chapter
13
IT TOOK A SURPRISINGLY short time for everyone to reconvene in the kitchen, freshly showered and once more warm after the outdoor adventures. Upset by another near tragedy, Jessica kept a close eye on the twins. The string of accidents was just too much for her to believe they were all coincidences. Yet nothing ever added up.
She looked around the room at the other occupants of the house. She liked them. That was the problem. She really liked them. Some more than others, but she couldn’t conceive of any of them deliberately harming the twins.
“Jessie, you aren’t listening to me,” Tara’s voice penetrated her thoughts. “I don’t know what kinds of ornaments we can make.” Tara added sadly, “Mama Rita had beautiful ornaments for our trees.” She stood very close to her brother, her gaze seeking reassurance from Jessica. Obviously she was as shaken by the accident as Jessica was.
“We’re supposed to make them, Tara,” Trevor pointed out “That’s the way it works, right, Jessie?”
Jessica nodded. “I have a great recipe for a dough. We can roll it out, cut out whatever shapes we want, bake them and then paint them. It will be fun.” She set two mugs of chocolate in front of the twins and held up a third mug toward Paul. He shook his head and she set it down in front of her, reaching for a towel to clean the counter.
Brenda yawned. “Susie Homemaker strikes again. Do you know how to do everything, dear? Have you any idea how utterly tiring that can be?”
Jessica threw the wadded up tea towel at her, hitting the perfectly fashionable head and draping the Kelly green towel over the chic chignon. “No one believes your little heartless wench act, Brenda—you’ve blown it, so start thinking up ideas. And I didn’t say I was going to do the mixing and baking. I’m the supervisor. You and the twins are the worker bees.”
“Robert, are you going to let her get away with throwing things at me?” Brenda complained. She wadded the towel into a tight little ball, looking for a target. “Surely you could exact some sort of revenge for me. I’d do it myself but I’ve just been endangering my life, tramping through mosquito-infested waters and through alligator-ridden swamps to find the perfect Christmas tree for two ungrateful little chits. And the perfect tree turned out to be some straggly, misshapen bush!”
“There aren’t alligators here,” Trevor pointed out, “so technically your life wasn’t really in danger. It’s your duty as our aunt to do these things and enjoy them, isn’t that right, Dad? So buck up, babe. We’ll let you sing the first Christmas carol.”
The tea towel hit Trevor’s face dead center. “You horrid little boy!”
“Ouch, ouch,” Trevor clutched at his chest, feigning a heart attack. “She spears with me with her unkind words.” He drained the mug of hot chocolate. “More?” he asked hopefully, holding up the cup.
“No, you’re going to bed soon,” Jessica objected. “I swear, you’re becoming a bottomless pit.”
“He can have mine,” Tara said, pushing the mug toward her brother. “I don’t want any more.”
Jessica intercepted it, catching it up before Trevor could snatch it out of her reach. “What if she still has the flu, Trev? Don’t drink from the same mug,” she chided. “Tara, do you feel sick? You’ve gone so pale.”
“I think I still have the flu,” Tara admitted, “or maybe I’m just still scared. I didn’t like seeing you and Paul falling off the cliff.”
“We didn’t like it much either,” Jessica exchanged a small smile with Paul.
“Hey, paper chains,” Don said suddenly. “When I was a kid we used to make paper chains and hang them on the tree. I think I remember how to do it.”
“I remember that,” Robert agreed. “We should take all those musical notations we’ve thrown away and use them. We all love music. Does that work, Jessie? Brenda, we made a chain one year. We didn’t have a tree so we made a chain of love.”
Jessica grinned at Brenda as the woman visibly winced, horrified to be found out. “A love chain, Brenda? You’re really a mushy girl after all, aren’t you?”
“She’s all sappy like you are, Jessie,” Trevor was wearing an identical grin. “Brenda, you little romantic you. A luv chain.”
“Why, Brenda,” Dillon was outright smirking. “You’ve truly amazed me. I had no idea you were a marshmallow under all that sophistication.”
“Don’t start. Robert is making it all up as you know perfectly well,” Brenda looked haughty, her nose in the air.
Brian wagged his finger at her. “Robert doesn’t have the imagination to make something like that up, Brenda. You did make a love chain with him.”
Tara protectively flung her arms around Brenda, glaring at everyone. “Leave her alone, all of you!” She pressed a kiss against Brenda’s chin. “We can make as many chains as you want. Don’t let them bother you.”
Jessica met Brenda’s gaze across the room. Tears glistened in the depths of Brenda’s eyes. She sat very still, not moving a muscle. The two women simply stared at one another, caught in the moment. Brenda nuzzled the top of Tara’s head briefly, her eyes still locked with Jessica’s. “Thank you,” she mouthed, blinking rapidly to rid herself of unwanted emotion.
“You’re welcome,” Jessica mouthed back with a watery smile.
Dillon felt his throat close, his heart swelling with pride at observing the exchange. Jessica brought her light to everyone. She could so easily have turned the twins against Brenda, against him. The children loved her beyond any other. Their loyalty to Jessica was strong. A single word from Jessica would have prevented the twins from even trying to work with all the different personalities around them. Jessica had been so generous in sharing them and she had instilled her giving nature in both of them. He knew, better than most, how Brenda often appeared cold and uncaring to others. He was proud of his children, that they saw beyond the barrier she presented to world to the real woman.
“There’s always strings of popcorn,” Paul pointed out. “Those are easy enough to make. We used to make those in your basement, Brian.”
“We ate most of them,” Dillon pointed out, laughing at the memory.
The next two hours were spent companionably, baking and coloring ornaments and stringing paper chains and popcorn. Dillon managed to lead them in Christmas carols that Paul and Brian turned into other much more ribald ballads. Brenda and Brian got into a popcorn fight until Trevor and Tara took their aunt’s side and Brian was forced to cry uncle.
When Jessica could see that both Tara and Trevor were overtired and too flushed, she called a halt and took them both upstairs. She was surprised that both teenagers went without a murmur of protest.
Tara clutched her stomach. “I really don’t feel very well, but I didn’t want to ruin the fun,” she admitted.
Little warning bells began going off in Jessica’s head despite her determination not to worry. She rubbed at her temples, annoyed with herself for being so protective. Everyone got the flu, even she still felt sick.
“I wish we had played all those tricks on everyone,” Trevor said suddenly to Tara. “Didn’t that make you mad that they were blaming us for all those pranks while we were waiting for Jessica and Dad? It’s so typical for adults to always blame kids for everything.” He suddenly lunged for the bathroom.
“What do you mean they were blaming you for pranks?” Jessica tucked the blankets around Tara and smoothed back her hair. “Are you feeling any better, honey? I can get your father and we can take you to a doctor.”
“I’m the one throwing my guts up,” Trevor yelled from the bathroom.
“Sweetie, I’ll be happy to take you to the doctor. It’s just that I know you’d rather be boiled in oil than see the doc,” Jessica said sympathetically.
They could hear Trevor noisily rinsing his mouth for the third time. “And it sucks that they thought we were going into their rooms. I wonder if someone’s been going into Dad’s room and he thinks it’s us, too. Just because we’re teenagers doesn’t mean we don’t have respect for other people’s things,” he said indignantly. He stumbled from the bathroom back to them, crossing the floor with an aggravated frown on his face. “I asked Brian point blank if he was in your room, Jessie, and if he’d burned incense and created one of his magic circles there, and he said no. And then he had the gall to tell me to stay out of his room.”
“To stay the hell out of his room,” Tara corrected. “He was really mad at us. I never went into his stupid room.”
“Wait a minute,” Jessica held up her hand. “What are you talking about? The others accused you of going into their rooms?”
Tara nodded. “Even Brenda and Robert thought we were playing pranks on them. I guess it’s happened to everyone since we’ve been here and I don’t think they believed us when we told them it was happening to us, too.”
“What pranks?” Jessica wanted to know. “And where have I been?”
Trevor and Tara exchanged a slow grin. “With Dad,” they said in unison.
Jessica blushed as she sat on the edge of Tara’s bed. “I guess I deserved that. I’m sorry I’ve been in the studio working so much and that I’ve been going off with Dillon. I’ll talk to Brian. He shouldn’t have accused you. What do they think you’ve been doing?”
Trevor shrugged. “The usual teen-in-the-spooky-old-mansion stuff. Opening windows, leaving water running in the bathtub, moving things, writing weird leave-before-it’s-too-late messages on mirrors. That sort of thing.”
“Brian said no one else would be so childish.” Tara was clearly offended. “Like I would want to find a stupid secret passageway and sneak into his dumb room!” Her gaze slid to her twin’s face. “Well, Trevor and I did look for secret passageways, but just because it was fun. If we were going to try to convince everyone there was a ghost here, we’d have done a much better job,” she declared. “At least Brenda and Robert said they believed us. Do you think Dad believes we’re sneaking into people’s rooms?” She sounded a little forlorn.
“Of course not, Tara. If your father thought you were doing such a thing, he would have spoken to you about it immediately. I’m sorry they accused you of such childish behavior. You’re right, oftentimes an adult who isn’t used to teenagers has a false idea of the things they do.” Jessica stroked Tara’s hair. “I noticed our resident ghost forgot to open the window tonight.”
“Could there be a real ghost in the house?” Tara asked hopefully.
“The house isn’t old enough,” Trevor protested knowledgably. He’d read a lot on the subject. “Dad had it built after the fire. The contractor finished it while he was still in the burn center.” When his sister and Jessica looked at him he shrugged with a sheepish grin. “Paul told me. I ask him questions about Dad. Sometimes he doesn’t mind and other times he just sort of ignores me. You don’t learn anything if you don’t ask questions. A house has to be really old to have a ghost.”
“Or there has to have been a murder in it,” Tara agreed.
A chill went down Jessica’s spine at Tara’s words. She remembered the sound of the gunshots, the crackle of the flames, the heat and smoke. Standing up, she walked to the window, not wanting the twins to see the expression on her face. Murder. The word shimmered in her mind. Both children were watching her closely. Not wanting them to know what she was thinking, she changed the subject. “Did Brenda really take care of you and Tara this morning when you were sick? That amazes me.”
Trevor laughed immediately. “She tried. She was as white as a sheet. The funny thing was, Robert wanted to go get you but she said no, they could handle it. I think she really wanted to, not only to give you and Dad time to work things out, but because she wanted to be the one to help us. The crazy part was, while she was being so nice, I was thinking Robert and Brenda might have tried to poison us.”
Jessica looked at him sharply. “Why would you think something like that?”
“Well, we both drank a soda in their room and then we were sick. And I found a newspaper in their wastebasket with words cut out of it like for a ransom note. I had this wild idea they were going to hold us hostage or something until you paid them money. Or kill us and collect the insurance on us.” He grinned, looking sheepish.
“I was sick before I drank the soda, that’s why I drank it so fast.” Tara scowled at her brother indignantly. “Brenda and Robert weren’t trying to poison us!”
“I know that now,” Trevor flung himself on his makeshift bed.
“You found what in Brenda’s room?” Jessica tripped over Trevor’s shoes and nearly fell on the bed. Don had confessed to attempting to blackmail Dillon. Why would Brenda and Robert have the remnants of a cut up newspaper in their room? What would be the point of Don’s confessing and then trying to cast blame on someone else? Jessica could feel the strange shiver of apprehension snake down her spine. Unless someone else was involved. Someone far more sinister than Don. Jessica didn’t like the implications of it at all.
“It was just an old newspaper,” Trevor said, shrugging it off. “Some of the words had been cut out of it, but I didn’t really have time to look at it closely.”
Jessica sat down on the edge of the bed. Outside the rain had started again, pounding at the window and rattling branches against the house. “What is it you two used to call me?” she asked softly. The raindrops matched the rhythm in her heart.
“Magical girl,” Tara’s voice was drowsy. “You’re our magical girl.”
Jessica leaned over her to kiss her again. “Thank you, honey, I think I need to be magical girl again. I’m going down to the studio. If you need me, come get me.” She needed to go somewhere and think and it always helped when she had a guitar in her hands. Her shoulder was aching, a reminder of the day’s events, as she noiselessly crept down the hall to the wide staircase. The lights were off and the house had grown silent.
Dillon would be waiting for her to come to him. If she was too long he might go looking. She didn’t want to be with him while she sorted things out. He distracted her, made her lose confidence in herself. Magical girl. Even her mother had used that name for her because she knew things. She knew things instinctively. Things like when what appeared to be an accident was really something much more sinister. Since coming here she had been relying on Dillon. Expecting Dillon to solve the mystery, to make it all better.
Lightning zigzagged across the sky and lit up the courtyard as she paused on the landing to look out through the glass doors. She could see the fir trees as they jerked in a macabre dance like wooden marionettes. Dillon didn’t believe anyone was trying to hurt the children. Jessica believed it and if she was going to find the truth, she needed to rely on herself and her own judgment.
The sound room was empty, strangely eerie with the glass and instruments in the dark. She idly picked up one of Dillon’s acoustic guitars, a Martin he particularly loved. She ran her fingers over the strings, heard the small jarring note not quite in tune. That was what the accidents were like, a note not quite in tune. She had to sort it all out just as she so efficiently tuned the guitar. She played there in the darkness, sitting on the edge of the instrument panel, her mind compiling the data for her. She closed her eyes and allowed the music, Dillon’s music, to soothe her as she played.
She slipped a few random notes into the melody. Notes off-key, off-kilter, like the accidents that could have happened to anyone. Anyone. The word repeated like a refrain in her head. Random accidents. Secret passageways. Blackmail. Pieces of a puzzle like musical notations written on paper. Move them around, put them together differently, and she would have a masterpiece. Or a key.
Thunder crashed all too close, the clash of cymbals, the exclamation point after the melody. She opened her eyes just as another bolt of lightning lit up the world. A figure loomed up right in front of her, a dark shadow of terror. Jessica lunged to her feet, gripping the expensive guitar like a weapon.
Brenda stumbled backward with a frightened shriek. “Jess! It’s me! Brenda!”
Her heart pounding too loudly, Jessica slowly lowered the guitar. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. Trevor told me where to find you. You’re the only one who might believe me. I don’t know who else to talk to.” Brenda’s hand shot out, prevented Jessica from turning on the light. “Don’t, I can’t look at you and say this.” She took a deep calming breath. “I wanted to believe the kids were behind the pranks, but I don’t think so. I think it’s Vivian.”
A chill went down Jessica’s spine. Her eyes strained in the darkness to see Brenda’s face, to read her expression.
“I’m not crazy, Jessie. I feel her at times.” Brenda pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. “I think the kids or Dillon or maybe me, are in danger and she’s trying to warn us. Vivian wasn’t a bad person, and she believed in spirits. If she could come back to help set things right, she would. I’ve been afraid something was wrong for a while and the minute I came to the island, I was certain of it.”
“You think Vivian is opening windows and drawing magic circles on the floor? Why, why would she do that, knowing how Dillon feels?” Jessica kept her voice very even. She didn’t know if Brenda was attempting to frighten her, or if she really believed what she was saying.
“To protect you. To protect me. Dillon, the children. All of us. It was the only religion she knew.” Brenda leaned closer to her, pleading with her. “Do you feel it, too? Tell me I haven’t completely lost my mind. I don’t want to end up like Viv.”
Jessica carefully leaned the guitar against the wall. She didn’t know if Vivian’s presence was in the house helping her or if the next flash of lightning merely illuminated her brain. Like the notes blending into harmony, the pieces clicked into place.
“Since we came here, the accidents have all been random. I was trying to mold them, fit them into my idea that someone wanted to harm Trevor and Tara. But all the accidents could have hurt any of us. Anyone in the house. Do you see it, Brenda, the pattern?”
Brenda shook her head. “No, but you’re chilling me to the bone.”
“And the cape. The hooded figure. The dog didn’t bark.”
“You’ve lost me. Bark when?”
“When Trevor was buried under the landslide, Tara saw a hooded figure, but the dog didn’t bark. So it wasn’t a stranger hiding on the island, it was someone the dog knew.” Jessica knew she was on the verge of discovery. It was all there for her to see. The pattern in the discordant notes. “Why were only the three of us sick? Why Tara and Trevor and me? None of you were sick.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. “It’s the chocolate. My God, he poisoned the chocolate. He did everything. He shot Vivian, he must have, and he covered his tracks with the fire.”
“What do you mean, he poisoned the chocolate? Dillon? You think Dillon tried to poison the twins?” Brenda sounded shocked.
“Not Dillon. Of course not Dillon. You can’t believe he shot Vivian! It was never Dillon,” Jessica was impatient. “You’ll have to call the helicopter, have them pick up the kids and take them to the hospital and tell them to bring the police.” She had to get to the twins, hold them in her arms, make certain they were alive and well.
The next flash of lightning revealed the dark, hooded figure standing so silently in the corner. Jessica saw him clearly, saw the ugly little gun in his hand. The light faded away, but she knew he was there. Real. Solid. A sinister demented being bent on murder. Brenda gave a frightened cry and Jessica thrust the woman behind her. She felt her way along the instrument panel for the switch to turn on the recorder.
There was a moment of silence while the rain came down and the wind howled and tugged at the house. While the gargoyles watched silently from the eaves.
Jessica forced a small smile, forced a calmness she didn’t feel. “I knew it was you. It’s going to break his heart all over again.” There was deep regret in her voice. The knowledge of such a betrayal would hurt Dillon immensely. Some part of Jessica had known all along, but she hadn’t wanted to see it. For Dillon’s sake.
“You didn’t know,” Paul denied, his face so deep inside the hood they couldn’t see him. He presented a frightening image, the grim reaper. All he needed was a longhandled scythe to complete the persona of death.
“Of course it had to be you. No one but you would know that someone was trying to blackmail Dillon.”
“Your mother,” he spat, “was so greedy. The money he gave her to care for the children wasn’t enough. I wrote the checks out to her—she had enough.”
“Not my mother,” Jessica snarled back. “Don was blackmailing Dillon. She came here at Dillon’s request to discuss it with him.”
“I don’t understand,” Brenda said. “Paul, what are you doing? Why are you standing in that stupid cape with a gun pointed at us? And you’d better not be naked under that thing! Everyone’s being so melodramatic! What are you talking about? Why would anyone want to blackmail Dillon?”
Jessica ignored her. She didn’t dare take her eyes off of Paul. He was unstable and she had no idea what could set him off. But she knew he was perfectly capable of killing. He had done so numerous times. “You were the only one it could be, Paul. You had access to all the rooms through the passageways. You’re the only one who has been here on a regular basis. Once I realized the accidents were random, directed toward everyone here, I knew they were designed to send everyone away. The landslide, the Christmas tree, the oil on the stairs. Even the chocolate. You thought if enough things happened, we’d all go away. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You just wanted everyone to stay away from here.” Her voice was soothing, the voice she had used for years on the children, a blend of sweetness and understanding.
“But you wouldn’t go away,” he said. “You brought them back here. Her children. Vivian was evil, an evil disgusting seductress who wouldn’t leave us all alone.”
Jessica’s heart thudded. She heard it in his voice, the guilt, the seething hatred. It always came back to Vivian. She knew then. Her heart bled for Dillon. So much treachery, how did one survive it? She wanted to weep for them all. There wasn’t going to be any miracle for the twins or Dillon this Christmas, only more heartache, more tragedy.
“You loved her.” She said it simply, starkly, saying the words in the dark to the man who had calmly walked up the stairs, shot Vivian and her lover in cold blood and locked the other occupants in the room after ensuring the fire was raging.
“I hated her! I despised her!” Paul hissed the words. “She seduced me. I begged her to leave me alone, but she would crawl into my bed and I could never stop myself. She laughed at me, and she threatened to tell Dillon. He was the only friend, the only family I ever had. I wasn’t going to let her destroy me. Or him. Phillip deserved to die, he used her to get at Dillon. He thought Dillon would pay him to leave Vivian alone.”
“Where would he get an idea like that?” Brenda was far too quiet and that worried Jessica. She glanced at the other woman but couldn’t see her clearly in the dark.
“What does it matter? None of it matters. He chose you. When I knocked you off the bluff and slipped myself, he saved you, not me. I couldn’t believe it. He was never worth it. All these wasted years. His genius. I served his greatness, cared for him, protected him, killed for him, and he fell for another harlot.” Paul shook his head so that the hooded cloak moved as if alive. “I gave him everything, and he chose you.” He snarled the last words at her, like a rabid dog wanting to strike out.
Jessica forced a derisive laugh. She was inching her fingers along the wall seeking the guitar, her only weapon. “Is that how you lie to yourself at night in order to sleep, Paul? You betrayed him by sleeping with his wife. You probably brought Phillip Trent into Vivian’s life. You let Dillon go through a trial, knew everyone believed he committed murder and yet you could have stopped it by telling the truth. You were responsible for the fire that burned him. You murdered my mother thinking she was blackmailing him. You left him open to blackmail and you arranged accidents that could have killed his children just to frighten them away from him. How in the world is that giving him everything? You made him a prisoner in this house and when it looked as if he might break free you started all over again to try to isolate him from the rest of the world.”
“Shut up!” Pure venom dripped from Paul’s voice. “Just shut up!”
“The biggest mistake you made was going after the children. Your plan backfired. You must have intercepted my letter telling him the children should be with him. You didn’t want them here, did you? They were a threat to you. You wanted me to think Dillon was trying to hurt them, didn’t you?” She looked at him steadily. “But, you see, I know Dillon. I knew he would never have killed Vivian or my mother or done harm to his children. So I brought the children here, knowing he would try to protect them.”
“And delivered them right to me,” Paul snarled.
“Put the gun down, Paul.” Dillon’s voice was weary and sad, a melody of smoke and blues. “It’s over. We have to figure out how best to handle this.” Dillon moved through the doorway.
While Dillon was so calm, Jessica wanted to scream. Were the children writhing in agony upstairs, while they talked to a madman with a gun? Her fingers found the neck of the guitar, circled, and gripped hard.
“There is only one way to handle it, Dillon,” Paul said just as calmly. “I’m not about to be locked up for the rest of my life. I couldn’t stand being interviewed behind bars while the band makes it to the top again.”
Jessica knew. She always knew before things happened, even though she had doubted herself. There in the darkness with the rain coming down, she knew the precise moment Paul shifted the gun. She knew he was finished talking and that his finger was squeezing the trigger. Without hesitation, Jessica stepped solidly in front of Dillon and swung the guitar toward Paul with every ounce of strength she possessed.
She heard the bark of the gun, the simultaneous crack of the guitar as she hit Paul hard, and Dillon’s husky cry of denial even as something knocked her legs out from under her. Jessica hit her head hard on the floor. She lay still, staring up at the figure in the hooded cloak. He was bent over, twisted. She blinked to clear her vision. Everything seemed hazy, a weird phosphorescent light was seeping into the room, a mist of colors and cold. The draft was icy, so that she could see the air as a foggy vapor. It seemed to slide between Paul and the other occupants of the room.
Paul screamed, a hoarse dark cry of rage and fear. For one moment the colors shifted and moved, formed the shimmering, translucent image of a woman in a flowing gown reaching out a long thin arm beckoning toward Paul. Dillon moved then, covering Jessica’s body with his own, blocking her view of the strange apparition, so that she only heard the gun as it went off a second time.
“Vivian, don’t leave me again!” Brenda’s cry was anguished and she stumbled forward, her arms outstretched. Dillon caught her, dragging her down to the safety of the floor.
Jessica heard the body fall with a soft thud to the floor, and she found herself staring into Paul’s wide-open eyes. She knew he was dead, with the life already drained from his body before he hit the floor. In the end, he had been determined to take Dillon with him, and she had been just as determined he would not.
Brenda’s weeping was soft and brokenhearted. “Did you see her, Jessica? I told you I wasn’t crazy. Did you see her?”
Dillon kicked the gun away from Paul’s hand. “Call the doctor, Brenda, right now!” His voice was pure authority, snapping Brenda out of her sorrow. “Check on Tara and Trevor—make certain they’re all right. And then call the police.” His hands were running over Jessica’s legs, searching for a wound, searching for the bullet hole that had knocked her to the floor.
There was no blood, no gaping wound, only a huge dark bruise already forming on her left thigh. The area was tender, painful, but neither Dillon nor Jessica knew who had struck her hard enough to knock her legs out from under her. Brenda had stood frozen, unable to move. They both stared at the strange mark, two circles, one inside the other, the center circle much darker. A circle of protection.
“I have to see to Paul,” he said and she heard the heartbreak in his voice.
“He’s beyond help, Dillon. Don’t touch anything,” Jessica cautioned gendy. Now that it was over she began to shake almost uncontrollably. Her need to get to the children was paramount. Her need to comfort Dillon was just as great. More than anything else she was afraid for him. This time the truth had to be plain. “Wait for the police.”