by Karen Harper
“Flying a kite with that screaming face mask on it,” she called after him.
She started downstairs too as Bronco and Heck thudded after her, then passed her. They found Nick in the kitchen, going from window to window, peering out, like a caged beast.
“I didn’t hit the outside lights,” he told them as they came huffing in behind him. “Thought he might still be out there, but I don’t see anyone. I’m going to get dressed, get a light and go out. There will be footprints at least.”
“Somebody wants us to leave the island, boss,” Heck said. “Or just scare us to death.”
* * *
The next morning, Nick and Jace went outside again and carefully looked closer at the footprints they didn’t want to get near to disturb last night. As they trooped back in for breakfast, Nick told her, “Whoever it was either intentionally smeared his footprints or dragged both feet. No sign of the kite either. But how in the heck does someone know that’s our bedroom?”
“Maybe they don’t,” Jace said. “Maybe any window would have done to shake us up, get us to pull up stakes here. Or the bastard just picked the window closest to the ghost shrieks that we finally shut up.”
“It was Halloween,” Claire said. “The house is known to be haunted on the widow’s walk. It could be someone’s idea of a prank, even by the same idiot who hit our snowmobile, though that could have been deadly. Let’s just be sure Lexi doesn’t hear about it.”
The three of them sat down to a very healthful breakfast of sliced fruit and grain cereals Gina had arranged on the table next to the juice and milk pitchers and coffeepot. Heck sat there as if guarding the food, not eating. He’d already taken Gina to the medical center for her early shift today.
“You’re looking better, Mrs. Randal,” Jace said to Claire. “Color in your cheeks, pink, not white.”
Claire glared at him. She hadn’t told Nick that Jace had guessed about her pregnancy, and Heck didn’t know, but he looked as if the world was on his shoulders too.
“It worries me bad,” Heck said, “that Gina’s supposed to be the go-between for us and the new handler. A doctor, no less, and FBI. I hope he’s ugly, looks like that fright mask or worse. And what’s that you said the sheriff called her? A lying down?”
“A liaison,” Nick said. “It’s a French word and means a go-between.”
“Well, you know how the French are about women,” Heck muttered.
Nick told him, “Don’t worry about Gina. She cares for you.”
“Oh, yeah, cares. But she’s ambitious and bright and—”
“Mommy! Someone took some of my Halloween candy left over from trick-or-treaters. It was on the upstairs hall table. And I have a bad stomachache!” Lexi cried and came into the room, rubbing her belly through her flannel nightie and robe.
“Sweetheart, if you have a stomachache, are you sure you didn’t eat too much of the candy Berto and Gina had left over when we got home?”
“No, it’s gone. Did you guys eat it?”
Jace said, “Don’t look at me, honey. Are you sure it’s not hidden in your tummy?”
“Maybe Lily ate it, since she finally got back here on a snowmobile,” the child insisted. “But she’s not going to take the apples I have for Scout.”
Pulling her next to her chair, Claire said, “Lily is not here. Where would she live? All the rooms and beds are taken.”
Her lower lip thrust out, still rubbing her stomach, Lexi blinked back tears and said, “She’s living in the attic. I heard her up there.”
“No,” Nick said. “Your uncle Seth fixed the broken piece of flashing that made the wind sounds. Last night it was just a kite that got away from someone and hit against our window. You know, eating too much candy can give you bad dreams.”
“I didn’t eat that candy!” Lexi insisted. “But I think I am going to get sick.”
Claire barely got a napkin up to her mouth before she did.
* * *
After sitting with Lexi until she fell asleep, Claire left her in Nita’s care and went, as promised, to give Scout his apple without Lexi—just for today. Bronco took Claire in a snowmobile, acting as both driver and guard. Nick and Heck were working hard on a list of people to depose if Ames could be arrested and brought to trial.
“It’s amazing about the snowmobiles here,” Claire told Bronco as they got off the machine in Liz’s driveway, where another almost identical one sat. “The sheriff assured us that none were ever stolen until lately. He said most people leave the keys right in theirs, and they’re always in the same place unless one of the winter repairmen move it just a little ways.”
“Yeah, well, the way things been goin’ for us lately, I’m not leavin’ the keys in this one or leavin’ it unguarded so someone can smash into it, like the other one. That one’s already been in the shop for two days. I’m guardin’ you but this snowmobile too. Hope I do a better job’n I did watching Mr. Logan.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah, well, not that I can remember, but I’m startin’ to think he mighta been the one hit me, so hope his new watchdog does better.”
“I’ll be right back. I’m just going to give Scout this apple like I promised Lexi. We’re about ten minutes earlier than I told Liz we’d be. She wants to show me the clip from that TV show that was shot at the Somewhere in Time party.”
“I’d ask for your autograph for being famous, but not sure which name you’d sign.”
She had to laugh. For Bronco, that was a pretty clever remark.
She hurried into the barn through the side door so she wouldn’t have to wrestle with the big double ones where the horses came in and out. There was another door around the back too, near the bales of hay and sacks of feed stacked for the winter.
“Scout,” she called out, “your favorite fan sent me with your apple.”
She walked past the other horses’ stalls. Scout must know his name, for he was whinnying and shuffling through the straw, evidently eager for the treat. She didn’t like to get her hand licked the way Lexi did, so she put the apple in the feed tray and stepped back.
Right into a big, hard body.
She gasped. Bronco? No, he hadn’t followed her in. No one had.
She tried to shift away, but the stall door was there. She spun around, expecting to have to run from Wade Buxton. It was Michael.
“Oh! You!”
“Yeah, me. The truth is, I feel closer to Julia here. She loved horses, this stable and her little start-up of a riding school.”
Claire tried to step past him, but he didn’t budge, blocking her into the corner made by the wall and the stall door. She felt fear and beat it down. “Does Liz know you’re out here?” she demanded.
“No more than you did. I’m just looking around, getting ready to say goodbye, maybe for good. You’re pretty close to her, I see. Liz, I mean, but I guess you were to Julia too, considering you’ve been here such a short time.”
This man knew too much. Was she being followed and targeted by someone who feared she knew a lot about Julia? It hit Claire hard that Michael could be out here looking for the diary again. She needed to get away from him. He wasn’t to be trusted and maybe he suspected she’d overheard him and Liz, or even knew he had a motive to hurt Julia.
“I’ve got to get back to my friend, and Liz is expecting me, so excuse me,” she said in her strongest voice. She narrowed her eyes and tried to stare him down. Did Julia face him like this on the cliffside stairs and then—
“Sure. No problem. I’m glad you and Liz are friends. She may live here now, but she doesn’t seem tight with many locals since she left for a while. I think she can’t wait to take her sexy undies east and conquer the world. I usually tell my friends she designs for a lingerie line and leave it at that.”
Claire stepped sideways again, put her shoulder against his outstretched arm and walked around and away from him. Thank God, he didn’t follow. Perhaps he’d seen she had someone outside waiting for her. She had the strangest feeling he meant her harm.
“Don’t tell her I’m trying to keep an eye on her,” he called. “She thinks she’s too big to need that, but I worry about her. Julia told me that Buxton guy was a real bad choice, so I’m tempted to tell him to keep away from Liz before I go.”
Claire decided not to answer any of that. But she was thinking that the discussion between Michael and Julia about Wade—and the missing diary—might have been on those steep stairs by Arch Rock.
* * *
Claire didn’t tell Liz that her father was in the stable. She didn’t want her to be more upset about his possibly looking for the diary so she would run out there to confront him like the other day. She would mention him before she left and hope that he had cleared out by then. The way she’d felt penned in by him, she feared Liz wouldn’t necessarily come out the winner.
She decided not to mention Michael to Bronco either so he wouldn’t endanger himself. He sat by the window where he could keep an eye on the snowmobile—the other one must have been Liz’s, not Michael’s. That meant Michael was sneaking around on foot in the snow.
Today, like yesterday, Liz seemed in a calm, even pleasant mood. She dragged Claire toward the TV in her bedroom, which had become a corset workroom too.
“Okay, here’s the recording of our national TV debut,” Liz told her and started punching buttons on her remote. “Those infomercials have nothing on me. And see that box over there on the worktable? Nearly seventy customer inquiries and orders, some by snail mail, most from phone or online orders from my website. Handing out that publicity really helped, but not as much as this one-minute-and-fifty-seven-second interview I did for Inside Edition!”
Claire watched with bated breath. At least keeping busy would stop Liz from sitting around, grieving for her mother’s loss. Yes, there they were on the screen, looking good in their costumes. Thank heavens she’d managed to hide behind her bonnet brim, though there was a clear flash of her face first. She looked both surprised and annoyed by the sudden lights and camera. And though Claire had tried to hide Lexi’s face too, there she was in full view for a moment, crying in frustration, “Mommy, don’t! They’re taking my picture!”
Claire watched the following well-done spiel Liz gave about her business with name-dropping, her clever, quick mention of her website that must have reached thousands and brought this early deluge of orders.
“Liz, congrats on this!” Claire cried when the screen went blank. “You were poised and great, really smooth.”
“I get why you tried to hide. Sorry about that. I—I’ve guessed why you’re all really here, considering Mom’s second occupation.”
“Don’t answer this if you can’t or don’t want to, but was that the Wade connection at first? I mean, your mother extended to him the same help and hospitality that she did to us and then he found you and figured you should be extra helpful too?”
Liz sucked in her lips and nodded. She was about to say something, when her cell rang. Obviously glad for the intrusion, she dug it out of her jeans pocket to stare at the screen. “My father’s been calling,” she said, “but I don’t want to talk to him, I mean right now. Oh, no, it’s not him. I don’t know this number. It’s local, maybe another order.”
She took the call. Claire could hear a woman’s voice, maybe something about someone being locked up.
“Yes. Okay and thank you,” Liz said. “I’ll come soon, maybe right away. Wow,” Liz told Claire when she punched off. “I had no idea that Mother left some stuff in a locker at Grand Hotel. It’s where the security staff keeps their uniforms, I guess, but who knows what’s in it. They’d like me to come empty it out. I swear, it’s like a ghost town when it’s all locked up. I’d like to do it now. I thought—well, I thought I had everything of hers, but each thing’s important to me.”
Claire did not have to wonder what Liz was thinking. The diary might be there. It sounded like such a little thing, but in the first case she had worked for Nick, a diary had given them some key answers.
“Can Cody and I go with you?” Claire asked. “Who knows how much you’ll have to bring back? I guess I’m just paranoid since that snowmobile accident I told you about Halloween Eve. Safety in numbers.”
“Okay, sure.”
As they got their coats on and headed out to the snowmobiles with Bronco, Claire called Nick to tell him where they were going and that Bronco was going too. She could tell by Nick’s tone of voice—and what he didn’t say—that he realized what she was thinking. “Hope there’s something worthwhile there,” he said. “Take care.”
* * *
With the fresh inches of snow, Grand Hotel looked every bit the grand lady of the lake, Claire thought. So much white, like the place wore a cloak of ermine. Even the overcast late afternoon and the shuttered windows and rolled-up awnings could not dim the vast sweep of the exterior. But the lady of the lake did look alone and deserted, no people, no carriages, no flowers. The familiar rows of white rocking chairs had been taken from the now-naked porch.
Liz, on her own snowmobile, led them around to a back entrance not visible from the front. Only two snowmobiles were parked there.
“Claire and I won’t be long, Cody,” she called to him. “If I recall right, that locker room is just inside. I’m sure, since I just got that call, others will be there. But you can come in too, if you want, because it’s cold out here. It would be okay to leave the keys. I do in mine.”
“No, Miss Liz, I’ll just keep an eye on both of them out here. I’ll be fine.”
After all she’d been through, Claire would ordinarily have asked Bronco to come with them, but since Liz seemed to know her way and others would be inside, she followed Liz into the building. The first room was evidently a storage area for supplies delivered at the receiving dock in back, but few boxes sat upon the wooden pallets now.
“I was only in this area a couple of times before, and not for a while,” Liz said as they walked through, then down a dimly lit hall. A door at one end was labeled WOMEN’S RESTROOM AND SHOWER and the MEN’S at the other. They entered the room that was obviously their goal. Claire was surprised to find it deserted. It reminded her of a high school locker room with wooden benches facing two walls of gray metal lockers. Almost none had combination locks on them.
Liz found the one with Julia’s name. “The woman on the phone told me that, if I didn’t have the combination, which I don’t, I could get a pair of bolt cutters from the custodian’s room down the hall, even though he’s left for the day. Be right back.”
Claire felt she was guarding the locker just the way Bronco was the snowmobile. Sad to have to live that way, to be so wary and—yes, afraid. But she had the feeling things were opening up now. Perhaps the diary was in this locker. If Julia had tried to be extra cautious and maybe had WITSEC information in it, smart of her to keep it off her property. Maybe info on Wade was there. Claire would love to know his past, but without his real name, she had no way to research that. And Michael wanted the diary for a different reason. As for Vern Kirkpatrick, wasn’t he just after the Gene Autry items at any cost? And had that cost included Julia’s life?
Claire heard footsteps in the hall. It must be Liz coming back with the cutters, but the footsteps seemed heavier than hers. Then she heard a loud bang-click from the hall that seemed to echo even here.
The room and hall—maybe the whole vast building—plunged into total darkness.
32
Claire gasped as the world closed in, black and blank. She could not see her hand before her face. Nothing.
Her first instinct was to flee for the door to the hall—at least where she thought the door was. But she’
d heard footsteps there. Nothing. Nothing now. Maybe a distant thudding. Footsteps? Her own heart? Should she call out for Liz to be sure she was safe? But then someone would know where she was. She had learned to be afraid.
Of course, this could be something normal, if plunging the basement level of Grand Hotel into darkness was normal right now when they were closing up the place. Perhaps they thought no one was here. Did the island suffer common blackouts?
But where was Liz? Why wasn’t she calling out? Maybe there was an emergency generator that had kicked on in the custodian’s office where she’d gone. She had to find Liz. But after how silently Michael had come up behind her earlier, he could have followed them here. He was hell-bent on getting his hands on that diary. Or Wade might have followed Liz again, followed both of them, then got inside past Bronco somehow. Still, Vern Kirkpatrick was the one who had been staying here and knew this building. Maybe, when it was time to leave, he’d hidden and stayed behind.
Claire tried to calm her breathing, but her pulse pounded so loud it was like the thud, thud of a hollow drum. The footsteps in the hall had halted. She felt for the row of lockers nearest her and fumbled along until she came to the end of them. Her phone! Her phone would have a light and she could call Bronco for help.
She fumbled for the phone in her purse and found it. Leaning against a locker, she felt for the on button, pushed it, hoping her voice would not draw whoever had been in the hall.
The little rectangle of light exploded at her, nearly blinding her. She could use her flashlight app to get out of here, but she’d call Bronco first, get help.
Before she could punch the phone icon, something came at her. She tried to turn the lit phone toward him—the silhouette of a man—then tried to turn it off as she dodged. He yanked her arm, her purse. Her phone fell to the floor and went out. The man tried to haul her to him by her purse.
She pulled back, but he was stronger. She kicked and scratched at flesh, caught a face, a forehead or a cheek. Did she smell smoke? Cigarette or cigar smoke? What if this place was on fire? She let her purse go and heard it hit a locker, then the floor. “Liz! Liz! Run!” she screamed and pulled free of him and ran.
