Once we got her body over the edge of the cliff, Jake knelt down to confirm Hank’s diagnosis. “You were right. She’s gone.”
Jasper started weeping as he threw himself onto his sister’s body. Evidently he’d come around while we’d been untying her. “Beatrice, why? Why would you do this?”
I started to pull him away, and then Jake helped me. “Let’s get you inside and wrapped in a warm blanket,” I told the mourning man. “There’s nothing you can do for her now.”
“We can’t just leave her out here like this in the rain,” Jasper said softly.
“We won’t,” I answered. “Hank and Jake will wrap her up in a blanket and bring her inside,” I said, and then the two men did just that. We put Beatrice back in her room and closed the windows and door, which was the best we could do for her at that point.
“I can’t believe Killian and Abel haven’t come out to see what’s been going on,” I said.
“Killian wouldn’t be able to hear a gunshot from down there in the basement,” Hank said, “but Abel should have at least poked his head out like Vera did.”
“Maybe someone should check on him,” I said, a sense of dread creeping through me. Why hadn’t he come out of his room?
“I’ll go look in on him,” Jake said.
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
Hank replied, “You two go do that, and I’ll go downstairs and get the boss. He’ll know what to do.”
“But he locked the door behind him,” I told Hank.
“Maybe so, but I’ve got a key to every lock on this mountain. We’ll be right back.”
“See you in a few,” Jake said as he turned to me. “Are you ready, Suzanne?”
“Let’s go,” I answered.
The door to Abel’s room wasn’t locked, which kind of surprised me. He seemed the type to wear a belt and suspenders, so why would he go to sleep without securing his door? Jake reached over to flip on the light, but of course, there wasn’t any power. He shrugged as he looked at me, and then made his way over to the bed.
It had been slept in, but it was empty now.
“Where is he?” I asked. “Do you think he heard the commotion outside and came out to see what was going on?”
“If he did, we would have run into him,” Jake answered as he made his way to the closed bathroom door. “Abel, are you in there? We’re coming in.”
There was no answer, so Jake pushed the door open with his free hand.
Abel was lying there, sprawled out on the floor with a pill bottle clutched in his hand. Pills were scattered everywhere, but it appeared that he’d been too late to take any of his heart medication to do any good.
Jake knelt down and checked for a pulse for the second time in ten minutes.
“Are you getting anything?” I asked.
“No. I’m sorry. He’s dead too, Suzanne.”
“What is this place, cursed or something?” I cried out. Finding one body was bad enough.
Finding two was infinitely worse.
“It’s okay,” Jake said as he put his candle down on the vanity and put his arms around me.
“In what universe is any of this okay?” I asked him, starting to cry without even realizing that I was doing it.
“It’s not, but there’s nothing we can do about either one of them at the moment,” Jake answered calmly. “Nobody knew that Beatrice was actually going to follow through on her threat, and the fact that Abel had another heart attack was purely a coincidence.”
“You know how I feel about coincidences,” I told Jake as I pulled away.
He looked shocked by the suggestion. “Do you think there’s a chance that these aren’t what they seem to be?”
“I don’t know,” I said as I wiped the tears from my face. “There was bad blood everywhere we looked this evening, and now two people are dead. What do you think?”
“I don’t like it either,” Jake answered after giving it a few seconds’ thought. “But that doesn’t mean that coincidences can’t happen. Why would someone kill Beatrice and Abel at the same time?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it would be a mistake to just assume that these deaths are unrelated,” I told him. “What do you think?”
“I think maybe you’ve been investigating murders too long. It’s gotten into your head,” Jake answered.
“Then I’m probably just overreacting?” I asked him.
“Maybe, but it won’t hurt to assume that you’re right, and that someone’s killing guests up here and trying to make them look like something else entirely.”
Chapter 11
“I GOT THE BOSS,” HANK said as he came upstairs.
“I just can’t believe she actually did it after threatening to all for these years,” Killian said. It was clear that his niece’s death had rocked him on his heels. “Thank you for retrieving the body.”
“It was the least we could do,” Jake said. “I’m afraid we’ve got more bad news for you.”
“I can’t imagine things getting much worse than this,” our host said.
“Abel is dead, too,” Jake told him.
Killian and Hank both looked at him as though Jake had just told an extremely bad joke, but when they saw the expression on his face, it finally started to sink in.
“No. I don’t believe it. Why would Abel kill himself?” Killian asked.
“He didn’t. It looks as though he had another heart attack, but we’ll have to leave that for the coroner to decide,” Jake explained.
“I want to see the bodies,” Killian said stoically.
“Boss, there’s no reason to put yourself through that,” Hank said with obvious care for his employer.
“I disagree,” Killian answered. “Jake, I need to see them for this to be real.”
“I get that,” my husband said. “I don’t see what it could hurt.”
We went into Beatrice’s room with our candles and Killian saw the body laid out in a blanket. “Why is she covered up? Did the fall...mar her face?” he asked us chokingly.
“No, we did it out of respect for her,” I told him. “We can unwrap her if you need to see her.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s the only way it’s going to be real to me,” he replied.
I started to unwrap the part of the blanket over her face when Jake gently pushed me aside. “I’ll do it, Suzanne.”
I didn’t want to argue the point, so I stepped aside. I knew that Jake had dealt with more dead bodies in his life than I ever could, and I wasn’t all that upset about not having to touch another one. He took off the part that covered her face and then stepped aside.
Hank didn’t even look at her, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it, either.
After a few moments, Killian touched her cheek lightly and said softly, “I hope you find the peace you were looking for but never found here.”
It was touching and filled with sadness at the same time.
He took another moment staring at her, and then he turned back to us. “Now we need to go see Abel,” he said.
As Hank led the way out of the room, I watched as Jake delicately covered Beatrice’s face again. As he did so, he frowned for a moment, and I had to wonder what thought had just crossed his mind. Was he mourning the loss of the beautiful woman, or was it something else? I couldn’t very well ask him at the moment, but I’d have to do so later.
We joined the other two in Abel’s room and found them in the bathroom beside the body. “Should we move him onto the bed, too?” Hank asked as he started to grab the dead body.
“No, we need to leave him right where he is for the coroner,” Jake said.
“Do we honestly even need a coroner? It was clearly a heart attack. I guess he didn’t make it to his heart medication fast enough,” Killian said as he played his candle over the spilled meds all over the floor.
“Most likely, it was, but we still shouldn’t touch anything,” Jake told them.
“We moved Beatrice,” Hank reminded him.
> “We did, but when you went down there, we couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t still alive. Besides, if we’d left her on that outcropping, Jasper would have tried to retrieve her body himself, and then we’d have three bodies on our hands instead of two,” Jake said. “If I’d had my druthers we wouldn’t have moved her either, but circumstances didn’t give us much choice. Besides, I was afraid that ledge might give way and we’d never recover the body. This isn’t ideal, but it’s the best we can do.”
“Jake, you don’t think there’s anything suspicious about what happened tonight, do you?” Killian asked him. “I find that impossible to believe. Abel had a bad heart, and everyone knew it.”
“Coincidences happen,” Jake explained, “but it won’t hurt to follow procedure until we can get the police up here.”
“Good luck with that,” Hank said.
“Why is that?” I asked him.
“The only way anyone is getting up here is by helicopter, and if that fog stays as thick as it is right now, nobody’s coming up here for at least a few days,” he explained.
“That’s entirely unacceptable,” Killian said. “There has to be some way for us to get off this mountain.”
“I nearly fell when I climbed down to check on Beatrice,” Hank explained. “The odds of making it down the mountain with at least one of us dying is pretty high, and none of us may make it. The best thing, really the only thing, we can do right now is sit tight and wait for someone to come get us.”
“I don’t like it, but I know you’re right,” Killian said. He then turned to Jake. “In the meantime, what do we do?”
“I already closed Beatrice’s door. We should leave this room and lock them both behind us.”
“If you think it’s necessary,” Killian said. “Do it, Hank.”
As we started to leave, Killian looked toward his dead business partner and said something so low I couldn’t hear him.
“What was that?” I asked him.
“I didn’t realize that I’d said it out loud. I just told him goodbye,” Killian explained. “We were partners for a great many years. It was a complicated relationship, especially after he sold out his share to me, but he was still my friend.”
“I’m sorry for both of your losses,” I told him as we all walked out of the room together.
We stepped out into the hallway and the handyman took out his master keys and locked both doors. “Now what?” Killian asked us.
“We need to wake up Vera,” I said. “She needs to know about Abel.” I thought about how he’d threatened her earlier and realized that she might even be a little relieved by the man’s death. It sounded cold and cruel, but he had threatened her, and if Jake and I hadn’t come along when we did, who knows what might have happened?
I knocked on the door to her room, and to my surprise, she opened it immediately. She hadn’t even had to unlock it. “What is all of the commotion about it? I’m sorry the young woman killed herself, but there’s nothing anything any of us can do about it until the police arrive. I assume you’ve already called them?” she asked when she saw that Killian was with us. “By the way, I resent you taking the telephone to bed with you. I demand that you let me make a call right now.”
“You can try, but the phone line and the road down the mountain are both gone,” Killian told her.
She clearly didn’t believe him. “Stop trying to put me off with your lies, Killian. You know that’s not true.”
Hank shook his head as he said, “You’re welcome to go look yourself, but I wouldn’t do it if I were you. There’s a landslide where our access road used to be, and if you’re not careful, you’ll go down the mountain with what’s left of it.”
That seemed to convince her. “I can’t believe this. What does Abel think about the situation?”
Nobody said anything right away, so I spoke up. “I’m afraid Abel’s dead, too,” I told her.
“That’s ridiculous. Abel would never kill himself. He valued his worth too much to ever do that, and everyone knows it.”
“It appears that his heart gave out,” Killian said.
Vera didn’t look happy, but she didn’t seem to be particularly upset by the news, either. “Well, we all knew that it was just a matter of time. I suppose the news of Beatrice’s suicide was more than he could take.”
“That’s the thing, though,” I said. “As far as we know, he didn’t even know it had happened.”
“So his heart just gave out like that out of the blue?” Vera asked. “I suppose it makes sense. He has been under a great deal of strain lately,” she added as she glanced at Killian. “Who knew it would be more than he could take, though.”
Killian didn’t rise to the bait, which I thought was the perfect answer to her jibe. “Should we all go downstairs and sit by the fire?” I asked.
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all night,” Hank said. “I can add a few more logs to it, since I doubt anyone’s getting much more sleep tonight.”
“That’s what we’ll all do, then,” Killian said.
Vera balked at the suggestion, though. “I quit taking orders from you a long time ago, Killian. I’m going be in my room until the police make it up here. I don’t trust any of you.”
“Suit yourself,” Killian said, turning his back on her. “Suzanne, why don’t we whip some food up? I could use a bite to eat since we’re up anyway.”
“How can you eat after what’s happened?” Vera asked him with an accusing tone in her voice.
“Starving myself isn’t going to do either of them any good,” he answered, “but if you want to fast for the next three days until we get help up here, be my guest.”
As we walked down the stairs, I noticed that Vera ducked into her room long enough to grab a robe, and then she joined us. I was dreading telling Jasper about another death when we got to the fireplace, but that clearly wasn’t going to be an issue, at least not right away.
He was nowhere to be seen.
Had we just lost another member of this cursed weekend in the mountains?
Chapter 12
“WHERE’S JASPER?” I cried out as everyone stared at me. “We left him right here.”
“He was still sitting there when we came upstairs,” Hank said, clearly looking confused about the situation.
“I tried to talk to him on our way up to you,” Killian added, “but I could swear he was catatonic. Where could he be?”
I had a suspicion that I hoped wasn’t true. “Could he have tried to get off the mountain despite what you told him about the road?” I asked Hank.
“If he did, then he’s a bigger fool than I gave him credit for,” Hank said as he raced out front with the rest of us close on his heels.
“His car’s gone,” Killian said as he peered out into the gloom. The light from our candles had a weird effect in the foggy night, making things look almost surreal.
“We have to find him,” Jake said.
“Good luck with that,” Hank said as he pointed in the direction of the road. “If he tried to drive down that landslide, they’ll be digging his body out in the morning.” He glanced Killian, who was looking at him oddly, and quickly added, “No offense intended, Boss.”
“We need to go see,” Jake interjected. “We have to at least be sure.”
Vera shivered in the mist. “I’m not going out there in that mess. I’ll be by the fire, where any sensible person would be on a night like tonight, if you need me.”
“Fine. We’ll see you later,” I said as I started out into the parking lot.
“You don’t have to come with us, Suzanne,” Killian said.
“I know I don’t have to. I need to.”
He shrugged. “Then let’s get going.”
Hank led the way, Killian was beside him, and Jake and I took up the rear. It was tough seeing through the fog at times, and at others, it seemed as though it had parted just for our passing. The next moment though, it would be back in full force, and I wondered what chance Jasp
er would have driving in those conditions.
We found the car.
But it was empty.
Had Jasper gone as far as he could behind the wheel and then taken off on foot the rest of the way?
Or was he somewhere else on the mountain, lost in the fog and in danger of plunging off the side of the cliff with every step he took?
Chapter 13
“JASPER! JASPER!” I called out.
“What are you doing, Suzanne?” Killian asked me.
“If he’s lost somewhere, he may be able to follow my voice,” I explained before calling out to him again.
“I don’t blame you for trying, but the odds are one in a thousand he’s still alive,” Hank told me. “I’m sorry, but I think you’re wasting your breath.”
“Maybe so,” I said, and then I called out again, “Jasper!”
Jake joined in, and Killian did, too. Hank shrugged and started calling out for the man himself. I thought I heard something, but with everyone yelling it was hard to tell. “Everyone shut up for a second!” I ordered.
They all did as I’d ordered, and then, in the eerie silence of the night, I heard a voice call out. “I’m down here.”
The good news was that Jasper was still alive.
The bad news was that he was pretty far below us, down the mountainside and deep into the belly of the mist.
“Jasper, keep talking so we can find you,” Hank said, getting into the spirit of the thing. “We’re coming to get you.”
“You didn’t tell me how bad the road really was,” Jasper accused Hank. “I nearly died.”
“I told everybody that the road was gone!” Hank said, clearly exasperated about being blamed for Jasper’s current predicament. “I did everything but take your car keys from you and throw them over the side of the cliff!”
Killian put a hand on Hank’s arm. “Don’t take it personally. It’s just the way Jasper is. Nobody blames you for this.”
“I don’t see how they could,” Hank said, clearly bewildered by his boss even saying something like that. “I didn’t put that road in without a culvert, and I sure didn’t make it rain hard enough to wash the side of the mountain away.”
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