by Joanne Pence
“I wouldn’t presume.”
“I love noble men!”
“Oh! Miss Worthington! Are you sure you want to do this?”
Angie stepped closer, tripped over a tree root, and fell with a splat onto a mud puddle.
“What was that?” Reginald whispered. “Let’s go back to the house. I won’t have your reputation compromised.”
“Anything you say, Reggie.”
Angie sat up. She and the vegetables were covered with brown, sticky mud. And now there was nothing left to see or hear. Damn!
Angie changed her clothes and had completed all the dinner preparations except for putting the soufflé in the oven when she began to gather everyone together. She wanted them in the dining room and seated before she served the soufflé.
She found everyone but Moira.
The others quickly grew anxious and worried over Moira’s absence. They were ready to go on a search for her when she burst into the house.
“Paavo!” she cried. “Have you seen Danny? Was he with you?”
“Who’s this Danny person?” Bethel asked.
Moira ignored her and spoke only to Paavo. “I haven’t seen him all morning. I went to Quint’s house, but he wasn’t there. He was supposed to come for his home study. He’s never late like this!”
“Who is this person? I demand to know,” Bethel repeated.
“He’s my son,” Moira said.
Bethel’s mouth dropped open.
“I’ve searched everywhere—the house, the grounds—calling his name, but he never answered.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Help me, Paavo. Whatever this, this horror is, it can’t happen to Danny, not my boy.”
He gripped her shoulders. “It’ll be all right.”
“I tell myself that, but I’m so scared. Where can he be? I want him home. Safe.”
“We’ll find him. We’ll search the house and the grounds.”
Her eyes held a hint of hysteria. “Just like we did the night Patsy disappeared.”
Paavo maneuvered Moira toward Angie, who placed a comforting arm around the woman’s waist. Paavo let her go. “We’ll find Danny.”
Anxiety and worry showed on everyone’s faces. Angie offered her hand to Moira, who gripped it so hard Angie feared her bones might snap. She walked Moira to the drawing room to sit.
Chelsea began to cry. The others spoke in low murmurs. The similarities with what had happened to Finley were at the fore of all their minds, and Patsy was still missing.
Angie refused to consider that anyone would hurt a child, no matter how deranged he or she was. Danny knew this land like the back of his hand. He was busily doing some very boyish thing and lost track of time. They all did. But even as she told herself that, she knew Danny wouldn’t do anything that would cause his mother this much worry. As fear prickled her skin, she felt her own eyes well with tears. “We’ll find him,” she said to Moira, trying to find courage in her words.
Paavo, Martin, and Reginald decided they’d look for Danny outdoors. Bethel, Chelsea, Moira, and Angie would search the house and nearby grounds.
“I’d feel better if you came with me,” Paavo said to Angie.
“I’d only slow you down, stop you from climbing around in areas that a boy might go. I’ll stay with the women.”
“Don’t get separated. You’ll be safe if you’re all together.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Take this.” Paavo handed her his .38 revolver. “Put it in your pocket.” He glanced at the tight slacks she wore. “Or somewhere that you can get to it fast.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Whoever it is has killed more than once. I won’t leave here until I’m sure you can defend yourself, if necessary.”
“All right.” She took the gun. “But now you have to be extra careful.”
“I will.” He kissed her hard and then quickly turned away and went to join Martin and Reginald outside.
She went back to Chelsea and Bethel, who were waiting for her in the drawing room. Moira had joined them.
“Should we go out and check the root cellar?” Angie asked.
“Martin will,” Bethel said. “He mentioned it to me as he left.”
“What about the passage between the walls that Paavo found, and the space under the eaves off Reginald’s room?” Angie asked.
“Chelsea can look in there,” Bethel said. “See if her friend has been up to anything.”
“He hasn’t been.”
“How do you know? He could be behind all this.”
“How do you know it isn’t Martin?”
“Because I’ve lived with him for twenty-nine years,” she snapped. “I know the man. Martin wouldn’t hurt a flea. But you’ve just met Vane. There’s no reason for you to believe him.”
“He’s a nice man!” Chelsea said stubbornly.
“Stop it!” Moira clenched her fists, then raised them to her forehead. “Everyone here is either too nice, or too crazy, or too damn old to hurt anyone. But my son is missing! I don’t want to hear one more word about anyone being too nice to do any of this, because it just isn’t true!”
“It has to be someone from the town,” Chelsea said. “Someone who doesn’t want the inn to open.”
“They can’t get up here,” Moira said. “The road is closed and the bridge is out.”
“There might be a way that only townspeople know about,” Bethel said. “You and Finley haven’t been here long enough to tell something like that.”
“But Quint and Danny have traveled all over this property, this whole promontory. They know every inch of it.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Angie said. “Maybe Danny knew another way—a way that kids around here learn when they’re little, and keep the knowledge of when they grow up. You know, playing haunted house or something, seeing who’s brave enough to come up here at night, anything.”
“Maybe Danny’s missing because he knew something like that,” Chelsea offered.
“No!” Moira’s eyes welled. “Danny doesn’t know anything. There’s no reason anyone would hurt him.”
“I’m sorry,” Chelsea said. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I’m getting out of here,” Moira said. She grabbed the raincoat she’d thrown over a chair. “I’m looking for him myself.”
“I’m coming with you, then,” Bethel said, reaching for her coat.
“Me, too,” Chelsea said, putting on her rain slicker.
Angie looked at the rain slicker she’d worn earlier. It didn’t have any pockets, and she wanted one to be able to carry Paavo’s gun with her.
“I have to go upstairs and get a jacket,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
“I don’t care what any of you do,” Moira said. “Why don’t you stay here and talk about how nice you all are, and how some boogeyman from the town has come up here and spirited my son away. Why don’t you leave me alone? You’ve all been nothing but trouble ever since you arrived. All of you!”
She charged out the door, Chelsea and Bethel right behind her. “Hurry up, Angie,” Chelsea called. “Catch up with us, okay?”
“Okay.” Angie ran up to her room and found a jacket. She put the revolver in it and was hurrying back down the hall when she passed Chelsea’s room and remembered Chelsea’s remark about Reginald Vane searching the secret stairwell.
How could he search it, though? He’d gone out with Paavo.
Hell. She put the jacket on the bed, lit one of Chelsea’s candles, unlocked then entered the secret passage. Inside, she lifted the candle upward, throwing light along the house’s support beams and the backside of Sheetrock. She was, literally, inside the walls of the house, between the interior and exterior walls. The area was covered with dust and cobwebs. This time, though, she had no choice but to go through it. Quaking with disgust, she pushed the cobwebs aside, brushed imaginary spiders out of her hair and off her face and arms, then ran down the stairs.
The back of a paneled wall stood directly in fro
nt of her. Instead of pushing against the panels and ending up in the library, as Paavo had done, she decided to explore further and turned to the side, to an open area that looked like storage space. She knew that the library was to her left. The room to the right of the library was Finley’s room. This open area had to be between the two.
“Danny?” she whispered, her voice sounding loud in the dark quiet.
She saw boxes piled high and opened one. It was full of old, dusty books. The Castle of Otranto—how appropriate. One of the first gothics ever, 1878 edition. Some book collector would probably love to get his hands on this.
She raised the candle. As best as she could tell, the space above her was essentially open all the way to the third floor and Reginald Vane’s room.
Checking thoroughly to make sure Danny wasn’t here and unconscious, or worse, she went over to the library panel. Paavo had said it was necessary to push on two spots at once. She looked it over with her candle. Putting the candle down, she placed her fingers on one corner, then carefully stretching against the wall, did the same on the other corner. She pushed.
A spring snapped loose. Angie didn’t even have time to think as the wall spun around a half turn, nearly lifting her off her feet as it twisted her around.
“What the hell?” she muttered. She was in the library. She hadn’t seen anything like this since some old Abbott and Costello movies.
Paavo hadn’t said anything about the whole wall spinning around. She’d had the impression he’d merely released the spring, opened the panel, and walked through. Right now the library looked awful, with this unfinished wall instead of a bookcase. She needed to turn the wall back into place. She popped the springs, but before she could jump aside, she was spun around and once again found herself out in the between-the-walls passageway.
This would never do. She blew out the candle—she wasn’t planning a return trip—then pressed the spring releases and like magic was in the library once more. She felt downright dizzy.
Instead of pushing both buttons, she pushed the wall; sure enough, it began to slowly rotate for her. She kept it going until the bookcase appeared. It stopped on its own with a click as it gyrated into place and the spring lock took hold. She touched it, and found it felt like a solid wall once again.
Shaking her head, she walked out of the library. She was going to have to hurry to catch up to Moira and the others. She just hoped she could find them.
From the foyer, she looked down the east wing toward the dining room and kitchen and couldn’t help but think that if there was a secret passage on one arm of the house, why not on the other?
The east arm was a little more complicated because it held the dining room, then the kitchen, pantry, and utility rooms. Angie paced off the width of the dining room, then of the kitchen. Sure enough, the length of the hall from one room to the next was longer than it would be if the two rooms met side by side. Something was between them. But how did she get in there?
Finally, she found it. A broom closet just off the kitchen, with its inside walls paneled. A dead giveaway. Nobody paneled walls inside a closet.
She pressed two corner spots on each panel, just as she’d done in Chelsea’s room. On her third try, the panel sprang open. She pushed it wide enough to step through. She was in a square, unfinished room. A ladder led from it down into the darkness.
She wished she had someone here to help her check this out, but if Danny had somehow gone down there and been hurt…She went back into the kitchen and grabbed a powerful flashlight, then bent into the well, shining the flashlight to see what was down there. It was a cellar.
Maybe she should get Paavo before going any further? On the other hand, it was a just a cellar. Maybe the same as the one that held Miss Greer’s body. It didn’t look the same, though, from up here. The smell of dampness and decay was stronger than ever.
Still, cellars were nothing to be afraid of, and they were certainly the sort of place a boy would explore. He might have come down here to play gopher, or some such game, and gotten hurt.
She slowly descended the ladder, making sure the rungs were solid and would hold her as she went.
Already, claustrophobia was rearing its head. It was one thing to be crawling along secret passageways within the walls of a building and quite another, she discovered, to be beneath it. She didn’t want to be down in the ground until that sorrowful day—hopefully seventy or so years off—when she wouldn’t know the difference.
The thought of turning around and going right back up that ladder was tempting, and she would have done it if she hadn’t noticed that some of the ground showed signs of disturbance. Parts of the area here were completely covered with dust, but at the bottom of the ladder, and going off in one direction, the dust had been packed down, as if someone had walked on it. Whether that someone walked on it yesterday or fifty years ago was anybody’s guess. But it might have been Danny.
“Danny?” she called. Her voice echoed in the dark, silent chamber. “Danny, are you here?”
Nothing. Well, at least she’d tried. Time to get out of here.
She aimed the flashlight one last time on the area where it seemed there were footprints. She stopped, feeling as if someone, something, was with her.
She aimed the flashlight a bit ahead, then a little more, a little more. She gasped. Shoes…women’s black shoes, then slacks, a jacket. Her heart was pounding with fright as she raised the light to the face.
“Hello, Angie,” Patsy said.
28
“How nice of you to come to see me, Angie.” Patsy smiled. Her eyes were red. “It’s been lonely down here.”
“Actually, I think I’ll go back upstairs.” Angie turned and ran toward the ladder. She scrambled up it as fast as she could, but Patsy grabbed her ankle. Angie was ready to give a hard kick when she saw that Patsy held a carving knife against her Achilles tendon.
Where had Patsy found a carving knife? If this had been a proper vegetarian inn, Patsy wouldn’t be wielding anything more dangerous than a potato peeler. “Okay, Patsy,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “If you want my company, I’m all yours.”
“Come down here. And don’t call me Patsy!”
Angie slowly descended the ladder. “Relax. Everything will be fine. I didn’t realize you didn’t like your nickname. Would you like me to call you Patricia?”
“That’s not my name.”
“No?”
“My name’s Susannah.”
Here we go, Angie thought. She swallowed, but her voice still squeaked. “Susannah?”
Patsy nodded. “Now go back there. Jack and Elise’s child is there.”
“What?” Angie turned to look at Patsy, but Patsy jabbed the knife in her direction, so Angie hurried on, out of the blade’s reach.
In the back of the cellar, Angie saw a small opening. She stepped over a high threshold and found herself in another room. She could hardly breathe—this was the source of the damp, decaying smell that permeated the house. It had to be aired out and dried somehow. But such thoughts vanished when she saw, scrunched in a corner near a kerosene lamp, Danny.
“Oh, my God,” Angie said, hurrying to the boy. He had a gag over his mouth and his hands and legs had been tied. “Danny, honey, are you all right?”
He gave a brave nod, but she could see that his eyes were wide and frightened.
“Let this child go,” Angie said. “He’s frightened.”
“They thought they could hide him from me, but I found them out. I figured it all out.”
Angie sat down on the ground beside Danny and put her arm around his shoulders. He snuggled against her. “Let’s take this gag off his mouth. I know you don’t want to hurt him.”
“Don’t touch it! Just leave him be.”
“But why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you get it? He’s Jack and Elise’s child. But Jack’s dead now. And all I have left is his child.”
“Patsy, this isn’t Jack’s child. Danny
is Moira’s son.”
“Who’s Moira? Her name is Elise. She had this child without even being married. She and Jack. My Jack.”
Angie stared at her.
“Look at the boy’s eyes. Tell me if they aren’t Jack’s eyes.”
She looked at Danny. His eyes did have the same periwinkle shade as Running Spirit’s.
“His eyes are nothing like Jack’s.” Angie deliberately lied, deciding that to confuse Patsy was her best course of action. “I don’t think he’s Jack’s son.”
“He is. I snuck out one night to get some food, and I overheard Elise speaking with some policeman who’s staying here. This boy is all I have left now that Jack’s gone.” Patsy’s eyes filled with tears. “I did love him so, even though he never cared much for me. I didn’t want him to leave me for her, but I didn’t want him to be dead!”
Angie found the knot that bound Danny’s hands and started tugging at it, trying to untie it. “So tell me, Susannah, why are you down here? Why aren’t you still upstairs?”
“I had to come here. Jack wanted to get rid of me now that he’s with Elise again.”
“What did he do?”
“I told him about my meeting with Ezra.”
“Ezra?” Angie’s head was spinning. “Your father?”
“Yes. I asked him to sell me the house so that I could throw Elise out of it—keep it for Jack and me. But he wouldn’t. He tried to push me. But I ducked and he missed. He lost his footing and fell down hard, his head hitting a rock. But he wasn’t dead. I swear, he wasn’t dead.”
“This was on the cliffs by the ocean?” Angie asked. Did Patsy think Finley was Ezra?
“Yes.” Patsy sighed. “I ran back to our room. But then Ezra didn’t come home. I told Jack what had happened, and Jack said…” A sob caught in her throat. “Jack said he must have died. That leaving Ezra there was the same as killing him outright. He said the constable would arrest me, that he’d hang me for Ezra’s murder. And then Jack said he’d cover for me if I gave him money and left him here alone with Elise.”
Angie’s confusion grew worse. “You say Finley…I mean, Ezra…fell when you were with him, but he was still alive. But then Jack said you’d killed him?”