That Last Weekend

by Laura Disilverio

  She locked gazes with him for a long moment, not sure what to make of his expression, and then turned and walked out. She kept going, down the hall, through the foyer and out the door. The humidity bathed her face. Pulling out her cell phone, she called her father. She’d ignored two calls from him already this weekend, but now she returned his call to tell him she wouldn’t be back in Denver as scheduled. She explained why and fended off his offers to help. “Tell Mom not to worry and I’ll keep you updated about my return plans,” she said, preparing to disconnect.

  “You’re not in any danger, are you?” he asked, and the real concern in his voice cut through her irritation. Every time she got fed up with him, he did or said something that reminded her he loved her, and not just because she was a credit and an asset to him.

  The thought had never crossed her mind. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like a random thing. Evangeline was clearly the target.”

  “Hmph. I never liked that gal. Not since she tarred you with that plagiarism charge.”

  Laurel cringed at the reminder. She could hear pigeons cooing in the background, and traffic sounds, and suspected he was walking to the courthouse, a short but commanding figure that people instinctively made way for.

  “She was a cool customer, that one. Smart as a whip, but always working the angles. That Thanksgiving she came home with you, I watched her put the moves on Jackson and I warned him to watch himself.”

  “She did? You did?” Laurel had totally missed all that. She had an overwhelming urge to call her brother and see if he’d hooked up with Evangeline. Better not to know.

  Her father sucked air through his teeth the way he did when he was considering something, making a feezing sound. “I’ll have Berenson do a backgrounder on everyone involved, including your friends, the staff, the executives at the corporation that owns the B and B, and the sheriff. I’ll pass along anything interesting.”

  Ari Berenson was the firm’s lead investigator, a former FBI agent who’d signed on with them after a bust gone bad had put him in the hospital for eight months and ended his government career. “Dad, don’t—”

  “I have a right to keep my daughter safe,” he said, in the voice that told her further argument would be useless.

  She sighed. “Fine. I’ll let you know when I’m going to get back. Kiss Mom for me.”

  She disconnected before he could huff and puff any more. Wandering into the shade of the massive live oak on the front lawn, she gazed at the house’s impassive façade and forced herself to confront the truth: someone in the castle, most likely one of her friends, had killed Evangeline. Unease pricked at her with the realization that she was probably sharing living quarters and meals with a murderer. She resolved to lock her bedroom door and make sure she wasn’t alone with anyone. Having to take such precautions and be on guard against her friends made her sick to her stomach, and her footsteps dragged as she returned to the house.

  Thirteen

  On her way to the dining room cum interrogation chamber, Dawn thought she was prepared for anything Sheriff Boone might throw at her. She could account for her movements last night and this morning; she had nothing to hide, not a thing. While waiting her turn for questioning, she’d visited the loo, brushed her hair, and splashed cold water on her pale face, pinching her cheeks to bring up some color. She looked into the brown eyes reflected in the mirror. What would the sheriff read in them? Sadness, confusion, shock? She wasn’t sure which feeling was uppermost.

  When she entered the dining room, Sheriff Boone rose politely and gestured her to the chair across from him. His skin was the rich brown of autumn leaves and she cocked her head, wondering whether a hint of terra rosa or maybe Venetian red would capture its warm undertone on canvas. While she was considering, he threw her off her game with his very first question.

  “Why are you limping?”

  Dawn startled. “Oh, ah, I stubbed my toe last night. I almost ripped the whole toenail off.”

  “Where?”

  She forced a tiny laugh. “There’s a reason that construction sites are off-limits. I’m afraid I was poking around upstairs and smashed into a pile of lumber. I bled like a stuck pig.”

  “What were you doing upstairs?”

  She shifted on her chair, not wanting to go into the mix of feelings—melancholy, guilt, curiosity—that had pulled her upstairs, and certainly not wanting to mention Villette to this coldly logical man. “They’re turning this place into a nursing home. Did you know that?” Not waiting for his answer, she continued. “I guess I wanted to say goodbye, you know? I don’t suppose I’ll ever be back here again. We spent a lot of weekends here and this place is special to me.”

  “Hmm.” He jotted something on his notepad and she itched to see what it was. “What time did this nocturnal farewell session take place?”

  She felt herself blush at his description of her actions. Bastard. “I don’t know exactly. Eleven? Ish. I came upstairs after dinner about ten and called my girlfriend. Then I lay down for a while but couldn’t sleep, so I got up and went exploring.”

  “Did you see Ms. Paul, or talk to her?”

  Her hair caressed her neck as she shook her head. “Not after she left the dining room. I thought about it—I even stopped outside her door—but I didn’t hear anything, so I decided it was too late to knock.” She realized she was massaging her earlobe and released it, sitting on her hands so they wouldn’t betray her nervousness.

  Boone scratched near his armpit. “Ten years ago, you said you thought the castle ghost had caused Ms. Paul’s fall. Do you think she—what was her name?”

  “Villette,” Dawn whispered.

  “Do you think she was involved in whatever happened last night?”

  “No. No, I don’t, because—” She stopped, dismayed by what she’d almost said.

  “Because … ?”

  Dawn hesitated, and then said quickly, “Because she was with me. Last night. In her old room. She tried to get me to go out on the balcony, but I wouldn’t.”

  Boone ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth below his full lower lip. “Uh-huh. The ghost. And you don’t think she could be two places at once?”

  “Don’t mock me, Sheriff,” Dawn said with quiet dignity. “There are things in this world that we don’t any of us understand.”

  “Oh, I’ll give you that all right,” he said. “Like the popularity of that Kardashians show, like the fact that North Carolina doesn’t have a major league baseball team”—he got louder and spoke slower with each item—“like the fact that a woman can get tossed off a balcony and her four ‘friends’ deny any knowledge of what happened. They protect a would-be murderer. Well, now that murderer is more than ‘would be’ and I’m going to find her.” He slammed his forearm and palm onto the table with a loud smack that made Dawn jump.

  She leaned in, lips parted, before he could throw her with another question. “You’re acting like there’s some connection between what happened ten years ago and what happened last night. There doesn’t have to be. Even if last time wasn’t an accident, there doesn’t have to be.”

  “You think there are two people in your friend group with homicidal instincts? Two people who hated Ms. Paul enough to kill her?” The sheriff’s brows soared. “If that’s the case, I have to ask: Why were you all friends with Ms. Paul?”

  Dawn ducked the question, although she’d asked herself that more than once. It wasn’t something she could explain to someone who didn’t know Evangeline. “It doesn’t have to be one of us. There’s the Abbotts, Mindy, Ray … ” She scrabbled desperately to think of other people who could conceivably have hurt Evangeline. “I’m sure there must be others.”

  “And why would any of those people want to kill her?”

  Forgetting her resolve to sit on her hands, Dawn flung them up in frustration. A tension headache was building behind her forehe
ad. “Lots of reasons! I don’t know. Isn’t it your job to find out? Ray was her fiancé—don’t the police look at spouses and boyfriends first? The Abbotts were really upset when Evangeline almost bought the castle out from under them. Mindy, well, Mindy snoops. She’s in and out of everyone’s bedrooms and I’m sure she’s found things, seen things—”

  “What kind of things?” Boone tilted his head ever so slightly, reminding her of a large, shiny raven about to grab a hapless grasshopper. The urge to paint him had disappeared.

  “How would I know? Personal things.” She knew she needed to shut up, to answer his questions as succinctly as possible, but the words kept spilling out. “Evidence of, of illicit sex or, or sex toys. Credit card receipts. Drug paraphernalia.”

  “You know this from personal experience?”

  “No! Of course not.” Dawn glared at him. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Evangeline’s death?” She began to tear up and bit the inside of her cheek, hard, to distract herself. She was not going to cry in front of this soulless man.

  “You’re the one who wanted to talk about sex toys,” he murmured. “I think I have all I need from you now,” he continued, ignoring her gasp of outrage. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stick around for a couple of days.” He stood and she felt his gaze on her as she hurried out of the dining room, trying not to limp.

  Ellie walked briskly three times around the lake despite the sting in her heel, working up a healthy sweat and wishing there was a pool. She wanted to swim a half-mile to work out the tension building in her neck and shoulders. She needed the cool water flowing over her, drawing out the stiffness and worry, emptying her mind of everything except “stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe” and leaving only trembling muscles and the odor of chlorine. She stopped on the far side of the lake, as far from the castle and Sheriff Boone as she could get, and lobbed a pebble into the still water. She was good at skipping stones, the family expert, but today she wanted to hurl them higgledy-piggledy, flinging them overhand as far as she could and watching them plop into the water.

  Scott was coming. The first flight he could get was on Tuesday, so he’d suggested he should hop in the car and drive straight through, but she told him Tuesday was fine. She’d teared up when he told her; she hadn’t expected such immediate and concrete support. It made her feel guilty for the times she’d resented his long hours at work, or snapped at him for emptying his pockets onto the kitchen counter, or felt jealous of his bond with the twins. He was there for her. He always had been. When she got pregnant. When her father died. When she’d gotten meningitis in Germany. When she went back to college in Alabama and finally got her degree. There was only one time he hadn’t been at her side during a crisis. Was she there for him the same way, or did she still keep a little distance, hold something of herself back, because she’d seen him with Evangeline? The thought appalled and saddened her. She’d think about it later, when she had time and mental space that wasn’t concerned with what she knew would turn into a murder investigation.

  The knowledge of Scott’s coming was the nugget of comfort she had clung to during her interview with the sheriff. She stooped for another handful of stones and hurled one, feeling the tug in her lats and shoulder. Splish. Not that it had been much of an interview. She’d sat in the chair he indicated, crossed her legs at the ankle, and rested her hands in her lap. Calm, she was very calm. She supplied her name and address and then said she wouldn’t answer any questions without a lawyer present. She could see that her pronouncement took the sheriff aback.

  He exhaled heavily, washing the aroma of butterscotch over her. “You’re not a suspect, Mrs. Ordahl.” He twiddled his pen between his fingers but kept his eyes on her.

  Sure she wasn’t. “Good to know.”

  “So you don’t need a lawyer.”

  “My husband suggested I not talk to the police without a lawyer, and I’m following his advice.” She stood.

  He remained seated, studying her face with his lower jaw shifted to one side. “Does your husband think you have something to hide?”

  His words had rooted her to the spot for a moment, lightning striking through the top of her head, traveling down her body, and exiting through her foot, leaving a tingle and a scorched odor. When she could move, she had turned and left, but his words taunted her now: Does your husband think you have something to hide? Why had Scott told her not to say anything? She hurled a larger rock. It didn’t go as far, but it fell with a satisfying plonk and fountained up a geyser of water.

  Ten years ago, when Evangeline fell and then-Deputy Boone made all their lives a living hell for a week, Scott had been deployed to Afghanistan and the Air Force wouldn’t give him leave to come home. Not since they’d let him have two days for her miscarriage less than two weeks earlier. His parents were with the boys. She’d downplayed the situation in their phone calls, not wanting to worry and distract him while he was facing IEDs and snipers and combat. That might have been the wrong decision, she thought now, because it left him feeling she was hiding something from him. She’d sensed his unease during their first Skype session after Boone let them leave North Carolina.

  Scott had been wearing desert camo BDUs, even the helmet with his captain’s insignia on it strapped tightly under his chin. His face was dust-streaked and grim, and a map of the region served as a backdrop for their conversation. She’d gotten home—Virginia, at the time—only two hours earlier and spent most of that time reconnecting with the boys who were hyped on the donuts, Pop-Tarts, and other sugar their grandparents allowed them. She sat in the alcove off the kitchen where they kept the computer and paid the bills. From there, she could watch the boys playing on the jungle gym in the backyard.

  “So, Evangeline’s going to be all right?” Scott had asked.

  “She’s going to live, if that’s what you mean,” Ellie said, piqued to hear him seemingly concerned about Evangeline. “I don’t know if you can call paralyzed from the waist down ‘all right.’”

  He was silent for a moment, and a pair of soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders passed behind him. “God, what a mess,” he said finally. “But the police said it was an accident? They’re sure?” He took off his helmet and scrubbed his hand over his buzz-cut hair. A red trench showed where the helmet had rested on his forehead.

  Ellie flashed on an image of Deputy Boone and his scowl when he told them they were free to go, that Evangeline’s fall had been ruled an accident. “Yes,” she said. “They’re sure.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything, El?” Scott kept his voice low and looked over his shoulder as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

  “There’s nothing more to tell.” Not unless she wanted to mention the tension vibrating between the four of them once it became clear that the police suspected one of them might have pushed Evangeline, the veiled attempts to ferret out each other’s alibis, Deputy Boone’s rough interrogations, the worry about Evangeline, and then the sadness over her prognosis. Her fear that the deputy would learn that she had a potential motive for wanting revenge on Evangeline, who, by sleeping with Scott, had put in motion a chain of events that had led to the loss of her scholarship and her hasty marriage. None of which Scott needed to hear about while he was in a combat zone. As if she needed a reminder, a thin whistling sound was followed by a whumpf, and the laptop screen went blank. A moment later, it shivered back to life. Scott had his shoulders hunched forward and people were running and yelling behind him.

  “Mortar round,” he said. “Lucky for us those bastards can’t aim. I wish I could have been in North Carolina with you, El. I’d have told that detective that you’re not capable of the kind of viciousness it takes to push someone off a fifth-floor balcony, that you don’t have it in you.”

  She’d thanked him and kissed two fingers and touched them to the screen before changing the subject, thinking, If only he knew.

&
nbsp; She put thoughts of the past behind her. She would get the car keys from Dawn and drive to the nearest grocery store and pick up some fruit and pre-packaged meals. All the vomit in Evangeline’s room … Until the sheriff said she hadn’t been poisoned, she was taking no chances. Hurling the remaining pebbles at once so they plip-plipped into the lake, she started back toward the castle, pulling out her cell phone to text Shane and Aidan. Surely being a murder suspect was a good enough reason to break her one text a day rule?

  Fourteen

  Geneva sought out Laurel after her session with Sheriff Boone. It hadn’t been as bad as last time—she was less fragile in her sobriety, stronger than she had been—but it had still been ugly. Partly because it dredged up the slimy memories, and partly because he’d made her choose between betraying the truth or her friends. She’d made the painful choice and now she needed to tell Laurel. To warn her.

  She searched the ground floor for her with no luck, and paused in the foyer, deciding Laurel must be out for a run, when a noise made her look up the staircase. Laurel was descending it. “What were you doing up there?” Geneva asked.

  Brushing dust off her crisp slacks, Laurel said, “Looking around.”

  Geneva didn’t bother asking why. They were all aware this would be their last time at the castle. “Anything left up there?”

  “No, not really. Everything’s off the walls and the furniture’s gone, off to auction like Mrs. Abbott said. It should fetch a fortune, wouldn’t you think? The rooms look a lot bigger without the Louis the Whatever beds and the Queen Whoever dressers. They’re widening the doorways—to accommodate wheelchairs?—so all the rooms on the third floor have no doors right now. It’s weird. Are you going to check it out?”