by Lena Gregory
She pushed on the bookshelf closest to the door. It held steady. Then she shoved a shoulder against the one on the other side, only a few feet from where Fred had plunged to his death. Nothing.
Giving up, she studied both sets of shelves.
Bee walked over to the shelves closest to the window and pulled. The entire shelf unit slid easily, and silently, into the room, revealing a gaping black hole. He danced back out of the way, then splayed a hand against the wall beside the window and looked down at the jetty. “Do you think this could have hit Fred and knocked him out the window? Maybe someone was in there and came out without realizing he was standing there?”
From where Bee had ended up when he’d backed out of the way, it was a realistic possibility. But what would anyone have been doing in there? Since everyone else had already left the room, it was possible someone hadn’t realized Fred had stayed behind. If Fred had been standing in front of the open window, staring out at the bay or the lighthouse, he could possibly have been hit in the back of the head and knocked out. If not for the lighthouse figure she’d seen. Bee moved closer and examined the wood shelves. He held up a hand in front of his chin, just about the height where Fred would have stood, and studied the shelf at that height. He swiped a finger through a thick coating of dust, then sneezed and brushed off his hand. “If this hit him, someone did an amazing job cleaning it up and then coating it with dust again. There’s not even a dark spot on the wood.”
Cass shone a light into the darkness. “It’s a stairway.”
“I’ll get Luke and Tank.” Bee started for the door.
“Wait.” Cass stepped into the opening and bent to shine the light down the stairs. The stairway curved partway down, blocking her view to the bottom. “Not yet. Let me just see.”
She turned and studied the bookshelves. “I don’t think they open with enough force to have knocked Fred out the window.”
Bee bounced back and forth from one foot to the other, vibrating with nervous energy. “So, still a murder. Which means the detectives should be up here investigating, not you.”
His eyes went wide and he gasped and started to hyperventilate. “And now my fingerprints are on the possible murder weapon. Oh, my.”
“I’m working for the police, remember? And I’ll make sure they know I saw you touch the shelf as part of your brilliant investigative technique.” She winked and turned back to the stairway. “Any chance you’ll stand guard here while I go a few steps down, just to make sure the door doesn’t swing shut behind me?”
“Absolutely none.” He folded his arms across his massive chest. Bee in full-on protective mode. She wasn’t going anywhere alone.
“Fine, then. Come on.”
His arms dropped to his sides, and his mouth fell open. “Come on where?”
She started down, her phone’s flashlight leading the way. “I just want to see where it leads.”
Bee followed, muttering under his breath the whole way.
So much for staying quiet. Oh, well. At least his voice drowned out the others to some extent.
Chapter Twenty-two
Cass descended the stairs slowly, careful to check each step with the flashlight and test it before putting her full weight onto it.
“Hey, Cass. Look.” Bee pointed past her shoulder to something on the floor at the bottom. “Is that what I think it is?”
A leather book lay open facedown on the floor, its cover glaring up at them. “Kitty’s journal.”
She hurried down the last few steps and started to bend to retrieve the book.
“Wait.” Bee grabbed her arm. “Put these on.”
Cass turned as best she could in the confined space with Bee right on her heels. “What are they?”
“Gloves. Tank handed them to me when we were going up and said to make sure you put them on if you were going to touch anything.” He held a pair out to her and struggled to get a pair on his own sweaty hands.
“So why didn’t you put them on before touching the bookshelf?”
He shot her a sheepish grin. “He said before you touched anything.”
“Uh-huh.” With her hands covered, she picked up the journal and leafed through it, then closed it and ran a finger over the cover.
Bee pulled his phone out and used the flashlight to examine the cover. “What do you think it’s doing here?”
“No idea.” Cass held the book by the spine and shook it out. Nothing dropped out. “It was laying facedown, some of the pages torn.”
Bee took the book from her and flipped to the torn pages. “At least no pieces are missing.”
“It looks like someone threw it or dropped it there.” They’d come to a wall, and other than the small landing where they stood, there was nowhere to go but back up. It seemed where the stairway had turned might have been the second floor, so she judged they were probably back on the first floor. But she’d lost all sense of direction. “Come on, let’s go back up and get Luke and Tank.”
Bee skimmed the book absently then looked around the small alcove. “Why don’t we give the wall a push and see if it opens down here like it did upstairs. Seems foolish to have a stairway that only leads to a dead end. Plus, if the journal is here, someone had to have used these stairs recently.”
Bee was right. She should have thought of that, might have if something wasn’t pounding through her head trying to get in. She ignored it and pushed against the wall.
It easily gave way, and they found themselves standing in the back corner of the museum, not far from the display where Kitty’s book had been. “You think someone just grabbed the book and tossed it into the stairwell? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if that someone wanted to get rid of the journal but maybe not get caught with it in their possession, or didn’t have a lot of time to ditch it. I’m sure whoever it was will be coming back for it soon.” Bee looked over his shoulder as if worried he’d jinxed himself.
Cass shivered. “Even if that’s what happened, it doesn’t explain why.”
Cass heard voices ahead of them, not of the ghostly variety, but familiar.
The overhead lights flipped on, and Luke and Tank stood in the doorway.
Luke moved toward them. “I thought I heard voices in here. How did you two get down here?”
Cass gestured behind them and explained about the stairway.
Tank peered into the stairway, pulled out his flashlight and disappeared inside. He reappeared a moment later. “I’m going to have to have the techs come in now, Cass.”
She nodded absently. It didn’t matter; she’d picked up anything she was going to for now. “But I still can’t imagine why someone would have tossed the book in there and left it, or why they’d even want to get rid of it.”
“Not get rid of it, hide it.” Bee held the book up, his finger marking a page. “Seems Amelia or Levi left out a few pages. Or Fred removed them before Amelia gave the transcript to Levi.”
“What are you talking about, Bee?” Cass peered at the page he held open, but since she hadn’t read the original transcript, she couldn’t tell what was wrong.
“I read through all of the pages in Kitty’s journal, at least the transcribed copy. Even the pages I didn’t read thoroughly, I did skim. Then, if something caught my attention, I read that section in more detail. And this book contains pages that are not included in the transcript, and they most definitely would have caught my attention.”
“What do they say?”
“Kitty gives a number of clues as to the treasure’s location throughout the missing pages, seems Thomas described where it could be found in great detail when he woke up, but on the last page, she wrote this.” He cleared his throat, opened the book, and started to read. “On the last full moon, as spring turns to summer, and the warmth returns to bathe the land, the moon’s rays shine directly on the spot the treasure was buried, illuminating the secret entrance.”
“Entrance? Like a cave?” Cass couldn’t recall seeing anything li
ke an entrance out by the jetty, though the boulder Piper had been found beneath had been loose. She looked back and forth between Luke and Tank. “When we pulled Piper out, I didn’t bother looking for anything else beneath the rocks. Did you?”
Luke was already nodding. “We’ve already pulled that stone out and combed the sand beneath it for evidence, and no one mentioned a cave or an entrance of any sort. Does she give any more details, Bee?”
Bee shrugged. “She doesn’t elaborate, and the next page picks up where I’ve already read. Of course, I have no idea if other pages were taken out, but I could tell you if I skimmed through it all.”
“Come on.” Tank ushered them outside as officers flooded the foyer and pounded up the stairs. “Sit on the porch and you can read through and see what you can tell us.”
When they walked out, Cass inhaled deeply, clearing her lungs of the dampness that had hung over the stairwell from being closed up for so long.
Chief Rawlins sat on the top step petting Beast’s head. She stood when she saw them.
Beast moaned and scrambled to his feet.
Tank brought the chief up to speed on what they’d found.
She looked from Cass to Bee. “You think someone found the treasure?”
“When was the last full moon?” Cass asked.
Bee held out his phone, one step ahead of her. “On the night Fred was murdered.”
The chief’s radio signaled, and she stepped aside to answer.
Cass’s gut cramped.
Chief Rawlins returned a moment later. “Luke, Tank, a patrol officer just picked up Quincy Yates, pulled him over for running a red light, driving a red Toyota Camry registered to Francesca Harding.”
A red vehicle. Images bombarded Cass.
“We’re on our way. Is Francesca Harding with him?” Tank asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry to say she’s not.”
“Yeah, me too,” Tank muttered.
Cass figured they were all having the same vision of Piper’s battered body, wondering if Francesca had suffered the same fate. Or worse.
He tossed Stephanie his keys. “I’ll come by for the car later.”
Luke kissed Cass then started away with Tank.
“Tank,” Cass called after him. “Be careful. Please.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The first thing Cass did when she opened her eyes the next morning was call Stephanie. Still no word from Tank. Cass chose to believe no news was good news.
Second on the agenda was a phone call to Simone.
Simone answered on the first ring with all the warmth of an old friend. “Cass, how are you, dear?”
Cass hopped up and down as she struggled into her leggings with the phone propped between her ear and her shoulder—a task that used to be easier. Could be loaded pizza, among other things, wasn’t the best dietary choice, but somehow broccoli and carrots just didn’t offer the same sense of comfort. “I’m doing well, thank you. How are you?”
“I am well, thank you.”
Now that Simone sat waiting on the other end of the line, it seemed odd that Cass had called her for help when she barely even knew her. Plus, she might even have had something to do with her own husband’s disappearance and Fred’s death.
“I’m so glad you called.” Simone saved her the trouble of having to figure it all out.
Good thing, because her brain clearly hadn’t fully woken up yet. She needed coffee. Lots of coffee.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. A favor I’d like to ask, if you will.”
“Oh, uh, of course. What can I do for you?”
“We can discuss that in a bit. First, what can I do for you?”
Simone wanting to ask for her help nudged the door open for Cass to seek guidance from the woman. “I’ve been having some trouble lately, keeping the voices from harassing me too much to make out any clear messages.”
“And you’d like me to help you with a shield.”
Cass sank onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t have trouble blocking out all of the voices, but I can’t let them in selectively like you seem to be able to do.”
“Not as much as I’d like, I’m afraid.”
It hadn’t seemed that way to her. When Simone had been in the shop, only the one voice had been able to reach through to Cass. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about it, dear. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you meet me at the lighthouse around eight tonight, and maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. I’ll try to help you with your shield, and you can try to help me out with what I need.”
Kind of cryptic, for sure, and if it wasn’t for fear of Tank and Stephanie being in danger, she’d never agree to it. Not to mention the episode Bee was going to have when he found out. And Luke. “Eight? It will already be getting dark by then.”
“No worries. There are lights. Besides, I have a feeling what we need to do won’t take long.”
She had no choice, really. She had to figure out what was going on, and Simone seemed to be the only one with the ability to help her filter out the excess so she could concentrate on what she needed to know. And with Stephanie and Tank somehow needing help, no way could she give up. “I’ll see you there at eight then, thank you.”
She hung up feeling like she’d just made a deal with a snake oil salesman. “Come on, Beast. Time to eat.”
At the mention of food, Beast bounded out of the bedroom, skidded on the hallway’s wood floor, and ran toward the kitchen.
Cass trudged more slowly behind him.
By the time they’d returned to Mystical Musings from the lighthouse to pick up her car the night before, it had barely been worth going to sleep. But her eyes had felt like someone was scrubbing sandpaper over them every time she blinked, so she’d fallen into bed for a couple of hours with her mind fully focused on listening to her gut instincts in case Tank needed her.
It hadn’t made for a restful night.
Now she knew how Bee felt when she dragged him out of bed before noon.
After feeding Beast and letting him out into the fenced yard to take care of business, Cass made herself a couple of slices of toast with apple butter and a glass of orange juice. She ate standing at the counter, looking out the window into the yard. She’d make coffee as soon as she got to the shop.
Beast dug happily along the fence line, flinging dirt all up over his freshly shampooed fur.
Just what she needed, him escaping the yard when she hadn’t even woken up all the way yet. And needing another bath, to boot. She’d have to go out and fill in the holes later. Again. As for the bath, not happening. She’d have to give him a good brushing when she got to the shop and hope it was enough. She flung the back door open. “Beast, come.”
He spread his front legs apart, lowering his body as if bowing, and yipped.
She propped her hands on her hips and twisted her features into her best I’m not playing around expression.
Beast jumped back once, then barked, then, apparently realizing it wasn’t playtime, sulked as he made his way inside. Triumph warred with pity as he moped through the door. Too much time hanging around Bee, no doubt. “Enough drama, Beast. It’s time to go to the shop.”
He perked up at that and lunged toward the back door.
Speaking of drama, last she’d seen Bee, he’d decided to stay behind at the lighthouse with Chief Rawlins to read the rest of the journal. She glanced at the clock, barely eight. No way she could call him. She settled for shooting him a text telling him to call her when he got up.
When she pulled into the parking lot at Mystical Musings, someone sat waiting on one of the rocking chairs on the front porch, hidden from Cass’s view by the railing.
She clipped Beast’s leash to his collar and kissed the side of his face. “Behave, boy, okay?”
Darn, she was supposed to issue commands in a firm voice, not ask questions as if Beast had a choice. Ugh . . . sooner or later she’d g
et the hang of this. She nuzzled Beast for another moment, then got out of the car with him and headed toward her visitor. Wary of walking up to the stranger unprotected, even with Beast at her side, Cass kept the keys in her hand as she approached.
The woman stood as soon as she saw Cass.
Cass relaxed instantly. “Amelia, how are you doing?”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes, then laughed a little, though it held no humor. “To be honest, Cass, I’m having a rough time. I know you don’t open until ten, and I don’t mind sitting out here until you’re ready, but Simone suggested I come, said you might be able to help me.”
Cass hugged her, then stepped back to unlock the door. “Of course, you don’t have to wait out here. Come on in.”
Amelia petted Beast’s head, then followed Cass into the shop with Beast trotting beside her.
“Can I get you something? Coffee, tea, water?” Cass put her bag under the counter, then left the register for later and headed to the back counter to start the coffee and water for tea.
“No, nothing, thank you.”
“Please, have a seat wherever you’re comfortable.” It only took a few minutes to get things started and settle Beast with his basket of toys. She joined Amelia in one of the small private seating arrangements scattered throughout the shop and took a chair to the side of the love seat Amelia had chosen. Close enough to reach out and offer comfort if needed, not too close to make her feel crowded or uncomfortable or pressured. There was no table between them to create any kind of barrier or distance. It was all she could do to make Amelia feel comfortable enough to open up to her.
“I’m sorry, Cass, I’m not even really sure why I came or what I hope to accomplish here.” She reached for a tissue from one of the boxes Cass kept on side tables throughout the shop. Contacting deceased loved ones could often be an emotional experience for her clients. “Simone said she left you with a sense of peace she hadn’t felt in a long time. And, well, I could really use that right about now.”