Peril in Paperback (24 page)

Grace let out an exasperated groan, then sat up straight and faced us. “I invited Stephen only to annoy Madge.”

Vinnie’s eyes grew big and she quickly covered her mouth to hide the fact that she was laughing.

“Fine. I’m sorry,” Grace grumbled. “But Madge is so negative. She says the most hideous things. Being around her is a constant chore.”

Still anxious, she stood and began to pace. “I had no choice but to invite Madge, but I decided to keep her in line by bringing Stephen out here. I thought if Madge believed I was changing my will, she would be on her best behavior. In theory, anyway. She’s still a royal pain in the ass.”

Suzie nodded. “You got that right.”

“I realize Stephen is simply atrocious, too,” Grace said. “He’s been so nasty to my guests. But how could I toss him out when that was the very reason I’d invited him? He kept threatening to leave and I kept telling him he couldn’t.”

“Maybe he did leave,” Vinnie said.

I shook my head. “All his things are still in his room.”

Grace’s expression fell. “So he really is missing.”

“I’m sorry.”

But I was sorrier about something else. While I was glad to know that Grace wasn’t really changing her will, I was now concerned that her attempt to thwart Madge might have had unintended consequences. What if Madge had arrived for the house party, seen the lawyer, jumped to the obvious conclusion, and decided to try to kill Grace before she had a chance to change her will?

I glanced at Gabriel. He must have been thinking the
same thing, because he nodded briefly. But then he scowled. “Fowler couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air. And he’d be a fool to wander outside in this weather.”

“It wasn’t too bad earlier,” I said, then suddenly pictured Ruth and that bloody shovel. Had she lured Stephen Fowler into the woods, then smashed in his head and buried him? Was that why she was so unnerved when Vinnie and I came across her in the woods?

I shook my head, stunned by the direction of my own thoughts. That theory was not only absurd; it was impossible. The weight differential alone would prohibit petite Ruth from dragging Stephen’s inert body through the snow to a shallow grave and pushing him into it.

Gabriel took charge again. “The four of us will search the house one more time this evening, only we’ll each take different floors. We can’t go outside in this weather tonight, so first thing in the morning I’ll arrange for a group to search the property.”

“It might be time to call the police again,” I said.

Gabriel nodded. “It would be nice to get them involved in the search for Stephen, but I doubt they’ll be able to make it out here with all the snow. Pretty sure we’re on our own for a few days.”

“We’re on our own,” Grace whispered. “All alone.”

Her words were like icicles, drip-drip-dripping down my spine.

That night in my room, I decided to call my mother. After that dead-bird incident, I needed some revitalizing energy, and my mom was the best one to go to for that.

She answered the phone and I said, “Hi, Mom. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“We just got into bed. What’s wrong? Something’s wrong.”

“Can’t I just call my parents to say hi?”

“Yes, you can, sweetie, and you do all the time. But I can hear a strain in your voice. Do you need an enema?
I can recommend one that only takes two heaping scoops of espresso shaken with a pint of mineral oil.”

I laughed to keep from gagging. “Thanks for that, Mom. But no.” Seriously? An espresso enema? No wonder she had so much energy every day.

I reminded her of the house party and gave her a brief rundown of the week’s events without going into too much detail. Such as various acts of mayhem and murder.

“You should get away from there,” she said.

“We’re snowed in for a few days.”

“Oh, dear. I can hear in your voice how much negativity is bombarding you.”

“Well, it’s a beautiful place and most of the people are really wonderful, but…well, I just thought I’d call and say hi. I should let you get to sleep.”

I heard her say something to my father, but her voice was muffled. Then she came back on. “Brooklyn, it’s a wild coincidence, but I was just working on a new protective spell this afternoon. Put me on the speakerphone. You’ll need both hands for this.”

Oh, boy.

She had me sit in a comfortable chair with my hands resting on the arms and my eyes closed. I placed my phone on the coffee table before me.

Then she began to chant. “Oi! Ahh! Ron-jon-manna-roo-a-panja! Oi! Ahh! Ron-jon-manna-roo-a-panja!”

At least that’s what it sounded like to me. She repeated the phrase a few hundred times more, her voice rising and falling, going deeper and then switching to a higher pitch. She would slow down, then speed up until she sounded like a record being played at the wrong speed.

My thoughts were centered on how utterly ridiculous it was to sit here and listen to my mother crooning and bellowing nonsense words over the phone.

And yet I could actually feel a comforting energy beginning to move through my body. It started in my hands
and meandered up my arms to my shoulders. Then the energy split in two, half of it spreading up and warming my neck, then passing through my head, cleansing my thoughts and soothing my worries.

A different, more vibrant energy traveled down my spine, livening each vertebra as it passed through. When it reached my middle its pulsations softened and my stomach calmed down. The muscles and nerves around my hip bones relaxed and I felt myself dip deeper into the soft cushions of the chair. I uncrossed my feet and felt them tingle with vitality. Suddenly, I had happy feet, even though I had no interest in moving anywhere.

“Brooklyn?” Mom said. “Are you still there?”

“You probably knocked her out,” my dad said in the background. “I’m feeling a little punchy myself.”

“Wow,” I whispered.

“It’s a good one, huh?” I pictured Mom smiling at me through the phone.

“Oh yeah,” I murmured, my eyes still closed. “It’s a keeper. I feel great. Thanks, Mom. I really appreciate it.”

“I love you, sweetie,” she said. “Your dad sends his love, too. Take care of yourself and come visit us soon.”

“I will. I love you both.” I ended the phone call and got into bed. I felt warm and protected and happy for the first time in days. Whatever happened, I would handle it. I didn’t know if my mother’s crazy chant had given me the strength to take care of business or if I was just so happy to talk to someone from outside this house, but I had a new perspective.

Either way, I wasn’t tired at all, so I picked up Grace’s manuscript and ended up reading another fifty pages. It wasn’t great literature. Then again, maybe that’s why I was enjoying it so much. Her writing was vivid and accessible. There were racy sections, plenty of industrial intrigue, and enough good gossip to qualify the book as a good old-fashioned potboiler. My strictly amateur opinion was that Grace would make a killing on this book.

And by
make a killing
, I didn’t mean she would get herself killed. (I reached over and knocked on the wood surface of the nightstand. You couldn’t be too careful after even thinking something like that.) I meant only that she would make a boatload of cash. Not that Grace needed the money. Maybe she would donate her royalties to charity. But I was getting ahead of myself.

Even though the names in the book had been changed—Greta was the name of the main character—I could picture Grace doing everything the fictional Greta had done. There were a number of scenes in which she had reached a crossroads where choices needed to be made and questions had to be asked. She was a genius, but did that make her happy? Would she marry or stay single? Would she have children? Would she be happy at home with the kids? Running a successful, highly competitive business took so much of her time and energy. Was she one of those women who would be married to her job until she retired? Maybe she would live with girlfriends and travel. Would it be too late to live a full life then?

I put the book down and considered my hostess, Grace Crawford. Reading all of the life questions her character Greta was asking herself brought back a memory of the first time Suzie had driven me out here to meet her aunt. Ruth was there at the time, and while I didn’t remember the specific conversation, I did remember wondering if Grace was gay.

Suzie had never indicated that her aunt leaned one way or the other, and Suzie was pretty open about things like that, considering her own situation.

It didn’t matter to me. It was just interesting. Grace had introduced me to Ruth that day, and I had thought how remarkable it would be if they were lovers.

Now after I had been here for several days, it seemed odd that I had thought that back then. The two women were obviously close friends, but I’d spent so much time wondering whether Ruth might be trying to kill Grace
that now I couldn’t see them as lovers. How could someone’s lover consider killing her? I suppose to some people the notions of love and murder weren’t mutually exclusive, but it was still unacceptable to me.

I felt my cheeks warm up as another thought struck. I wondered if Gabriel and Grace had ever been lovers. Would I ever get the nerve to ask him?

Something else occurred to me and I stopped to consider the reasons why my mind was going down this particular path tonight. Maybe I missed Derek even more than I realized. But the fact was, there had been a moment earlier this week when I had seen Merrilee and Grace talking together. Merrilee’s devotion to her boss was so deep-seated and real; I suddenly had wondered if maybe they were involved in a romantic relationship.

But that didn’t sit right with me and it hadn’t been long before I got to know Merrilee better and discounted that theory. She was a sweet, simple woman who treated everyone, including her employer, Grace, with loving-kindness. I didn’t think it went any further than that.

So all of my errant thoughts along these lines were idle speculation. And lest I ever forgot, I really didn’t know what I was talking about. My gaydar has never been very sharp. In fact, it was nearly nonexistent. After all, I’d been engaged to my friend Ian for three months a few years ago, and had found out only recently that he was gay.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised, though. He’d always had a highly developed feminine side and excellent taste in clothes.

I picked up Grace’s book again and continued reading. Her heroine, Greta, had just filed papers to form her video game company. She and her best friend and business partner, Paul, were celebrating the milestone with a bottle of champagne. The next morning, Greta woke up in bed with Paul.

Uh-oh.

But I was smiling as I read how they both agreed that
it would never happen again. I was surprised to find out that, despite their strong attraction to each other, it never did happen again. But something else did. Seven weeks later, Greta discovered that she was pregnant.

Unintended consequences struck again.

I woke up with a start. I thought I’d heard crying. Or a baby wailing? I must have been dreaming.

Blurry-eyed and sleepy, I glanced around. I thought for a second that it was morning, but then I realized I’d left the bedroom lights blazing. There was a heavy weight on top of my stomach and it took me a long moment to recall that I’d fallen asleep while reading a dramatic scene in Grace’s thick manuscript.

In the book, Grace—or, rather, Greta—had just given birth to a baby girl. A beautiful little girl with a soft halo of pale blond hair, perfect tiny hands, dark blue eyes, flawless skin, and a sweet little pink mouth.

Greta had bitten back tears as she handed the baby to the waiting nurse. She never saw her little girl again.

Nowadays Greta would’ve kept the child and raised her alone, but thirty-some years ago, the stigma was too great. All the money in the world wouldn’t have insulated her baby from the name-calling. She would be deemed illegitimate and worse. Greta couldn’t live with that, didn’t feel as though she had a choice, so she had given the baby up for adoption.

Soon after reading that part, I fell asleep.

“So it must have been a dream,” I whispered to myself. But how much of that part of the book was true to life for Grace? She had referred to the book as a roman à clef of sorts. Was the baby real or fiction?

I shook my head at my thoughts. The fact was, there were no babies in the house. I had dreamed of babies crying simply because I’d been reading about a baby.

I checked my watch. It was 2:15 in the morning. Past time for me to sleep.

I switched off the lights and slid back under the covers.
I lay still for a long time, listening to myself breathe, trying to empty my thoughts, trying to talk myself into falling asleep. But it wasn’t working. I was wide awake now.

A baby whimpered.

“Oh, come on,” I protested aloud. I was beyond tired and now I was hallucinating. I rolled my eyes at my own lunacy, then pounded the pillowcase and adjusted my head and neck into a more comfortable position.

“Now go to sleep.” I released a heavy sigh, then forced myself to repeat my mother’s chant as I tried to relax every bone and muscle in my body, starting with my feet and working my way up. It was working; I was dozing off.

And suddenly a baby’s scream filled the air.

“No way!” That was a real baby! I jumped out of bed. Dashing to the door, I flung it open and looked both ways down the hall. The dim light revealed nothing. The hall was deserted. But now there was the steady sound of a baby crying somewhere in or near the house. Was it outside?

I raced back into my room, slid my feet into my slippers, and grabbed my down vest. I threw it on over my pajamas as I ran down the hall toward the front door. The closer I got, the louder the crying grew, and now I was certain the sound was coming from outside.

But it was freezing outside. What was a baby doing out in the snow?

Footsteps pounded on the stairway and I turned to see Gabriel racing downstairs right behind me in his black T-shirt and jeans.

“You heard it, too?”

“Yeah,” he said grimly.

“Thought I was hallucinating.”