A small crowd had gathered in the outer office. Fenella Leeds, two orderlies, and two men in dove gray hovered uncertainly. They watched Ethan and Zoe emerge from Harper’s lair.
“False alarm, people,” Ethan said cheerfully. “Dr. Harper got a little confused. Probably missed his morning meds. But we straightened things out. You can all go back to work.”
He kept one hand wrapped around Zoe’s arm, moving steadily and swiftly toward the other door. They went past the little gathering. No one made any attempt to stop them.
And then they were out in the hall, heading toward the lobby. Not much farther now, Zoe thought. In another few minutes they would be driving away from Xanadu.
They turned the corner and nearly collided with Venetia McAlistair.
“Sara.” Venetia halted, staring in astonishment. “You’ve come back.”
“In your dreams,” Zoe retorted. “And the name is Zoe now. Zoe Truax. Ethan, meet Dr. Venetia McAlistair, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of Candle Lake Manor.”
“I don’t understand.” Venetia looked at Ethan. “Who are you?”
“Ethan Truax.” Ethan gave it a beat. “Zoe’s husband.”
Venetia shook her head. “What is this all about, Sara? If you haven’t come back to Candle Lake for more treatment, what are you doing here?”
“Investigating the murder of Leon Grady,” Zoe told her. “Know anything about it?”
“Of course not. Why are you concerned with Grady’s death? Dr. Harper said that he was killed by some petty drug dealer in Arizona. I can’t say I’m stunned with surprise. I always suspected that he supplemented his income by stealing some of the patients’ medications and selling them on the street. I told Harper of my suspicions several months ago, but he refused to take action.”
“Yeah, well somebody took some serious action against Grady.” Ethan studied Venetia with veiled curiosity. “If you’ve got any ideas on the subject, we’d be happy to listen to them.”
“I just told you that I know nothing about the circumstances of Grady’s death.” Venetia turned away from him, not bothering to conceal her lack of interest in the subject of Leon Grady. She focused earnestly on Zoe. “I’ve been extremely worried about you, Sara.”
“Zoe.”
“Zoe,” Venetia repeated patiently. “After all the stress you’ve been through lately, it’s safe to say that you are in an extremely fragile state at the moment.”
“Good news, I’m getting tougher by the day,” Zoe assured her. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re on our way—” She stopped abruptly, aware that Ethan was gently squeezing her arm. She recognized the signal. He did not want her to blow off Venetia McAlistair. “We’re on our way back to the Candle Lake Inn. As Ethan said, if you think of anything that might be useful, you can contact us there.”
“I just told you that I can’t help you with the Grady business.” Venetia glanced at the hallway behind Zoe and lowered her voice. “But it is extremely important that we talk.”
The last thing she wanted to do was find herself alone in a room with Venetia McAlistair again, Zoe thought. But Ethan was still squeezing.
“I’ll be at the Inn,” she said stiffly.
“May I stop by this evening?” Venetia asked eagerly. “I really must speak with you.”
“Why don’t you come by after dinner?” Ethan suggested coolly. “Say around nine o’clock?”
Zoe was surprised by the odd hour but she said nothing.
“That’s a little late,” Venetia said hesitantly.
“It will give us a chance to enjoy dinner in peace,” Ethan said. “Zoe’s had a long day. She needs some time to relax.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Venetia nodded approvingly. “Yes, I understand. I’ll come by around nine. We’ll have a nice, cozy chat.”
“Oh, boy,” Zoe muttered. “Can’t wait.”
Still grasping her arm, Ethan whisked her around Venetia, down the hall, into the lobby, and out of the Manor.
“What was that all about?” she asked a few minutes later when Ethan was piloting them back down the tree-lined lane. “Why do you want Venetia to come to the inn this evening?”
“So you can keep her occupied while I see what I can find at her place.”
She straightened abruptly in the seat. “You’re going to search her house? What on earth do you expect to find?”
“Haven’t got a clue. It’s like I told you before we came here, in the detective business, when you run out of ideas, you start stirring things up.”
“The detective business seems to have a few things in common with my business.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“One of the little tricks I’ve discovered as an interior designer is that when I can’t figure out what’s wrong with the energy flow in a room, I start shifting the furniture around until things start to feel right.”
“Shifting the furniture around.” He thought about that. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing.” He gave her a quick, searching glance. “Are you going to be okay alone with McAlistair this evening?”
“I can handle her.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Figured you could.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Zoe watched Venetia McAlistair bustle toward her across the cozy inn lobby and tried to suppress a chill of unease. For the first time that evening, she conceded to herself that she might have been somewhat hasty earlier when she had assured Ethan that she could handle this meeting.
It was one thing to face down an old adversary with Ethan by her side. It was going to be another thing altogether to do it on her own with this long-standing enemy.
After giving the subject a great deal of thought, Zoe had decided to meet her here in the lobby. The fire on the massive stone hearth gave off a reassuring warmth. In addition, there was a scattering of other people around. While none would be within immediate earshot, she would have the comfort of knowing that she was not completely isolated.
Just the sight of Venetia’s grandmotherly features and rumpled-looking suit was enough to tighten her breathing tonight. The story of Hansel and Gretel flashed across her mind. On second thought, perhaps it would have been wiser to sit a little farther away from the cheerfully blazing hearth.
Stop it, she scolded herself silently. You’ve got a job to do here. She was pretty sure Ethan could handle a simple search of Venetia’s house without getting into trouble, especially since she would be keeping her busy while he worked. But she was feeling a lot of unease this evening and not all of it had to do with the forthcoming conversation. If Ethan was right, there was a killer running around loose.
“Sara.” Venetia came to a halt in front of her. “Thank heavens. I was afraid you might change your mind about talking to me.”
“I will if you don’t start calling me Zoe.”
“Yes, of course, dear. Zoe.” Venetia sat down in a large, padded chair and looked around. “Where is Mr. Truax?”
“My husband is upstairs in our room,” she said smoothly. “He felt we should talk in private.”
“I see. I’m so glad he appreciates that a conversation between a patient and her therapist should be confidential.”
“Let’s get one thing straight here, Venetia, I’m not your patient. As far as I’m concerned, I never was your patient. I was a prisoner at Candle Lake Manor.”
“That is a very unrealistic view of the past, my dear.”
“Yes, but it’s my view. I agreed to see you this evening because you said it was important that we talk. So start talking.”
Venetia sighed. “You still appear to have a lot of hostility issues.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“That is only to be expected, under the circumstances. I want to assure you that I have only your best interests at heart. I’m here to help you.”
Ethan clenched the penlight between his teeth and aimed the narrow beam at the file folders in the drawer. Each was neatly labeled. No surprise there. Havin
g gone through the bedroom and the kitchen of the neat little house, he had already discovered that Dr. Venetia McAlistair was the methodical type.
The files Venetia kept here in her home office were mostly connected to her outside business as an occasional consultant to law enforcement. She presented herself to her clients as an expert in forensic psychology, but he could see from her private notes that Zoe was right. McAlistair flirted a lot with the woo-woo stuff.
Her records of half a dozen murder investigations contained a lot of personal observations and some wild speculation but very little in the way of hard facts. It looked like the good doctor wanted very badly to believe in her own psychic abilities.
. . . Possible sexual overtones to the sensations experienced at the scene. Victim may have had sexual contact with the killer . . .
. . . Sensed that victim knew the killer. Distinct aura indicating a personal connection . . .
“Bullshit, Dr. McAlistair.” He closed the folder and dropped it back into the drawer. “Pure, unadulterated bullshit.”
He was about to give up when the beam of light struck the label on the last file. CLELAND.
“I realize this is a very difficult subject for you, Sara, I mean, Zoe. But I feel that until you confront this aspect of your nature, you will be unable to move forward.”
Zoe smiled coldly. “I did move forward, Venetia. I moved right out of Candle Lake.”
“What I’m trying to explain to you is that I believe you have a certain intuitive ability that enables you to pick up information in some situations that might escape the notice of others.”
“Gee. You think?”
“I understand you as no one else can, my dear.” Venetia lowered her voice to a confidential tone. “Because I have a similar ability.”
“Oh, wow. Maybe you’re even crazier than me. What a thought.”
“Do you recall the two occasions when I took you to crime scenes?”
“Frequently.” Zoe flexed the fingers of her right hand. “In my nightmares.”
“If you have nightmares it is because you are attempting to deny the reality of your nature. As long as you refuse to deal with it, you will be conflicted. I know this because I, too, attempted to deny my own talents for a very long time. Why do you think I was drawn to the study of psychology in the first place?”
“So you could torment people like me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Venetia’s brow wrinkled a little. “I went into the field because I felt an overwhelming need to find a logical, scientific explanation for the sensations I occasionally experience in certain places where great violence has been done.”
“You really believe you’ve got some kind of psychic ability, don’t you?”
“I don’t like to use the term psychic because it carries a lot of negative connotations,” Venetia said. “I prefer the word intuition. And, yes, I do feel that some people have stronger amounts of it than others. You and I are among that small number of powerfully intuitive individuals.”
. . . Although the dose was doubled in an attempt to overcome her phobic-like reaction, the subject refused to enter the room where the crime had taken place. She began screaming and would not stop until she was removed from the scene.
I suspect that the hysteria was, in part, staged by the suspect as a means of manipulating the situation so that she would not have to enter the room. But even if that is the case, such extreme resistance indicates just how powerful her ability may be. Why else would she have refused to go forward?
Ethan flipped through the remainder of the notes, a storm of dark anger brewing in his gut. From what he could see, it was a near miracle that Zoe had survived her time in the Manor with her sanity intact.
Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to leave Zoe alone with Venetia McAlistair tonight.
He removed all of the notes from the file and dropped the empty folder back into the drawer. When McAlistair eventually discovered that her records had been stolen, she could use her keen intuition to solve the crime.
He took the penlight out from between his teeth and checked the time. Ten-fifteen. Zoe had been with McAlistair for more than an hour. He had learned nothing useful here. Time to go.
He slipped out of the house the same way he had entered it, through the kitchen door, and went back through a stand of trees to the place where he had left the car.
He got behind the wheel and tossed the notes he had taken from the Cleland folder down onto the passenger seat. He sat for a while, considering possibilities and probabilities. He had counted on finding something related to Leon Grady in Venetia’s cottage since she was so strongly linked to this thing, but he’d come up empty.
He thought about the cast of characters he had seen today at Candle Lake Manor. Then he thought about corporate credit cards and people who might have access to them.
He fished the notebook out of his pocket and checked an address. He located it on the map of Candle Lake that he had brought with him. Probably couldn’t accomplish anything useful there tonight, he figured. The odds were that the house would be occupied at this hour. But you never knew.
No harm taking a look on the way back to the inn.
“I am offering you more than therapy,” Venetia said. “That’s important, of course. You need to learn how to handle your experiences. But there’s a financial aspect involved here that you may not have considered.”
“Ah. Now we get to the good part.” Zoe sat back in her chair, feeling more in control. “How much do you intend to pay me to do your consulting work for you?”
“You will not be doing my consulting work for me.” Venetia showed a flash of annoyance for the first time. “You will be assisting me. I am willing to negotiate a reasonable fee for your services.”
“What do you consider reasonable?”
Venetia cleared her throat. “I will be providing you with counseling services to help you deal with your issues. My fees for those services are similar to what I charge my law enforcement clients. So I think we can arrange a sort of trade here. For every hour of therapy I make available to you, I would expect an hour of your time at a crime scene.”
Zoe laughed. “You actually expect me to pay you for the privilege of doing your woo-woo stuff at crime scenes? This is a joke, right?”
Chapter Thirty-three
To his surprise, the two-story Victorian-style house was dark. He could not see a car in the drive, but there was every possibility that it was inside the garage. Might be a dog, too.
Problems, problems.
But as long as he was in the vicinity, it wouldn’t hurt to get a little closer.
He left the car in another stand of trees, this one near the edge of the lake, and prowled back toward his objective.
No dog barked when he got close to the house. He stopped to peer into the garage window and saw the dim outline of a vehicle inside.
Damn. The owner was home and no doubt asleep.
He wandered around to the back and saw a screened porch. On the other side of the screen, he could see the kitchen door.
So near and yet so far. He wondered if the occupant was a light sleeper.
No, he was not going to go in, he told himself. That would be really, really dumb. He would come back tomorrow after the occupant left for work. That was the smart thing to do.
He examined the knob on the screen door. It would be a piece of cake. The rest of the locks were probably just as old and just as simple.
He took the gloves out of his pocket, tugged them on, and fiddled a little with the screen door. Experimenting.
The knob turned easily. Unlatched.
As long as he was this close, he might as well check the lock on the kitchen door. That way he would know what tools to bring tomorrow.
He opened the screen very slowly and crossed the porch. In the shadows, he could see the outline of two aging rattan chairs and a freezer. There was no hum from the freezer. It looked old. A large, half-filled garbage can stood immediately ne
xt to the kitchen door.
The kitchen door was unlocked, too. Not only unlocked but slightly ajar.
He eased the kitchen door open. From his vantage point, he could see through another doorway into the darkened living room.
Something was crumpled in a pool of moonlight on the floor in the front room. From where he stood, it looked a lot like a body.
There was always the possibility that the occupant had fallen asleep on the rug in front of the television, but he’d seen scenes like this one before.
He was pretty sure Fenella Leeds was not asleep.
He listened to the silence for a moment and then he entered. Maybe Leeds was not yet dead.
“You may as well know that I’m planning to hand in my resignation soon,” Venetia said. “I will be leaving Candle Lake Manor. I intend to pursue my consulting work full-time. If things go as I believe they will, I may be able to use a junior partner.”
“Don’t look at me,” Zoe said. “I’ve already got a day job, and I like my new life in Whispering Springs. I’m not looking for another career with or without free therapy.”
“I’m not asking you to make a decision right now. But I want you to think about it. Speaking as your therapist, I can tell you that if you don’t learn to deal with your special abilities, you will face the possibility of a serious mental breakdown.”
Zoe glanced surreptitiously at the antique tall clock in the corner. It was going on eleven. What the devil had happened to Ethan? He should have been back by now. How much longer did he expect her to keep Venetia occupied?
“The closest I ever came to an honest-to-goodness real-life meltdown was during my stay at the Manor,” she said. “If I survived that, I can survive anything. Which reminds me. I’ve got a question for you.”
Venetia brightened. “Yes, dear? What is it?”
“I know you must have been aware of Harper’s scam, how he arranged to keep certain inmates, people like me, for example, safely doped up and tucked away for a price. But I’ve wondered all along how actively involved you were in it. Did he split some of the profits with you?”
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