Charmed

by Leona Karr

  “Okay, but I’ve got something to show you before I take you back.”

  After they were dressed, he turned on a light in a small room across the hall. As Ashley followed him through the doorway, she felt as if she had suddenly been transformed into another dimension.

  She couldn’t believe her eyes. Every space on the four walls was covered with photographs of the island: birds, rocks, waves, trees, clouds, water, boats, fishermen, and dirty-faced children playing in the sand. She was speechless.

  “What do you think?”

  “You took all of these?”

  “And a few hundred more,” he admitted rather sheepishly. “I guess you could call it an addiction. Dora Hunskut got me started. She always needed photos to go with those freelance articles of hers. Mostly travel and historical magazines,” he said as he indicated a small stack on a scarred-up desk. “She always gives me a copy.”

  “I think that’s wonderful. Do you get credit for the photographs?”

  “Sometimes, but that’s not what’s important to me.” He handed her a large manila envelope. “Here’s my reward.”

  She drew out the photos he’d taken that morning at the cemetery and her breath caught. She couldn’t believe the power contained in every picture.

  Early morning shadows seemed to come alive like dark spirits hovering over the ugly graves and tombstones. Twisted, barren branches of dead trees made a black tracery against a gray misty sky. The slowly emerging sunlight in some of the prints was like a creeping light fighting the dark forces of the cemetery.

  She could see that in the progression of photos he’d taken a theme began to emerge. It was as if the power of death in the shadowy pictures was somehow defeated in the full brightness of a sunrise. Each photograph was powerful by itself and, together, they were a modern tapestry of light overcoming death.

  “What do you think?” he prodded.

  She was at a loss what to say. The magnificent talent he seemed to dismiss so casually had left her speechless. She couldn’t find the words to express the deep, emotional message he’d captured through the lens of his camera.

  “What’s wrong?” He frowned, obviously disappointed in her silent reaction. “I told you this is just a pastime of mine. I’m not out to win any blue ribbons.”

  “You’re very good,” she said in a reverent tone. “Professional enough to submit your work to any exhibition.”

  “No, thanks.” He tossed the envelope down on his desk.

  “Why not?”

  “I like taking photos. I like hanging them on my walls, but making a business out of them doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “Why not?” she repeated. His reasoning completely escaped her.

  “I’m not sure. If my photographs help Dora sell an article or two, that’s good enough and I’m happy.”

  “Are you really?”

  The question seemed to stop him for a moment. Then he pulled her close, “Well, living alone isn’t all that great. Do you think we could do something about that?”

  As his hands gently caressed her, she tried to ignore the spurt of sexual energy that shot through her. Was this his way of asking her to stay on the island with him? Marry him? How could she tell him that she’d curl up and die if she spent more than a few weeks at a time on this island he loved so much.

  “What’s wrong? I don’t understand,” he said as she pulled away. “If you and I—”

  “It wouldn’t last.”

  “Why not?”

  “The term incompatible comes to mind.”

  “I thought we’d found something worth keeping.”

  She moistened her lips and quoted, “One night of love does not a future make.”

  They stood looking at each other across a chasm suddenly too deep to cross. “I didn’t realize you were so committed to your present way of life,” he said.

  “And you to yours,” she countered just as firmly. She turned away and went back into the bedroom to gather her things.

  When they left Brad’s house a few minutes later, the weather was in harmony with their turbulent feelings. A fierce wind assaulted the island as storm clouds swept inland. Ashley’s thoughts and feelings were too heavy for polite conversation, and the enveloping dense fog kept Brad’s attention on driving.

  When they arrived at the Langdon compound, he held her firmly against the buffeting winds as they made their way from the car to the house and quickly ushered her inside.

  “Brad, I—”

  “Don’t.”

  Without another word, he turned and left her standing there. A moment later, the lights on his police cruiser flickered briefly across a window and then disappeared.

  As Ashley mounted the stairs, rising winds were like wild beasts beating on the outside of the mansion. Swatches of white mist writhed against windows like ghostly hands pleading to get in. Her chest tightened as she cast furtive looks behind her and quickened her steps.

  The dark corridor leading to her room seemed more ominous than ever at two o’clock in the morning but as she neared her bedroom, a ribbon of light showed under her closed door.

  “I must have remembered to leave a light on,” she murmured.

  As she opened the door and stepped inside, a blast of cold air assaulted her. The raging storm seemed to be sweeping through the room. Then she saw why.

  The door to the widow’s walk was open! Hurriedly she slammed it shut and locked it.

  As she turned away from the door, a woman with long blond hair lying on her bed sat up and stared unseeing at Ashley. Slowly she stood, arranged the eggshell peignoir that flowed around her silver slippered feet and brushed back a false hairpiece caught in a butterfly scarf.

  Ashley gave a choked gasp. It was Ellen Brenden!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Was she sleepingwalking? Hypnotized?

  Ashley watched in mesmerized silence as Ellen’s unseeing eyes passed over her. Slowly she turned, then ran across the bedroom and out into the hall.

  Ashley bounded out the door after her. “Ellen! Ellen! Wait.”

  Ellen didn’t slow down, nor give any sign that she’d heard, but continued racing down the hall with her white robe and long hair flowing out behind her.

  Ashley knew she should alert someone to Ellen’s strange behavior as soon as possible. Who? How? Would anyone in the household believe her without more evidence than her say-so? The finger of doubt had already been pointed at her as the one who was roving about the house at night, causing the old man to have a relapse.

  Determined to clear herself, she raced after Ellen. Because Ashley had become slightly familiar with some of the bisecting corridors and stairways, she was easily able keep up with Ellen for a short time. Too soon, all familiarity ended. The chase led down to a lower floor where Ashley had never been before.

  SHE HAD NO IDEA where they were in the house when Ellen suddenly slowed to a walk. She approached an open door where an overhead chandelier sent a radius of bright light around a spacious bedroom.

  Ashley remained in the doorway and watched Ellen move in mechanical fashion around the room. In unemotional, trance-like movements, she discarded the white robe, blond wig and silver slippers. After she had carefully placed them on a shelf in the closet, she firmly closed the door. Clad in a plain cotton grannie nightgown she’d been wearing underneath the outer garment, she lay down in the bed and closed her eyes.

  Ashley remained in the doorway until Ellen’s breathing took on the slow rhythms of sleep. An expression of relaxed contentment was on her face, and Ashley doubted if the woman even remembered her nightly sojourns the next morning. Ashley couldn’t help but wonder what hidden torment drove Ellen to perform these sleepwalking masquerades.

  Ashley quietly turned away and started on her return trek through the house. High-pitched wailing of the wind echoed down the dimly lit corridors. The strength of the storm had increased to such a level that inner walls vibrated from the assault. She hurried up several steps connecting older sections of
the mansion and tried to orient herself. Tiny hall lights were dim and far between. When she came to a stairway that seemed familiar, she was confident the corridor leading to her hall was at the top—only it wasn’t.

  The stairs didn’t lead to another corridor but ended in a small, dimly lit sitting area. She stopped short as she smelled cigarette smoke. In almost the same instant a hand reached out from the depths of a high-back chair and turned on a small lamp beside it. She couldn’t see who sat there because the chair was turned away from her.

  “Hello,” she said in a tone that indicated a lot more poise than she felt. Her pulse quickened as a man stood up and turned around.

  He took another puff on his cigarette before he spoke. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I’m Philip Langdon.”

  Jonathan’s younger brother.

  “Ashley Davis,” she responded politely. She remembered Brad had said Philip Langdon had been married two or three times. Distinguishing gray sideburns harmonized with his strong masculine features, and he was quite attractive.

  “Good evening, or should I say good morning?” he said with a teasing smile.

  “Both, I guess.”

  “I’ve heard about you and understand you are taking over for your sister. We’ve all been terribly concerned about what happened to Lorrie. Unbelievable. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few days before the unfortunate incident. How is she doing?”

  “Wonderfully.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’m not up-to-date on the news because I arrived after the household had already settled in for the night.”

  His inquiring gaze invited her to explain her own dressed-up appearance, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of an explanation.

  She hadn’t decided how much she should say about Ellen’s sleepwalking. In some ways she felt protective of Ellen Brenden, as if the Langdon men had misused her unfailing devotion. The woman had been a mother to Pamela and a nurse to Clayton; Ashley suspected she might even have been rejected by Jonathan as his second wife. In any case, she didn’t know Philip Langdon well enough to trust him with Ellen’s secret. She wanted to talk to Dr. Hadley first and let him decide what to do.

  “The storm makes it pretty hard to sleep,” she offered as a safe subject.

  “You’re in Pamela’s old room, aren’t you? That side of the house takes the brunt of any ocean storm. Strangely enough, Pamela never complained. I think she was a romantic at heart, but so was her mother.” Before Ashley could respond, he abruptly changed the subject. “Let’s find ourselves a nightcap. We’ll wait out the storm together.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” she declined quickly. “I’ve got to get a few hours’ sleep. I only need one more day to finish up everything.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I thought I heard some gossip that you might be staying here for a while.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I’m heading back to California as soon as everything is ready for transport.”

  “Well, I hope you’ll give me your address. We could have that nightcap in the City by the Bay.”

  She was about to bid him a polite good night when she realized she didn’t have the foggiest idea how to get back to her side of the house. As a peal of thunder and pounding rain heralded a new assault, she swallowed her pride.

  “Would you mind showing me the way? I took a couple of wrong turns tonight, and frankly I don’t know how I turned up here.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, and the way he slipped his arm through hers, she wondered if she’d invited more than she could handle.

  No doubt rich and handsome, Philip Langdon was comfortable in his role as protector of the fairer sex. Unlike his brother, he exuded a simmering sexuality. As a young man, he must have been devastatingly attractive to more than one susceptible female. Everything Dora Hunskut had said about Samantha suggested that there had been another man in her life. Was that man Philip Langdon? Could Samantha’s portrait have been intended for her husband’s brother?

  Ashley suddenly felt ill at ease in his company. As soon as they reached a familiar second-floor corridor, she stopped and eased away from his guiding arm.

  “My room is just ahead. Thanks for the company. I’ll not keep you from your nightcap any longer.”

  “I’ll gladly see you to your door.”

  “No need.” She gave him a smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. “See you in the morning.”

  As she walked away, she forced herself not to look back and see if he was following her down the hall to her room.

  BRAD DROVE BACK to his house after leaving Ashley. He let Rusty out for a short run in the foul weather and then got back in the car and headed for his office. He knew storms like the one building always took their toll on the island. In such high winds, boats broke away from their moorings, trees were uprooted, loose rocks created mud slides and weakened structures collapsed. Dr. Hadley would be kept busy handling minor medical needs and arranging for transportation to the mainland for the serious injuries. Brad knew that if the demands for help were more than he and Bill could supply, he’d have to call in additional help from the mainland. Everything depended upon how fast the storm would move northward.

  The office was dark and cold when Brad let himself inside. He changed into a spare uniform, put on a fleece-lined jacket, and threw himself down on the bunk bed provided for overnight visitors. He needed a few hours’ sleep, but as he lay there, wide awake and thinking about Ashley, the bittersweet hours he’d spent with her created warring emotions he wasn’t ready to handle. He’d been a fool, he knew that. He’d made assumptions based on his own feelings and desires. He had ignored the very traits in Ashley that had caused him to fall in love with her. She was her own woman, with a purpose and dedication. He should have been smart enough to recognize and accept her independence from the first moment he’d met her. Instead, he had assumed she would gladly remain on the island and play house with him. Damn, he’d misjudged the situation all around.

  Too keyed up to even catch a couple of hours of sleep, he got up, went to his computer and contacted the mainland for a weather report. It wasn’t good.

  The day turned out to be the nightmare he had expected. By the time the café across the street opened, he’d already received several calls for assistance and had alerted Bill and two emergency volunteer deputies to help cover them. He was grateful that about midafternoon, a valiant sun sent feeble rays of light through dissipating clouds and the storm moved on.

  Brad had just returned to the office from one of the calls when Dora Hunskut telephoned.

  “Bill is still out,” he told her when he recognized her voice. “I think he’s helping Old Man Benson collect his half-drowned chickens. The whole hen house floated away like Noah’s ark.”

  “It’s not Bill, I want,” she said in a strained voice.

  “You sound tense, Dora. What’s the matter? Are you all right?” he asked quickly.

  He could hear her taking a couple of deep breaths. “It’s just that I’ve had kind of a shock.”

  “What happened, Dora?”

  “It’s the cemetery.”

  “What about it?”

  “I walked up there to see if the saplings I planted this spring survived the storm.”

  Brad knew how Dora babied those trees. She’d be upset if she lost them, but there were worse things happening all over the island.

  “I’m sorry if you lost them.”

  “Oh, no they made it through fine.” She hesitated. “It’s that large dead tree, the one a few hundred feet from the road. You know the one?”

  “Yes,” Brad answered, puzzled.

  “It fell over.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Brad said, feeling a wave of relief. “It’s been dead for as long as I can remember. Don’t worry about it, Dora. We’ll have someone cut it up and remove the dead wood.”

  “It’s not that!”

  “Then what, Dora?”

  “When the tree fell over,” she said in a
shaky voice, “the roots pulled out of the ground and…”

  “And..?” Brad prodded in an encouraging tone.

  “There was a body there.”

  “Maybe someone was buried under the tree years ago when it was alive,” Brad reasoned in a calm voice.

  “The clothes and remains looked too new. And I…and I…saw something else beside the skeleton.”

  “What, Dora?”

  “A cheap cardboard suitcase,” she said in a cracked voice. “The kind…the kind that Timothy Templeton was carrying the day he left my house.”

  Brad had a hard time finding his own voice. “I’ll check it out, Dora.”

  “It can’t be him, can it?”

  “I’ll check it out, Dora,” he repeated as a rush of heat surged through him.

  As Brad drove to the cemetery, he put unanswered questions about Timothy in a different perspective. Maybe Timothy Templeton had never left the island. What if an autopsy proved he had met a violent death before Pamela’s funeral? He was convinced that this unexpected discovery ended his fruitless search for the whereabouts of the young man.

  A cold prickling between Brad’s shoulder blades accompanied his next thought.

  Was a murderer waiting, ready and willing to strike again?

  When he got to the cemetery, the shallow grave was just as Dora had described. The roots of the fallen tree had exposed a skeleton in decaying men’s clothing. The cheap suitcase Dora had described had disintegrated.

  Brad didn’t touch anything. A forensic team from the state medical examiner’s office would have to be notified.

  “You look like hell,” his deputy said frankly when Brad returned to the office. “How much sleep did you get last night?”

  “Not enough,” Brad answered shortly and told him about Bill’s mother’s discovery. “I’d bet a month’s salary that it’s Timothy Templeton.”

  Bill gave a low whistle. “How long has he been dead?”

  “We’ll have to ask the forensic team to determine when and how he died but I wouldn’t be surprised if the young man wasn’t in his grave before they had the funeral to bury Pamela.”