  “For sure.”

  “How do you play that?” Nick asked as they neared their house.