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With any luck, the intern wouldn’t make it. Chances had to be good that he wouldn’t survive. Sam Watkins had been cracked across the skull with a tire iron and left alone, beneath the ground, for two full days with no food, no water, no treatment for his head wound. That Sam had lived at all was only a testament to his youth and his attacker’s stupidity.
“I should have made certain the kid was dead,” the assailant muttered aloud, snapping off the television. The force of the blow to the head should have killed him, just as it had Charlotte. A tire iron from the trunk, a shovel from the playhouse hearth—they were basically the same. Deadly when wielded as weapons.
The report said that Sam was unconscious, and tomorrow, a trip to the hospital could ascertain if that remained true. If Sam came to, he would have to be permanently silenced. But there was still a chance that nature would take its course and, without anything more having to be done, Sam would just die on his own.
Right now, there was another, more immediate detail that had to be attended to. Now that Sam had been found in the tunnel at The Breakers, anyone in the neighborhood who had seen anything suspicious would be offering what they knew. If that black jogger came forward with details about the car she’d seen speeding away down the side street near the mansion, everyone would know exactly where to come looking.
How convenient of her to have supplied her own name on the T-shirt she wore that night. Quigley of KEY News.
WEDNESDAY
—— JULY 21 ——
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“Hello. I’d like to leave a message for Zoe Quigley.”
“If you don’t want to wake her, I can connect you to her voice mail,” offered the hotel’s overnight operator.
“Actually, I was hoping that you could take the message down for me and deliver it to her yourself at three-thirty A.M. She’s not expecting to have to get up this early, and I’m worried that she won’t wake up. It’s essential that she gets this message.” And it’s essential that my voice is not on any recordings, the killer thought.
“All right, go ahead, please.”
“Great. Would you please tell Zoe that she’s needed down at the wharf for the broadcast. She should be there by four A.M.”
“Yes. I’ll see that Miss Quigley gets the message.”
“Thank you very much,” said the killer, hanging up the phone.
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The hotel room was pitch dark when Zoe awoke to the screeching ring. She fumbled for the telephone receiver next to the bed and listened to the message the operator delivered.
All right, Zoe thought, as she rose. Finally, they actually need me for something. Wouldn’t you know, it would be this morning. She had hoped to get up early and make that dub of the slave tunnel video. She hadn’t been able to do it—not with all the hubbub in the newsroom about Sam Watkins last night. After coming back from the restaurant, she’d watched the local news reports along with the other KTA staffers clustered in the newsroom. Then, she’d gone directly to bed.
She had slept fitfully. That Oriental spaghetti hadn’t set well with her. Zoe was tempted to call down to the newsroom and tell them that she was sick but then rejected the idea. She wanted to find out what was happening with Sam.
She took a quick rinse in the shower, grabbed some clean clothes from her suitcase, and dressed. Slipping her billfold and key card into the pocket of her cotton trousers, Zoe walked out the door.
It was still dark as she exited the hotel onto Bellevue Avenue and walked up the short block to Church Street. She turned right and started down the hill toward the harbor.
The car pulled slowly away from the curb and made the same right-hand turn. Church Street was deserted. No one was up yet.
In the darkness, the headlights had to be switched on. There she was on the sidewalk. Parked vehicles at the curb protected her.
She would have to cross the street soon. At the intersection, Zoe Quigley would be vulnerable.
The car slowed almost to a stop, waiting for Zoe to reach the trap. As the young woman reached the corner, she noticed the headlights, though the car itself was not visible behind the glare. The vehicle came to a complete standstill. Thinking it was waiting for her to cross the street, Zoe stepped from the curb.
The driver floored the accelerator pedal just as Zoe was able to read all six letters on the vanity license plate, a second before the full force of the vehicle knocked her to the ground. The driver shifted the car into reverse, rolled back over Zoe, and then forward again, for good measure, before speeding off.
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By habit, Izzie whisked the kettle from the top of the stove the instant it started to whistle. There was really no reason to act so quickly anymore. With Padraic gone, there was no one to wake with the noise.
She forced herself to put a slice of raisin bread into the toaster, though, as usual, Izzie wasn’t hungry. Nothing tasted good to her anymore, and she no longer had the cravings for chocolate and sweets that had once been her downfall. Once, she had worried that she was too heavy; now she knew that she was way too thin.
Her clothes hung from her body, but Izzie had no desire to spend good money for new duds. She didn’t go anywhere except to work at the hotel and to church. She had her chambermaid’s uniform for the Viking, and God didn’t care how she looked or what she wore. It wasn’t like the old days, when she wanted to please Paddy. When they would go out dancing at the Hibernian. When they would save up for a lobster dinner at Christie’s.
Those days were over. Two packs of cigarettes each day had seen to that for Paddy. And soon, cancer was going to take her, too.
The toast popped. Izzie spread a bit of butter on the bread and took an unenthusiastic bite. Sipping her tea, she braced herself for the morning ahead. If she could pace herself, she should be able to make it through another day of making beds and cleaning up other people’s messes.
Izzie glanced disinterestedly at the stack of unopened mail which had accumulated on the kitchen table. Too bad God had never blessed her and Paddy with children, she thought. Then there would be a reason to fight on. But there just wasn’t anymore.
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That little bastard didn’t show up Monday morning, but this is even better, thought Linus as he shaved. The executive producer cared less about his intern’s medical condition than he did about a potentially sensational story.
Linus had ordered a remote camera to be set up at Newport Hospital, and Lauren Adams would report live from there with the Sam Watkins story. Lauren would, as much as possible, link the intern who had been found trapped in The Breakers’ tunnel to the deaths of Charlotte and Madeleine Sloane. For Linus, that was killing several birds with one stone, not the least important of which was massaging Lauren’s outsize ego. She had been nagging him all week for more time on the air.
He came out of the bathroom and glanced at the rumpled bed linens where Lauren had slept just an hour before. If Linus wanted to continue having a good time, he’d have to make certain that Lauren got more face time. This should satisfy her. She was scheduled for the top of the show, and he’d made sure she got B. J. D’Elia as her producer.
Linus finished dressing and went out to the car that was waiting for him in front of the hotel.
“Can’t you make a right here down to the wharf?” he asked the driver as the car didn’t slow down at the first turn.
“Yeah, usually you can. But they have the street blocked off. There’s some sort of accident down there.”
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“Check with the nurses’ station again on Sam’s condition, Grace, will you?” Lauren commanded rather than asked.
“All right,” Grace answered, doubting that it would be any different from when she’d checked fifteen minutes ago. Why not wait until just before the report began to make sure you had the most current news? Instead, Grace fel
t she was bugging the nurses, who were already getting exasperated with the repeated questioning.
She left B.J. and Lauren to confer beside the satellite truck in the hospital parking lot. As she crossed to the entrance of the building, an ambulance sped past her, pulling into the emergency room bay.
“We’ve got a DOA,” Grace heard the paramedic announce as he opened the double doors at the back of the ambulance. “We lost her on the ride over.”
Grace watched as the stretcher was lifted out. The poor soul’s face was already covered, but a dark-skinned hand with long, slender fingers dangled from the side. A female’s hand. A young black female’s hand.
“Any ID?” asked the nurse who had come out to meet the ambulance.
“Yeah,” the attendant said. “The card in her wallet says her name is Zoe Quigley.”
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Professor Cox limped across the cobblestones, aware that he was late. Late, at least, by that slave driver Linus Nazareth’s standards. Linus wanted the historian to be on the set an hour before the broadcast actually went on air. Something about being available for any last-minute questions from the writers. So far, Gordon had not been asked a single one.
Showing up this early was another waste of his time, but he was being paid well, making enough this week to more than pay for a first-class vacation during the Christmas break. And Linus had mentioned something about working for KTA again, perhaps when they did a remote from Williamsburg. Gordon knew a good thing when he saw it. He didn’t want to blow this consultancy.
Cursing as he tripped over one of the scores of electrical cables threaded across Bowen’s Wharf, Gordon searched for Linus among the staffers preparing for the broadcast. There seemed to be extra activity on the deck of the sight-sailing vessel docked at the base of the wharf where technicians were busy adjusting equipment. Gordon wasn’t particularly looking forward to the little cruise that he and the cohosts would be taking during KTA’s second hour this morning. In his hurry, he’d forgotten his sunglasses. The sun would be glaringly bright out on the water, even this early in the morning.
An enterprising vendor had gotten up early to provide coffee and muffins for the KTA staff. Gordon hobbled to the kiosk, looking forward to a steaming cup of caffeine. He’d had no time for breakfast.
Beth Terry stood at the counter, peeling back the paper on a huge chocolate-chip muffin.
“Good morning, Professor.”
“Good morning.”
“I guess you heard about our intern,” she said, the statement more a question.
“What?”
“They found Sam in the tunnel at The Breakers last night. Alive, thank God, but in bad shape. He’s in the hospital, still unconscious.”
Gordon squinted as he took a sip of hot coffee. He felt no sympathy for the kid. If not for the intern’s bragging that he’d been an eyewitness, Gordon would not have been put in the position of talking about Madeleine’s death to an audience of millions.
Dominick O’Donnell took the call from B.J. over at Newport Hospital. Word spread quickly through the stunned staff.
“Zoe Quigley is dead.”
Linus looked quizzically at his deputy.
“You know. Zoe. Our intern?” Dominick guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. Linus lived in a world ruled by self-interest. In that world, it wasn’t necessarily important to know the names of your underlings.
“The black one?”
Dominick winced as he nodded.
“What happened?”
“It looks like a hit-and-run. This morning when she was on her way down here.”
“Jesus.” Linus groaned. “I hope we don’t get hit with a lawsuit.”
As soon as Linus walked away, it struck him. Zoe Quigley’s death could add further drama to this morning’s show. Even the darkest cloud had a silver lining.
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Standing in the hospital parking lot, Grace found herself shaking as she listened to Lauren begin her report at the bottom of the first hour of the broadcast.
“Hello, Constance and Harry. Yes, it’s a tense, sad morning here as one of our KEY News interns is dead and another fights for his life. Twenty-year-old exchange student Zoe Quigley of Richmond, England, died in the ambulance on her way to Newport Hospital this morning, the victim, it seems, of a hit-and-run driver. Details are sketchy at this point, but it appears that Zoe was walking, before dawn, on her way to work at our broadcast site at Bowen’s Wharf. She was mowed down by a vehicle two blocks from the hotel where she and our news staff are staying while we’re in Newport.”
Grace found herself suddenly worried about Lucy. She hoped her daughter was still asleep, safe in her room at the Viking, oblivious to any of this.
Lauren was continuing. “At the same time, Constance and Harry, twenty-one-year-old Sam Watkins, another KTA intern, lies in the intensive care unit here. As you know, Sam had been missing since late Sunday. Newport police found him last night in a tunnel on the property of The Breakers, the Vanderbilt estate. He has head injuries and has not regained consciousness.”
Grace knew that Lauren was being careful with her wording here. In his instructions given minutes before the report began, Linus had been adamant that Lauren delete any mention that Sam had been scheduled to be interviewed about what he’d seen of Madeleine Sloane’s death. KTA had provided Gordon Cox in Sam’s stead when the intern had not shown up. There was no need, as far as the executive producer was concerned, to emphasize that. Grace still marveled that there had been no viewer phone calls, at least as far as she had heard, picking up on the discrepancy between the video of Sam in the promo and the image of Professor Cox that actually was served up.
“All of this, Constance and Harry, comes on the heels of other tragic and disturbing events that have been rocking this city by the sea. A fourteen-year-old missing persons case turned out to be a murder when socialite Charlotte Wagstaff Sloane’s remains were discovered buried in a tunnel on another estate here and identified this past weekend. Also over the weekend, her daughter, Madeleine Sloane, fell to her death on a staircase from the cliffs to the Atlantic Ocean. The medical examiner’s office has announced that they will be issuing their findings in that case later this morning, while police continue to investigate if and how these events are linked. Back to you, Constance and Harry.”
Grace watched Lauren unclip her microphone and hurry over to B.J. to ask how she had done. As if it really mattered, thought Grace. Madeleine was dead; Sam, who said he was an eyewitness, was fighting for his life; and Zoe was never going to return to her family in England.
Despite the warming morning air, Grace felt a chill as she recalled what Zoe had told her in the restaurant ladies’ room the night before. The car on the road near The Breakers speeding past the young intern, almost knocking her down, on the night Sam was last seen there. Had the driver finished the job this morning, thinking that Zoe could identify Sam’s assailant? Had Zoe been intentionally run down and killed?
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The green Mercedes pulled up on Thames Street and parked directly at the opening to Bowen’s Wharf.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if I get a ticket,” Mr. Vickers yelled at his wife. “I’m getting Joss and I’m getting her right now. I’m not going to let my daughter be exposed to this.”
“What exactly is this, Howard?”
He looked at her, stunned by her seeming incomprehension. “This is danger, Vanessa. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see what’s happening?”
“What I see is a horrible accident. A young woman was hit by a car. It happens, Howard. It’s very sad, but it happens.”
“And what about the other intern, that boy in The Breakers’ tunnel? What do you see there?”
“I don’t see anything yet, Howard. We’ll have to see what the police turn up or what the young man says when he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up, Vanessa. How can you be so naïv
e? Three people who were at our clambake Saturday night have been attacked. Two of them are dead and the other is near to it. Sam Watkins and Zoe Quigley have been interning with KEY News. So is our daughter, and I’m getting Joss out of here—out of the Viking and back home where she belongs.”
He slammed the sedan door and marched to the end of Bowen’s Wharf.
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At the close of the broadcast, after a water tour of the harbor and coast of Newport, the sightseeing vessel carrying Constance, Harry, and Professor Cox docked again at Bowen’s Wharf. From the deck it was Harry, this time, who wrapped things up, teasing the audience about the next morning’s show.
“Tonight there will a fabulous party, the Ball Bleu, held at The Elms, to raise funds to help the endangered birds of Rhode Island. KEY to America will be there, and we’ll show you all the glamorous goings-on, along with a fascinating view of what it was like to be one of the servants in that Gilded Age mansion. That, and much more, tomorrow on KEY to America.”
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Elsa walked away from the television set and out into the garden. She sat down in a chaise longue on the patio and listened to the energetic chirping of the birds. The little creatures were always busiest in the morning.
So they were finally going to issue the results of Madeleine’s autopsy, Elsa thought. She wanted to be with Oliver when he got the news. He would need her by his side. It would be hard for him, no matter what the medical examiner found. Surely, if she were there for him in this, his hour of greatest need, the bond between them would be unbreakable. She just had to be patient.
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