by Joanne Pence
“There’s not much for me to tell. The first night only Reginald, Chelsea, and I had dinner with Finley, and I went to my room before he left for his nature walk. Tonight, Miss Greer wouldn’t let me help, so I didn’t see her at all after dinner.”
“That’s all?”
“Maybe it’s not much, but it’s the truth. Now you just have to figure out who’s lying.”
Paavo quietly turned the knob on the door that led into the kitchen. There was no light, no sound at all.
He flicked on the flashlight, looked over the kitchen, and walked over to Miss Greer’s sheet-covered body.
He had arranged the sheet so that it formed a tiny pleat by her left shoulder, another by her right foot. The pleats were still there. Nothing about the sheet looked as if anyone had touched it.
Proceeding to a corner, he sat on the floor and shut off his flashlight. If anyone came in here tonight, he wanted to know who. And why.
This house was filled with a looney-tunes group doing their best to scare each other away, and the man who put it all together was missing. Now the cook had been killed. It didn’t make sense. But it would, in time.
Particularly if whoever killed Miss Greer came down to dispose of any evidence that might have been left behind.
His vacation with Angie would have to wait a while after all. Footsteps. He broke off his thoughts and watched the kitchen door.
The door opened. Light steps entered the room then stopped. Paavo silently got to his feet. He was just about to turn on the flashlight and find out who had snuck in here when the kitchen lights were turned on. He blinked from the sudden brightness.
“Moira,” he said.
She gasped, her hand at her chest, staring at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same thing.” He was guarded, watching her carefully.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Moira said, slowly walking toward him. “All of this…my brother missing, now Miss Greer dying. I just wanted to sit with her a while. She’d only worked with us this past month, but I feel like I’ve lost a friend.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Paavo slid his hands into his pockets. “It’s been over five hours since Quint left,” he commented.
She rubbed her forehead. “The road up here washes out easily, and runs so near the edge of the cliff that it can be very dangerous. They’ll wait until it stops raining, or at least until the sun comes up so that they can see the road better.”
“Could be.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “If you’re waiting for the sheriff, why do it in the dark, Inspector Smith? Do I detect something going on here?”
“Curiosity.”
“Two can play at that game.” She shut off the kitchen lights.
He flicked on the flashlight as she crossed the room to sit beside him on the floor.
“How did Miss Greer come to work for you?” he asked.
“Is this twenty questions?” she replied.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“I know.” In the darkness, he could hear the resignation in her voice. “She showed up at our door one day. She lives in town and said she needed work, that if we had anything at all, she’d be interested. When my brother learned she was willing to cook whatever he told her—he has very definite ideas about food—he hired her to do that and to help me with the housecleaning.”
“Did she live here or in town?”
“In town. If the inn ever got very popular, and I needed help with breakfast, we thought we might offer her a room. But for now our arrangement was that she’d arrive in time to prepare a light lunch, help with the cleaning in the afternoon, and then make dinner and do the cleanup.”
“Did anyone from town come to visit her here?”
“No one.”
“Do you know if she has family or friends there?”
“No family. No close friends that I could tell. But she knew almost everyone.”
“Any enemies, or anyone she was afraid of?”
“Why do you ask?” Her voice, which had been monotone while answering his earlier questions, suddenly registered alarm.
“Just curious.”
“Ah.” Her relief was evident. “None that I know of.”
“Did your brother like her?”
“Yes. He thought she was ‘a treasure,’ as he put it. He’ll be very upset to learn she’s passed away. Poor Finley—none of this is going as he planned.”
“What about the investors? Are things going as they planned?”
“Oh, yes. Except that Finley isn’t here,” she said, then paused before continuing. “Up to that time, though, they were happy as clams about the inn and its prospects.”
Angie stared at the ceiling while lying on the bed. Alone.
Paavo said he’d be downstairs waiting for the sheriff to arrive. What if the sheriff didn’t show up all night? He didn’t exactly seem like the type who’d jump out of a warm bed to traipse up to this hilltop because someone had died of natural causes.
If they were natural causes. But they must have been. Moira said she had a heart condition, that it was just a matter of time.
Things like that happened all the time. But then, with Finley missing…
Angie turned over. She really ought to get to sleep. Morning would come soon and she needed to help Moira with breakfast. Poor woman, between her brother disappearing and her cook dying, she had to be falling apart.
But then Angie remembered the way Moira made a big deal about holding hands with Paavo during the séance. She was certainly good at hiding her sorrow!
Maybe, Angie thought, instead of lying here thinking about Finley and Miss Greer and Moira, she should just get up and help Paavo keep his vigil for the sheriff. But she’d told Paavo she’d wait here for him, and she was always a woman of her word. For the most part.
She shut her eyes. Instead of the peacefulness of sleep, though, she again saw Moira Tay fawning over Paavo. Moira was beginning to annoy her mightily. Even more annoying: Why was Paavo being nice to Moira in return? What was it about Moira that was causing that strange reaction in him?
She didn’t think the blond wraith was Paavo’s type. But then, what was his type? The longer she lay alone in what was supposed to be their bed for their vacation together—their big get-to-know-each-other-better week together—the more she decided it certainly wasn’t her.
She threw back the covers and sat up. There was no way she was going to get to sleep tonight. She might as well spend the time with Paavo. That’s what this so-called vacation was supposed to be about, wasn’t it?
She put on slippers and a robe and walked quietly downstairs. In case he’d fallen asleep, she didn’t want to disturb him.
Night lights cast a faint glow in the drawing room and the foyer. To her surprise, he wasn’t in the drawing room. He must be in the kitchen, she thought with a shudder. Why anyone would want to sit in a room with a corpse didn’t make sense to her. But then, he was a homicide inspector. Maybe that explained it.
She went into the hall that led to the kitchen. The lights were out. He wouldn’t be down there in the dark, would he? She went a couple of steps closer and was just about ready to turn back when she heard a faint chuckle.
She froze. Ghosts? But they cried, not laughed. Or so she’d been told. But who could tell with ghosts? She took another couple of very quiet steps closer to the dark kitchen.
She heard Paavo’s low murmur, and with it, Moira Tay’s slow, serene voice before all fell quiet again.
Shocked, she turned around and somehow found her way back up to her room.
She dreamed the house was making strange noises again. Only this time, instead of a thumping heartbeat, it was a loud, shrill cry. Elise Sempler, perhaps? The wailing ghost.
Then she dreamed an earthquake struck.
Then Paavo, shaking her shoulder, was saying, “Angie. Angie. Wake up!”
She opened her eyes. Her alarm, which s
he’d foolishly set for six A.M. in order to take care of breakfast, was blaring. She reached over and hit the snooze button, then shut her eyes again. Paavo put his arms around her and she rolled toward him. Her hand touched his chest. She felt clothes, a sweater. He wasn’t in bed, but was lying on top of the covers. Still, he felt warm and solid. Her Paavo. She loved the feel of him, his clean, masculine scent.
He kissed her mouth, her cheek, her ear, then whispered, “Don’t you need to go down to help Moira?”
She jerked awake. Everything from the night before came back to her with a resounding crash. Pushing him away, she rolled to the edge of the bed and covered her head with her pillow. She remembered seeing the clock by her bed read four A.M. before she fell asleep. Obviously he hadn’t even bothered to come to bed last night. He must have spent the whole night with Moira Tay. And now his first coherent words to her were about the Other Woman. Damn him.
He pulled the pillow off her head. “Time to get up, Angie.”
She stumbled out of bed and into the shower without even giving him a backward glance.
Angie stood in the drawing room, doing her best to remain balanced on one foot, her other foot pressed against her knee, her arms raised over her head with her palms touching. The room was icy cold. There was either no central heating in the old inn or it had been shut off during the night to save money.
“Take a deep breath,” Running Spirit said. “Now hold. One, two, three.”
If anyone had told Angie she’d be spending her first morning with Paavo this way, she would have called him insane. She’d gone to the kitchen, where she learned from Moira that Paavo and Running Spirit had moved Miss Greer down to the cellar. It had rained all night, and because it was still raining hard, everyone expected that Quint and the sheriff would be delayed even further. It was a little heartening for Angie to learn that Running Spirit had been there with them last night—part of the time, at least.
Instead of cooking right then, Moira invited Angie to take part in the morning exercises. “We never eat until about eight o’clock. The early morning is for exercising—best done on an empty stomach, of course.”
“Of course,” Angie had replied. Not eating breakfast until eight A.M. was one of the sanest things she’d heard from this crowd. Now she could get another hour’s sleep. Normally, her day never began before eight anyway.
Moira went on to explain that Finley had always directed his own special blend of tai chi chuan and yoga, saying they helped a person awaken spiritually as well as physically. Usually, the exercises were held outdoors, no matter how cold, but the rain made that impossible.
Running Spirit volunteered to direct the morning exercises. He planned to create an energizing force to draw Finley back home. “Whatever it takes,” Angie said, as they walked toward the drawing room. All she wanted to do was go back up to bed. Staying up all night confused about some man hadn’t exactly left her feeling great this morning.
Angie was about to tell Moira she’d exercise some other time when she spotted Paavo among the group of exercisers. The man looked disgustingly awake.
Moira then removed her bulky sweats to reveal skin-hugging spandex leggings and a tummy-baring sports bra. She moved in a slow, trancelike walk to Paavo’s side and smiled. It was a wan, typically Moira smile, but a smile nonetheless. Paavo didn’t smile back. Angie would have passed out if he had. But he didn’t give Moira one of his usual icy, cut-to-the-quick glances, either.fS
Angie went to his other side. Even though her eyes never left Running Spirit’s half-clothed form at the head of the group, she noticed that Paavo’s brows rose in surprise at seeing her there. Archly, she nodded in acknowledgment. What was so difficult about a little predawn yoga, anyway?
Now, after a half hour of exercising, her ability to stay upright on one leg seemed about as shaky as her relationship with Paavo. Her whole sense of which end was up went haywire. She put her foot down before she fell over—ready to put her foot down in more ways than one. Visions filled her head of going back to her room to crawl under a toasty-warm electric blanket and thaw out. From there, she could contemplate which was worse about this place: the cold, her hunger, the dead woman in the cellar—or Paavo and Moira making goo-goo eyes at each other. This was surely the vacation from hell. Finley or no. Inspector Paavo Smith could decide if he was leaving with her.
She turned to tell Paavo she was going back to the room when Running Spirit handed out blankets to spread on the floor.
This was more to her liking. She spread her blanket beside Paavo’s, then stretched out on her back. Her eyes closed and she yawned. At home she’d never attempt anything strenuous before having at least one cup of coffee. But the thought of the crushed and boiled seeds that had passed for coffee last night made her mouth pucker.
She tried hard to pull her thoughts and taste buds away from dreaming of a cup of rich, dark, fresh-brewed, eye-opening, caffeine-laden coffee and back to Running Spirit’s instruction.
When she opened her eyes she saw she’d missed something crucial. The man sat on the ground, coiled into a ball, his back twisted, and his arms circling his knees…backward. Angie sat up quickly, then stared at the jumble of limbs. She couldn’t begin to fathom how to do that to herself. Or if she even wanted to.
Paavo was making a valiant attempt; he kept in good physical form because of his police work. A form she should be snuggling against.
On the other side of him, Moira’s supple body was so long and thin, she looked as if she could wrap her arms around herself twice over if she wanted to. Nothing about Angie was long, not even her hair, and thin was only attained by vigilant, continuous dieting.
Reginald Vane simply sat with his hands on his knees and his eyes shut. He wore a white shirt. At least he’d left off his bow tie.
Patsy wasn’t there. But then, even when Patsy was there, she wasn’t.
Also absent were Martin and Bethel. Martin was probably sleeping off last night’s bout of drinking. Bethel? Who knew? Maybe channelers didn’t need to do all this mundane physical stuff. But where were the two of them last night during all the noise? It had been loud enough to get through even to Patsy.
Chelsea was probably sitting in her room hoping that Jack Sempler would materialize.
With that thought, Angie realized that if she were to stay at this inn any length of time—which wasn’t in the least bit likely—she’d need to come up with a transcendental excuse of her own to duck Hill Haven Inn’s activities.
“Breathe deeply,” Running Spirit said, as Angie tried in vain to get her arms and legs into a position that had some semblance of his. “Now hold it, one, two…”
Finally the session ended, with everyone in a lotus position. Angie tried a modified one, sitting upright, legs crossed, knees outward, bracing a hand on each knee with her thumbs and middle fingers touching. Angie listened to Running Spirit’s deep voice grow surprisingly soft and soothing, telling the group over and over to breathe deeply and to clear their minds of wordly worries and thoughts….
A short while later, for the second time that same morning, Paavo woke her up and told her it was time to help Moira cook breakfast.
8
Paavo opened his eyes, then turned quickly toward the alarm clock. Ten o’clock. He sat up. After exercising he’d lain on the bed for a minute and must have dozed off. Where was Angie?
He stood and went to the windows to see if Quint’s truck was out there. Instead, he saw Chelsea and Angie climbing into the back of Finley’s old van. What the hell?
He ran down the stairs two at a time and out the door. Rain was falling lightly. “Angie, where are you going?”
In the van with her and Chelsea were Running Spirit, at the wheel, and Moira, beside him.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” she said.
“We’re going to the sheriff, since the sheriff won’t come to us,” Chelsea said.
Paavo turned to Moira. “I thought you said it was almost impossible to get through w
ith a four-wheel drive; how do you expect this old van to make it?”
“Running Spirit said he could do it,” she said.
“Get in or get out of the way, Smith,” Running Spirit said.
Paavo climbed in beside Angie. He guessed it was worth a try. But if this old van could get through, why weren’t Quint and the sheriff here already?
Running Spirit drove slowly, with all the caution he could muster. It was difficult to even see the road, so much mud and water had puddled on the ground. The road began a sharp descent winding along the side of the steep cliff, and the van nosed downward. Angie’s heart was in her throat.
The van began to slip on the mud and Running Spirit hit the brakes, causing it to fishtail for what felt like forever.
“I thought you knew how to drive in these conditions,” Chelsea said accusingly.
“Shut up!” Running Spirit said, his knuckles white.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Angie said. “So what if it takes another day or two for the sheriff to make it up to the inn. It’s not as if Miss Greer is going anywhere.”
“I can do it.” Running Spirit’s voice didn’t sound nearly as convincing as he might have hoped.
“You’re doing fine, Greg,” Moira said. “Let’s go on.”
Paavo leaned forward. He saw Angie shut her eyes each time the road made a sharp turn along the edge of the cliff. She was turning paler by the minute. He could sense the tires becoming clogged with the wet, sandy earth and losing traction. “Time to stop,” he said.
“What?” Running Spirit did as he was told. “Why?”
Paavo pointed at a spot ahead. What had once been the roadway, cut into the side of a cliff, was now covered by a thick mudslide.
“Oh, my God.” Angie leaned over Chelsea to peer out the window at the cliff beside them. “If that much mud could slide down and cover the road up there, is it possible that a slide could happen here as well?”
No one wanted to answer that.
“What in the hell’s going on?” Running Spirit demanded. “Your brother never said anything about the inn being cut off whenever there’s a little rain. Did you know about this?”
