by Greg Herren
I made up my mind to question Nell a little more thoroughly that afternoon.
When I took her back inside, I gulped down a quick cup of coffee and loaded up a plate. Carlo walked in just as I sat down with my second cup. Minette went crazy, wagging her tail, barking and running around him.
“Quiet, dog!” he snapped at her, kissing me on the cheek with a flourish and a smile as he sat down opposite me at the table. Minette looked stricken, and she cowered down. I was about to call her when she fled the room, her tail between her legs and her ears drooping. My dismay must have shown on my face, because he immediately apologized. “I’m sorry, Mouse, but I’m just not a dog person, and I should have probably given her away after…” He bit his lower lip. “And she always reminds me of…” His voice trailed off and he poured himself a cup of coffee hurriedly. “Anyway, I’m glad to be back here with you, Mouse. I missed you so much.”
I made a mental note to keep Minette out of his sight. The last thing I wanted for him was even more reminders of Timothy—reminders that I wasn’t him. “I’ve kept myself busy,” I said, wiping my mouth with my napkin. I spread strawberry preserves on my buttered toast and took another swig of my coffee. I stifled a yawn. I was definitely going to have to take a nap at some point.
“Yes, Joyce told me she’d been by to meet you and had already set you up with tennis lessons,” he said with a wink. “Don’t let her bully you—she’s a fanatic about tennis and will have you on the courts all day every day if you let her.”
“I like her,” I replied. “She’s fun to be around, frankly.”
“Good, because I’ve invited them to dinner tonight—don’t worry, I’ve already let Delia know, and asked her to make a prime rib—it’s Frank’s favorite.” He smiled at Juana as she brought him a plate of food. He speared a link sausage and popped it into his mouth. “Have you met anyone else? Been exploring the town or anything? Shopping? What have you been doing besides taking tennis lessons?”
“I met Nell Chamberlain.” I smiled at him. “Yesterday afternoon, when I was walking Minette.”
“Ah, Nell does love her dogs.” He beamed at me. “She’s something, isn’t she? Speaks her mind and doesn’t care whose feelings she hurts. The advantage of age, I suppose.”
“I also met Taylor Hudson yesterday,” I said, keeping my voice casual and watching his face as I took another drink from my coffee cup.
His face froze, and a muscle in his right jaw began working as his broad smile faded. “I wasn’t aware he was back,” he remarked, keeping his voice level. “Where did you run into him?”
“He was on the grounds when I came back from visiting Nell,” I said, my heart sinking as the expression on his face became more thunderous.
“He was trespassing?” His eyebrows met over his nose, and his lips tightened.
I took a deep breath and went on. “He was looking for something in—in the studio. He didn’t find it—he asked me if I could keep an eye out for it.” I hesitated, biting my lower lip. The look on his face was scaring me, and I could feel the coffee churning into acid in my stomach. I looked down.
“And what was he looking for?”
I exhaled. “A gold medallion on a chain, a swimming medal of some sort.” I looked up.
Carlo’s face drained of both color and anger. He looked like he’d been punched in the stomach. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and he pushed his chair back. “That—that was buried with Timothy.” he said in a quiet, stricken voice. He daubed at his lips with his napkin and stood up, placing his hands on the table for support. He shook his head and took a few deep breaths before giving me a weak smile. “I—I seem to have lost my appetite, Mouse, if you’ll excuse me…I—I believe I’ll go lie down for a while. I got up obscenely early this morning.” He walked around the table and kissed me absently on the cheek before leaving the room.
I sat there, mortified, not knowing what to do or say. I felt tears swimming up in my eyes. He’s obviously still not over Timothy, so what do I do? Like an idiot, the minute he comes back home the first thing I do is throw Timothy back in his face. Will I ever learn?
My appetite gone, I pushed my plate away.
Minette came trotting back into the room and placed her front paws on my leg and whimpered. I looked at her, her tail wagging slightly and the mournful look on her face. I leaned down and hugged her, hiding my tears in her fur. “Oh, Minette, why am I so stupid?” I whispered. She responded by licking my face, and I couldn’t help but smile back at her. I slipped Minette a couple of the sausages left on my plate, and she gulped them down quite happily and looked up at me hopefully, obviously wanting more. Instead, I got up from my chair. “Come on, girl,” I said to her. “Let’s go hide out upstairs.”
But when we walked out of the dining room, she took off running to my right. “Minette!” I called after her, but she ran on. Annoyed, I followed as she ran up the staircase to the east wing. When I reached the top of the stairs she was sitting in front of the mysterious locked door. She looked at me and stood up, putting her paws on the door. “Bad girl!” I said, and she gave me a mournful look.
But as I drew nearer to the door, I could hear the unmistakable sound of someone crying on the other side.
I paused, listening. I lifted my hand to knock—but stopped myself, not wanting to intrude. Instead, I whispered to Minette, “Come on,” and she followed me all the way back to my room. Olivia was just finishing making the bed when Minette jumped up and lay down on what I’d come to think of as her pillow.
“I was just finishing up,” Olivia said with her bright smile. “I’ll be getting out of your way now, sir.”
“I have a question for you, Olivia.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “In the east wing, on the second floor, there’s a locked door.”
She got a fearful look on her face. “Yes?”
“What is that room, and why is the door locked?”
She looked out into the hallway, her eyes wide, and stepped forward so she was closer. She said, in a very low voice, “That’s Mr. Timothy’s suite, sir. The door has been kept locked since”—she swallowed—“since he died, sir. The only person allowed in there is Carson, sir—the rest of us have been forbidden.”
“Forbidden? Why?”
She looked uncomfortable. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Mr. Timothy’s suite—it’s been kept exactly the same as it was the day he died, sir. All of his things are still there, no one’s been allowed to clean it out or anything, sir.”
Of course—just like his studio—shrines to the wonderful, irreplaceable, beautiful Timothy.
Somehow I managed to say, “Ah, thank you, Olivia. That’ll be all.” My voice sounded strange and hollow to me. There was a roaring in my ears, and my stomach was churning, everything I’d had for breakfast threatening to come back up.
She fled, closing the door behind her. I walked into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.
It must have been Carlo in there, crying behind a locked door. Who else could it have been? Of course it was Carlo. I’d reminded him of Timothy yet again, and he’d gone straight up to his suite of rooms, to weep over his loss all over again.
I had been right. Carlo wasn’t over him yet—maybe he would never be over him.
I buried my face in my hands.
I was a fool.
I heard Valerie’s voice in my head again, sneering, “What did you expect? Did you think someone like you could make him forget the love of his life?”
I pushed her voice out of my head, and splashed more cold water in my face. I took some deep breaths, and calmed myself down.
I stared at my plain face in the mirror. “I may not be Timothy, and Carlo may not ever love me the way he loved him, but I can make him as happy as I can. I may not be able to make him completely forget him, but I can do everything I can to make him happy.”
My mind made up, I walked back into the bedroom and sat down at my desk. I went through my e-mails qui
ckly and spent the rest of the morning reading an art history book I’d taken from the library until it was time for lunch.
As I walked into the dining room, I heard Carson’s unmistakable voice saying, “Sir, I’m afraid I have no other choice but to find a new cleaning service.”
Carlo put down his newspaper and looked up at Carson as I slid into my chair across the table from him. He didn’t acknowledge me. “What do you mean, Carson?” He frowned.
Carson folded his hands together in front of him. “Yesterday I had occasion to go into the office, sir, and immediately I couldn’t help but notice that the antique china spaniel statue was missing. I looked around for it, thinking perhaps it might have been misplaced or moved when the service was cleaning the office. You can imagine my surprise when I found it, broken in pieces, in the bottom drawer of the desk.”
My cheeks began to burn, and I squirmed in my chair.
“So, quite naturally I called the service, but they all denied breaking it.” He sighed. “It is one thing to break a priceless antique, sir, which is, of course, a terrible accident. Upsetting as that is, sir, it is understandable—these kinds of things do happen. However, the attempt to hide the broken pieces and the refusal to take responsibility for it is quite untenable and inexcusable. I advised the service I would have no choice but to recommend to you we terminate their services and find a new service.”
Carlo’s face was unreadable. “You handled that perfectly, Carson. Yes, find a new cleaning service immediately.” He started to pick up his newspaper again.
“I broke it,” I said in a small voice.
Both heads swiveled to me. Carson’s lips pursed and his eyes narrowed a bit, but he didn’t say anything.
“You broke the statue?” Carlo asked, his eyebrows coming together over his nose. “Why didn’t you say something? Why did you hide the pieces? I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mouse.”
“I—I don’t know,” I replied, quite miserable and embarrassed. It wasn’t the truth, of course—I knew exactly why I hadn’t said anything, and why I’d hid the pieces. “I—I panicked…I mean, it was clearly valuable and I was—”
“Obviously I shall have to apologize to the service,” Carson cut me off, his voice dripping scorn. He didn’t even look at me, instead giving his full attention to Carlo. “I shall take care of that at once. My apologies, sir, for disturbing your lunch.” Without another word, he swept out of the room noiselessly.
Carlo was still staring at me with that strange expression on his face. “I keep forgetting what a child you are,” he finally said, and I squirmed again in my chair, mortified. “All that fuss over nothing. Yes, the dog was an irreplaceable antique, and valuable, but Mouse—you don’t need to feel afraid. Accidents do happen, you know, and they can’t be helped. This is your home now, everything in it belongs to you as much as it belongs to me.” He blinked at me a few times before continuing, “And you caused Carson a ridiculous amount of stress and worry for no reason. In the future, if you break something you simply need to let Carson know. That could have created a rather awkward situation, with us falsely accusing the service. It’s just a china dog, after all. Perhaps it can be fixed.” He shrugged, and picked up his paper again, the subject closed in his mind.
I don’t really remember what we had for lunch that day, but not another word was spoken during the meal. His disappointment in me was palpable. Once the dishes were cleared Carlo made some excuses about work that needed to be done and disappeared back into his office without another word to me. Embarrassed, humiliated, and wishing I were dead, I slunk back up to my rooms, where Minette was still sleeping on the bed. Why had I been so stupid about the dog? I kept berating myself.
Because I’d assumed, of course, that it was his, Timothy’s. It was his old office, after all, complete with his stationery and his cards still in the center drawer, like he was going to walk back in at any moment. Everything in there was exactly the way it was when he went for his final swim in the sea, just like his studio and his suite in the east wing.
“Stop it,” I said to myself. “What’s done is done. You made a mistake, and nothing can be done about it now. Move on.”
Resolutely, I put the leash on Minette and took her back out to the back lawn. There was a strong breeze from the ocean, and whitecaps were breaking everywhere in the sea. It was hot, though, and the sun was shining as I walked down to the studio, stopping every so often for Minette to sniff something. It was probably a mistake to go there—Carlo had acted very strangely when I brought up the medallion Taylor had been looking for. He had been angry about Taylor being in the studio—but he’d changed at the mention of the medallion, cutting off the conversation quickly and leaving the room.
Maybe there was more to it than just the reminder of Timothy.
Certainly it was possible for a good swimmer to drown—it happened all the time. He could have gotten tired, been caught by an undertow, developed a cramp—any number of things could have happened to him out there. And the autopsy report had been pretty definite about the cause of death.
Nell’s suspicions had to be wrong.
Besides, who would have wanted to kill him? Everyone had loved Timothy. He was handsome and sexy and witty and charming.
If Nell was wrong about Timothy being murdered, then she was probably wrong about him having an affair with Chris.
That made sense, I reasoned as I reached the studio. Nell was just a bored old woman who entertained herself by reaching her own conclusions about what went on next door. Carlo had said she said whatever she pleased, regardless of how much it might hurt the listener. She’d probably just been trying to provoke a reaction from me—and it had certainly worked.
Besides, I didn’t know her well enough to take everything she said as gospel.
I hesitated outside the studio and glanced back at the house. I saw no one, and looked over next door. The widow’s walk on top of Nell’s house was vacant—but she certainly did have a clear view of almost every part of our property from up there. It was possible she’d seen something—
I pushed that thought out of my head and pushed open the studio door. Minette ran inside as I reached for the switch to turn on the overhead light. Minette jumped onto the sofa and sniffed around for a moment or two, before turning around a few times and falling asleep. I stood there in the center of the room for a few moments, trying to figure out what I was doing there besides acting like a fool. The studio was silent, and I looked around, catching more detail than I had when I’d surprised Taylor inside.
The entire space was maybe a little larger than my suite in the main house. There was a large desk with a chair, a couch and various chairs and little tables scattered about. The floor was polished dark hardwood, and there were various easels stacked against the wall, as well as several stacks of canvases and framed prints. There was a small area in the back corner that looked like it might have served as a darkroom for developing film, and I could see camera equipment on a table near there—and several expensive-looking cameras, as well.
I walked over to the nearest stack of framed prints, which was the one Taylor had been looking through. On top was a black-and-white print of a muscular man in wet white underwear that didn’t really hide anything. He was on his knees on a beach, with water rushing in from the tide around him. He had his left hand running through his wet hair, his eyes closed and his face looking out to sea. His remarkably muscular torso was beaded with water. On closer inspection, I saw the brand name on the elastic waistband of the underwear—TIMOTHY.
The shot was amazing.
Timothy had a good eye.
I started flipping through the stack.
The images were all of men in various states of undress.
It wasn’t really all that surprising he was a good photographer. Timothy had been a successful model for years; he knew all about camera angles and lighting—and all of his models were incredibly beautiful men. But as I kept looking through the pictures, I started noti
cing others things about them besides the models. In a color shot of a tall gorgeous redhead, for example, standing in a doorway with the sea in the distance behind him, I realized with a start that he was standing in the doorway out to the balcony in my room.
The next print was a well-built Latino looking man lying in the bed in my room. He was completely nude, and this wasn’t an artistic shot—he had an erection, and his left hand was gripping it. He was looking at the camera with a seductive expression.
The next one was even more graphic—it was the same Latino man, only this time he was on his hands and knees, and the picture was taken from behind. He had his ass cheeks spread apart—
I let the stack fall back.
I took a deep breath.
That picture was pornographic.
Why on earth was Timothy taking such graphic nude photos? It didn’t make any sense to me. The earlier images, while nudes or semi-nudes, had an artistic aesthetic to them—the lighting, the poses, the lines—they were the kind of nudes that could be hung and sold in an expensive gallery in Manhattan. The less revealing ones—like the model kneeling in the sand with the wave crashing around him—could have easily been an ad campaign for his underwear company.
I could think of no reason for the more graphic images—or for framing such enormous prints.
There was so much about him I didn’t know.
“You’re just as obsessed with him as Carlo,” I said out loud. Minette opened her eyes and looked at me, then sighed and closed them again. I crossed the room to another stack of prints. I frowned and tilted my head. The print was on its side, and I turned it so I could view it the way it was intended.
It was also a black-and-white shot of a nude man reclining on his back on what was clearly the big table in the formal dining room. His face was in profile, and his left leg was discreetly bent and raised in such a way that only some of his upper pubic hair could be seen.
If it wasn’t Chris Thoresson, my tennis pro, then he had an identical twin.
I bit my lower lip.
