Windward Secrets

by K. A. Davis

  “Go take your shower. I’ll explain when Jill gets back.” Turning to Caroline she continued, “You need to wear your contacts and something sexy.”

  “You want me to regress? Why?”

  “Because, you have a special assignment today.”

  Claire rocked slowly waiting for Diane and Caroline to change.

  ***

  When Jill returned from her walk, her friends were dressed and waiting on the porch for her. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  “We’re going to brunch,” Caroline said, slowly and with a glance at Claire added, “and who knows what else.”

  “Caroline,” Claire said. “You’re going to need your painting gear.”

  Caroline looked curiously at Claire and went into the house to collect her things.

  “You’re up to something, aren’t you?” Jill looked skeptically at Claire.

  “Afraid so. Get dressed and I’ll explain in the car.”

  “The suspense is killing me,” Diane said, sliding behind the steering wheel.

  Jill couldn’t resist. “You’re enjoying this too, aren’t you, Diane?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Claire turned to Jill. “Who in your company is an expert on security cameras?”

  “I knew it. You’re going after the security tapes at the marina, aren’t you?”

  “Not me… you!”

  Jill whipped her head toward Claire. “Are you out of your mind? Don’t answer that, we already know you are.”

  Caroline looked thoughtful. “Claire, you said yesterday was the end of it.”

  Claire let out a long, deep sigh. “What if one of those little girls was yours and someone could find out what happened to her? If the authorities were going to do anything it certainly would have been done by now. I believe we were brought here for a reason and this is it. We have to do everything we can to prevent any more children from disappearing, and God knows what else.”

  Caroline and Jill looked at Diane. “Diane?”

  “I agree with Claire,” Diane said, thinking of her own daughter, and not taking her eyes off the road.

  Jill and Caroline looked at each other and then at Claire. “Okay. What do we need to do?”

  “Is there a security camera expert at your company Jill?”

  “Yes. Joe.”

  “Can you give him a call and see how we can get the tapes or disks or whatever it is we need?”

  “It’s Sunday for crying out loud. I hate to bother him… oh darn, I’ll try.”

  The other three women listened to Jill’s side of the phone conversation. “Yes. Okay. I’ll call you back.” Ending the call she explained, “Joe said that if we can get a look at the brand and model number of the system he can tell us what to do. Would you like to tell me exactly how we’re going to do that Claire?”

  “Certainly,” Claire replied, with a sly grin. “Caroline is going to get the marina manager out of his office by saying she needs his permission to paint and where he wants her to do it. Caroline, you’re going to have to use all those social graces you have acquired over the years to get him out of the building and keep him there as long as possible. Diane, Jill, and I will get a table and create a diversion in the restaurant. It will be busy because it’s a beautiful weekend. No one will notice when Jill slips away.”

  “Why me?” Jill questioned, with a worried look.

  “Because you know electronics better than we do. I noticed last night that the manager’s office is down the same hallway as the restrooms. No one will suspect a thing when you head for the ladies room and slip into his office.”

  Diane pulled into the parking lot and turned off the ignition.

  Claire touched Caroline’s leg. “You go first. We’ll give you five minutes and then we’ll come in. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in your case, you are going to have to stay after we leave and continue painting so that no one connects you with us. We’ll come back for you later.”

  “Okay. I think I can do this. If I learned anything from my despicable dad, it’s how to lie.” Caroline got out of the car and retrieved her things from the trunk of the car. The others watched as she entered the restaurant.

  Diane counted down the minutes. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  The three women were greeted by the hostess and seated at a table in the middle of the dining room. A server took their orders for drinks and explained that it was a buffet and they should help themselves when they were ready.

  “Fill your plates as high as you can,” Claire whispered, across the table to Diane and Jill.

  “You’re really making me nervous,” Jill replied.

  “You can do it, Jill. Don’t worry, Diane has Ed to defend us.”

  “Oh, that’s swell,” Diane said. “Just when I realize I love the guy, he’s going to have to get me out of jail.”

  “Let’s get our food. Time’s wasting.”

  The three women piled their plates with more food than they could possibly eat. Returning to their table, they found the three, large glasses of iced tea they had ordered. They were no sooner seated when Claire announced louder than necessary that she was going to the ladies room. As she got up from the table she took hold of her handbag and the tablecloth at the same time. Sliding off her chair and moving away from the table she quickly jerked the tablecloth along with her handbag. Food and iced tea flew everywhere. There was instant chaos. Claire nodded to Jill, who made a scene about the iced tea that had spilled down her blouse and headed for the ladies’ room. Every server in the restaurant rushed to the table to start cleaning up the mess. Food hit several other people and Claire diligently went to work apologizing and drawing as much attention to herself as possible. Diane pretended to help the servers clean up while she kept an eye on the entrance in case the manager appeared unexpectedly.

  Every eye in the dining room was on the mess in the center of the room and no one noticed Jill disappear down the hallway and into the manager’s office. Locating the camera recording equipment setting on a credenza behind the manager’s desk, she pulled her cell phone from her handbag and punched in Joe’s number. Joe was waiting for her call and picked up immediately. Jill read off the name of the recorder and model number. “Yes. You’re sure? Okay. Bye.”

  Disks, the system used disks not tape. She began opening the doors and drawers of the credenza. There they were, disk cases with the years clearly printed on the spines. “Holy heck! There have to be thirty or forty disks for the last three years. How will I ever get through all these?” Looking out the office window that overlooked the docks, she saw Caroline talking to the manager. “Keep him talking Caroline!”

  Jill took a deep breath to steady her nerves. ‘I need a system.’ Pulling the first disk out she opened the case popped the disk and dropped it into her handbag and returned the empty case back to the drawer.

  Open. Pop. Drop. Return.

  Open. Pop. Drop. Return.

  She fell into a rhythm glancing out the window every two or three disks. She was doing fine until she dropped a disk. When she bent over to look for the disk she hit her shoulder on the corner of the drawer and tore her blouse. “Ouch! Damn it!” She slammed the drawer closed and got down on her hands and knees to search for the disk. It was too dark under the credenza to see the disk so she reached back with her hand and felt around. Nothing. It must have rolled somewhere else, she thought looking around the floor. Jill was crawling toward the manager’s desk when she heard the office door knob turn. She quickly crawled under the desk and held her breath. The door opened and someone approached the desk. There was nothing she could do but pray whoever it was wasn’t planning on sitting at the desk or they would see her. Perspiration was soaking her blouse and her legs were cramping. Lowering her eyes to the space under the front of the desk she saw just the tip of a women’s shoe one inch from the runaway disk. Please leave, thought Jill wanting to scream because her back ached from her crunched position. It felt like hours until she heard something being
placed on the desk and the shoe moved out from under it. Footsteps receded toward the door and then it closed. Jill waited a few seconds and then backed out from under the desk anxious to stretch her body back to its normal shape. Wiping the sweat from her face, she tried to stand only to hit her head on the edge of the desk. “Oh, for God’s sake, what next?” she mumbled, rubbing her head. She glanced out the window again, the manager was still with Caroline. In earnest she went back to work opening, popping, and dropping. Ten more disks and she was completely soaked in perspiration and as tightly stretched as a rubber band ready to break.

  “This has to be enough,” she said, as she dropped one last disk into her handbag. Looking out the window, the manager was no longer with Caroline. “Damn. I have to get out of here fast.” Quickly she closed the drawer and left the office. She just passed the Ladies’ Room when the manager rounded the corner and said, “Good afternoon.”

  Jill’s mouth twitched with a nervous smile and she nodded.

  Back in the dining room, the table was being re-set, the other diners had returned to their meals and a server was placing fresh glasses of iced tea in front of them. “Please go back to the buffet and start again.”

  This time the women took small amounts of food, ate quickly, and left the restaurant with apologies to the hostess.

  “Please, don’t worry about it,” the hostess replied. “These things happen.”

  Claire turned to Jill. “Now what?”

  “Joe said we can play the disks on a computer or disk player. Any recordings made will show with the date and time noted at the bottom of the screen. We don’t have either at the house. Now what do we do?”

  Diane pulled into a vacant parking lot and popped the trunk. Diane retrieved her laptop and the backpack from trunk, and handed the backpack to Claire. “Give me the dates, Claire.”

  Claire looked at her list and started reading off dates.

  “Oh crap,” Diane cried. “It’s not working. There’s something wrong. What do we do now Jill?”

  “We’ll have to get the disks to Joe. He can figure out what’s wrong. I suppose I’m going to have to get those disks back into the office eventually, aren’t I?”

  “Not necessarily,” Diane said. “Nobody knows who took them and they have no reason to look at these disks. If there had been a problem they would have used the disks at the time, not a few years later.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” Jill answered, playing with her rings nervously. “If I go to jail Claire, you’re coming with me.”

  Diane started the car and turned toward the road that led to Route 6. “Let’s see if we can find someplace open that does FedEx or UPS.” Driving south on Route 6 they found a Staples in Barnstable.

  “Bingo,” Claire yelled, pointing to the left.

  “Won’t go out until tomorrow,” the young woman said, from behind the counter.

  “That’s okay,” Diane replied. “We have no choice.”

  Back in the car, they returned to the Marina to pick up Caroline.

  “Great job, Caroline. How did you keep him out of the restaurant so long?” Claire asked.

  Caroline batted her eyelashes. “Just a little southern charm and the promise of a painting,” she giggled.

  “Are you sure that’s all?” Jill asked, mischievously. Caroline laughed out loud.

  “Would you believe I saw the SOB slip his wedding ring off and put it into his pocket? He had the gall to ask me out…like I couldn’t see the tan line where his ring had been. What a jerk. Men are so stupid. Why do they think they’re so irresistible? Bill probably behaves the same way. I wanted to push the jerk off the dock. Instead, I let him think he had a chance. I told him my name was Bridgett and gave him the number of the dentist’s office.”

  Diane laughed so hard she had to pull off the road. “Oh my God, that is so good Caroline.”

  “Yeah, well I hope he calls Bridgett.”

  Tears were streaming down Jill’s cheeks as she laughed. “Diane, drive. I had iced tea and you know I can’t laugh with a full bladder.”

  Diane drove back to the house where all four tumbled out of the car still laughing.

  ***

  The women luxuriated in the quiet afternoon. Claire and Diane read on the back porch. Caroline painted on the roof and Jill took a nap before going out to dinner with Drew.

  When Drew came to pick up Jill, her posse was once again waiting on the front porch. Ike ran to Claire and tried to climb into her lap on the rocker. “Down boy. It’s good to see you too.”

  Jill stood and gave Drew a peck on his cheek.

  Claire couldn’t resist. “Why don’t you go to the Marina Restaurant? The food’s good and the view of the boats is lovely.”

  Jill whirled around and gave Claire a look that would kill.

  Oblivious to any hidden meaning in Claire’s suggestion Drew said, “Thanks, but there’s a little restaurant I wanted to try in Chatham. Is that okay, Jill?”

  “Of course it is. Let’s go.” With one last disgruntled look at Claire, she took Drew’s arm and they walked toward the car.

  Diane giggled, softly. “I swear Claire, you are going to pay big time someday.”

  ***

  After a simple supper of sandwiches Caroline, Diane, and Claire climbed the stairs to the roof.

  “We haven’t been up here for a few nights,” Diane said. Claire passed around glasses of wine. “No, we haven’t. This is a nice ending to a good day. Cheers!”

  Caroline led the conversation by telling them what she had been painting from the roof and how much she loved the view. “Let me show you.” She disappeared down the stairs to return with the painting she had done the morning she painted the sunrise.

  They propped the painting on the easel and stood back to study it. “Caroline, this is really beautiful. The colors and detail are marvelous,” Diane observed.

  Claire walked closer to the painting. “Caroline.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you paint Betsy in the picture?”

  Caroline looked surprised. “What?”

  Claire pointed to the little girl on the beach. “This is Betsy. Did you work from the pictures in the scrapbook?”

  “No. I wasn’t even thinking of Betsy when I was painting. Claire, do you know what is really strange?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t remember painting her at all.”

  Diane hummed the theme from The Twilight Zone. “And, Claire thinks this house is normal.”

  “No… I think it’s abnormally special. A thin place, remember? Something or someone is guiding us. This is another sign.”

  “Claire,” Caroline asked, softly. “If this is a thin place and Betsy is here, does that mean she’s dead?”

  Claire looked sadly out to sea. “If I understand the theory of thin places correctly, then the answer is yes.”

  No one said anything as the bright, orange sun slowly slid behind the horizon and the moon steadily made its climb to join the stars.

  In an effort to lift the mood Caroline got the binoculars and handed them to Claire. “Let’s look at the stars and see how many constellations we can identify.”

  Claire scanned the sky and then the sea, and, finally, up and down the beach. Standing up from her green and white lawn chair she walked to the edge of the roof that faced Wendell’s. “There’s a light moving over there!”

  Diane and Caroline joined her at the railing and she handed the binoculars to Diane. “I see it. It appears to be going back and forth from the house to the driveway.” She handed the binoculars to Caroline.

  “It looks like a flashlight, doesn’t it?”

  Suddenly, Claire turned for the stairs. “Get your things. He’s moving the evidence.”

  Running through the house they grabbed jackets, handbags, and phones.”

  “Caroline, you drive. Drop us at the end of Wendell’s drive and then wait up the road for us to call you.”

  “Oh crap, here we go again,” Di
ane mumbled.

  Hunkering down, Claire and Diane stealthily moved through the tall grass and bushes toward Wendell’s house. When they were close enough to see the house, they crawled under the shelter of low, hanging branches of a pine tree. Wendell came out of the house carrying a box and loaded it into the back of his truck. Before he finished, the door to the house opened and another man came out carrying a computer monitor.

  Claire and Diane looked at each other and shook their heads. It was too dark to see who the other man was. The men each made two more trips from the house to the truck and then got into the truck and slowly drove out of the driveway.

  Claire hit speed dial. “Caroline, come get us. Quickly. They’re leaving.” She and Diane left the hiding place and ran toward the road. Just as they reached the road Caroline pulled up and they got into the car.

  “Did you see which way they went?” Diane asked.

  “Yes,” Caroline replied. “They’re headed for town.”

  “Turn off the headlights, Caroline. We don’t want them to know they’re being followed,” Claire directed.

  Caroline did as she was told and slowly followed the pickup. They could just barely see the tail lights in front of them.

  “This is dangerous. I can hardly see the edge of the road,” Caroline said, with a quiver in her voice.

  “It’s okay. They’re not going fast. Take your time,” Diane encouraged.

  They passed Windward Cottage and were half way to town when Caroline exclaimed, “Oh hell! There’s a cop behind us with his light blinking.”

  “Oh damn!” Claire swore. “Pull over, Caroline.”

  Caroline carefully maneuvered the car to the side of the road and rolled down her window waiting to see who would exit the patrol car behind them.

  “Good evening ladies,” Deputy O’Reilly said.

  Caroline turned on her southern charm. “Hi, Kevin. How are you?”

  “Ma’am, do you realize you were driving without your lights?”

  “Really?” Caroline looked in front of the car and then at the dashboard. “Gosh, you know what? I didn’t. The moonlight’s so bright I forgot to turn them on.”

  The deputy aimed his flashlight into the car at Claire and then at Diane in the back seat. He moved the light over the back seat. Diane’s handbag containing her gun was in full view on the seat beside her. Beads of sweat began to form on her upper lip and it took all she had not to reach for the purse.