Summons From a Stranger

by Diaz, Debra

Lindsey hadn’t reasoned it out that far. “I don’t know. I just knew I didn’t want Brianna to be mad at her.”

  “I can understand that. You’re very fond of Rachel, aren’t you? Have you known her a long time?”

  “Yes, practically all my life! She went to school with my sister. My sister had to go out of town, so Rachel’s letting me stay with her while my parents are on a cruise to the Bahamas. I guess we told you that.”

  “Well, back to the issue at hand. I regret that you overheard what was meant to be a private conversation. I met Brianna in England. I thought she was beautiful—I was a little dazzled by her, I suppose. She loved living. I thought she could make me love living, too. But once we were engaged and came back here, it was obvious that things weren’t working out.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything, Mr. Laramore.”

  “Call me Jonathan.” He looked at her soberly. “We both said things we shouldn’t have. I wish you would forget the whole thing.”

  Lindsey sniffed, took a napkin from a little napkin holder on the table, and wiped her nose. She nodded.

  “Rachel’s really not going to take your money, you know.” It seemed important for Jonathan to understand that Rachel wasn’t like Brianna.

  “It is a great deal of money,” he said slowly. “I suppose it seems strange that we live in the middle of nowhere—the roads are poor, we can’t use cell phones out here. Sometimes even the phone lines go down, when there’s been a lot of rain. But it’s the way my grandfather wants it. He hates change, hates all the new technology. The family’s always been wealthy, but he’s been very frugal, and a wise investor. He’s certainly entitled to do whatever he wants with his money.”

  “What made you decide to come back to America?” Lindsey asked. It was something she’d been wondering about.

  “A lot of things. My grandfather became ill. There were some problems at the office here that needed my attention. Reba wrote letters, saying the property wasn’t being kept up as it should. Things need replacing. Besides, this is my home—this is where I belong. I don’t mean this house, specifically, but this country, this part of the South. I’ve always loved it here. I don’t really know why I stayed away so long.”

  Lindsey didn’t say anything. After a pause, Jonathan asked, “From a woman’s point of view, Lindsey, was I too harsh with her? I’m used to handling things in the business world. I tend to get to the point rather quickly. I hope I didn’t sound as if I were—firing somebody.”

  Lindsey felt immensely gratified to be placed in the “woman” category. She answered slowly, “Um, no. I mean, there’s no really nice way to break up with somebody, is there? I think she’s the one who made it harder than it should have been.”

  As usual, he seemed to consider her words carefully. He got up, went to the door, and let Honey into the house. Lindsey grabbed some paper towels and went to wipe her dog’s feet while Jonathan put the leash away.

  “You need a bath, Miss Honey,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  The words were barely out of her mouth when a woman’s long, shrill scream pierced the stillness of the house. Jonathan stood for a moment as if paralyzed, then he was running from the room, Lindsey following him, with Honey barking at their heels.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jonathan flew up the stairs. Lindsey could barely keep up with him. He flicked a light switch and all the second floor corridors flooded with light. When they turned right and rounded a corner, they came upon an odd and unexpected scene. Standing before Mr. Laramore’s bedroom door were Brianna and Charlotte, both struggling, and standing between them, holding them apart, was a disheveled-looking Alan in a red bathrobe.

  “She’s nearly killed me!” Brianna gasped, her hand over her heart.

  “What happened?” Jonathan demanded.

  “Well, look at her!” Brianna cried. “She nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  Charlotte made a lunge for her and was restrained with considerable effort by her husband. She did look grotesque, clad in a brilliant yellow bathrobe, with mud-brown cream on her face and her hair in curlers. The cream made the skin around her eyes look ghoulishly white.

  “Stop it, just stop it,” Alan grunted, glaring at his wife. “Now, Charlotte, what were you doing out here?”

  “That’s nobody’s business,” she retorted, wrenching her arm away from him.

  Lindsey saw Isabella standing nearby, then Mr. Caldwell appeared, putting on his glasses. Gerard rounded the corner, obviously in borrowed pajamas. Rachel came next, wearing the calf-length, blue satin robe she’d found in the bathroom, her hair tousled, her pretty face bare of makeup. Lindsey noticed that Brianna was, for some reason, dressed in slacks and a blouse.

  “What is it?” Gerard asked. “Has the old man—as they say—kicked the bucket?”

  Jonathan gave him a brief but scathing glance and turned his attention back to his sister-in-law. “Charlotte, if you planned to enter my grandfather’s room, it is my business. He’s a very sick man.”

  Charlotte glared at him, took a step backward, and started gabbling. “All I wanted to do was to make sure he’s all right! How do we know he isn’t dead, with no one allowed to see him? And I found Brianna trying to sneak in the door. Why don’t you ask her what she was doing?”

  Brianna avoided looking at Jonathan. “I wasn’t sneaking in the door! I was just going to ask Hensley how Mr. Laramore was, and she gave me such a fright! I think she was trying to scare him to death so he couldn’t change his will.”

  Charlotte arched her neck like a snake about to strike. Alan tightened his hold. The door to Mr. Laramore’s bedroom opened a crack, and the moon face of Hensley peered out.

  “I strongly protest,” he said. “Isn’t there somewhere else you can have your family quarrels?”

  Jonathan was angry about something and making an effort to conceal it. “Our apologies, Hensley. How is my grandfather?”

  “His condition is stable, as long as he continues to rest. He is sleeping comfortably.”

  “I want the door kept locked, Hensley, and no one is to be permitted inside. When he wakes you may call me.”

  Hensley looked surprised but said, “Whatever you say,” and closed the door. Everyone heard the click of the lock.

  “Well,” Brianna announced, “I’m going to bed. Goodnight, everyone.”

  Isabella exchanged a look with Jonathan and followed Brianna, going further down the hall to her own room. Alan and Charlotte went in the other direction, Gerard trailing after them. Mr. Caldwell had taken the room next to Brianna’s.

  “Rachel,” Jonathan said, and then didn’t seem to know what else he wanted to say.

  She blushed. “I want to apologize for my outburst at dinner. I—I didn’t mean to include you in what I said.”

  “There’s no need to apologize. And we deserved it.”

  “Please let me know when your grandfather wakes up. I simply must speak to him.”

  “I will.”

  Rachel put her hand on Lindsey’s shoulder. “We’d better go to bed. I think I’d already fallen asleep when I heard the—commotion.”

  “Hopefully there won’t be any more disturbances tonight. Goodnight, Rachel. Goodnight, Lindsey.”

  Lindsey waggled her fingers at him, grinning, and he smiled back at her. She thought the whole scene excruciatingly funny. When she got to their room she fell on the bed, laughing.

  “Did you see her? She was scary-looking!”

  Rachel yawned. “Oh, dear, I’m too tired to laugh. I’m going back to bed, Lindsey.”

  “I’m not sleepy. Do you mind if I read a while?”

  “It won’t bother me at all. Goodnight.”

  “ ‘Night.”

  You don’t fool me, Lindsey thought. You just want to lie there and think about Jonathan Laramore.

  She switched on the bedside lamp, turned off the overhead light, and jumped into bed. After adjusting her pillows and bedcovers, she opened Wuthering Heights to the underlined
section and began to read. It wasn’t easy to understand, and she kept having to re-read certain portions. Then her mind started to wander and she thought about Ellen Laramore and the man for whom she had risked everything. Had this really been her book? Had she underlined those words because they struck some inner chord, because they spoke so eloquently of love? But it was an obsessive love—even Lindsey could see that.

  At some point she had fallen asleep, for the next thing she knew Honey was sniffing at the door and growling. The light still burned on the bedside table; everything seemed very still and quiet. At that moment a scream rang out—almost the same scream as before, only dreadfully different. This scream was full of panic and horror, and it went on and on, until it stopped with startling abruptness.

  Not again! Lindsey thought, suddenly wide-awake. Rachel sat up in bed. Lindsey ran to the door and threw it open.

  “Lindsey!” Rachel cried. “Wait—don’t go out there—”

  But she was already in the hallway, surprised to find it almost completely dark. Hadn’t there been lamps on in the hall earlier? She ran—not sure why she was running, but knowing that someone was in trouble. She would find Jonathan; his room was somewhere on the other side of the staircase. But when she reached the stairs, she ran into an uncomfortably solid object, and Jonathan caught her and said, “Careful, Lindsey, don’t fall.”

  Other doors were opening; bewildered voices surged out into the hall. Jonathan found the light switch, and the staircase sprang into light. At the bottom of it lay a crumpled and unmoving form.

  It was Brianna.

  Charlotte gave a blood-curdling scream. The scene etched itself in Lindsey’s mind, and she knew she would never be able to forget it: Jonathan descending the stairs, kneeling beside Brianna, feeling for a pulse in her throat; his own face white and shocked; the equally shocked faces of Reba and Barlow, who must have rushed down the back stairs from their own rooms and now stood just behind Jonathan.

  “She’s alive,” he said hoarsely, putting his hands beneath her shoulders and gently straightening her body. She wore a blue dressing robe that had bunched up beneath her. Jonathan pulled it down, to cover her. One leg looked strangely askew.

  Everyone at the top of the stairs wore the same blank expression, as though they couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Rachel stood behind Lindsey and put her hands on Lindsey’s shoulders, so tensely it almost hurt. Honey barked wildly from behind the closed bedroom door, where Rachel had left her.

  “Somebody get Hensley,” Jonathan said, and Rachel hurried away, returning with the apprehensive-looking nurse.

  He took one look at Brianna and sprinted down the stairs, his long hair loose and swinging. He had on black pajamas that looked like a ninja outfit.

  He kneeled beside her, and after a quick examination said, “Broken leg. Probable concussion. She needs to get to the hos—”

  He stopped short as Brianna seemed to be trying to speak. She didn’t open her eyes, but moaned something and then lost consciousness again. Hensley looked sharply up at Jonathan, who stared back at him.

  “What did she say?” Charlotte asked quickly. She still had curlers in her hair, but thankfully had removed the brown cream from her face.

  Hensley answered in a loud voice, “She said, ‘He pushed me.’”

  Jonathan’s gaze moved slowly upward to where everyone stood above him, and he seemed to take them all in at once, searching their faces, as though he were trying to probe their minds. Then the moment passed, and he turned to Barlow.

  “Call an ambulance, and the police.”

  Mr. Caldwell, the only one besides Jonathan who was still fully dressed, came halfway down the stairs. “They can’t get here, Jonathan. The roads—”

  “Tell them to send a helicopter. Hensley, what can we do for her?”

  “Bring blankets,” said the nurse. “And I need to stabilize her leg—a splint of some kind, and something to tie around it.”

  Reba and Barlow ran in opposite directions. Jonathan put one hand on the banister and ran the other abstractedly through his hair. “We need to search the house,” he said.

  Barlow hurried back toward them, his face red with exertion. “The phones are out, sir.”

  “I’ll go get my cell,” Alan offered, from above.

  His wife made a face. “You know there’s no reception out here!”

  “What about e-mail?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “It’s dial-up, won’t work without the phone line.”

  Isabella had also started down the stairs. “Jon, do you think there’s a prowler?”

  “Either that,” he answered, “or one of us pushed her down the stairs.”

  There was silence. Then Charlotte said, “I don’t believe it! She just said that. She’s always telling lies.”

  Hensley glared up at her. “People this seriously injured usually don’t make things up.”

  “You don’t know Brianna!”

  He raised an eyebrow and turned away. The French tutor sat down hard on the top step, muttering under his breath. He looked ill. Then he raised his head and said with alarm, “Do you suppose someone cut the phone lines?”

  Jonathan paused. “Not likely. This often happens when there’s been a storm or a lot of rain. I still want to search the house. Turn on all the lights, Barlow. You and Caldwell check the doors and windows downstairs. Look in all the rooms and closets. Alan and I will check upstairs—you, too, Gerard. I’d like for the ladies to go and sit in my grandfather’s room until we’re finished.”

  “What?” said Gerard. “No security system?”

  Jonathan didn’t bother to answer. Lindsey found herself herded along the corridor to Mr. Laramore’s room, where she, Rachel, Reba, Isabella and Charlotte sat on the chairs and sofa and chaise longue. Old Mr. Laramore snored peacefully in his bed, oblivious to their presence.

  They didn’t look at each other. The little electric heater still hummed, and it was much too warm. The room smelled of antiseptic and stale potato chips.

  “He’s trying to protect us,” Isabella said suddenly. “Us, and his grandfather.”

  Lindsey felt a thrill of fear. But she didn’t really believe there was an intruder in the house. She felt certain that someone already in the house had given Brianna that almost fatal push.

  But that would mean they meant to kill Brianna, she thought, wide-eyed. One of them was a would-be murderer!

  “Are you all right?” Rachel whispered.

  Lindsey nodded. But she was trembling. She peeked covertly at the faces around her. What if Brianna had said “she pushed me”, instead of “he”. Hensley could have heard her wrong. Lindsey could easily see Charlotte doing it, creeping up behind her on the stairs, grappling with her, sending her tumbling.

  But what was Brianna doing on the staircase in the middle of the night, anyway?

  It seemed a long time before the men gathered outside the bedroom and Mr. Caldwell said, “No sign of a break-in, no muddy footprints, nothing.”

  “So what does this mean?” Alan asked. “That one of us tried to kill Brianna?”

  Jonathan came into the room, looked at his grandfather, and said in a low voice, “I’m going to try to walk toward the highway. And there’s a store with a telephone a mile from here, on the other side of the creek.”

  “The store will be closed,” Charlotte stated flatly, as though it were an idiotic proposal.

  “This is an emergency—I’ll break in.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Mr. Caldwell.

  Jonathan looked at Rachel. “I’d like for you and Lindsey to remain with my grandfather. Hensley’s with Brianna. Will you?”

  Rachel’s face turned toward him. “Yes, of course, we will.”

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  The men moved back down the hall. Charlotte got up, glowered at Rachel, and left the room. Reba also left, rather hurriedly. Isabella remained, settling back in her chair and closing her eyes. Her nightclothes were m
ade of silk—dark red pajamas with a matching robe.

  Something was bothering Lindsey. It had to do with the way Brianna was dressed. She was wearing a blue robe almost exactly like the one Rachel was wearing. She and Rachel were similar in shape; Brianna’s hair had been pulled into a bun, which would have looked like short hair in the dim lighting of the upper hall. Everyone had seen Rachel in the blue robe when Brianna and Charlotte were quarreling.

  She’d been assuming someone had tried to kill Brianna just because she was Brianna. But why tonight? What had she really done besides act obnoxious? Rachel, on the other hand, was a threat to them—a threat to their very way of life.

  What if the would-be killer had thought he was pushing Rachel down the stairs?

  There would be an urgency to get rid of Rachel, before Mr. Laramore changed his will. No one could get to the old gentleman, because someone was always with him. And besides, pushing a person down a steep flight of stairs was the sort of thing someone might do impulsively, as though taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity.

  It seemed she had been sitting there, thinking, for a very long time. She saw Isabella throw a veiled glance at Rachel, and wondered how she felt about Rachel and the money situation. Obviously, from the conversation Lindsey had overheard, Isabella needed money. It was hard to tell what was going on behind her dark, enigmatic eyes. She had said hardly a word since the attack, except to suggest a prowler had done it.

  The door opened and, unexpectedly, Hensley walked in. “They’re back,” he said, to no one in particular. “Mr. Laramore wants you all downstairs.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lindsey, Rachel and Isabella looked at each other in bewilderment, left the room and went carefully down the staircase. Brianna had been placed on a cot with its legs folded down, turning it into a stretcher of sorts. She was covered by a blanket with her injured leg lying outside of it, encased in a splint incongruously fashioned with umbrellas, and secured with linen napkins. Her eyes were still closed.

  “Hensley has made her as comfortable as possible,” Jonathan told them as they entered the foyer. He was shrugging out of a raincoat, which he dropped over the banister. “We’re going to carry her upstairs and put her in the room adjoining my grandfather’s. That way we can keep the doors locked and Hensley can keep an eye on both of them until morning.”