Carly stared at her blankly. “Now that you mention it, no.”
Downstairs, the piano had fallen silent. The sudden quiet that descended upon the castle was almost eerie.
“But she could have gone in there while everyone was getting settled in for the night,” Carly suggested. “Plenty of doors were opening and closing, plus the furnace monkey was making firewood deliveries.”
“His name is Jase,” Des growled at her, hearing raised voices down in the entry hall now. “Did she stay the whole night?”
“Well, I didn’t hear her leave.”
Des searched her memory of early that morning, when Les found Norma dead in bed beside him and cried out for help. They’d all come spilling out into the hall. Hannah had come out of her own room. Spence had been alone in his. She was quite certain. “Are you sure about that, Carly?”
“I’m sure.”
Now Des heard heavy footsteps behind her on the stairs, someone heading back up. “And you’re sure you didn’t fall asleep for a few minutes?”
“I told you, I was awake all night.”
“Well, then how on earth did she-?” Des never got the rest of her words out.
It was Carly. Her big blue eyes were bulging with fright. “Oh my lord!” she gasped, gazing over Des’s shoulder at the stairs.
And that’s when Des whirled and saw him standing there.
CHAPTER 13
Les was studying him very, very intently.
The innkeeper’s face was extremely close to Mitch’s. No more than a foot away.
He’s checking to see if I’m awake, Mitch supposed.
Although, quite frankly, Mitch was finding it hard to suppose much of anything just yet. He felt dazed and confused, the world around him a vague, befuddling fog. Slowly, as Mitch began to emerge from that fog, he became aware that the back of his head ached. And now he recalled that Les… Les had hit him, knocked him out cold. That’s why he was presently lying on the frigid dirt floor of the woodshed. And that’s why Les was watching him.
Not saying anything. Just watching.
With great difficulty, Mitch tried to formulate a coherent sentence out of the words that were tumbling around in the cotton batting inside of his head. He wanted to ask the man a simple, straightforward question: “Why in the hell did you hit me, Les?” But he couldn’t seem to get the words out. His vocal chords were too far away. And yet his brain was beginning to clear. And it was starting to dawn upon him that Les was lying on the dirt floor, too, one ear pressed to the ground as if he were listening for the thundering onrush of Choo-Choo Cholly. And not so much studying Mitch as he was staring at him. Not even blinking. Just staring and staring and…
Les is dead.
This realization came to Mitch like a splash of ice water in the face. When it did, he immediately let out a strangled yelp of shock and scrambled away from the man, the back of his head throbbing. He put a hand to it and he came way with blood. Someone had definitely hit him. But not Les. It wasn’t Les.
Les is dead.
The innkeeper lay on his stomach with a hatchet embedded deep in the back of his skull. Blood and brain matter were splattered everywhere. It was a truly horrible sight to gaze upon. Mitch willed himself to dab a finger in the puddle of blood on the ground next to the man’s head. Still warm despite the freezing cold of the woodshed. Les had been dead only a few moments.
No one has corne looking for us yet. No one knows.
As he knelt there, the wind and snow swirling outside the open barn doors, it suddenly dawned on Mitch that Les’s killer could still be there in the woodshed with him. Drawing his breath in, he flicked his eyes around at the clutter of tools, searching every dimly lit recess. But no one else was there. Just he and Les. The killer had fled.
A hickory log the approximate thickness of a Louisville Slugger lay on the floor at Les’s feet. It had blood on it. Mitch guessed that it was his own, that this was the weapon that had knocked him out. Whoever killed Les had wanted him out of the way. And yet, apparently, not dead. Because I’m not. Which seemed like a highly selective form of mental processing for someone who had to be a psychopathic crazy. Not that Mitch was complaining. He just didn’t get it.
Why am I still alive?
He realized he didn’t know. And, as he climbed slowly to his feet, he realized he had spatters of Les’s blood and brains all over his Eddie Bauer goose-down jacket. His stomach did an immediate flip-flop and he lost his skillfully reheated breakfast onto the ground. Dizzy and sick, he staggered over to the tool bench, found a rag and swiped at his jacket with it, knowing that he truly did not belong here. He belonged in the Film Forum watching a nice, harmless Martin and Lewis double bill, maybe The Caddy and Jumping jacks. With maybe a jumbo-sized box of hot buttered… Okay, forget the hot buttered popcorn, he commanded himself as his stomach flip-flopped again. But do what you have to do. Go after Less killer. He can’t have gone far. Les is still warm, remember? Go on, get your plump heinie out of here…
Mitch’s legs felt like a pair of wobbly broomsticks. And he was still as dizzy as hell. But he also felt a focused alertness coming over him. He had a job to do. He made it over to the open doorway, swaying there like a young sapling, and squinted out at the snow, his eyes searching for movement of any kind, a dab of color from someone’s jacket. He saw no movement, nothing. Now he turned his faltering attention to the snow. There were no footprints leading from the woodshed off toward the woods or the parking lot. Only the footprints he and Les had made on their way out here from the kitchen, still deep and fresh. But as Mitch studied their prints more closely, he realized that there were in fact three sets of prints heading out here-and another set that originated in the shed doorway and led back toward the castle’s kitchen door. Translation: Whoever killed Les had come and gone from the castle. And was probably back in there right now with Des and the others.
“Des!” Mitch called out, his voice straining against the howling wind. “Desss…!”
No use. The looming castle was too far away, its walls made of solid stone. She would never be able to hear him in there.
Flashbulbs suddenly started popping right before his eyes. He felt as if he might pass out again. He dropped to one knee in the shed doorway, breathed deeply in and out. He grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed his face with it, feeling its wet, stinging cold.
Slowly, he got back up and started his way back across the courtyard, making sure to avoid the killer’s footprints, his own feet clumsy blocks of wood beneath him in the crunchy ice and snow. With each gust of wind he could feel himself start to pitch over. Twice in the first ten steps he took, Mitch did go down. But he got back up both times, spitting snow out of his mouth. He had to get back up. If he stayed down, he would end up like Les. So he kept walking, one foot in front of the other, left foot, right foot… He was going to make it. Mitch knew this. He knew it because he had prepared for it-marched his way across the frozen tundra of Big Sister each and every morning. He could do this. He would do this. Even if he did keep falling over. Even if this was starting to remind him less of his morning rounds than of Omar Sharif’s epic trek across Siberia in Dr. Zhivago… Left foot, right foot… Zhivago trying to get back from the front lines to his beloved Lara, to Julie Christie… Left foot, right foot… Once again, Mitch pitched over into the snow. This time, he really, really wanted to stay down. The snow felt so soft, like a pillow. He could sleep. He wanted to sleep. It was so hard to stay awake. But no, he had to get up. He must get up. Chest heaving, he climbed back onto his feet and resumed… Left foot, right foot… Left foot, right foot…
Now he was closing in on the kitchen porch. He’d nearly made it. It was slushy there under the overhang. Many wet shoe prints, none leading off anywhere else. Les’s killer had come this way.
Mitch threw open the door, immediately hearing Teddy and that damned piano. An old Ellington song. The kitchen floor was dry. The killer had taken off his boots before he came in. And done what, hidden them some
where? Where was the killer now? And how on earth had he gotten in and out when Des was watching the hallway? Was everyone upstairs dead, too? Was Des dead?
He called out her name. Once, twice, three times. Heard the piano stop, heard footsteps.
And then Teddy came rushing across the kitchen toward him, looking pale and frightened. “My God, Mitch, what’s happened?”
“Des,” he groaned. “Have to see Des.”
And now he was staggering past Teddy out into the entry hall, groping his way blindly up the stairs, blinking from all of those flashbulbs that kept popping, popping… “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille…” Teddy was calling after him, panic in his voice. But he was doing okay. He was making the climb on his legs of Silly Putty, getting there, getting there, almost there…
Only it wasn’t Des whom he encountered at the top of the stairs. It was Carly. She let out a horrified gasp at the sight of him, and Mitch could feel himself starting to pass out. His head was a balloon on a very long string, bouncing up, up, up against the ceiling. One of the people way, way down below was Des. Alive, thank God. He saw her jump to her feet.
Heard her cry out, “What happened to your head?”
And, whoosh, there went the air right out of Mitch’s balloon. As he came zoom-zooming all the way back down from the ceiling, he croaked, “Les… the woodshed…” And then the hallway floor suddenly tilted to a forty-five-degree angle and headed right for him and he was gone again.
When he came to this time, Mitch was lying on the hallway floor with everyone standing over him looking terrified. All except for Des, who wasn’t around. And Hannah, who was kneeling on the carpet beside him, waving something stinky under his nose. Ammonia. It was ammonia.
“What’s your name?” she barked as she shone a flashlight into his eyes.
“I’m Mitch,” he replied hoarsely. “We’ve already met, haven’t we?”
“Do you know where you are, Mitch?”
“Uhh… on the floor.”
“On the floor where?”
“Astrid’s. Hannah, do you have to shine that light right in my eyes?”
“Mitch, you’ve taken a blow to the head and you’ve lost consciousness. I’m checking to see if your pupils are equal and reacting to light-which they are, so there’s no indication of brain damage. Good, good.” Hannah flicked off the light and gripped his hands tightly with hers. “Can you feel this?”
“Yes.”
“And what am I doing now, Mitch?”
“You mean, besides squeezing the hell out of my ankles?”
“Okay, this is all good. Can you sit up?”
“I can try.”
“Here, give me your hand, big guy,” Spence said, reaching his own hand down to him. The others just stood there, pie-eyed and mute.
Mitch grabbed hold and Spence pulled him up to a sitting position. Hannah pressed something cold against the back of his head. It was a wet washcloth. A bloodied one already lay discarded on the rug next to him.
“Where’s Des?” he wanted to know.
“She’s checking out the woodshed,” Spence said. “She’ll be right back.”
“You got yourself quite some smack on the bean,” Hannah observed, examining his wound. “The bleeding seems to have stopped, but you should keep applying pressure for a little while longer. We can put some gauze over it later if it starts oozing. I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”
Mitch pressed the cold compress against the back of his head, peering at her. “Have you done this before?”
Hannah let out a big bray of a laugh. “When your mom’s a nurse you learn first aid before you can read and write.”
“Why don’t you let me see what I can do with that, Mitch?” Jory offered gently. She meant his blood- and brain-spattered jacket.
Mitch unzipped it and she helped him out of it and took it into one of the rooms.
“How long was I gone?” he wondered.
“Thirty seconds,” Carly answered in a trembly voice. “No more than that.”
“No, I mean outside. How long were we out there?”
“A few minutes,” Teddy said. “Ten, tops. And I was just sitting there playing the piano like a damned fool. I had no idea that anything out of the ordinary was going on, Mitch. I just figured you guys were loading up on wood.”
“We were,” Mitch said. “Until somebody hit me.”
And murdered Les. But Mitch didn’t need to say this part out loud. They already knew it. He could tell by the looks on their faces. By how they kept glancing around at each other. They were not safe. None of them was safe. They knew this. Because, somehow, the murderer in their midst had just managed to take out Les despite Des’s best efforts.
But how?
Mitch could not imagine. They had all been tucked inside their individual second-floor rooms, hadn’t they? Except for Carly, with whom Des had been eyeball to eyeball, and Teddy. But if Teddy had stopped playing the piano for even a few seconds, Des would have noticed that, right? Besides, Teddy’s trouser cuffs were dry, Mitch observed. They’d be soaking wet from the snow if he’d plowed his way out there and killed Les, wouldn’t they? Mitch’s certainly were. And yet Teddy’s were dry. Actually, everyone’s legs were dry, he realized, looking around at them. No one was wet. And yet one of them had just knocked him unconscious and killed Les.
But how?
Jory returned with his jacket, scrubbed reasonably clean of blood and brains. “Good as new,” she said, mustering a faint smile.
Mitch took it from her and thanked her.
Then he heard footsteps on the stairs and Des returned, her hooded shearling coat caked with fresh snow. “Are you okay, baby?” she asked, kneeling next to him with a fretful expression on her lovely face.
“I’m fine, totally okay. In fact, I’m going to get up off this carpet now.”
“Careful, you’ve suffered a concussion,” Hannah warned him.
“I don’t think so, actually,” Mitch said, slowly getting to his feet. “If I had, then I’d be experiencing short-term memory loss, and I’m not. And, believe me, I wish I were.”
Des clamped a hand around his arm just in case he felt teetery, which he didn’t. She said, “Okay, I’m going to have to ask you all to go back to your rooms.”
“What the devil for?” Aaron demanded.
“Because I said so.”
Aaron gaped at her, incredulous. “There’s a homicidal lunatic loose among us and that’s the best you can offer-go to your rooms? What are we, ill-behaved children?”
“He’s right,” Spence said. “It’s not as if we’ll be safe in our rooms. Or anywhere else in this damned place.”
“Just please go to your rooms.” Des kept her voice steady and firm. “You’ll all be fine.”
“No, we will not,” Aaron argued. “It is blatantly obvious that a fresh approach is called for. I say we stay together. As long as we’re all together, we’re safe.”
“I’m with you,” said Spence. “Let’s stick together in a group.”
“Gentlemen, we need to get something straight right damned now,” Des responded, drawing herself up to her full six-foot-one-inch height. Make that six-three in her boots. “This is not a consensual type of situation. I am in charge here.”
“And you have been a spectacular failure,” Aaron informed her. “Three of us have lost our lives so far on your watch. Believe me, when this nightmare is over I shall demand a full investigation of your conduct by the proper state authorities.”
“You go right ahead,” Des encouraged him, staying remarkably calm.
Which surprised Mitch, who was about ready to stuff his cold compress in Aaron’s big mouth. He couldn’t believe she was taking this crap from him.
“In the meantime, I still have to take your statements,” she went on. “And I still want you in your rooms. So let’s get moving.”
Aaron stayed right where he was. “I say we arm ourselves.”
Teddy let out a mocking laugh. �
�Oh, do you now, you manly man.”
“Shut up, Uncle Teddy,” Aaron snarled at him. “I’m sick of your sarcasm.”
“There are… couple of deer rifles in the kitchen,” Jase murmured. “The gun case.”
“Gee, I don’t know about that, sweetie,” Jory said doubtfully.
“No, no, he’s right.” Aaron pounced eagerly on the news. “Let’s go get them. We can take turns standing guard until the authorities arrive. We must protect ourselves.”
“I’m with Aaron,” said Spence. “Let’s arm ourselves.”
“Hold on, guys, this is getting way out of hand,” warned Mitch, his head throbbing. “What we need to do is relax.”
“I’m with Mitch,” said Teddy.
“Please, everybody just take it easy,” Hannah agreed.
“Yes, kindly cool it with this vigilante business,” Carly said. “And no offense, Acky, but when did you suddenly turn into Ollie North?”
“You know, I’ve had just about enough of your cutting little remarks, too,” Aaron huffed at her, his nose twitching.
“How’s that for a happy coincidence,” she retorted sharply. “I’ve had just about enough of you.”
Mitch glanced at Des, surprised that she’d let this situation flare up so badly. “What do you say, Master Sergeant?”
In response, Des pulled her SIG out of her coat pocket and showed it to all of them. “I say no one is touching those rifles. I say there is one gun and it’s in my hand. Anyone who is not on board with that plan, kindly speak up right now, and I will be happy to bind and gag you for the duration. Anyone? How about you, Aaron?”
Aaron lowered his eyes and shook his head, reddening.
“Does anyone else have anything they’d like to say?” Des asked.
Jase cleared his throat and said, “Did Les get around to stoking the fires before he…”
“I’m afraid not, Jase,” Mitch told him.
“Would it be okay if I…?”
“Now is not a good time, Jase,” Des said to him. “Please return to your rooms now, okay? All of you.”
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