Phantom Lover

by Rebecca York

  There was a long moment of silence. Then she heard footsteps moving off and she was left standing in the hall, thinking that in the past few days she’d picked up a lot of information from overheard conversations. Maybe she should do more lurking in the halls.

  But not now. Now she wanted to see if she could find Troy’s cousin—just to satisfy herself that the woman was all right. But if she didn’t find Nola, that would prove nothing, she reminded herself. Nola might well have carried out her threat of the night before and left under her own power, which would mean her disappearance had nothing to do with Graves.

  Recognizing that she was on the verge of hysteria, she dragged in a steadying breath, then let it out slowly. One thing at a time, she told herself. You were going to look in the strongbox. Take care of that. Then you can figure out your next step.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, she hurried up the stairs, staying alert, trying to make sure nobody saw her. Too bad she didn’t have a flashlight or know more about the route Troy had taken this morning. If she could move through the secret passages, she’d be sure she wasn’t observed.

  Still, she made it to Troy’s room without mishap, slipped through the door and locked it before quickly crossing the sitting room.

  As she stepped into the bedroom, she went stock-still. She’d been thinking that while she was up here, it might be prudent to make the bed. But it was already made.

  Had Troy come back here and taken care of that? Or had Mrs. Martindale or someone else been snooping around?

  With a sigh, she turned to the closet and followed the directions Troy had given her a few hours earlier. Just as he’d said, there was a seam in the paneling of the wall on the right.

  At least that was something he hadn’t lied about, she thought with a snort.

  Once she knew what she was doing, it took only a few moments to figure out how to press correctly on the wall. Still she felt a small sense of triumph when she heard a click then saw a panel slide to the side. Beyond it was a small, dark recess. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw the glint of dull metal.

  Gingerly she reached in and hauled out a heavy, square box about a foot on each side. Carrying it to the desk, she sat, unlocked it and lifted the lid.

  Inside were the items Troy had mentioned, the kind of stuff you’d expect to find in a safe-deposit box. Troy and Grace’s marriage license. Birth certificates. Grace’s death certificate, which Bree couldn’t stop herself from reading. The cause of death was listed as drowning.

  For long moments she sat there picturing the accident. Then she resolutely went back to the other papers in the box.

  She smiled when she saw that Troy had put in two pictures that Dinah had drawn with pastels. One showed the garden bright with flowers with the headlands in the background and a blue sweep of ocean and sky. The other was of a little girl and her father working in the garden. The pictures were quite good for a six-year-old. Dinah obviously had considerable artistic talent.

  But that wasn’t what Bree focused on. The drawings showed Dinah and Troy at a happy time in their lives. Was that why he had put them in the strongbox—because things were so different now and he wanted to preserve a reminder of their life when things had been happy? And what was he planning when he disappeared for good? Was he planning to take Dinah with him or to abandon her? Probably the latter, since he’d made Bree promise to take care of his daughter.

  She thought again about the way he’d sounded then. Panicked, upset. As she recalled those moments, her emotions softened. He wanted Dinah safe, and maybe he thought that leaving her was his only choice. Maybe he knew he’d be on the run, and if whoever was after him caught up, it would be a disaster if she were along. She decided to take that interpretation as she set the pictures aside and looked for something worth hiding. She found it under the deed to the house.

  Troy’s will. She couldn’t bear to read it. Instead she dug farther and found some stock certificates. They were the certificates that went with the balance sheet she’d seen from Enteck. Bree shuffled through them. As far as she could see, they would have represented millions of dollars—before the company had gone belly-up. Now they were practically worthless.

  Someone had sunk a lot of money into the failed company. When Bree looked at the name on the certificates, she gasped.

  Helen London.

  As she stared at the official-looking papers, she knew the assumptions she’d made were wrong. These were Helen’s stocks, which meant Helen—not Troy—had lost millions. Probably her whole share of the family fortune.

  Bree rocked back in her chair, trying to wrap her mind around what she’d just discovered. In the first place, Helen had lied to her. At least by omission. She’d acted as though nothing had changed, as though she was still well off. But unless she had some hidden source of income, above and beyond her state department salary, this bad investment had done irreparable damage to Helen’s finances.

  Bree went back to the strongbox, looking for more information, and found several letters clipped together.

  Her eyes widened as she read the correspondence between Troy and his sister. The letters were dated after Grace had died. Apparently Helen had sent the balance sheet from the accounting firm and the stock certificates to Troy, telling him she was broke and asking him to advance her money on her share of Ravencrest. He’d told her he didn’t have a spare cent because Grace had sunk so much into house restoration, and he couldn’t give her anything substantial until some of his savings certificates came due, which wasn’t until next year.

  Helen had come back with a proposal to put Ravencrest on the market. Troy had vetoed the plan. There had been some back-and-forth discussion, but Troy remained opposed to selling the property. The tone of the correspondence began politely, but by the end Helen in particular was unable to hide her anger. She warned Troy that if he didn’t go along with her plans, he was going to be sorry.

  The threats made Bree’s throat close. Helen had told her she was worried about Troy, but in these letters she hadn’t sounded worried about anyone but herself.

  Bree got up, carried the box back to the closet and stowed it where she’d found it. It had been safe there for months; she had no reason to believe it would be found now. Once it was hidden again and the key was safely in her pocket, she paced back toward the desk.

  She didn’t want to think anything bad about Helen, her best friend over the years. But evidence was piling up, evidence that was impossible to ignore. For example, Helen had kept Bree and Troy apart by lying about losing touch with her.

  Why? What was her motive once Grace was dead? And what else had she done? Bree thought about that. Helen had always been sweet to her, but there were people who had asked her why they were friends. She’d had the feeling they wanted to tell her something she didn’t want to hear about Ms. London, so she’d always made it clear that she wasn’t into gossip about her friend.

  Still, some of Helen’s schemes and grudges had made her uneasy. Like the time in college Helen had been angry at another girl in the dorm, Stacy Masters, and had started a campaign against her. As she’d watched the whole dorm gang up against Stacy, Bree had been glad that Helen’s wrath wasn’t directed at her. In fact, that had been an underlying element in their relationship. Bree had been careful not to make Helen angry because she understood the consequences.

  But now it didn’t seem as if she could avoid them. Helen was up to something. Some elaborate plot that was still unfolding. Was she working against Troy or had they made some kind of pact? And were they using Bree for their own purposes?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a noise outside—a high, frightened scream carrying above the constant sound of the waves. She rushed to the window, but she could see nothing.

  Bolting out of Troy’s room, she hurried to the stairs, then quickly descended.

  Mrs. Martindale was standing in the front hall looking alarmed.

  “Did you hear that?” Bree asked breathlessly.

&nbs
p; “Yes.”

  “Something’s happened outside.” She started toward the door but was stopped by the housekeeper’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Don’t go out there!”

  “But somebody may be in trouble.”

  “And if they are, what do you think you can do? You’re just a little bit of a thing.”

  Bree opened her mouth then closed it again. She didn’t know how to answer because she had no idea who had screamed and why. If the edge of the cliff had given way, and somebody had fallen into the sea, then they should start some kind of rescue operation.

  “Go up and make sure Dinah is all right,” Mrs. Martindale said. “I’ll find Graves and get him to search around outside.”

  The mention of the little girl galvanized her. If Dinah had heard that scream, she would surely be worried. And Graves was certainly better equipped to take care of an emergency on the grounds than either one of them.

  Quickly she retraced her steps, feeling the housekeeper’s gaze burning into her back as she climbed the stairs. When she reached the landing, Mrs. Martindale was still in the hall, watching, as if to make sure that the schoolteacher followed directions.

  She gave a small nod, then turned and hurried down the corridor, taking the route she and Dinah had walked the first evening she’d arrived.

  At the place where Graves had startled them, the curtains rippled, eliciting a small gasp from Bree.

  “In here,” a voice whispered. It was Troy.

  Bree wanted to shout at him and to ask what the hell he was up to this time.

  Instead she took a quick look behind her to make sure the housekeeper hadn’t followed her up the stairs. Then she pulled aside the curtains and saw a narrow opening that she hadn’t found the first time she’d searched. But apparently she’d been right all along. Graves had disappeared through one of the hidden passageways. And now Troy was using it.

  She stepped inside, leaving the curtain open so that she could see into the dim tunnel.

  Troy was standing several yards from the entrance.

  “What happened outside?” she asked, straining to see his face.

  “I think we just lost Abner Sterling.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll take care of Dinah,” he said. “You go find out what Martindale and Graves are up to.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned and disappeared through the opening to the hallway. Still in the darkened passageway, Bree looked around and saw a narrow, winding set of stairs that led back to the first floor. They were constructed at a sharp angle so that she had to step carefully to keep from tumbling down.

  Flattening her hand against the wall and trying to be as quiet as possible, she made her way down and found herself facing a blank wall.

  Obviously there was some way to open it, but she wasn’t going to search around until she knew what was on the other side.

  Several small holes let light into the darkened space where she stood. Moving closer, she peered through one and saw Mrs. Martindale standing at the sink, washing dishes as though cleaning up from breakfast was the only thing on her mind.

  Well, that wasn’t quite true, Bree decided. There was a tension in the woman’s shoulders that made her movements jerky.

  A noise outside had her looking up quickly. As Bree watched, the door flew open and Graves barreled into the room.

  “Is he dead?” Mrs. Martindale asked, her voice strangely calm.

  Bree stared at the woman who had seemed so friendly. She was using the same tone of voice she’d used to extol her hot cross buns.

  “Yeah, I took care of him for you.”

  “Not for me!” the housekeeper objected.

  He ignored her and went on. “Just like Nola. I got rid of the pair of them, the way you said. But I don’t like it. That wasn’t what you said we had to do.”

  “We didn’t have any choice. Not after Nola found London’s ring lying on the ground by his grave.”

  Bree struggled to hold back a gasp, but she must have made a sound because Graves whirled toward the panel where she was hiding.

  “Someone’s listening.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  From her hiding place, Bree saw Mrs. Martindale look toward the secret door. It felt as though the woman could see right through it and see Bree hiding in the darkness. She tensed, ready to defend herself.

  But instead of marching across the room, the housekeeper gave a harsh laugh. “You old fool, there’s nobody’s there. Who are you expecting? The ghost?”

  “Yeah, the ghost. He’s stalking us. Not the one from way back in the past. I don’t believe in him. But I believe in London’s ghost.”

  “Only in your imagination.”

  “You gonna explain all the strange stuff that’s been going on around here?”

  Mrs. Martindale had stayed where she was, but Graves stomped toward the panel where Bree was hiding. She felt frozen, yet somehow she managed to reach out and grip the handle in front of her. Graves was right on the other side of the barrier and she ducked her head so that when he looked through the small holes, he wouldn’t see her eyes.

  She could hear him working at the door, pressing and pounding, but she hung on to the handle with a strength born of desperation.

  If she was interpreting the conversation correctly, this man was admitting to having murdered two people before breakfast. And if he found her, she was next.

  Bree braced her foot against the door, exerting pressure as he tried to battle his way through.

  “The damn thing’s stuck. I’m going up and in the other way.”

  She struggled to hold back a whimper. If he went upstairs, he’d find the panel open. Then he’d come down and find her.

  “You are not! I don’t want you bothering that child and the schoolteacher. They’re both afraid of you. And I don’t have time for them now.”

  “I’ve been watching the teacher. She’s been stickin’ her nose in where it don’t belong.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got her so confused with all my lies that she doesn’t know whether she’s standing on her head or her feet. The first thing I said to her when she arrived was a lie. I told her I didn’t know she was coming. And of course Miss Helen and I had worked it all out.”

  While Bree took that in, she heard Graves move away from the door. She sagged back, fighting the weak feeling in her chest.

  “You have to keep your cool,” the housekeeper said. “Helen will be here next week.”

  Again Bree’s mind tried to grapple with what she was hearing. Helen was coming to Ravencrest? From Macedonia? Or was that another lie? As Bree struggled to assimilate that information, Graves continued.

  “I know that. You told me often enough.”

  “Well, you go about your business, making sure the place is in top condition. We want the buyers she lined up to be impressed with what they see. Get out and fix up the gardens like you’re supposed to do.”

  Bree’s mind was reeling. Helen was coming and she’d gotten buyers for the property. She’d said in her letters to Troy that she wanted to sell the house and land. He’d written back, strongly opposing the idea. So she’d had her brother murdered to get him out of the way.

  At least she’d thought she had him murdered, because Troy was only pretending to be dead. Lord, that had to be true, since the alternative was unthinkable, impossible. She’d seen Troy only a few minutes ago. He’d made love to her last night.

  Her mind was working overtime to explain what had really happened to Troy. He’d been wandering around the estate with amnesia and a concussion, hiding, scaring people. But his memory was coming back. When he’d been injured, his mind had developed special powers.

  Even as explanations whirled in her head, she was still listening to the couple in the kitchen, thinking that if she only had a tape recorder, she could nail them for murder. Not of Troy. But of Abner and Nola Sterling.

  “I don’t see why she had to hire that teacher,” Graves was saying. “The wom
an’s just a complication.”

  “Yes, but we need her to keep the school board off our back since we had to move up the timetable. We need her so everything here looks nice and normal until the sale goes through. And when she disappears, it will be easy enough to say that she’s gone back east.”

  The breath froze in Bree’s lungs and her hand clenched on the door handle. Oh, Lord, it sounded like they were planning to kill her, too.

  “We didn’t need the Sterlings,” Graves said.

  “Who else are we going to pin London’s murder on?”

  “Yeah, well, now they’re dead, too.”

  “So they ran away. Or they were trying to run away, and they had an accident. We’ll let Helen decide about that.”

  Graves made a sound of agreement then said, “I know you and Miss Helen are friends, but do you trust her? What if she turns around and stabs us in the back like she does everybody else?”

  “Helen would never do that to me! We go way back. I worked here when she was just a girl. I was nice to her, sweet and kind, the way I am with Dinah.”

  Graves snorted.

  “She trusts me. She knows I’m the one making this whole plan work.”

  “Just watch your back with her.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me and her,” Mrs. Martindale insisted, but this time she sounded a shade less positive. “Now go on, get to work.”

  “I don’t like it when you boss me around. We’re supposed to be partners,” Graves muttered.

  “I’m not bossing you,” the woman denied. “I’m just trying to make sure that things look normal around here.”

  “Normal! Yeah, right. What are you going to tell the teacher when she asks why the Sterlings aren’t around?”

  “I’ll tell her they decided to leave. Maybe the ghost scared them away.” She cleared her throat. “Are the bodies in the sea cave?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then Helen can decide what to do with them. I vote for weighting them down and taking them out to sea.”

  “Weight them down! That will sure look like an accident.”