Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evie

by Marianne Stillings

  These people were such fools.

  Hope lightened his heart. He could still pull it off. Once he destroyed the last clue, they’d have nothing with which to pin Tommy’s murder—or anybody else’s—on him, and they never would. He’d been too careful, too patient, too clever. There were no loose ends to tie him to anything. None.

  He pressed himself against the wall, deep in the shadows, and waited.

  Go away now, he thought. All of you. Go and run and look for Little Miss Pain in the Ass. She’d be dead by now, which was as it should be for all the trouble she’d caused him.

  You people are such fools.

  Chapter 26

  Dear Diary:

  Thomas is very famous and writes books. I asked him if I could read one, and he said that it would be all right. It was a murder mystery, and you aren’t supposed to guess who did it until the very last second. But I knew who it was all along.

  Evangeline—age 13

  Max refused to believe what he was hearing. His brain felt sharp and dull at the same time. Evie, in that cavern? Drowned? No. No!

  A glass funnel from one of the hurricane lamps slipped from Edmunds’s hands and crashed to the floor. He looked up, stricken, and moved toward Lorna, trying to form words, but none came.

  Grasping Lorna by the elbow, Max began dragging her toward the doors. “Show me!”

  “Nyet!”

  He stopped in his tracks and turned to face the distraught psychic. Her eyes were huge, her mouth gaping. Her hands reached for him, fingers splayed, clawing the air like a cat kneading a blanket.

  “Not to go,” she begged. “Not to go. Here. Stay here!”

  “We cannot wait,” Edmunds choked. “There is no time—”

  “Nyet!” she shrieked, a shocked expression on her face, as though she couldn’t believe the words were coming from her own mouth. Shaking her head frantically, she choked, “Evie. She… she is good. She is fine. She comes. Much danger!” Closing her eyes, she placed her fingers to her temples. “I see… ehm, the dark place… cold… she is near… she comes to you… I don’t…”

  Against the far wall, a noise drew everyone’s attention. A thump, a squeal, and the middle section of the large bookcase creaked open to reveal a narrow gap in the library wall, not ten feet from where Thomas Heyworth had been slain.

  The beam of a flashlight bounced off the darkness, and a figure moved toward the opening.

  Evie? Max released Lorna and took a step forward.

  Then she emerged, and through the dusky light of the vast room, their gazes locked. In that instant, he saw everything. In that unguarded, vulnerable, open moment, he saw in her eyes what she felt for him, and his heart wanted to burst.

  She loved him.

  “M-Max…”

  In four strides he reached her. “Evie,” he murmured as he wrapped his arms around her in a rocking embrace. Holding her close, seeing her safe, brought breath to his lungs, color to his shadows, dimension to his dreams.

  She was drenched and cold as ice, but he didn’t care. It had become a sort of tradition with them.

  Raising her face to his, she smiled, and it soothed and healed him, and made him whole.

  “I’m sorry, Scout,” he whispered. “I tried to get back sooner but the storm got so bad. I never should have left you.” He bent his head and kissed her.

  Her lips were cold, but her kiss the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

  Behind Evie, a deep male voice said, “Gosh. Don’t I get a hug and kiss too?”

  Max’s head came up. “Nate?”

  With no small amount of fanfare, Nate stepped through the secret door and into the library. He was soaking wet, had ropes dangling from his wrists, a bruise on his jaw, a pissed off look on his face, and no glasses.

  “What in the hell happened to you?”

  Nate shrugged and squinted at Max. “Nothing that my hands around a certain son of a bitch’s neck won’t cure.”

  “Dabney? What on earth…” Lorna’s eyes filled with concern as she rushed forward and placed her fingers on his bruised jaw. He covered her hand with his own. “Max called you Nate? I don’t understand.”

  He shot a quick glance to Max, then said softly, “Detective Nate Darling, ma’am. The real Dabney James was incapacitated, thanks to a serious case of murder, so, when we discovered he’d been invited to Heyworth’s treasure hunt, we thought there might be a connection. I took his place. I’m sorry to have to fool you, but we needed—”

  Lorna interrupted Nate’s confession by flinging herself into his arms. He grinned and pulled her close. Against his soggy shirt she whispered, “Thank God. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen in love with a man whose poetry gave me stomach cramps.”

  “You didn’t like my poetry?” With his cheek resting on her hair, he said quietly, “ ‘Live with me, and be my love/And we will all the pleasures prove/that hills and valleys, dales and fields/And all the craggy mountains yields.’ ”

  Lorna closed her eyes, curling her fingers into Nate’s battered shirt. “Much better. Courtesy of Christopher Marlowe, of course, but much, much better.”

  “You okay, Darling?” Max said. “You look like shit.”

  Nate ran his fingers through his hair and nodded.

  “After lunch,” he said, “I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I think the food or juice was drugged. Anyway, I went to lie down, and when I woke up, I was bound and gagged and being dragged through a dark tunnel so I could become fish food.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No, dammit,” he growled. “It was too frigging dark, I’d lost my glasses, and I was still woozy from the drug.” He nodded toward the bookcase opening. “What I did see was that the tunnel leads all the way down to the cavern and then out to the beach. It must be how Heyworth’s killer came and went without being seen.”

  Edmunds, meanwhile, had stepped forward to embrace Evie, his face pale, his eyes filled with relief.

  “Thank God you are safe,” he murmured. “To lose you now…”

  She looked up at her father and smiled. “I know.”

  Edmunds looked at Max. “It’s Felix Barlow, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Evie made a choking sound. “Barlow?” she said, looked thoughtful for a moment, and nodded. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Edmunds,” Max said, “did you know about this passageway?”

  Stepping away from Evie, the butler shook his head. “No, sir. I had no idea this particular tunnel existed.” He gazed at the gigantic bookcase. “Imagine,” he said softly. “All these years. Astonishing.” Clearing his throat, he said, “I am aware of several shorter secret tunnels, most of which simply lead from one bedroom to the next. They were designed for, eh…”

  “I know what they were designed for,” Max said, sliding a wry smile to Evie, who pressed her lips together and averted her eyes.

  Returning his flashlight beam to the gaping hole in the wall, Max said, “If this goes all the way down to the cavern under the barn and then out to the beach, it must have been the one they used way back when, to bring in bootleg booze from Canada—”

  “Oh, Max,” Evie interrupted. “Earl. It’s horrible. He’s dead.”

  “Pretty nifty setup,” Nate chimed in. “Tie somebody up, leave them down there to drown. Their body is never found.”

  Lorna laid her head against Nate’s shoulder. “Thank God Evie and I heard you.”

  “The sixth clue, Max,” Evie said anxiously. “I found it in a cookbook in the kitchen. It’s up in my room, and I think I know where—”

  A shot exploded from the doorway of the library. A window on the far side of the room shattered, and wind screamed through the opening, knocking the hurricane lamp to the floor, dousing the flame.

  In the dark, Madame Grovda screamed and began yelling in Russian. Nate shouted something, and Edmunds made a choking sound. In the noise and confusion, Max heard footsteps, running, and behind him a woman’s muffled cry.


  He swung his arm wide, making a grab for Evie, but she wasn’t there.

  “Evie!” he yelled, spinning around, trying to find her with the beam of his flashlight.

  The light skimmed Edmunds, sprawled awkwardly on the floor, holding his head with both hands. Max ran the light around the room in a frantic attempt to find her. But wherever the beam touched, there was only emptiness. She was gone.

  Fingers held her hair in a cruel grip. He yanked her against him with one hand as he used the open palm of the other to slam the wall. She heard the panel slide closed between them and the library, and the man she loved.

  He began dragging her along the tunnel, back the way she and Nate had come just minutes before. The walls shuddered and echoed a dull thudding sound, and she knew Max must be tearing the bookcase apart, trying to find the latch that would reopen the secret panel.

  “They won’t find it,” he growled into her ear.

  Felix Barlow.

  Still holding her by the hair with one hand, he moved the other. She heard a click, and light illuminated the tunnel around them.

  Evie doubled her fists and slammed them against whatever parts of her abductor she could reach. She squirmed and kicked at him and tried to turn in his grasp so one of her flailing fists would connect, but he moved too swiftly. He released her hair, and for a moment she thought he’d let her go, but it was only to slap her across the side of the face.

  “Don’t give me any trouble,” he spat, “or after you’re dead, I’ll come back and kill your boyfriend.”

  Her head hurt like hell where his fingers dug into her scalp. Tears formed in her eyes, but she was too busy stumbling along the corridor after him to worry about it.

  The main tunnel came to an end and divided into two. She knew the one on the right led back down to the cavern, but Barlow yanked her through the one on the left.

  Far behind them the pounding ceased.

  Barlow halted, shining the flashlight into her eyes. “Where’s the last clue?” he bit out, his face only inches from hers. She could smell his breath, feel the warmth from his overheated body. She wanted to gag.

  “I don’t know,” she choked.

  He yanked on her hair so hard, she thought he must have pulled clumps of it out by the roots.

  “Liar! I heard you telling Galloway. You know where it is, don’t you?”

  “Y-Yes,” she stumbled. Her heart pounded in her ears. Terror kept her voice low, soft, almost intimate. “What’s it w-worth to you?”

  He moved closer, pressing her body against the rough wall. Sweat from his brow dripped onto her cheek. “I destroyed the sixth clue,” he whispered roughly. “Stalling won’t help you. Galloway has no idea where to look, so he can’t show up to save your ass. Where’s the last fucking clue?”

  “Why?” she said. “It’s p-pretty obvious you killed Thomas, or had him killed. What good will finding the last clue do? They know it’s you.”

  He shoved her so hard, the back of her head hit the wall, and a burst of stars glistened behind her lids.

  “They have nothing,” he bit out. “Nothing. Nothing ties me to anything. James, or whatever the hell his name is, never saw me. I want whatever Tommy had on me. The police can’t do a thing to me without evidence, and they don’t have anything.”

  “What about me? Kidnapping me should tell them something.”

  “Nobody saw me, princess,” he said, with a sneer in his voice. “It was too dark. And after you’re dead, there won’t be anybody left to tell.”

  She was having trouble breathing. He was too close. There was no air in the tunnel. The bruises on her back ached where he had her shoved against the wall.

  “How do you know about the tunnels? N-Not even Edmunds—”

  “I played here when I was a boy,” he panted. “My brother and Heyworth were friends. They were older, went off fishing and the like, and while they were gone, I explored. I think I know this place better than Tommy ever did.”

  “If you were friends, why did you k-kill Thomas? Was it for the money?”

  “Hell no!” he shouted, his voice ricocheting through the narrow corridor, echoing down and back, assaulting her ears. “I hated him. He took everything from me, and I wanted to take everything from him.”

  Barlow was on the move again, dragging her behind him as he stumbled through the passageway, his flashlight a meager force against such total darkness. They turned a corner and he stopped, slamming her against the wall. “I can hit you again, I can hurt you—hell, I can rape you—and there’s nobody who can stop me. Tell me where the clue is!”

  Evie’s brain was fuzzy. Her mouth hurt where he’d hit her. She took a deep breath, trying to pull in more oxygen, trying to hang on until Max could find a way to help her.

  “Why did you hate Thomas?”

  “He killed my brother!”

  An animal sound, a choking sob, primal, crazed, escaped him, and she raised her gaze to look at his distorted face.

  “Tommy was rich,” he spat out. “We were poor. Hell, the war to end all wars was over. There would never be another one. Everybody knew it! My brother couldn’t find work. Our parents were sick. I was just a kid. He joined the Army reserves, for a little extra cash, make ends meet. Tommy encouraged him to! There weren’t going to be any more goddamn wars! But then, Korea…”

  Evie swallowed. “That’s not Thomas’s fault. He couldn’t have anticipated—”

  “He could have given us money! He was loaded, dripping with wealth. He could have helped us out, but he was stingy, cheap, never thought of anybody but himself. The war started, my brother was called up, and—”

  Another sob escaped him, and his grip on her relaxed a little. “He was everything to me,” he whispered. “The world is an evil place, and my brother was good. He was good and he was fine, and that son of a bitch let him die!”

  With renewed energy, Barlow raised his hand to slap Evie again, but she lifted her arms, blocking the blow.

  “Stop!” she shouted. “I’ll tell you!”

  Slowly, he let his arm drop. Shining the light into her face, he said, “Where?”

  Blinking against the bright light, she whispered, “I’ll have to show you. I won’t know if I’m right until I can see for myself. Where does this tunnel lead?”

  A second passed, and another, then he turned the light away and shined it down the passage. “It splits again, around that corner. One tunnel leads to a cave that opens onto the beach, the other to Tommy’s bedroom.”

  She licked her dry lips. “That’s where the last clue is hidden. Thomas’s room.”

  They moved along at a brisk pace. Considering that Barlow was yanking her by the hair, she tried to do whatever she could think of to slow him down.

  Her mind raced along ahead of them. The tunnel was fairly wide. If she could just get free of Barlow, maybe she could make a run for the beach.

  Rounding another corner, he halted, shoved her against the wall and clamped his hand over her mouth.

  “If you make one sound,” he threatened, “the tiniest squeak, I’ll shoot you in the gut so you’ll slowly bleed to death. And when your boyfriend shows up, I’ll do the same to him and you can watch each other die. So keep your fucking mouth shut. Are we clear on that?”

  She nodded.

  With his free hand, he pressed the wall, and a panel opened. The lights were still out, the room dark. Nothing stirred.

  He turned the flashlight into Thomas’s room. With his fingers still wound tightly in her hair, he thrust her in front of him, then shoved her through the open panel. Against the small of her back, she felt the hard angles of the gun in his waistband.

  They stood alone in the enormous room. No one came here anymore, not since Thomas died. Outside the uncovered windows, rain smashed against the glass, driven hard by the howling wind.

  Evie’s heart sank. She’d hoped Max had somehow figured out where they were going and been waiting. But how could he? Barlow had destroyed the sixth clue. It would
take Max and the others hours to search the place, room by room. By then it would be too late.

  And if Max did miraculously show up? Barlow would kill him. Maybe it would be better just to give the bastard the clue he wanted and make a run for it in the dark.

  The beam of Barlow’s flashlight moved about the room, touching on the large bed, the cherry desk in the corner, and various oils, watercolors, and photographs that adorned the walls. Above the massive stone fireplace hung a portrait of Lillian Galloway Heyworth, Max’s mother. Evie had always loved that portrait, even though she’d known so little of the woman. She raised her gaze, looked into Lillian’s eyes and saw the woman’s son there… Lillian’s son, the man she loved.

  “Where is it?” Barlow hissed, releasing her with a shove to the head.

  The moment she was free of him, a shadow separated itself from the wall and slammed into Barlow, knocking him to the floor. He dropped the flashlight, its beam making crazy patterns on the walls as it rolled away.

  Evie reached along the floor until she felt the rounded handle. Picking it up, she shone it on the two men.

  Max rose up, his fist slamming hard against Barlow’s jaw and then into his body. Blood trickled from the lawyer’s mouth and his eyes glazed over.

  His jaw dropped, his body crumpled, and he slumped to the floor in a heap. Reaching down, Max pulled the revolver from his limp grip.

  Out of breath, Max turned to her, grabbing her, enveloping her in his arms. “Tell me you’re okay,” he choked. “Tell me he didn’t hurt you.”

  Her arms wound around his neck and she let herself sink against his strong body. “I’m all right. He admitted killing Thomas.”

  “We know,” Max panted. “He systematically robbed him blind, then killed him.”

  “How did you find me? How did you know where to come?”

  Max wiped a smear of blood off his mouth. “We found Mrs. Stanley wandering around in the dark. She knew about the tunnels. Nate and Lorna went out to the beach to see if he’d bring you out that way. I came here.”