by Brenda Joyce
"I have found out so much," Jill said. Inmiediately, her temples began to throb. "Lucinda, do you know of a handwriting expert who could compare signatures for me? Quickly?"
"Actually, I do. Having worked at so many museums, we've often used handwriting experts to authenticate works of art, old letters, and other artifacts of that nature." Lucinda gave her the name and telephone number of an Arthur Kingston, whose office suite was in Cheapside. "Why do you need a handwriting expert, Jill?"
Jill told her about the hospital records, the birth certificate, and the receipt signed by Jonathan Barclay.
"Well," Lucinda said slowly. "You most certainly have come up with some interesting clues. What did you think of Stainesmore?"
"I think it's lovely," Jill said. "Lucinda. We found Kate's grave."
There was a brief pause, in which Jill felt Lucinda's surprise. "You what?!"
Jill told her about the small, barely noticeable headstone and the engraved date. "Can you believe it?"
"Actually, I am stunned," Lucinda replied. "I hardly know what to think." She lapsed into silence and Jill knew she was thinking about the effort and risk someone had taken to bury Kate—and the fact that that someone had known she was dead, where her body was, and the day she died. "And to think the authorities never knew."
"Was Hal in love with Kate, Lucinda?"
Lucinda made a small sound of surprise. "I don't know, my dear. Wouldn't that have been rather, er, bizarre?"
"It would have been more than bizarre, it would have been an obsession." Jill told Lucinda about the portrait in the attic, and Hal having discovered it when he was thirteen. Hal's odd interest in Kate—his obsession—had begun then, that summer. She was certain of it. And Alex must have also known. Hadn't he said, more than once, that he and Hal had been very close as boys?
"What a fabulous discovery!" Lucinda cried excitedly.
"I think so." Jill sighed. "I still need some kind of proof that Kate is my great-grandmother. But if those signatures match up, then Edward CoUinsworth was the father of her child."
Lucinda was absolutely silent.
"Lucinda? Are you still there?"
"Are you certain, Jill?"
"Yeah." Jill was about to elaborate when she heard a click on her phone. "Lucinda, can we talk later? I have another call."
"Of course, dear," Lucinda said.
Jill was about to depress the hook. "Lucinda, are you friendly with the Sheldons?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I saw—or I think I saw—one of their cars out front a few minutes ago. No one buzzed me—but I was wondering if someone stopped in on you."
"Dear, I adore that family—but I am merely a paid employee. I would hardly receive a social call from the earl."
Jill thanked her, saying good-bye. And the instant she hung up the phone, having lost her other caller, something clicked in her mind. Jill froze. She hadn't asked Lucinda if William had dropped by. She hadn't been that specific. She had been asking about Lucinda's relationship with the entire family.
Jill would bet her last dime that Lucinda had just had a visit from the earl. What she couldn't figure out was, why?
Jill awoke, startled from a deep sleep by a noise she could not identify. For one nioment she was disoriented and con-
fused, and then, squinting through the darkness, she realized she had fallen asleep on the sofa in the parlor and it was already dark.
A cat yowled.
Jill sat up, unbearably groggy, reaching for the lamp on the table beside the couch. She missed and the next thing she knew, she heard the lamp crashing to the floor.
Jill cursed, because the lamp was porcelain and an antique. She wondered what time it was and if one of her cats had cried out in the backyard. A neighbor had a German shepherd puppy. Lucinda had told her that he'd gotten off his chain and out of his yard twice during the weekend while Jill was away, causing the cats no small amount of distress. Sir John had been treed, and had refused to come down for hours.
Groping, Jill found her way past the coffee table and armchair to the light switch on the wall by the front door. She flicked it and the entry was flooded with light. She immediately saw that the lamp had not been broken. She was relieved; it would have been nearly impossible to replace.
She looked at her watch. It was half past eight in the evening. She did not remember lying down, much less falling asleep. Had she slept all afternoon? Suddenly she was famished, and dialed out for a pizza.
Immediately she thought about Kate. At least she hadn't dreamed, thank God.
Something crashed outside in the backyard.
Jill hurried through the parlor, not pausing to right the lamp. In the kitchen she flicked on more lights, stepping out onto the back stoop. The backyard was only illuminated in the vicinity of the stoop, for there were no outdoor lights in the garden. When her neighbors were at home, their lights would shine brightly in the farthest comers of the yard. But tonight, apparently, they were out, because the two houses facing her garden were utterly dark.
"Lady E.! Sir John! Psst, psst!" Jill called, still fighting the deep grogginess she was afflicted with.
She scanned the yard, but saw no dog, and neither cat. Well, the cats could undoubtedly take care of themselves,
and she did not have a clue as to what had fallen over, but she'd worry about it tomorrow in the light of another day.
A strange crying sound seemed to drift through the house.
Jill had just opened up a can of Coke and she froze. For a moment, she thought she was hearing a woman's weeping— and the first woman she thought of was Kate.
But the sound was so faint. Jill put the Coke down, straining to hear^. Then she heard it again. A soft, pitiful crying.
Kate was dead. And Jill might believe in ghosts—sort of—but she had never seen one, nor did she want to. Her skin crawled. Anxiously, she glanced around the kitchen and at the night-blackened windows.
She told herself that she wasn't hearing anything. It was her imagination.
But the pervasive crying seemed to linger.
Her heart began to thud. Sweat dampened her skin. Jill told herself not to be an idiot. A television was probably on next door—never mind that she had not heard it or any appliance or even voices from next door since she had taken up residence in the flat. She walked out of the kitchen. As she did so, she heard nothing, but when she stopped in the center of the parlor, her footsteps no longer softly sounding, she heard the noise again.
Her gaze shot to the stairs. Was it coming from upstairs?
Shit, Jill thought. The upstairs was cast in blackness, and she did not want to go up.
The light switch was on the landing above.
The crying—more like a mewling—continued.
It seemed very real.
I'm a coward, Jill thought. She looked around, for an object with which to defend herself, then decided, if she was about to confront a ghost, nothing would help. She started cautiously toward the stairs. She went, up them slowly. On the landing she paused, in utter darkness, the moaning now distinct.
It seemed to be coming from her bedroom, by God.
Jill hit the light. It flooded the hall. Was it the cat?
No longer afraid of ghosts, Jill rushed into the bedroom.
turning on the lights, glancing around. The pitiful sound came from under the bed.
Jill got down on all fours, her pulse pounding. "John? John?" She crept forward. She did not understand. Sir John never came into any room when she was present, and he had not set foot in this bedroom while she was in it, either. But now she saw him crouching beneath the bed, mewling, his gaze wide and fixated on her.
"Come here, sweetie," Jill called. "What's wrong, darling?" She knew better than to reach out to him.
The cat stopped crying. It stared at her, its expression unbelievably human—incredibly distraught.
The hairs rose up on every inch of Jill's body just as the knocker on the front door sounded. Jill jumped,
scared out of her wits. Then she told herself it was probably the pizza. She glanced back at the bottom of the bed. What was wrong with Sir John?
The knocker sounded again, more insistently. Jill hurried from the room, stumbling downstairs. She had the sense to pause in the entry. "Who is it?"
"Pizza."
Relieved, yet still very distressed with the cat's behavior, Jill opened the door. A chubby freckle-faced boy held the box toward her with one hand, and with the other, he pointed—to his left. "Miss," he said.
Jill looked in the direction he was pointing.
"You have a dead cat on your porch, miss," he said.
As he spoke, Jill saw the decapitated cat, lying in a pool of bright red blood.
As the primal scream started to form deep inside her chest, she realized it was Lady E.
Jill screamed.
Nineteen
J
ILL FLED INTO THE HOUSE, RAN BLINDLY INTO THE GUEST POW-
der room, where she promptly threw up.
"Miss! You have to pay for the pizza!"
Jill clutched the toilet bowl, waves of dizziness assailing her. Lady E.'s headless, bloody body engraved on her mind. The delivery boy continued to shout at her. Jill could not focus on what he was saying. Lady E. was dead.
She retched again, but dryly.
The delivery boy was banging on the door now.
Jill turned and staggered out of the bathroom. What should she do? She was mindless with shock and confusion.
Suddenly she ran across the parlor and into the kitchen. Oh, God! Where was her tote with her Filofax?
Jill rushed back into the parlor, saw her tote by the door where she had left her duffel bag. As she ran to it, she saw through the window that the boy with her pizza was leaving, already on the sidewalk, about to climb into his Renault. Jill reached for the tote as another wave of dizziness swept over her. Lady E. was dead. Really, truly, brutally dead.
Someone had beheaded her.
Where was the damn Filofax? Her hands shaking, Jill threw tissues, a pen, her lipstick and mirror, a tour guide of Britain, and her relatively new black Ray^Ban sunglasses violently from the bag. They scattered across the floor. A few old business cards followed. More tissues, a map. She finally seized the Filofax. The closest phone was in the parlor. Jill
ran to it, opening the book as she did so, P .. . Preston. She dialed and prayed.
Alex picked up instantly—and she had called him on his private line at his office. "Preston."
"Alex, she's dead, someone cut off her head!" Jill choked.
"Jesus, Jill! Who's dead?"
"Lady E.!" In spite of the fact that Jill's mind did not seem to be functioning, she realized what Alex was thinking. "One of the Siamese cats. They cut off her head, left her on the porch, oh, God, I'm going to be sick again." Jill dropped the phone and ran back to the powder room, only to retch violently and dryly again.
When the heaves had passed, she was on her knees, and she pressed her cheek against the side of the sink's medicine cabinet. Tears began to flow freely down her face. She gasped, trying not to cry, but she failed. And then she thought of Sir John, upstairs, hiding under her bed, crying so pitifully. Now she understood. He had been terrorized—and was now mourning the death of his mate.
Jill froze. The comprehension was brutal, searing—terrifying. A noise in the garden had awoken her from her nap in the first place. That, followed by a cat's yowl and a crash. Oh, dear God.
Jill managed to stand upright. She was shaking uncontrollably.
Someone had caught Lady E. and killed her while Jill was asleep—or just after she had woken up—right there by the house.
What if that someone was still lurking outside?
Jill ran to the front door and bolted it. Panting, she froze, straining to hear anything—anyone. To her dismay, she had left the phone off the hook, and now she could hear it buzzing loudly. She remained motionless, attempting to filter out that sound. She did not think she could hear Sir John crying upstairs. Her heart twisted painfully whenever she thought about him.
Had he stopped mewling—or was the damned telephone interfering with her ability to hear?
Pain stabbed through her again. Poor Lady E. How could
someone so grossly murder the lovely, elegant, personable cat?
The tears poured down her face. Why had someone done this? Why?
And then Jill knew why. It had not been a prank. Oh, no.
Jill wet her lips and slammed off the entry way lights. The downstairs was immediately cast in shadows and darkness, but the upstairs remained lit. Jill did not dare go up those stairs. It occurred to her that Lady E.'s murderer might have stolen into the house—if he or she had wanted to—while she was upstairs with Sir John—or downstairs with the pizza boy.
Don't be afraid, Jill told herself, inhaling raggedly. There's no reason the cat's killer would come inside.
Her heart was pounding like a heavy drum inside of her breast. Fear almost immobilized her. Jill started very slowly across the parlor, pausing every few seconds to listen for the sound of an intruder, hiding inside or outside of the house. She only heard the sound of her own labored breathing and the goddamned phone.
Before she entered the kitchen she peeked inside, her back flat to the adjacent wall. It appeared to be empty. Jill slammed off the lights, ran across it, closed the back door— which had been ajar. Oh, God! As she locked both the push button on the knob and then slid the small bolt home, she realized the two locks looked silly and incapable of deterring even the least experienced of burglars.
What had Alex said? He had said he could pick the front locks with his eyes closed.
And Jill heard the screech of tires and the roar of his monster's engine even from the kitchen, where she stood, forgetting to breathe. She did not move.
Lady E. was a warning. Jill was certain of it. Who had delivered that warning?
Someone who did not want her identifying Kate's murderer A Sheldon—or even Alex Preston.
"Jill! Jill!" Alex was knocking loudly, repeatedly, on the front door. "Jesus!"
Jill began to shake again. Alex was very loyal to the Shel-
dons, but he would never go so far. He was not a nut, and he had not murdered Lady E. He had been in his office.
But what about call forwarding?
"Jill! Are you okay? God damn it!" he exploded from outside.
Jill did not move. For all she knew, he could have been outside with his cell phone, taking her call moments ago.
Or he could have had someone else do his dirty work for him.
Glass exploded, shattering.
Jill cried out.
Suddenly Alex was racing through the house, lights flooding it as he hit switch after switch. He halted in his tracks when he saw Jill, who remained standing frozen in the kitchen, her back to the door she had locked only moments ago.
"Thank God you're okay!" He strode to her.
His face was a mask of concern. But she stepped away from him, ducking out of his reach.
His eyes widened. "Jill?"
She tried, desperately, to think clearly—to get a grip on her hysteria and fear. But her emotions were out of control. Jill felt as if she were approaching the very worst downhill descent on a roller coaster. "Someone killed the cat!"
"I know. Jill. It's okay," he soothed.
She couldn't back up again—her spine was pressed against the door, the tiny bolt digging painfully into one shoulder blade. "It's not okay. Lady E. is dead. Who killed her?"
"How the hell would I know?"
She just stared at him, her mind going round and round in spinning circles, with Lady E.'s bloody image the heart of it all.
"You're shaking like a leaf." He stepped toward her, reaching out for her.
Jill stepped away. "It wasn't a prank."
His eyes widened.
"It was a warning."
"A warning," Alex repeated, as if he did not understand English.
&n
bsp; Jill nodded, and she started to cry.
Suddenly he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace. "You're shaking. You're stiff as a board. Honey. It was a prank."
"You're one of them," she wanted to say, but she didn't, because she was weeping, all over his pale blue button-down shirt and red checked tie.
One of his big hands stroked through her hair, over and down the back of her head. "Don't cry. Don't you know that's the one thing us big machos can't handle?"
She smiled against his chest.
He held her more tightly. "Oh, shit. This is out of hand," he muttered—or she thought that was what he said.
Jill hoped she hadn't heard him say that. Maybe she had misunderstood his meaning. Maybe he had meant he couldn't deal with her tears. In any case, she was being paranoid to think that he had anything to do with the cat's death, to think that he might know who had a hand in it. Alex might be protective of his family, but he was not a "sicko." Only someone with the lack of morals of a sociopath would decapitate a beloved pet—or any animal, for that matter.
He felt safe now, when the night felt terrifying.
His hands stilled, now on her shoulders.
Jill finally, slowly, looked up, into his eyes.
Their gazes locked.
"Do you know who killed the cat?" Jill heard herself say very calmly now. But the calm was superficial. She remained sick inside of herself.
He stiffened, releasing her. "Let's talk."
Jill nodded. She went to the kitchen table and sat down. Alex went to the counter, opening up cabinets. "I have no booze," she said.
"Great." He opened the refrigerator, scanned its contents, closed it. "You need help here, kiddo. Now I see why you're so thin."
"He took my pizza." Jill wasn't hungry, but she heard how dull her tone was.
He came and sat down, puUing his chair close to hers. "Did you call the police?"
"No."
"I'll call."
She seized his wrist. "Why?"