by Leona Karr
“Oh, that’s a tough one.”
“Yes, it’s an impasse. I can’t wait to get back to California and my business. I’m flying out tomorrow.”
They talked for a few more minutes. After Ashley hung up, she made her way upstairs to Jonathan’s office. The door was partially open and she gave a light knock as she peered in. He was sitting motionless behind his desk and visibly stiffened when he saw her.
“May I come in?”
He nodded but didn’t get to his feet in his usual polite manner. He clasped his hands on the desk and waited for her to speak. Ashley thought he’d visibly aged since last evening when he’d heard about the ugly cemetery discovery.
“I just wanted to tell you that the auction company will be arranging for shipment of the collection,” Ashley said, remaining standing. “Everything has been inventoried and packed.”
“Well, I guess that’s it, then. Maybe someone will get some pleasure out of the things my wife enjoyed so much,” he said as he looked beyond Ashley to the portrait of Samantha on the far wall.
“I’m sure the collection will be well-received. The monetary value should be substantial.”
He shrugged as if his thoughts were too weighted to think about dollars and cents.
“I’ll be leaving tomorrow and returning to San Francisco. I talked to Lorrie a few minutes ago and I know everyone will be happy to know she has fully recovered.”
Except for the one who tried to kill her!
BRAD HAD SAID he’d pick her up about four o’clock. She wore her knit pants suit with a soft blue scarf for accent. She was waiting on the front veranda when she glimpsed the patrol car through the canopy of trees. She made her way to the front step when he pulled up.
At first, she thought her eyes were deceiving her.
Deputy Hunskut was driving.
The deputy quickly got out and came around the car. “Brad got tied up and asked me to save him the time of driving up here and picking you up. I don’t mind chauffeuring a pretty lady at all,” he told her, smiling.
As he gallantly opened the door for her, she fought the temptation to change her mind about going. She hated farewells especially one she’d have to live with forever.
“When does he think he’ll be free?”
“He called and said he’d be heading back from the mainland shortly. He thought you’d rather wait for him at his house than here.”
As she got in the car, something about this arrangement raised a warning flag. Brad had said they would take a walk and talk. More than ever, she needed a neutral environment to keep her feelings under control.
“I hear you’re about ready to leave us?” Bill said.
“Tomorrow.”
“That’s too bad. I guess you’ll be back before too long?”
Ashley ignored the question in his tone and just offered some benign remark about the clearing weather. As they passed Dr. Hadley’s home, Bill slowed down and waved. The doctor nodded and gave Ashley a broad smile as if he knew she was headed for a rendezvous with Brad.
As the deputy turned into Brad’s driveway, she was tempted to tell him to take her back to the Langdons’. Just looking at the house taunted her with memories of their passionate lovemaking.
“The door’s unlocked and Brad said you might want to take Rusty for a walk while you waited.”
Good, she thought in relief. She wouldn’t have to wait in the house. What she needed was a hearty walk to maintain her emotional balance. She was already feeling a deep sense of loss. He’d made her feel truly alive and desirable for the first time in her life. Brad had been a tender lover, gentle and yet in command. She cursed the fates that had put them on such divergent paths.
“If I don’t see you again before you leave, have a safe trip,” Bill told her. “My mother sends her best, too.”
“Thank you. Tell her I’d love to have a copy of her cemetery article when it comes out.”
Rusty gave her an ecstatic welcome as she let him out of the dog run. Bounding around her and wagging his tail, the dog offered her warm, sloppy kisses.
“How about a walk, fellow?”
Rusty seemed to understand perfectly. He bounded around the house and down a path leading to the rocky beach below. As Ashley followed him, she drew in deep breaths of the fresh salty air.
An incoming tide was narrowing the shore as Rusty sniffed his way along the tumbled rocks, investigating the smorgasbord of smells. When he scrambled on top of a pile of gray rocks and began barking furiously at something out in the water, Ashley couldn’t see what was causing all the ruckus.
“Rusty! Rusty! Get back here.”
When he wouldn’t come, she gingerly climbed up on the rocks to see what he was having such a fit about. As she braced herself on the rugged rocks, she looked out into the water and saw that three black seals were lounging on some ocean rocks. One of them slithered into the water and seemed headed in their direction. When Rusty made a move to scoot down and into the water, Ashley tried to grab his collar.
She lost her balance! Stones loosened by the recent storm slipped out from under her feet. They pelted down on top of her as she tumbled down the rocky incline to the edge of the water. When she sat up, she felt a burning pain in the calf of one leg. Quickly she lifted her pants leg and saw blood oozing out of a deep, jagged cut.
“Damn,” she swore.
She struggled to her feet and gritted her teeth against the pain as she limped her way along the beach, and up the steep path to the house. Rusty seemed to know the walk was over and trotted obediently at her heels.
Sweat beaded on her forehead as she let herself inside and headed for the bathroom. She tried to stop the bleeding as best she could by tying her scarf around the cut but she knew it was going to need stitches. She remembered that the deputy had waved to Dr. Hadley as they drove past, so she knew he was home. The only sensible thing to do was to hobble to his house and ask him to tend the wound.
She should have shut Rusty up before she left, but she didn’t think about it until he started running way ahead of her. As far as she knew, Brad only took him for runs on the beach. He would be furious if the dog got away.
“Rusty, come back!” she yelled.
At the sound of her voice, he stopped momentarily, wagged his tail, and then headed out again. He was sniffing around the doctor’s yard when she finally hobbled to the front steps of the house. Blood had already soaked the scarf she’d tied around the wound.
Rusty suddenly appeared and bounded up the steps ahead of her. With the aid of a guard rail, she mounted the five wooden steps. The front door was open and Ashley could see an empty room through the screen. A welcoming sign reading Come In And Be Seated was posted on the door frame.
As she opened the screen door, she heard a bell ringing somewhere in the depths of the house. She was tempted to give a demanding cry for immediate help but decided against embarrassing herself with all the dramatics.
She stepped inside, with the dog at her heels.
The next instant, all hell broke loose.
Stiff-legged and hissing, a huge cat suddenly rose in one of the chairs in the waiting room. Rusty went berserk!
In a split second, the dog was after the cat as it leapt from the chair onto the doctor’s desk. Rusty followed, scattering papers and books in every direction. The cat jumped from the desk to the top of a filing cabinet.
“Rusty! No. No. Down! Down!” she ordered as the dog rose high enough on his hind legs to almost reach the cowering cat.
With the dog barking and snapping at him, the cat jumped from the top of the cabinet onto an adjoining wall shelf which instantly came crashing down with the added weight.
Ashley was standing close enough to the screen door to fling it open as the cat hit the floor and became a flash of black fur as it bounded out of the house. Before Ashley could get the door closed again, Rusty was in hot pursuit.
Ashley limped over to a chair and dropped down in it.
“Dr. Hadle
y! Dr. Hadley!” she called as loudly as she could. In all the commotion, there was still no sign of the doctor. When she heard the faint closing of a door somewhere at the back of the house, she guessed he must have been outside. “I need help!”
The floor was littered with papers, books and objects that had been on the wall shelf when it fell. Some animal figures were broken, and a ceramic box was now a pile of jagged shards.
As she stared at the broken objects, she suddenly stiffened.
Forgetting all about her bleeding leg, she leaned over and picked up a piece of recognizable jewelry lying among the broken pieces of the shattered box. As she held it in her hand, she stopped breathing.
The missing necklace from Lorrie’s inventory!
With trembling fingers, she carefully opened the locket. Two cameo pictures were inside. One of them was a smiling, youthful Samantha, easily recognizable from several pictures Ashley had seen in the house. The opposite photo was of neither Jonathan Langdon nor Philip Langdon but of another young, handsome young man.
James Hadley, MD.
Bits and pieces of the truth hit her with dynamic revelation. Her thoughts whirled like an off-center gyroscope. Too late, she sensed a presence behind her.
Before she could move, a strong arm came around her and pinned her back in the chair. She glimpsed the doctor’s face as a needle plunged into her neck.
“No…no…please, no!” Her cries echoed in her ears as her body disintegrated into a thousand floating pieces.
Chapter Fifteen
Brad spent more time than he’d planned at the state medical examiner’s office in Portland. During his years as a police officer on the mainland, he’d had contact with a lot of the personnel at the forensic laboratory. Cutting up dead bodies was not high on his list of enviable jobs, and he had a lot of respect for the work the forensics staff did.
“What do you have for me, Dr. McBride?” Brad asked a bespectacled little man who had spent thirty years of his life finding answers hidden in the remains of the deceased. Brad was confident he could trust this tenacious and talented man.
“You were right about the identity, Brad. It’s Timothy Templeton. We secured hospital X-rays taken a few years ago of a mended shoulder injury of the young man. I can show you on the skeleton how they match.”
“No need,” Brad said, declining the offer. “What killed him?”
McBride shook his head. “I can’t tell you right off. Because of the decomposition of the body, we’ll have to conduct more tests, but I can tell you what didn’t.” McBride shoved his glasses back on his rather pointed nose. “There’s no evidence of trauma to the skeleton, such as blows or bullets. My guess is poison or a fatal injection of some kind. After several years of decomposition, we’re limited in the kind of reliable tests that we can do.”
“I can’t find any record of Timothy having been seen anywhere after Pamela Langdon’s death. Did you do the autopsy on her?”
McBride nodded. “We doubled-checked everything on that one. Old Man Langdon was really breathing down our necks. Our analysis showed a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol. As far as we could tell, she did it to herself.”
“That’s what the police decided, too.”
“I remember one unusual thing,” he said, lowering his voice. “I didn’t say anything about it to anyone at the time. It wasn’t relative to the investigation.”
“What was that?”
“I inadvertently discovered, through medical backgrounds on the family, that Pamela Langdon didn’t have the same blood type as either Samantha or Jonathan. The girl was Type O while Samantha was Type A and Jonathan is Type AB.”
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe nothing. Sometimes it happens that the child has a different blood type than either parent, but it’s rare. So I’d have to question it.”
Brad slowly let out his breath. “I think you’re on to something, Doc.”
McBride nodded. “Since the mother and daughter are both dead, I guess it doesn’t matter much.”
“I’m not so sure.”
All the way back to the island, Brad pondered what this new development might mean. He doubted that the Langdon family would consider adoption. The alternative seemed more probable. Samantha Langdon could have had a lover who was the father of her child!
Checking the blood types of any man in Samantha’s life about the time she got pregnant might reveal the one that matched Pamela’s.
His deputy had left the police car at the wharf and Brad’s mind was whirling with ways to pursue this new line of investigation as he drove home. As he passed Dr. Hadley’s house, Brad slowed the car. If anyone knew about the inconsistencies in the Langdon bloodline, it would have to be Dr. Hadley.
When Brad saw the doctor coming up the path from the beach, he impulsively braked and pulled into the driveway. Even though he knew Ashley was waiting, his investigative juices were at an all-time high.
He got out of the car and headed around the house to the backyard. Since Hadley had been pushing a wheelbarrow, Brad decided he must have been dumping some debris or rocks from his garden onto the rugged beach below. The doctor was putting the wheelbarrow into a walk-in shed and throwing a canvas over it when Brad came around the corner of the house.
“Have you got a minute, Doc?” Brad called to him.
As he turned around, Hadley’s face was flush and sweat beaded on his forehead. “What is it?”
“Just a couple of questions.”
“I’m afraid they’ll have to wait,” he answered curtly. “I have several calls I have to make as soon I clean up and get a bite to eat. Let’s make it first thing in the morning, Officer.”
Hadley was obviously tired, uptight and irritable. No wonder, Brad thought. The storm had put an extra burden on the doctor’s time and energy.
“Sure, Doc. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
“Good. See you then.” Hadley nodded and then quickly walked across the yard and disappeared through the back door of his house.
Brad glanced at his watch. He was really late. If his deputy had picked Ashley up on time, she’d really be tired of waiting.
Brad was just opening the car door to get in when he heard a rushing noise behind him. He swung around.
“What in the—”
He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Rusty racing up the driveway toward the car. Without waiting for an invitation, Rusty jumped into the middle of the front seat and sat there, panting and slobbering, obviously worn out from some kind of chase.
Brad didn’t know whether to scold or hug the dog. He’d always been careful not to let Rusty run around freely. When they went for walks, it was along the shoreline. “Did Ashley let you out? I’ll have to have a talk with her, won’t I?”
Even as he chided the dog, he knew there wouldn’t be any purpose in telling her anything. This would be the last time she’d be at his house waiting for him.
Tomorrow she’d be gone.
A RISING SURF roared in her ears. Surrounded by dirt and rock walls, she fought to focus her heavy-lidded eyes. Fading sunlight coming through a jagged opening between huge boulders gave her a glimpse of the swelling ocean beyond. The ground was wet and cold and sent a bone-deep chill through her body as she lay there motionless.
This wasn’t happening! It was a nightmare. A terrifying dream. Wake up! Wake up!
Even as she fought the horror of her surroundings, she knew she wasn’t dreaming. She was awake. Disjointed thoughts slowly began to take shape. Like the jagged pieces of a puzzle, they came together. She remembered!
Dr. Hadley! The necklace! The photos!
She had to tell Brad! He would know how to put it all together. A sharp urgency shot through her. Her fingers dug feebly into the moist, slimy ground as she tried to move—and couldn’t. There were no ropes or bonds preventing her from getting up. The horrible truth swept over her.
Dear God, no!
Whatever drug Hadley had given her had affected her m
uscles. Her arms and legs were unresponsive. She could only move her head slightly to one side.
The sound of an incoming tide was like a death knell. She was as helpless as if she were already buried in her watery grave. Slowly and relentlessly the water began to spread wider and wider into the cave. Higher and higher…
Rising seawater slowly covered Ashley’s feet and puddled all around her chilled flesh. The cut in her leg smarted from the salty water and the cloth she had wrapped around it had dropped off. She didn’t know how much blood she had lost. She desperately struggled to move her inert body but a little movement of her head and her fingers was the only response. Her nostrils were filled with the pungent odors of decaying seaweed and dank driftwood.
Waves of unconsciousness only heightened her terror as she was repeatedly thrust back into an awareness of lingering death. Her ears were filled with the roar of a rising surf coming closer and closer. The incoming tide would inevitably fill the cavern and sweep her body out to sea. Her mind refused to comprehend why a twisted fate had brought her to this end.
BRAD SAW Ashley’s sweater on one of the chairs as soon as he and Rusty came through the kitchen into the house.
Good, at least she’d waited.
“Sorry I’m late but I—” He stopped when he saw that the living room was empty.
Maybe she was sitting on the back patio. He quickly went outside and checked, but there wasn’t any sign that she might have sat there waiting for him.
More than anything, Rusty’s calm behavior as he tagged along at Brad’s heels verified that Ashley wasn’t in the house. The dog always made a complete pest of himself when there was anyone around.
Ashley must have gotten tired of waiting! The Langdon compound was less than a mile’s walk. When he didn’t show, she’d probably left in a huff, forgetting her sweater.
All the things he’d wanted to say to her were a hollow mockery. He’d even been ready to promise he’d put his police work on the back burner to spend more time with her if she’d stay. The truth was, he had no real life separate from his work and the timing would always be bad. How could he plead with her to give their love a chance when she’d end up resenting him for ruining her life? No, it was better this way. Better to let her leave tomorrow without creating another painful scene between them.