by Ritu Sethi
The Stitcher’s victim, Donovan Price, must have been searching for this piece of art. But why? And who had prevented him from finding it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
E MMY PLACED HER HAND on the library window and felt the cold glass numb her fingertips. She lifted them; the resulting imprints faded before her eyes. Further afar, foaming waves crashed against the cliffside and jetted into their small cove.
She’d left the others in the salon, unable to keep her eyes off this view and the alarming rise of the water level.
What did it feel like to drown? To be swept away by a watery vastness? She suddenly knew herself to be small, minuscule. And being alone in this room only cemented that impression. She should be with the others.
Right now, Seymour was occupied elsewhere in the mansion. Gray had assigned him the task of watching Sita, Noel, and Lew. How he could manage to be in three places at once, Emmy didn’t know, but Seymour was more than capable of handling a challenge. And he’d been kind and understanding of Emmy.
She moved towards the door when an ear-piercing howl echoed from the corridor.
Footsteps ran in her direction.
Emmy shot out into the foyer, flew down the paneled hall leading to the back terrace of the house.
When she turned the corner, a solid chest slammed into her and threw her to the wall.
Matisse also fell on his behind.
A sharp pain shot through her shoulder, and she cradled it and rose.
“What is it? Did you scream?”
His bloodless lips opened and closed. No words came out.
“Tell me.” She leaned in. “What happened?”
His rigid arm rose as if of its own volition, and a trembling finger pointed towards the end of the hall which led to the back French doors.
“Mom—” he said. His breath smelled of alcohol.
“Farrah? Something’s happened to Farrah?”
“Me and... and Teddy. On the terrace.”
Emmy shook his shoulders. Had her fears come true, and did another of the Stitcher’s victim’s lie mutilated nearby? No matter what her disagreements with Matisse’s mother, she’d never wish this upon anyone.
“Oh, God. What’s happened? Tell me!”
But he began heaving and sobbing and wouldn’t stop. Shutting her eyes, Emmy tried to make the image go away. Of Farrah strangled and mutilated. No, no. Not another victim.
Her feet moved of their own volition down the corridor. The pungent metallic odor of blood—imagined or real—assailed her nostrils. Her body worked on automatic, disconnected from her head, and in some distant horrific recess of her mind, saw herself lying helpless and hurt.
The French doors to the terrace lay closed ahead. She pushed them open and stood on the wet patio, rain slamming her face like shards of glass, the wind swirling all around in a mini-cyclone and fluttering the taffeta frills of her ridiculous dress.
Darkness enveloped her like a black hole.
“Farrah!”
The raging storm ate her words.
She should have gotten more details from Matisse. Would he still be down the corridor?
A porch light flickered on and off—long enough to see that this interlocked stone terrace stood empty.
Voices from behind came closer, bringing two men suddenly upon her.
Teddy’s low voice boomed out. “The light’s not working. You got the torch, Slope?”
Something blinded Emmy’s eyes. “Move that away from me,” she said.
Slope lowered the beam onto the ground. “What the hell are you doing out here? This is a crime scene. You need to go back into the house.”
“I’m also a doctor. If Farrah’s injured, maybe I can help.”
Emmy could also have told him the terrace was empty. She wanted to tell him to look further out, beyond the bushes, but nothing else came out. The last few minutes in the gale had parched her throat; every inch of her became drenched and number by the second.
Teddy moved in close. She couldn’t see his face, only an outline of his head, with the flashlight beam darting across the terrace in the background as Slope searched the area.
“Emmy. I left Matisse to watch Farrah. Where’s the boy gone?”
“Where’s Inspector Gray?”
“I don’t know. He isn’t back.”
She bit her lip, tasting salt. Her teeth chattered, and her knees banged against one another.
What had Teddy said? Watch Farrah? Was she alive or dead?
Emmy’s wet hair blew across her face, and he shifted it from her eyes. The shaking made it hard to stand. He led her inside into the dimly-lit hall, but they stood before the open doors to be able to hear Slope’s call.
Teddy glared at her, the lines around his mouth appearing twice as deep as they had an hour earlier.
“She’s dead,” he said.
“Farrah?”
“Delilah. The minute I saw Farrah lyin’ there, I knew Gray was right. That was my little girl on the beach he found. I don’t know what I thought – that it must be a mistake – that she’d only gone away like she sometimes did. But she ain’t coming home. Ever.” He hunched over. “My poor baby.”
Seconds mattered. Emmy had to help him focus. “Farrah’s not here.”
“What you say? Where’s that boy? I told him to watch the body.”
The body?
“You mean, she is dead?”
“I gotta go find Matisse,” Teddy said. “Or maybe, I should stay with Slope, help him search. This kinda wind don’t move bodies off a terrace.”
So Farrah had been lying on the terrace, as Matisse said. Emmy hesitated. She swallowed twice before asking the question burning a hole in her mind. “Was she—”
Teddy nodded. “Her lips were stitched, and she looked god-awful. Same as—” He swallowed his words.
Same as his daughter, Delilah. Except he couldn’t say it out loud. And yet, his voice now sounded calm, too calm
“I’ll go find Matisse.” She led him by the arm back to the terrace. “I’ll take care of the boy, don’t worry. You help Slope. Even if he finds Farrah’s body, I don’t trust him. We need to preserve all evidence of the crime until Chief Inspector Gray returns.”
He stumbled like an old man toward Slope’s smudged and bobbing flashlight in the distance.
A hot draft greeted her in the hall, the clinging dress now feeling like a clammy plant against her skin, oozing secretions.
Emmy longed to rip it off, and some part of her dared to traipse around in her underwear if only to be dry again, but she didn’t. When was the last time she felt this trapped within herself?
Pushing forward on stiff joints, she turned the corner and found Matisse where she’d left him, eyes glaring, as though staring at a fate worse than death. He sat in a puddle which briefly morphed into blood red before turning translucent once again.
She was losing it.
“Tell me what happened.” Emmy shook him hard. “What did you see?”
His red tongue protruded out of a gaping mouth, reminding her of an open wound—but he only mouthed the words.
Emmy shook him again; his head rolled on his neck.
“Let’s get you a drink.” She helped him up and into the adjacent room—an office—and plopped the boy’s dead weight onto an upholstered chair.
After pouring out whatever amber liquid sat in a crystal decanter, she brought the drink to his mouth, forced him to take two large gulps before taking away the glass.
Urgency, raw and powerful, surged through her. All those years of medical training. If Farrah was still alive, they had to find her. Save her.
It could be hours before Gray returned--if tonight at all. Without Lew or Seymour nearby, everything fell on Emmy’s shoulders. And she wasn’t about to go traipsing around the mansion looking for them. She was the doctor on the scene; Slope couldn’t be trusted.
Matisse’s voice squeaked, “I...I—”
“What happened?”
“Tedd
y and me, w-we took a stroll after having a drink. We came down the hall.” Matisse reached for the glass and gulped it down. “There was a flash from outside the French doors, and we ran to investigate.” He starting sobbing again.
“You opened the doors.” Impatience ground at her insides. ”What did you see?”
“Mother,” he mouthed, silently before letting out another ear-melting shriek.
Emmy slammed her hand over his mouth. “No, I want answers, now.”
The boy kept shaking his head. How could she make him understand the urgency?
“I have a bad feeling about this, Matisse. We’re all in terrible danger. A maniacal killer is on the loose, do you understand? And there’s no one around to protect us. We have to be sharp.”
He nodded. “She…she lay there—strangled.”
“Her lips sutured?”
“Sewn together like a doll, all pale, bloodless, no life. I jumped to pick her up, but Teddy held me back.”
“After you screamed?”
“Yes, but he said one of us had to go get help while the other stayed with the body.”
And the Squire had chosen the victim’s son to stay, instead of being at his wife’s side while the boy went for help.
But that was unfair. Teddy would have judged Matisse to be unreliable in the circumstances—like a frightened toddler facing the lifeless body of his beloved mother. And Matisse had loved her—perhaps a little too much, and in a way, Emmy did not wish to understand.
“What happened then?” she said.
“I saw her lying there, blonde hair whipping in the wind, rain scarring her beautiful face, so helpless and hurt.”
“And you ran and slammed into me in the hall. She’s no longer there, Matisse. Your mother’s body is gone.”
“What?”
Blood drained from his face; his eyes bugged out. No one could have faked that reaction, Emmy was sure of it. Matisse was frightened and confused.
“Farrah isn’t on the terrace,” she repeated. “Slope and Teddy are out there searching for her. You know what that means? Someone removed the body after you left, just like in the other two murders.”
“Other two?”
How could he not know? He must be in shock.
“The art critic from Vancouver that I found strangled at my facility? And Delilah—who Chief Inspector James found on the beach by his cottage.”
His jaw clenched.
“Tell me what you know,” Emmy blurted.
“I know nothing. Who could have taken Mother?”
“The killer, of course. The same way he took the others. Any one of us could be next.”
The office window blew open and threw rain and debris into the room.
Emmy jumped up and pushed it closed. She turned the latch. “We’re trapped in this house. The roads are impassable, Chief Inspector James isn’t here, and we have to protect ourselves. Three dead bodies in as many days are too much, even for me. Do you hear me? Even for me.”
She stood and held out a hand.
He accepted her help and rose—an unlikely ally in the dubious group. She couldn’t ignore his being first on the scene; the person who found the body automatically rose in the line of prime suspects, or so she’d heard.
The main thing right now was to join the others and not be alone with any single guest. By now, Teddy or Slope must have herded all the others in either the salon or library. The salon seemed the likelier place.
She opened the office door and looked left and right. Empty.
Half carrying him, she rushed down the hall with ears tuned to every noise, save the monstrous cacophony outside. He smelled of sweat and citrus, neither of which she liked.
They passed a window and Slope’s darting flashlight out in the open grounds caught her eye. She kept going.
Emmy must strategize. There had been three deaths that she knew of—four if you included the first Stitcher killing. Who knew how many more Slope had pushed under the rug? Sorting out allies from possible enemies proved easy: Lew and Seymour could be trusted, she was sure of it. The others couldn’t. But Seymour might have left with Gray, and Lew couldn’t fight a crazed killer. If it came down to it, Emmy would have to use brute force.
She needed a weapon.
A knife—no, a gun? Where the hell could she find one?
“Does Teddy keep a gun?” she asked Matisse.
“Yeah, but he’ll never give it to you.”
They reached the salon. Four sets of eyes darted towards her. She practically shoved Matisse down onto a chintz armchair, but he wouldn’t stay. Within seconds, he had bolted out of the room.
“Has Teddy told you?” she asked the group.
Sita paced the room while her toddler slept on the sofa. Lew sat clutching his cane in a white-fisted grip. Seymour was noticeably absent. Another couple, who Emmy didn’t know, now ignored her.
“No,” Sita said in a tone which implicitly blamed Emmy for any evils which might have occurred.
Water trickled down Emmy’s hair into her eyes; she wiped it away and ground out her words.
“Has anyone seen a stranger in the house tonight?”
“Why are you asking that?” the other woman said. “Who put you in charge?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Reggie’s the official here, not you. And when Gray returns, he’ll probably take over.” Sita slithered in that mindless way women did to attract men.
Emmy leaned in close to Lew, “You saw no one? And where’s Butch? I expected to find him with Teddy.”
“I haven’t seen him since we arrived. I thought he went to the farm earlier today.”
“He did. Teddy sent him to get some overnight things from my cabin and secure the rest of the forensic sites. That was before the storm got really bad. Maybe he didn’t make it back?”
The thought of Butch sleeping in her cabin made her skin crawl. Would he use her bed?
The older man’s hand shook. “Has there been another murder? Teddy didn’t say much. He took Slope aside, and the self-congratulatory fool gave us all orders to stay in this room come hell or high water. Which I have to anyway, let’s face it. I’m not running away from a killer in a hurry.”
He hadn’t asked the identity of the victim. But Lew James was no one’s fool. Only one party, other than Seymour, was noticeably absent.
She’d been the most vocal person all night, and perhaps each of them felt a tinge of guilt for not wishing her back, for not missing the sharps and flats of her demanding voice.
Lew may as well know the truth. “Teddy and Matisse found Farrah dead on the back terrace. Matisse didn’t stay as he was told, and the body disappeared, like the others. We desperately need your son.”
The old man’s frowned, his face as cracked as the bare ground by Emmy’s cabin during a dry spell.
A sheen of sweat coated his upper lip, lending his body the stale smell of aging flesh. She wanted to reach out and hold him, for fear he might disintegrate in a puff of dust at any moment.
“Seymour wouldn’t stay in the room,” Lew said. “Too much blood in the water for him to manage patience. Just as well, you need someone to protect you. And he isn’t the killer, Emmy. I guarantee you. Do as I say and stick with John Seymour.”
If I can find him, she thought, decidedly unwilling to traverse the wide paneled corridors alone.
But the prospect of Seymour shadowing here every step didn’t thrill her either. Both alternatives made her wish Gray would return and soon. With or without that pretty French detective of his.
“I’m going to go look for John,” Emmy said.
“No.”
Emmy wouldn’t reveal her real reason for leaving the group—to search for a weapon. She had a feeling that before night’s end, she would need it.
If a suture-wielding killer came anywhere near her, she wanted a revolver in her grip. Not a knife. Not a club.
The question remained, where would Teddy keep one? And had he already retrieve
d it?
Lew placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’d go out there with you…but—” He glanced towards Noel.
“I know. Don’t take your eyes off your granddaughter. And keep that cane handy.”
He pointed toward the fireplace. Emmy nodded.
Poker in hand, she deftly left the salon, firmly closing the doors behind her.
Every bit of her concentration went to listening and feeling her ways through the empty halls.
Matisse was again somewhere out there, lurking; so were Seymour and a stranger—from outside the mansion or within?
For the first time, Emmy considered a disturbing possibility: that the Stitcher was one of them.
It seemed a fantastic possibility, but denial had never been one of her weaknesses. If someone attacked her, she planned to squash them like a bug. Maybe even use their body for forensic research afterward.
Poker held up high, Emmy crept back to the office she and Matisse had earlier left. Teddy might keep his gun either here or in the library. An office seemed the likelier place.
After closing the door, conscious of the hinges creaking and the slightest clicking of the lock, she scanned the room to make sure it was empty. No one hid behind the window curtains; no one could come up from behind.
The desk drawers yielded nothing. A cabinet in one corner lay crammed with papers, mementos best thrown out, and a couple of track and field awards.
A letter opener on the desk might work. And yet, the thought of going back out into the hall, unarmed, frightened her.
Emmy forced herself to concentrate.
All three victims had been strangled. The Stitcher attacked from behind—in which case, a sharp object, thrust backward between the ribs would be more effective than a gun anyway. Assuming, Emmy was attacked from behind like the others.
She gripped the sharp object like a dagger and peeked out the door.
No one.
A loud thud echoed down the hall, coming from the foyer. Followed by a slam. The door?
Gray James was back. Thank God, he was back.
Emmy ran towards sounding footsteps. She had so much to tell him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
