I stored that piece of information in my mind for later and stepped ahead of Nick to see what the rest of the floor looked like.
The common room was at the far end of the west wing.
It was a large open space with leather sofas, armchairs, and coffee tables scattered across the room. Bookcases lined one wall and framed photographs of the student cohort from every year lined another.
A handful of girls in a small anteroom doing their homework looked up as we walked in. They didn’t smile or return our hellos.
Refusing to come in, Nick stood by the main doorway with a pained expression on his face.
I sniffed the air, detecting the faint smell of alcohol, like someone had spilled wine on the carpet. Did the girls drink in here?
When Katy and I finished looking around, Nick took us down a long corridor and opened a door next to the main stairway.
“This is what the girls’ dorms are like?” I said in surprise as we walked in.
This wasn’t a room, but a mini apartment with its own kitchenette and private bathroom.
Nick placed my bag next to the door but didn’t come in.
“This was the hall monitor’s room in the old days,” he said, shifting his feet.
“Hall monitor?” asked Katy.
“The most senior students had the job to watch over the others. We don’t have monitors anymore, so this was empty. Ms. May thought this would be the best place for you to get to know the girls better.”
He turned around to leave.
“Before you go,” I said, “can you tell us a little about Brianna?”
“What… what about her?” said Nick, half turning his body.
“What is she like?”
Nick looked down at his shoes.
“Just another teen,” he replied glumly, speaking to his shoes. “Loves shopping, clothes, and all that.”
“Does she do any extracurricular activities?”
He gave a despondent shrug, still not looking up. “I think she was part of the theater club, but I really don’t know her well.”
“Does she hike, swim, that sort of thing?”
“No, she hates sports and the outdoors.”
“Hates the outdoors? So she’s not the type to go for a walk in the woods, then?”
He gave another noncommittal shrug.
“I’d suggest you speak with her teachers. I’m just an administrator here.”
He took another step away from the door.
“Oh, wait,” I said. “There’s something I need to return to the rightful owner.”
Nick turned around reluctantly.
I dipped my hand into my purse and pulled out a velvet pouch. I opened it and took out the pear-shaped diamond earring I’d brought with me.
He gave a start as he saw it.
“I think this belongs to Sally Robertson,” I said. “She dropped it when she came to see me at the bakery in New York. Can you tell her I have it?”
His eyes bulged.
He had good reason to. The earring was obviously an heirloom, one of those heavy, oversized luxury pieces they used to wear a long time ago. The diamond glistened in my hand.
“I… I don’t think that’s hers,” Nick blurted out.
“Oh? I could have sworn she dropped it.”
Did I pick up a stranger’s earring?
“I know Sally. She doesn’t own anything like that. She doesn’t wear jewelry. That’s not hers.”
“Funny, I was sure it fell out of her purse,” I said. “Can you tell me where we can find her? Does she have an office in the building?”
“She’s always in the clinic. But I’m telling you that’s not hers.”
I could feel Katy’s eyes on me. She felt it too. Nick was trying a little too hard to convince us.
“My mistake,” I said, slipping the earring back in the pouch.
“I have to go,” said Nick, taking a quick step backward. “Ms. May asked the kitchen staff to set two places at her table for you this afternoon. You’ll hear the dinner gong. She hates it when people are late.”
“Thank you, Nick.” I nodded.
I wanted to find out more, but I couldn’t push him too hard. I needed the principal’s assistant on our side.
With an awkward nod, he turned and fled down the corridor.
Katy closed the door and shook her head.
“Not the most responsible school administrator,” she said, picking up her luggage and placing it on her bed. “He didn’t do anything when that fight broke out.”
“There’s something odd about that man,” I said, opening my suitcase and burying the jewelry pouch among my clothes.
“He even said to leave that Isabella girl alone, and she was picking on that smaller kid. Seriously?”
“If I had to bet, Isabella’s the bully of this school. Remember, the principal said she had her hands full of her too?”
“What about that girl with the bloodied bra?” said Katy with a shudder. “Gosh, these kids are evil. We were never that nasty, were we?”
I shook my head. We dealt with bullies in high school, but these girls leveled things up to a whole new dimension.
I pulled out the thin Kevlar vest from my suitcase and hung it in the closet. I had no reason to believe a gunfight would break out in an exclusive girls’ school, but I was glad to have it. Tetyana would have had it no other way, anyway.
The first thing we did was to let David and Peace know we’d arrived safely. Then, Katy chatted with Chantelle, inquiring about her homework, while I caught up with Tetyana.
It wasn’t just the anonymous call that had concerned her. She’d spotted a tinted black pickup truck near the back entrance of the bakery the day Sally came to visit. It had sat idle, with its engine running. The truck got away before she could find out who it was.
It could have been a coincidence, just a construction worker stopping in the back alley to make a hasty phone call. But she was on full alert now.
Tetyana had reinforced the security system in our building with extra cameras to catch any interlopers. After watching hours of footage, she’d found no further signs of the tinted truck, but her new setup would catch the license plate of any vehicle driving by or stopping in the back alleyway of the bakery.
I hung up, glad to have a highly skilled, hard-nosed professional in my team. Like Win, she was working that week, teaching at David’s martial arts school, so she couldn’t join us. But I knew I could call on her if I needed her.
Tetyana wasn’t just an old friend. She was family—family who would defend us with her life if she had to.
I hoped it would never come to that.
Katy was freshening up in the washroom and I was hanging my clothes in the closet, when I heard the rustle behind me.
I whirled around to see a slip of white paper get pushed under our door.
Chapter Nine
I stomped over to the door and yanked it open.
The corridor was empty.
From what Nick said, most of the classes were still in session, except for a few senior students who had study break in the common room. Was it one of them?
Our room was the first on the landing. Someone could have easily slipped down the staircase and disappeared back to wherever they came from. Whoever it was, they had run off quickly.
I bent down and picked up the paper.
“Hey.”
It was Katy, stepping out of the bathroom, drying her face with a small towel.
“Did we have a visitor?” she asked.
“Someone not too keen to talk to us face to face,” I said, waving the flimsy paper at her.
I closed the door, locked it, and unfolded the note.
“Go back,” read the crudely penciled words. “U made a mstake.”
“Another anonymous warning,” whispered Katy, peering over my shoulder. “Like the phone call at the bakery.”
“They’re insistent, that’s for sure,” I said, a tinge of worry crossing my mind.
&
nbsp; We stared at the message for a while, trying to guess who it could be. It was a plain blue lined paper ripped out of a school notebook. The words were written in all caps, but there was a distinct swirl to the writing.
“Must be a student,” said Katy. “The spelling’s terrible.”
“It could also have been written this way to mislead us deliberately,” I said, as I folded the note and slipped it into my vest pocket. “Let’s see what Martha May says about this. Could be a prank.”
I looked down at my phone.
“We have a couple of hours before supper and it’s still light outside. A good time to explore the grounds and see how Brianna might have got out.”
We walked down to the front doors. The old guard had disappeared. I guessed his shift was over.
We followed a trail that took us to the back to see what was behind the main building. If the school looked like a massive Victorian ghost home from the front, it appeared even more gloomy in the back, sheltered by the dark woods.
The gymnasium was near the lake, complete with a swimming pool and a basketball court.
The golden plate nailed to the front door of the gym read, “Madison Sports Center.”
“Madison, eh?” said Katy. “So, this is what a truckload of cash gets you?”
“What I can’t get over is Martha May hasn’t notified Brianna’s family,” I said, staring at the plaque. “If we don’t find her and she has to come clean on when she disappeared, she’ll be in hot water. She can kiss her donations goodbye then.”
“She’s banking on us to find the girl before that,” said Katy.
“I hope we do,” I said, lowering my voice. “For the girl’s sake. Don’t care so much for the principal, to be honest.”
“All she cares for is the money,” said Katy, nodding glumly.
We walked over to the boat shed that contained canoes, kayaks, oars, and safety vests, keeping our eyes open for any clues. After a thorough search inside the shed, we stepped back onto the trail that wound its way around the lake.
A lonely boat sat on the shores, its red paint faded and its paddles left by its sides, like it had been waiting forever for someone to take it out for a row.
Katy and I stood by it, silently digesting what we had heard and seen that afternoon.
Gold and yellow leaves carpeted the ground under our feet, and rays of the setting sun filtered through the naked tree branches.
The lake was large enough that we could just about see the far end. The rusty brown water was still. In spots where the late afternoon sun fell, the water appeared almost red.
“So, someone, or some people, don’t want us here,” said Katy in a low voice.
“That means they don’t want us to know where Brianna Madison is,” I said.
“You were right,” said Katy. “I’m getting weird vibes from this place.”
Me too. I could feel the heaviness of old and melancholy memories lingering in the atmosphere. That feeling of foreboding came over me again. It felt stronger, the longer we hung around the lake.
All I could see was the surrounding forest, trees huddled close together as far as the eyes could see, like an impenetrable barrier. For one moment, I wondered what these woods were hiding.
“Brianna could have run away into the woods for some reason and got lost,” I said. “If that’s the case, the poor girl could already be dead of hypothermia.”
“They said they flew a drone over the estate,” said Katy, looking up at the sky.
If this had been summer, it would have been impossible to see anything through the canopy. But even with the bare trees, there was no way a drone could have spotted everything on the ground.
“They could have missed her,” I said, “especially if she crawled into a hole to stay warm. I don’t think they tried hard enough.”
“It’ll take forever to search the whole area,” said Katy. “What we need is an all-terrain vehicle.”
“What we need is several dozen searchers with sniffer dogs who’d fan the estate on foot.”
“Like police teams?”
“Exactly,” I said, feeling my shoulders weigh down. We’d been given a herculean task with few resources and an unrealistic deadline.
“I’d bet my bottom dollar those girls know exactly where Brianna is,” said Katy. “I’d bet she’s run off with that boyfriend from town somewhere. I can see those brats covering up for her.”
“We need to talk to the local police,” I said, as we turned around to head back toward the school. “They know the area and the people better than us.”
“Maybe Brianna’s nowhere near here anymore,” said Katy. “She could be in Boston or even New York.”
“Let’s start with the estate. After we—”
Katy put a hand on my arm, stopping me in mid-sentence.
“Will you look at that?” she whispered.
I turned to see what she was ogling at.
“A greenhouse,” I said in surprise.
We stepped off the trail and walked over to the large structure built of glass panes, hidden behind the tall cedar hedge. The plot was enclosed on all sides with only a narrow entrance.
Whoever had built it had wanted to keep it private.
“Who did this?” asked Katy, as we stepped through the hedge and peeked through the open double doors.
Inside the greenhouse were peonies, coral bells, and rosebushes laid out in rows, in the midst of a last bloom in this artificially warmed habitat. Behind the flowers was a neatly arranged vegetable patch.
An oasis in the middle of this dark and strange place.
This spot seemed more alive than anywhere else. Even the birds had congregated in this corner of the grounds and were chirping loudly in the trees nearby.
“A secret garden,” I whispered.
“Unbelievable,” said Katy.
I stepped in and leaned over to smell a red rose when I heard the gruff voice.
“Good afternoon.”
Katy let out a gasp.
A man with a shock of white hair stood in the middle of the glass house, several feet away from us.
How did I not see him?
Chapter Ten
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” said the man. “No one comes here anymore. It’s nice to get visitors.”
His legs were bowed, and his face was as wrinkled as the security guard’s up front, but he seemed to have the energy of a much younger man.
He was in a denim jacket and pants, and was wearing black knee guards. In his right hand was a muddy trowel.
“But….” He stopped, suddenly unsure of himself. “You’re not students.”
“Asha Kade,” I said, stepping up to him. “We’re doing some research work for the principal.”
He gave me a hesitant shake with his calloused hand.
“Sam Wilson. Head gardener.” He paused for a second. “Well, the only gardener, since my pa passed away.”
Katy introduced herself. “Do you work and live at the school?”
Sam nodded.
“Have you been here long?”
“Ever since I can remember. My father came to work here after my mother passed away. I was just a young’un back then, but I grew up here, helping with the yard and garden.”
“Your roses are gorgeous,” said Katy, gesturing at the flowerbed.
Sam smiled back, relaxing. But there was a silent sadness in his eyes.
“There’s not much I can do any more. My knees crack and my joints are getting brittle. But this place is like heaven on earth for me.”
“Sounds like you’ve got yourself your dream job,” I said, thankful he was opening up to us, a pleasant change from Martha’s overbearing presence and Nick’s shifty one.
“On those days my arthritis plays up, I wish I could sit by my rose bushes and read Asimov all day.”
“What a great idea,” said Katy. “Hire somebody else to do the hard work and take some time off.”
Sam scratched his head and glanced
at the building looming behind us.
He lowered his voice, though there was no one in the vicinity.
“She’d never allow that.”
“Who?” I asked.
He looked down at the trowel in his hands and shook the mud off.
The principal wasn’t the nicest boss in the world, but according to her, she had her “charity cases.” Was Sam one of them? He sounded like he wanted out and it was the headmistress who was preventing him for taking leave.
Something didn’t add up.
“I don’t ask for much,” said Sam. “As long as I get room and board, I’m happy.”
“It’s a big estate. Hundreds of acres of land, isn’t it?” I said, trying to turn the conversation in the direction of Brianna.
“This used to be a farmstead many years ago,” he replied. “There are still a few rickety cabins at the boundary, the ones they let stand. Everyone’s forgotten about them.” He smiled a sad smile. “Soon, I’ll be gone and they’ll forget about me too.”
“Nonsense,” said Katy. “Look at your roses and lilies. I don’t think anyone will forget you.”
“Guess this is my small legacy,” said Sam, his smile widening, making the corners of his eyes wrinkle again.
“Must be a lot of work to take care of the entire grounds by yourself,” said Katy.
Sam rubbed his forehead and sighed.
“To tell the truth, I’ve let the rest of the place go to Mother Nature. As long as I trim the brambles, mow the lawn, and keep this garden in good shape, the boss doesn’t complain. The woods take care of themselves.”
“Do you venture into the woods at all?” I asked, watching him closely.
“Used to explore when I was young, but haven’t seen much of it for years.”
“Sam, do the girls go into the forest to explore?”
“You won’t see them outside to save their lives. They’re either in their rooms or in their classes. Always in their little cliques, chattering and whatnot. No interest in nature at all.”
He squinted at Katy and me, his brow furrowed. Then, he scratched his head, like something was bothering him.
“What kind of work are you doing for Ms. May again?” he asked.
I took a deep breath in. If I wanted information, I had to give information.
Merciless Crimes: A Thrilling Closed Circle Mystery Series (Merciless Murder Mystery Thriller) Page 4