Echo Lake

by Carla Neggers

  He jumped back, tightening his grip on Rohan. The puppy yelped, and Vic eased up. “Nothing.” He choked out the word. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Where’s Adrienne?” he asked.

  Vic shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her yet this morning. She was up early. I know because she made coffee.” He was breathing rapidly now, his words clipped, his tone businesslike despite his obvious tension, as if he were giving a situation report after a breach of security at an embassy. “I imagine she’s in her room.”

  Heather patted Rohan. “Here, Vic,” she said gently, “let me take him.”

  He gave up the puppy, and she held him close, calming him, then set him gently on the driveway. He was shaky but Heather squatted down and patted him some more. He licked her hand.

  Vic stared down at the puppy. “Poor little fella is picking up on my nuttiness,” he said with a snort of self-disgust. “Sorry. I gave myself a fright.”

  “What kind of fright?” Brody asked.

  Vic didn’t answer. He was ashen, dressed in khakis, a sweater and fleece-lined slippers with no socks. Rohan bounded away from Heather into a snowbank. She stood and looked at Vic. “Should I call Eric?”

  Vic shook his head. “No, no. We don’t need to get the local cops here. We have Brody, and, anyway, it’s nothing. I’m just tight as a piano wire these days. I was in the front room with Rohan and he got going in circles, and I figured I’d better get him out before he pooped on the floor. Puppies, you know? I ran to the front door with him and damned it if wasn’t cracked open. I went out onto the porch and looked for footprints, but I didn’t see any. We never use that door. Not this time of year. I keep it locked.”

  Heather frowned. “Maybe a wind gust—”

  “It wasn’t the wind,” Vic said. “I freaked out. I grabbed Rohan and bolted back through the house and out here. I yelled for Adrienne, but she didn’t answer. I don’t know what I was thinking. A cracked door and I’m a wreck?”

  Brody held up a hand. “I’ll have a look. You and Heather stay here. Shout if you need me or if Adrienne turns up.”

  “She must be in the bathroom and that’s why she didn’t hear me.” Vic shuddered. “Maybe the damn place is haunted.”

  Brody didn’t respond. He took the porch steps in two leaps and went inside, heading through the kitchen and hall to the front room, a quiet, cozy fire burning, Vic’s iPad and a book of crossword puzzles on his chair. In the entry, the front door was wide-open, letting in cold air. Brody noticed fresh footprints—Vic’s—in the dusting of snow on the otherwise shoveled porch. Vic hadn’t done the shoveling. He had a crew that came in after storms.

  Brody turned as Adrienne came down the stairs, shivering, her arms crossed over her chest. “I was wondering why it was so cold. Good morning. It’s—” She stopped abruptly, three steps from the bottom of the stairs. She was dressed for the day, all in black and elegant, but her skin was pale, her brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Did you go through this door last night or this morning?”

  She shook her head. “No. Why?”

  “Vic found it cracked open. It unnerved him. He’s outside with Rohan and Heather. Is anyone else here?”

  “No, no one.”

  “No workers?”

  “Not today that I know of.”

  “Are they sometimes dropped off, or do they always come in their own vehicles?”

  “Both.” She came down the last steps. “You’re scaring me.”

  Brody softened his expression. “Just being thorough.”

  He escorted her back through the house and had her grab a coat and join Vic and Heather outside. Rohan was settled onto the driveway, chewing on a rock. Brody tossed Vic a jacket from the mudroom.

  Ten minutes later, he’d checked the rest of the house. Downstairs, upstairs, attic, cellar.

  No intruders. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  He gave the all clear. They all came inside, and Brody shut the back door behind them. Rohan tried to sneak past him, but Vic tossed a treat into the kitchen and that did the trick. “He really is a cute little thing,” Vic said as he joined the two women in the kitchen. “Rohan, I mean, not Brody, although I suppose— Hell, I don’t know. Rohan’s an escape artist, but he can’t open doors.”

  Brody went into the kitchen and stood by the counter as Heather and Adrienne sank into chairs at the table, breakfast dishes and toast crumbs not yet cleaned off. Vic paced, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else.

  “Why would an open door get to you?” Adrienne asked. “My heart’s still hammering. I thought at least Brody would find a mischievous red squirrel or something.”

  Vic rubbed the back of his neck, obviously chastened. “I feel like a damn fool, but what can I say? This wasn’t the first strange incident lately. They’ve all been like this. Not much, each nothing on its own. After a while, though, you start to wonder.”

  “Start to wonder what?” Heather asked.

  Brody appreciated her bluntness and her bewilderment. It would take a lot for Heather Sloan to freak out over an open door. If it’d been her instead of Vic, she’d have shrugged it off and walked Rohan without incident.

  Adrienne was clearly as confused but not as calm. “Is this why you invited Brody here, Vic? Because of these strange incidents?”

  “It’s one reason.” Vic glanced at Brody then sat at the square table, Adrienne to his left, Heather to his right. “I also knew he was on home leave after a rough few months on the job. I figured it was past time he returned to Knights Bridge.”

  Brody leaned against the counter and made no comment.

  “Why past time?” Adrienne asked.

  “He left at eighteen on a sour note.” Vic waved a hand. “Never mind. Forget it. I’m being stupid.”

  Adrienne sat back in her chair. “What if these incidents aren’t about you, Vic, but instead are about Brody? It’s no secret you two are friends. What if someone wanted to get him here and knew you would call him if you got freaked out?” She shifted, turning to Heather. “What do you think? Do you know anyone who would want Brody back in Knights Bridge bad enough to sneak around and get under Vic’s skin?”

  Heather shook her head. “I don’t know of anyone who would do something like that, period, for any reason.”

  “Yeah, too convoluted,” Vic said. “People around here are more straightforward.”

  “You’re probably right.” Adrienne scooped toast crumbs into her palm and brushed them onto a plate. “When did these so-called incidents start?”

  “I don’t even know,” Vic said. He looked spent, embarrassed. “I started noticing them after the first of the year. I’ve been back and forth between here and my apartment in New York since early December. If anything happened before Christmas, I didn’t pay attention. Then all of a sudden, I’m like...what the hell’s going on here?” He raked a hand over the top of his head. “I know it sounds crazy.”

  “We didn’t say that,” Adrienne said.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been so worried,” Heather said. “I wish you’d said something. I could have kept an eye out, but I’m not suspicious by nature—I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

  “See?” Vic winked. “Told you I’m off my rocker.”

  Brody stood straight. “It’s a big house. It’s old and drafty. Have you ever spent this much time here during the winter?”

  “I’ve never spent this much time here in one stretch, period.”

  “Adrienne and I have been in and out a lot,” Heather said. “Mark Flanagan, the architect, and I have brought a few people through while we were drawing up initial plans for renovations. Maybe one of us inadvertently did something to cause some of these incidents.”

  “I doubt it.” Vic sprang to his feet. “I’ve had to be e
vacuated from an embassy by the DSS and the marines, and I’m getting freaked out over nothing. Right now, I’m cold. I’ll put on more coffee.”

  Brody stepped away from the counter. “I want a list of who’s been here since the first of the year. Vic, Adrienne, Heather. I want you each to do your own list. Don’t compare notes. Just write down everything you remember.”

  “Wow,” Adrienne said as Brody started toward the dining room. “He’s serious.”

  “DSS agents are accustomed to having people’s lives in their hands,” Vic said. “They don’t screw around.”

  “That’s not making me feel better, you know.”

  Brody noticed Heather hadn’t said a word. He opened drawers and found notebook paper and pens. He divided them up for Vic, Heather and Adrienne.

  “Have coffee, jot down what you remember,” Brody said. “I’ll walk Rohan and be back in ten minutes.”

  He was in the mudroom when Vic shouted to him. “What if I have a secret lover that I don’t want to admit to in front of Adrienne and Heather? What if they do? What if they’ve been sneaking guys in here—”

  Brody grabbed Rohan and shut the back door before Vic could finish. It was bravado on the former ambassador’s part. Vic Scarlatti cracking wise now that any perceived danger had passed.

  But as Brody plopped Rohan on the shoveled walk, he wondered if he’d been a bit presumptuous himself, thinking—assuming—that Heather had never had a rollicking love life. After all, what did he know about her? Just because there was no man in her life now didn’t mean that had always been the case. For all he knew, she could have had a series of guys out here and tried out every bed and sofa with them. She wouldn’t be the first woman he’d known who was into meaningless sex.

  He shook his head, watching Rohan sniff a trail on the walk. Whatever Heather Sloan’s sexual proclivities, she wouldn’t get away with reckless behavior in Knights Bridge. She wouldn’t bring men back to a job site. Vic’s renovations meant too much to her. Brody had seen that yesterday when he’d stopped by the Sloan & Sons offices—unchanged, except for computers, after fifteen years—and then when he’d stopped at the McCaffrey site. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Heather had something to prove.

  Brody wondered how many men in Knights Bridge were afraid to touch her.

  He wasn’t afraid. He just wasn’t going to, not again—not in the way he wanted to.

  A difference without a distinction, as Vic would say.

  Brody shook off his thoughts and glanced at his watch. Four minutes to kill, and then he’d go see what Heather, Vic and Adrienne had on their lists. He doubted it would be much, certainly nothing that would lead to a stalker or anything remotely dangerous.

  But something wasn’t right on Echo Lake. It might not be dangerous, but he needed to go with his instincts and play this out. Find out what was going on.

  Two more minutes.

  Close enough.

  He grabbed Rohan and headed back inside.

  Ten

  Vic had never been one to sound the alarm too soon—or too late, for that matter. If given an option, security types like Brody always preferred too soon, at least in his experience. He preferred “just right.” He hadn’t wanted a reputation as a nervous type or a tough guy, both of which could stymie a career and, more important, put lives at risk unnecessarily.

  While Brody went over their lists and Heather and Adrienne got to work on their respective jobs, Vic went down to the cellar to think about wine.

  Wine was always good to think about. Much better than thinking about what a damn fool he was. He’d kept a cool head during multiple high-threat situations in his diplomatic career, but no one would remember his courage if word got out that he was wetting his pants over a few unexplained incidents at his lake house.

  He pictured himself coming down to the cellar in a year or two to choose a couple of bottles of wine for dinner with friends—houseguests tired and content after a day kayaking on Echo Lake.

  That was the life he wanted, he told himself as he brushed past cobwebs and turned on the overhead lightbulb. He imagined a sauna. Laughter.

  A sauna really could work down here.

  After a few minutes, he heard footfalls on the steep stairs, and Adrienne joined him in the corner she and Heather had selected for his wine cellar.

  “Brody checked the front of the house and didn’t see any unexplained footprints,” she said then smiled. “Critter or human.”

  “Good. Excellent, in fact.” Vic had to admit he wasn’t surprised. He wished now he’d shut the damn door and gone about his business. “It must have been the wind, then.”

  “One of us could have unlocked the door and forgotten about it.” Adrienne glanced around the dark corner, smiling as if she were imagining guests, dinners, wine parties and time in the sauna. “I love the idea of sitting on the front porch on a hot summer day with a chilled glass of a good pinot grigio.”

  “Are there any good pinot grigios?” Vic asked, trying to sound amused.

  “Of course. Pinot grigio is much maligned but I have a very respectable one on my list for you.”

  “I’ll save it for that hot summer day.” Vic felt some of his embarrassment ease. “Do you think you’ll still want to house-sit this summer?”

  Adrienne hugged herself, obviously still cold. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re welcome to.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. You’ve been good to me.” She shifted her dark eyes away from him, as if something on the old workbench had caught her attention. “Vic, did you and my mother have an affair all those years ago in Paris?”

  He wasn’t expecting that one. “That’s not as out-of-the-blue a question as it sounds, is it?”

  “I’ve been wondering for a while now.”

  “A while as in a few weeks or a while as in a few years?”

  “A few months.”

  She hadn’t hesitated. Vic cleared his throat and touched one of the old tools on the workbench. A wrench or pliers or some damn thing. He’d never been handy. Heather would know. Brody would know, too.

  “I’ve embarrassed you,” Adrienne said quietly.

  “No, no. It’s not that. Caught me by surprise.” He realized he’d got grease on his fingertip. Black gunk of some kind, anyway. It was something to anchor his mind on as he stalled Adrienne. He had no idea what to tell her. “I’m still recovering from the adrenaline dump after the incident with the door. Weak as a noodle.”

  “A fright will do that to you.”

  “I was more resilient when I was on the job and had real scares. Well, it doesn’t matter now. Did Brody have any insights into our lists?”

  “Not that he mentioned. Vic...”

  “Talk to your mother about her past, Adrienne,” he said softly.

  “Not one to kiss and tell?” She smiled, but this time there was a distance in her eyes, a wariness, even. “I did talk to her. She said to talk to you.”

  “Then maybe the past should remain in the past.” He grabbed an old rag, stiff and stained with who-knew-what, and wiped the grease off his fingers. “Maybe that’s what your mother was trying to say.”

  “She’s more direct than that. If she wanted me to mind my own business, she’d have said so. You two met in Paris before I was born. It was before she and my father were married.”

  “Correct.” He watched Adrienne pick up a small hammer from the workbench and smiled at her. “Not going to clobber me with that, are you?”

  “What?” She seemed to need a moment to figure out what he’d said. “Good heavens, Vic, no. What’s with the sick humor? No, I’m just nervous and looking for something to do with myself. Like you and that black stuff on your fingers. You’re going to need soap and water for that, aren’t you?”

  “Probably, if n
ot turpentine.”

  “Heather might have something in her truck you could use.” Adrienne placed the hammer back on the workbench. “My mother wasn’t the one who got away, was she, Vic? The woman you should have married—the woman you wish now you had married?”

  “Your mother was engaged to your father when I met her,” Vic said, sidestepping Adrienne’s questions. “We weren’t meant to be together.”

  “Forever or at all?”

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “Tenacity has its place,” Adrienne said without any hint of defensiveness. “I never would have withstood the ups and downs of establishing a name for myself in the wine industry if I weren’t tenacious.”

  “Good point,” Vic said, dropping the rag on the workbench. It hadn’t worked. He’d only smeared the gunk around some.

  “You’re dodging my questions, Vic.”

  He sighed. “And you’re not taking the hint that I’m not going there.”

  She straightened, a stubborn set to her jaw. “Not confirming is confirming.”

  “Since when? Look, you’re allowed to think what you want to think. I’m not going to argue with you, but I’m not going to talk about your mother, either. Why’s this on your mind, anyway? Because you’re staying here and got to thinking one day?”

  “It occurred to me how alone you both are.”

  It wasn’t an answer. Adrienne’s turn to dodge, maybe. Vic grinned at her, desperate to change the subject. “I hope you’re not having some fun trying to play matchmaker.”

  She laughed, a relief to him. “Don’t tempt me,” she said. “Something’s going on between Heather and Brody, don’t you think?”

  “What? Those two? Not a chance.”

  “Look again, Vic. Look again.”

  He pictured the two of them on the driveway when he’d bolted out of the house with Rohan. He hadn’t noticed a thing. Had he been so self-absorbed he’d missed the sparks between them, or was Adrienne seeing something that wasn’t there—like he was, or so it seemed, with his “incidents”?