by Irene Brand
One of the tall double doors into the library was ajar and she heard footsteps in the room. She turned off the flashlight, plunging the hallway into darkness. Considering the strange episode in the gazebo the night before, she decided it was wise to find out who else was awake before she went into the library. Rissa wasn’t the only sister afraid of storms, so one of them may have come downstairs to read. She started to call out to see who was in the library, but she hesitated. Who would be reading in the dark?
A flash of lightning illuminated the hallway briefly and Rissa listened intently. Again she heard a sound—as though something was being pulled across the library floor. A tingle of panic rippled up and down her spine. She instinctively turned and ascended three steps. But one of her sisters might be in trouble! In spite of her fear, she had to see what was going on.
A cold knot formed in Rissa’s stomach. With her heart thumping madly and her body quaking with fear, she moved forward until she stood in front of the library doors. Her hand trembled as she pushed one of the doors wide open and peered around it into the room. She was momentarily blinded by a flash when a gunshot pierced the quietness of Blanchard Manor. Tiny pieces of wood fell on her head as the door she was hiding behind splintered by a bullet. Rissa choked back a frightened cry, knowing that she had to get away, but she stood frozen in the doorway. A thump sounded inside the room, followed by absolute silence.
Rissa held on to the heavy door to keep from falling. No one moved inside the room.
Was she dreaming? When she was on the first medication prescribed by Dr. Pearson, she’d experienced nightmares. But since she’d changed to a milder prescription, that problem had been eliminated. Rissa knew she wasn’t dreaming now. But could her mind be playing tricks on her? She stuck her head around the door again just as a brilliant flash of lightning seared the heavens and made the library as light as day. A figure stood in the room facing away from Rissa, but when she gasped, the person, wearing a black mask, turned to face her, pointing a gun at her. Lightning flashed again, illuminating Rissa’s face, and although she had no idea who was standing in the library, the shooter had surely had a good look at her.
The figure headed toward her and fear lent speed to Rissa’s feet as she leaped across the hallway, dodged into the living room and slammed the door. Leaning against the door, gasping for breath, she heard footsteps fleeing toward the back entrance of the house.
Rissa knew she had witnessed a crime of some sort and she might be in grave danger. When she heard the back door close, she cracked the living-room door an inch and peered into the hallway. She listened to see if the gunshot had awakened the rest of the family. Apparently not. Except for the faint rumble of thunder fading into the distance, she heard nothing.
Should she go into the library and see what had happened? Had some member of her family been killed? She needed help, and she knew the only place to find it.
I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.
God, what should I do?
THREE
In spite of her terror, Rissa realized that someone might be lying injured or dead in the library. Some member of her family may be bleeding, needing help, because who else would have been in the library at this time of night? The gate and the house were always locked at dusk and no one could enter by the driveway without the security code or by being admitted by someone in the house.
Perhaps she should summon help, but to prove she had overcome her fear, Rissa was determined to straighten out the situation alone. Squaring her shoulders, she headed toward the library door. On the library threshold her determination faltered. Fear gnawed away at her confidence.
She listened intently, but she heard nothing inside the room. No movement. No breathing. Nothing, except the ticking of the mantel clock.
He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.
No matter how many Scripture verses she repeated, Rissa knew she would never generate enough courage to go in the library alone. Who should she wake to go with her?
Miranda was the most likely one to ask for help, because her oldest sister could always handle any crisis inside the house. Her mind fluttering with anxiety, and clutching the banister for support, Rissa ran upstairs as fast as she could, her bare feet slapping on the cold stair treads. Pausing before Miranda’s door, she lifted her right hand and knocked.
“Who is it?” Miranda’s voice came from the other side, proving that she wasn’t lying on the library floor.
Turning the knob on the door, Rissa said, “It’s me—Rissa.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Something has happened in the library.”
“What?”
“I think somebody has been shot.”
Miranda tossed the covers to one side and grabbed a robe from the foot of the bed. “I thought I heard a shot,” she said anxiously, “but the storm was so violent about that time, I decided I’d been mistaken.” She rushed toward the door. “Who’s been shot?”
“I don’t know. Somebody was pointing a gun at me, and I was afraid to go in alone.” As they hurried downstairs, in a half whisper Rissa explained why she had gone to the library and what she had heard.
Miranda paused. “The shooter may be still in the library. We’d better call Father.”
“I don’t think anyone is there now. I heard someone leaving by the back door, and it was quiet in the library after that.”
With Miranda beside her, Rissa felt her courage returning, and she stepped to the door of the library and felt along the right wall for the light switch. Her hand hovered over the switch briefly. Her fears surfaced again. Did she want to know what had happened in the library? If there had been a murder, the shooter had gotten a clear view of her face. Because she was a witness, would she be the next victim? Reaching into the depth of her spiritual reservoir, Rissa took a deep breath for courage and flipped the switch.
Rissa and Miranda entered the library together. They stared wordlessly at the body of a woman—a stranger—lying on her back beside the fireplace with blood oozing from a hole in her chest and spreading over the black jacket she wore. Clinging to one another, the two sisters moved into the room. Miranda knelt on the floor and checked the woman’s wrist and throat for a pulse.
“She’s dead.”
Rissa had never been this close to anyone who had recently died, and to her, the woman seemed to be asleep, although an agonized expression was on her face.
“How could a stranger have gotten into this house tonight?”
Miranda spoke in a tortured whisper. “I’m not sure she’s a stranger.” Her golden-brown eyes held a faraway look in them as she stared upward at Rissa.
Stunned by Miranda’s words, Rissa took a sharp breath and stared wordlessly. Miranda laid her hand on the woman’s cheek and sifted a few strands of the soft hair through her fingers.
“She looks like Mama,” Miranda said.
Rissa took a closer look at this woman who might be her mother. A few weeks ago their sister Bianca had been given a picture by her now-boyfriend, Leo Santiago, of Trudy Blanchard and Leo’s mom, a friend of hers. Rissa had been amazed at how much her youngest sister, Juliet, resembled the woman in the picture. And this woman on the floor did look remarkably like Juliet.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“I’ll do that while you go upstairs and get Father, Aunt Winnie and Portia. They should be told before the cops get here.”
Rissa took the steps two at a time. She woke Winnie and Portia first. She walked rapidly down a short hallway to the left at the top of the staircase and knocked on her father’s door. No response. She knocked several times and then dared to open the door. What if he was also dead? She turned on a light. But Ronald wasn’t in his bed.
Had her father been the masked man behind the gun? She dismissed the thought as silly—why be masked in his own house?—as she hurried downstairs and entered the library right behind Winnie and Portia.
Winni
e stared at the corpse and she murmured, “It could be Trudy. Even allowing for the changes the years would have made, I think it’s her.”
Rissa put her arm around Portia and held her tight. Portia’s dark eyes were lackluster with disbelief.
“Ronald will know,” Winnie said. She looked toward the hall and the staircase. “Did you wake him?”
Rissa lifted her hand to her lips and she began to shake as dreadful pictures built in her mind. “He wasn’t in his room—his bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“Oh, no!” Winnie said. “Don’t even think it. Ronald wouldn’t do this!”
“Ronald wouldn’t do what?”
The four women pivoted almost as one toward Ronald, who stood in the doorway. Standing close together they completely hid the body.
“Where have you been?” Winnie asked. “Rissa said you weren’t in your room.”
“I was reading in my office. I came out when I heard steps running down the hall and Winnie speaking.”
The sound of sirens approaching the house caused rivulets of fear to cascade along Rissa’s spine.
“What’s wrong?” Ronald demanded. “What are you hiding? Step aside.”
Winnie looked at the three sisters and nodded. The shock of discovery hit Ronald full force when his family obeyed his command. His mouth dropped open, and he stared, complete surprise on his face. Any suspicion that her father had killed this woman fled Rissa’s mind immediately. Her father wasn’t a good enough actor to have feigned this shock. But would the police believe it?
Ronald dropped on his knees and in a voice barely above a whisper, he cried, “Oh, Trudy, Trudy, have I lost you again?” He took an emerald-green silk scarf from the woman’s neck and lifted it to his lips.
“We were in Milan on our honeymoon when I bought you this scarf because the color matched your eyes,” he said in a reverent tone that Rissa had never heard him use. “Have you kept it all of these years remembering, too?”
He cradled his wife’s lifeless body in his arms, heedless of the fact that her blood was spreading over the front of his custom-made suit.
“I’ve never seen Father like this before,” Rissa whispered to her sisters.
“Neither have I,” Miranda agreed. “I remember when Mother died—well, left—so long ago. I thought he was glad to be rid of her, but he must have loved her.”
The rise and fall of the siren came louder, then ceased suddenly as the police cruiser pulled to a halt in front of the manor. Portia rushed to the front door and struggled to open it. Mick Campbell entered first and Portia threw herself into his arms. Drew Lancaster stepped around them and quickly surveyed the scene.
“What’s happened? Who is this woman?” he asked.
Sensing Drew’s strength and compassion, Rissa hurried toward him, hands outstretched. “Oh, Drew, please help us. We think this is our mother.”
Drew turned his eyes from the crime scene and grasped Rissa’s hands. Portia was sobbing wildly in Mick’s tight clasp as he whispered comfortingly to her. Drew wished he had the right to comfort Rissa in the same way, but he could do nothing except squeeze her fingers gently and release her.
“I am here to help you,” he said softly. Even in the midst of this tragedy Drew experienced a sudden desire to always be at Rissa’s side when she needed him—a lofty aspiration for a penniless cop.
FOUR
Detective Mick Campbell, a ruggedly handsome, brown-haired man, released Portia and stepped farther into the room.
“Ladies, you’ll have to leave the room until we make our investigation,” he said. No one moved and he stepped closer to the grieving Ronald.
“Mr. Blanchard, you and your family need to leave the room. We’ll take care of things here.”
“No! No!” Ronald shouted. “I want to be alone with my wife! Leave me.”
Peg and the housekeeper, Sonya, crowded into the doorway, both dressed in their nightclothes, and Mick threw up his hands in exasperation.
“Don’t anyone touch anything—this is a crime scene! Will someone tell me what happened?”
Rissa expected Miranda to speak up as she usually did, but a glance at her older sister convinced her that Miranda was totally devastated by the “second” death of their mother. Miranda had been ten when their mother had “died” and she would probably mourn this death more than any of the other Blanchard daughters.
Clearing her throat, Rissa said, “Miranda and I found the body—I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Very well,” Mick said. “Wait for me in the hall, and I want the rest of you out of here so we can process the crime scene.”
Her face pale with terror, Winnie said, “Let’s go upstairs to my sitting room.”
Reluctantly the women left the room, and Rissa, noting the determined expression on Mick’s face, felt as the Christians must have felt when they’d been thrown to the lions. She didn’t want to implicate anyone in the household, but she would have to tell the truth.
Mick took Ronald’s arms and tried to help him up. “We’ll take care of things here, Mr. Blanchard.”
But Ronald clung to Trudy. Ronald, in his late fifties, was a tall, powerfully built man and Mick must have thought he needed help to evict him from the room. He took an iron grip on Ronald’s left arm and motioned to Drew, who stepped to Ronald’s side and grabbed his other arm. Ronald lashed out at them with his feet, without results, and the two detectives pulled him off of the body of his wife.
“I’ll let you see her again before we take her away,” Mick said as they steered Ronald toward the door, “but you must leave now.”
Cursing violently, in a fit of anger Ronald jerked free of their restraint and bolted down the hallway to his office.
Drew walked with Rissa to the living room.
“Sit over here, Rissa,” Drew said kindly, pointing to a leather couch. She sat down gratefully, because she wasn’t sure how much longer her legs would hold her.
She felt momentary panic as Mick walked into the room. Perhaps understanding her fear, Drew sat on the couch beside her and took her hand.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Just tell us what you saw and heard, then you can go to your family. As soon as the forensic team gets here, we’ll dust the room for fingerprints and any other evidence. We may have to cordon the room off for a day or two depending on what we find.”
In a composed voice, she explained that she couldn’t sleep and had come downstairs to get something to read.
“I’ve always been afraid of storms,” she said. “It’s always scarier upstairs, so I decided to come down to get a book to read. I heard a sound in the library when I got to the foot of the stairs. I turned my flashlight that way and I saw that the door was ajar. I thought it was one of my sisters until I realized that whoever was in the room didn’t have a light on. I went to investigate and when I pushed the door wider, somebody shot at me.”
Tears blinded her eyes and choked her voice as she dropped her head into her hands. Rissa felt Drew’s comforting hand on her shoulders.
“Do we have to continue this now, Mick? She’s not able to talk any longer.”
“I’m sorry, but we need to get your account while it’s still fresh in your mind. For over three months now, we’ve had serious problems involving people at Blanchard Manor. We have to get to the bottom of this. The whole family may be in danger.”
Rissa lifted her head and sniffed. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to tell you what else I know, which isn’t much.”
Drew handed her several tissues from the box on a nearby table. She patted the tears from her eyes and blew her nose.
Rissa straightened her back and continued, “I still couldn’t see anybody, until a bright flash of lightning lit up the room. The man was heading for the door, pointing the gun at me.”
“Did you recognize who it was?” Mick said.
She shook her head. “He had on a mask.”
“But did he see you?” Drew asked anxiously.
“Yes, I�
��m sure of it. My face was in full view. He…”
“Are you sure it was a man?” Mick interrupted.
Surprised at his question, Rissa answered, “Why, no, I don’t know that. Whoever it was had on dark clothes and the mask hid the features, so it could have been a woman.”
Her slender fingers tensed in her lap.
“Then what happened?” Mick asked.
“I ran across the hall and into the living room and locked myself in. When I heard footsteps running down the hall toward the back door, I went to get Miranda and we entered the library together.”
Rissa was regaining her composure, and she considered how much more she should say. She didn’t want to reveal anything that might throw suspicion on any member of her family. They’d had enough trouble.
“Was the gate locked tonight?” Drew asked.
“As far as I know. Miranda disarmed the security system and opened the gate when she called you so you could get in.”
A car swung into the circular driveway, and Mick said, “That’s the forensic team. That will be all for now. Go ahead and join your family. But you can’t go back to New York until we get some answers to what happened here.”
Eager to know how her two sisters and Aunt Winnie were handling the death of her mother, Rissa started upstairs to the sitting room on the second floor. But she felt momentary panic when she heard Mick say, “Drew, see if the back door is open or if there’s been any forcible entry. If there’s no sign of a break-in, we can confine our investigation to the residents of the house.”
Was some member of her family responsible for her mother’s death? She entered the sitting room where her sisters and Aunt Winnie talked in muted tones. Aunt Winnie and Portia sat on the love seat across from the fireplace, while Miranda paced the floor.
“I still say it was just an act,” Miranda declared. “He’s hated her for years for cheating on him and getting pregnant with Juliet by another man. Why would he be so sad over her death now? Knowing that Mama wasn’t dead would throw a wrench in his plans to marry Alannah.”