by Amy Vansant
“No big deal?”
“I didn’t want her to worry. But I took too long or—” Mina stopped to catch her breath. With every word of her story it felt as though her chest grew tighter. “I ran back upstairs but by the time I got there he was dead.” A racking sob rose in her throat. “I should have stayed with him. Maybe he would have lived if I’d stayed with him and done something.”
Lyndsey groaned. “I should have called nine-one-one instead of freaking out and hiding when I heard you coming. You did everything you could. It was all a mistake. A terrible accident.”
Mina took a deep breath. Time to man up.
“I’ll help you.”
“Thank you!” Lyndsey sounded as if she might cry. “Thank you. Please, come soon. They have me in Sheriff Carter’s little jail here in town right now, but if we don’t get this cleared up they’ll take me to real prison. They have my mother, too.”
Mina frowned. She’d just as soon let that trash stay in prison. “Why is your mother in jail?” Again.
“They think she was in on the dog-napping. I’m afraid it’s going to trigger some kind of prison PSTD for her.”
Mina sighed. She’d have to help Lyndsey. If that meant helping her mother too, so be it. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. And I’ll tell them the dogs were my idea. That will clear the puppy charges and then we’ll come clean about him falling.”
I’ll maybe say I moved a little faster than I did, though.
“Thank you.” She could hear the relief in Lyndsey’s voice as she hung up. Mina gripped the phone, battling back another wave of fear.
They’ll think I had something to do with Kimber’s death. Did I? Did I drag my feet on purpose?
Mina called the family’s lawyer and told him to bail Lyndsey out of jail. She was finishing that phone call when she heard the crunching of gravel and looked down the driveway to see a sheriff’s cruiser rolling towards the house.
No. Not yet.
She hadn’t had time to get her thoughts straight.
She wanted to run but knew it would be a bad idea. Not that it mattered. It felt as if her feet had taken root. She couldn’t move.
Sheriff Carter parked his car and got out to saunter towards her as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“How are you doing this morning, Mina?”
“I’m fine.” She had to push the words past her lips.
“Sheriff Carter. We met yesterday.”
She nodded.
“Lyndsey call you this morning?”
She nodded again.
“She told us you had a lot to share with us.”
Feeling faint, Mina took a step back and sat in the porch chair. The officer climbed the steps and turned another chair towards her to sit down.
Mina found it hard to look into his eyes. “I have a lot to do. I need to plan the funeral—”
“I know this is a busy and terrible time for you, but I’m going to have to ask you some questions.”
She nodded.
Carter pulled a small notepad from his breast pocket and opened it to a clean sheet before slipping the pencil out from the coiled binding. “Tell me what happened the night you found Mr. Miller dead.”
He wasn’t dead.
That was the part she couldn’t say. How was she not going to say it?
“I heard something upstairs.”
“What? Screaming? Was Mr. Miller calling for you?”
“No…I don’t know. Something didn’t feel right.”
“Okay. Then what?”
“I ran up the stairs and saw Kimber on the ground. He was, I mean he seemed…”
“Dead.”
“Yes. Dead. Then I heard a commotion in the whelping room next door. The puppies were yapping.”
“Is that unusual for puppies?”
Mina paused. “No. I guess not, but they don’t usually all go off all at once like that. I opened the door and Lyndsey was in there. Hiding.”
“Was that unusual?”
“Of course. Why would she—” Mina realized she was looking at the sheriff as if he was a little simple and wiped her expression clean. “Yes. It was especially strange because she isn’t allowed on that floor.”
Why did I tell him that?
Mina knew why. She wanted the sheriff to force Lyndsey into telling them what Kimber wanted from her. He’d have to ask why she was up there. Mina wanted to know for her own selfish reasons.
What’s wrong with me?
“What do you mean she’s not allowed?”
“She’s not allowed upstairs. It’s a house rule. She’s never been upstairs before, as far as I know.”
“Why is that?”
Mina shrugged. “Kimber liked to keep his life separate from the girls’. He didn’t like them in his stuff and the easiest solution was to split the house into his space and their space.”
Carter looked up and away, telegraphing his disapproval. “Okaay...” He seemed to chew on the information for a moment before continuing. “Did you ask her what she was doing up there?”
Mina’s brain spun. Tell the truth. Say what she said the first time.
“Yes. She said she’d gone up to see the puppies.”
“So then you told her about Mr. Miller’s death?”
“Yes. I mean, I did, but she already knew.”
“Right. Because you said she was hiding in the puppy room. Not that she was in there playing with the puppies.”
Mina nodded. He’d already caught a fact she hadn’t considered evident from her story. She made a mental note to try very hard not to lie. The sheriff would know. “Right.”
“So how did she know Mr. Miller was dead?”
“I’m not sure. I think she heard him fall and maybe saw him?”
“And that’s when she hid?”
“I guess.” Mina shook her head. “I’m not sure about all the details and the order of things. It all happened so fast.”
“I understand. Take your time. So you both knew Mr. Miller was dead. That’s when she took the puppies and left?”
Mina took a deep breath. “I told her to.”
“You told her to take the puppies or you told her to leave?”
“Both.”
“Why?”
“Because it was an accident. She was worried she’d get in trouble. She thought her DNA was all over the puppies and everyone would know she’d been upstairs when she shouldn’t have been. She looked so scared.”
“So you told her to take the puppies and run.”
Mina nodded.
“You wanted to make it look like a robbery.”
“No!” Mina jumped in her chair. “No. I wasn’t thinking that at all. It wasn’t until you all showed up and Gemma mentioned the puppies…I didn’t think anyone would notice they were gone. No one but the family knew about the litter. Thanks to Gemma, you all assumed a robber had killed him for the puppies.”
“Why didn’t you tell us Lyndsey took the puppies then?”
Mina dropped her head against her hands and rubbed her temples. “I don’t know. I realized how stupid—” She looked at Sheriff Carter. “You have to know none of this was on purpose.”
He nodded, but didn’t look particularly convinced. “So Lyndsey left with the puppies. What did you do next?”
“I went back out into the hall and saw Kimber on the ground—”
“Dead.”
“Alive.”
Carter’s attention snapped up from his notepad. “Alive?”
She nodded. “I was relieved, of course. He was alive and groaning a little but he wasn’t getting up. I ran downstairs to get my phone to call nine-one-one.”
“Did you tell Lyndsey?”
Mina shook her head. “She was gone.”
“Right. So you got your phone...”
“Yes.”
“And you called for help.”
“Yes, well, I talked to the twins a moment.”
Mina sucked in a breath. Why did I mention that? T
hat is exactly what I didn’t want to say!
“About what? You told the twins what happened?”
“Not exactly. I didn’t want to upset them. I told them he’d fallen but that he’d be okay.”
“Why did you say that?”
“I don’t know. It seems less scary than telling them I’d thought he was dead. And at that point I did think he would be okay.”
“His head wasn’t bleeding?”
“I didn’t think so at first but...” She felt a sob rising again and took a moment to quell it. “I thought he’d be okay.”
“What did the girls say?”
“Gemma didn’t say anything. She just wandered off to do her own thing. Payne kept asking questions. She’s like that, always has to be in the middle of everything. But she finally stopped and I ran back upstairs to make the call so she wouldn’t hear me tell the dispatcher the details.”
“And catch you lying about how serious it was.”
“I guess.”
“But when I got upstairs...” Mina faded off, realizing this was the part of the story she didn’t want to remember.
“He was dead?”
She nodded.
“Was there more blood then than you remembered?”
She looked at him. How did he know that?
“Yes.”
“Had he been moved?”
“Moved? He’d moved a little. Yes.”
“Why do you say he moved?”
“How else could he have moved? I told you he was alive when I left him. Groaning…”
“Was there anyone else in the house?”
“Just me and the girls.”
“Anyone working on the grounds?”
“Maybe. Yes. There’s always someone here. The stable boy, the gardeners…”
Carter stood and slipped his pad back into his pocket. He put his hands on his hips and stared down at her.
“Thing is, Mina, Mr. Miller didn’t just fall.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“The coroner says there are two distinct patterns of injuries. One, a single blow, more consistent with the story you and Lyndsey told me about a fall. But the others...” Carter turned his palms to the sky.
“Others?”
“It looks like someone finished him off with something round and hard.”
Mina gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Carter stared at her with his steely blue-eyed gaze until a new thought emerged screaming into her already spinning head like a freight train.
“Wait. Are you saying Lyndsey did that to him?”
“You said yourself he was still alive when you saw him. Not too much blood.”
“Right. And Lyndsey had already left.”
“Yes, you both agree on that.”
“So you’re saying the second injuries came later?”
Carter nodded. “Whether they came later or you just missed them the first time, they didn’t come from a fall.”
“But there was no one there except—” Mina gasped. “You think I killed him?”
“Didn’t you say you were the only person left in the house at that point except for the girls?”
Mina pounded her fist into the center of her chest. “The girls wouldn’t do something like that!”
Carter stared until Mina realized she’d just fought to narrow down the suspect list to one.
Her.
Panic twisted like a tempest in her heart. “And neither would I! It’s impossible!”
“Why is it impossible?”
“Because”—Mina stood, her whole body shaking—“I’m his sister.”
Carter scowled. “You’re his sister and you’re his maid?”
Mina swallowed, finding it hard to keep her voice from screeching. “When my husband died years ago, Kimber took me in.”
“And turned you into his maid?”
“I had to make money somehow, and I was someone he could trust. It worked for both of us.”
Carter nodded slowly, as if deep in thought, before cocking one eyebrow. “So if you’re his sister. Doesn’t that mean you’re in his will?”
A swirl of black filled Mina’s eyes and she felt her knees buckle before everything went dark.
Chapter Seventeen
Carter heard chatter behind him and turned to see the twins walking toward the riding ring.
“Girls, could you come here a minute?”
Payne and Gemma stopped and stared at him.
“Why?” asked Payne.
“Because I need to talk to you.”
Behind him he heard Mina moan. She’d fainted but he’d caught her and placed her back in her chair. She’d awoken almost immediately, and he’d stepped inside to find her a glass of water. While she sipped, he’d debated whether to take her back to the station for questioning in his car, or call an ambulance. He was sure she didn’t need one, but it felt prudent to make sure she didn’t file some kind of lawsuit against him in the future.
When he spotted the twins, he’d put his debate on the backburner.
He beckoned and the girls walked to him amid a torrent of eye rolling.
“What?” asked Payne. Gemma tilted to the side to peek around him at Mina.
“Is she okay?”
He nodded. “She’s fine. Let me ask you. The night your uncle died, do you remember seeing Mina come downstairs to find her phone?”
Both girls nodded.
“Do you remember what she said?”
“She said she needed her phone and that Uncle Kimber had fallen,” said Gemma.
“And that was it?”
“Yes.”
Payne glared at her sister. “No, it wasn’t.”
Carter scowled. “Which is it?”
Payne continued to glare at Gemma. “You left. I talked to Mina longer.”
Gemma shrugged. “Then I don’t know anything about that part.”
“What did you talk about?” asked Carter.
“She asked if I’d seen Lyndsey.”
“Had you?”
“No. I asked what was wrong with Uncle Kimber. Like, how he was hurt.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she thought he’d hit his head.”
“Where were you during all of this?” asked Carter, turning his attention to Gemma.
“I went back to my room.”
“You didn’t go upstairs to see what happened while the others were talking?”
“No. We’re not allowed upstairs.”
Carter turned and looked at the house. “Is there any way upstairs other than the main staircase?”
Gemma crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”
“Well, there is,” said Payne, again, seemingly disappointed in her sister.
Gemma’s cheeks colored. “Oh, right. The maid stairs.”
Carter glanced at Mina. “What are the maid stairs?”
Mina lifted her face from where she had it buried in her hands. “What?”
“The maid stairs. Where are they?”
“There’s a door in the hall behind the kitchen across from Gemma’s room.”
“What are they for?”
“They used to be for getting the hired help to the second floor without them traipsing up the grand stairs, but we haven’t used them in years. I don’t even fit in there.”
“We used to play on them all the time. It was like a secret passage,” said Payne, her eyes lighting at the memory.
Gemma nodded. “That was when we were little. I forgot about those.”
Carter motioned to them. “All of you come with me. Take me to the stairs.”
Payne led the way, with Gemma and Mina trailing. She led Carter through the kitchen and around the corner into the hall, where she opened a door on the left. Inside rose a narrow set of stairs. The door at the top was closed, making it too dark to see to the end. Carter pulled a small flashlight from his belt and shone it to the top. Something low and squat sat at the top of the uppermost stair.
�
��What’s that?” he asked, shining his light on it.
Mina leaned in to see. “I don’t know.”
Carter looked at the girls. They shrugged.
Carter sighed and eyed the steps. “People in the old days must have hired tiny maids,” he muttered, before mounting the stairs as best he could. He turned his feet sideways to fit on the steps and crabbed to the top.
With his light he studied the object at the top of the stairs. It looked like a rabbit. He knocked on it with his knuckle to find it was made of iron. A dark, thick substance covered the hind-end of the statue.
“Can one of you throw me up a kitchen towel or something?”
Carter waited and a moment later Payne tossed him up a kitchen towel. He used it to turn the knob at the top of the stairs and open the door. Peering through, he found himself looking at the hallway outside Miller’s bedroom. He shut the door again and used the towel to pick up the rabbit and bring it back down. It was heavier than he’d imagined.
Downstairs in the hall near the back door, it was easier to tell the rabbit was made of iron. He took a better look at the rust-colored stain on the cottontail end. A few hairs trapped in the substance caught his attention.
Mina gasped. “That’s Kimber’s doorstop.”
“It may be what killed him,” said Carter, setting it on the kitchen counter. He pulled the radio from his shoulder and called for another car.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to need to bring you all in.”
“What?” screeched Payne. “I have things to do.”
Mina’s eyes widened and she glared at Gemma. “You disappeared.”
“What?”
“Where did you go when I came down to find the phone?”
“I told you, I went back to my room.”
“The room right across from this door?”
Gemma’s eyes flashed with what looked like fear and anger. “You’re crazy. You’re the one who was with him. Don’t blame this on me.”
“I was talking to Mina the whole time so I didn’t do it,” said Payne, whose initial annoyance had shifted to haughtiness as she watched the suspicion shift to her sister.
If a glare could kill, Gemma struck her sister dead. “Thanks for the backup.”
Payne shrugged. “It is what it is.”