by Tess Rothery
A gust of wind sent shivers up and down her arms—her summer jammies of little shorts and a cami suddenly felt too exposed.
“Get away from me!” Pyper’s scream cut through her embarrassment, and she lunged forward again.
Belle pushed past Taylor and sidestepped a pile of books that had been dropped on the staircase—surely the source of the crash.
“Pyppa, are you okay?” Belle reverted to the young woman’s long abandoned nickname.
Pyper stood in the middle of the staircase clutching the curved wooden stair rail in a white knuckled grip.
Jeanne had the collar of Pyper’s pajama shirt in her fist.
“Get this woman off me!”
“I was headed back to my room from the library and saw her sneaking into Maddie’s bedroom. She ran, so I chased her down here.” Jeanne’s voice was firm and in control, probably channeling the voice she used with recalcitrant patients.
“I wasn’t sneaking anywhere.”
Deputy Maria stood at the foot of the stairs. “Maddie’s room is sealed as much for your protection as anything else. This house, at least that room, is still a crime scene.” She pointed a finger in Jeanne’s face. “But you need to let her go. That’s assault, and if she wants to press charges, she can.”
Jeanne dropped the shirt collar and stepped back with her hands up. “It’s not worth my medical license. But what did she need from the crime scene?”
Pyper worked her jaw back and forth.
“Better tell us now, while it’s still the truth.” Maria glanced at her watch. “People have a way of twisting things to make them sound better when given enough time. I don’t mean you’d lie, but it’s natural to spin. Just say it exactly as it was, and you won’t regret it.”
“I wrote Maddie a letter, and I wanted it back.” The words came out through a tight jaw.
“Was it a threatening letter?” Maria asked, not at all shocked by Pyper’s answer.
“I didn’t threaten her, but I did tell her she was being rude to me. She was so condescending. I know that I’m kind of going through college slowly. I just started my degree over with a new major. But that doesn’t make me dumb.”
Taylor looked around for Sissy. She couldn’t imagine the woman hadn’t heard the kerfuffle, and there was no way she’d be silent right now.
But Sissy was nowhere to be seen.
“We’ve already found the letter, don’t worry,” Maria said.
Pyper’s shoulders dropped. “Why didn’t you say something? I’ve been so scared.”
“Go back to bed, everyone.” Maria ignored Pyper’s question. “We’ll have another long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Jeanne descended the stairs and gathered the books that had tumbled from her arms. “Sorry, I needed something to set my computer on so I could watch it easier.”
Belle lifted an eyebrow but nodded. It was just a stack of not-at-all valuable encyclopedias, after all.
While Taylor wondered about the actual contents of Pyper’s letter, she was more curious about Sissy, so when she slipped back to the family rooms, she knocked on Sissy’s door.
There was no answer, so she tried the knob, but it was locked.
She knocked again. “Sissy? Aviva?”
“Who is it?” Aviva’s loud whisper carried through the solid wood door.
“Just Taylor. Everything’s okay. There was a misunderstanding upstairs.”
“Taylor…where’s Sissy?”
Taylor swallowed. “She’s not just in the bathroom?”
“No.”
“Is the window open?” The thought of Sissy sneaking out a window was almost funny enough to wash Taylor’s dread away, but not quite.
“It’s locked. I woke up and she was gone so I checked. The window was locked but the door wasn’t. I locked it up.”
“I’m sure she’s just wandering. Restless maybe. Go back to sleep. Sissy can take care of herself.”
“Okay.” Aviva drew the word out. She did not sound like she believed it.
Belle wrapped her thin hands around Taylor’s upper arm and gave it a little tug. “We should look for her just in case.”
“Maybe she went downstairs for a snack.” Taylor led them back to the dining room where they could slip downstairs to the kitchen. “But I wonder…. Can we trust Jeanne? Do you think she just happened to be passing Maddie’s room?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
Sissy was not downstairs in the kitchen. Belle and Taylor climbed the stairs back to the dining room in silence. They meandered through the house, their footsteps echoing in the empty dining room, the empty parlor, and the empty foyer with the grand piano.
"Maybe she's in the library." Taylor glanced in the direction of the beautiful tower room.
"Have people been going in there? It seems like they shouldn't." Belle looked at her fingers nervously.
"So far, I’ve been the only one, I guess, and Jeanne who claims she wanted those encyclopedias. But it's quiet and peaceful." Taylor tried to comfort her sister.
"But fingerprints. Clues. The weapon came from there, so it seems like it should be locked up.”
"I guess I could ask the sheriff. But it seems like it's been fine." Taylor knew how to be careful in a crime scene. She hadn’t gone anywhere near the curiosity cabinet since discovering Maddie’s body. "Sissy might be in there. The Wi-Fi is strong. We should check at least."
"The Wi-Fi is good everywhere." Belle looked up and smiled. "I miss Jonah. I know you think we’re crazy for being married. Maybe we are. But I love him so much.”
"It's got to be hard for you right now." This was a good opportunity to bring up the troubles with Jonah online, if she could figure out how to do it right. They were alone, they were already worried about something else anyway. "I heard that maybe he's…um…" She looked at her pretty little sister whose big blue eyes were downcast with worry. "I hear he's been in love with you since he was ten or eleven."
"That's what everyone claims." They paused outside the door to the library. "But if he loved me, why did he date everyone that had a pulse?"
"Because you didn't love him yet?" Taylor offered. It was funny how childish the conversation felt because they were talking about the actions of high schoolers. And yet it wasn't much different than the conversations everyone wanted to have about her and Graham or her and Hudson.
"But I love him now, so everything should be okay, right?" Belle’s smile seemed to come from sadness.
So, his behavior with the girls in the content house had caught Belle’s notice.
"If anyone knows what's in his heart, it's you. Whatever he's doing to get clicks or sponsors or however they pay this kid, he's only doing it so he can take care of you."
Belle pushed the door open and wandered towards her Cabinet of Curiosity. The glass front was unlatched, and the good bones, the best bones, lay shattered to pieces on the floor. Belle jerked forward with her hand stretched out but stopped herself. “Go get the sheriff," she ordered her sister.
Deputy Maria had been the one on early duty for the night shift, so Taylor texted her first.
She joined them seconds later.
"I wonder if someone threw it or smashed it with something.” Deputy Maria crouched to observe the rooster bones but did not touch them.
Belle joined her. "The bones were pretty brittle, and the bronze effect was just spray paint, so it wouldn’t have taken much work to smash them. But I don't see anything they could have hit it with. Can you tell by the way the pieces have spread if it was smashed or dropped?"
“Jeanne must have just been in here. She had that armload of books.” Taylor turned, slowly checking the walls around her for a suspiciously empty shelf. Right next to the vast double doors a stretch of shelving at eye level was empty of about five titles. Had she just popped in, grabbed what she needed, and left without seeing this? Or had she done this herself and grabbed the books as a cover?
“Jeanne volunteered that she’d been in the libr
ary. I doubt she’d have mentioned it if she’d done this, or even seen this.” Belle went to nudge the bones with her toe, but stopped, foot midair. She took a step backwards instead.
Maria stood and also stepped away from the smashed artwork. “I’ll talk to Jeanne, don’t worry.” She looked up at the gallery that was about a story and half above them. "It's been a long time since we covered this kind of thing. And that was more blood splatters than decorative skeleton smashing. But it does look like the pieces were flung away from it. If you throw something and it breaks, the pieces sort of bounce up and land farther away. That’s what I’m seeing.”
“It looks like the base broke off when it was smashed. That seems to support the idea of dropping it.” Belle agreed.
"It comes back to the chicken bones again,” Taylor said, “but while I think we know who was responsible for the bones, I don’t see any reason they would've done this.”
Deputy Maria turned slowly and faced Taylor. "What is it you think you know about the bones?"
"I had hoped someone would've told you already," Taylor murmured.
"Pretend they already did. Talk about it like I should already know." Maria smiled and it looked natural. Almost like she trusted Taylor's opinion.
Taylor explained Pyper’s worry and Aviva’s possible connection to the writer of the bad review.
"Thanks.” Maria took a long turn around the library. “What brought you two here at this hour?”
Belle explained they were looking for Sissy and why.
"Should we go get the sheriff?" Belle stood and walked towards the door of the library.
"Let him sleep. You have a key to lock the doors, right?"
Taylor didn't like the idea of being locked out before she had a chance to look for more clues. She quickly climbed the spiral staircase that led to the gallery. She didn't have gloves on, so she suppressed her desire to hold the rails. Heights with thin railings had a funny way of making her feel like she’d just topple right off, but she held her breath and hoped.
She walked as quietly as she could around the edge of the gallery, looking for the spot one could have thrown the rooster from. The shelves behind her were mostly bare, though Belle had arranged ceramic bust reproductions on the middle shelves that could be seen from the ground floor. She had also accumulated dozens of collections of cheap encyclopedias. Some complete, some not. They looked academic without being rare or expensive and gave one the sense of what the library might become someday.
Taylor stopped when she felt like she was looking directly down at the destroyed bones. It had taken her three quarters of the gallery to reach this point. Had someone been pacing in agitation, holding the rooster as a sort of worry stone?
Had they been drawn to the curiosity cabinet because that's where the murder weapon had come from and just taken the shiniest object?
And what about this spot had made them give in to their anger? Taylor turned to look at the shelves behind her. An encyclopedia set in dark red bindings stood behind her. It was incomplete, beginning with A and ending with Q.
The row of books was held in place by a thin metal library bookend, but a bright white bust sat next to them. Taylor didn't recognize the naked-chested man with the well-muscled shoulders and curls of hair swept dramatically from his upturned face.
He was beuatiful and decidedly unliterary.
Whoever had made this must have been in love.
She peered more closely at it and noticed it had a name engraved in the white base. Nathaniel Hawthorne by Louisa Lander.
The connection between that author and incomplete encyclopedia set covered in red leather that began with the letter A made sense to Taylor.
The Scarlet Letter.
Belle was clever enough to have done that on purpose.
Had someone been up here worrying about their marriage? Maybe even Jeanne?
Had the bare shoulders of the handsome young man caught her eye and the rest just fell into place?
Maybe.
The bust was made to stand out.
To be noticed.
To tell everyone that Nathaniel Hawthorne was an absolute snack.
If one of the guests had been worrying those bones, thinking of a failing marriage, and been stopped by that image and that connection, it might have been enough to make them throw the bones in a fit of anger.
Maybe even the guest who had been crying.
If Taylor had known Maddie was going to die, she would have been nosier. She would have burst into the room to see what was wrong.
She hadn’t checked up on whose room it was. But perhaps it had been Pyper’s room, and the girl had been offering comfort. It could have been her chance to practice what she was learning in her psychology classes. But now the unidentified crying woman stood as a gap in the data.
For all she knew it had been Jeanne. Taylor didn't know anything about the status of Jeanne's personal relationships. She had been awake late this evening. Had she been worried about what her partner was up to while she was away for the weekend? And in that worry…Taylor grimaced in annoyance.
Why the rooster?
What had made the woman pick that rooster out of the case?
She took a picture of the shelves behind her and the floor below her and then sent them as text messages to Deputy Maria.
"Thanks!" Maria looked up.
Taylor waved down. "Seemed like something worth noting.”
"Makes sense. Let's get out of here and lock up behind us. Rousseau will get up in another couple hours to spell me. I'll let him know what's happened."
"Should we keep looking for Sissy?" Belle asked.
Deputy Maria strode into the foyer looking like she was already on the hunt.
Taylor headed the opposite direction in search of Sissy. “She’s probably just restless, but I’d like to know what she’s seen or heard since she got up.”
Taylor and Belle ran up the stairs, their footsteps echoing on their way to the ballroom.
Belle smashed the retrofitted light switch button and the room flooded with the glow of halogen bulbs.
Sissy sat cross-legged in the farthest corner of the room, engrossed in something on her laptop. A mess of papers were spread on the floor around her, an elegant vintage brass floor lamp spread a warm golden glow on the oak ballroom floor.
“Thank God,” Belle murmured.
Sissy looked up slowly. “What do you need?”
“Aviva got scared. She didn’t know where you were.” Taylor joined Sissy on the floor.
“Couldn’t sleep. Do you two realize, I mean truly realize, what has happened here?”
Taylor did, but didn’t know what she could say that would prove that to Sissy.
“Who do you think did it?” Belle stood at the wall of windows, peering through a gap in the heavy velvet curtains that covered them.
“I don’t want it to be one of us.” Sissy sat up and stretched her arms overhead. “I’ve been asking around and no one has seen any strangers in town.”
Again, it was clear that “one of us” to Sissy was anyone in Comfort, not just the staff and guests at the Boone-Love House.
“Did Pyper talk to you about Aviva?” Taylor asked.
Sissy narrowed her eyes. “No.”
“Just as well. I had to tell Maria about it tonight. I think Aviva might have some kind of relationship with the boy who wrote that nasty review to Maddie. Maybe her boyfriend. When you left was Aviva still in the room?”
“Yeah. She snores. A little whiffling noise. She tossed and turned quite a bit, but once she fell asleep I could hear it.”
“Sorry. You deserve your own room.”
“It’s nothing. You should hear my husband.”
Belle laughed softly. “I’ve spent the night at your house before. Anyone who sleeps there has heard Phil.”
“Poor Phil.” Sissy pressed the ball of her hand to her eye. “He must be sick with worry. As much as Breadyn is our baby, Tansy is his special girl. Lorraine has al
ways been so unstable.”
“You don’t sound like you mind.” Taylor pulled one of the notebooks her way. It appeared to be choreography notes for a workout.
“It comes and goes, but Tansy is a good girl, and was basically motherless when Phil and I got married.”
“What about Aviva? Does she have it in her to hurt someone?” Taylor didn’t dare suggest murder. Though Maddie had been stabbed, there was always a chance it had been self-defense. Or maybe some kind of tussle. Manslaughter perhaps.
“She was never one of Cooper’s closest friends. What do you think, Belle?”
“She’s different. Always has been. Kind of insecure but self-centered at the same time. But I don’t think she would hurt anyone. She wants to be loved too badly.”
It was a painful description, but as Taylor scrolled through her memories, it seemed true. Aviva’s almost desperate desire to be involved with a previous murder investigation fit the picture Belle had drawn. “But would that insecurity lead her to hurt someone for the sake of someone else’s love?” Taylor had known girls to do all sorts of things for the attention of men.
Belle was silent.
“We should ask her these questions.” Sissy gathered her notes up. “My mind has been racing all evening. Thought making some plans would help.”
“There was an accident downstairs.” Belle looked at Sissy’s hands as she spoke. “Did you hear anything?”
Sissy didn’t miss Belle’s gaze and looked at her own unblemished hands. “The house is far too well built for that. It’s completely silent up here. And the only thing I heard in my room was Aviva’s breathing. What happened? Did someone get hurt?”
“We don’t know exactly.” Belle explained the damage to the rooster bones.
“Someone isn’t well, but Aviva was with me till I left.”
“Have either of you gotten to know Jeanne since we’ve been here?” Taylor stood and began to pace the room.
“She seems normal,” Belle said.
“Is she married? What is her home life like? She claims she wanted to have some time to talk to Maddie about professional concerns, but what if there was something else going on?”