“I would like to argue because that makes me sound greedy, but it’s true,” Tony said. “I’m paid very well, so it’s kind of like being semi-retired.”
Jared could understand the appeal. “What about Madeline? Did she enter your garage last night?”
“No, and neither did Carlos. He dropped off Mr. Jessup yesterday morning and then split because he knew his services wouldn’t be needed for the rest of the weekend. I talked to him. He had no intention of coming back.”
“So, basically you’re saying odds are good that Madeline didn’t leave the property.”
“That would be my guess.”
Jared rolled his neck and stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. “So ... where is she?”
That was the question plaguing Harper, too. Where could the woman have possibly gone?
10
Ten
By the time Harper and Jared reunited with the rest of their group, they were no closer to finding Madeline than when they started. The house had been searched from top to bottom –twice – and there was no sign of her. The only people that seemed to care were the ones belonging to Harper’s group. Everyone else was either over it or convinced she would show up when she got bored.
“I don’t like this,” Harper groused as they sat in the parlor shortly before lunch. They were offered cocktails, which everybody turned down because they were there to work, and found themselves ostracized because of their insistence on taking Madeline’s disappearance seriously.
“None of them bothered to look,” Shawn volunteered from his spot next to Zander on the couch. They were holding hands, looked relaxed, but Harper detected an edge of vitriol in his voice. “By the way, if I ever go missing, I don’t want them on my search team.”
Harper couldn’t blame him. “Did you guys find anything?”
“No.” Zander shook his head. “We talked to a few of the maids, though. We thought maybe they came across the clothes Madeline was wearing last evening. We thought it would at least give us a timeframe to work with if they discovered the outfit.”
Harper brightened. “That’s good thinking. What did they say?”
“That they couldn’t find the outfit. I figured I would recognize it easily enough so I went into her closet but … nada.”
Harper frowned. “I guess that means she was still wearing it when ... she did whatever she did.”
“That’s the problem,” Jared noted, sparing a quick glance for the rest of the room to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “We have no idea if she left this house of her own volition or was taken. Given the things we know about her, I would assume it was on her own but ... the timing is troubling.”
“Okay, since nobody else is doing it, I’ll ask the obvious question,” Eric said. “Why would someone take Madeline at the same time people are out here looking for answers on Jennifer?”
“There could be any number of reasons,” Jared replied, opting for honesty. “Just off the top of my head, someone could be nervous because we’re here investigating Jennifer’s disappearance and this individual doesn’t want us looking at him or her so Madeline makes a good distraction.”
“You think someone in the house killed her?” Eric was officially intrigued. “Who? You think it was a family member, right? That’s what you’re saying.”
Jared immediately started shaking his head. “Not necessarily. A lot of people are employed here. A lot of people cross on and off the island on any given week. It could be someone who works here, or visits frequently. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a family member.”
“Except it makes more sense for it to be a family member,” Harper volunteered, drawing Jared’s unreadable eyes to her. “I just mean that murder is rarely carried out by someone who doesn’t know the victim. I’m not saying it never happens, but it’s certainly not common.”
“No, I would agree with that assessment,” Jared said slowly, nodding as he considered her words. “We simply don’t have enough information. I would like a clearer picture of Jennifer, to be honest. You guys gave me a basic overview but that’s not enough for me to truly understand her.”
“That’s all we know, though.” Harper shifted on her chair, frowning when Jared grabbed her hand to calm her. “I feel bad that we don’t know more about her but ... that’s it.”
“I’m not admonishing you,” Jared reassured her. “I didn’t mean for that to come out as a personal attack. That’s not how it was meant.”
Harper relaxed, but only marginally. “Okay. I’m sorry. I took that personally and I didn’t mean to. What do you think we should be doing? There’s a cemetery on the island. We could go check that out ... or maybe wander around the woods.”
Jared didn’t look thrilled with the prospect. “The snow is going to be deeper in the areas covered by trees,” he pointed out. “It takes the sun longer to penetrate through the branches. That means wading through all the snow is going to take a lot of energy, and potentially be dangerous.”
Harper refused to let it go. “Or we could stumble across her footprints.”
Jared opened his mouth to argue but thought better of it. “That’s a fair point. Maybe we can head out after lunch.” He didn’t appear keen on the idea. “Or maybe you and Zander should stay here, question more of the staff, and try to get a feeling for what’s going on. Shawn and I can wander down to the woods.”
Harper was instantly suspicious. “Why do you want us to stay here?”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to stay here. I merely said it might be a good idea if you and Zander stay here because that allows us to split our efforts.”
Harper didn’t miss the fact that he avoided eye contact when he uttered the words. “You are a terrible liar,” she hissed, frustration wafting off her. “You really don’t want me with you. I don’t understand.”
“Hey!” Jared extended a warning finger and finally met her gaze. “I always want you with me. I’m just not certain that taking you down to the woods is a good idea.”
Harper refused to back down. “Why?”
“Because ... because ... .”
“Because he’s afraid there will be a dead body down there,” Zander volunteered out of nowhere, his gaze on his cuticles. He appeared bored. “He thinks, if someone killed Madeline, she’s likely down there and he doesn’t want you to see it.”
Harper made a protesting sound. “I’ve seen dead bodies before.”
“This is a person you went to high school with. Plus ... well ... you kind of called her out about the photo last night. I’m worried that will make you feel guilty.”
“I’m not sorry about pointing out the photo. It seemed out of place ... and it was.”
“It definitely was,” Jared agreed, unruffled. “I still think it might be better if you stayed up here with Zander. That way we won’t have to worry about either of you ... or listen to him complain.”
Harper’s eyes widened when she realized the real reason Jared didn’t want her chasing him to the woods, and then she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. For his part, Zander wasn’t even paying attention to the conversation.
“We’ll stay here and talk to the workers,” he said, holding his hands side by side and looking at the fingernails on both. “I really need a good winter moisturizer. The dry air is murder on my hands.”
“We’ll shop for something as soon as we get back,” Shawn promised, amusement flitting across his features. “As for the walk to the woods, I’m all for it. Let’s hit lunch first, though.”
Jared nodded. “Yeah. We missed breakfast and I’m starving. I hope they have something good.”
THE TABLE WAS ARRANGED WITH name tags for everyone ... again. Harper had to roll her eyes when she realized Jared was seated across from her rather than next to her. That was going to make whispering about the others practically impossible. In addition, Byron arranged his place at the head of the table, to Harper’s right, and Harris was awarded the spot to her left.
�
��This is ... delightful,” she muttered as she settled into her chair and unfolded her napkin.
For his part, Harris had only just joined the rest of the group and he seemed out of it and sluggish. “It smells great,” he enthused, his eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed. “Is that crab salad? I happen to love crab salad.” He reached for a platter of sandwiches as a woman carried it to the table. She smoothly sidestepped him and slid it to the center of the table while Harris made a series of groaning noises.
“You could’ve just handed it to me,” he complained.
Instead of immediately responding, the woman whipped out a pair of tongs and scooped up a sandwich, depositing it on his plate before doing the same for Harper, Byron, and Jared. “Do you need anything else, sir?” she asked her boss.
Byron shook his head as he placed his napkin in his lap. “No. Thank you, Delia. It looks wonderful.”
“Certainly, sir.” She curtsied — something Harper didn’t know was still in practice — and then headed out, disappearing from view. Harper waited until she was gone to add potato salad and what looked to be handmade potato chips to her plate.
“This looks great,” she enthused, trying to gear herself up for another uncomfortable meal. At least she had Jared this time, she told herself. Sure, he was all the way across the table, but she could at least exchange amused glances with him when no one was looking.
“Crab salad is a favorite of mine,” Byron announced, catching Harper off guard when he added chips to his plate. “Jennifer liked this meal, too. She used to ask for it all the time.”
Harper’s forehead wrinkled. “This particular meal?”
Byron nodded. “She loved crab salad, but the chips were a favorite. She wasn’t allowed to have a lot of unhealthy food — something she didn’t like — so the chips were an extravagance that she looked forward to each week.”
“Why wasn’t she allowed to have unhealthy food?” Jared asked, his plate already laden with items. He clearly wasn’t kidding when he said he was hungry, his enthusiasm for lunch making Harper smile. There wasn’t a single open spot on his plate. “I would think that junk food is a rite of passage for a teenager.”
Byron cast a sidelong look at Jared’s plate and merely shook his head. “She was on a special diet. We had a dietitian called in when Jennifer was fourteen because she put on ten pounds in four months during the eighth grade.”
Harper stilled, dumbfounded. She had to have heard that wrong. There was no other explanation. “Excuse me?”
“She put on ten pounds,” Byron repeated, obviously missing the potential mayhem loitering in Harper’s eyes. “I was worried she would develop bad eating habits so her junk food allowance was limited.”
Harper was officially annoyed. “Was Richard’s junk food allowance limited?”
“What? Of course not. He was never fat.”
“I knew Jennifer. She was never fat either.”
“I told you. She put on ten pounds. We didn’t want it to become twenty so we limited her calories. It wasn’t a big deal.”
It felt like a big deal to Harper. All she could think about were the sleepovers she and Zander used to share, the nights when they would go through an entire box of Little Debbie snack cakes, a huge bag of chips, and that was on top of the endless candy they used to inhale. Zander was a big fan of licorice ropes and was convinced he could eat ten in one night. He’d actually managed to prove it once.
“God forbid she put on ten pounds.” Harper’s eyes filled with fire at the same moment Jared kicked her under the table to get her attention. Because she knew he would make her feel ridiculous about her reaction, she refused to meet his gaze. “I mean ... ten pounds makes her a real oinker, right?”
Byron’s expression was hard to read as he turned his full attention to Harper. “I can’t help but feel as if I’ve offended you. That wasn’t my intention. You’re clearly not overweight. You can eat as many chips as you like.”
“That’s really not the point,” Harper shot back. “Why would you possibly make your only daughter feel as if she was less than normal because she put on a few pounds? That is not the end of the world. Trust me.”
“I didn’t want her being unhealthy.”
“It seems to me that you wanted to give the illusion of the perfect family,” Harper countered, opting to go for broke. She was tired of tiptoeing around this man and his bad attitude. He was surrounded by people who never told him no and she was fed up with biting her tongue. “That’s what you’re most interested in, right? Looking perfect. You don’t care if it’s true as long as those watching from outside believe the false image you’re painting.”
“Oh, geez.” Jared slapped his hand to his forehead and continued shoveling in food. Harper was convinced he thought it would be taken away from him at any second and he had to inhale it while he still had the opportunity.
“I honestly didn’t mean to offend you,” Byron repeated. “That was not my intention. It was also not my intention to upset my daughter. Do you think she sat around and plotted my death with the same look on her face that you boast now?”
Harper found the question odd. “I don’t know a lot of kids who sit around and plot their parents’ deaths. Sure, occasionally you wish for an errant train to hit your mother or father and put them in a coma for a bit, but you don’t wish for death. I guarantee that’s not what Jennifer wanted.”
“How can you be sure?” Byron looked legitimately curious. “I mean ... she’s been gone a very long time. When I think back to the girl I knew, I often wonder what sort of woman she would’ve become. Would she have been the sort of woman who hates her father? I can’t rule it out.”
The question, the naked emotion under it, were the first hints for Harper that Byron was a real person with genuine emotions. “My mother drives me crazy,” she announced out of nowhere. “No, true story. Just a few weeks ago she was a suspect in the murder of her boyfriend. Two days later — like, literally two days later — I walked in on her and my father having sex.
“My parents have been acting as if they hate each other since I was a little kid and I thought for sure they were only staying together until I graduated from high school,” she continued. “They made it a lot longer than that. When I asked them why they did the bad thing — and in my house, no less — they gave me a lot of answers. The one that stuck with me, though, is probably the one that fits your circumstances, too.
“You can’t choose who you love. You can only decide to embrace that love or push it out of your mind. I think Jennifer loved you a great deal. I think she wanted to make you proud. I also think you were so lost in grief due to losing your wife you didn’t give Jennifer the attention she needed.”
Byron arched an eyebrow. “Apparently you’re not afraid to give your opinion.”
“I’m really not,” Harper agreed. “Besides, I think you want to hear the truth. Maybe not always, but in this particular case, you need to know exactly what you did wrong. You weren’t a very good father to Jennifer. All she wanted was your time and you were too busy to give it to her. You can’t go back and fix that. You can move forward, though.
“I think you called us here because that’s what you truly want,” she continued. “You’ve been letting Jennifer’s disappearance hang over your family for a long time. You need answers more than anything because you feel frozen in place. You can’t do anything until you know ... and that’s the simple truth of it.”
Byron looked impressed. “You’re good at reading people.”
“You’re not hard to read.”
“Does that mean you’ll be able to find Jennifer’s ghost, put her to rest?”
Harper stalled on the question, unsure how to answer. Finally, she shook her head. “I can’t answer that. I’ve seen nothing to indicate that Jennifer’s spirit is still hanging around this house. It’s difficult because we don’t know where she was killed.
“Well, actually, we don’t know if she was killed at all,” she continued. “I k
now you don’t want to hear it, but are you absolutely sure that Jennifer didn’t run off to start a life someplace else?”
“I’m absolutely positive.”
He sounded sure of himself, but Jared was still interested in drilling down on this particular topic. “Ignore your opinion on the subject. From a practical standpoint, could she have gotten access to enough money to run off with?”
“She didn’t.”
“I’m not asking if she did or didn’t.” Jared was firm. “I’m asking if she could have run.”
Byron worked his jaw, his mind busy. Finally, he nodded. “She could’ve run. She had money in her account, enough to get out of the state with. She couldn’t have lived on it for long, but if she was really determined, she had enough money to run.”
“How much is enough?” Harper asked.
“Twenty grand.”
Harper’s mouth dropped open. “That’s more than enough to flee the state on. She could’ve lived for two years on that money if she found the right place and opted to be frugal.”
“Certainly not.” Byron immediately started shaking his head. “There’s no way she could’ve lived on so little money.”
Harper didn’t believe that for a second. “Well ... she obviously could’ve run if she wanted. You’re certain she didn’t make it off the island, though, right?”
“Absolutely certain,” Byron confirmed, bobbing his head. “There’s no way she got off this island without someone noticing. It’s impossible. That’s why I think something happened to her here. I need you to find what that something is.”
She felt caught. “I’ll do my best.”
“Oh, you’re going to be the one to come up with all the answers,” Byron supplied, a knowing look on his face. “I have no doubt about that. Some of the others may be flashier, but I think you have the most substance. I’ve always thought that.”
Ghostly Fears Page 10
