Summons From a Stranger

by Diaz, Debra

  “Jonathan, I’m sorry about Brianna,” Rachel said softly. “I’m sure it’s been a terrible shock. It must be very painful for you.”

  Jonathan hesitated, and glanced at Lindsey. “I need to make something clear to you, Rachel. I am sorry she’s dead. But I wasn’t going to marry her.”

  He looked into Rachel’s eyes and Lindsey felt forgotten, again.

  “I don’t know of any other way to say this. Things changed. Earlier tonight, I broke our engagement.”

  “Oh,” said Rachel.

  “But, back to what I was saying. Everything goes back to motive. On the stairs, did the murderer believe Brianna was you? If so, you could still be a target. It would be risky to try to kill you now, but we’re talking about someone who isn’t behaving rationally. Someone crossed the line—and I’ve always heard that when you’ve killed once, it’s easier the next time. At least, it is for people who have that type of mind.”

  Lindsey sat down on the bed. She must have had a funny look on her face, because Jonathan said quickly, “I don’t want to scare you. I don’t really think anything is going to happen. I just want you to be careful.”

  Rachel looked at Lindsey. “We understand.”

  Jonathan waited a moment, then walked over and looked out the window. Fog still pressed in about the house, but a glow high up in the grayness meant the sun would soon burn through it.

  “It will be clearing up in an hour or two,” he told them, and walked over to the door. “Do you want to go downstairs with me?”

  “Yes,” Lindsey answered, before Rachel could say anything. She hated the thought of being cooped up in the bedroom.

  “Jonathan,” Lindsey said, on the way downstairs. “Why don’t you let Rachel and me go with you when you leave?”

  “Thank you, Lindsey, but it’s a long, hard walk. I think I can make it faster by myself. There’s a room with a television down the hall, if you’re interested.”

  Lindsey considered that. Maybe he wanted to be alone with Rachel. They probably had a lot to talk about.

  “Okay,” she said.

  But he and Rachel followed her, and they all sat down to watch TV. It was a large screen with an expensive sound system. The furniture here was less formal, and much more comfortable. There was a fireplace in this room, too. Lindsey stretched out on a cushiony, beige chair with a matching ottoman.

  Jonathan handed her the remote control. News, movies, home and garden, cooking shows—it looked like they had the standard satellite stuff. Lindsey settled on the History Channel, where a man in a moustache and goatee was discussing some battle of the Civil War. They’d been studying that war at school this week, and Lindsey had gotten interested in it.

  “Is this okay?” she asked politely.

  “You’re a girl after my own heart,” Jonathan said, with a smile. “News and the History Channel and basketball are about all I ever watch.”

  But Lindsey couldn’t concentrate on the program. It felt strange to be sitting there doing something as “everyday” as watching television, when a member of their host’s family had just been asphyxiated. Jonathan, too, began to restlessly flip pages of a magazine. Rachel sat very still and stared at the screen, but Lindsey could tell her mind was a thousand miles away.

  “I wonder where Honey is,” Lindsey said suddenly. “She wasn’t in our room.”

  “I think she likes hanging out in the kitchen,” Jonathan answered, putting down the magazine. “I’ll go check—I want to get some things ready to take with me anyway.”

  He left the room, looking well-dressed even in casual clothes and work boots. Rachel watched him thoughtfully.

  “Oh, I want to show you something!” Lindsey cried, remembering the photograph of Jonathan when he was a child that she’d seen in the window seat. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait, where are you going, Lindsey?”

  “To the study—I’ll be back in two minutes.”

  She dashed down the hall before Rachel could stop her. Lindsey wanted to show it to her before Jonathan got back, so he wouldn’t think she’d been snooping around.

  She ran into the study, crossed to the window, and opened the seat. There sat the shoebox that had been under Brianna’s bed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lindsey gasped. She opened the box, and all the receipts were still inside. How had it gotten here?

  Without even stopping to think, she grabbed a handful and stuffed them in her jeans pocket. She’d show them to Jonathan, in case the box disappeared again. Then she riffled through the old newspapers for the photograph.

  She’d no sooner found it than she was struck by a strange stillness, and the same feeling came over her she’d had when she thought someone was watching her, just before the lights went out. Could people really feel it when they were being watched? Or was it just an overactive imagination? She straightened up and looked around. There was nobody in the room, nobody standing in the doorway.

  It’s just nerves. Anybody had a right to be nervous after the last few hours.

  Nevertheless, she grabbed the picture and scurried out of the room. Rachel had stood up and was about to come looking for her.

  “Lindsey, what are you up to?”

  “Look what I found earlier today—I mean, last night.”

  Had it really been less than eighteen hours ago that they’d first set foot in this house? It seemed like a lifetime!

  Rachel looked at the photograph with interest. “He was cute, wasn’t he?” she said, smiling. Then she pointed at Philip, her half-uncle. “He looks like a nice person. I’ve seen other pictures of him before, but not with his family.”

  “Let me take it back before Jonathan catches me and thinks I’ve been going through the family albums or something. Then I’ve got something else to tell you.”

  “All right. Hurry back.”

  Lindsey started thinking about the shoebox. Someone had taken it out of Brianna’s room and hidden it, probably believing no one would ever look in the window seat. And if someone had taken the trouble to do that, as Jonathan had said, it must be very important to that person.

  “Excuse me,” came a voice from the door.

  Lindsey started. Gerard stood there, casually pointing down the hall. “I’ve been outside to see how the weather is,” he told her. “Your little poodle was there on the porch and I let her out.”

  “Oh,” she said, thinking he could probably hear the drumming of her heart. “Thanks.”

  He sauntered away. Lindsey felt irritated that he had let her dog go outside without consulting her. Honey had almost gotten hurt out there yesterday.

  She hurried down the hall to the enclosed porch, and went outside. The entire world seemed to be shrouded in fog. Lindsey could hardly see six inches in front of her face. Her senses seemed muffled, like she was wrapped in the folds of a blanket. It must be at least ten degrees cooler than it had been yesterday.

  “Honey!” she called. Her voice sounded flat, as though it didn’t go anywhere. There was no answering bark.

  She’d gone several feet into the yard when she remembered the muddy hill that slid straight down toward the creek. She veered to her left and promptly ran into a tree.

  “Ouch!” She stumbled back, turning just in time to see a dark-haired man come out of the house and immediately become swallowed in the haze.

  “Jonathan!” she yelled.

  There was no reply. She started to call out again, but stopped abruptly.

  Something was wrong. He should have answered her. Or, even if he hadn’t heard her, he would be calling out her name, trying to find her. Wouldn’t he?

  Lindsey quickly stepped behind the tree. She listened hard, and thought she heard muffled footsteps. A limb swished not far from her. Someone was out here, looking for her, not saying anything. And suddenly she knew who was stalking her, and why, and who had killed Brianna.

  Stupid! she chided herself. How could I be so stupid?

  She thought for a moment that sh
e was going to throw up. She leaned against the tree and tried to calm herself. Panic would get her killed. She had to figure out what to do; she had to outsmart him.

  If she couldn’t see him, maybe he couldn’t see her. Her sight was limited to a gray wall of vapor that enveloped everything. She’d gotten disoriented—which way was the house? If she stayed very still, maybe he would keep going and become as disoriented as she was. And she would stay right here until she could figure out how to get back to the house.

  But he stopped. The muted footsteps came back toward her. Lindsey slid around to the other side of the tree; then she realized that she could see another tree close by. The fog must be lifting! Overhead, a streak of sunlight shone down, and she saw the mist swirling inside it.

  She moved silently to the other tree, hoping it was closer to the house, rather than farther away. But now she could hear the creek, swollen and rushing.

  Where was that shed she and Jonathan had stood in, waiting out the storm? There were tools in it, something she could use for a weapon. But she had no idea in which direction to turn. She stepped out of her soaked shoes; when it came time to run, it would be easier without them bogging her down.

  Another tree branch slapped somewhere near. Lindsey stood perfectly still. A patch of fog seemed to move before her eyes, and now she could see a portion of the pinkish bricks of the house.

  Her heart thumped loudly in her ears. The telltale heart.

  If she made a run for it, he would hear her. He might see her. And she might just be running blindly into the side of the house. Where was the door?

  She slipped behind another tree, and now the creek was louder. She was going the wrong way.

  “Lindsey, it’s Jonathan,” a voice called. “Where are you?”

  She crossed to another tree. He was between her and the house.

  “Lindsey!” he said again, his voice closer.

  She waited for a moment, listening. When she didn’t hear anything she turned again, and there he stood.

  He reached out and grabbed her arm. “Why didn’t you answer me?” he said roughly.

  “Because Jonathan doesn’t have a phony French accent!” she cried, gritting her teeth and struggling to break his grip.

  He clamped down hard on both her arms. “Give me those papers,” he demanded, breathing hard. “I saw you put them in your pocket.”

  “All right!” she said. “Let go of me!”

  He relaxed his grip on one of her arms. She emptied her pocket on the ground, then lunged forward and almost escaped him.

  Gerard grabbed her again, painfully. He bent forward, retrieved the receipts, and stuffed them in his own pocket. He began to drag her along with him.

  “Unfortunately, your having actually seen them has sealed your fate, young lady,” he said dramatically. “It’s too bad you are so nosy.”

  Lindsey’s knees almost buckled and her teeth began to chatter. “You’re going to kill me because of that? You killed Brianna just because you owed her ten thousand dollars?”

  “Oh, I owed her much more than that,” he answered, pulling her with him as he moved quickly toward the flooding creek. He was strong, much stronger than he looked. And he was determined.

  “I don’t want to do this. You shouldn’t have taken them. I found them in Brianna’s room, after I caught you in there. I had come to look for them, and there you were, so I had to make something up. I went back later and found them, and hid them in the window seat, thinking no one would ever look in just that spot until I could find a way to destroy them.”

  “You could have flushed them down the toilet,” she said. Maybe if she could keep him talking, someone would come out and look for her.

  “I thought of that, but there was no lock on her bathroom door and I was afraid someone would catch me in the act,” he replied, his voice coming in jerks with the effort of pulling her, and at the same time keeping her arms pinned to her sides. “Also, they could have stopped up the plumbing. And I couldn’t be seen carrying that box down the hallway, either. I came down the back stairs—not the kitchen stairs. There is another set that runs along this wing of the house. And there wasn’t time to burn them. They had to be completely destroyed, because of fingerprints.” He added angrily, “Reba almost caught me when I found them. She came into Brianna’s room and started tidying up. I hid behind the bed until she left.”

  Lindsey could picture him running along frantically, wondering where to hide the receipts—evidence that could connect him to Brianna. His fingerprints on them—his DNA, his illegible signature. “You were watching me on the stairs, before the lights went out. When they came back on, you must have followed me. You saw me open the window seat, and that’s what gave you the idea later of using that for a hiding place.”

  “You’re clever, Lindsey. Yes, just before the electricity went off, I was coming out of the library and I stopped when I saw you, and waited. You always seemed like you were up to something.”

  “And you seemed so concerned about Brianna. A pretty good acting job. So why did you go out in the fishing boat?”

  “To get away, of course. And then, after I thought about it, I knew I couldn’t leave, after all. I had to make sure Brianna never woke up. And I had to find those stupid IOUs Brianna made me write. I will admit, it’s been difficult to think clearly in all of this.”

  “Why did you rip up Mrs. Laramore’s portrait?”

  He sounded aggrieved. “I didn’t do that. I would never ruin a work of art. Brianna did it.”

  “Brianna!”

  “We’d gone downstairs to get a bottle of wine. She took a pair of scissors and went to work on the portrait. I thought it was horrible. Then she thought it would be fun to hide it as well.”

  “Why—why did she do that?”

  “Stop struggling! You won’t get away from me. She did it because it amused her. She hated your friend coming here, and the portrait was to be hers. That’s how Brianna was. I didn’t kill her just because of the money. I am a gambler; I could have won it back eventually. But she used that as a hold over me, tried to make me do things. She wanted me to kill your friend, Rachel.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. She told me I must do it immediately, before Mr. Laramore changed his will. She said to make it look like an accident.” He gave a theatrical shrug. “We were standing on the stairs. All at once, I saw my chance to get rid of her. It was merely an impulse, a moment of insanity, as they say.”

  Lindsey shuddered, realizing he was forcing her in the direction of the creek. He was going to drown her. He would throw her into the black, frothing water, and then run into the house, up the back stairs, and go to his room. He would be appropriately horrified when learning of her death. If he met anyone along the way, he could pretend he’d gone outside to “check the weath-aire”; he’d probably say he’d seen that little girl out there looking for her dog. Everyone would assume she’d fallen into the creek.

  She could visualize it all, as though it had already happened. Well, he wasn’t going to get away with it! He might be determined to kill her, but she was just as determined that he should fail in that endeavor.

  Lindsey said a silent prayer, and then she let all her muscles go limp and become as dead weight. He grappled with her, trying to pull her back up. She dug her feet into the mud and resisted him, squirming and writhing as hard as she could. Her hands slapped and scratched at his face. He had raised his arm as though to club her on the side of the head when she heard a dog barking, and both Jonathan’s and Rachel’s voices called out, “Lindsey!”

  She caught Gerard’s raised arm with both of her own. “Here! Help me!”

  Gerard pinned a hand over her mouth and began to drag her with renewed strength. He was desperate now. The roar of the overflowing creek was loud in her ears. Lindsey sensed the sloping of the ground. The fog had only partially evaporated; there was no way Rachel and Jonathan could find her in time to stop him.

  But Honey had heard her, and they we
re following Honey. Lindsey could hear the barking come closer, and the running footsteps behind it.

  Honey bounced to within a foot of Lindsey and came to a sudden stop. She growled, and her shrill bark became more frenzied and threatening. Gerard grabbed Lindsey’s ponytail. Automatically she straightened and her hands went up to ward off the painful tug. He put his hands against her back and gave her a violent shove.

  Lindsey felt the cold shock of the water as it closed over her head. The current spun her around and she forced her way upward, her hands reaching out and clawing at anything that might stop her from being flung downstream. She gasped for air and went under again. There was a dead tree not far under the surface, with branches that stuck up like arms. Lindsey latched onto one of the boughs, and the current was so swift that her hands scraped against the bark and began to bleed. Strength came from somewhere, and she managed to wedge herself in between the limbs until she was standing on top of the dead tree. The arm-like branches shielded her from floating debris and kept her from being torn off her perch. Still, the water was almost up to her neck and kept washing over her face.

  “Help!” Gerard cried suddenly. “Lindsey has fallen into the river!”

  Jonathan materialized out of the mist like an avenging warrior, and didn’t stop to ask questions. His right hand shot out and clipped Gerard on the jaw, sending him sprawling into the mud. Gerard almost went into the creek himself, but he grabbed onto a nearby bush—a thorny one from the sound of his howl. Then Jonathan launched himself into the water and landed with a splash near Lindsey.

  The force of the water had taken almost all her strength. Her bleeding hands were slipping from the tree branches, and in a moment she knew she would be swept away. Jonathan swam toward her, fighting the current, and his feet must have found purchase against the submerged tree. Clutching one of the upraised limbs, he slipped his other arm around Lindsey’s waist.

  “Hold on, Lindsey,” he said. “We’re going to get out of here.”