Falling Darkness--A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Karen Harper

  Hands on her hips, Lexi stopped and turned to face them. “You have a person who is ‘it,’ like a bad guy. He chases everybody else. If he hits them—”

  “Tags them,” Claire put in.

  “Right, then they are dead and fall down like Julia did.”

  Claire gave a little gasp. “No, the it who is the fox just pens the geese up until all are caught, and everyone has to stay on the paths drawn in the snow—like following the rules which parents give to children.”

  Lexi pouted and shook her head. “Maybe that’s what happened to Julia,” Lexi said, looking and sounding every bit like Lily again. “The fox caught her and threw her off the rock and she couldn’t fly. Now, if she was like Daddy—I mean, Uncle Seth—he’d fly and catch her, but then be sorry he hurt her.”

  Claire’s wide gaze collided with Nick’s as Lexi ran up the steps ahead of them and pounded on the front door that Nita opened to let her in. Nick motioned that they’d be in soon.

  “Lily strikes again,” Nick said. “Where did she get all that? Her uncle Seth is the one who told her about Julia’s death, so how did he explain it to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Claire told him, looking shaken. “She obviously has a wild imagination and is still troubled by all she’s been through. She jumbles things up sometimes.” She shook her head as she went into the house too.

  Talk about alibis of those three other guys, Nick thought as he followed. How about a fourth man? Jace had got off work midafternoon the day Julia died but hadn’t come home for hours and said he was uptown having a beer. Another excuse, hardly ironclad? And motive—Jace had been hitting on Julia just the way Wade had been after Liz and with a lot less success. Maybe he’d either wanted another chance with her or wanted to apologize. He’d mentioned he’d been to Arch Rock, but had said it was after Julia’s death, just to see the place she’d died. Surely it wasn’t the afternoon she died—or even the moment she died.

  * * *

  Claire made sure she, Nick and Bronco arrived at Liz’s house a couple of hours after Hunter Logan had been brought back with his new companion, a widower hired from St. Ignace named Doug Fremont. Liz had said Fremont was around seventy-five and seemed younger, strong too, so she thought he’d do quite well. He was evidently willing to go along with the cowboy theme since he wore a plaid shirt with a string tie, Liz had told them.

  “Doug knows all the background here, so he’ll be watchful,” she assured them. “Mother’s orders still go, to make sure Kirkpatrick and Wade stay away. And,” she said, lowering her voice even more, “Dad and I did have to sell a few Gene Autry items online to get money to hire Doug since our insurance won’t cover it all, things that were still boxed up I think Granddad won’t miss. While Doug unpacks in the guest room Dad’s vacated upstairs, if you want to try—well, you know. Now’s a good time to jog memories. I’ll go get Granddad. Dad’s here, packing to leave for the Island House again, then back to Baltimore in a few days. I talked him out of having his wife join him here. But how are you feeling, Cody?” she asked, turning to Bronco.

  “Good, ’less I touch the back of my head, Miss Liz. Haven’t figured out what happened though, so maybe today.”

  It soon became apparent that Mr. Logan didn’t remember any of them, even Bronco, who’d spent hours with him. Claire hesitated to bring up his taking a horse from the stables to go after Julia. She didn’t want to get him upset again, after all he’d been through. Maybe she’d overstepped to try to set this up. She’d rehearsed several opening questions, but now it all seemed so futile.

  “Where’s Gene’s boots?” Mr. Logan asked suddenly, staring at the glass cases across the room and getting to his feet.

  “Granddad,” Liz said, “they’re on your feet. Your favorite ones so you don’t worry about—”

  “No, the ones he wore in Rim of the Canyon. I know I got three pairs but those are gone. In that movie, his horse Champion got stolen, just like my boots! I’ll show you,” he said, getting more agitated as he opened a drawer and clawed through some CDs stored there. “Well, dagnabbit, Rim of the Canyon’s gone too and some of the others!”

  Claire marveled at how the old man knew his extensive collection so well but not much else. He must have realized the things Liz and Michael sold were gone.

  “Now, just relax, Granddad,” Liz said. “I’ll bet they’re just misplaced. Cody, would you please go get Doug?”

  Claire was glad she hadn’t started this. She’d never worked with dementia patients, only studied the disease. She caught Nick’s warning gaze and shook her head. So much for this idea, she thought.

  When Bronco came back in with Doug, the old man shouted, “Rustlers been here and taken more than cattle! I tried to stop their leader, but he hit my right-hand man over the head from behind and stole them anyway!”

  “Hey, Hunter,” Doug said in a calm voice, “we’ll find them and get them back.”

  “And when we do, I’ll shoot them but I’d never hit them on the head or shove them off a bluff. Only thieving cowards do that, I tell you!”

  While Doug calmed Mr. Logan down, Liz’s wide, teary gaze snagged Claire’s. “Those are not items we sold,” she whispered. “I swear they’re not.”

  Claire kept quiet. But she’d learned some things anyway.

  * * *

  After Mr. Logan calmed down and seemed to forget the “rustled” items, Liz said she’d be right back and ran from the room, wiping her eyes. Claire knew where her bedroom was and thought she’d see if she could help before they left. She told Nick and Bronco she’d be right back and went down the hall where she’d desperately looked for a phone the day she and Nita found Bronco unconscious on the floor. If Liz’s door was closed, perhaps she’d give her more time, but she had the excuse that Liz had said she’d put their coats on her bed.

  Both Julia’s and Liz’s bedroom doors were open, though, and Liz’s shrill voice came suddenly from her mother’s bedroom. “Dad, what are you doing in here? You said you’d be packing upstairs!”

  “Let’s just say I’m looking for a memento.”

  “In her dresser drawers? And you’ve been in her closet? What are you doing?” she repeated. “You gave up your rights to this—to her—years ago. Just go back to your second wife!”

  Claire froze, her back pressed to the wall. She needed to retreat, maybe grab their coats and go. But as she turned away to do so, Michael said, “All right, I should have told you. I’m looking for your mother’s diary because I need to protect myself and that second wife.”

  “What?”

  “Sweetheart, please, just sit down a minute. Let me explain. Are your guests all gone?”

  “Not yet, but don’t change the subject. If she had a diary, I never saw it. And why would you have any right to it?”

  “It’s one she kept just before we were divorced. Sit down, please. It will just take a minute to explain and maybe you can think where it might be. Susan’s interior-design business is having some financial problems, and one of her designers is claiming she falsified tax records and I helped her.”

  “And—and that’s one of the things Mother claimed you’d helped Susan do—when the two of you got involved? You think that’s in the diary? Then Mother found out and divorced you?”

  “Yes, well—right. More or less. I’m glad you’re an adult now and can understand that even parents make mistakes.”

  “Susan was a mistake for you.”

  “Don’t go there. Listen, sweetheart, I suppose your mother could have destroyed the diary, but if it’s around, I need to see it—get rid of it before this new mess gets sticky.”

  “Dad, she’s dead. She’s not going to turn up with some old diary. I just can’t believe it,” Liz said in a choked voice. Claire heard her give a big gasp. “Oh, damn. That’s the real reason you wanted to go with me to see what was
in Mother’s safe-deposit box.”

  “The woman used to work for the FBI, for heaven’s sake, Liz, and believe me, she’s a master at hiding things, including people. You think I didn’t know she was being interviewed by the WITSEC program about the time we divorced? Grow up. Even from the grave, she can hurt me again if that diary’s out there somewhere!”

  “Is that why you went through Granddad’s things when he was away for a few days? Not to help me decide what we could sell to pay for hiring him a full-time companion, but to see if she’d hidden it in there?”

  “Liz, please.”

  “Dad, I really needed you right now. I really trusted you. You—Did you discuss demanding that diary with her? Did you argue with her about it? I know you came in here all charming and friendly, but is that the real reason you came this time?”

  “This is out of control. Forget it!” he shouted and a drawer slammed in the room, then a door.

  Claire almost vaulted into Liz’s bedroom. He was no doubt coming out into the hall. But what if he hurt Liz?

  Instead, when she heard fast footsteps, she darted through Liz’s open bedroom door and began to pick up their coats from the bed, praying he wouldn’t come in.

  But he did.

  She held the four coats in front of her like a shield.

  “Oh,” she said, hoping she looked surprised. “Mr. Collister, I didn’t know you were here. Liz said you were upstairs. Just came to get our coats as we’re leaving.”

  He narrowed his eyes and frowned at her, no doubt analyzing if she could have heard. He was sputtering mad but made an obvious effort to calm himself. “Actually, I’m leaving too,” he said. “Said goodbye to Liz. I’ve done what I could here.”

  “And I know Liz appreciates it,” Claire lied, hoping to bolster the impression that she had not heard their argument. This man might actually be a threat to her if he realized that. But worse, he could have well been a threat to Julia if, as Liz said, he’d argued with her about the diary and then, accidentally or intentionally, struck out. Maybe came here, hit Bronco first, searched for the diary while Mr. Logan rode away, then followed Julia to the cliffside stairs and confronted her there.

  And killed her?

  28

  Nick’s lovemaking seemed possessive and almost desperate that night. Yet it somehow comforted Claire to be mastered, to let Nick make the moves and decisions.

  “I love you, Claire, and always will,” he vowed as he rolled them over and fit her naked back and bottom to his chest and thighs. He nibbled kisses down the nape of her neck as if they would begin all over again. “I’m so sorry we got off to such a rough and dangerous start—with our marriage, I mean.”

  “Mmm,” she said, stretching luxuriously. “You are worth it. Know what I thought about you after the first couple of times I met you?”

  “That if you got too close to me we’d be fleeing for our lives and hiding out with fake names?”

  “Very funny,” she said and poked him gently in the ribs with an elbow, “but not far from the truth that you were probably mad, bad and dangerous to know.”

  “The forensic psych/expert witness is right again. I plead guilty to all three of those charges, my love. But I want to tell you this. Once we get Ames in court and both of us—probably Jace too—testify against him, he’s going away for a long, long time. And then you and I will also, maybe on a cruise ship or to a desert island or back here in the winter to hide out again.”

  “With two children in tow? Batten down the hatches, believe me.”

  He hugged her closer again. His warm breath stirred her hair, and he moved even closer under the cozy covers they’d thrashed to waves. He whispered, “I was relieved to see how happy Lexi was when we were all out back playing fox and geese in the snow tonight. I’ll bet Jace didn’t like it though, that she kept wanting him to be the fox and called him a bad guy.”

  “He understood it was a game. But I do think she somehow caught on to the fact he was not nice to Julia at times. Actually, he tried to be too nice.”

  “Lexi’s too young to pick up on how he was trying to move in on Julia.”

  “I thought so too. Maybe it’s something he said to her, like the night he told her Julia was dead and had fallen off the cliff. I wish he wouldn’t have done that without me there. Who knows how he said it and what she picked up under the surface. For a young child, she’s really good at reading people.”

  “Then it’s in the genes,” he said with a little squeeze.

  “And her insistence on doing things a certain way is inherited, I know that,” she said and yawned.

  “She was a little tyrant if anyone so much as stepped off the circle and crossed paths in the snow we’d cleared. No way was anybody going to cut across the clean areas of snow.” As he spoke, his voice became less lazy and more raspy. He lowered his head to lick the skin along her shoulder, a move she always felt through her belly and clear down to her toes. But she felt so exhausted, so floaty. She’d taken her first dose of night meds, but when Nick had started to caress and kiss her, forget nodding off. Now, darn it, but what a time to have to go to the bathroom.

  “Nick?”

  “Mmm? Your wish is my command.”

  “Bathroom call. Be right back.”

  She turned and kissed him, then got up quickly as the chilly air hit her. She padded barefoot and naked, not pausing to grab her slippers or a robe. She made quick work of it, then headed back to bed. As she passed their bedroom window overlooking the backyard, she noted strong moonlight flooding in on the floor. Such a romantic night in so many ways. No howling from above. Bright moonlight on the pattern they had all created by running across the new snow.

  She glanced out through the break in the curtain.

  “Nick.”

  “You okay?”

  “The backyard. Someone came in and messed it up, added something to the fox and geese pattern. Lexi will have a fit.”

  He threw the covers off and got up, dragging the top comforter with him and wrapping it around them both as they leaned over to peer through the lightly frost-etched glass.

  “You’re right,” he said. “What is it? It’s too exact for a dog to have run through. It looks like some kind of cartoon drawing.”

  “I can’t tell. Let’s put on robes and go quietly downstairs to turn on the back door light. What if someone’s still out there? And what’s the message?”

  They jammed their feet into slippers, pulled on flannel pajamas and sweatshirts, grabbed a flashlight and went downstairs in the dark. In the kitchen, they hovered over the window above the sink as Nick clicked on the back door light.

  At the top right corner of the fox and geese square that enclosed the four cross paths within, someone had drawn a stick figure of a man with both arms straight out.

  “On his feet,” Nick whispered. “Are those supposed to be cowboy boots?”

  “I guess. But look, tumbling over the side of the square, as if he’d pushed her—that other stick figure. It’s a woman falling as if over the edge of a cliff.”

  Nick hugged her close in a hard grip.

  “But what’s that sticking out of his mouth?” Claire asked.

  They heard footsteps and rough breathing behind them and turned as a dark form came in the kitchen. Nick thrust Claire behind him. It was just Jace, but they both jumped anyway.

  “I saw it earlier when I was in here to get a sandwich,” he told them. “If you ask me, the thing in the man’s mouth is supposed to be a damned expensive cigar, probably the same kind Kirkpatrick smokes.”

  * * *

  After closing the curtains, the three of them sat at the kitchen table, drinking hot cider. Nick hoped Claire’s tousled look didn’t set Jace off on one of his jealous snits again, but they needed this quick conference.

  “
It’s 3:00 a.m. I can’t believe you were still up,” Nick told him.

  “I couldn’t sleep and went out in front to watch the stars and moon and clear my head in the cold air. Honestly, I used to think I could navigate by those heavenly signs if the Airbus systems failed. But I saw no one go by and didn’t hear a thing when I was out there.”

  Nick had no choice but to believe him, but Jace had seemed out of breath when he first came into the kitchen. And he was still fully dressed with melted snow on his boots.

  “So,” Claire said in the awkward silence, “someone is telling us Vern Kirkpatrick shoved Julia off the cliff, right?”

  “He sure had a motive,” Jace said.

  “And Sheriff Archer said his alibi was not ironclad,” she said, when Nick kept quiet. “But neither were whatever Julia’s ex-husband, Michael, and Liz’s would-be suitor Wade Buxton came up with.”

  “Okay, counselor and expert witness,” Jace said, turning to Nick, “I’ve got to level with you.”

  For one crazy moment, Nick thought he was going to say that he’d been outside to add the telltale stick figures, because surely not more of a confession than that was coming. It had really been gnawing at him that Jace could have tried to see Julia the afternoon she died.

  “Go ahead,” Nick urged when he hesitated.

  “The first time I met Kirkpatrick at the airport, he offered me a grunt job to help him load some purchases he planned to have in his possession soon. I blew him off, but after Julia died, decided to tell him I’d help—just to keep an eye on him, maybe get the goods on him to tell the sheriff. He’s full of himself, won’t take no for an answer. He thinks he can do no wrong.”

  “The way you described him before,” Claire said, “he sounded to me like he is a classic case of a mask narcissist, and all those things fit. Insecure inside, so if people don’t adore him and go along with his every whim, he attacks them one way or the other.”

  “But that’s not the end of it. He drove a wagon to the airport when I was leaving. He had some Gene Autry stuff he didn’t explain or want seen but I recognized. I helped him stash the plastic container with those items near the airport at the site the locals call the Crack in the Island.”