by Sara Rosett
“And you think Torrie and—what was his name…Sylvester?—killed her to get the cash?”
“Either Torrie did it alone, and then Sylvester got on board with her later…or they worked together to pull it off. My bet is that Torrie came up with the idea and once Sylvester worked out what was happening, he teamed up with her.” I crossed the room and checked a little alcove by the windows…nothing but chairs and a table. “The wiring and timing controls for the outdoor lights are separate from the house. It runs through the potting shed in the garden. Torrie is supposedly highly allergic to pollen and deathly afraid of getting a bee sting. She wouldn’t even go onto the terrace with me on the day they arrived, but later she told me that the police kept asking about the potting shed. She said she had never been in the garden or the ‘messy’ shed. How did she know it was messy, if she hadn’t been in there? I suppose Sylvester could have told her, but then why would he be in there? Either Torrie had set it up by herself, or she and Sylvester had worked together.” I went back into the hall.
“They decided they didn’t want to cut the money three ways,” Alex said, his voice grim.
“Must have.”
“Kate, you need to get out of there. It’s very dangerous…if you’re even close…if what you think happened is the truth, these are ruthless people.”
“It will only take a second more. The money has to be here. It’s got to be in the trunk. I almost worked it out last night right before I drifted off to sleep, but it got all muddled up with boxes and the rectangles of money that Gil described, and I couldn’t sort it out. But this morning it all came together. Arabella was very specific about one piece of luggage when she arrived, a trunk—that was the box that I kept thinking about. It was the only piece of luggage she cared about. I think she kept the key to it on the charm bracelet that she wore all the time. I saw the charm bracelet last night, and the key was bigger than the rest of the charms. It wasn’t a charm at all—it was a real key. And that’s why Torrie wanted the bracelet, to open the trunk.”
I continued to open doors. The next door revealed a linen closet, then I found another bare and empty bedroom, but I stepped inside and looked around to make sure the trunk wasn’t hidden on the far side of the canopied bed. “On the day Arabella died while I was downstairs making tea for Torrie, she came upstairs and dragged the trunk out of Arabella’s room, leaving two long scuff marks on the hardwood. They were most noticeable right at Arabella’s door. She must have used the carpet runner down the middle of the hall to move the trunk the rest of the way. She knew the police would search Arabella’s room, and she had to get the trunk out of there. I came up to check on Torrie after I made her tea and saw the marks she left on the floor when she dragged the trunk out of Arabella’s room, but didn’t put it all together until this morning.”
I looked into another room, which looked as if it had been recently occupied. Drawers hung open, and the sink in the bath was wet, but there was no trunk. I went back to the hall. “There was a trunk in the upstairs hallway on the day Arabella died,” I said looking at the now empty space. “It had a crocheted tablecloth draped over it and a few framed pictures on top of it. Torrie must have hoped that if the police searched the house, they’d assume the trunk was part of the furnishings that went with the house and overlook it, which they must have. I think the police spent most of their time outside. If they were indoors, they probably focused on Arabella’s room. I only noticed the trunk that day because I bumped my shin on it. It stuck out a little too far into the hallway, but that must have been the only place Torrie could find to put it in the short amount of time she had. That trunk isn’t in any of the pre-arrival photos I took of Tate House. And the items on the trunk, the framed pictures and tablecloth, are all from other upstairs rooms.”
The next room must have been where Torrie stayed. The faint scent of cigarette smoke lingered when I opened the door. The bedding was massed in a pile on the floor at the foot of the bed, the doors of the heavy empty wardrobe gaped open. The ironing board was set up beside the wardrobe.
I stopped in my tracks for a second then raced across the room. “I’ve found it, the Louis Vuitton trunk. They’ve ruined it, of course. It’s why they needed a crowbar. When they couldn’t find Arabella’s charm bracelet with the key, they ripped the trunk open.”
One corner of the trunk had been pried apart, the leather and brass detail crushed and wrenched out of the way. But the trunk’s workmanship was excellent. The opposite corner of the trunk still held its shape, and the lock on it was fastened tight. They’d had to work hard to make even a small opening, and once they had that, they hadn’t bothered to crack open the other side. I knelt down and looked between the edges of leather and wood that had been bent back to create an opening about eight inches across, expecting to see stacks of money.
I sat back on my heels, stunned. “It’s empty. The money must have been in there. It all fits so perfectly. It’s the only thing that explains everything.” I jumped up and scanned the room again.
Alex was saying something, but I overrode him. “Wait—the boxes.” I saw a stack of flat boxes, already addressed and stamped, sitting on the ironing board. I’d been so focused on finding the trunk I hadn’t even noticed them. I snatched one up and groaned. It was empty, the flaps unsealed. “They’re empty, all of them,” I said. “Well, maybe Quimby can use the address to track the money.” I paused, studying the address. “Oh—I thought—it said New Jersey…”
A roar came through the phone. “Kate!”
“Sorry. I found some mailing boxes—”
“I don’t care if you found Fort Knox in there. You need to get out. Now.”
“—like the ones I saw Arabella mailing. I caught a glimpse of the address earlier this week and thought it said New Jersey. I can now see it only lists Jersey as the address,” I said excitedly. “Isn’t that somewhere in the Channel Islands?”
Alex stopped shouting. “Yes, it is,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “It’s also something of a tax haven, I think.” His voice hardened. “Kate. I love you and want you to get out of there now. Do you understand me? I want us to spend the rest of our lives together, but that’s going to be extremely difficult if you get yourself killed.”
My arm fell to my side, the box forgotten. “You love me?”
“Yes. God help me, I do. Every bit of your adorably irritating super-focused, take-charge, I-must-do-it-myself nature.”
“And you want us to grow old together?”
“Yes, that’s generally what people in love, do—get married and spend their lives together,” Alex said. “I know I shouldn’t have sprung that on you, especially right after the business thing—”
“Sounds wonderful,” I said, realizing it was true. I’d held Alex off and resisted thinking about how I felt about him, but the idea of spending our lives together was what I wanted. Suddenly, it was all very simple. I wanted to be with him—always, even with his clutter of sticky notes and his roll-with-the-punches attitude.
“Good,” Alex said. “Excellent, now will—wait. Did you just agree to marry me?”
“Yes, I think so,” I said happily. “It’s all so clear when you put it like that—I want to be with you, too. All those things that I thought were important—our different temperaments and habits and all that—they don’t matter. Well, they matter a little bit, but we’ll work that out. The being together part is what matters.”
The line was completely silent for a moment. “Oh—well—good.”
“You don’t sound very excited.”
“I didn’t think it would be that easy,” Alex said.
“I didn’t either—to figure out what I wanted, I mean—but you caught me off guard. I can’t explain it.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me. I feel the same way,” he said, then his voice changed and had a note of exasperation in it. “Now will you get out of there? I can meet you at your cottage. I’m almost there.”
“Only if you say it aga
in.” I happened to glance in the mirror above the dresser and saw I had a huge smile on my face.
“The super-focused bit?”
“No, the other part.”
“Oh, that. I think I better hold off—dangle it out there as an incentive to get you out of the house. I’ll tell you when I see you face-to-face.”
“Okay. I’m leaving—” The sound of a door closing echoed through the house and wiped the grin off my face.
Chapter 31
I COULD HEAR MOVEMENTS BELOW near the front door. I swallowed and carefully tiptoed to the doorway of the bedroom where I could see across the hall and down to the front door.
“Kate, what’s happened?” Alex asked, his voice strained.
“They’re back,” I breathed.
Alex lowered his voice, but the intensity of his worry came through the quiet tones. “I told you to get out of there.”
I whispered, “I would have had plenty of time to get out if you hadn’t distracted me by proposing. I got caught up in the moment.”
“Seems we’re having our first fight as an engaged couple,” Alex said.
“Wait a minute…they’re talking.”
I could hear Sylvester’s voice clearly as it floated up the stairs. “I don’t see what it matters if a plodding constable sees you mail something.” Sylvester stood in the open front door, holding two suitcases.
Torrie was searching the overnight bag. “Because he was there yesterday. I don’t like it. They’re watching us. We’ll mail everything else on the way. It will slow us down, but it will be safer.”
I stepped back into the bedroom and pressed the phone close to my mouth. “They’re leaving. Sylvester is about to carry out their suitcases. Where are you?”
“I’m on the high street now.”
“Thank goodness. I’ll wait until they leave, then meet you on the path that goes to the cottages.”
“Got it. See you in a minute,” Alex said, his voice businesslike and steady. “You better be there,” he added.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I whispered. “There are things I can’t wait to hear you say.”
I think I heard him chuckle before I hung up.
I found Quimby’s number in my call log and sent a text. Torrie and Sylvester leaving Nether Woodsmoor now. Then I eased back to the door, poised to head for the back staircase as soon as they left through the front door. I didn’t move any farther. I didn’t want a creaky floorboard to give me away.
“Where is it?” Torrie asked, her voice whipping up the stairway.
Sylvester, his hands weighted down with the suitcases, shrugged. “How should I know? You’re the one who packed the bags.”
“There were five mailing boxes when I packed. Now there are only four.”
In the luggage—of course that was where the cash would be. I was an idiot. I’d been so focused on finding the trunk that I hadn’t even thought to check the bags by the door.
The air crackled between them. I guess that was the trouble with teaming up with someone to betray a partner. You would have to wonder if the betrayal ended there, or if you were next on the list to be double-crossed.
Sylvester stepped up and put his face inches from hers. “Let’s get this straight right now. I didn’t take it. I’m not that sort. You better have a look upstairs.”
She stared at him a moment. “Fine.” She spun on her heel and headed for the stairs.
I hesitated for a second. If I went into the hall to go into one of the unoccupied bedrooms, they’d see me. I turned away from the door and darted into the bedroom’s adjoining bath. I stepped behind the door and tried to calm my ragged breathing.
Except for the towels left on the floor, there was nothing in this room—surely she wouldn’t come in here…? There was no shower curtain to hide behind and only a tiny round window. No way I could wiggle out of that—and this wasn’t the ground floor, so I wasn’t about to try that. A storage cabinet to one side of the sink had a large door. I might be able to fit in there. I closed one eye and looked through the sliver of space between the door and the frame.
Torrie stomped into the room, surveyed it with her hands on her hips for a second, then she marched over to the ironing board and checked the empty boxes, swiping them all to the floor when she saw they were empty. She checked under the wardrobe and the bed, then marched around the end of the bed, stepping on the pile of sheets and blankets on her way to the dresser on the other side of the room.
I caught my breath. Her footsteps had shifted the sheets slightly, revealing the corner of one of the slim boxes. I flinched each time Torrie yanked a drawer open then slammed it closed. Muttering under her breath, she dragged the trunk over a few feet, checked under it, then shoved it onto its side.
“Torrie, let’s go,” Sylvester bellowed. “It’s just one blooming box. We have plenty.”
“We can’t leave it behind—then they’ll know.” Torrie moved toward the bath, and I scurried for the cabinet. It was tiny—minuscule, in fact. How had I thought I might be able to get into it? Maybe if I’d been doing yoga for years and years, I could contort myself into that space, but I didn’t have a chance right now. I grabbed a damp towel.
As soon as Torrie pushed the door open, I threw the towel over her head and shoved by her. I heard her tumble…into the bath, it sounded like, but I didn’t look back. I sprinted across the room and snatched up the box from under the sheets. As soon as I picked it up, I knew it was what Torrie was looking for. It was sealed and had a weight to it that the empty envelopes didn’t. Torrie sputtered behind me and yelled for Sylvester.
I burst into the hall, then paused. I couldn’t go down the glass stairs with Sylvester at the front door. Chester had carried a gun. Sylvester might have one too. I didn’t want to find out if he did, so I made for the door to the back stairs. My feet were loud on the bare wooden treads, and I pounded down as fast as I could. No use in trying to be stealthy.
Behind me, the door at the top of the stairs slammed against the wall with a resounding crack, and I heard Torrie shout, “Kitchen! She’s going down that way.”
I swung around the landing then flew down the last flight of stairs to the closed door. Please don’t be locked, I prayed. The handle turned, and I shot into the dim kitchen at the same moment Sylvester came through the hallway from the sitting room. I scuttled around the island to the door to the garden.
“Stop right there,” he commanded. The light glowing from the island illuminated a gun he had pulled from a holster under his shoulder. He leveled the barrel at me.
Reflexively, I put my hands up as Torrie thundered down the steps. I still had the envelope gripped in my left hand, and as soon as Torrie came into the kitchen, her eyes widened. “You? The police still didn’t take you in? Good grief. We couldn’t give them any more evidence.”
“You mean Gil.” I was breathing hard from my sprint down the stairs, not to mention the fear and adrenaline pumping through me. “He wasn’t dead. He’s in the hospital, but expected to recover,” I said, hoping it was true.
Torrie said, “You’re lying.”
“No. He was stunned and unconscious, but not dead.”
She looked at Sylvester. “What are you waiting for? Shoot her. We can’t have another witness.”
Sylvester looked uncomfortable. “Not a good idea,” he said. I felt as if a band around my chest had loosened a bit even though his extended arms didn’t waver. “We can tie her up and leave her here. We’ll be out of the country before anyone finds her.”
I didn’t love that plan, but I liked it better than Torrie’s idea.
She advanced on him. “Are you crazy? She knows. She’s obviously figured out what we did—”
“What you did,” Sylvester said quickly. “I didn’t kill anyone. You heard what she said. The photographer guy isn’t dead. That means you’re the only murderer here. I just helped you move the money.”
“Oh, you have standards now?”
“One dead body i
s enough. Like you said, Arabella was never going to split it with us.”
Torrie nodded. “Never—grasping, greedy thing that she was. If the public knew what she was really like then she never would have been so popular,” Torrie said, clearly expounding on one of her favorite topics. “In fact, Arabella would think the whole thing was incredibly clever in a way. She’ll be more famous now than ever—and she’ll always be young and beautiful and tragic in everyone’s mind. It’s what she wanted, eternally youthful.”
Part of me marveled at the coldness in her tone when she talked about Arabella and the underlying sense of triumph in her manner. Torrie had truly hated Arabella. The whole crying jag after her death was a performance—but Torrie had been an actress, too. A very good one. The other part of me that wasn’t busy being appalled was alternating between being terrified and trying to work out if I could make a dash for the door. Would I be able to get outside before Sylvester shot at me? Why did it have to be such a spacious kitchen? And why was there nothing handy on the counter? No pots or pans or knives or even a cutting board. Only the gas cooktop with stovetop grates…they were cast iron, weren’t they? Could I pick one of the grates up and fling it at Sylvester…?
Both Torrie and Sylvester were on the other side of the island from me. Lunge forward and grab the grate, throw it, and run. It might work.
“…messy to leave her alive,” Torrie said. I’d missed some of what they were saying, but I heard those words loud and clear. “She’s seen us. She knows about the money and about Gil. It’s really the only thing we can do.”
The money, I thought. Of course! I did have a bargaining chip. I lunged forward, but I didn’t grab the stovetop grate. I twisted a knob to the IGNITE position. A couple of loud clicks sounded then the gas flame whooshed to life.
Sylvester said, “Hey,” and moved a step closer, but by then I’d cranked the knob to high. The flame flared blue in the dim kitchen. I tossed the envelope on the burner and bolted for the door in a crouching run. Torrie made a strangled sound and cut in front of Sylvester as she dove for the stovetop.