Lethal Affair

by Jean Thomas

  Brenna understood. “They called their village Freedom. Perfect.”

  “I have another question for you about the name of a place,” Casey said. “You mind?”

  “Ask,” Zena invited him.

  “On our way up to the falls and back again we passed this humongous, abandoned-looking house behind a fence. You know what it’s called?”

  “That isn’t a road we use. We have another, closer road on the other side of the village that goes to Georgetown. And having lived my school years down here instead of up in Freedom, the house you’re talking about isn’t...” She looked to Cleo to help her out. “Auntie, you must be familiar with the place.”

  The old woman scowled and shook her head. She either doesn’t know the answer to Casey’s question, Brenna thought, or she’s reluctant to provide it.

  “Oh, wait,” Zena spoke up, “I think I do know the house you’re talking about. It’s called...yes, White Rose Plantation. That’s got to be it. White Rose Plantation.”

  A beautiful name, Brenna decided, for what had struck her yesterday, and did again now, as having a sinister character about it. No wonder Aunt Cleo had refused to discuss it.

  After paying for the handbag and tucking it into her tote, she and Casey were ready to move on again when Zena detained them.

  “Are you in a hurry, or could you spare me a little time? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. In private,” she added quickly.

  Brenna and Casey exchanged puzzled glances.

  “Sure,” he agreed for both of them. “But with all these people around...”

  “There’s a sidewalk café I know about away from the traffic here. We could go there and have coffee and be private enough at this hour. Auntie, would you mind if I left you on your own for a bit?”

  “Who you tink tend this stall you’re away? Go, go.”

  Zena led the way to the sidewalk café located on a back street. As she had promised, there was no market day in progress here. The area was quiet.

  They chose a table shaded by an overhanging awning, and far enough removed from the few other occupied tables to prevent their conversation from being overheard.

  After they were settled in their chairs and had their coffees delivered to them, Casey leaned toward Zena with a grave “So what is it you want to discuss? You sounded pretty serious back there.”

  Zena drank from her mug, as if needing a moment to introduce an awkward subject. “Before I tell you,” she finally said, directing her words to Casey, “I have a confession to make. When I met you yesterday, I had this strong impression that you’re...well, frankly, a man of authority.”

  “He likes to think he is,” Brenna answered dryly for him. “But, in all honesty, it is true. He’s with the FBI.”

  Zena looked very impressed.

  “Whoa, hold on,” Casey said. “If it’s an FBI agent you need, I can’t help you. I have no official sanction to operate here on St. Sebastian. In any case, I’m currently on suspension from the bureau.”

  “Zena,” Brenna asked her earnestly, “are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. But I suppose it’s possible I could be, though probably not.”

  Casey, as incisive as always, permitted no more delays. “You’d better tell us just what this is all about.”

  The three of them, Brenna noticed, were no longer interested in their mugs of coffee as Zena launched into an explanation.

  “It’s because of what we talked about at the falls. About the women of Freedom not being able to reproduce and there seeming to be no reason for it. You asked about the new water supply, Casey, and I got to thinking about that after you left. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but maybe...”

  “Go on,” Casey urged.

  “What if something got introduced into this new well, deliberately introduced, and it made the women infertile? I know that sounds crazy. But I couldn’t let it go. I kept thinking about how the problem started not long after the well was drilled. And that’s why I ended up calling a friend back in Miami, who works in this reputable lab there, and told him all about it.”

  “What did he say?” Brenna asked.

  “He felt it was unlikely, but he promised to ask some of the chemists there in the lab what they thought about it. He’s going to get back to me tomorrow morning. It’s possible I would be invited to send a sealed water sample, which I’d have to be careful not to contaminate, to the lab for analysis.”

  “If something was put into the water,” Brenna reasoned, “it would have to be colorless, odorless and without any suspicious taste. Otherwise, it would have been detected by those who consumed it. Particularly you with your training.”

  “Exactly, and I didn’t detect anything like that in my visits. All the same, I’m not taking any chances now. Hopefully, I was never in the village long enough to be affected, but I’ve been using bottled water since yesterday.”

  “I think that’s a wise precaution,” Brenna said.

  “And I think,” Casey said, putting down his mug after finally tasting his coffee, “I’d like to know why there’s a possibility of you being in some kind of trouble.”

  Brenna followed Casey’s example, drinking her own coffee now while she listened to Zena’s response.

  “It’s just that if someone did put something into the water, and that person learned I discovered it was there and tried to convince the villagers not to use the well any longer, which I would do, he wouldn’t be happy about it.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Casey agreed. “Not if he went to some lengths to tamper with it.”

  “But like I said,” Zena hastened to add, “it’s probably all my imagination. Why would anyone want to make a whole village of women incapable of conceiving, even if he was capable of doing such a wicked thing?”

  Casey was silent, concentrating again on his coffee. Brenna understood that grim look on his face. It never failed to appear whenever he’d been assigned to one of his vital FBI operations.

  “Look,” he said at last, leaning forward again toward Zena, “I can’t be an FBI agent for you, but I can be a friend if you should need me. I don’t want you to hesitate to contact me if at any point you feel you might be in danger.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “I’ll give you my cell number. Meanwhile, I’m going to ask you to be careful. Don’t talk to anyone about this, and stick close to people you trust.”

  “I will.”

  Brenna, watching Casey extract a business card from his wallet with his private number on it, above which he wrote where he was staying at the Fair Winds cottages before he handed it to Zena, had a request of her own. “I think we’d both like to know what you hear from your friend in the morning. Why don’t you call Casey, and he can pass it on to me?”

  Casey immediately vetoed that plan. “No good. It’s one thing for Zena to phone me in a situation of need. I’m all for that. But for this other...” He shook his head. “Phone calls can be monitored by the people who have the means to do it. We don’t want to risk someone hearing what we don’t want them to know. It’s better if we meet in person. What’s the chance of you coming down here again tomorrow?”

  “Doubtful,” Zena said. “The only transportation I have available to me is this old rattletrap of a truck that belongs to Aunt Cleo’s son. He’s willing to drive his mother to Georgetown for market days, and I’m welcome to ride along whenever I’m visiting Freedom, but I heard him say he’s going to need the truck tomorrow at the melon farm where he works.”

  Brenna had a solution. “I have an idea. Why don’t the three of us meet instead on the bridge at the falls? I need to go up there again, anyway. I never did get my photos of the place. Casey?”

  She knew what he must be thinking by the look he sent her. He couldn’t believe she’d actually be willing to let him chauffeur her again to Braided Falls.

  “Sounds like a plan,” he agreed.

  Zena also agreed to the arrangem
ent. After Casey suggested a time for the meeting that suited all of them, she consulted her watch. “I should get back to Auntie. She may need me again at the stall.”

  Casey insisted on paying for the coffees. Zena thanked them again and hurried off.

  “I should be on my way, too,” Brenna said, collecting her purse and tote.

  “Where to now?” Casey asked after handling the bill and a tip for their server who, apparently having noticed the signs of their departure, had immediately appeared at their table.

  “Back to the guesthouse,” she said, on her feet now. “I’ve seen enough down here for today. I want to get my camera’s memory card up on the computer and print out a few of the best subjects. I still have the afternoon. I should be able to start on another painting.”

  “You brought a computer and a printer with you from Chicago?”

  “Hardly. Marcus provides his guests with them.”

  “Generous of him. I’ll walk with you. Don’t look so alarmed, Rembrandt. I’m only going as far as the bottom of the hill where I dropped you off yesterday. The Toyota is parked near there.”

  How could she object when he’d already spent most of the morning with her? And behaved himself the whole time. Of course, it would matter if someone Marcus knew, maybe even one of his staff, saw them together and ended up reporting it to him. But that could have happened anytime during the morning.

  “Let’s go then,” she said.

  It was only when they’d started off side by side that Brenna wondered if she’d made a mistake when Casey, his voice at a seductive level, asked her softly, “So, you think I’m a figure of authority, huh?”

  He would go and remember that. “Don’t look so smug. It wasn’t a compliment. It was a statement of fact.”

  “If you say so.”

  Things only got worse after that. When they returned to the area of the stalls, and it was necessary for them to draw close together in order to work their way through the crowds, his hip bumped at least twice against hers. Then his hand, dangling down at his side, began to brush against her own hand.

  Were they accidental, merely innocent contacts, or intentional? Either way, the result was the same. They left her with yearnings she had no business feeling. That and striving for a self-control she was unable to achieve until they finally reached the bottom of the hill.

  “We separate here,” she reminded him.

  “Right. Where do you want to meet tomorrow?”

  “How about the square where the limbo dancers were performing? I noticed some interesting buildings there that should make a good painting. I ought to have time to work on it after we get back from the falls. It will mean transporting my gear to the square, but I can call a taxi for that.”

  She realized Julio would want to drive her himself if he saw her leaving the guesthouse with her painting materials. She would have to avoid him. Marcus, too, if he hadn’t already left for the construction site by then. She would manage it somehow.

  Brenna was relieved when she and Casey settled on a time for him to pick her up, and they could part. She guessed he was probably watching her when she headed up the hill, but at least she was putting a safe distance between them. What she was unable to put behind her were the conflicted feelings she had for Casey McBride that chased wildly through her mind. They stayed with her all the way to the villa.

  * * *

  She found Gilda in the villa’s state-of-the-art kitchen. She asked the housekeeper to fix her a sandwich she could take with her to the guesthouse. That and a banana were all the lunch she wanted.

  Only when Brenna was back in her quarters, and concentrating on her work, was she able to forget about Casey. At least for now.

  Removing the memory card from her Nikon, she loaded it on the computer. She sat eating her sandwich and the banana while studying the photographs on the screen.

  There would be no market day tomorrow. The square would be empty. What she planned to do, however, was lift a selection of today’s stalls from her photos and introduce them into the scene. Combined with the background of the square, they should make a vibrant, eye-catching painting.

  Choosing several of the best photographs, she printed them out to carry them with her tomorrow. She needed to protect them, and that required an envelope. There should be envelopes in the desk in front of her.

  She started with the top drawer and moved on down to the other drawers below it, pulling them out one by one. There was no sign of envelopes. Only when she reached the bottom drawer, which refused to open until she applied a bit of force, did she find what she wanted. A stack of manila envelopes waited at the back of the drawer.

  Brenna helped herself to one of them, slid the photos inside and placed the envelope beside the computer. She shoved the drawer shut. Or tried to. It went only part of the way and then, as before, stuck. Something was holding it fast, this time stubbornly.

  Removing the drawer altogether from the desk, she slid her hand deep inside the opening and felt around. At the far back, her fingers contacted what felt like scrunched up paper on the dusty bottom of the desk.

  Ah, the culprit.

  A corner of the thing must have gotten caught in one of the drawer slides. It took a little tugging to free it. Only when she got it into the light and smoothed it out on the desk top did it reveal itself as an envelope. Not a manila one this time but a stationery variety. A good, ivory-colored stationery.

  It must have been placed on top of the stack of manila envelopes and then, over time, had worked its way over the back edge of the drawer and out of sight below, where eventually it had caused the problem with the drawer.

  There was no writing on the face of the envelope, but it was just thick enough to promise something inside. Brenna gazed down at it for an indecisive moment. Should she?

  Chapter 6

  The envelope was not sealed. That made Brenna feel a little less guilty about investigating its content. At least that’s what she tried to convince herself as she slid a single, folded sheet of paper out of the envelope.

  She spread it open on the desk. Like the envelope that had contained it, it had been punished by the constant opening and closing of the drawer. She used the heel of her hand to flatten the worst of the wrinkles.

  It was a letter. Or at least the beginning of one dated in June of last year. Private correspondence, of course, and she struggled again with guilt over her intention to read it.

  It was handwritten and not signed, but the flowing, almost delicate style of the penmanship told her a woman had been its author. That and a faint scent of the gardenia fragrance that lingered on the ivory paper.

  Brenna read it with wonder seasoned by a growing sense of uneasiness.

  Dear Glory,

  I shouldn’t be writing this to you, but I could no longer stop myself from needing to confide in someone who’ll understand and sympathize.

  I know I can trust you not to reveal what I’m about to tell you to anyone. Curtis would be extremely angry with me if he so much as guessed, especially after all his warnings to me.

  I wish to God I’d never come down to this island. I can’t believe what’s happening here, much less that Curtis is involved in it. It’s wrong, so terribly wrong. Frankly, I’m beginning to be frightened by—

  The letter abruptly broke off there, as if its author had been suddenly interrupted. Brenna could picture her hastily folding it, sliding it into the envelope and thrusting it into the bottom drawer.

  Whoever she was, she couldn’t have been discovered writing her secret, unfinished letter. Not if it had remained all this time at the back of the drawer and then at some point under the drawer.

  Brenna sat back on the desk chair, question after question racing through her mind. Who was the woman who had penned the letter? Like her, a guest at the villa? What had she been about to disclose, why had she never completed the letter, and what had become of her? And who were Glory and Curtis?

  Questions without answers. There was the final
question, too. What should she do with the letter? Put it back in the envelope and return it to the drawer?

  That was Brenna’s first inclination. But in the end, after refolding it and squeezing it again into its envelope, she placed the letter instead in her purse with the intention of showing it to Casey tomorrow. Maybe he could make some sense out of its mystery.

  But that would be a big mistake. She knew what he’d do if he saw the thing. He’d insist that she move out of the guesthouse. Not just away from the villa either, but back home. And he wouldn’t rest until he got them both back on a plane to Chicago.

  She couldn’t leave. She had to fulfill her obligation to Marcus to produce the paintings. If she failed to do that, she would have to repay the advance he’d given her, and she no longer had the money. And, along with that, she would be sacrificing her reputation as a reliable artist.

  Reading the letter had been a mistake on more than one level. She had violated a correspondence she’d never been meant to see. For another reason, its contents left her feeling unclean. As if, had the author completed her letter and Brenna had been able to see all of it, she would have been participating in something profane.

  Whatever the explanation for her reaction, criminal or innocent, she suddenly felt the need for a bath. Pushing back from the desk, she went into the bathroom and ran a tub. Once undressed and immersed in the hot water, she vigorously soaped herself all over.

  Brenna felt better afterwards, her body more relaxed as she went on soaking there in the tub. Her mind, however, refused to be at peace. It insisted on reviewing the seemingly disjointed events she’d experienced over the past few days.

  Casey turning up on St. Sebastian to protect her from what she was convinced didn’t exist. The sighting of the mysterious White Rose Plantation. The fear in the eyes of the young man at the general store. The green sedan and its driver chasing after them for no apparent reason. Meeting Zena King and hearing about her village and its tragic problem. Aunt Cleo’s reluctance to admit any knowledge of White Rose Plantation.