by Jean Barrett
“All of them arrived here in cars, just as we did. If you wanted to hide something, and the castle itself turned out to be no good, like we’re assuming was the case with the great hall, then why not put it somewhere that’s both familiar and at the same time unlikely? Inside your own car, or maybe even one of the others that were garaged in the old stables. Huh?”
Leo leaned forward on the chair. “Good idea. And not just because of what might have been taken out of the great hall and placed elsewhere. People leave all kinds of stuff behind in cars. So, what we didn’t find when we searched their rooms yesterday—”
“We might find in their cars!” she said, her excitement beginning to build at the prospect of learning something essential to their investigation. Not to mention the opportunity to get out of this room and away from potential intimacy with a man whose kisses rocked her. And whose sexiness was making her crazy with longing.
What’s the matter with you anyway?
Totally exasperated with herself by now, Jennifer thought about that longing when she went into her own room to get her things. The problem, of course, wasn’t her frustrated desire for Leo but her perpetual resistance to it. That was the matter.
But for Pete’s sake, wasn’t she a modern woman with healthy appetites and no attachments? Leo clearly wanted her, and she wanted him. So why didn’t she just give in to her strong need?
Only it wasn’t that simple, was it? Not when it could never be just a physical thing for her. Not when at this point she knew her emotions were seriously involved. When she feared that, at some level, he might still be her enemy. Or that maybe he hadn’t gotten over his ex-wife, which was always a complication in a relationship. Or that—
But she didn’t need a whole catalog to explain her reluctance. It was enough to know that she didn’t fully trust either his feelings or her own, and until she could—
“What’s keeping you?” Leo called out to her through the connecting door.
“Indecision.” Afraid he might start questioning that indecision, she added a quick, wry, “Can’t settle on what earrings go best with my stilettos.”
CLAD IN THEIR BOOTS and coats, they made their way down the broad staircase to the front entrance of the castle. They met no one along the route.
It wasn’t until they reached the heavy oak door that Jennifer thought of something. “How are we going to get into the cars without keys? I don’t even have mine. It wasn’t returned to me after one of the brothers garaged the rental for me.”
“Jenny, there isn’t a car I can’t open.”
“Just what kind of a childhood did you have?”
“Childhood had nothing to do with it. Comes with the P.I. territory.”
She should have remembered that breaking and entering was included in his repertoire. Hadn’t he managed to get into her mews cottage back in London?
“It might not be necessary anyway,” he said. “Could be the cars were left unlocked when the brothers put them away.”
They let themselves out into the bailey. The wind and the cold made her gasp. Snow blew in over the rooftops, carried by the strong gusts that deposited it in long, white ridges that curved across the yard.
The cars were parked with noses out in the open-ended stalls of what had once been the stables at one side of the bailey. There were six of them in the row. Since the old van farthest from them had a cross in its window, Jennifer guessed it served the monastery. The one nearest to them was her rental. The others presumably belonged to Patrick, the Brashers, Harry Ireland and the Hardings.
Crunching through the snow, they made their way toward the stalls. She noticed that Leo, his face lifted into the driving snow, was scanning the tall walls on all sides.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Checking the windows to make sure no one has spotted us out here.”
She watched him as his gaze drifted past the long abandoned gatehouse on the far side of the bailey. A second later his gloved hand dragged her to a sudden halt.
“What is it? Did you see something?”
He didn’t answer her immediately. He was staring at one of the high twin towers that flanked the portal on either side.
“We’re not alone,” he warned her. “There’s someone up in that first tower.”
Chapter Eleven
Jennifer’s eyes lifted to the open battlement on the circular tower’s crown.
“Not there,” Leo corrected her. “In the window below.”
She lowered her gaze, peering through the falling snow that stung her cheeks. “I don’t see anything.”
“No, not now, but there was a figure up there.”
“Did you recognize him?”
He shook his head. “It was too quick. Just a rush of movement past the window.”
She could have told him he must be mistaken. That his glimpse had been too brief. That the curtain of snow had tricked him into imagining a figure. She didn’t. She trusted his claim.
“The guy gets around,” he said. “Maybe this time we can corner him. Let’s find out.”
Abandoning their intention to search the cars, they changed direction, wading through the snow to a door in the base of the tower. If whoever had preceded them left tracks across the bailey, they were obliterated now by the blowing snow. Unless there was some other entrance into the tower.
There wasn’t. That was apparent when, reaching the tower, Leo scraped the door open. It was hard to be absolutely certain since the light was so weak, but there was no sign of any other opening in the curving stone walls.
The tower contained nothing at this level but a spiral stairway winding up into the heavy gloom. Leo didn’t need to caution her not to speak. She understood the necessity for silence as they stood there at the foot of the flight, listening for any sound above them.
Not so much as a whisper stirred through the shadows.
Leo motioned for her to look at the lower treads of the stairway. Bits of snow clung to them, evidence that someone had recently climbed the flight. And must still be up there somewhere.
Pressing his mouth to her ear, he murmured, “You want to wait here while I check it out?”
Although this stairway was solid stone and couldn’t collapse on them like the wooden stairs in the great hall, she wasn’t eager about climbing it. Not with the possibility of someone lurking up there ready to trap them again. On the other hand, it was preferable to waiting down here alone in this sinister twilight.
“I do not,” she whispered back.
Leo didn’t argue with her about it. “All right, but make sure you stay a few steps behind me in case of any surprises.”
Like an unfriendly somebody leaping out at them, she thought. In which case, what did Leo expect her to do? Turn and run like hell and ask questions later, she supposed. Okay, she had no objection to that.
“Got it.”
They ascended cautiously up the coiling flight, still listening, still watching. It was a somber place, dank and smelling of age. The light, poor as it was at the bottom of the tower, dwindled to almost nothing as they climbed. Other than that solitary window at the top, which had yet to reveal itself, there were no others along the route.
There wouldn’t be, Jennifer realized. She knew the gate-houses in ancient castles were the first lines of defense against any attacking enemies. Other than narrow loopholes, openings in the outer walls of fortresses were rare.
The silence, except for the soft shuffle of their feet on the treads, was absolute. And downright eerie. Whoever was up there, and Jennifer was starting to question her conviction about that, was being awfully quiet. Had he heard them coming? That was an unnerving possibility right there.
Leo must have thought so, because he slowed his steps as they neared the head of the flight. A few yards above them was a landing. He waved her to hang back, but she ignored his command, staying close behind him as he crept up to the landing.
Leo scowled at her when he turned his head to see that she h
ad disobeyed him. But he offered no criticism. They were both too busy recovering their wind as they stood on the landing, examining the situation.
Almost invisible in a corner where the shadows were deepest was another stairway, a miniature of the one they had just climbed. Impossibly steep and narrow, it wrapped itself around an inner stone wall, curving out of sight above them.
Must be the way to the open battlements overhead, Jennifer concluded.
It was far less interesting than the archway directly in front of them, where the door that opened outward was folded back against the inner wall. The arch beckoned like an invitation that promised a worthwhile discovery. If you were willing to risk it. Leo was.
She followed him across the landing as he edged his way toward the doorway. Reached it. Stood to one side. Looked slowly, carefully around the stone frame of the arch.
Pressed against his back, Jennifer peered around him. She found herself gazing into a small, irregularly shaped room that was lit by the tower’s single window. The room was bare, nothing in it.
That was her first thought. But then, following on it swiftly, was the realization that the chamber wasn’t altogether empty. As she stretched forward, she could make out in the dimness of one corner a furry mound huddled on the floor.
“An animal!”
She was so alarmed by the sight of it that the words burst from her before she could stop them. Having uttered them, there seemed to be no point now in preserving their wary silence.
“How did it get in?” Dumb question when all that mattered was it was here, it was too big to be cuddly, and it was probably some wild beast that— “Forget I said that. Let’s just get out of here before it wakes up and decides it’s hungry.”
“It isn’t an animal,” Leo said, already on his way through the archway. “It’s a fur coat, and someone is inside it.”
He was crouched on the floor and bending over the figure when Jennifer caught up with him. He was right. Now that they were up close and the murky light no longer mattered, Jennifer could see it was a fur coat. The woman bundled in it was either unconscious or dead. Her ash-blond hair streaked with blood identified her. Sybil Harding.
“Leo, someone attacked her.”
“And whoever it was sure didn’t pass us on our way up. Which has got to mean— Damn!”
He leaped to his feet, but his realization came too late. Before either of them could swing around—because Jennifer, too, suddenly understood the danger—the door to the archway crashed shut behind them.
Even as Leo spun around and raced to the door to throw himself against it, Jennifer could hear the sound of a heavy bar dropping in place on the other side. It was followed by the muffled clatter of footsteps swiftly descending the spiral stairway.
Leo slammed his fist against the thick, unyielding planks. She knew the angry curses that accompanied his useless action were as much for himself as whoever had locked them in.
“How could I have been such a dope to come rushing in here without checking first? Why didn’t I stop long enough to realize that when a door opens out instead of in there’s a reason for it? Look at this thing. Banded with iron from top to bottom. And the window over there—”
He turned his head, directing her attention to what neither of them had paid any attention to until now. The narrow window, located above a seat in the thickness of the wall, was striped vertically with three iron bars. Although one of them was a broken stub, the other two were still intact.
“It’s a cell all right,” she said, recognizing the room now for what it was. Or what it had been when prisoners must have been kept here in the Middle Ages.
“A solid one. And the bastard who trapped us in here knew that.”
“He probably heard us coming and took himself out of sight up around that other stairway.” Her gaze shifted to the inert figure on the floor. “Shouldn’t we…”
“Yeah.”
They went back to Sybil, squatting down on either side of her. Leo turned her on her back and parted the collar of the fur coat, his fingers reaching under her silk scarf to search for a pulse at her throat. Waiting for his verdict and fearing the worst, Jennifer stared at the woman’s face, which was white as plaster, at the wound on the side of her head. The injury was bad enough to tell her that Sybil must have been hit very hard. With rage.
“Is she—”
“She’s alive,” Leo reported, sinking back on his heels. “I’m no medic, but her pulse doesn’t feel very good to me.”
“This cold in here doesn’t help. It’s brutal.”
Jennifer looked over at the window. It wasn’t glazed, had probably never been glazed. There had once been interior shutters. Iron hinges still embedded in the wall were evidence of that, but the shutters themselves were long gone. That left nothing to keep the wind out.
Reaching for Sybil’s hands, she stripped off a pair of expensive-looking leather gloves before removing her own gloves. The woman’s flesh felt like ice. Jennifer began to briskly massage those lifeless hands.
It was impossible to know whether it was her treatment that roused Sybil or whether she would have drifted back to consciousness anyway. Either way, there was a result.
“She’s stirring.”
Sybil’s eyes opened. She frowned, making an effort to focus on the two faces that leaned over her anxiously.
“Who did this to you, Sybil?” Leo asked her gently. “Can you tell us?”
For a moment Jennifer thought she was unable to speak. Then, in a thready but startlingly savage voice, she told them, “He’s not entitled to it! By rights it belongs to me!”
“What belongs to you?” Leo coaxed her.
“You tell him that! You tell him—”
Sybil lost the struggle to continue. Her eyes closed and, with a long sigh, she sank back into unconsciousness. Jennifer and Leo looked up, exchanging mystified glances.
“I don’t think she knew where she was,” Jennifer said, “or who she was talking to.”
“Or what she was talking about. If she could have just told us who attacked her and why…”
“She may never be able to tell us if we don’t do something about her.” Jennifer looked down again at Sybil’s face. It was as frighteningly still and pale as a mask. “Leo, she’s going to die on us if we don’t get help for her.”
She didn’t add that both of them would also perish from the cold if they didn’t get out of here. It wasn’t necessary because she knew that Leo had to be thinking the same thing.
“I wouldn’t say no to a good suggestion,” he said.
“If we shouted from the window, maybe signaled with something like a scarf—”
“And then what? Someone just happens to stroll outside and hear us? Or maybe they happen to look out a castle window on this side and spot our signal.”
He was right. Neither of those could possibly work. Even if they were lucky enough to have someone listening or looking, their shouts would be carried off by the wind, their signal obscured by the falling snow.
“Have to help ourselves, Jenny.”
“How?”
“Dunno.” He looked around the cell. “Door’s too strong to batter down, even if we had something to batter with. That leaves the window.”
“And two iron bars. I don’t see either one of us squeezing through them.”
“No.”
He got to his feet and went to the window. Jennifer rose and followed him. Gripping both bars, he tested their strength. When he shook them, they rattled in their anchors.
“Stone is so old it’s crumbling away,” he said. “Look how loose they are.”
“You think you can remove them?”
“I’ll have to dig away more of this stone and cement. I’ll need a tool.”
They began to search the cell for an instrument that Leo could use.
“Nothing,” he said. “Not even a manacle was left behind.”
“But this was.”
Jennifer had noticed that one of the
iron hinges from the long vanished shutters was no longer secure. It hung down from the wall, needing only a sharp twist of her hand to tear it away.
“Will it do?” she asked, handing it to him.
He examined the pointed end of the hinge. “Perfect.”
“Good. There’s just one other little problem.”
“What?”
“How do we climb down from this tower once we get through the window?”
“Me. I go out the window, make my way to the ground, then come back up the stairs and unbar the door, and you and Sybil are free.”
“As simple as that, huh? A monkey might be able to do it, but—”
“You didn’t look at what’s out there,” he said, drawing her attention to the window.
Kneeling on the window seat and pressing her face close to the bars, Jennifer looked down. Seven or eight feet directly below the window was the ridge of the portal’s gabled roof. The roof connected the two towers of the gatehouse.
“See?” he said. “Once I’m through the window, I can drop to the roof.”
“Which is still awfully high from the ground.”
“And no ladder in sight. But that window over there in the other tower is. No bars on it either to stop me from crawling inside once I make my way across the roof. Gotta be another stairway in there.”
He made it sound easy, except Jennifer knew with all that wind and snow it would be a dangerous undertaking. But their only choice.
She left him scraping away at the deteriorating stone and cement and went back to tend to Sybil. Not that there was much she could do for the woman other than to sit beside her on the drafty floor and resume chafing her hands. Her action was probably of little help, but at least it was something.
Jennifer thought about Sybil and her assailant as she worked. What had they been doing up here in the tower? And what had Sybil meant about a mysterious he not being entitled to something and that by rights it belonged to her?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Leo’s triumphant, “Got the first one.”
She looked up to see him sliding one of the bars out of its upper socket as he dragged its lower end through the trench he’d gouged in the ledge, then dropping it on the floor where it clattered. He moved on to the second bar.