by Ann Self
“She didn’t have parents by then...it sounds like whoever took her in didn’t waste any money on clothes or hairdressers.”
“I realize it now. Something that didn’t occur to me at that young age. It was so far out of my realm of reality, coming from a big secure family. Things you tend to take for granted.”
“The reason why I sent you guys to public schools.”
Brian nodded sagely.
“Jesus...” His father wiped a hand down his face. “That’s it! No wonder she’s avoiding you and fibbing about her past—she doesn’t want you to recall those memories! And she has no intention of assisting you. If I were her I think I’d rather take the gas pipe than reveal such a God-awful background. A background waiting to jump out at her like some evil jack-in-the-box.”
“So she wants nothing to do with me now because I represent her past.”
Evan nodded his head. “A modern-day Cinderella—only she’s trying to escape from the prince.”
Brian snapped a look at his father. “I’d need more than a glass slipper to get to her. I’d need one of Elliot’s bulldozers to tear down the wall she’s built around herself.”
“And,” his father continued as if Brian hadn’t spoke, “she’s living on an estate surrounded by ugly step-sisters, a con artist, and maybe someone who means her harm.”
Brian ripped his eyes from the road. “You think she may be in danger?”
“She’s in trouble, she’s been fired, she has no family—and I think she could be in a great deal of danger. You can bet the farm she didn’t hurt her arm tripping on stairs.”
Brian scowled. He needed an extra problem like a hole in the head, but try as he might, he couldn’t get his mind off Jane, nor even relegate her to a back burner so he could focus on his meeting in Boston.
Back in Sam’s office, there was another meeting in progress.
“Well I guess I better be sending out resumes too,” Lars informed the group. “It doesn’t look like Springhill will survive much longer. And I just got the gatelodge decorated to suit me.”
Sam sat quietly behind his desk, his forehead still rippled in lines of worry.
“It’s going to be tough for me to find a job like this one. I may have to leave the state—that is if Detective Westerlund will let me.”
“Why, Sam?” Jane asked. “Is he hounding you?”
“Well, not hounding exactly—but my boot prints are all around the tractor parked under the trapdoor. I guess everyone’s under suspicion.”
“Anyone could’ve put those boots on,” Dylan said.
“That and the fact that I don’t have a motive to cause all these shenanigans are probably the only things keeping him at bay.”
Jane looked at Reggie sitting by the window, the afternoon light splashing on his face. He looked tired, and suddenly aged. She knew he hoped to live out his life on the estate; now it didn’t look too possible and his future was bleak. Springhill would probably be gobbled up by creditors and turned into a supermarket or strip mall. Jobs for men at his age were hard to find, unless it was the Santa thing, or a janitor, or bagging groceries at Stop & Shop. And none of those jobs came with room and board.
Sam sat up and began clicking the mouse around, tapping keys and watching the color monitor of his computer. “I think,” he said, “that Elliot has even more to worry about than he knows.”
“What is it?” Jane asked as she moved behind the desk, along with Lars, Dylan and Reggie. They all read the bright blue screen in silence.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FLORIDA HURRICANE ADVISORY DANGEROUS HURRICANE HEADED TOWARD LEEWARD ISLANDS OF EASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA ESTIMATED PRESSURE 944 MILIBARS SUSTAINED WINDS 140 MPH TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD 175 MILES MOVING DUE WEST 14 MPH HIGHPRESSURE DOME KEEPING HURRICANE MOVING WEST. THREAT TO U.S. EASTERN SEABOARD LATER FOLLOWING WEEK.
“There’s a class three hurricane heading our way. They think it will be roaring up the East Coast next week, just in time for Elliot’s big show,” Sam explained.
“Better hope it doesn’t hit,” Lars said. “If Elliot gets all the investors he wants, maybe it’ll keep you in a job.”
“Oh, fine,” Sam retorted. “Now I have to root for Elliot and Lucinda to save my job.”
They gazed hypnotically at the glowing screen and impending disaster.”
*****
Madeline sipped lemonade through a straw as she shared an outdoor picnic with Jane on Thursday afternoon. She had come to the barn bearing a lunch to cheer her friend up and catch up on the latest wrinkles in the on-going drama at Springhill.
“So you think Brian has figured out who you are?”
“I’m sure he’s put it together by now,” Jane answered. “But he doesn’t know I know. Doesn’t know I eaves-dropped on his conversation.”
They dined on sub sandwiches in the shade of a two-hundred year old beech, high on a hill overlooking the barn. It was a rare July day. God had set the thermostat at comfortable and the sky was Wedgwood blue with big cotton-puff clouds resembling frolicking white poodles. A tickling breeze rippled a sea of buttercups running down the hill and over a knoll with an ancient oak and its awkward horizontal arm.
“Hooo. Clever! Remind me to get a scanner,” Madeline laughed, and then she suddenly gagged on her drink.
“What?” Jane asked.
“If everything starts popping up like toast in Brian’s mind, than he’s bound to remember the fat, bespectacled me, too!”
“Probably. Ha ha!”
“You’re right, I apologize. It’s exceedingly painful to know that his mind is probably resurrecting Fatty Maddy.”
“And Plain Jane.”
“Vicious, weren’t those girls...”
“Not to change the subject,” Jane said, “but have you talked to Detective Westerlund yet?”
Madeline looked at her slyly. “I did call him—said I wanted to talk to him about you, and he invited me out to lunch.”
“You’re kidding! Did you two actually talk about me?” Jane needled her.
“Of course we did,” Madeline answered around mouthfuls of ham, cheese and pickles; a rare indulgence for her. “He was very interested in everything I had to say. Even took notes.”
“He’s always taking notes,” Jane complained.
“I know—he’s very meticulous about writing everything down and taking his own notes. He says only TV detectives remember everything in their head.”
“Okay, nothing wrong with being thorough, I guess.”
“He’s definitely thorough. He’s going to re-read some of his books on profiles of criminal psychology, and even read some of my college textbooks.”
Jane nodded and smiled agreeingly as she finished her own sandwich, balled up the waxed paper and stuffed it into the tube-like paper bag. Then she asked: “Has he been married before?”
“What? Oh—no, he’s come close a couple of times, but it never worked out.”
“Sort of like you...”
“True, we have that in common.” Then she changed the subject. “Westy is very worried about you.”
“Westy?”
“His friends all call him Westy. He prefers it.”
“Ah.”
Madeline let the teasing pass. “There’s probably a crowd of people worrying about you. I’d like to take you home with me now, while you’re still breathing. What have you got to do here anyway? If the skinny about the Whitbecks being stone broke is true, this whole barn will probably be gone in six months.”
Jane dotted her mouth with a napkin and then added it to the stash. She stretched her still tender shoulder and massaged it. Since she had permanently tossed the sling, the weight of her arm sometimes irritated it. “It’s true, I have about next to nothing to do. Even the Bergstroms have packed up their horses and left. I can’t even look at General anymore.”
“Wimps! So why don’t you come back with me, out of harm’s way?”
“I don’t think I’m in danger anymore. Some
one got what they wanted. I’m fired. No horse to ride, no championship, and my future is bleak. No one needs to harm me now. Besides, this monster seems to like to commit murder from a distance—or get a horse to do it. Maybe he has no stomach for close-up encounters.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. He just doesn’t want to get caught; it probably has nothing to do with not wanting to get his hands dirty. He may even prefer to take you out personally.”
“Stop that!”
“Well, come and stay with me then. At least until you find a new job. I won’t even be home this weekend—I have to fly to a symposium in San Francisco tomorrow and you could have the whole townhouse to yourself.”
“It could take quite awhile for me to find a job.”
“And where did we plan to live in the meantime?”
Jane was silent.
“I thought so, the bag lady route? Living out of your car? Wheeling around a shopping cart and napping in the park?”
Jane sighed. She sat in the grass with her knees under her chin, plucking at the fragrant green blades. A gust of breeze feathered the long hair of both women and birds sang overhead in the giant tree. “On a day like this, living outdoors doesn’t seem too bad,” she mused.
“Yes, you say that now, but it’s going to rain tomorrow—cold, raw rain. And then there’s that hurricane planning on visiting us next week.”
Jane gave in. “All right, Madeline. Thanks, it’s good of you to open your home to me. But I have to stay here for just a few more days. Our little family is being ripped apart, and it will be tough enough to say good bye.”
“They’ll all have to leave soon anyway.”
“True enough.” Jane looked out over the pastoral setting from their lofty view. The behemoth barn shimmered in the sun like an over-decorated wedding cake, sunk at the feet of vast, rolling pastures, with necklaces of white fences draping formally over the landscape. She tried not to see it as a strip mall.
“I need to stay here until my time is up.”
“Okay... just be careful that it’s not life time that’s up.”
A fine, persistent rain hung a gray curtain over the rolling fields and ancient oaks of Springhill on Friday. Water bowed the heads of wild flowers and stems of timothy, and roiled into the downspouts of the big old barn. Jane stood in the open garage-size door of the south wing and watched rain dance on the tar. Sam walked over and stood in the doorway himself with his arms crossed, letting the damp breeze feather what was left of his yellow hair.
“This is calm compared to what’s coming next week,” he stated.
“You think we’ll get the hurricane?”
“If it doesn’t skip under Florida or roll back into the Atlantic, it’ll plow right up the east coast and paste us.”
“Just in time for the show?”
“It’ll be close,” he answered.
“Cecily must be tearing her hair out.”
Sam slanted her a look and snorted, “Ha—she’ll be tearing it out over more than that!”
Jane turned her face from the rain. “Why?”
He grinned like a mysterious Cheshire cat, full of important news he couldn’t wait to deliver. “You’ll never guess what happened to Lucinda...”
“I give up—what happened to Lucinda?”
“Fractured a bone in her ankle.”
Jane’s jaw dropped and she gaped at Sam. “She what?”
“Hairline fracture of her teeny little ankle bone.”
“How?”
“She said she stumbled out of a horse trailer—but Lars thinks Charmante threw her off while she was practicing alone. Her ankle probably got caught in the stirrup before she fell.”
“How did Lars find this out?”
“Von Henneberg called Lars this morning. Claus said that was her explanation for what happened, but he has his doubts. One of the stableboys found Charmante just standing in the corner of their indoor ring, saddled and riderless, with broken reins dangling from his bridle, and a stirrup on the ground.”
“So once again, she just walked off and left her million-dollar horse?”
“Hobbled off,” Sam joked. Then he said: “Elliot and Cecily are on their way to pick her up; I guess the stable is trailering Charmante home.”
“Nice of them. I bet they’re doing it for free. I bet they can’t wait to help her out of there.”
Sam smiled. “Right about now, they’re planning a big big party.”
Jane started to walk back down the aisle, staying as far as possible from the trap door that was now nailed shut again with about three-dozen spikes.
“Wow, there goes Elliot’s big bid for investors,” she said.
“Not necessarily.”
“Why not?” Jane stopped, and turned toward Sam.
“You think Whitbeck won’t come begging to you?”
She thought for a moment. “Begging is good.”
“Make him crawl, Jane. And throw in a few perks. Gladys in a ducking stool—Travis hanging by his thumbs from the rafters...little things can make a day.”
She laughed. “Who’s coming to this mother of all shows?”
“Everyone who is anyone—or everyone who hasn’t heard about Elliot’s impending broke-ness. Presidents of companies, CEO’s, the Governor, show business people, venture capitalists. He’s planning on tapping into a big well. A crafty spider spinning his web.”
“So you think he’ll want me to help him?”
“Who better?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Ashley Parker. She would be Gladys’s choice. You know, educated and all.”
“A college degree won’t help her with this job.”
“I’ll bet they’ll try to get her to do it though, if Gladys has any say. And Gladys always has a say.”
“She’ll never be able to handle him,” Sam stated.
After Sam went back to his office, Jane spent time in Winter Smoke’s stall, playing with the fuzzy new foal. He was also stuck inside because of the rain. She scratched his back, and then hugged him tightly. “I don’t know where you’ll end up, but I hope you find a good home.”
She left the foal and the south wing to go back to her room and work on the hated resumes. Sam stepped out of his office door and flagged her down to donate his old portable electric typewriter to the cause, since Jane wanted to work in private and not use his computer. She thanked him and hauled it up to her room, still feeling a slight tug of pain in her left shoulder. As she huffed and puffed upwards, her slow footsteps on the metal staircase had an especially hollow ring to match her mood, and the trailing plug that slipped from her grasp bounced on the treads. Rain drove mercilessly at the barn’s enormous roof and lack of sunlight made the stairway dark. Jane was not aware of any other footfalls when she walked into her room, and she was startled when a shadow fell over her and she turned to see Owen right behind her.
“Owen..!” she gasped. Owen shoved her roughly in the chest with a flick of his fingers and she stumbled backwards into her room, the typewriter crashing hard to the floor. He slammed the door behind him, stepped over the ruined machine and pointed a finger in her face. “You scream, and I’ll knock your head right off its shoulders.”
Jane backed away. Rain droned against her windows.
“You think,” he snarled, following her steps, “I’d let you get away with what you did to me with that whip? Do you know what it’s like giving lessons with your face marked up? Having those vicious little females snickering at me?”
“You better get out of here Owen!”
“Or what? You’ll go running to the Whitbecks and they’ll fire me? Huh? Huh? Think again. They don’t give a damn about you, never did. And I’ve got a new job on an ocean estate in Boca Raton. I won’t have to set eyes on you or the goddamned Whitbecks ever again. I’ll be living the good life under sunny Florida skies. I’m flying out tonight after I take care of a little unfinished business...”
Raindrops beaded on the black hood of the big glossy Mercedes as it
slid in to park next to a green Mustang. Brian jumped out and dashed through heavy rain into the barn. He was determined to confront Jane and get to the bottom of all the mysteries surrounding her, even if he had to just flat-out grill her for the truth.
The front office was closed and the whole place looked shadowy and dark and empty; he supposed barns weren’t too popular on raw rainy days. As he walked down the north corridor, everything looked innocent enough.
Why do I get such bad vibes from this place? It was such a pervasive sense of evil that it had him walking cat-like, almost in combat mode, and glancing over his shoulder. He took special care to watch the dark floor. No one wanted to end up like the vet—his fate had spooked everyone.
The rataplan of rain was muted, sounding soft this deep in the barn, and horses were munching quietly on hay. A stableboy worked a push broom halfway down the aisle, his long hair shining under a hanging light bulb. Brian stopped to inquire. “Jane Husted?” he asked. The stableboy stopped sweeping and looked Brian over, raking hair back over his head. He pointed down the corridor. “Go down to the middle hall, where the wings intersect. You’ll see Sam’s office. Sam’ll know where she is.”
“Thanks.” Brian continued down the corridor and Dylan leaned on the broom, watching him.
Sam was standing and observing the computer monitor, which he had swiveled sideways to more easily check the hurricane bulletins. He heard a tap on the window door. He waved Brian in and then stepped forward around the old furniture to shake his hand.
“Sam Noone, Mr. Canaday. Elliot didn’t take time to introduce us last visit.”
“No, the man’s sometimes a little short on manners.”
“To say the least...”