twenty-two
KNOCK ON THE door.
Ingrid looked out, saw an SUV in the driveway, the one with that LEAGLE plate. A plow roared down Maple Lane; the sky was clear. She opened up.
“Hello, Iris,” said Mr. Tulkinghorn. Iris? Weren’t lawyers supposed to get the facts straight, step one? “Your grandfather in?”
“He’s sleeping,” Ingrid said.
Mr. Tulkinghorn gazed down at her; she could feel him thinking. He’d acquired a nice suntan since the last time she’d seen him. “Can I trust you to do something for me?”
Ingrid nodded.
“Make sure he gets this.” Mr. Tulkinghorn held out a manila envelope. “Have him go over the contents and call if he’s got any questions.”
Ingrid took the envelope.
“Call by close of day, that is,” said Mr. Tulkinghorn. “The signing’s tomorrow, ten A.M. Can you remember all that for me?”
“He gets the envelope,” Ingrid said. “He goes over the contents, calls by close of day if there are questions. Signing’s tomorrow, ten A.M.”
Mr. Tulkinghorn blinked.
Ingrid took the envelope into the house, carried it upstairs. She stood outside the closed office door. “Grampy? Grampy?” No answer.
She went into her room, sat at her desk, examined the envelope. Aylmer Hill: Personal and Confidential. Steaming envelopes open, a familiar concept: She could see herself holding this one over a kettle, a sneaky expression on her face. Instead of all that, Ingrid slid her thumb under the seal and just tore it open.
Inside were pages and pages of dense print, the sentences so complicated, beyond her. But the Post-it note stuck to the top of page one was clear: FYI—plea agreement, final draft. At ten A.M. tomorrow Grampy would be convicted of manslaughter and on his way to jail—unless he was getting ready to do something really crazy in the tree house. Ingrid heard footsteps in the hall, stuck the envelope in the top drawer of her desk.
Ty came in. “Phone,” he said. He tossed it to her and went away.
“Sorry,” Joey said.
“You couldn’t find out?” Ingrid said.
“I tried.”
“Thanks.”
“My dad doesn’t know,” Joey said. “Like, who the client was.”
“I get it,” Ingrid said.
“But he’s from here,” Joey said. “Originally.”
“Who is?”
“The private eye. Dieter Meinhof.”
“He’s from Echo Falls?”
“Yeah,” said Joey. “His mom’s a housekeeper for this old rich guy who’s hardly ever around.”
“What old rich guy?”
“Something Ferrand.”
“He’s one of the Ferrands?”
“You don’t have to yell at me.”
“Cyrus?”
“Yeah. That was it.”
“Dieter Meinhof’s mother works for the Ferrands?”
“Mrs. Meinhof’s a real witch, my dad says. They were all afraid of her when they were kids.” A real witch: Ingrid was pretty sure she’d seen her before—with Major Ferrand at Moo Cow, having a bad reaction to Ingrid’s Special.
Years ago, Ingrid and Chloe Ferrand—daughter of Tim, Dad’s boss at the Ferrand Group—had been good friends. But in seventh grade, Chloe had left the Echo Falls public school system, switching to Cheshire Country Day instead, and now they didn’t see each other much. Plus in the fall a couple of things had happened—like Ingrid winning the lead role in the Alice in Wonderland production when Chloe thought she had it in the bag—that had strained what was left of their connection. So this wasn’t going to be easy.
Ingrid dialed Chloe’s number.
“Hey, Chloe, how are you doing?”
Pause. “Who is this?”
“Ingrid.”
Silence.
“Snow day,” said Ingrid. “Here, at least. You too?”
“I suppose,” said Chloe. “I wasn’t going to school today anyway.”
“No?”
“No.”
More silence.
“How come?”
“I had a shoot. But of course it got canceled too.”
“A shoot?”
“Photo shoot,” said Chloe.
“Oh,” Ingrid said. Chloe was the most beautiful thirteen-year-old girl in Echo Falls, maybe in the entire central state, already had some real professional modeling gigs. “Too bad.”
“I don’t care,” said Chloe. “I wasn’t in the mood.”
What kind of mood did you have to be in for a photo shoot? Ingrid wanted to know—not that she’d ever have any practical use for the information—but this wasn’t the time. “So,” she said, “a free day.”
“I guess.”
“What are you up to?”
“Not much.”
“Want to come over?” Ingrid said; the least sincere invitation of her whole life.
“To your place?” said Chloe. Would anyone living in splendor on an estate like the Ferrands’, with its indoor pool among other things, want to spend the day at 99 Maple Lane? Maybe, but not Chloe.
“Yeah,” said Ingrid. “We could go snowshoeing.”
“Excuse me?”
“In the woods.”
“What for?”
“What for?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“I get it,” said Ingrid. “Like when you could be swimming in your indoor pool instead.”
Pause. “Actually,” said Chloe, “a swim sounds nice.”
“Doesn’t it?” Ingrid said and waited. And waited and waited, knowing that unless she kept her mouth shut, she’d blow it. She realized for the first time what a weapon silence could be.
At last, Chloe said, “I suppose you could come over here.”
“Thanks, Chloe. Sounds great.”
“For a little while,” said Chloe; or something like that—Ingrid, already hanging up, didn’t quite hear.
The Ferrands’ estate stood on a hill by the river, acres and acres with a huge main house, guesthouses, and other outbuildings, three or four miles from 99 Maple Lane. No one to drive her—Grampy asleep, and not allowed out in any case, Mom at work, Dad not in the picture. Ingrid stuffed a bathing suit and towel in her backpack, called out, “Going to Chloe’s,” as she passed Ty’s room, and went outside. Maple Lane to Hillcrest, Hillcrest to Crestview, Crestview to River: She was learning Echo Falls. But as Ingrid left the house, she happened to glance down the street, not in the direction of Hillcrest but toward Avondale, and saw a woman trying to stick a sign into the McGreevys’ snow-covered lawn.
Ingrid walked down the street. The sign, from Valley Properties, Riverbend’s big rival, read: FOR SALE—NEW LISTING.
“Hi,” Ingrid said.
The woman turned. “Does that look straight?”
“Yeah,” said Ingrid. “She’s, um, they’re, um, moving?”
“Yes,” said the woman. “Isn’t it a lovely little home?”
What about the leaky basement? Ingrid kept that fact to herself. “Where?” she said.
“Where?” said the woman.
“Where’s she moving to?”
“Boston.”
“Boston?”
“I think that’s where she’s from.” A cell phone rang. The woman fumbled in her purse. Ingrid drifted away.
She climbed the broad staircase leading up to the huge black double doors at Chloe’s house—biggest house in Echo Falls—and knocked, the tip of her nose feeling numb from the cold. The maid answered. She wore a plain gray dress and a white apron and carried a beautiful Chinese vase filled with delicate crimson flowers of a kind Ingrid had never seen.
“Hi,” said Ingrid.
“You are for Chloe?” said the maid, the y sounding a little like a j.
Against, thought Ingrid at once, but she just said, “Yes.”
“This way.”
The maid led Ingrid down a long hall lined with paintings, around a corner, and left her at the pool room. The
pool room was high ceilinged, glassed in on three sides, almost as big as Ingrid’s whole house; the pool itself was a replica of one in Pompeii or someplace, overhung with a blazing chandelier that had come all the way from France. Chloe lay reading on a chaise longue, fully clothed.
“Sorry, Ingrid,” she said. “I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
She rotated her wrist slowly, half extended her index finger in the direction of the pool. Ingrid looked: no water.
“Some—I don’t know—maintenance issue?” Chloe said.
Ingrid sat on the adjoining chaise. “That’s all right,” she said. “What are you reading?”
Chloe angled the cover so Ingrid could see: The Supermodel Way of Life.
Ingrid laughed, assuming it was some kind of satire.
“What’s funny?”
Too late she remembered the whole photo-shoot business, a little hard to reconcile with how smart Chloe was, a straight-A student at CCD, where they didn’t give them away. “Nothing,” Ingrid said. “Any good?”
“It has some insights.”
“Like?”
Chloe raised an eyebrow, an elegantly curved golden eyebrow. “I’ll lend it to you when I’m finished,” she said.
That was cutting, but so quick and sharp Ingrid couldn’t have said exactly how. She got up, went to the tall window, looked out. The Ferrands’ land sloped down toward the river, other buildings standing here and there, some of them quite big, like normal houses. Smoke rose from the chimney of one of them, more of a cottage, maybe, wood shingled and half hidden in a grove of trees, close to the river. More than a grove, in fact: The trees covered a gradual rise to the left—south?—of the cottage, all the way to the top and beyond.
“Are those trees part of the town woods?” Ingrid said.
Chloe rose, came over. “Don’t think so,” she said. “Aren’t they ours?”
They stood side by side—Chloe much taller—gazing out the window. What did Chloe see? Ingrid didn’t know; same world, she suspected, but two different takes.
“Who lives in the cottage?” she said.
Chloe turned, the look on her face as close as she ever came to surprise. “How did you know we called it that?” she said. “The Cottage?”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s what I like about you, Ingrid.”
“What?”
“You’re intuitive.”
“I am?”
“Guess that disproves it,” Chloe said. Then, for a moment, they were laughing together, like good friends. “My great-uncle Cyrus lives there when he’s around, which isn’t often.”
“What’s he like?”
Chloe shrugged. “An old man. Hardly ever comes up to the house.”
“He was in The Echo.”
“You read The Echo?”
“Yeah,” Ingrid said. “It was about him and the war.”
“Wasn’t he some kind of hero?” said Chloe.
“Some kind,” Ingrid said.
A man spoke behind them. “Chloe?”
They turned. Tim Ferrand stood on the other side of the pool, wearing jeans and a sweater. Ingrid had never seen him casually dressed; he looked smaller, and also like he was wearing borrowed clothes, even though they fit fine.
“Is that you, Ingrid?” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Ferrand.”
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “How…” His eyes shifted. “How are things at home?”
Ingrid felt her chin tilting up in that defiant way it sometimes had and the reply None of your business struggling to get out. “Good,” Ingrid said.
For a moment it looked like Mr. Ferrand was going to ask a follow-up. Instead he spoke to Chloe. “Can you get ready?” he said. “We’re going up to Stowe.”
“What about school?” Chloe said.
“Tomorrow’s Friday,” Mr. Ferrand said. “We’ll take the weekend. I forget—do you ski, Ingrid?”
“No.”
“You would have been welcome to come. We’ll drop you on the way.”
“That’s all right,” Ingrid said, feeling the pull of The Cottage behind her, like a magnet. “I can walk.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mr. Ferrand.
Mr. Ferrand drove, Ingrid and Chloe in back. No skis on the roof, or anything like that: All the equipment waited at the Ferrands’ Stowe chalet.
“How long does it take?” said Ingrid, just to make conversation, be polite.
“No idea,” said Chloe.
“An hour, depending,” said Mr. Ferrand.
“I thought it was farther.”
“We go with Nevin,” Chloe said.
“Who’s Nevin?”
“Our pilot,” Chloe said.
“Oh,” said Ingrid; conversations with Chloe often ended like that, Ingrid reduced to oh.
They dropped her in front of 99 Maple Lane. Getting dark already: Long shadows blackened the street, and the western sky was fiery. She noticed that the TT was in the driveway. What was that about? No time to investigate. The moment the Ferrands’ car was out of sight, Ingrid started walking back to Chloe’s.
twenty-three
IT WAS ALMOST fully dark by the time Ingrid got back to the Ferrands’ house—an enormous silhouette against a deep-purple sky—and much colder. The tall gates to the driveway were closed, but Ingrid, ninety-seven pounds, squeezed between the black bars, no problem. The packed-down snow in the driveway squeaked under her boots, the way it did when the temperature fell into single digits. Her whole face was numb now, and her toes too; her fingers, balled up inside her wool mittens, were still okay.
Halfway up the driveway a plowed lane led on a diagonal to the left, away from the house. Lights shone in a few windows, spilled over the snow, but didn’t quite reach Ingrid. She followed the plowed lane across the Ferrands’ vast property, past the outdoor pool and cabana, past the guesthouses, all dark. In the distance, way down the long slope, she could just see a curve of the river, iced over and glazed with the last light of sunset. Then the lane entered the woods—maybe the Ferrands’, maybe the town’s—and the river vanished. Darkness spread around her, flowing silently through the trees. The only sounds were the squeaking of her boots in the packed snow and her own breathing, low and rapid. Ingrid tried to slow it down.
A light twinkled up ahead, disappeared, came again. Not long after that, she smelled smoke. The twinkle grew stronger, became a glow, and all at once Ingrid heard the raised voice of a woman, not far off. She sounded angry.
“Bad, bad, very bad. Bad.” And then: crack. A single sharp whip-cracking sound.
Ingrid went still. She heard a door close, and the glow vanished. Silence. After a while she took another step: squeak. Almost at once, a door opened and slammed shut. Then headlights flashed on, up ahead and partly obscured by trees, but pointing right at her. Ingrid dove off the lane, rolled behind a thick tree trunk, snow getting down her neck. The headlights drew closer and a car went by, the hawk-nosed woman at the wheel, her face green in the dashboard lights. A minute or so later the taillights disappeared somewhere toward the main road, and the engine sounds faded. Ingrid rose, brushed off the snow, returned to the path, kept going: squeak, squeak, but nothing she could do about it.
The lane curved toward the right and The Cottage appeared, trees dense all around like a single organism, heavy branches reaching down to the roof. Sparks flew up the chimney, but The Cottage was dark except for a single faint light in a downstairs window. Ingrid stepped into the small yard—the backyard, she realized, from the woodpile and chopping block. What was that? A whining sound? She listened hard. Some animal in the woods? Just the wind? The sound stopped before she could make up her mind.
But the wind was rising, no doubt about that: It reached up between the hems of her pant legs and her boot tops, all icy. A branch scratched at the roof. Kids on their own.
Ingrid moved across the yard. The moon blinked through the treetops, made tiny reflections of itself on the silvery
parts of a snowmobile parked by the house. She came to the window where the light showed, stood on her tiptoes, peered in.
Data: A small kitchen, lit only by an old-fashioned oil lamp on the table. Beside the lamp sat a fruit basket. A cloud of fruit flies hovered over it. What else? Stove, fridge, cupboards, a wall calendar with a picture of a cemetery. And on the floor in one corner stood a tin bowl, the kind dogs drank from. She thought she heard that whine again. Was it coming from somewhere inside? Ingrid held her breath, listened hard, heard nothing.
No cars around, one little light left on, not the usual time for sleeping: therefore no one home, pure logic. This was her chance. What was that expression? Window of opportunity. Ingrid decided to take it literally. She pressed the heels of her hands against the top part of one of those wooden frames—mullions?—that held in the window panes, and pushed up. The window didn’t budge.
She moved a few steps away to the back door. People sometimes kept an extra key hidden under a flowerpot or the doormat, or up on the sill above the door; Mr. Rubino had rigged a setup involving a hidden button and a key that came popping out of the wall cuckoo-clock style. The Cottage had no flowerpot and the sill was too high. Ingrid looked under the mat—a mat that said Willkommen—and found nothing. She rose, put her face to the round window in the door, saw shadows and gloom. Then that whine came again, for sure this time: The sound seemed to vibrate in the glass. Ingrid’s hand went to the doorknob. She turned it, in the unlikely event—
The door opened. A little jolt went through her; not fear, exactly. It was more like: This is meant to be. Ingrid glanced back, saw nothing but the woods and, in the distance, the lights of the Ferrands’ house. She stepped into The Cottage and closed the door softly behind her.
The Cottage was vague and shadowy inside, full of dark shapes that all seemed about to move. Ingrid saw a faint glow to her left, followed it down a short hall, ended up in a small sitting room furnished with a few pieces of severe-looking furniture. The glow came from a fire burning low in the fireplace. Above the fireplace hung the mounted head of some kind of animal—a wild sheep, maybe—with long curving horns. Its huge eyes reflected the firelight; they looked terrified.
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