Final Settlement (35 page)

“Hello ladies,” she said in a hushed voice. “Welcome to Evergreen Day Spa. I’m Liza. May I offer you some slippers?”

“Thank you,” said Tina, easing them on to her feet. She turned to Darby. “So cozy!”

Her companion nodded. It
was
cozy, and not just because the slippers were sheepskin, but because the rooms were pleasantly warm, and illuminated with soft, low, lights.

“Come this way,” said Liza, leading them into a hushed living room where a gas fire burned in a beautiful fireplace. “Do you know what services you would like today?”

“I think when I spoke to Connie we discussed the facial and massage package,” Tina said.

Liza glanced discreetly at a card in her hand. “Yes, I see it right here. She suggests that you start with a sauna.” She smiled at them both. “You’re in for a treat.”

“I can see that already,” Tina said. “Connie has done a wonderful job. I can’t wait to tell her.”

Liza frowned. “I’m afraid she won’t be in today.” Her voice was apologetic. “She had some family stuff going on and needed to be home.”

Tina scrunched up her nose. “That’s a shame. I’ll just have to tell her another time, I guess.”

“Let’s get you both a locker,” Liza continued brightly. “You can place your valuables and change your clothes. I’ve got the sauna fired up and ready to go, and the heat feels especially nice on a raw day like today.”

Darby and Tina followed the young woman to a pleasant room lined with pastel-colored lockers.

“You’ll find a robe and several towels inside your locker. Help yourself to any beverages from the mini-bar before or after your sauna.” She pointed to a door.

“There’s the entrance. We recommend a visit of no more than fifteen minutes, so I’ll be sure to come and get you should you lose track of time. As soon as you’re through, I’ll take you for your massages.” Liza smiled. “Any questions?”

The women shook their heads and Liza departed. Tina opened her locker and pulled out a pristine white robe.

“This is going to be fun,” she whispered. She crossed the room to the mini-bar. “Wonder what they’ve got in here?” She pulled it open and surveyed an array of bottles. “Fruit juices, flavored waters, green tea—want something, Darby?”

“Sure. How about a green tea?”

“Coming right up.” Tina pulled two bottles from the mini-bar and handed one to Darby. “I’m impressed with this place so far. It’s like a little oasis. I hope Connie ends up doing a good business.”

“I’m sure it will be hopping come the summer.” Darby opened her tea and took a sip.

“Hopefully.” Tina pulled off her black pants and hung them in her locker. “I’ve always admired Connie and her drive. She once told me that she grew up poor but that she knew from an early age she wanted to have a better life. She went to hairdressing school and started her own little place. She married her high school sweetheart, Scott Fisher, once he got out of law school. His career kind of took off, you know? He’s a District Attorney, and in the running for some other big state position. Anyway, I’m sure Connie could just quit working and relax. Instead she decided to open this place.”

“Do you think that her difficult childhood has something to do with her drive?” Darby asked.

“Oh yeah.” Tina’s red curls bounced as she bobbed her head in agreement. “She once told me she’d grown up in a ‘hovel.’ That’s not something you hear every day, now is it? I mean, lots of people might say their parents’ homes were messy, or cluttered, or even crazy, but nobody describes their childhood home as a ‘hovel.’”

“You’re right.” Darby had wriggled out of her jeans, pleased to note that her shoulder was healing and undressing was not as painful as it had been. She tied her robe around her waist and grabbed a towel. “Ready for the sauna?”

“
Sow
-na,” Tina corrected. “That’s the way they pronounce it in Finland.”

“I see,” Darby giggled, opening the heavy wooden door. “Come in to the
sow
-na, then.”

The air was dry and hot and felt wonderful. Darby spread her towel on a low cedar bench and eased herself down. She and Tina took off their robes once they were seated.

“This is heaven,” Tina breathed, settling back against the cedar. “Maybe I should get Donny to build me one of these in the back yard. He could power it with one of the old woodstoves he’s got rattling around in his barn.”

“Good idea,” Darby said. “You can heat up and then roll around in the snow, just like they do in Scandinavia.”

“Exactly.” Tina sighed. “Wish I had brought in my fruit juice. I’m thirsty already.”

“Here, take a sip of my tea.” Darby handed the bottle to Tina, who accepted it gratefully.

“Thanks.” She took a swig and gave it back. “So tell me, my little friend, what’s going to happen with you and Miles?”

“Who knows? Neither one of us is sure where we want to live. He’s got his job in San Francisco, and I’m in San Diego. Whether we can figure out where we both want to be remains to be seen.”

“What about here? Miles seems to like Maine.”

“He does. I guess I don’t know if I want to give up my life in Mission Beach.”

“You only went there because you were running away from here,” Tina pointed out.

She’s right,
Darby thought. “There isn’t room on Hurricane Harbor for two high-powered real estate agents,” she joked.

“Ha! You know darn well that’s not true.” Tina took a deep breath. “You think Bitsy’s going to stick around?”

“Seems like it. Didn’t she say she was going to look for a nursing job?”

“Yeah.” Tina cocked her head. “There has to be an explanation for why she came back here, don’t you think?”

“She’ll tell you when the time is right, Tina.” Darby exhaled. “Whew, I’m getting hot. How long has it been?”

“Not quite ten minutes. But go ahead out if you’re baking.”

Darby stood up carefully, feeling a little dizzy. She took a sip of her green tea and waited until the little cedar room stopped spinning. “I’ll meet you out there,” she said.

“I’ll only be a few more minutes myself.” Tina lay back and sighed. “Feels so good. Maybe I’m going to like Mexico after all.”

Darby chuckled and pulled on the door. It was heavy and did not budge. She tried again.

“What’s going on?” Tina asked, opening one eye. “Your shoulder hurting?”

“No, I’m using my good shoulder. The door is stuck.” Darby yanked on it again, using more force.

“Let me try.” Tina rose and pulled on her robe. She tugged on the door but could not make it open. “That’s strange. Do you think Liza locks it until the fifteen minutes are up?”

“I would hope not. What if you needed to get out for some reason? That wouldn’t make sense.”

“I guess not.” Tina yanked on the door again. “Not getting this door open doesn’t make sense either. Let’s both pull it.”

Together they tugged on the door but it did not give an inch.

Tina pounded on the wood with her fist. “Liza? We’re ready to come out now.” She stopped and listened but there was no noise over the soothing strains of the piped-in music.

Darby took a breath of the hot air and felt her lightheadedness returning. “I’m going to see if we can shut the heater off,” she said, approaching the red hot box in the corner of the cedar room.

“Careful you don’t get burned,” Tina warned. She pounded on the door again. “Liza!” Her voice held a hint of panic.

The heater was an upright metal rectangle in the corner of the room. A small bed of glowing rocks covered with a wire cage was on the top, and at the bottom were two round circles that Darby assumed were vents.

“Do you see an off switch?” Tina asked.

Darby licked her lips. They were bone dry. “No. It’s mounted to the wall and appears to be controlled from a remote location.”

“Like Liza’s rear end!” Tina fumed, pounding on the door again. “Connie had better fire her ass, that’s for sure.” She gave Darby a wild look. “Fifteen minutes is surely up by now. Where the hell is that girl?”

A scratchy sound came over the speakers, interrupting the music. “Tina? It’s Connie.”

“Oh, thank God!” Tina exclaimed. “Connie, we’re stuck in the sauna. Liza was supposed to come, but we don’t know where she is.”

“She’s right here, Tina.” Connie’s voice was very calm.

Tina’s features grew puzzled. “Great. Send her over here to let us out. The darn door is stuck.”

“It’s not stuck,” she explained in a patient tone.

“Yes, it is,” Tina insisted. “We’re getting too hot in here and it’s stuck.”

“It isn’t stuck, it’s locked.”

There was silence as Tina regarded Darby with a look of disbelief on her face.

“Listen, Connie. This is Darby Farr. We need you to come and unlock this door right now.”

There was a chuckle over the speaker. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Darby.”

“Then send Liza,” Tina pleaded.

“That’s not possible. Poor Liza, you see, is heavily drugged. She can’t hear a thing and won’t have the slightest idea of what happens.”

Darby’s throat tightened at the sound of Connie’s words.

She looked at her friend. The tall redhead’s face was flushed a bright pink and she was panting slightly.

“What do we do now?” Tina whispered.

“I’m afraid you’re going to die,” Connie Fisher said. “It won’t take too long.”

“What are you talking about? I’m one of your best clients!” Tina shook her head. “If you think this is funny, Connie, it’s gone way too far. Get over here and let us out.”

“It’s your little friend, Tina. She won’t stop poking her nose into Lorraine Delvecchio’s death. I can’t take the chance that she’ll figure things out.”

Darby’s mind was suddenly crystal clear. She had to get Tina out of the sauna, and to do that, she hoped her friend would keep Connie talking.

“Figure what out?” Tina drawled, her voice becoming weaker. Darby handed her the rest of the green tea and the tall woman gulped it down.

“Figure out that I arranged for Lorraine to die.” There was a sigh. “I might as well tell you while you sit there and fry. Sort of a bedtime story, I guess.”

Darby examined the door’s hinges while over the loudspeaker Connie Fisher snickered.

“Lorraine Delvecchio was blackmailing me. She started demanding more money when news of Scott’s possible appointment as Attorney General came out. I couldn’t take the chance that she would destroy his career with my little indiscretion from five years ago.”

“What did you do?” Tina put her hand to her head.

“It’s more like what I didn’t do,” Connie explained. “I was on the board for a battered woman’s shelter, and I diverted a few funds my way. It wasn’t a big deal, and I planned to pay it back as soon as my finances improved. Anyway, somehow sneaky little Lorraine noticed. Years later she’s got the nerve to approach me with a proposition. Either I start paying her, or she exposes me.”

“Did you pay her?”

“What choice did I have? I couldn’t let her ruin Scott’s reputation by tarnishing mine. But then she upped her demands, as people like that always do.”

“So you hired the detective …”

“Hired him?” Connie’s voice was hard. “All I had to do was ask.”

“Huh?” Tina was swooning and Darby was feeling faint. If she didn’t think of a solution very soon, they would both be dead. A line Aunt Jane Farr used to say popped into her head, a saying that had always seemed ridiculous. “If your dreams have failed you, look up and dream again.” She tilted her head upward and felt a faint rush of hope.

A metal grate of some kind was screwed into the ceiling.

“Dave was my brother,” Connie said softly. “One of the few reasons I survived my messed-up childhood.”

CR
, Darby thought.
Connie Robichaud
. She glanced over at Tina, just in time to see the woman collapse onto the cedar bench.

EIGHTEEN

W
ITH
R
OSIE ASLEEP ON
her lap, Bitsy picked up the photograph once more. Lorraine Delvecchio receiving a check from the banker, another man, and a woman who looked familiar. Charles’s scrawled writing:
CR?

She thought back to the morning of the day he had died, when they’d visited the prison in Manatuck. Leonard Marcus had been in Lorraine’s little ledger, one of her unfortunate blackmailing victims. Another had been someone with the initials “CR”.

Was this what the scribbled letters meant? Was Charles suggesting that one of the people in the photo—either the unidentified man or woman—was the mysterious CR? Bitsy looked again at the faces, but she could not come up with any names.

Tina,
she thought. Tina knew loads of people on the island. She picked up the phone and called Donny’s house, and a gruff-sounding male voice answered.

“Did I wake you up from a nap?” Bitsy teased. She pictured the old caretaker blushing to the roots of his graying hair.