Secrets

by Jude Deveraux

  “Yes, I’m here,” he said into the phone. “It’s been a bit of a push but I made it.”

  Cassie’s eyes widened. Leo Norton had an English accent! And not one of those accents that leaves off the beginning and end of every word, but an upper-class accent that sounded to her of the BBC and the British royal family.

  She moved her body upward so she could see him. He had his back to her, his phone to his ear, and he was listening. “I’m here with him now, but Jefferson brought a crowd with him. One of them I don’t know. I think maybe she’s an innocent, but check her out anyway. Better yet, start a file on her. Her name’s Cassandra Madden.”

  He paused and listened. “No, Jeff is smarter than that. Yes, I already made the pickup. The little man slipped out of the rocks as soon as we got here. Easy as could be.”

  He paused again. “No, go ahead and pick me up today. Yes, I know I was going to stay for the weekend, but that was changed. Five o’clock at the usual place. Yes, I can be there. I’ll make them leave soon.”

  He closed his phone and stood where he was. Cassie was tempted to step out of hiding and confront him—but not too tempted. The man wasn’t obnoxious as much as he was secretive, she thought. He’d met someone here and received something, but she couldn’t figure out if Jeff knew about it or not. Besides that, what was it that he’d received? Something to do with Althea’s jewel robbery?

  Okay, so he’d made his call, so why wasn’t he leaving? To her left she heard a whistle and knew it was Jeff. She’d heard him whistle like that before and knew that he was telling her lunch was ready. When she didn’t come quickly, he’d start searching for her, and she had no doubt that he’d find her. He’d found her last night in the dark, so of course he could find her now. And if he did, Leo would know that she’d heard him on the telephone.

  She didn’t move, just kept watching Leo. What was he doing now? she wondered. He was unbuttoning his shirt! She felt panic rising in her throat. He must know she was there and he was planning—No, she couldn’t think that. Jeff was too near. Leo wouldn’t do anything like that. He—

  She drew in her breath when she saw him open his shirt and lift a thick pad off his stomach and scratch under it. She heard him sigh in ecstasy as he scratched his belly—his flat, muscular, hard belly.

  Astonishment froze her in place. The man was disguised to look fat and out of shape, but underneath, he had a stomach any bodybuilder would envy. She glanced at his bald head and wondered if that was a disguise too. The truth was that the man had so repulsed her from the first moment she saw him that he could have been wearing a latex mask and she wouldn’t have noticed.

  Very clever, she thought.

  She heard the whistle again, heard Leo mutter under his breath, then he hurriedly put the pad back in place and rounded his shoulders so he looked saggy and old and out of shape. Turning, he quickly headed back into the woods on the opposite side from the one Cassie had come up.

  The second he was out of sight, she got up and nearly ran down the path on the other side.

  “There you are,” Jeff said. “I was about to send the cavalry after you. Hungry?”

  “Famished,” she said. Leo was on the opposite side of the camp and she couldn’t help but look at him. As usual, his face instantly changed to a leer, but this time she didn’t look away. For a split second, she saw something else in his eyes and she made herself look away. She didn’t want to give it away that she knew more than he wanted her to.

  “Did you see the house?” Jeff asked.

  “No, I missed it. I went that way,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction of where she’d actually gone. “Beautiful view.”

  Jeff looked at her sharply but said nothing. He knew this place, so had she said something wrong?

  The five of them ate lunch together, but only Skylar and Brent made conversation. Cassie was quiet in her thoughts, and Leo seemed to be thinking about something too. Jeff ate and watched them all.

  12

  “ HE’S NOT WHO HE SEEMS TO BE,”Cassie whispered to Jeff as they put the cooler back in the boat.

  “Do you mean Leo?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Is anyone who they seem to be? I can’t figure out why Althea hired Goodwin, since he can hardly drive a riding mower. What kind of gardener is that?”

  “He looks great with his shirt off,” Cassie said quickly, “and stop trying to change the subject. Leo is not who he seems to be.”

  They were alone on the boat, the others still on the shore. Jeff glanced at them. “I’ve known Leo a long time, and I’m sorry he’s been so obnoxious to you. He’s not usually like that. Would you like to take a hike? We could go up to the house. Dad says the owners are away now, so we could look around. I hear she’s a fantastic gardener.”

  “No,” Cassie said, “we have to go back right away.” It was obvious that Jeff didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

  “No, we don’t. It’s early yet, so we have time. Unless you have to be somewhere.” He was joking with her, but she didn’t smile.

  “I don’t have to be anywhere,” she said, “but that man has to meet someone at five, so we need to leave soon.” She was watching Jeff and realized that he was purposefully changing the subject and pretending that he didn’t understand what she was saying. She knew from experience that he was a good listener, but now he was refusing to understand what she was trying to tell him.

  “Leo didn’t say anything to me about leaving early,” Jeff said.

  “That’s because he doesn’t want you to know what he’s doing,” she said quietly.

  Jeff stopped moving the cooler around and turned to look at her. “I think maybe you should tell me what it is that you know. Or is it just intuition?”

  Cassie’s first impulse was to tell him every word she’d heard Leo Norton say on the phone, but something stopped her. For one thing, lately, she’d caught Jeff in too many “stretches of the truth.” And for days his attitude had been odd, as though he was trying to hide something. All in all, Cassie was sure that there was a great deal more to why Jeff had come to the cabin than just a twenty-one-year-old jewel robbery.

  “Intuition,” she said with a sigh and a fluttering of her lashes that she hoped made her look innocent. “Leo doesn’t wear a ring but I think he’s married.”

  Jeff smiled in a fatherly way—and with more than a little relief, she thought. “Probably. I know he’s been divorced several times. After our hike, I’ll have a talk with him. I haven’t liked his behavior today at all.”

  Cassie started to reply but turned when they heard a yelp of pain come from Leo. When they looked, they saw him holding the side of his calf, and there was blood on his khaki trousers.

  Jeff turned to Cassie and lifted his eyebrows.

  She shrugged and said, “Intuition,” then she went to the front of the boat and asked Brent what was wrong.

  “Leo’s hurt his leg. I think we better go back,” Brent called out. “There’s a lot of blood.”

  “I bet there is,” Cassie said under her breath, then turned to smile at Jeff. He was frowning at her in a way that made her wish she hadn’t told him as much as she had.

  Part of her wanted to tell Jeff everything, but she didn’t think he’d listen to her. What she needed was some proof, then she’d be able to back up whatever she said about Leo Norton. If she had proof that he wasn’t what he seemed, then maybe Jeff would believe her—and tell her the truth about what was going on.

  Cassie stepped back and watched the others quickly load the boat. Once they were in open water again, heading back to the cabin, she turned to look at Leo. He’d wrapped a towel around his leg and it was bloody, but he was sitting there quietly looking at the water and didn’t seem to be in pain.

  She was willing to bet that there was no wound under the bandage. On impulse, Cassie got up and went to him. He was so astonished that he didn’t say a word until Cassie bent down to put her hands on the towel.

  “Wh
at’re you doin’?” he yelled.

  “I thought I’d look at your cut,” she said.

  “Look, baby, I want you to take off my clothes, but not now, not in front of ever’body. Unless that’s the way you like it.”

  Cassie again bent to go to his bandage. “Just let me look at the wound. It’s still bleeding, so maybe it needs pressure on it. Maybe you cut a vein.”

  “I didn’t cut no bleedin’ vein,” he snapped, then clamped his mouth shut as he glared at her.

  “All right,” she said sweetly, then returned to her seat. He’d said “bleeding.” A person couldn’t get more English than that.

  As Cassie took her seat, she saw that the other three were looking at her in surprise. They know, she thought. That’s why Jeff wouldn’t listen to her. All of them know that Leo isn’t who he seems to be. Only she was in the dark, and not privy to their secrets.

  It was a quiet trip back to the cabin dock, and the silence gave Cassie time to think. It was as though all of them thought of her as a child. She knew that was Jeff’s problem. He thought because he was eleven years older than she was, that she was a kid. Hardly older than his daughter.

  As they pulled into the dock, she made a vow to herself that she was going to show the lot of them that she was an adult as much as they were, and that she could keep secrets as well as they could.

  Cassie looked up at the cabin window and was sure she could squeeze through it. It was the cabin that Jeff had pointed out as being the one the robber had once owned. There were signs of recent occupation around it, including a fresh oil spot on the gravel drive, so she had an idea that this was where Leo had been staying. She’d waited until after five, when she knew he’d be gone. She didn’t know what she’d find inside, but she was going to have a look. The sun was low in the sky, and all around the lake was quiet. There was a curtain in front of the window, and if she broke the glass it would be hidden from the inside. He wouldn’t know it was broken until he felt the breeze. That is, if he ever returned.

  Okay, she told herself, time to stop thinking about it and do it. She’d found a short ladder in the little shed behind the cabin where they were staying, so she leaned it against the wall and climbed up. She wrapped her shirttail around her hand, then with her head turned, she hit the glass. It took two times before the window broke. The sound seemed loud to her, but she looked around and saw no one.

  It was easy to reach through the window, unfasten the latch, and push it up. Minutes later, she was inside the cabin. It was smaller than theirs, one of those one-room houses that was open space, with only a tiny bathroom closed off. The bed was in one corner, the kitchen in another, the living room in the other half of the house.

  When she looked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary, her first impulse was to climb back out the window and leave. No, she told herself, she needed to do this. She needed to have some proof to show Jeff when she told him what she’d heard Leo say, and she needed to show him that she could be part of whatever he and Brent and Skylar were into. If there was any proof, her only hope of finding it was inside the cabin.

  By the bed was a huge, beat-up, old wardrobe, with one door crooked on its hinges. She opened the door and looked inside. It was filled with a man’s clothes, all well worn and uninteresting. They looked to be Leo’s size, the one that included the huge pad he wore, that is. She started going through the clothes, checking each pocket for anything she could find.

  After they’d returned from the cove today, Leo had scurried off in the direction of the cabin that Jeff had told her was the one the robber used to own. Cassie didn’t see him enter it, but then she didn’t want to rouse suspicion by staring. She’d tried to act the same as she always did, but she knew she was being too quiet.

  “Would you mind telling me what’s wrong with you?” Jeff asked as he carried the cooler back to the house.

  “Nothing is wrong,” she said. “I’m just tired. The sun must have worn me out. I think I’ll take a nap.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Jeff said quickly. “And I think I’ll take a run.

  Too much sitting for me. I wish we could have gone skiing today. I need the exercise.”

  Cassie knew he was lying. Her guess was that he meant to go after Leo and ask him more questions. Let him, she thought. She had her own ideas about what she was going to do.

  She looked back at Brent and Skylar, and they seemed lost in each other. If Cassie really were Brent’s date, she would have been furious. Wasn’t it enough that Skylar had Jeff? Or did she? Cassie thought, and made yet another vow to do some investigating on that matter too.

  As soon as Jeff left to go running, Cassie told Skylar and Brent that she was going for a walk. They didn’t seem to notice her one way or the other. They were in the living room, and she could feel the tension between them. Sexual tension. Good, she thought, that should keep them busy.

  It had been easy to get the ladder from the shed and carry it to the cabin that Jeff had told her had belonged to the thief. And now she was inside it and searching for…For what? That was the big question. Did she think she would find a treasure trove of jewels?

  There was nothing, not even a grocery list, in the pockets of the clothes in the wardrobe, and Cassie thought that was odd. Who had empty pockets? Turning away, she began to search inside cabinets and drawers, but after half an hour, she’d found nothing. It looked as though Leo had made an effort to leave nothing of himself behind. Except dirt, she thought as she looked at the kitchen, which was filthy.

  She was in the kitchen, searching through the cabinets, when she heard the key in the front door. She hadn’t heard a car drive up, hadn’t heard any noise at all, but now someone was coming into the cabin. Her first thought was that it was Jeff, and he was at last “breaking and entering.” But what if it wasn’t him? She wouldn’t like to be caught alone by Leo.

  Frantically, she looked around for a hiding place. The iron bed frame was two feet off the floor and the bedspread didn’t reach down far enough to offer cover. The only place she could see to hide was in the clothes cabinet. She ran to the wardrobe, opened it, and stepped inside.

  A second later, the front door opened and she heard footsteps. She could see out through a half-inch space along the back of the door. Across from the cabinet was a mirror over an old dresser. A man she’d never seen before had entered the cabin, and he was carrying a bag of groceries. He was tall and so thin she wondered when he’d last had a meal. He wore old blue jeans and a red flannel shirt over a stained white T-shirt. They weren’t his clothes in the wardrobe.

  “What a mess!” she heard him mutter as he put the bag on the kitchen counter. “Damn Lester! Never cleans up anything.”

  She watched him in the mirror as he unloaded the groceries and put them in the refrigerator. He cursed some more when he saw that the fridge had been unplugged. She waited for him to start cleaning the kitchen, but he didn’t. Instead, he went into the living room and sat down on the dusty couch with a beer in his hand and turned on the TV.

  Cassie leaned back against the cabinet and had to stifle a groan. There was no way she could get out without being seen. With a sigh, she thought that her best hope was that he’d fall asleep and she could sneak out.

  When the TV came on loud, she jumped. Within seconds he was watching something that seemed to have one car chase after the other. While it was good for covering sounds, it wasn’t good for making him fall asleep.

  A few minutes later, she thought maybe he was interested in his movie enough that he wouldn’t notice the wardrobe door opening. Maybe she could slip out of the cabinet, go into the bathroom, then climb out that window—if it was big enough, that is.

  But she moved the door a mere inch and he saw the motion in the mirror. When he got up, Cassie held her breath. He went straight to the window and saw that it had been broken. She was glad she’d closed it after she entered. She tried to make herself small in the back of the wardrobe, but she was sure he’d open it and see her.
He was only a few feet from her and she could see his face more clearly. He had a scraggly mustache and a bit of a beard, and acne scars on his neck. He didn’t look like a man who’d be nice about finding someone inside his house.

  The man cursed at “kids,” then slammed the door on the wardrobe hard. It looked like he thought the breeze from the broken window had made the door move. Cassie could still see him through a tiny hole in the paneling and she watched as he got a roll of tape from the kitchen and covered the broken glass. She heard him mutter that “the damned place oughta be burned to the ground.”

  After the hole in the window had been patched, he got another beer and went back to the TV, and Cassie almost cried in relief. But she was still trapped inside the wardrobe; she still had no way out.

  She’d been standing up, but now, slowly, silently, she sat down. There was nothing she could do but wait.

  What seemed like days went by, but it was probably only an hour. The car chase movie went off and the man found a karate movie to watch. She lost count of the number of beers he had. It was at least six.

  She’d spent the first half hour thinking about being put in jail and how for the rest of her life she’d have a criminal record. By the second half hour she knew she was falling asleep, which meant that if an opportunity to escape did present itself, she wouldn’t see it.

  To keep herself awake in the stuffy closet, she thought back over the last few weeks since she and Dana had heard the shots from Althea’s house. Now, that seemed so long ago, and she wished she were back in Althea’s attic, with her clipboard on her lap, and cataloguing. That thought made her remember one of Althea’s movies in which she’d hidden in a closet with the murderer just outside. How did she get out of that? Cassie wondered—then remembered that Althea’s character had been found and strangled to death by the man.