A Dark and Twisting Path

by Julia Buckley

  I pointed at the door, rueful. “Someone broke in, Camilla, while we were at dinner. I locked the door, but they used a crowbar, Cliff says. Your guard dogs sent them off in a hurry.”

  She looked less distressed than she did curious. “Do we have any theories?”

  I shook my head. Cliff said, “Lena saw an unsavory bearded character walking up the bluff. Seems a likely place to start. In fact, Mr. Rayburn, she says she also saw him at your place yesterday.”

  Adam raised his brows. “My restaurant? What time was this, Lena?”

  “I was having lunch with Belinda—I think it was about twelve thirty.”

  He thought for a moment, then nodded. “Sarah did mention that she had a strange customer in the booth by the door.”

  “Yes, that’s where he was sitting!” I said.

  “He only ordered coffee and pie, and he seemed restless. Kept watching the cars in the lot. She said he paid in cash.”

  Cliff said, “Ask her if she remembers anything else, or if she had any conversations with the man. Can you let me know?”

  Adam nodded. “Of course. I’ll ask her first thing tomorrow.”

  Cliff put his notebook in his back pocket. “Meanwhile I’ll ask around in town, see if anyone else has seen this guy. Let me get my fingerprint kit from the car and do a quick dusting of the door.”

  “Cliff, if we don’t touch the broken area, can we go in the house?” Camilla asked.

  “Let me open it up for you,” he said. He did so, gingerly, touching the middle of the door, as he had done for my father. We went in and sprawled on couches in Camilla’s living room.

  We talked for a while about the break-in. Camilla said that as far as she knew she had never had one, although there had been intruders on her property in recent months. Adam shook his head. “Something fishy is going on. First with this murder Camilla told me about, and now with a break-in? This isn’t the Blue Lake I’m used to.”

  Camilla and I had exchanged a secret glance that suggested we felt there was a link between this and the note I received. But I had not told my father about the note, so we kept silent on that matter.

  “You must think we live in a den of crime,” I said to my father and Tabitha.

  “No, of course not,” my father said. “Florida has far more crime than this sweet little town. You’re just not used to it here. Tabby and I have triple locks on our door and an expensive security system. There are those who prey upon retirees, you know.”

  “Ugh. I’m getting very disillusioned,” I said.

  Cliff had been delicately powdering all around the door, and now he was taking some photos. Sam stood up and said, “Cliff, we really appreciate this.”

  Cliff turned, surprised, and said, “Hey, just doing my job.” He looked gratified, though. “I’ll get out of your hair now. You’ll need to get this repaired. I think Doug said Al Dempsey does emergency repair. He’s on Pine Street, if you’re looking him up.”

  “I know Albert,” Camilla said. Camilla knew everyone. “I shall give him a call right now. Thank you for the idea, Cliff.” She stood and went into her office. Over her white blouse and black evening slacks she wore a delicate silver vest shot with shiny silver thread, and she glimmered as she left the room. Adam’s gaze followed her. He did indeed look love-struck. I wondered, briefly, about Camilla’s husband, and how in love he must have been at the start with a twenty-four-year-old Camilla.

  Cliff was packing up, and Sam seemed to want to talk to him. I wondered why this particular break-in, despite the far more horrifying things Sam had suffered, seemed to bother him so much. “I’ll walk you out,” Sam told Cliff. Cliff said good-bye to us, and the men descended the steps together.

  My father stood up. “You know, tomorrow Tabby and I want to go check out that resort town you mentioned to us.”

  “Meridien? Yes—it’s lovely. Like Blue Lake, only fancier.”

  “So I think we’ll go up, watch a show on that nice TV in our room, and then turn in for the night. We’re early risers, as you know.”

  I stood up and kissed him. “Good night, Dad. It’s so great to have you here.”

  He gave me a hug, I kissed Tabitha on the cheek, and they made their way upstairs.

  Adam and I exchanged an uncertain glance. “I’ll wait until the repairman gets here,” Adam said, “and then I’ll go, too.”

  “Don’t rush on my account; I’m going to bed soon. I gave my dad the grand tour today, and I am wiped out.”

  “The Blue Lake air, perhaps,” Adam said lightly.

  “And I still need to write a bit tonight. Camilla and I are comparing notes tomorrow on a new project.”

  “I heard.” He looked at me with his perceptive brown eyes. “She loves working with you, Lena. She feels years younger with you in the house.”

  “I feel the same. Not younger, but very happy.”

  He lunged forward and hugged me—something Adam had never done. “Thank you for making her happy,” he said.

  Before I could respond Camilla was back. “Albert will be here within half an hour. He was most accommodating. Adam, Lena, would you like some coffee?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll say good night to Sam and head upstairs. It was a long day, and I want to do some writing before I conk out.”

  She nodded. “All right, dear.”

  I went outside and saw Sam still talking with Cliff by the police car. Cliff was nodding as Sam talked earnestly to him. Cliff saw me and clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder, saying some final words, and then he climbed into the car.

  Sam watched him drive away, then turned to see me standing at the foot of the porch. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey. What’s with the secret conference?”

  He moved toward me, his face unreadable in the growing dusk. “Not secret, just emphatic. It bothers me, Lena, that someone broke into your house. I don’t care that they went into mine, or that they stole something, or even that they tried to frame me for murder—there’s a part of me that’s just been hardened against outside intrusions. But you—you’re my Achilles’ heel. I can’t bear the thought of someone dangerous lurking around you, or Camilla. That note was personal. It had your name on it. And now this. Cliff said this looks like escalation.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a cop thing, but basically it’s the idea that someone is getting more extreme. More angry, or more something. But why you? I wonder if Camilla should stay with Adam for a while, and you should come to stay with me.”

  I hugged him. “You’re so sweet. But my dad is here, and I want to be around him. And we have the dogs. They bit whoever it was, remember? They’ll protect us.” A pickup truck turned into Camilla’s driveway. “Oh, and look, this is Albert Dempsey, coming to repair the door.”

  Sam pulled me tighter, resting his chin on the top of my head. “This will sound selfish, I suppose, but I am also worried for me. I can’t bear the thought of something happening to you.”

  “Sam, I’ll be fine. Did Cliff reassure you?”

  He sighed. “Sort of. He said all those things that cops always say. How they’ll make it their top priority and be on the lookout for this bearded guy. How did I not see him when we left today?”

  “You were concentrating on the road and your thoughts, probably. Sam, it’s okay. Do you want to stay with us tonight? Camilla has another spare room, and I know she’d be happy to have you.”

  He nodded. “You know what? I do. But I have some things to do at home. Tell Camilla I’ll be back at around ten, just for tonight.”

  Albert Dempsey emerged from his car with a toolbox in one hand, and Sam and I ascended the steps with him to point out the damage.

  He whistled. “Someone really went after this, and they didn’t bother to disguise it. This was a well-made door, and he had to work hard to get in there.”

>   Sam and I exchanged a glance, and then he squeezed my arm. “I’ll be back,” he said, and he walked down the steps and to the road on swift legs.

  * * *

  * * *

  ASIDE FROM A brief visit to Sam’s guest room to kiss him good night, I spent a chaste evening writing a sample chapter for Death at Delphi, and then, in a moment of curiosity, I did what I always did when there was trouble in Blue Lake: I went to Google. I hunted for my same-old search terms, starting with Nikon Lazos. I got an immediate list of stories about Nikon’s evasion of the police, about his apparent genius for hiding. There were some pictures of Baby Athena that I had not seen before and some follow-up stories on Victoria and what she was doing now. One of them was titled “Victoria West: Portrait of a Survivor.” It was accompanied by a melancholy portrait of Victoria in New York, gazing out onto some body of water. I read for almost an hour, but the only thing that was slightly interesting was an article called “The Criminal Past of Nikon Lazos.” This was written for the London Times by a reporter called Colin Wilde. According to Wilde, Lazos had been suspected, in his youth, of a number of robberies of wealthy families known to his clan. Greek police had suspected young Lazos when he was on the guest list at every home that had suffered a theft, from precious jewels to family heirlooms. However, Lazos had valid alibis for almost all of the crimes. One retired police officer clung to his theory that Lazos had been involved, but he was convinced that the young man must have had a talented accomplice.

  This gave me pause. We had just suffered two break-ins: one at Sam’s, one at Camilla’s. We had also been questioning whether Nikon could be involved. Might this story be the key to something? I printed out a copy to show to Doug, Sam, and Camilla, and then I brushed my teeth and turned in, noting with a yawn that it was almost midnight. I fell asleep almost instantly.

  At about two in the morning something woke me and I sat up in bed. With cobwebbed vision I peered at the blackness, sensing, rather than seeing, that someone was in the room.

  I felt a scream rising in my throat but I managed a garbled “Who’s there?”

  Sam’s voice, calm and reassuring, spoke. “Lena, it’s me.” He sat on the side of my bed and suddenly I could see him: his familiar form and comforting features. I dove into his arms.

  “You scared me!”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to wake anyone, even you. I just wanted—to see you.”

  “Why?” I pulled far enough away to study his face.

  “I had a bad dream,” he said with a little smile, but his eyes were troubled. “Bad enough that I had to make sure you were all right.”

  “Oh, Sam. I love you,” I said.

  Then his mouth was on mine, and I pulled him back with me on the bed, enjoying his roaming hands and the cool scented breeze that floated in my window. “I missed you,” he said.

  “You’ve been home for more than a day.”

  “I missed naked you. In bed with me,” he said, his lips on my shoulder.

  “Mmm. Me, too. And this clandestine meeting is very exciting—you sneaking in here at two in the morning.”

  “I didn’t have to sneak. Camilla assured me last night she wouldn’t mind if I stayed in your room. I told her you would be uncomfortable.”

  “Well—it is sort of awkward.”

  “Feels very comfortable to me,” Sam said.

  “Stop,” I said, laughing. “No, don’t stop that.”

  “Okay,” he said, and I giggled, and then there was no need to talk.

  * * *

  * * *

  SAM WAS GONE when I woke, but Lestrade, who had been on his nightly rounds, was lying on the bed, snoring slightly. I glanced at the clock; it was eight. I jumped up and hastened to get ready.

  Sam, Camilla, Tabitha, and my father were at the breakfast table sharing coffee and rolls. Sam’s eyes studied me as I walked in, and then he smiled down into his mug. My father stood up to give me a kiss, then looked at his watch. “Tabby and I are going to run out for some morning sightseeing. I know you and your boss have to work, so we’ll get out of your hair.”

  “You’ll have fun,” I said. “And it looks like it’s a lovely day.” I gazed out Camilla’s kitchen window at her expanse of yard and the distant lake, which glittered like silver under an azure sky.

  “It does indeed,” my father said. “Tabby, are you ready?”

  She was. If I knew the signs of a woman who was ready to shop (and I did), I saw those in Tabitha London this morning. She was carrying a big purse and wearing comfortable shoes. She kept glancing at the door, and I suppressed a laugh. We waved and they vacated the kitchen; Camilla had kindly offered to let them use her car for the day.

  I sat down and took a sweet roll, then gave Sam and Camilla copies of the article I had printed. “Let me know if this seems pertinent.”

  They read, dutifully, and Sam’s eyebrows rose. Camilla said, “Interesting,” then read some more, then said “Interesting” again.

  “Something to share with Doug, right?”

  Sam nodded. “This goes back what—thirty years? And yet it seems relevant to some of the discussions we’ve been having, and the idea that Nikon might have someone working for him in Blue Lake. I think I’ll drop this off with Doug myself, if that’s okay.”

  “Great,” I said. Then, “Aside from this, are we all feeling better this morning?”

  Camilla sipped her coffee. “I am delighted. How lovely to have you at our breakfast table, Sam.”

  Sam grinned. “It is nice. And you two are a beautiful sight for tired eyes. But I should run and drop this at the station, then go home and do some work. I’m relieved that last night was uneventful, but I don’t think for a minute that the drama has ended. It rarely does in our part of town, does it?”

  Camilla’s laugh was tinged with regret. “There is some sort of strange cloud hovering over your house and mine, and I think it’s been there for quite some time. Perhaps we should relocate.”

  “No way,” I said. “I love this house and Sam’s place, and I say we get to the bottom of this mystery once and for all.”

  “Let’s do that, Madame Sherlock. You can get Lestrade to help you,” Sam joked.

  I was ridiculously pleased that he had worked my cat into the conversation; I got up and gave him a generous kiss. “Young love,” Camilla said placidly, pouring some more coffee into her cup.

  Sam kissed me back, holding my face in his hands, then stood up.

  “Geez, I come downstairs and everyone leaves,” I said.

  “I’ll see you later. Maybe tonight,” Sam said. He touched Camilla’s shoulder and said, “Thanks for letting me stay, Camilla. I hope your house has seen the last of its unwelcome visitors. I’ll be stopping in now and then, and Doug has assured me he and Cliff will do the same.”

  “You’re welcome anytime, day or night. No, just leave the dishes there. Have a fine day, Sam.”

  He waved and moved out of the room. I finished up my roll and stared into my coffee.

  “He’s a good man,” Camilla said.

  I nodded. “I would like everything to be over—all the uncertainty and strangeness—so that I could spend more time with him.”

  “Soon,” she said. Then she clapped her hands once. “So—we are alone at last. Shall we work on our new book?”

  This perked me up. “I have a chapter to show you. Did you write something?”

  “Just some ideas in a little outline. Let’s put them together and see what we have.”

  “Hang on—let me grab my laptop.” I jogged upstairs and into my room, where Lestrade still lay like a tiny carpet on my bed, and ran across the floor to my gorgeous desk, where my laptop sat waiting for me. I grabbed it and flew back down the stairs.

  Camilla had relocated to her office, and I pulled up my purple chair for our collaboration. I opened my Word docum
ent and set it in front of her. “Here’s the chapter—just an idea of how it might start.”

  She handed me a few typed pages. “And here’s an outline. Mark the things that you think would work in this story. These are just some ideas about Greece—how the setting can relate to the plot, some mythological references that might end up being good clues—that sort of thing.”

  We sat reading each other’s ideas and making notes. Once in a while one of us would say, “Ah!” or make a pleased sound.

  When I finished, I waited for her. She was still reading, her silver head bent toward the computer, her face intent, yet dreamy. Camilla was never happier than when she was immersed in a book. Finally she finished. She smiled and pushed the laptop away slightly.

  “What do you think?” I asked, trying not to sound nervous.

  “I think it’s very promising. What a wonderful way to start—and what a romantic way for the two of them to meet. It actually would work well with some of the notes I made there.”

  “I know! I love the idea of incorporating a psychic character—an echo of the oracle of ancient times.”

  “Yes—it could work quite well. And I like the fact that, when a local guide and translator is unavailable, the British man offers to travel with her and be her guide. So perfect that he is a professor of classical literature.”

  “He can answer all of her questions, and he can inspire her ideas, because she wants to write a book set in Greece.”

  Camilla tapped her fingers on the desk. “But of course she’s a woman alone. She can’t just commit to climbing into a car with a strange man.”

  “But the local translator would have been a stranger! And she’s looking for adventure—perhaps she is feeling like taking risks.”

  “Hmm. What if they have some tenuous connection? Perhaps a family member of hers has actually been in one of his classes, or—what if his father is also a professor? She can say she recognizes the name, but that surely he is not the right age, and he can smile charmingly and say, ‘Professor Barclay Anselm is my father. I’m Curtis Anselm. You can call me Curt.’”