by Ann Self
“Don’t worry,” Jane said, as she leaned her face in the car before shutting the door, “I’m going to be very cooperative. I won’t leave their sight, and I’ll take off before noon.” Hair whipped around her face as she said, “It’s not supposed to get really bad until around four. I’ll see you in your condo when you get home from work.”
“Okay—I’ll be home early. Take care Jane!” Madeline roared away in her Jag, and Jane dashed through the raw cold rain into the barn. Bits of left over trash from the show were still blowing around trees and buildings, and there were several men and large trucks dismantling temporary tents before the canvas sailed away in the wind.
Sam and Reggie were in the office, once again glued to the computer screen, but they looked up sharply to watch her come in. The changing of the guard. A radio chirped softly from atop the file cabinets, giving the local news and forecast, and Mr. Coffee bubbled and perked on the wavy wooden counter. The electric baseboard heaters were ticking loudly as they worked to chase off the chill, and Sam’s office was filled with the aroma of fresh coffee and doughnuts. Warm light from the many lamps fought off the gloom outside the office windows.
“So...what’s the latest?” Jane asked as she shrugged out of a damp nylon jacket and joined them at the computer.
“She’s stalled three-hundred miles off the coast,” Sam said as he pointed a plain doughnut at the screen. He was standing behind his chair, beside Reggie. “They think it will make landfall tonight.”
Jane selected a doughnut for herself, as Sam continued: “As of now, Massachusetts and a couple of other New England States are under a hurricane warning. I’m sure it will be a hurricane watch by tonight.”
“It’s turning inland, make no mistake,” Reggie declared. “They got fifty-foot swells off the Cape. By tonight, it’ll be howling through here.”
“I hope Detective Westerlund got to his mother in time to get her off the Cape,” Sam commented. “They’ll probably have severe flooding.”
“Where’s Dylan?” Jane asked, suddenly aware there was a full box of doughnuts, and no Dylan.
“Didn’t show. Probably still sick, or just lazy.”
“Doesn’t sound like him.”
“I know,” Sam said. “I’m just irritated. I’ve got zero stableboys today. I suffered an attack of mothers by phone and by car—took away my entire work force. I was lucky to get the feeding, haying and watering done. And, to top it all off, Lars has disappeared.”
“Lars has disappeared?” she demanded. “What do you mean Lars has disappeared?”
“Haven’t seen him since he left your party,” Sam replied. “He doesn’t answer the phone. I even drove up to the Gatelodge, but it’s locked up. I banged on that door for several minutes without raising a soul. I stopped at the mansion, but they won’t open the door to anyone. The gate was locked at the driveway, so I had to hop over the wall and run up the drive. I banged on that door for awhile too—it’s locked up tighter than a tomb. I know the Whitbecks are in there, but they won’t let the butler answer the damn door.”
“That’s very weird, Lars not being in his gatelodge. It’s his favorite place to be.”
“Maybe he’s sleeping off the wine,” Reggie offered.
“Or stocking up on groceries before the storm hits,” Jane speculated.
“I don’t think Lars food shops. He orders his groceries on line and they deliver,” Sam said.
“It is hard to picture him pushing a grocery cart,” Jane mused. “There’s no one else here?”
“Just the three of us, so stick close.”
The wind made a soft howl through the rafters, hinting at the storm to come. They became aware of the sounds of cars outside the office and Sam grabbed a lead-shank from off his desk. “Let’s go!” he said. “We got several people from town trailering their horses over to stable them here in case the storm hits. Mostly neighbors with nothing but little shacks for barns.”
Sam, Reggie and Jane spent the next two hours directing trailers to the indoor ring, where the horses were unloaded and placed in empty stalls and the trailers were unhitched and lined up in the arena. The owners then scurried home to wait out the storm. Jane helped with the noon time chores, since Sam had a severely depleted work force.
Later, as the trio walked back to the west wing, the barn reverberated with whinnies of strange horses talking to the homeboys. The howling of the wind grew stronger, and the rain escalated slightly as they walked into the office to get back to their coffee and doughnuts. Lucinda was seated in Old Ugly, her ankle propped up on the coffee table, the cast-boot replaced by a wrapped Ace bandage.
Jane stopped in her tracks, and Sam and Reggie nearly plowed into her.
“Well, here’s the star of the day herself! Where’s your sidekick?” Lucinda asked maliciously.
Jane and Reggie ignored her and headed for the doughnuts they’d hidden under the counter. Sam decided, just to be safe, to construct a completely fresh pot of coffee—they were all concerned about the pot being drugged again when it was left unattended, and Lucinda was the last person they trusted. In an effort to prevent tampering, Dylan had even stockpiled sugar packets and little individual wells of cream. No one inquired if Lucinda wanted coffee or a doughnut.
“Have you seen Lars around?” Sam asked her, as he unplugged the coffee pot.
“What? Lars? No, I don’t keep track of him. I haven’t the slightest clue where he is...I haven’t seen him since the party.”
“So he hasn’t showed up at the mansion?” he asked, carrying the whole coffee-maker to the washroom.
“No. That’s what it means when I say I haven’t seen him.”
Sam ignored the rudeness as he scrubbed the appliance out and filled it with tap water this time instead of bottled water. “How come you people aren’t answering the door?” he yelled. “I was just up there pounding on it.”
“My family isn’t accepting phone calls or guests today. William has his orders...”
“Guests?!” Sam demanded, looking like thunder as he crossed the office to return the coffee-maker to the shelf and plug it in.
Lucinda removed her foot from the table and stood up carefully, straightening a heavy-weather jacket and looking pointedly at Jane. “My father wants the business cards our invited guests gave to you and your side-kick last night.”
“Well,” Jane said, as she sat on the front of Sam’s desk, munching on her doughnut, “I guess he’ll have to go to Boston to get them, they’re with my side-kick.”
“You don’t have them with you?”
“Nope.”
Lucinda sighed irritably. “Those cards belong to my father. You are an employee, working on his time. And you didn’t even finish your job, you just ran out of the skybox without completing your duties!”
“Wrong!” Jane shot back. “I accepted no pay for riding Charmante; I am no longer an employee and I have no duties—no duties whatsoever. The only money your father gave me was severance pay; I rode the horse entirely for free, as a favor. The favor ended when I dismounted.”
“Dismounted!?” Sam cried as he ground freshly-opened coffee beans. “You mean when you were forcibly wrenched from the horse.”
“I want those cards back,” Lucinda demanded, ignoring Sam. “They are not yours to keep.”
“They intended me to have them, and I intend to keep them,” Jane stated. “If you’d like to try to wrestle Madeline for them—be my guest, but I warn you, she’s a spitfire.”
Lucinda looked furious, her metallic eyes shooting sparks. “I want you and all your cheap junk off this property right now! Right this instant...there’s no reason at all now for you to still be here!”
Sam snapped the switch to start the coffee, walked over to the tiny woman and stood in her face. “Read my lips. Get your skinny chicken-butt out of here before I throw you like a dart!”
Reggie almost burst a gut laughing as Lucinda stormed out of the office, banging the door hard enough to shatter another pa
ne of glass. The old man had to pull a hanky out of his overalls to wipe the tears from his eyes. Sam looked back at Jane as she hunched over and covered her mouth, gagging on the donut. In a few seconds, she managed to swallow it, and then burst out laughing. “Sam, ha ha, that was priceless. It was almost worth all the misery she’s caused me…”
Sam’s anger cooled as he was amused by Reggie and Jane’s laughing. He brushed bits of glass to the side with his boot. “God, more broken glass, damnit.”
Then he looked at Jane. “Does Madeline have those cards?”
“No! It was a big fat lie. I left them in my...in the apartment on the window sill.”
“Let’s go get them. Be right back, Reggie.” Sam and Jane ran out the door and charged up to her former apartment and rushed in. The stack of business cards was still sitting right on the window sill where she left them.
“Whew! If Lucinda hadn’t reminded me, I might have forgotten them.”
“Be sure and whip her off a thank you note,” Sam said.
Jane looked around the forlorn, nearly empty room. Gray light came from the rain-splashed dormer windows, making ghostly water shadows that raced over the floorboards and starkly bare mattress. She looked at the small door under the eaves, now in dark shadow, and it gave her shivers of fright, erasing any sorrow of leaving her old room. Her foot stepped on something and she raised it up to see what it was. A tiny dot of rag. Jane suddenly looked up at the ceiling and the dark hole stared down at her. Her nerves shrilled around her body like an electric current as soft thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said to Sam.
“Good idea,” he agreed. Jane practically ran all the way down to the office, with Sam trying to keep up. “Hey, slow down,” he complained. “You’d think the devil was after us...”
Jane kept running. “Maybe he is!”
Reggie looked at them curiously as they dashed into the office huffing and puffing. “It’s just spooky up there,” Jane explained.
“Well, it’s probably a good idea not to go roaming around,” Reggie reminded them.
“This is true,” Sam agreed.
They collected their coffee mugs and Sam poured for everyone. Jane sat cross-legged in Old Ugly as Sam returned to his desk. The wind whistled and whined as if calling to her attention to the fact that she had to leave.
“How are your wipers?” Reggie asked, sipping black coffee and seating himself in the captain’s chair beside Sam’s desk, his back to the windows and the pattering rain.
“Brand new, Reggie, I just got them.”
“Sam laughed, “they’re worth more than her whole car!”
They drank coffee in silence for a moment, everyone knowing that she should leave immediately. The driving would grow more hazardous by the hour. Jane felt an agonizing stab in her heart; Springhill seemed like an imaginary place that would spin off into space and disappear the minute she left it.
You can’t go home again.
“Do you think Elliot got any investors last night?” she stalled.
Sam put down his mug and smirked, “Not unless purple is his natural skin color. Things didn’t work out quite the way he planned—he might as well’ve arranged the whole shindig to showcase you.”
Jane shook her head and rubbed her face. “I almost hoped he would get investors,” she replied, “so this place wouldn’t become SpringhillShoppingPlaza.”
“Ha!” snorted Reggie. “A fool and his paradise are soon parted.”
“We might as well face it,” Sam told her, “Elliot can’t hold it together. He’s too much of a flimflam man. None of those well-heeled people had the slightest interest in the Whitbecks—they all shared information on him at his own party, and got the heads-up. Their business cards would be of no use to him. Lucinda was just trying a lame, last-ditch effort to keep you out of a job.”
Sam leaned way back in his chair and carefully crossed his feet on the corner of the desk. “They were real interested in you, though. I thought Gladys would explode when everyone made it a point to tell the family how talented you were, and to inquire why you wouldn’t be working at Springhill any more.”
“Oh, I bet that went over well,” Jane said quietly.”
“They were sitting there like five stone faces. Elliot, Cecily, Gladys, Lucinda, and Ashley,” Sam recalled. “They were all stunned at the turn of events and didn’t know what to say.
“Wish I could’ve been there to witness it,” Reggie laughed.
“Elliot would’ve gotten around to sending me for the horse, but when Reggie showed up we managed to disappear, and with a lot of the food too...” Sam patted his stomach.
“Yes, our private party was quite nice,” Jane praised their efforts.
“Lucinda spent most of the party sulking in a chair because she couldn’t corner Brian Canaday,” Sam informed them. “She kept chasing him around, but he moved pretty quickly and she had to thump after him on crutches. Crutches she probably didn’t need anyway, judging by how she’s moving today. Now the exhibition is over, she’s miraculously healed.”
Jane looked amused. “So you think she was faking?”
Sam nodded. “I think she elevated a convenient strain to a broken bone to cover her skinny no-talent butt.”
Jane just shook her head and Sam took a long swallow of coffee before getting back to the skybox party: “Cecily looked very upset trying to calm her mother down. Gladys was absolutely livid—the old crow was sputtering and spitting like a vicious cat.”
“Cecily better take a good look at her mansion while she can,” Reggie stated. “Poor woman’s living with a bunch of nuts.”
Jane watched Sam as he leaned further back in his croaking chair to stretch, suddenly bending his head back to look up at the dropped acoustical-tiled ceiling. She followed his eyes up. “Hello,” he said. “Look what we got here.”
Jane jumped up to look at the black hole in the ceiling tile over Sam’s desk. “Oh, no...”
Reggie also stood, hands on hips. “Good Lord...how long has that been there?”
Sam raced from his desk, and they followed him out to the corridor and looked up at the storage area than ran over the tops of the all rooms and stalls on both sides of the west wing. Stair treads climbed up the wall and over Sam’s door. He grabbed a flashlight and trotted up to the small loft over his office as Jane and Reggie craned their necks to watch. “Yep. Yep...” they heard him comment.
“Yep what?” Reggie demanded. Sam walked back out to the little platform over his doorway and looked down at them. “There’s a loose board that’s been popped right out—directly over the hole in the acoustical ceiling.”
“Where are you going?” Jane asked Reggie as he stomped off to his room.
“I’m going to check my ceiling!”
Sam turned and aimed the flash back into the small loft, to the corner that backed up to the big hayloft over the south wing. “And here’s the avenue of escape,” he yelled back.
Jane ran up the stairs and peeked in. “What? Escape? How? Where?”
“There’s a passageway to the big south loft in that back corner.”
“I never knew that!”
“See the ladder treads? They lead right up into the south loft floor.” He ran his light up five fixed treads and it showed them a triangular opening at the top. They could hear the massive loft roof hissing with rain.
“From here you could enter the south loft, and then take the stairway down to the ground floor or the short stairway up to the second-floor hallway and disappear into the maze up there.”
“Pretty handy for spying,” Jane commented.
“Whole barn was built for spying,” Sam agreed, as soft thunder rumbled across the estate. He swung the flash to the loose floorboard. “I always say this barn has ears, but I guess I didn’t know the half of it.”
They turned to see Reggie muttering and sputtering as he walked back to them, looking up. “There’s a damned hole in my ceiling too,”
he exclaimed. “Right over my chair! No wonder I sometimes had the creepy heebie-jeebies when I sat there.”
“I wonder how many more of those nasty little spy holes we got?” Jane questioned as she stepped back down the open stair treads.
“Well, you wouldn’t need them in the south wing,” Sam speculated as he followed her down, “because of all the hay mangers. You could go into the hayloft and stand over any one of those and spy on people.”
“Think there was anyone up there this afternoon?” Jane nodded toward the loft over his office.
“Could be. And if they heard that conversation, they’ll be pretty steamed,” Sam opined, as he walked back into the office.
“We just about skewered them all,” Reggie agreed, following him in.
“No kidding,” Jane said, glancing up at the small loft, and then walking into the office too. They all stared at each other for a moment. The wind soughed and rain pattered relentlessly, punctuated by escalating rumbles of thunder.
“I think it’s time we get you out of here,” Reggie said to her. He glanced at the wall clock. “It’s already quarter of two.”
“You’re right, I guess I’d better go. I want to stop by Lars’ gatehouse on the way out and see if I can find him.”
“Just keep on going to Madeline’s,” Sam instructed her. “Don’t stop for any reason.” He made a significant glance to the ceiling.
“Okay...I guess you’re right.” She looked back at the shelf. “I’m leaving my mug, for when I come back to visit.” The thought of staying cooped up in a townhouse was almost unbearable. Even if it was Madeline’s.
“Coffee’ll always be on for you Jane, as long as we’re still here,” Sam said, as he reached for his jacket draped on the captain’s chair. Jane turned away abruptly, letting only the Mr. Coffee see her red, burning eyes.
Reggie stood. “You’ve dawdled here enough. Another hour and the wind will get dangerous.”
Sam slipped into his denim jacket and slapped on a cowboy hat. “Right...if you wait too long, you’ll get stuck here and we might lose lights and everything. Madeline, Westy and Brian will have a fit and fall into it. And Reggie—we may as well park our trucks in the indoor ring after Jane leaves. I don’t think there are any more trailers showing up.”