The small parking lot behind the Lost Island Bed-and-Breakfast was empty except for Rose’s big four-by-four.
“No surprise,” Virginia said. “It’s still February.”
She did not know why she felt compelled to explain the obvious to Cabot. The Lost Island B and B had always seemed sad and forlorn, even before Abigail Watkins had died. It had not improved since Rose Gilbert had taken over.
But today, for some inexplicable reason – maybe it was just her nerves – the old Victorian appeared more unwelcoming than ever. The drapes were pulled across the windows and there was a No Vacancy sign behind the glass in the front door.
Cabot continued on around the old house and brought his vehicle to a halt in the front drive. He sat quietly for a moment, contemplating the gloom-filled structure. Then he reached into the back seat for his windbreaker and gun. He adjusted the windbreaker so that it covered the holstered pistol on his hip, but he did not fasten the front. A chill went through Virginia when it dawned on her that he wanted to be able to get to his gun in a hurry if necessary.
Well, there isn’t much point wearing a gun if you can’t get to it quickly, she told herself.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
She unclipped her own seat belt and reached into the back for her parka and her cross-body bag. She got her door open, jumped down and walked around the front of the vehicle to join Cabot.
Together they went up the front steps. Cabot pressed the buzzer.
There was no response. Cabot waited a few seconds and then rapped sharply on the front door. Again there was no answer.
“Rose must be inside,” Virginia said. “Maybe she’s in her room upstairs and can’t hear the buzzer.”
“Or maybe she’s trying to discourage business.” Cabot tried the knob. It turned easily in his hand. He opened the door and walked into the small lobby.
Virginia followed him. “That’s weird. Feels like the heat is off.” She glanced into the parlor. “No fire going, either.”
Cabot went to the foot of the stairs. “Rose Gilbert? This is Cabot Sutter. I’m here with Virginia Troy. We need your help.”
There was no response. Virginia did not hear any footsteps overhead.
Cabot glanced back over his shoulder. “Wait here.”
She wanted to ask why but when he reached inside his jacket and took out his gun, she decided she probably would not like the answer. He used to be a cop, she reminded herself. Old habits.
He went quickly through the downstairs rooms, checking the office, the kitchen and the parlor.
A short time later he returned. “The place feels empty but I’m going to check upstairs. Stay here until I get back.”
“All right,” Virginia said. “But it’s starting to feel like something is very wrong. Be careful, okay?”
Cabot took the stairs two at a time, his gun in his hand. When he disappeared on the landing above, she heard the muffled sound of his footsteps. After a moment he knocked on a door. She assumed he was standing at the entrance to Rose’s private quarters.
Cabot called from the top of the stairs. “No answer at her door. I’m going in.”
“Not alone.” Virginia went swiftly up the stairs. “Something has happened. Let me try talking to her before you do anything else. You’ll scare the living daylights out of her if you open that door with a gun in your hand.”
Cabot did not argue.
She joined him at the top of the stairs. Cabot motioned her to move to one side of the door before he flattened his back to the wall and reached out to grab the knob. Then he signaled her to speak.
“Rose, it’s me, Virginia. I’ve got Cabot Sutter with me. We just want to be sure you’re okay.”
No answer.
Cabot turned the knob. The door was unlocked. It swung open with a few squeaks of the hinges. A cold draft of air carrying an all-too-familiar odor floated out into the hallway. Virginia got a little sick to her stomach.
“No,” she whispered. “Not again.”
But she was speaking to an empty hallway. Cabot was inside the room. She forced herself to follow him.
Rose’s body was crumpled on the floor just outside the entrance to her private bath. Her robe and nightgown were stained with a lot of blood. There was more blood on the floor under her head.
Cabot crouched beside the still form and touched the throat. “Two shots. One in the chest. One in the head.”
Virginia’s stomach clenched. She hoped she wasn’t going to throw up.
“Just like Sandra Porter,” she whispered.
“Gilbert’s been dead for a few hours. Looks like she was killed this morning. Hard to be certain because the room is so cold. I’m going to take a quick look around before we report this.”
“I’m not even sure who we should report it to,” Virginia said. “There’s no police station on the island. There’s a volunteer fire department. The man who runs the general store is in charge of handling emergencies. I suppose we should contact him.”
Cabot stood, crossed to the dressing table and took some tissues out of a box. He went into the bathroom and started opening drawers.
Virginia pulled herself together, opened her handbag and removed some tissues. “I’ll take a look through her bureau and closet. Any idea what we’re searching for?”
“No,” Cabot said. “But anything that connects Rose Gilbert to Quinton Zane or someone at Night Watch would certainly be useful.”
“What do we do if we find something? There are rules about disturbing crime scenes.”
“We’re not going to steal anything. We’re going to use our cameras to take pictures of whatever we find.”
“Right.”
Virginia went quickly through the bureau. The top two drawers contained an assortment of nightgowns, sweaters, socks and underwear. All of the garments looked as if they were about the right size for Rose’s chunky frame.
There was more clothing in the lower drawers but the items were not folded. Instead, they looked as if they had been scooped up in a hurry and dumped into the drawers. They also looked much older and faded from years of washing.
Curious, she unfolded one of the nightgowns and held it up to take a closer look.
“It’s the wrong size,” she said, baffled.
Cabot came to the door of the bathroom. “What?”
“The clothes in the top drawers look like they would have fit Rose, but the things in the bottom drawers are much too small for her. They probably belonged to Abigail Watkins. It looks like Rose never bothered to get rid of them after she moved in here.”
“So?” Cabot went back into the bathroom and opened the cabinet.
“So, a woman might keep a dead woman’s sweaters, but only if they fit. She certainly would not wear a dead woman’s underwear or her nightgowns.”
Cabot came back to the doorway, intrigued.
“Maybe it was just too much trouble to get rid of Watkins’s things,” he suggested.
“Maybe. But it feels creepy to keep a dead woman’s underwear. At the very least I would have thought that Rose would have packed up the stuff and stored it in the basement.”
“I think what this tells us is that, initially, at least, Rose wasn’t planning to hang around for long,” Cabot said. “But something made her change her mind.”
Virginia finished the search of the bureau and went to the nightstand. There were some old needlework magazines inside. She picked them up, not expecting to find anything useful.
Underneath the magazines was a large, unsealed envelope. There was no address. She raised the flap and looked inside. There were several sheets of paper and another, smaller envelope.
“Cabot?”
“Find something?”
“I don’t know.” Virginia tipped the envelope over the bed and looked at the pages that cascaded out onto the quilt. “Photocopies,” Virginia said.
Cabot moved toward her. “Of what?”
“I’m not sure. Letters, maybe. Looks like Abigail Watkins’s handwriting. She had amazing handwriting. Very neat, very precise – just like her needlework.”
“Use your camera,” Cabot said. “Get pictures of every page.”
“Okay.” Virginia was about to reach into her handbag for her camera when she remembered the smaller envelope. Unlike the larger envelope, it was yellowed with age. It, too, was unaddressed and unsealed. She opened it. A photograph slipped out and fell onto the bed.
It was a casual, candid shot showing two people, a man and a woman, standing arm in arm at the railing of a ferry. The skyline of the city of Seattle was behind them. The woman looked rapturously happy, practically glowing. The good-looking man who had his arm around her was smiling a warm, charming smile, but there was something reptilian about his eyes.
Virginia stopped breathing.
“Cabot,” she said. “Look at this.”
He came to stand at her shoulder.
“Shit,” he said. “Quinton Zane.”
“All these years I’ve tried to remember exactly what he looked like. I could never quite describe him because I saw him with a kid’s eyes. But, yes, I’d know him anywhere.”
Cabot took a closer look. “Is that Abigail Watkins?”
“I’m almost positive that it is. She looks about sixteen or maybe seventeen in this picture. That would make her a couple of years younger than when we knew her, but I remember that glorious red-gold hair. She was a spectacularly beautiful woman. Reminds me of Botticelli’s Venus. So innocent looking.”
“An easy target for a bastard like Zane.” Cabot turned over the photograph. “This is dated a couple of years before Zane went into the cult business. I wonder what —”
A thin, muffled explosion shuddered through the old floorboards.
Jolted, Virginia looked at Cabot.
“Did you feel that?” she asked sharply. “Earthquake?”
They were common enough in the Pacific Northwest, she reminded herself. But the tremor hadn’t felt like any earthquake she had ever experienced.
“No,” Cabot said. “Stay here.”
He was already moving, gun in hand, toward the door. He did a quick survey of the hallway.
“Clear,” he said over his shoulder. “But something is wrong. We need to get out of here now.”
Virginia hesitated. There was no time to take pictures of the letters or the old photo. She scooped up the whole lot and shoved everything into her handbag. She promised herself that she would apologize to the authorities later.
She rushed out into the hall. The second muffled blast sent another shudder through the old house.
“Gunshots?” Virginia whispered.
“No,” Cabot said. “Explosions. We walked into a trap.”
They made it to the top of the stairs just as the third blast rattled the windows. Cabot stopped on the landing and looked down.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said very softly.
Virginia saw the wisps of smoke unfurling up the staircase.
A fourth blast echoed through the walls. The old house groaned as though in mortal agony.
The fire exploded first on the ground floor. The roar of the flames was horrifyingly familiar. Virginia had heard it often enough in the hellish dreamscapes of her nightmares.