Falling Darkness--A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Karen Harper

  She held on to Nick’s waist and that kept Lexi firmly in place. The child had squealed in delight at first but was quiet now, peering around Nick at oncoming snowmobiles. Some drivers waved, some nodded, some just plunged on. No way to know who was who, of course, since they all wore helmets and visors, which seemed to isolate each of them.

  She heard Nick shout, however muffled it came out, “Ahead! Look ahead!”

  She leaned a bit around him and gasped. A flash from the past flew through her mind. The approaching driver was not wearing a helmet but a black-and-white distorted fright mask that reminded her of that dreadful painting The Scream. She and Nick had seen it before—on someone in Florida, someone they’d decided must have been sent to torment them by Clayton Ames.

  In the darkness between two lanterns, that solo rider plunged not past them but right at her and Nick’s vehicle.

  She heard a scream and knew it was her own.

  30

  The masked driver of the vehicle hit into their snowmobile near the front and veered away, gunning his engine. Claire hung on hard to Nick and Lexi as their vehicle spun madly off the path and slammed its back bumper into a tree trunk. The impact sent them all flying sideways into the snow.

  For a moment, they lay stunned. Nick must have killed the engine. The fir branches on the tree they hit quivered, shaking snow onto them like a wake-up call.

  “Are you all right?” Nick asked, getting up and hovering over where Claire still held Lexi. “Anything broken? Hurting?”

  “I’m just—just shocked,” Claire said, her voice not her own.

  “Lexi?” Nick asked again, helping them to sit up in the snow.

  “He didn’t know how to drive,” she choked out and burst into tears. “And he can’t see with that mask!”

  Nick hugged Claire with Lexi between them.

  “I say he did know,” Claire insisted. “Remember driving from Naples to St. Augustine that day we saw the man with that mask?”

  “But are you all right?” Nick demanded. “Not shaken up—inside.”

  He meant the baby. She felt all right, at least that way. Her big down coat and the cushioning snow had helped. But there had been a big jolt.

  “I think I’m okay, just shook in general,” she told him. “Our helmets helped too.” She took hers off and shook her hair free, then gasped. “But, look, there’s a ravine just beyond. Maybe he knew that and wanted us to fall...” She said no more because of Lexi.

  A sudden confusion of people exploded around them. It had surely been just a few minutes since they were hit.

  Heck’s voice: “It took us a minute to see you weren’t behind us and turn around to come back, boss.”

  Nita hugged and held Lexi; Gina helped Claire up while Heck and Bronco hovered near Nick. Jace, dedicated pilot that he was, after he hugged Lexi and saw that everyone was all right, walked around the snowmobile to assess the damage.

  Kind strangers stopped on the trail to help, and it seemed everyone spoke at once. Several people had flashlights, so sharp beams of light zigzagged about as some asked questions, some tried to comfort them and some just stared and murmured.

  Jace announced, “The front bumper and fiberglass hood have deep dents, but the tree took the worst of it.”

  Claire muttered to herself, “No, my courage did.”

  Jace, whom they had never told about the man with a fright mask in Florida, was obviously trying to buck them up. “Andy Archer can get it back in shape in no time at his shop. And you’ll have to call the sheriff.” Then he whispered, “Again.”

  As other people slowly scattered, driving away on their own machines, a bearded man said, “After all, Halloween’s tomorrow. Some idiot probably got juiced up, put on a mask to freak folks out and lost control. If the sheriff finds him, he’ll pay a fine, ’cause driving drunk on these machines is against the law. Thank God you didn’t spin out more and flip out into the ravine right here.”

  And, Claire thought, if they didn’t go straight home, that was exactly what she was going to do: freak out and lose control.

  One of the last of the sympathizers, a tall woman, said, “Listen, didn’t want to say this in front of everyone, but I seen a man carrying around that mask earlier, before he’d put it on. Real scary, ugly-looking man.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Nick told her, but Claire thought that description might be the result of Halloween and darkness. Besides, the man who had tried to run them off the road in Florida months ago could not be this man. She was certain this had been Wade Buxton, following her again, even though he’d come from the other direction so he could make a quick escape. As fast a glance as she got before she’d instinctively closed her eyes just before he hit them, she’d seen their attacker was his approximate size and build.

  Although everyone but their group had gone, Claire again scanned the area for Wade Buxton. She wouldn’t put it past him to appear, then disappear, with or without the mask. He must have meant murder with that ravine so close and all these trees. Perhaps he was Julia’s killer and feared they’d find out or knew something about him that could give him away. Or, the way Claire had stood up to him at the movie convention, maybe she’d now become to him the woman trying to keep him from Liz. His cheery, smiling nature was a false face.

  So she was going to unmask him no matter what the sheriff said.

  * * *

  The sheriff was back again the next morning to take their statements for the snowmobile incident. After talking to the others, he sat in the parlor with Claire and Nick.

  Nick told him, “Sorry this is getting to be routine when you told us to keep a low profile, Sheriff.”

  “Guess I didn’t give you good advice to enjoy the place and the people. Sorry you were hurt doing exactly that.”

  Claire said, “I love the island, but someone here is getting pretty hard to enjoy. I hope we can stay the winter though. If we have to leave, I’d want to be sure Liz is okay first, and our daughter can’t take being moved again right now. That pony in Julia’s stables means the world to her.”

  “It sounds like you were targeted, but the driver could have been drunk, and the mask—Yeah, it’s Halloween today. I’ll have my brother keep an eye out for a dented snowmobile brought in for repairs and get him to fix yours up. Outsiders aren’t allowed to bring them onto the island, but there’s a lot of them here, so that driver’s dented one won’t necessarily stand out. So now to the nitty-gritty. I have a message for you from the friend you had dinner with the other night.”

  At first they both froze, sitting on the sofa side by side. Then Nick leaned farther forward. “Let’s hear it.”

  “He thinks this is still the best place for you, at least until spring, when the Lilac Festival brings thousands of outsiders back here again.”

  Claire sighed. “I could use spring and some lilacs right now. That is good news, if we can only stop whoever’s trying to scare and harm us.”

  “But,” Nick said, “there’s more from my book editor, isn’t there?”

  “Two more things. You will soon have a new WITSEC contact here, so I won’t keep getting in the middle of things and can concentrate on finding who’s out to scare you off or—or worse with Julia. The new handler/contact is a visiting doctor, who will be working at the Mackinac Island Medical Center for the winter. So, sorry for putting it this way, but he’ll oversee diseases and you. That will mean your med student, Gina, who works part-time there, will be the liaison with information. Hope that works. I assume you can trust her.”

  “Yes, we can trust her,” Nick said.

  “Good. Gotta tell you, we haven’t had anything or anyone Cuban here, and now we have Kirkpatrick’s imported Cuban cigars and your friend Gina.”

  “And the second thing you have to mention from our friend?” Nick prodded.

&nbs
p; “Can’t say I understand this part of it, but he said your so-called ‘uncle’—he said you’d know what he meant, Jack—may have fled to Mexico, and they’re trying to trace him with hopes to extradite him for trial. So you’re to keep gathering research for your book. That’s the last of the messages. Oh, yeah, and to be careful.”

  “Did you tell him about the almost-accident last night?”

  “I did. Anything else?”

  “Sheriff,” Claire put in, “I swear Wade Buxton has been following me—or us. The man who hit us was built like him.”

  “If he has, why?”

  “Who is he really? Is he a WITSEC witness too?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t? Could he think that I know something about Julia’s death that implicates him? I did try to keep him from harassing Liz at the movie conference Saturday evening.”

  “Let me know if you or Liz want to file harassment charges against him, but my advice to you is to stay wary and stay safe. Just leave him alone, and I’ll talk to him. Like I told Jack at church last Sunday, Wade’s definitely in the mix for having a motive to harm Julia. Liz has explained all that to me—and I guess he used to dog her steps too, a guy who’s used to getting his way on his looks and charisma.”

  “Used to getting his way, like Kirkpatrick,” Nick put in. “They’re a pair.”

  “Funny you say that,” the sheriff said as he stood, “but I can’t find anything to link them to each other. As for Julia’s death, I plan to speak to Michael again before he leaves the island. My job on Mackinac may even be more remote than a county sheriff’s, but it’s common practice to look at the family members—especially ex-mates—first.”

  Jace’s nervous revelations weighed heavy on Claire’s heart again. They’d never mentioned to the sheriff how her own ex had tried to hit on Julia.

  After Nick saw the sheriff out and came back in, Claire said, “I swear he’s protecting Wade because he’s WITSEC.”

  “Yeah, but so are we WITSEC, so take his advice. If you go out, and I can’t go—or Jace—take Bronco, not just Nita or Gina. And not Lexi unless we’re together.”

  “So what does this mean for trick-or-treating tonight? We promised her days ago we’d at least visit a few houses, and she still has her Somewhere in Time costume she’s dying to wear again. I don’t think she’d go for us having a party here. I told her we could go out in the snowmobile, though that was before that fiend hit us.”

  “Then we’ll take one of the good snowmobiles and just go to Liz’s, if we call ahead and arrange it with her. We’ll take an apple for Scout, maybe a whole bushel of them. If Lexi gets to spend time with the pony, I’ll bet nothing else will matter.”

  “You’re a genius,” she told him and looped her arms up around his neck to press a kiss on his cheek.

  “Well, you’ve got to be to write this huge murder mystery I’m working on,” he said, hugging her to him. “You know, if I really were doing that instead of preparing court documents and testimony to use against ‘my uncle,’ I’d sure have a cast of characters. But these are real guys, Claire, possibly very, very bad guys.”

  * * *

  Considering how upset Liz had been last time Claire was at her house, she seemed in a mellow mood on Halloween evening. They had called her to set up a visit, so she’d turned on all the lights in the stable. She let Lexi feed and curry Scout, so other thoughts of trick-or-treating seemed to fly out of the child’s head. Miracle of miracles, all seemed fine, at least with Lexi.

  The three adults leaned against Scout’s waist-high stall door, watching Lexi comb the pony’s mane for the third time. Jace had gone uptown to a gym to work out, then planned to, as he’d put it, “undo all that good work by hoisting a few brews back at the Draught House.” Bronco and Nita were in the stable, looking at the other horses. Heck and Gina were at Widow’s Watch, handing out candy. They’d figured their house might be a popular stop for kids because of the legend of the ghost they had now quieted.

  Claire hadn’t shared with anyone the scrap of cotton and lace she’d found up there. It seemed like her secret, and she didn’t want someone to think she was foolish enough to think it was left by a woman decades ago—or a ghost. In the weather here, it could have blown up mere years ago and still be that tattered. She liked to think it was a reminder that the widow had not thrown herself off the walkway in despair, and she was sure Julia had not done that either.

  “Has your father left the island yet?” Claire asked Liz, hoping that sounded merely conversational.

  “Soon, he says. He thinks I need support, but—well, I’m better.”

  “Grieving the loss of a loved one can take a long time, go through stages. Everyone has regrets too, things they wished they’d done differently or wished they could do over or again.”

  “I still say you’re a shrink. Isn’t she, Jack?” Liz asked.

  “Just acts and talks like one.”

  “I’ll tell you who’s the psychiatrist here,” Claire interrupted their banter. “Scout. It calms Meggie to be near him. Would you mind if I bring her back tomorrow? I’m going to make a deal with her about homeschooling this winter. I’ll teach her how to write and read better—horse stories, no doubt—and Lorena and Gina are going to teach her some Spanish. If she agrees and the snow’s not too deep, I’ll tell her she can come visit Scout on a regular basis, if it’s okay with you. If we can help with the upkeep of the stables, we’d be glad to.”

  “Sounds good. Bring her back as often as you want, tomorrow, even. I’ll teach you how to saddle the pony, and she can ride him up and down the aisle in here. He could use the exercise. I don’t think I told you but, for now, I’m going to move my shop home to save money.”

  “A great idea,” Claire said, but she was thinking that, at least, would keep Wade from cornering her alone since Mr. Logan and Doug would be here.

  “Any new corset orders from the publicity we passed out at Grand Hotel?” Claire asked.

  “A few. I’m thinking, though, since that crowd was mostly visitors, it would take a few days for them to get home and then contact me. Fingers crossed,” she said and lifted two crossed fingers.

  Claire crossed hers too, and they touched fingers. Claire thought it was their own version of two friends clinking glasses or bumping fists. She felt better than she had in a while. They would stay here this winter. Lexi was happy. The attack by the man in the mask hadn’t really hurt any of them beyond a few sore spots and black-and-blue bruises. They knew to be extra vigilant and careful. Surely, things had to be better now.

  * * *

  That night, a strange noise dragged Claire from heavy sleep. In bright red numerals, her bedside clock read 3:13 a.m. Once she cleared her head, she realized that Nick was awake too, propped up on one elbow next to her, listening.

  There it was again, a hollow, erratic rat, tat, tat.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Not sure. Maybe a shingle loose, but it sounds like a knocking at the window. I’ve heard creaking from the attic, but this is definitely the window glass. Maybe a branch blew against it or something. The wind’s up off the harbor.”

  Now it sounded to Claire like something scratching to get in. A bird or squirrel? And was the sound really against their backyard window or even up on the roof, where the shrieking sound had been? Perhaps the repair Jace had done had come loose somehow and slipped down.

  “Stay put,” Nick ordered and threw the covers off. Keeping low, he tiptoed to the window. He hunkered down beside it, then slowly drew the drapes apart.

  At first, Claire had a better view than he did. Floating in the night, white, skeletal in the familiar, silent scream, that horrid face from the forest was staring in their bedroom window.

  31

  “What in the world?” Nick sputtered and swor
e.

  Ignoring his order to stay in bed, Claire leaped out and, hugging the wall, edged around to the window. “Could it be someone on a ladder?” she asked, craning her neck to peer out.

  “It’s floating—flying. I’ve got to go down.”

  “No,” she said, grabbing his arm as he got to his feet. “It’s not just some Halloween night prank. Someone could be waiting down there, trying to flush us out to hurt us. Should we call the sheriff?”

  “No. Whoever it is would be gone the minute he heard a snowmobile. Go wake up Bronco, Heck and Jace. I’m going down, just to look out. Someone’s out there for sure.”

  Just then the face rotated away and darkness reigned. Had it disappeared into thin air? And then in the moonlight outside, Claire saw what it was. A kite. A black kite with that mask on one side of it.

  “It’s a kite,” she told Nick as he headed for their bedroom door in his pajamas and bare feet. “Someone’s down there flying a kite.”

  “And I’m going to find out who. Tell the guys no lights,” he said and ran from the room.

  She shoved her feet in her slippers, grabbed a robe and knocked on Bronco and Heck’s door. “Someone’s outside and Nick needs you downstairs!” she called to them. “Don’t turn on any lights.”

  Jace appeared instantly, opening his own door, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. “He’s doing what?” he asked.

  “Someone’s outside, and—”

  He grabbed a sweatshirt from his inside doorknob and started down the stairs barefoot.