“Why keep it a secret?”
He hesitated long enough to finish his cigarette and stub it out in the sand. “Did you ever write one of those ‘where are they now?’ articles about Gary Coleman?”
“No, but I read them.”
“Then you know that for a while he was a security guard for some studio. It wasn’t for long, just when he was in a tight spot, but until he died, almost every article or TV story about him mentioned how he’d been a big star and ended up in a menial job. Just like I ended up driving a limo.”
“There’s nothing wrong with driving a limo.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a security guard, either, but people laughed about it. If he’d been a drunk, too, it would have been even worse. I didn’t want them laughing about me, Tilda.”
She wished she could tell him that it wouldn’t have been like that, but she knew it would have been. Maybe she wasn’t as nasty as some of the reporters who’d covered Gary Coleman’s fall from grace, but she’d written her share of stories about self-destructive stars. All she could say was, “I’m not laughing, Pete.”
“I know you’re not. That’s why I don’t mind telling you.”
June or Cooper would have said something warm and comforting, but Tilda wasn’t great with comfort. So she changed the subject. “I guess you never expected to run into any of your former colleagues around here. First Laryea, then Hugh Wilder. Wait! Did Wilder recognize you?”
“He didn’t get a chance. After you interviewed him, I went and told him who I was. That night he came to my cottage so we could talk about old times. I told him that I was staying under the radar, and he said he’d go along, but I could tell he didn’t get why I wanted him to.”
“Really? A guy whose life work revolves around a part in a show all those years ago didn’t understand a man who’d rather not talk about a role in that same show?”
“Something like that. Still, he said he wouldn’t tell anybody, and he hasn’t. You’re the only other person around here who knows.” He looked over at her. “So why didn’t you tell the cops about me? Or anybody else?”
“Honestly? Because I wasn’t completely sure until that day you came to my cottage. Before then, your past didn’t matter—it’s like I told you, I don’t out people. Afterward, it only mattered if you were a real suspect for killing Foster, and I’d already decided you weren’t. So again, I had no reason to tell anybody.”
“Thank you.”
She shrugged. “I probably would have if the cops had asked me, but they only asked if I’d seen who was driving the car. When I told them I hadn’t, they really didn’t have any more questions for me. They didn’t even want to hear it when I told them about the car veering on purpose, but I was still pretty shaky. It all happened so quickly.”
“It must have been a terrible thing to see.”
“It was.” Tilda took a deep breath, and realized she was tearing up. Accident or murder, she’d seen a man killed. “I didn’t like Foster, but damn, he shouldn’t have died like that. And it makes me crazy that the cops are never going to find who did it, at least not the way they’re going. They’ve decided you’re it, and that’s enough for them.”
“You can’t really blame them. A hit-and-run by a drunk from Boston means that Glenham is still a safe place. But a murderer running wild? Who would want to bring their family here for vacation? What film crews would want to set up here? There’s a lot on the line.”
“I suppose.”
“If I were them, I’d be looking at me, too. I’m a drunk, I’d been drinking, I had access to the limo, and the limo was outside my cottage. Case closed.”
“Except for the part about you not being guilty.”
“Yeah, except for that part.”
They continued to sit quietly for a little while longer, but Tilda was both tired and talked out, so eventually she said, “Well, it’s not getting any earlier. I think I’m going to head on back to my cottage.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
They stood and shook the sand out of the blanket. Pete’s cottage was in the other direction, but he politely asked, “Can you find your way back all right?”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Sleep well.”
She had a hunch he wasn’t going to be sleeping much at all even with the Serenity Prayer to keep him company. She patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and started back the way she’d come.
Chapter 30
The nighttime scenes were some of the best artwork in Pharos. It was there that Leviathan was able to take full advantage of the use of black and white.
—TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA ARTISTS: THE BEST OF INDIE COMICS BY JERRY FRAZEE
AT least she thought it was the way she’d come. At some point, Tilda realized how tired she must have become because of how much harder the trek back to her cottage was than the way down the beach had been. The moon had set, making it a lot darker even with the flashlight to guide her, which was probably why she took the wrong path, one that led her to a different cottage. Fortunately it was unoccupied or the people there might have wondered why she spent five minutes trying to get her key to open the door.
Eventually she figured it out, and backtracked to find the path to her own place. It would have been easier to spot if she’d left an outside light on, she told herself as she started toward the door. Then she stopped. She had left that light on, hadn’t she? Of course, the bulb could have gone out, but it didn’t seem very likely.
Normally the idea of somebody lurking at her cottage wouldn’t have seemed likely either, but it hadn’t exactly been a normal few days. And it would certainly explain why there were no lights on.
The big question Tilda had to consider was this. If there was somebody lurking, was he inside or out? Should she stay where she was, hoping the guy was inside and hadn’t noticed her approach, or try to get inside before the guy grabbed her?
Both of those ideas sucked. A lot.
The safest bet would have been to jump into her car and get the hell away—she’d have done just that had she not left the car keys in her satchel, which was in the cottage. She checked her pockets—all she had were the cottage key and her cell phone. Why hadn’t she asked June for a Taser for Christmas?
She had to do something other than stand there. She decided to assume the hypothetical bad guy was expecting her, and therefore, sooner or later, would come looking for her. And since hypothetical bad guys tended to be huge, vicious, and armed to the teeth, Tilda decided she’d just as soon not be found.
As quietly as she could, she started away from the house. Should she go back toward the beach? No, Pete was probably long gone, and she didn’t want to be caught out there by herself. Instead she went toward the road, not quite walking backward but angled, so she could watch behind her.
When she reached Shoreline Drive an eternity later, she was more than a little pissed that there wasn’t the first sign of a car driving by. Though come to think of it, she’d have been leery about flagging down a car anyway, after what had happened to Foster. She headed toward the inn, still looking for any sign of pursuit.
Finally she found a couple of straggly trees that offered a little shelter, and pulled out her phone. At first she was going to call Dom, but after their last conversation, she was afraid he’d think she was making it up. So she called 911. To her great relief, the operator didn’t sound even a little bit skeptical, just advised her to stay where she was with the phone line open until the cops could find her. Three minutes and thirty-eight seconds later, a squad car pulled up beside her with siren blaring and lights flashing.
Tilda felt a little ridiculous when explaining why she was worried, but the cops took it in stride. One said, “Better to be safe than sorry, right? Hop on in, and we’ll drive you back there to check it out.”
There were still no lights on at the cottage, but no sign of anything else, either. The officers instructed Tilda to stay inside the squad car, then took her key to go into the cottage. A mo
ment later, Tilda saw the cottage lights come on, and she could see the cops moving around. A minute or two after that, a security car for the inn showed up, and that guard went to join the cops.
A full fifteen minutes later, one of the cops finally came out. “The place is clear,” he said, “but we want you to look at something.”
She followed him inside, blinking at the bright lights after peering around in the dark for so long.
Something crunched underfoot as she walked into the bedroom, and the cop said, “Watch your step. There’s glass on the floor.”
“Does that mean there was somebody in here?”
“Unless you broke a window yourself. From the outside.”
The big picture window that looked out onto the beach had a hole knocked through it, near the window lock, and the window itself was open.
“This is where he got in,” the cop said.
Tilda nodded as if he’d said something clever.
“We want you to look at your things to see if anything is missing. Also, we think that knife is one of the set from the kitchen.”
“Knife?” Tilda said stupidly. But once he pointed it out, it was all she could see. A carving knife had been thrust into the bed pillow.
Chapter 31
The defenses of Dylan O’Taine’s lighthouse are breached at the end of the ninth issue of Pharos. It is at that moment, when he is at his most vulnerable, that he finds a necklace left on his desk by an intruder. The expression on his face when he realizes that the necklace belongs to Melusine is worth the price of the issue.
—TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA ARTISTS: THE BEST OF INDIE COMICS BY JERRY FRAZEE
WITH the cops’ help, Tilda went through her belongings and confirmed that everything was intact, including her laptop and the money and credit cards in her wallet. That pretty much eliminated robbery as a motive for the break-in, not that Tilda had really thought it was a burglar anyway. A burglar would have been a lot less freaky—burglars didn’t usually attack pillows.
Then the cops asked a bunch of questions about what she’d been doing in Glenham and why somebody might have wanted to attack her, but nothing she told them seemed to strike their interest until she mentioned her involvement in the hit-and-run incident. That caused silent communication between the two of them that she couldn’t interpret.
The last question was whether or not she intended to stay in the cottage, something she hadn’t even had time to think about. Before she could answer, the inn security guard offered to move her to another cottage, or if she preferred, into the main building. Tilda decided that she’d had enough solitude, which meant she wanted to switch to the inn. He immediately got on the phone to arrange a room.
Once the cops gave her permission, she packed up her things and the security guard helped her load them into her car. The guard followed her on the short drive to the hotel, too, where the manager and a trio of bellmen were waiting. Without even stopping at the main desk, they whisked her up to a room where a fruit basket and selection of cookies and soft drinks were waiting. It wasn’t until she thanked them all profusely and locked the door behind them that she realized that she wasn’t in just a room—she was in a deluxe suite just as nice as Laryea’s. More importantly to her, it was on the third floor, where nobody could break a window and climb inside.
She thought she was dealing with the night’s events calmly and rationally right up until there was a knock on the door, and she nearly peed herself. After looking through the peephole, she opened the door. It was Nick.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I take it you heard about my little adventure,” she said, trying to sound light and unworried as she shut the door. Either she failed miserably or Nick knew better, because he put his arms around her and just stood there holding her. Only then did she start crying.
“It’s okay,” Nick murmured. “You’re safe.”
“I know I’m safe,” she said, her voice muffled by how tightly he was holding her. “I did everything right and I outsmarted the guy and I’m fine. So why the hell am I crying?”
“It’s a delayed reaction. Completely normal.”
She nodded and let him hold her a few more minutes before pulling away. “I suppose you deal with this kind of thing with your clients all the time.”
“Occasionally,” he admitted. “Are you okay now?”
“You tell me. Am I likely to break down and cry any more?”
He took a long look at her. “No, I think you’ve moved past it. You’re ready for the next stage.”
“What’s that?”
“Chocolate.” He pulled a battered-looking Hershey bar from his pocket.
“There’s nothing like having an expert around.” And actually chocolate did sound like a good idea. “You want half? Or I’ve got cookies—they aren’t from Choco House, but they look pretty yummy. The manager must be worried about me writing an article about his unsafe hotel or suing or something.”
“Maybe he was just being nice.”
“He brought fruit, too.”
“Yeah, okay, he’s covering his ass.”
“Actually, an ass covered in chocolate chip cookies sounds pretty good. Depending on the ass in question, of course.”
“You must be feeling better.”
Since it was a suite and not the average hotel room, there was an actual dining room table with chairs for them to arrange themselves around as they munched.
“How did you find out what happened?” Tilda finally thought to ask.
“Hotel security,” he said. “They called Pop, Pop pinged me, and here I am. Pop went to see what he can find out from the cops.”
“What’s to find out? Some guy broke a window, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, and waited for me. When I didn’t come strolling in, he took off. Oh, and he took revenge on my poor helpless pillow.”
“There might be fingerprints, or footprints, or tire prints.”
“The cops were doing the CSI thing when I left.”
“I suppose they already asked you about who might have it in for you.”
“Standard operating procedure, I would imagine.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them about the hit-and-run, but that couldn’t be it. It’s not like I identified the driver.”
“You did ID the limo, which is what got Pete arrested. Didn’t they speculate about revenge?”
“They didn’t tell me what they were thinking, but revenge doesn’t make sense. For one, the physical evidence would have led to Pete even if I hadn’t been there. All I added was the fact that it looked deliberate, which the police don’t believe anyway. For another, Pete knows I don’t think he did it. And for a third, this time Pete has an alibi.”
“He does?”
“Yeah. Me.” She told Nick about finding Pete on the beach, though she didn’t tell him everything he’d said. She didn’t think Pete would want Nick to know he was Spencer Marshall. “So even if Pete could have gotten to my cottage ahead of me and broken in, why would he have? He could have dragged me into the ocean and drowned me while we were alone on the beach.”
“So what else did you tell the cops?”
“That the only enemies I’ve got handy are the wannabes, particularly the ones I’ve already eliminated. A couple of them had been pretending to be Leviathan in their little circles for a while now, and they aren’t happy about having that taken from them. Or maybe a phony who’s still in the running wants to make sure I don’t find him out.”
“That’s kind of thin.”
“That’s what the cops thought, too, but I didn’t have anything else. Nicole at Entertain Me! despises me, of course, but she’d rather destroy me professionally. I had to admit I’ve met real killers, but they’ve been put away. Of course, the big favorite was an ex-boyfriend, but you’re the only one handy.” Seeing the expression on Nick’s face, she added, “I didn’t even mention your name.”
“I had an alibi anyway,” he said, looking odd
ly uncomfortable.
“Talking to Cynthia on the phone?” Tilda guessed.
“On Skype, actually.”
To tease, or not to tease. Tilda remembered the chocolate bar and the comforting shoulder he’d supplied. There would be no teasing.
“Anyway,” she said, “that’s all I could come up with.”
“What about the Photo-Operative?”
“I didn’t think of him,” she admitted. “It would be great to get him put away for a few days, or even just scare him back to Boston, but I don’t think I could sell it.”
“So who does that leave?”
“There’s always the chance of a random psycho, but that doesn’t strike me as likely. Which brings me back to Foster’s death. I’ve told a few people that I didn’t think Pete was driving, which means that word could be getting around. Maybe somebody doesn’t like the idea of my asking questions.”
“You think? Why wouldn’t a murderer like you stirring up trouble?”
“If I knew who the killer was, I could be more careful about talking to him,” she said, exasperated. “I wouldn’t have to ‘stir up trouble’ if the cops were doing their job, or if somebody who was trained in security would take over.”
She glared at him, he glared at her, and had there not been a knock at the door they might have spent the rest of the night glaring. Even with Nick there, Tilda checked the peephole first. It was another Tolomeo: Dom.
He rushed in as soon as the door was open. “Tilda, are you okay?”
“I’m good.”
“I can’t believe I got you mixed up in all this. First that guy Foster, and now this. I only meant to do you a favor, I swear.”
“You did do me a favor, and I appreciate it.”
“Nick and I went over the security system and procedures ourselves. They’ve got good locks, plenty of lighting, security drive-bys—we thought it was safe.”
“You couldn’t have known anybody was going to come after me.”
“If anything had happened to you, I’d never have forgiven myself.” He actually started to tear up.
Blast from the Past Page 16
