by Kylie Logan
Was it his way of apologizing for the dig back at the bar?
I didn’t have a chance to find out.
Chandra finished the last of her burger and spoke with her mouth full. “This is perfect. Now that we’re all gathered in one place, we can talk about the murder.”
Hank Florentine was seated directly across from me, so I couldn’t miss the way one corner of his mouth pulled into a grimace. Or the fact that he rolled his eyes. “That’s not a polite topic for a casual gathering,” he growled. “You should know better than that, Sandy. Nobody wants to talk about the murder.”
“Shows what you know.” I wasn’t sure if Chandra was referring to the subject of murder or his use of her legal name. Either way, she shot a look down the table at her ex. “It’s news, isn’t it? And people always want to talk about the news. Especially around here. Murder is sensational, and let’s face it, life here on the island can sometimes be a little dull after winter’s over and before the tourists arrive.”
“I like dull.” When Jayce spoke up and Kate looked across the table at him as if it was the first she realized he was there, the tips of his ears turned red. “I mean, dull as in a routine. Routine is good. It makes me feel comfortable and in control.”
Poor Jayce. I could have told him it was the wrong opening gambit. Dull and Kate were not words that were commonly used in the same sentence.
I bet Levi knew that.
I slapped the thought from my head. Though they were seated near each other, Kate and Levi had barely exchanged a word throughout dinner, much less a glance. But then, if they didn’t want anyone to know they were involved . . .
Once again, I shook the thought aside. I had more important things to think about than . . . well, than that.
Like how to corral Chandra when she started in again. “I bet Jayce knows more than he’s letting on,” she said, jiggling her eyebrows to emphasize her point. “After all, he gets a first look at everybody who comes and goes. You know exactly who’s come to the island in the last few days, don’t you, Jayce?”
Jayce was finishing up a bite of salad and he held up a finger as a way of indicating he’d answer as soon as he swallowed. I couldn’t blame him for not catching on to the subtext of Chandra’s question. After all, who in their right mind would actually think that we were looking to solve Peter’s murder?
“The weather’s been pretty mild this spring,” Jayce said, “and some of the summer residents have been showing up to get their cottages ready. A few of the restaurants are open, too. Places like Levi’s. So there have been a few tourists, too. So the answer . . .” He sat back. “Who’s been coming? Plenty of people.”
“But who hasn’t left?”
I could have kicked myself the moment the words were out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say them out loud.
Hank’s gaze shot to me. But then, so did Ted’s. And Mariah’s. None of that was nearly as unnerving as the look I got from Levi. Cold? Those blue eyes of his were suddenly icicles.
“Who hasn’t left?” Completely oblivious to the fact that this was one question I shouldn’t have asked in a houseful of strangers, Chandra laughed. “Well, all of us. That’s for sure!”
A couple heartbeats later, the gravity of the question and all it meant finally struck and Chandra’s eyes went wide. She took one moment to glance around the table, her gaze flitting from one guest to the next. That is, before she fixed it on her empty plate.
“Levi brought apple cobbler.” I popped out of my chair and headed into the kitchen to get it, grateful that I remembered and thankful for the diversion.
Apparently, so was everyone else. A murmur of anticipation went around the table along with a couple heartfelt thank-yous to Levi for his generosity.
“It’s no big deal.” His voice rumbled its way to me in the kitchen. “I’m happy to share. Besides, I didn’t want to have to throw any food out. Ever since the storm started, it’s been really slow at the restaurant.”
• • •
Chandra and Kate helped me clean up the dishes. Luella took dinner up to Amanda. Now that the parlor was officially a guest room and not a place for gathering, my other guests disappeared into their respective suites. Once our chores were finished, so did Chandra, Luella, and Kate. Fine by me. I poured a cup of coffee and turned off all the lights in the kitchen except for the one above the breakfast bar, where I sat down.
By this time, the howling wind had become nothing more than background music, and I looked out the window and saw that once again, the snow had picked up. Since we’d gotten home from our foray into town, there were another couple new inches of the white stuff on the back porch. Freezing outside, but warm inside, thank goodness. I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug, enjoying the heat seeping through to my fingers and the comfortable quiet inside the house.
Alone time.
That’s what I needed to get my thoughts in order.
I reached over to the nearby built-in desk, grabbed a legal pad, and made a list. If anyone happened to see it, I could always say I was trying to get everyone’s bill straight.
What I was really doing was trying to figure out if any of my guests had a motive for murder.
I’d gotten as far as writing down everyone’s names when the door swung open and Levi stepped into the kitchen.
Since his name was at the top of my list, I flipped the legal pad facedown on the counter. “Kate’s in my suite,” I told him. “Last I saw her, she was surfing the Net. I’m sure she’s still awake.”
He pursed his lips. “And I care about that . . . why?”
It wasn’t a question I expected. I sucked in a breath and sat up straight. “I thought that—”
“Me and Kate?” He took a couple steps farther into the kitchen and, damn, but I wished I could see his eyes better through the gloom. Something told me they were sparkling, but whether with amusement or derision . . . well, that remained to be seen. “Interesting. I mean, the fact that you spent that much time thinking about me.”
The sensation that scooted up my back wasn’t a thrill. It was a bristle. That pretty much sealed the deal. We were talking derision here. “Trust me, I hardly spent any time on it at all,” I said, my voice as tight as my smile. “Sometimes, I just get a gut feeling. You know, an impression. I’m usually right.”
“Not this time.”
I did not sigh with relief. I swear.
What I did do was try not to look like a complete moron. I went for a smile, and this one actually might have convinced both Levi and me if it didn’t wobble around the edges. “Sorry. I just thought—”
“Sure you did.”
“That is, I didn’t—”
“No, I mean, why would you?”
I couldn’t exactly tell him it was because both he and Kate were so attractive and they seemed so comfortable together and so I just naturally assumed . . .
When I realized my voice was actually shaking, I could have crawled in a hole and died. “I just naturally assumed—”
“You were sort of on the right track. Kate and I, we met right after I arrived on the island and opened the bar. I went out to the winery to do a tasting and place an order. She’s easy to talk to. That is, when you’re talking business. We hit it off, and I actually met her for coffee once.” Levi poked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “Once was all it took. But then, I’m kind of a gut-instinct guy myself. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Kate is—”
“Beautiful, accomplished, and successful?” At times like this, it is best to show that jealousy—or sour grapes—has no place in the conversation.
Levi chuckled. “I was going to say uncomplicated.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
He slid onto the empty stool next to mine at the breakfast bar, his knees and mine nearly touching. The only polite thing to do was turn slightly in my seat, the better to keep his space his and my space personal. I knew this. For some reason I couldn’t explain, t
hough, I couldn’t move a muscle.
“With Kate,” he said, “what you see is what you get. She’s ambitious, smart, and, yes, very pretty. Some guys wouldn’t complain. That’s exactly what they’re looking for.”
“You mean some guys like Jayce?”
Another chuckle, this one as warm as the darkness that surrounded us. “Poor sucker. He has no idea how out of his league he is. Then again, if he’s looking for a woman like Kate . . .”
“You’re not.” It wasn’t a question, so technically, I couldn’t be accused of sticking my nose where it absolutely, positively, totally had no business.
Levi didn’t so much lean forward as he shifted just slightly in his seat. The air stirred and I caught the combined scents of burgers and onion rings that clung to his jeans and red wool sweater. Have I mentioned that I’m nuts about onion rings?
He fixed his gaze to mine. “I like a woman who keeps me guessing,” he said.
I grabbed my coffee cup and took a sip, and while I was at it, I told him there was more coffee in the pot. He declined with a shake of his head that caused one honey-colored curl of hair to brush his forehead.
The coffee was supposed to distract me, and it would have worked if it weren’t for that damned little curl!
“I’m not sure you’re going to find that kind of woman up here on the island,” I said, and three cheers for me, I called on all the experience I’d garnered from years of attending cocktail parties, and made it sound like we were having the most normal small-talk conversation in the world.
Even though something about Levi’s tall and gorgeous presence made me feel anything but normal.
But then, a sizzling bloodstream and a pounding heart have a way of doing that to a girl.
“The people I’ve met here on the island are pretty up-front and not very mysterious,” I said. “They’re good people. Honest people.”
“I didn’t say I was looking for dishonest.” With a tiny smile on his lips, Levi pushed a hand through his hair. “Besides, if I listen to everything Chandra says, it sounds like some people around here have lives that are plenty interesting. You know . . .” He raised his eyebrows. “Dramatic and passionate.”
I felt my cheeks flame and set down my coffee cup, the better to drop my face in my hands and groan, “I hope you don’t believe everything you hear from Chandra.”
He laughed and I came out of hiding to find his smile warming the space between us for one second. Two.
A gust of wind rattled the branches of the tree outside the kitchen window and we both flinched. Levi got up and poured himself a glass of water. He brought it back to the counter, but he didn’t sit down.
That was a good thing, I told myself. I could switch positions in my chair. I did . . . thus assuring a little more room to breathe, and a lot less of the heat that inconveniently erupted when Levi was sitting too close.
He set his glass on the counter. “No worries,” he said. “About Chandra, that is. I haven’t lived here more than a couple months, but hey, Levi’s is nothing if not the center of island gossip. Even before I met Chandra, I’d heard about her. I know she’s . . .”
Searching for the right words, he hesitated, so I filled in the blanks. “Inventive. Imaginative. Funny. Funky.” These were not bad qualities, I realized with a start. In fact, they were the very personality traits I admired in so many of my friends back in New York. “Chandra’s not a bad person,” I announced, and no one was more surprised to hear it than me. Which didn’t mean I’d completely lost my mind. “Now if she’d only do something about Jerry Garcia.”
I expected Levi to ask what the heck I was talking about, but instead, he laughed. “Alvin Littlejohn loves my Caesar salad,” he explained. “I know all about you and Kate and Chandra and your coerced book club.”
“Then I guess some of that stuff Chandra was talking about at dinner . . . about thirteen suspects and being snowed in, and the way she was asking questions . . . I guess it all makes sense. We just read Murder on the Orient Express.” Oh yes, this was subtle of me, and I congratulated myself. I had successfully nudged the conversation to where I knew it had to go. Even if I didn’t want to see it arrive there.
“It’s only natural everybody on the island would be talking about the murder.” Levi stated the obvious. “And like you said, Chandra has quite an imagination.”
“I guess she’s not the only one.” I clutched my hands together in my lap. “When we stopped at the bar this morning—”
“And you grilled me about what I saw the night of the murder.”
I pursed my lips. “That wasn’t grilling. It was polite conversation. And like you said, only natural. Of course I’m as curious as everyone else about what happened to Peter.”
“Hence, the grilling. About what I saw.”
I poked my glasses up to the bridge of my nose. “Only you didn’t see anything. Remember, that’s what you told me. You didn’t notice what was happening across the street because you were so busy in the kitchen and behind the bar.”
Levi didn’t need to confirm or deny. I have an excellent memory.
He downed his water and took the glass over to the sink.
Dumb luck? Or a calculated move?
It was hard to say.
I only know that it was dark over by the sink, and when Levi turned around, his face was lost in the shadows. “Like I told you back at the bar, we were slammed.”
The warmth had been nice, but sometimes—like it or not—it’s impossible to ignore the cold, hard facts. “Except tonight,” I reminded him, “when I came in here to get dessert, I heard you tell everyone in the dining room that you brought the apple cobbler because you didn’t want it to go to waste. You said that since the storm started, it’s been slow at the restaurant.”
Honestly, I think I would have thought less of him if he’d scrambled to come up with some half-baked explanation.
But I wouldn’t have been as disappointed as I was when he headed for the door.
“It’s getting late,” he said before he walked out of the kitchen. “I think I’ll turn in.”
After he was gone, I spilled the rest of my coffee into the sink and watched it go down the drain.
Just like my hopes.
No, no, no . . . not those kinds of hopes! Like I said before, I wasn’t looking for a relationship with anybody. Even if the anybody in question was tall, gorgeous, and honey-colored.
I was talking about murder.
And how I’d hoped that Levi would slip up and tell me why he’d lied about what he saw the night Peter was killed at the Orient Express.
• • •
I woke up at 3:17.
My first thought was to blame the coffee, but I knew that wasn’t true. It must have been years of living in New York that inured me to caffeine; I often drank coffee late at night, and it never made me toss and turn.
No, something else was bothering me. Something I couldn’t put a finger on.
Until I realized it was deathly quiet outside.
No wind.
As if moving would break the spell and call back the storm, I lay perfectly still in my queen-sized bed, listening for the all-too-familiar sounds of creaking trees and scraping branches.
Instead, all I heard was the distant drumming of waves on the beach. For the last few days, their tempo had been pounding, furious. Now, it reminded me of the gentle rhythm of a lullaby.
One, two. One, two.
I closed my eyes, and let the sound lull me back to la-la land.
One, two. One, two.
Thud, thud, thud.
My eyes flew open.
That wasn’t an outside sound. It came from inside the house.
I propped myself on my elbows and held my breath, and I was just about to tell myself that I was imagining the sound of footsteps—or dreaming—when the sound echoed through the silent house again.
Thud, thud, thud.
Someone was walking around upstairs.
No sooner had t
he thought occurred to me than I told myself to get a grip. There were thirteen adults and two kids in the house, after all, and no rules against getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.
Except I didn’t hear any water running.
Thud, thud, thud.
I swung my feet over the side of the bed, poked them into my slippers, and reached for my robe.
My private suite is at the back of the house, parallel to the kitchen. It’s not nearly as big as my condo back in New York, but it’s plenty roomy enough for me. I had the door closed between my bedroom and the living/reading/den area where Kate was sleeping on the pull-out couch, and I inched it open and bent my head to listen.
The only sound I heard was the muffled rhythm of Kate’s breathing.
And more footsteps from overhead.
As quickly and quietly as I could, I slipped through the living room and out into the hallway. From here, the sounds were more defined, and there was no doubt they were coming from the upstairs hallway.
I stood frozen at the bottom of the steps, and when I realized my stomach was in my throat and my hands were suddenly shaking, I grabbed the banister and tried the calming exercises I’d practiced nonstop with the therapist who’d helped me get from one day to the next in those final, chaotic months in New York.
“Stop being stupid, Bea,” I reminded myself. “Stop being a wussie.” These were not words Dr. Byncrest ever used. He was supportive, positive.
“It’s your house, Bea,” he’d remind me, and I reminded myself of the fact right now. “It’s your life. Nobody can keep you from being in charge and in control. Nobody can take your power unless you let them.”
Brave words, and thank goodness, I finally came to believe them. Dr. Byncrest saved my life. And my sanity.
But then, all this sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it? That’s because I’ve never confessed about what happened in New York.
And about the stalker who turned my world upside down.
13
His name was George Mattingly, but of course, I didn’t know that. Not at first. Back when it all began—three years before I moved to South Bass Island—all I knew was that I sometimes felt as if someone was watching me, that I sometimes was sure someone was following me, that I often felt as if my life was under a microscope, every moment of it dissected and examined.