Dearly Beloved

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Oh, good. There’s a call for you.”

  For a moment, she’s too startled to reply.

  “Do you want to take it?” Hammel asks through the door.

  “I . . . I thought the phones were knocked out,” she says thinly.

  “They were, but they’ve made repairs.”

  She doesn’t say anything, wondering whether to believe him.

  “In fact,” Hammel goes on, “when one of the island police officers stopped by awhile ago to see that we were all right, he promised me that the local phone company was working on the lines. And a short time later . . . voilà! The phone rang.”

  She ponders that, still hugging her knees tightly to her chest. She didn’t hear the phone ringing. But then, the noise of the storm would probably have drowned it out anyway.

  “Who is it?” she asks Hammel after another moment’s hesitation. “On the phone for me, I mean.”

  “It’s your sister. She says it’s important or I wouldn’t have disturbed you.”

  It’s Laura again.

  Jennie debates only another split-second before getting off the bed and going over to the door.

  “I’ll take it,” she says, opening it.

  Too late, she realizes that she’s made a big mistake.

  Jasper Hammel instantly reaches out, grabs her, and clamps a damp handkerchief that reeks of something acrid over her mouth and nose.

  “Breathe deeply now, Laura,” he says in his proper, clipped way. “That’s the girl. You’re going to take a nice nap, and when you wake up—”

  The rest of his words are lost on her as she collapses in his arms.

  Chapter 15

  The big black sedan skids on the icy gravel drive as Stephen pulls around to the back of the inn. He steers into the skid, regains control, and parks beside the gardening shed, thinking that if it keeps snowing like this, he won’t be able to get back out to the house. And what about leaving the island on the boat? It’s going to be terribly treacherous in this weather.

  He sits with his hand poised on the door handle, wondering whether he should go back to the original plan and wait until tomorrow to deal with Laura Towne.

  If he does, there’s a greater risk of being caught—especially if that cop he met earlier actually is suspicious.

  But if he goes ahead and takes care of everything today and leaves by nightfall, what about the nor’easter? He’s an accomplished yachtsman, thanks to all those years at prep school; but skill, he knows, can become moot when Mother Nature is venting her fury.

  No, he probably shouldn’t chance it. The thought of drowning in the Atlantic isn’t exactly a pleasant one. And besides, if the cop comes snooping around again, he can be easily taken care of . . . just like the red-haired kid.

  Stephen makes up his mind to wait. He’ll stay here, in his attic room, for the night, he decides, and then he’ll be able to sneak down and sneak a peek at Laura once she’s safely asleep later.

  Just the way he did with Sandy. And Liza.

  It’s like a tantalizing little appetizer before the main course, he thinks, his lips curving into a smile as he thinks of those stolen moments in the wee hours of the morning, when he’d fondled the unsuspecting women as they slept.

  And Laura . . .

  Well, when he had dated her last year, she had been a regular tigress. Stephen writhes slightly on the leather car seat just thinking about the things she had done to him in that suite at the Four Seasons.

  He’s in for a real treat once again, he thinks, feeling slightly breathless.

  In fact, too bad he can’t keep her around—let her come with him when he leaves the island.

  But then he remembers how she had turned on him, just as the others had.

  He thinks back to that night in the hotel suite, when she had tried to resist his advances. At first, he’d thought she secretly wanted him—that her cold fish routine was just an act, to tease him, get him all worked up. He’d gone along with it, forcing her—cuffing her to the bed, using those devices of hers, working himself into a frenzy.

  Then she’d started crying and calling for help, and the hotel management had come knocking on the door, wanting to know if everything was all right. What a mess. He’d played the role of a sheepish guest, apologizing to the night manager if he and his “girlfriend” had gotten a little out of hand.

  When he’d closed the door and gone back over to the bed, Laura had looked at him darkly through her mascara-smudged lilac-colored eyes and ordered him to unlock the handcuffs. “If you don’t,” she’d threatened, “I’ll scream so loudly that the management will be back here in two seconds flat.”

  For a wild moment, he’d considered killing her right then and there, as he had Lorraine. But then he realized that there had already been a complaint, that the manager knew who he was, and that he would never get away with it.

  So he’d let her go.

  The next afternoon, he’d come back from his meeting to find her working at the desk, dressed in her deceptively prim, high-collared navy-plaid dress with her hair coiled at the back of her neck in a schoolmarm’s bun.

  He’d gone over to her and whispered suggestively that if she came upstairs to his suite when her shift ended, he’d pretend to be a naughty schoolboy and let her spank him.

  “You pig,” she’d said in a low voice that barely contained her palpable wrath. “If you don’t get out of here right this second and leave me alone, I’ll go to the police and tell them what you did to me last night.”

  Shocked, he’d protested, “What did I do?”

  “You raped me.”

  “I did not! You wanted it. You loved it. You know you did.”

  “You actually think I wanted to sleep with an ugly son of a bitch like you? What are you, nuts? I never wanted you, not from the start. The only way I could get off with you was to use those toys . . . and close my eyes and pretend you were someone else. Someone who looked human.”

  Stung, Stephen had simply closed his mouth and walked away. By the next day, when he had decided he had to do to her what he had done to Lorraine, it was too late. The girl behind the desk told him that Laura had quit abruptly after her shift ended the day before. And no, she wasn’t at liberty to give out Laura’s home address or number.

  At first, he had planned to track her down immediately and make her pay for what she had said.

  Then he had thought again of Lorraine . . .

  Of how incredibly satisfying it had been to see her vivid red blood spill over the white-silk wedding gown.

  And he had thought of Liza Danning . . .

  And Sandy Cavelli . . .

  And how they, too, had hurt him.

  That was when he came up with the plan.

  It had taken awhile to put it into motion.

  First, he’d had to arrange a leave of absence from his father’s company. He’d been running it—and better than meek Andrew ever had—ever since his father had gone off the deep end. When Stephen had made arrangements for a year off, he’d explained that he was simply burnt out from all the international travel the business required. No one questioned him—or suspected that he had no intention of ever coming back.

  Then there had been the plastic surgery, which he’d always intended to do. He’d gone to Europe, where he had plenty of connections—and where privacy was ensured. And now, thanks to one of the world’s most prominent surgeons, he bore no resemblance to the “Elephant Guy” who had been taunted all through school, scorned even by his own parents.

  Finally, of course, he’d had to buy the inn and get it ready. He’d chosen Tide Island because his mother had always complained about how remote and sparsely populated it was. She’d said repeatedly over the years that she didn’t know why Andrew insisted on keeping that Victorian albatross, which was so far off the beaten path that it made the rest of the island seem positively urban.

  What better place, Stephen had decided, to carry out his plan?

  And now, his long hours of meti
culous preparation have paid off.

  Sandy Cavelli is dead.

  Liza Danning is dead.

  Only Laura Towne remains.

  The pain she caused him is the freshest. Torturing her will be sweeter, even, than it had been to torture Sandy and Liza.

  He imagines Laura in the white wedding gown he’d bought for her.

  It’s more daring than the others were. Sexier. It has a plunging neckline and skin-tight skirt. When he’d bought it, he’d pictured her in that daring lingerie she was always wearing.

  Now, he frowns slightly, thinking of the plain white-cotton underwear he’d found in her suitcase yesterday. It isn’t at all like her to be so modest and . . . boring. Obviously her tastes have changed over the past year.

  Oh, well.

  Stephen opens the car door and steps out into the storm, hurrying across the frozen drive to the back door of the inn.

  He’s no sooner closed it behind him and shaken the snow out of his hair than Jasper is standing in front of him, looking agitated.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Stephen . . .”

  Irritated, he rolls his eyes. “Why?”

  “I . . . here, come in and I’ll show you.”

  Stephen steps into the kitchen, then follows Jasper through the dining room and into the parlor, saying, “I hope this doesn’t take long. I have to change out of this tuxedo. It’s covered with—”

  He stops short when he sees her.

  Laura Towne.

  She’s lying flat on her back on the old rose-colored sofa beneath the window, her hands folded over her stomach. She appears to be sleeping peacefully.

  Stephen looks at Jasper, who blurts, “I had to do it, Stephen! She tried to get away.”

  “What the hell did you do?” he asks hoarsely. “You didn’t—”

  “No, I only knocked her out with chloroform. She’ll come to in a little while,” Jasper says nervously. “And that’s not the only thing . . .”

  Stephen scowls, bracing himself.

  “An Officer Crandall came here, wanting to know about the inn, asking all kinds of questions . . .”

  That nosy cop I met on the road. I should have guessed.

  “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” Stephen asks Jasper. “You didn’t—”

  “Of course not. But you’d be proud of me, Stephen. I knocked him out with that vase from the desk, and then I locked him into the storage room off the kitchen. And his car is parked out back, near the dunes. I left the keys in it so that—”

  “I want you to finish him off,” Stephen interrupts tersely, jabbing a finger at Jasper, “and then I want you to meet me out at the summer house.”

  The little twerp gulps visibly. “But how will I get there?”

  “Take my car,” Stephen says, tossing him the keys to the sedan.

  Jasper misses, of course, and they go clattering onto the carpet.

  “But then how will you get—”

  “I’ll take the cop car, you idiot,” Stephen bites out in disgust. “What else can I do? Who knows how long it’ll be before someone else comes snooping around here?”

  “But I took care of the cop, and—”

  “And now he’s missing, too. Who knows how many people he told about Sandy Cavelli? He was looking for her. I bumped into him on the road earlier. He seemed suspicious. But never mind, it doesn’t matter now. Just take care of him. Can I trust you to do it, or are you going to screw up on this, too?”

  “I’ll do it,” Jasper says firmly, raising his chin. “You know I’d do anything for you, Stephen.”

  He lays a tentative hand on Stephen’s arm, and he fights the urge to recoil. He can’t risk putting Hammel off now. He still needs him.

  He forces himself to soften his gaze as he looks at Jasper, to say soothingly, “I know you’ll do anything for me. And I appreciate it.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course l do.”

  Jasper smiles happily. “Thank God. I was a little worried that you might not want me to come with you, the way you promised. I thought maybe you’d change your mind . . .”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Jasper hesitates, then says, “You wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t. You promised. It’s going to be you and me forever, just like you said.”

  Though his words are decisive, there’s a note of uncertainty in his voice, and Stephen wonders if little old Arnie is more perceptive than he gives him credit for being.

  “Sure. You and me forever, Arnie,” he says to reassure him.

  The man’s mouth quivers beneath his mustache. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

  “And I didn’t mean to now. It was a slip of the tongue. You’re Jasper. . . . Don’t forget that.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good.”

  “I love you, Stephen.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Stephen sighs inwardly. There are times when he thinks he’s lucky to have this eager-to-please flunky on his side. But other times, he worries that he’s making a big mistake trusting someone who’s one sandwich short of a picnic.

  Still, it won’t matter after a few more hours, he reminds himself.

  Like Laura Towne, Jasper Hammel—a.k.a. Arnold Wentworth—will be history.

  Keegan looks back over his shoulder at the boat that bobs furiously in the water where he docked it.

  “You think it’s going to hold?” Danny asks him.

  “I don’t know. The rope’s pretty strong, but with this storm . . .” Keegan trails off and shakes his head.

  “Should we go back and see if we can make it sturdier?” Cheryl asks, clinging to her husband’s arm and ducking her head against the driving wind and snow.

  “We can’t worry about it now,” Keegan replies, looking toward the cluster of weathered buildings near the boardwalk straight ahead. “We’ve got to find out about your sister, and my—and Jennie.”

  Walking as swiftly as they can despite the powerful wind and icy pavement, they make their way toward the nearest building.

  “It’s the police station!” Danny calls as they draw closer to it, pointing to a sign above the door.

  “Yeah, but it looks deserted,” Keegan points out, shaking his head.

  “The windows are probably just boarded up because of the storm,” Danny argues.

  “Probably, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s there,” Keegan tells him.

  They approach it anyway and find the door locked.

  The three of them huddle in the doorway beneath the shingled overhang that barely offers protection from the nasty weather.

  “Now what?” Cheryl asks, shivering and stamping her feet on the concrete step, a note of despair in her voice.

  “We go to the Bramble Rose Inn,” Danny says decisively, turning to Keegan. “Right?”

  “Right. First we have to find someone who knows where it is, though.” Keegan looks around and spots a big white house with a widow’s walk at the top right on the water near the boardwalk.

  “There’s a light on in the window of that old house,” he tells the Cavellis, pointing. “Let’s go see if someone there can help.”

  The three of them set out again, and it feels like hours before they finally reach the house, though it’s probably only a matter of minutes. Keegan can no longer feel his feet, and his face is so stiff from the cold that it feels as though it’s going to crack open every time he speaks.

  Please let someone answer the door, he begs silently as he, Danny, and Cheryl stomp up onto the porch of the old house. If I don’t get out of the wind and cold for a few minutes, I’m going to collapse.

  He glances at Cheryl and instantly feels ashamed of himself. If he’s overcome, she must be barely hanging on. Her face looks wan and she seems weak and shaky, as if she’d wilt and drop to the ground if she weren’t hanging onto Danny for dear life.

  Keegan reaches out and, with numb fingers, pushes the old-fashioned buzzer beside the door.

  Momen
ts later, it’s thrown open and a ruddy-faced man is there wearing a welcoming smile.

  “Oh,” he says, and the pure-white brows that match his hair furrow at the sight of three bedraggled strangers standing on his porch. “Thought you were going to be Sherm Crandall.”

  “Crandall? The police chief?” Danny asks.

  “That’s right. You know him?”

  “I talked to him last night, about my sister. She’s missing.”

  The man looks taken aback. “Did you say your sister is missing?”

  “Yeah, why? You know something about it?”

  “Sherm mentioned something about it—a girl from Connecticut, right?”

  “Right. You don’t know if he found her, do you?” Danny asks excitedly.

  “He hadn’t—least not when I saw him around lunchtime. He was on his way over to the inn where she was staying—wanted to have a look-see, I suppose.”

  “Ned?” calls a female voice from the back of the house. “What are you doing with that door open? You’re letting all the heat out!”

  “That’s the missus—Shirley. And I’m Ned Hartigan,” he explains, and steps back, gesturing for the three of them to step inside.

  They do, and Keegan gratefully unzips the top of his jacket, lifting his chin away from the soaked fabric at last. The house is like an oven, and a savory aroma fills the warm air. The white walls of the hall they’re standing in are covered in wood-framed photographs, and two bright rag rugs are scattered on the honey-colored plank floor.

  Ned closes the door firmly behind them just as a lanky gray-haired woman comes into the hall, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her thin eyebrows shoot up at the sight of three strangers dripping on the doormat.

  “Thought Sherm might be here for dinner,” is all she says, glancing at her husband and then back at the visitors.

  “So did I, but this is the fella whose sister is missing from the inn—remember I told you what Sherm—Say,” he interrupts himself, “how did you folks get here, anyway? There’s no ferry service today.”

  “We borrowed a boat,” Keegan says simply.

  “Pretty brave of you to come across the water in this storm, I’d say.”

  “Would you like some hot coffee?” Shirley asks, looking with concern at Cheryl, who’s still trembling from head to toe.