Dark Homecoming (2 page)

“Thank you,” Liz managed to say.

“Good day, Mrs. Huntington,” Mrs. Hoffman said, giving Liz a quick nod and then striding out the door, her heels clicking against the wood as she departed.

Liz turned and looked back out the window.

The fragrance was gone.

Liz wished David would get here quickly. She realized that these few minutes in the house had been the only time so far in their sixteen-day marriage that they'd been out of each other's sight. She certainly didn't want to become too dependent on her husband. But all of a sudden Liz was feeling very much alone, and very, very much out of place. And she knew the moment that David came bounding through the door all those feelings would evaporate.

She heard a sound and turned in anticipation.

“David?”

But it was just Jamison, with the last of the bags.

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” he said. “Only me.” Liz noticed he had a very thick Southern accent, probably from Georgia or South Carolina.

“Thank you, Jamison. Did you see my husband downstairs?”

“Yes, ma'am,” the servant told her. “He's speaking with Mrs. Hoffman.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Liz turned to start unpacking when she realized that Jamison was still standing there. She looked back at him. What was he waiting for? Ridiculously, she thought he might be waiting for a tip—like the bellboys who carried luggage up the staterooms on the cruise ship. But one didn't tip one's own staff.

“Is there something else, Jamison?” Liz asked.

“Ma'am . . .” The young man's voice was tremulous. “I feel I need to . . .”

Liz realized he couldn't get the words out.

“What's the matter?” she asked him, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Is everything all right?”

Still he struggled to speak.

“Go ahead,” Liz told him. “You can speak freely to me.”

“I need to warn you!” Jamison finally blurted out. “I couldn't sleep if I didn't!”

“What is it, Jamison?”

“She won't tell you,” he said, “but I gotta.”

“Who's she? Mrs. Hoffman?”

Jamison didn't reply, just went on with a rush of words that seemed to surge up from his gut and tumble out of his mouth. “A girl was killed! And it was because she came in this room!”

“What are you talking about? What girl? Killed—how?”

Jamison seemed near tears. “She was a pretty girl, like you, Mrs. Huntington. Young and pretty! And she killed her!”

“Who killed her?”

“Mrs. Huntington!”

Liz didn't understand what he was trying to say.

“Dominique killed her!” Jamison cried, and Liz saw the utter terror that filled the young man's eyes.

“But Dominique is dead,” Liz said, her own voice sounding miles away to her ears.

“Yes, she is,” Jamison acknowledged. “But she's still here. And she'll kill you, too, Mrs. Huntington, just like she killed that poor girl!”

“W
elcome home, Mr. Huntington,” the young housemaid said.

The master of the house paused on his way up the stairs. He looked around at the young woman standing off to the side, her cream-colored maid's uniform crisp and pressed.

“Well, hello, Rita,” Mr. Huntington replied, and then he smiled.

Rita melted. That smile of his had a way of erasing all the pain and the anger. David was so handsome. So tall and broad-shouldered. And that smile of his . . . with his bright white teeth and full lips and dimples in his cheeks . . . Rita wanted to cry.

“I'm glad you've come back,” she managed to say, her throat tight with emotion.

Mr. Huntington took a step closer to her. “Are you, Rita? Are you truly?”

She nodded, dropping her eyes to the floor. She couldn't meet his gaze.

“I'm glad to hear that,” he told her. “I hope we can be good friends.”

“Of course,” Rita told him.

David lifted her chin with his hand so that she had to look at him.

“You were very special to me at a very difficult time, Rita,” he told her. “I hope you realize how special you were, and how I'll always treasure our times together.”

She nodded.

“But you do understand that now things will have to be different,” David said.

“Of course,” Rita answered.

“My wife . . . she's, well, she's not used to all the fuss we make around here. You know, with the dinner parties and the horse shows and the servants in and out of her room. She didn't grow up with a staff of people in her house. So she'll need friends here, friends who can help her get used to the way we live.” He paused. “I hope you'll be a friend to her, Rita.”

“Of course,” she told him.

“Thank you, Rita.” He smiled again and moved away from here.

But she was lying.

She wasn't going to be a friend to his wife.

Rita hated the new Mrs. Huntington. Just as she'd hated the old Mrs. Huntington.

She watched David climb the stairs. Pulling her eyes away from him, Rita headed back toward the kitchen. Mrs. Hoffman was probably lurking around as usual, ready to reprimand her. Mrs. Hoffman didn't like the staff fraternizing with Mr. Huntington.

If she only knew.

Rita figured that the domineering head housekeeper probably suspected that she'd had an affair with David. Very little ever got past Mrs. Hoffman.

He loves me still
, Rita thought.
He couldn't say it, but I could see it in his eyes
.

Once again she felt his rough hands on her breasts, his hot lips on her neck . . .

Lost in her memories, Rita wandered into the kitchen. The place was a vast cavern of shiny chrome and marble, with three ovens and five sinks and a refrigerator large enough to store rations for an army. Rita didn't notice the tall black woman standing at the marble countertop and staring at her from across the room.

“I saw you talking to him again.”

Rita looked up. The tall woman spoke in a heavy Haitian accent, and the sound of her lyrical voice startled Rita out of her reverie.

“So what?” Rita snapped. “I just welcomed him home.”

The Haitian woman folded her arms across her chest. “You can't fool Variola. I know what went on between you two.”

Rita smiled. “Oh, that's right. I forgot that you're a witch.”

The Haitian woman shook her head. “I can see things. And that way is not safe for you, Margarita Cansino.”

“I appreciate the warning, Variola,” Rita told her, gathering the dishes to set the table for dinner. “But I think I can take care of myself.”

“Audra thought that, too.”

Rita just laughed. “What does Audra have to do with any of this?'

“She was one of his favorites as well.”

Rita spun at her, nearly dropping the dishes from her hands. “That's a lie! That's ridiculous gossip spread by people who don't know what they're talking about! David barely knew who Audra was!”

Variola just shrugged. She returned to what she had been doing when Rita came into the room, chopping green peppers. “Just heed my advice,” she told Rita again. “I don't like to see trouble in this house.”

The young housemaid made no further reply. No one was going to tell her what to do. Not Variola. Not Mrs. Hoffman. And certainly not that silly little wife David had just brought home.

Rita carried the dishes out to the dining room.

Friends! David wanted her to be friends with his wife! Rita laughed.

She'd show the new Mrs. Huntington just how good a friend she could be.

L
iz was staring out the window into the garden, watching the way the fronds of the palm trees that lined the estate swayed gently in the breeze, when she heard the door close behind her. She spun around.

“David!” she cried, as if she hadn't seen her husband for weeks instead of a matter of minutes.

“Darling,” he said, flashing her that smile of his, the one that had first ensnared her while he'd sat out in the audience, watching her dance. “How do you like the house?”

“It's more than I could possibly have imagined,” Liz replied, rushing to him, putting her arms around him and resting her head on his chest.

David stroked her hair. “Did Mrs. Hoffman show you around at all?”

“No, she just brought me here.” Liz looked up at him. She tried to hide the unease she was feeling, but David seemed to spot something in her eyes. Her husband's smile disappeared.

“Is it satisfactory?” he asked. “If not, we can always take a different room . . .”

Jamison's words were still resounding in her mind. She was unsure how much she should say to David right away. So she just asked, “Is there anything that should disqualify this room?”

“This is the most beautiful room in the house. I mean, look at the view of the gardens! It's got the largest closets and the largest sitting area, and of course the bathroom is pretty luxurious.”

“Yes,” Liz agreed. “Two sunken tubs.” She pressed further. “But—there's nothing here that disturbs you?”

“Do you mean the fact that it was my first wife's room?”

Liz nodded, watching his eyes.

“It's your room now, Liz,” he said, embracing her. “
Our
room.”

Liz remembered something that David had said to her while they were still on the cruise ship. He didn't do well with people who complained. It was the part about being a boss that bothered him the most—putting up with people who constantly bitched and moaned. She knew she'd eventually have to tell David about what Jamison had just told her, but she couldn't do it yet, not at this moment. He had been so anxious for Liz to see the house—and to love it—that she couldn't start blathering right off the bat about what some servant boy had told her.

She tightened her arms around her husband. “So long as I'm with you,” she said, “I'm satisfied.”

David leaned down toward her. They kissed. Her husband's kiss still had the power to make Liz feel dizzy.

Gently he broke their embrace. “Well, you must see the rest of the house. It's quite the place, really. Built in the 1920s, during Prohibition. There are still all sorts of sliding panels all over the house where my great-grandfather hid his liquor.”

“Sounds as if there's a lot of history here.”

“There sure is. And a lot of staff. Did you meet them?”

Liz laughed, trying to appear merrier than she felt. “Mrs. Hoffman had them all lined up at attention waiting for me when I came in,” she told him. “It was as if I were Queen Elizabeth reviewing the troops.”

The smile bloomed on David's face again. “In this house, you
are
a queen.”

“Oh, David, I'm not used to all of this. I mean, the idea that some maid is going to come in and make my bed every day . . .”

“It will free you up to do other things,” David told her.

“Like what, David?” Liz frowned. “I mean, all I know how to do is dance . . .”

This was one of the things that had worried Liz. Would she be happy being a stay-at-home wife? She was giving up her dream of being a dancer by marrying David. She hadn't even given her career a chance to take off: her gig on the cruise ship had been her first job out of college. Liz had jumped at the opportunity to see the world, but also knew the experience would look good on her résumé. She'd expected that when she finished the cruise she'd be auditioning in New York, or, failing that, in Orlando for a gig at Disney World. She was young. She had plenty of time to get to the top. Liz's dream, ever since she was a kid, was to sing and dance in a Broadway musical.

Now she was a Palm Beach society lady. At twenty-two! Would she be happy?

She was sure she'd be happy as David's wife—she loved him more than she ever thought it was possible for a woman to love a man—but would she get bored when he was off on business trips or overseeing his various projects? David's family ran a vast number of businesses, mostly in the financial sector, all over the globe. David's father was president of Huntington Enterprises, and more and more he was handing David control, grooming him for eventually taking over the business from him. Liz wasn't quite sure what David actually did, even though he'd tried explaining it to her; she'd never understood numbers and money very well. All she knew was that his work would take David away from home for chunks of time, sometimes for up to three weeks at a time.

And when he was gone, was she going to be bored wandering around this big, glamorous, sparkling clean house?

David seemed to be reading her mind. “You know, babe, I've been giving this some thought. There's no reason you need to give up dancing just because you're my wife.”

“You want me to audition for a show?”

“No. I want you to audition other people.”

Liz didn't follow.

David smiled. “Why not open your own dancing school? Believe me, some of the snooty Palm Beach ladies would love to send their children to be instructed by a gen-u-wine high-stepper with a college degree.”

“I'm not sure how impressed they'll be by the College of New Jersey.”

“It's a great school.”

“Yes, it is, but—I mean,
me
, teach dance to kids?'

“And some of those ladies might be interested in an adult class as well.”

Liz didn't know what to say. It hadn't been so long ago that
she
was the student in a dance class. She didn't think she had enough experience yet to teach . . .

“I . . . I don't know,” she said.

“Well, think about it, sweetheart. We could get you a studio in town.”

He moved into the bathroom, turning on the faucet at the sink and lathering up his hands with soap. He continued talking with Liz as he did so, telling her about his horses and what the stable hands had reported and what horse shows were coming up . . .

But, in fact, Liz wasn't listening. She had gone back to ruminating over what Jamison had told her.

And Dominique had killed her.

That was absolute craziness.

The boy must be mentally ill. That was the only explanation Liz could think of. Or deliberately trying to scare her for some reason. Why would he say such a thing? That a dead woman—her husband's dead first wife—would kill her?

Liz was glad she hadn't blurted out what had the boy had told her the moment David walked into the room. She would have looked hysterical. But she couldn't stay quiet much longer. If this Jamison kid was unbalanced, or deliberately trying to cause trouble for a reason, Liz had an obligation to let David know.

He was coming out of the bathroom now, drying his hands.

“David,” Liz said, trying to appear nonchalant, “there
was
one thing about this room I wanted to mention . . .”

“What's that?” David asked.

“Well, it's ridiculous, I'm sure, but . . .”

David's face had grown serious. “Tell me, Liz.”

“It's just that one of the boys who brought up our bags seemed a little . . . unusual. Do you know him? His name is Jamison?”

“I might, sweetheart. Probably by face, I would. I don't remember all the staff's names.” He smiled, a little uncomfortably. “Mrs. Hoffman and Dominique always handled the hiring and supervision of staff. And if I did know his name once, I no doubt have forgotten it now.” He looked out the window in a sort of wistful gaze. “I was away from this house an awfully long time, you know.”

Liz did know. Soon after his wife's death, David had left Palm Beach. That was a little over a year ago now. He had thrown himself into his work, traveling the world on behalf of the family business. And then he'd taken the cruise . . . where he'd met Liz. He hadn't been back to Huntington House in all that time.

“How was this boy unusual?” David asked. “Did he say something inappropriate to you?”

Liz hesitated. “He told me that a girl had been killed in this room,” she said. “In Dominique's room.”

David's face blanched. “The little son of a—”

“You mean it's true?” Liz cried.

“No!” David hurried to her, taking her in his arms. “Not here. Not in this room. But yes, a girl was killed on the estate several months ago. It was while I was away. Mrs. Hoffman phoned me and told me about it and I spoke with the police.”

“Who was she? Who killed her?”

“She was a housemaid here. I barely knew her. Dominique had hired her. Her name was Audra.”

“But who—why—how—?”

“Sweetheart, I wish I could tell you. It was a totally random act. Probably the killer was somebody she knew, the police speculated. She had broken a few hearts, apparently. Somebody followed her onto the estate one day and—”

David stopped talking. He moved his eyes away from Liz.

“Go on, David,” she said. “How was the girl killed?”

“She was stabbed to death.”

“Oh, God!”

David pulled her closer to him. “I'm sorry you had to learn this your first day here. It had nothing to do with anyone here at Huntington House.”

“Jamison said it was in this room.”

“He's wrong about that.”

“And he said . . .” Liz stopped. She couldn't finish the sentence.

“What else did he say?”

But Liz just couldn't bring herself to tell her husband that Jamison had said the ghost of his dead wife had killed the girl.

Yet, in some strange way, David seemed to know what Jamison had said. “Some of the boys who worked here,” he said, struggling for words, “they became almost. . . I don't know . . . obsessed with my late wife.”

“What do you mean, obsessed?”

“They tried to get her to pay attention to them. They imagined all sorts of things about her . . . this boy must have been one of them. One of those who thought everything that happened in this house was because of Dominique.” He slammed his fist down onto a desk. “Even after she's gone, everything has to be about Dominique!”

Liz was stunned by the ferocity of David's response.

“The boy is fired.” David's lips were tight with anger.

“Oh, David, no . . .”

“He had no right to repeat such gossip to you. Mrs. Hoffman told me that all sorts of rumors sprung up after the girl's death. There were stories that said a drug lord had killed her. Apparently Audra had a drug habit. Police thought maybe the killer was an old boyfriend she'd dumped. But none of the stories involved Dominique!”

Liz let out a long breath. “David, let's just forget that he said anything. So long as the girl wasn't killed in this room . . .”

“Darling, she wasn't even killed in the house! It was somewhere on the estate, out on the grounds.” David walked over to stand in front of the window. “Mrs. Hoffman found her body.”

“Well, I'm still weirded out by it, but at least it didn't happen in this room.”

David looked around at her. “That's why that boy's ass is out the door. How dare he spread such unfounded gossip?”

“You're sure that's all it is? Gossip?”

“Liz, I've told you! All sorts of stories started swirling about the poor girl's death. Each one crazier than the last.”

Maybe that was so, but Liz couldn't get David's words out of her head: that the boys here at Huntington House had been obsessed with Dominique. It was easy to see why. She was beautiful. Far more beautiful than Liz . . .

But she wouldn't dwell on it. The sooner Liz pushed the entire episode out of her mind, the better. But she wasn't sure that Jamison should be sacked.

“Look, David,” she said, “I hate to think that on my first day here, I get somebody fired. It might turn the rest of the staff against me.”

“Liz, that boy cannot be permitted to go around spreading ridiculous stories, and especially not to you on your first day here. That's insubordinate. That's unacceptable.”

She supposed it was. “Do what you think best, David,” she said.

He took her in his arms again. “I want you to be happy here,” he said, his lips brushing against her ear. “I don't want anything to upset you.”

Liz thought about the portrait of Dominique on the landing of the stairs. She wanted to ask David to take it down. If he didn't want anything to upset her, then he'd do it. But she decided not to say anything quite yet. Even with her husband's arms around her, Liz wasn't feeling very secure. If she pushed too much, became too demanding, he'd leave her. That was Liz's secret fear—a fear that had always lived inside her, ever since she was a little girl and her father had walked out on the family all because of her.