At one point she shivered, looked up at the blue-gray sky, and took a dark wool cap from her tote bag. While she talked she absently pulled on the cap and lifted the collar of her coat, disguising most of her honey-colored hair.
When a few oohs and ahhs arose from the crowd, and a wave of warm applause and cheers swept through the park, Candy figured that was the best distraction she’d get and made her move—as casually and as discreetly as possible.
Keeping her head low so she’d blend in with the crowd, she began to drift along a broad, well-trodden pathway between the snowbanks, headed in the general direction of the inn across the street. She stayed close to groups of three or four people, using them to shield herself from any eyes that might be observing her.
In a few minutes she was out of the park. She crossed Ocean Avenue with the crowds at the red light, again mingling with chattering, excited tourists and townies headed in both directions.
On the far side of the street she continued straight ahead with eight or ten other people who were headed toward the Lightkeeper’s Inn. The hotel looked like a stately, snow-wrapped princess, pale and delicate, yet steadfast against the weather, and offering the promise of a cozy respite from the chilly temperatures.
Those who entered, including Candy, were not disappointed, for a great roaring fire in the lobby helped to thaw out the inn’s guests. But while the others loitered by the fire or headed for their rooms, Candy quickened her pace, threading her way through and around the guests, bags, and carts littering the lobby, and walking past the front desk, a cozy sitting area, a door that led into a small business office, and a small yet very active coffee bar tucked into a corner under the broad staircase leading to the second floor. She angled right and entered a carpeted hallway that led past some of the inn’s small meeting rooms and offices.
Up to this point she’d judiciously avoided looking behind her, but it had been driving her crazy. She had to know if she was being followed, so halfway along the hall she ducked into a familiar doorway that led to a small receptionist’s office and two inner offices, belonging to the innkeeper, Oliver LaForce, and the assistant innkeeper, Alby Alcott.
As she’d hoped, all three offices were empty. Everyone was busy elsewhere. She knew she probably had only a few minutes alone, but she didn’t intend to linger long. She leaned back against the wall just inside the doorway, took a few moments to catch her breath, and as carefully as possible, edged her head toward the doorway so she could peek around the corner into the hallway and lobby beyond.
She scanned every face, every guest as quickly as she could, but she saw no one who looked like the police officer.
With the faint hope that she’d already ditched him, she started off again, continuing along the hallway and exiting through another door onto the side porch. Hands tucked deep into her pockets, she hurried down the stairs and angled toward the rear of the building, snuggling into her coat in an effort to appear as inconspicuous as possible. She followed a narrow pathway between thigh-deep snow to a tree-framed parking lot, which she hurried across. On the other side, she entered a narrow alleyway that ran behind the back doors of the shops along Ocean Avenue. The buildings were spaced closely together here, with only a few feet between them, and some were attached to one another.
She soon came to a walkway that led between two of the brick buildings. She slipped through as quickly as she could, since the wind funneling into the narrow space made it seem frostier than the surrounding air, and exited onto busy Ocean Avenue.
Dodging pedestrians and traffic, she crossed to a storefront on the other side and pushed through a glass door.
“There you are,” Maggie said from behind the counter. She’d been reading a magazine; she had no customers at the moment. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”
“I was trying to throw him off my trail,” Candy said as she crossed the small, carpeted reception area, staying well away from the front window. She headed behind the counter with Maggie, then sidestepped back around a corner so she wouldn’t be seen by anyone looking in from the street. She peered around the corner, scrutinizing the passersby outside. “Any sign of our friendly young police officer?”
Maggie glanced out the storefront window as casually as possible, scanning the street outside. “Not a single uniform in sight—not even a Boy Scout. I think you’ve lost him for the time being. But I’d stay hidden if I were you. The moment he realizes you’ve slipped away, he’ll come looking for you, and he’ll probably walk right past here.”
“Is everything ready?”
Maggie turned with her hands on her hips and gave Candy a look. “Well of course everything’s ready. It’s like a wedding. I live for stuff like this. Come on.” She waved an arm as she walked past Candy into the back room, which was filled mostly with racks of cleaned, plastic-encased clothes waiting for pickup by customers. Off to one side were bins of tagged clothes, awaiting pickup for cleaning, which was done off-site.
“I did the best I could on such short notice,” Maggie said, “but I think it’ll all work. I even found an old wig, believe it or not, though I’m not sure you’ll need it.”
She paused at the center of the room and pointed. “The shirts, pants, boots, and hats are on the shelf to your right. That’s the best stuff from the unclaimed bin, and most of it should fit you. I think there’s a couple of flannel shirts, a really nice puffy down-filled vest, a thick cardigan sweater, and some scarves and hats with earflaps. The coats are hanging on that first rack. They should bulk you out real nice.”
Rubbing her chin, Candy considered the bounty laid out before her with discerning eyes. “Yes, I think you’re right,” she said after a few moments. “This should work out just fine. So, where do we start?”
Ten minutes later, Candy left the dry cleaner’s by the back door. The Jeep remained parked out front. She’d be taking Maggie’s Subaru, which was parked up on the tail end of Main Street—perfect for Candy’s purposes.
Seven or eight layers of flannel, down, cotton, and canvas gave her a huskier look, which she hoped would enable her to make good her escape undetected. She’d opted for a black and gray billed hat with thick earmuffs and a dark green scarf. She’d finished it all off with scuffed work boots, dark brown leather gloves, and wraparound sunglasses, which hid the color of her eyes.
As she walked along the lane behind the storefronts, she even tried to adjust her gait, making her steps heavier and more deliberate, to add to the illusion of being a middle-aged man. Continuing up the slope, she kept her head down but occasionally glanced around her.
She’d just navigated her way through another narrow, snow-clogged passageway between buildings and emerged onto the upper end of Main Street when she practically walked right into Officer McCroy. He had his back to her, thumbs locked into his utility belt, scanning the street in front of him—searching for her, she had no doubt. As inconspicuously as possible she turned to her right, brushing past him. She lifted her left shoulder and tucked her head down, in case he should glance in her direction, but if he did, he paid her no attention. She was just one of the townies, maybe a plumber or bus driver or oil deliverer, in worn baggy corduroys, huddled against the cold and headed home for the afternoon.
Candy slipped away unnoticed.
Rather than drive down Main Street past Officer McCroy, she headed out to the Coastal Loop, following it around past the English Point Lighthouse, Town Park and the inn, past Pruitt Manor and the Lobster Shack, and back out of town in the direction of Blueberry Acres. But instead of taking the turnoff toward the farm, she continued on, past the low brush and thin pine trees, rocky patches, and occasional glimpses of the coastline. Houses dotted both sides of the road, most sitting on several acres each, making them well spaced. Some were newer, rambling rustic or country styles, with porches and large chimneys. Others stood more upright, with long windows and steep metal roofs designed to easily shed snow and ice. She even passed small capes and saltboxes, like Ray
Hutchins’s place.
After a few miles she started watching for a turnoff on her left, eventually wheeling the car onto Long Heath Lane, a dirt road that ran through rocky, tree-lined bluffs before reaching the coast, where it split, leading to properties both left and right. There were some incredibly expensive places tucked in and around the coves and crags of this rugged coastline. Candy turned right, drove another few hundred yards, and parked in front of a gray ramshackle building that looked as if it’d been beaten by the sea for a hundred or more years. But it still stood, and overall looked in good repair. The sisters had done some work on it the previous summer, Candy recalled. They’d had Ray Hutchins, the town handyman, out to do the work for them.
They had a stunning piece of property, tucked on a shelf of land above the sea. There would be no basement in a place like this. The oil tank was most likely inside somewhere, in a laundry or storage room. Gray smoke wafted lazily from a stone chimney but was picked up and whisked away by the ever-present breeze coming off the sea.
As she climbed out of the car, Candy shed some of her bulkier items, including the outer canvas coat and blue down vest. She’d brought her tote bag with her, tucked under her outer coat, and now slung it over her shoulder. The pathway to the front door was well shoveled and sanded. The sea beyond looked dark blue and foamy—sort of like blueberry froth, she thought whimsically.
It was a sudden, happy thought, crossing her mind unbidden as she approached the small cement step and wooden door, and it made her think of the warmest, most sensuous days of summer.
Where the heck had that come from? she wondered as she knocked.
Thirteen
Candy wasn’t quite sure what she expected—a mystical aura of light surrounding the door, perhaps, or the sound of chanting voices from inside, or a black cat brushing against her legs. But she noticed none of that. Instead, hanging on the door, she saw a homemade wreath of dried, snow-dusted vines intertwined with lavender and sprigs of blueberry bushes heavy with purplish, puckered fruit. Black metal strap hinges, which extended almost the entire way across the door, had a rough, handmade appearance, as if they’d come straight from a blacksmith’s shop. A black door latch replaced a standard knob, adding a charming touch.
After a few moments the latch lifted and the door creaked open.
A pleasant-looking woman with a thin face, large olive eyes, and long, brushed-out hair the color of late autumn leaves, streaked with gray here and there, greeted her. “Hello. You must be Candy Holliday,” she said softly. “I’m Isabel Foxwell. Please, come in.”
She opened the door wider and stepped aside so Candy could enter, then closed the door quickly behind her to keep the cold out. “You can place your boots there on the drying rug and hang your coat”—she paused as she noticed Candy’s clothes—“well, your coats on those pegs.” She smiled warmly. “Then come on into the sitting room. We have a fire going, and hot mint tea and fresh-baked cookies waiting for you.”
Before she entered the house, Candy knocked the sand and muck off her boots, then stepped inside gingerly, staying to the rubber mats and rugs. She was in a short hallway converted into a mudroom, typical of most Maine homes in the winter. Against the right wall was a pine bench, where one could sit while putting on or taking off boots, and beside that stood an elegant wicker shelf for storing gloves and scarves. A row of eight or ten wooden pegs, like something you’d find in a horse tack shop circa 1900, provided a place for hanging coats. The far-left peg was available, and that’s where Candy hung up her assorted items of clothing, since all the other pegs were occupied by a wide variety of colorful coats, shawls, and sweaters; apparently the sisters left only one peg free for guests.
She left on her undershirt, flannel shirt, and jeans, and in her stocking feet she padded forward, following the warming air and tempting smells of cookies and burning wood. After a half dozen paces she walked into the front sitting room, which overlooked the sea.
It was a breathtaking panorama. For a few moments Candy stood mesmerized. She’d always felt the lure of the sea, and standing in the room looking out, even on this overcast day, she was struck by the beauty and majesty of the ocean. The sisters’ cottage had a rustic, organic charm about it, due in part to the bare wooden floors that gleamed in the firelight and the comfortable, overstuffed furniture arrayed around the hearth, which she noticed was a single, eight-foot-long piece of raw granite, uneven across its surface. A stack of logs for the fire sat at one end of the hearth, and a basket of kindling and a pile of newspapers occupied the other side.
“Sit here,” one of sisters said, holding out her hand for Candy to shake. “I’m Annabel, the one you talked to on the phone. Welcome to our home. Sit and I’ll pour you some tea.” Her hair was darker and frizzier than her sister’s, but she had the same slim face and olive eyes, though hers were a shade darker, flecked with brown.
The third sister sat across from Candy, on the other side of a thick multicolored rug that looked woven by hand. She gave Candy a hesitant wave and, in a soft, reserved voice, said, “Hello. I’m Elizabeth.” She wore a thick, sage green knitted shawl over an ankle-length denim skirt that buttoned down the front. She had the same facial features as her sisters, though she was paler than they were, as if she rarely ventured outside, and looked like the youngest of the three. But her most striking feature was her long graying hair, parted in the middle and hanging nearly to her waist. It contrasted oddly with her supple skin, expressive lips, and deep, inquisitive brown eyes.
“You have a beautiful home,” Candy said as she settled herself and accepted a warm cup of mint tea from Annabel. Isabel arrived a moment later from the kitchen with a plate of freshly baked oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips. “The chocolate mixes wonderfully with the mint tea,” she said as she placed the plate on a table within easy reach of Candy. “Help yourself.”
Candy hesitated. She’d gained a few pounds over the winter, and her tight-fitting jeans fit just a little too tightly these days. She’d been trying to cut back on sweets.
Still, these were freshly baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and they smelled heavenly.
She limited herself to two.
Well, perhaps three.
It’s a good thing Maggie isn’t here, she thought with an inward smile. She’d eat the whole plate.
As Candy and the Foxwell sisters munched on the cookies and sipped mint tea, they chatted about the house and the view.
“It was our mother’s place, and our grandmother’s before that,” Annabel told her. “It’s always handed down to the women in the family. I guess you could say it’s a tradition. Some of this furniture and many of the decorations date back to the fifties or forties, or even earlier. There are several pieces around here from the late eighteen hundreds—that table over there, for instance.”
Candy surveyed the living room. It looked like a museum of antiques. “It’s all very lovely,” she said, “and the view is breathtaking.”
“It’s actually the third house on this site,” Isabel said primly.
“A log cabin was built here sometime in the late eighteen hundreds,” Annabel continued, “but it was closer to the sea, and it washed away in a storm. A second cabin was built shortly after that, more tightly anchored to the ground and farther back on the property, but it burned down in the 1920s. This one was built shortly after that. Our grandmother inherited the place from a great-aunt named Clementine, on her mother’s side.”
“Grandmother’s name was Isabel, and she was rumored to be a witch, although in truth she was simply an herbalist and a naturalist,” Isabel said frankly. She had settled herself into an ornate rocking chair to one side of the fireplace. “I was named after her, of course. She had two sisters—Annabel and Elizabeth—though Grandmother was the only one of them to marry. After her husband, Fenton, our grandfather, died during the war—though of natural causes; he was quite a bit older than she—she and her sisters lived here together.”
“Grandmother was a
wonderful artist and writer,” the third sister, Elizabeth, said quietly, almost out of nowhere. She raised a long, narrow finger and pointed past Candy. “We have several of her sketchbooks in the library. She worked in pencil, charcoal, and watercolors.”
“Oh, I’d love to see some of her work,” Candy said, twisting around to glance at the floor-to-ceiling shelves, crammed full with books of all sizes and ages, along the wall be-hind her.
“And we promise we will show you,” Annabel said as the smile dropped from her face, “but first we must talk to you about another matter—it’s why we asked you here.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Candy folded her hands in her lap and looked at them expectantly.
“We have something very important we need to tell you,” Isabel said, clutching the arms of the rocking chair.
“We don’t want to scare you,” Annabel added, “but we thought you should know.”
“Know what?” Candy could feel her heart starting to beat faster.
“It’s about our sister,” Isabel said, indicating Elizabeth. “She’s had a premonition.”
“A premonition? You mean… a vision?”
“Perhaps you’ve heard what people say about us,” Annabel said, giving Candy a knowing look.
It took Candy a moment to figure out what she meant. “Oh, you mean about being psychic? I thought that was just a village rumor.”
“Some rumors are based in truth,” Isabel said cryptically.
“I saw something.” It was Elizabeth’s voice again, with an underlying strength despite the soft tone. “A premonition, a vision—call it what you want, though it wasn’t really as defined as either of those. It was just more of… a feeling.”
“I see. And what was this feeling about?” Candy asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“These things are often difficult to interpret,” Isabel said helpfully.
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