33
“See you in a little while,” Nick told Claire when he finally calmed down after hearing what had happened in Julia’s stable and at Grand Hotel. “I’m tempted to tie you to my waist or to our bed,” he muttered as he finally got up from nearly pinning her onto the couch. “I need to head back to working with Heck for an hour or so. We’ve got a lot of the lock-Ames-up-for-life work done but we need to finish this section today so we can get it to Rob. And then,” he added, his voice bitter, “if they can ever get their hands on him in Mexico or on whatever south shore where he’s hiding out now, the government can prosecute.”
For once, he seemed content to leave her alone with Jace. Anything to keep someone’s eye on her, she supposed. But she couldn’t let this go any more than Nick could stop his obsession with stopping Clayton Ames.
Claire was going to try to bring up the day of Julia’s death, because something about that was bothering him, and she hoped it wasn’t that he’d been with her at Arch Rock. He’d wanted to see it, since Julia had taken the rest of them there. But before she could speak, Jace glanced out the window and blurted, “Who the heck is that?”
She turned around to look out. “Where? Oh, that man with the camera? I’ve seen others taking pictures of this house and others along here. It is so picturesque, even with the snow. No way to stop that, I guess, unless they really trespass, and he’s in the street.”
“But he’s got one of those big telephoto lenses,” he said, standing and squinting out the window. “And the face behind it is really ugly, poor guy.”
“Jace! I know we’re all on edge, but do you need to say that?” She didn’t mean to scold but she was very nervous about questioning him, and this was not a good beginning. She sighed and turned back around on the couch. “So, do you have the whole day off?” she asked, hoping to just sound conversational. Always start with something seemingly innocuous, then circle in, she told herself.
“Just working the twilight shift,” he said, sitting back down. He propped his elbows on his spread knees and stared at the floor instead of out the window or at her. “The ill guy I replaced is getting better, so I hope they don’t cut my hours. If so, you and I will suffer from cabin fever together this winter.”
“I’m going to homeschool Lexi in reading and writing. Since you’ve been all over the world, you could work with her about foreign places, kind of prekindergarten-age history or geography.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. Poor little girl with two daddies.”
“Jace, I know that’s been hard, but that aside—”
“I can’t put it aside.”
“Just listen, please. Speaking of your getting erratic time off from the airport job, you also had the afternoon off the day Julia died.”
She tried not to sound and look as tense as she was. His head snapped up. His eyes narrowed before he looked away again. When he didn’t respond at first, Claire swallowed hard because she saw sweat break out on his upper lip in this cool house. Even under duress as a wartime pilot, the word she’d heard from his buddies was “Jace never sweats.”
“So?”
“I know you well, Jace. Something’s been really bothering you about Julia’s death, besides the death itself.”
“Yeah. It’s why I risked a lot to try to see if Kirkpatrick hurt her.”
“I don’t mean to pry, but maybe you felt guilty you came on to her? I thought maybe that day she died you tried to apologize to her.”
“What are you, some sort of damned psychic now?” He heaved a huge sigh, and his shoulders slumped. “But I did regret I came on to her like I did. She was attractive and impressive and seemed unattached. And like I said, I felt like the odd man out in our group. In a way, I’d even lost Lexi.”
“No, you didn’t and never will,” she insisted, sitting forward on the couch to touch his arm. “And you and I are still friends, aren’t we?”
He gave a loud snort. “Oh, yeah, right. That will work out just great, especially when we get out of here and go home, if Naples is even home to me now.”
“Of course it is. Rob Patterson offered you that spy-fly airplane job. You can live in South Florida and still fly, do something for your country.”
“You sound like the marine recruiters, but that’s what you’re good at. Getting people to open up, to opt in, to tell you things so you can psych them out. Swear you won’t run to Nick or the sheriff with this?”
“With what? My suspicion you might have seen Julia the day she died?”
“Well, you are good, forensic psych! Thanks for all the hand-holding before you hit me with that suspicion!”
He pulled his chair so close to the couch he blocked her in. Again, her heartbeat kicked up. Michael today, then that man who had grabbed at her and chased her. Thank God there was no scratch on Jace’s face, but, in the dark, she wasn’t really sure where she had scratched that man. And now Jace was going to admit something dreadful, she was sure of it.
“Well?” she said, her voice sounding choked as she blinked back tears.
“Claire, you know I didn’t harm her, don’t you?”
“I do, but why did you really agree to work for that Vern Kirkpatrick and—did you see him with her that day? I think he was in her house, maybe was the one who hit Bronco.”
“No, I didn’t see him—just her. Damn, I wish I could have kept her there, talking, so she wouldn’t have left and ended up dead. Truth is, I went to her house, maybe to apologize, maybe to tell her I wanted to be friends, I don’t know. She hardly gave me the time of day and was on her way out, and that was that. I didn’t follow her, I didn’t see her again. You want me to swear on a Bible, Your Honor?”
“You should have told Nick and the sher—”
“No way! Someone like Wade what’s-his-name might need protection from past crimes, but I don’t need the sheriff—or you or Nick—thinking I was there when she fell. God’s truth, I swear I didn’t hurt her. She was fine when I left her, well, maybe a little upset about something. I need you to believe that, Nick too, if you tell him.”
“Jace, I’ll say it again. You should have told him, told the sheriff. Your evidence goes to her state of mind, that she would—or would not—have killed herself. Don’t blame yourself that you might have upset her, because she had plenty else to be upset about. But she knew those stairs and would not have just slipped, even though ‘accidents do happen.’ You commented from that day on the rocking ferry when we first met her how sure-footed she was.”
He seized her hands and she squeezed his back. She thought he would pull her into his arms, but they stayed like that, frozen somehow. Yet all her forensic psych training told her he’d hit several of the keys for telling someone was lying or guilty: he’d offered a lot of detail; he’d invoked God’s name and swore he was telling the truth; he’d been more emotional than usual. He’d even tried to set someone else up as the guilty party by getting close to Kirkpatrick. But—but it just couldn’t be he was guilty. Not Jace. He was surely telling her the truth.
Her voice shaky, she said, “I’ve kept my fears to myself because I wanted to protect you, but you have to tell the authorities exactly what happened. Sheriff Archer is helping us, and we have to help him. Please. Otherwise, it’s obstruction of justice.”
Claire blinked back tears and went on, “It’s up to you. Otherwise, things only get worse. Someone’s out not only to scare us, but stop us too, any way he can, maybe the same person who killed Julia. Of course, it wasn’t you, but we have to find out who.”
* * *
Jace squirmed in his chair when the sheriff phoned Nick a short time later while some of them ate a late dinner. Nick excused himself from the table and took the call in the hall. Claire was the only woman at the table. Nita was upstairs giving Lexi a bath, and Gina was trying to convince the child that just because her tummy ache was gone, that didn’t mean she should have the rest of the leftover Halloween candy.
At this point, Jace had to admit to himself that Claire was right. He had to talk to Nick and the sheriff about what he’d been hiding. He surprised himself by wishing Nick could be his lawyer and represent him in case the sheriff actually wanted to press charges of some kind—like Claire said, obstruction of justice, or something worse. At the least, he’d have to swear he saw nothing suspicious at her house, no one hanging around. If only he’d lingered longer, he might have seen who came to hit Bronco and let the old man loose. It had to be Kirkpatrick shortly after he left, because of the cigar smell mentioned—which he had not caught a whiff of.
Smiling for once, Nick came back in and sat down at the table again. Jace clenched his fork tighter. Some good news, for once?
“One suspect down, and you’re in the clear on it,” Nick told Jace.
His insides plummeted. Had Claire had time to tell Nick he’d been with Julia?
Nick went on, “So that you wouldn’t be implicated or have to testify that Kirkpatrick was stealing from Hunter Logan, the sheriff had his deputy tail Kirkpatrick, who led him to the stash of things you mentioned. The sheriff gave Kirkpatrick the choice of leaving the island for good—and a cease and desist order about never contacting Hunter Logan again—or being charged with a felony, namely grand theft. Kirkpatrick said he’d fight him on that, said the old man had agreed to let him have those items.”
“In Hunter Logan’s condition?” Claire said. “Unless he thought Gene Autry came back from the grave to ask for them, no way. But good for Sheriff Archer!”
“I’ll drink to that,” Jace said and raised his wineglass, trying to keep his hand from shaking. “I regret I was a party to hiding that contraband.”
“It’s just lucky you were on the record for telling him about that before he found it out some other way,” Nick said, lifting his glass as the others followed. “A toast to a small island sheriff who is a big man in my eyes. And to my brother, Seth, here for coming clean about it before he was implicated for aiding and abetting.”
They reached across the table to clink glasses and drank. Jace could feel Claire’s steady gaze on him, burning into his forehead and his brain, but damned if he was going to make some kind of mea culpa speech right now about being with Julia shortly before she died.
He drank, but the wine tasted bitter.
* * *
Claire went up to tuck Lexi into bed with a happier heart. The FBI did indeed try to shield its WITSEC witnesses, though she still had to talk with Jace again. Maybe, now that he’d been cleared from helping hide stolen items by telling the truth, he’d tell the sheriff his brief background with Julia.
If he didn’t, she hated to think how she’d keep silent about that, how she’d avoid telling Nick. It was so hard to be caught between the two of them. Once they got back home and weren’t all together so often in such a hothouse—in a cold house—situation, surely tensions would ease up.
“Mommy, I’m glad you’re here!” Lexi said as Nita left the bedroom and Claire sat down on the bed beside her. “Lorena says Lily isn’t real, but you talked to me about her, so I know she is.”
Claire unwrapped the child’s arms from over her chest and pulled her a bit upright so she could hold her. Dealing with a desperately needed imaginary friend was delicate. There was a fine line to walk between the child’s needs and the truth. She’d try reality first but tread carefully. Then, depending on Lexi’s reaction, maybe backtrack some.
“I know I’ve talked to you about her,” Claire said in her best soothing voice, “but only to try to say she isn’t real. I can see you wanting a friend and I know you miss your cousin. I think it’s okay to have an imaginary friend when you are lonely, but not one like Lily who acts bad and is mean.”
“She is only mean to others, not me, because she’s my friend.”
“You know Lorena is your friend too, so she would tell you the truth. All of us here at the house on the island for the winter are friends. Uncle Seth and your daddy and I—”
“They’re not real either—their names, I mean. I’m not Meggie either. I’m Lexi, and Lily knows the truth. Meggie is pretend, not Lily. She is back from Florida, where you sent her, and she’s living in the attic. I heard her up there, and she goes up and down the back steps. I bet she’s up there now.”
“It’s cold in the attic. I’ve been up there. So have several others, and we haven’t seen her or any sign or her living there.”
“Maybe that was before she came back. I want to go up to see her.”
“Tell you what,” Claire said, deciding to change tactics so that Lexi wouldn’t be sneaking up in that cold, dark attic. “I’ll go up now. I’ll take that lantern from downstairs and check all around. I sure hope she went back to Florida again, where it’s warmer, but I’ll be sure, then come back down to tell you. Meanwhile, you just cover up here,” she said, edging her down under the covers, “and wait here until I report in.”
“All right,” she said with a yawn. “I’m sleepy but I’ll wait til you find her. If it’s cold up there where that lady was screaming before Daddy—I mean, Uncle Seth—fixed the roof, tell Lily to come down here, where it’s warm.”
Claire kissed her cheek and went out and down to get the battery-operated lantern. The door to the parlor was open; Nita, Bronco and Gina were talking inside. She could hear Nick and Heck working at the kitchen table. Nick was dictating to Heck about how Ames had used Lexi to force her and Nick to fly to Grand Cayman. No wonder Lexi was so unstable, she thought. As Jace had accused once, there had been nothing but trouble and trauma since she’d known Nick Markwood. Yet he was worth it, every bit of it.
She took the lantern from where it hung near the china umbrella stand in the front hall and went upstairs. She peeked in at Lexi again. Wide-eyed and still awake, she said, “Did you do it yet?”
“No, but I have the lantern. Going up now.”
A blast of cold air hit her when she opened the door to the attic stairs. Why hadn’t someone put a ceiling light up here years ago? She was tempted to just go up a few steps and say she’d checked the place, but she wanted to be able to tell the truth to Lexi, even though they’d hidden so much from her about Julia’s death and the aftermath.
Holding the lantern aloft, she climbed the creaky stairs, sneezing twice from the dust. She’d been up here so briefly before, so intent on the widow’s walk outside, that she barely recalled the structure of the vast attic. Since this was a Victorian-era house, the servants must have slept here.
In the attic, she saw the dark hollow where the back stairs came clear up here. After her horrid experience at Grand Hotel today, this dim place was nothing to scare her. At the edge of the vast room and in the corners, the eaves slanted down in darkness. Occasional support pillars made of wooden two-by-fours threw strange, shifting shadows. She recalled the humpbacked chest and some other items stored here. Florida homes seldom had attics and no basements either, and she was glad for that despite the lack of extra storage space.
Her teeth began to chatter from the cold and nerves. Just swing the lantern around once or twice, look behind the chest and the boxes so she could describe that to Lexi. In broad daylight, maybe she’d bring her up here to prove it all, but she had to get downstairs, back to warmth, back to reality, safety and sanity.
She shuddered when she thought she heard a mouse—or worse—skitter away in the dim corner. Had they made a nest over there in what looked like a pile of blankets and someone’s old, deserted sleeping bag?
Did she smell not only dust and old wood but the hint of smoke here or was that her imagination, her memories? The scent was light, lacing the air, not heavy cigar smoke. Maybe it was just the smell of old buildings.
A board creaked behind her. Definitely a footstep. “Lexi, I told you not to come up here now,” she said and swung around.
As if her earlier horror had never ended, a man leaped at her, knocked her down. The back of her head hit the floor hard. She actually saw falling stars in spinning darkness.
Her lantern fell to the floor, but the man had a big flashlight he turned on. Its beam blinded her as his hard hand covered her mouth and his body pressed her down on the floor. He wore no mask. She saw who it was.