by John Bladek
She hugged me. “Thank you. This means a lot. I’m glad you’re going to stay. While you’re working, I want to find out what happened to that girl. I doubt it was a prank.”
Emily and I grabbed breakfast at a cafe kitty-corner from the Winterbay Public Library. It was a quaint little place with maroon booths mostly filled with what appeared to be regulars—old men sipping coffee and chatting about local news. They gave us unwelcome gazes as we sat at the only open table. I glanced around for Martin, but he wasn’t among the early-morning gatherers.
Emily and I took our time eating while I tried not to dwell on the seagull in the parking lot. I didn’t have the brainpower to think about its strangeness right now. I kept the conversation as light as possible. My nerves were picking up again, this time because of the sketches. I’d only spent three or so hours on them. They weren’t enough to show clients.
“They’ll be fine,” Emily said, as we walked toward the parking lot. “I saw them, and they really look good. I would tell you if they didn’t.”
“Thanks, we’ll see.” I took her hand as we approached the parking lot. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, smiling. “I think I’ll walk down Main Street for a while and see what there is to see.” She glanced at the library. “Maybe I can do some knitting there a little later.” She flexed her hand. “Your sweater turned out so well, maybe I’ll try another.” She smiled and patted her yarn-filled bag, then stopped. “Well, without the heart maybe. That is kind of creepy.”
“I’d just as soon forget it,” I said.
“Might do some research on the abbey and the drowning too.”
“It just happened yesterday,” I said. “What could you find online?”
Emily shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there’s a secret cult of drowning nuns they aren’t telling us about,” she said with a grin.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. I hoped Emily’s joking meant she’d spend the day knitting and wouldn’t get wrapped up in “helping” solve the mystery of the drowned girl. “I’ll pick you up when I’m done, and we’ll grab dinner.” After giving her a kiss, I set off toward the abbey.
A rush of gravel trucks pulled out of the quarry road and forced me to wait. I was going to sound incredibly lame apologizing for being late in a town where “heavy traffic” was two cars on the road at any given time.
It was nearly 8:30 when I finally pulled up the long narrow driveway, a half-hour late for the meeting. Two cops were getting into their car parked near the stone fountain. One was Officer Vaughn. He walked up to my car. I rolled down the window, eager for any news.
“Just thought I’d tell you that we haven’t found anything. No bodies, no reports of missing girls. Nothing.”
Why wasn’t I surprised?
Vaughn stared at me.
“Um, so what’s next?” I asked.
“Well, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open,” Vaughn said, rubbing his nose and looking off into the distance.
“That’s it then?” I asked. “One day and you’re finished?”
“Like I said, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open. I’ll see if anyone at the high school heard about a prank story. Not much else to do.”
“Still on the prank thing?” I asked.
“Have to eliminate every possibility,” Vaughn said.
“Except the obvious one: that a girl probably died here yesterday.”
Vaughn locked his gaze on me. “We haven’t found a body, or a single thing that corroborates your story. You know how things are these days. If a girl like you described had gone missing, her picture would be plastered all over the internet by now along with ten thousand whack-job conspiracy theories about how she was taken by submarine aliens or abducted by Mexican drug cartels. None of that has happened. I’d think you’d be glad. After all, isn’t it better that no one died?”
He turned and walked back to his car.
I guess we were done.
I glanced around the parking lot. The cop car was the only one in the lot. No sign of anyone else looking for evidence, or even Ted and James’ car. Had I missed them? “Hey,” I called to Vaughn. “You haven’t seen my employers around here, have you?”
“Nope.” He jumped into his car and sped off, leaving me alone.
Okay then.
I waited by the car.
Hopefully Ted and James were running late too and hadn’t come and gone already.
I crossed my arms, wondering what to make of Vaughn’s explanation and what exactly he’d been doing here so early in the morning. It was apparent that the cops weren’t going to do anything more, but the vision of that girl’s face would haunt me forever.
I looked at my fingers, ticking off one for all the odd things I’d seen. The drowning, the sketches, the girl in the window, the bird.
Was I really hallucinating?
I leaned against the car and held my head. The wind picked up, chilling me along with the fear that something really was wrong with me. I reached into my pocket for my phone.
It was empty. Crap. How could I forget I’d lost it?
I listened to the sounds of the birds tweeting in the forest, and tried to focus on the rugged landscape instead of the paranoid noise in my head. I had a wide panoramic view of the coast. The waves were choppy, and the distant sky the color of gunmetal. So much for a sunny five-day forecast. Martin had been right. A storm was on the way.
A movement down on the beach where the girl had drowned caught my eye. It took all I had to remain calm. I peered closer, willing my pulse to slow. Someone was walking through the tall grass close to where I’d dropped my sketchbook. Vaughn was gone. Was someone else still investigating down there? Maybe it was the girl from yesterday, back to play more games.
I made my way toward the beach. The wind brought a sharper chill, and my breath puffed out white and misty in the air. After stumbling down the ridge at the cliff’s edge and making my way over some jagged rocks, I reached the shore and walked toward the figure. “Hello!” I called.
The figure turned around but didn’t wave back. As I moved closer, I saw it was an old man scanning the waves and the area around him.
“Excuse me?” I said.
The man shifted toward me. He looked to be in his 70s and had white hair with a yellowish tinge at the ends like he’d smoked most of his life. His face had the tan, weathered quality of leather stretched too tightly. He wore a yellow rain slicker, green wellington boots, glasses, and a blue-and-white striped scarf wrapped around his neck that hung to his knees. A red beret with a pompom on top finished off the eccentric, mismatched look.
“This yours?” he asked in some kind of British accent. He reached into his pocket and took out a phone.
I blinked as he held it out. “Yes! Thank you! I lost it yesterday.”
He nodded. “You’ve missed a few calls.”
I checked the missed numbers. Emily, Ted, and a local number I assumed was the police. That was all. I looked up at the tall blades of grass whipping in the wind. I was sure the phone had fallen out of my pocket when I slipped in the water.
“Name’s Duncan,” he said. His bony hands stayed clasped at his waist.
Duncan? The guy Vaughn and the diver had mentioned yesterday?
“I take care of the lighthouse.” He pointed toward the tall spindle with the fading red roof. The spire matched his scarf and cap combination. He shook his head. “Automated. Not much left to do these days except make sure the light don’t go out, so I take a lot of walks.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m Will Larson. I’m the architect working on the restoration of the abbey. I’m sure you’ve heard about it.”
“Yeah, I heard. Damned fool waste of time.” Duncan looked back toward the water. Dark gray clouds, heavy with rain loomed over the bay. “Ain’t much of a vacation site,” he said with a cough. “Nothing but wind, ice, snow, rain, rocks, and bird droppings. And it ain’t safe.”
I had to agree with him on that last part. �
�Did you hear about the drowning yesterday?” I asked.
He continued to stare out over the water. “A storm’s coming,” he said. “Always a storm this time a year. Not a fit place to be.” He tugged on his scarf, tightening it around his neck. The wind picked up and caught the knitted ends, whipping them up into his face.
“Excuse me. I don’t mean to be rude, but did you hear of the girl who may have drowned yesterday?” I said, pointing toward the rocks. “I was here when it happened, but I couldn’t save her. Did you happen to see anything?”
He shook his head.
“The police,” I said, “well, they didn’t act too concerned. It seemed so strange. I just wondered if you’d seen or heard something. Maybe she’s still alive, and—”
“The cops wouldn’t bother now, would they?” Duncan brushed past me and headed up the beach.
I chased after him. “Sorry? Where I come from, the police take drownings seriously.”
“You’d better go back to where you came from then,” Duncan said. He looked up at the sky. “Don’t want to get caught up in the rain. I got a long walk ahead of me.”
I stared at him as he quickened his pace, trudging along the pebbled beach. He must have known something about this place. As old as he was, he’d probably been here for ages.
“Wait. The girl,” I said. “The one I saw go into the water. It seems like you know this area pretty well. Do you have any idea why a young girl would be out here? The cops think it was a prank. Does that happen often?”
“Prank?” he said with a sneer. “Typical. It’s always a prank to the cops.”
“Then you think I did see a girl drown, a nun?”
At the word “nun” he spun on me. After a moment, he turned away and walked on. I hurried to keep up.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“But you looked shocked when I said she was a nun. Is that important?”
He hurried, not answering my question.
“Look, I don’t even know why I’m saying this to you, but I found my sketchbook…someone drew a picture of this abbey with a figure standing at a window up there,” I said, pointing to the bell tower. I think it was the girl I saw drown.” I jabbered on, not even making sense to myself.
“Will!” I heard a shout from above.
I looked up. Two men stood on the rocky outcrop waving their hands.
Duncan hurriedly walked north along the shore while the men I assumed to be Ted and James waited.
I watched Duncan march away, wondering what secrets about Winterbay Abbey the old man was keeping.
chapter eleven
I stumbled up to the rocky ridge toward Ted and James.
Hopefully, I could explain what happened yesterday well enough so I wouldn’t get fired.
They did not smile at all.
“Sorry we’re late. We had to make a stop in town at our office. I’m Ted.” The taller and younger of the two men shook my hand. He had a thick mustache and black-rimmed glasses. “And this is my partner, James,” he said, handing my palm off.
James was thin, had long downy white-blonde hair. He wore a thick green down-filled coat and tailored jeans rolled at the cuffs. He was maybe ten years older than Ted and looked like he could be a modern-day Elven king. “I have to say that we’d like to know more about what happened here. Having a police presence and a potential scandal on a project we’ve barely even started is making us question Lance’s choice about who he sent to work with us,” James said.
If it hadn’t been so cold, I probably would have started sweating.
James looked at my forehead.
“Uh, I assure you I had nothing to do with what happened,” I said. “I just happened to be here.” I recounted everything, filling them in on the local pranks as well.
As I reached the end of my story, their expressions softened a little.
“Well, that’s not good to hear,” James said, crossing his arms.
I still hadn’t convinced him. “I apologize for the door being left wide open. Honestly, I was so scared, I just jumped in the car to go find help,” I said.
“That’s completely understandable,” Ted said. He nudged James. “I do have to say the whole thing is bizarre. It seems a little too soon for the police to have given up the search and assumed no one has died.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” I said, nodding.
“Well, let’s hope that the police get this figured out soon,” James said. “Problems with the cops can cost a lot of money.”
Ted snorted. “Stop worrying. Maybe we can profit from the local legends.”
I was grateful when he smiled, but felt they were still uncertain about me.
James rolled his eyes at Ted. “Yeah, maybe. Let’s focus on what we know has the potential of actually bringing in money.” He gestured toward the abbey.
A cold wind whipped around us. James shivered. “Come on. Those of us with low thyroid function don’t have the body heat to brave the elements,” he said.
We made our way toward the building and went inside. “Quite a place, isn’t it?” Ted asked as he gazed around the large windowed room I’d imagined as the restaurant and lounge. “You can see from just a quick look why we loved this place. The sea is so mighty and unrestrained here.”
James cleared his throat. “We are in the wild here, and with a hotel it will be a safe haven in the wilderness. And a profitable one,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows. “That lighthouse is a million-dollar bonus, and for free. Everyone loves to look at lighthouses. Maybe we could even have boat tours.”
“I agree,” I told them. “The building needs some work…well, a lot of work. You’ll want a new, efficient HVAC system, and I’m sure the wiring and plumbing are out of code and damned near useless. I haven’t had time to check for infestations or mold or—”
Ted shook his head. “Yes, yes, we know all that. That’s not why we brought you here. We’re bringing in a mechanical engineer in a bit.”
“I like to make certain my plans will work before I let a mechanical engineer tell me I have to tear down walls to make their pet HVAC system fit.”
“Well, that’s something I can appreciate,” James said. “Efficiency and going the extra mile.”
My neck muscles relaxed a bit.
“What we truly want from you, though,” Ted looked back at me, “is the dream. We want to see what you see in this place, and we want our dreams put into drawings that money can turn into reality.”
In the distance, an explosion crackled through the trees. Both Ted and James winced.
“We’ve been assured the quarry is nearing its end,” Ted said. “It will only be running long enough to supply the needs for our project, road gravel mostly. Hopefully, that’s true and not another thing to add to our list of worries.”
James nodded, but a frown remained on his face when he looked at me.
I cleared my throat and pulled out my drawings. They were far from detailed, but at least I’d been able to do both interiors and exteriors. Hopefully they’d be enough to get my ideas about the project through to them.
A lot of people at my firm just opened up a laptop and went through 3D renderings during client meetings. Of course I would put some of those together as well. Call me old-fashioned, but I liked pen drawings to be the first view. That was one of the things Lance liked about my style when he hired me.
Ted and James sat at an old leaning table with a cracked top. They studied the drawings, muttering and whispering to each other in tones so hushed I couldn’t make out a word.
“Give us a moment,” James said.
I tried to keep my nerves at bay. While I waited, I wandered back outside into the cold. I didn’t care if it was freezing.
I started pacing, trying to distract myself.
I thought back to the original sketch that morphed into the creepy present-day abbey. It still didn’t make sense. Maybe Emily was right about someone picking up my lost note
book and doing their own sketch. It seemed unlikely, but I thought of Duncan. Could he have a skill with illustration and just couldn’t pass up the opportunity? Although he had found my phone and was certainly a strange guy, the chances were slim.
I banished thoughts of Duncan as I glanced up at the bell tower. It was still very early in the pre-design phase, but I’d already imagined an observation room there, maybe with a telescope for couples enjoying a drink while looking at the sea or the stars. The oculus window from the mystery drawing was a good idea. I might work it in somehow. Emily would like that.
A stinging northeast wind picked up. I shivered and then completely froze when I looked at the tower again. A fleeting reflection glared off a windowpane. I blinked again to make certain I wasn’t imagining things. There was no question—the same window from the drawings was there. And…
My entire body went numb.
The pale face of a woman looked out through the glass.
I closed my eyes. My hands grew clammy as I clenched my fists and breathed deeply. No, this is impossible. “She is not there,” I said. “No one is there.”
“Who’s not there?”
I opened my eyes. Ted and James stood under the archway looking at me.
I took a quick glance at the tower. Only worn brick. No window. No face. “Uh, nothing,” I said rather shakily and embarrassed.
Ted nodded, and I followed them back inside, trying to calm my raging fears.
“Well, I have to say a 19th century European hotel isn’t what I’d imagined. I was thinking more of some lobster palace monstrosity. You’ve really set me straight,” Ted said.
I looked at James to see if he agreed.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Wonderful concepts. Large enough to pay for the expense of setting up here but small enough to still be intimate. In fact, we were wondering…” he turned to Ted.
“We were wondering,” Ted continued with casual ease, “given your taste for this particular style, if you’d consider working on several more projects we’re eyeing. We can’t go into too many details, but we’ve been in contact with a major hotel chain. They have some big plans to branch out and start a line of independent resorts with an Old-World kind of charm. We have been searching high and low for someone who can design that style, to no avail. It’s been over a year-long quest to find an architect with the right vision. I can’t tell you how lucky we feel you’ve been dropped in our lap like this. We’d like to call your firm and have them put you on the assignment. These drawings,” Ted said, holding up my sheets, “are perfect for what the chain is imagining.”