by Wendy Tyson
“Yes, but can we find some decent flashlights?”
“In Dominic’s workshop. By the kitchen.”
Allison followed her host downstairs, past the grand ballroom where the guests were gathered, and into Dominic’s spacious workspace at the back of the castle. Elle started opening and closing cabinets. Finally she found a flashlight, which she handed to Allison.
“Take some extra batteries too. And a flashlight for Vaughn.”
“Do you know how to start the generator?”
“No. Dominic will.” Elle shot off a text. “I’m almost out of battery.” She glanced at Allison. “Let’s go. We can split up—”
“No way. We stay together.”
Elle nodded. “Fine. Inside first.”
Elle wanted to look outside? Allison listened as the storm droned on. She wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.
“I need to tell Vaughn,” Allison said. “He can help us.”
Elle agreed. “He’s on the way anyhow.”
Only Vaughn wasn’t in the ballroom. A sad group surrounded a sad buffet table: a very sodden Jeremy, a sulking Lara, and a pensive Mazy. No Vaughn. And no Douglas.
“We don’t have time to look for your friend too,” Elle said. “Please. Text him and let’s find Hilda and my father. Then I promise we can find Vaughn and talk some more. I just need to find my father. I feel like I’ve failed him.”
Allison nodded. She felt like they’d all failed him. The longer he was missing, the more suspicious his disappearance became. Allison headed back toward the bowels of the castle with Elle. If Sam Norton was here, his daughter was determined to find him. While they walked, Allison tried the number she had for Balzan. The inspector didn’t answer—not that she could speak to him even if he had. Where were his men?
With its vast rooms, stone floors, and secret alcoves, the castle was eerie at night. It felt especially sinister in a blackout during a storm with a murderer running loose.
“Do we have something we can use as a weapon?” Allison asked.
“The flashlights.”
One was plastic and cheap, the other metal and heavy. She supposed the metal one would do in a pinch. They walked along the spine of the castle, shining their lights into each room. No Hilda or Sam. No Karina or Dominic. And no Douglas.
In the north wing, holed up in his rooms, they found Vaughn.
He jumped when they entered. “What are you two doing here?”
Allison explained while Elle stood impatiently, shifting from one foot to another. “All that’s left is the basement rooms.”
“The dungeon,” Elle said. “We call it the dungeon.”
Vaughn and Allison exchanged a look. “Great. I suppose you want me to accompany you into the dungeon?”
“No,” Allison said, as Elle exclaimed, “Would be nice.”
“I’ll go. Just let me finish up here.”
“What are you doing?”
“Internet’s out. I’m using my phone as a hot spot so I can get the reports Jamie’s sending.” He tapped on his keyboard, then opened a file. “Here we go. Take a look.”
Before him were three pictures. One was a much younger Hilda in a graduation gown. The second was of a school girl standing in front of a flag pole, the Austrian flag waving against a blue sky behind her. The third was Allison.
“Why am I there?”
“As a control.” Vaughn squinted at the screen. “Hilda’s image matches a woman named Hilda Pachul.” He glanced at Elle. “Is that the same name your Hilda provided?”
Elle nodded. “I don’t see the purpose of this. We’re wasting time.”
Vaughn held up a hand. “And I think we can all agree that the graduation picture is of your nurse?”
Both Elle and Allison stared at the picture. There was no denying Hilda’s red hair and crooked smile. They said “yes” in unison.
“And this one. Does it look like your assistant, Elle?”
Elle crouched low. She shined the lantern on the computer screen. “A much younger version of Karina, but yes.”
“How about this one?”
This one was more clearly Karina. The woman in the picture wore a long, plain black dress and a wide-brimmed hat. Her eyes were shadowed by the short veil attached to the brim of her hat, but her face, contorted in pain though it was, was visible.
“Yes, yes, that’s Karina. Can we please go?”
“Just a few more minutes. Please. How about this one?”
The final photo was of an older Karina. Her eyes looked darker, haunted, but she had the fresh-scrubbed good looks of a natural athlete. Her hair was plaited and twisted around her skull. She wore a dirndl. One arm looped through the elbow of a dark-haired man.
Elle gasped. The man was Elle’s half-brother, Michael.
Vaughn read something on the screen. “Karina came up as—” he got closer to the screen
“—Allison, let me borrow your readers.”
Allison handed him her glasses.
“That’s what I thought it said. Look here. Jamie pulled two names for her. Nina Kalter and Johanna Varendorff.” He fixed his stare on Elle. “Do either of those names ring a bell?”
Elle shook her head. “Karina is her name. That’s the only one I was ever told. Michael did recommend her, so it makes sense that he may have known her.”
“Well, he would have known her as Nina, because that was the name associated with the picture that included both of them. In the other two images, she was identified as Johanna Varendoff.”
“I don’t get it.” Elle looked at Allison, questions in her eyes. “What is he saying?”
Allison said, “We couldn’t find any real virtual presence for Karina, which is why Vaughn’s brother used new facial recognition software by uploading a photograph Vaughn took while here. The software scans the internet, looking for a facial match. Jamie used the matches to associate the pictures with names. This is what came up.” Something clicked in Allison brain. “Can you say that name again? The Johanna one?”
“Johanna Varendoff.”
“I know that last name from somewhere. Yes, that book.” Allison opened her phone and retrieved the picture she’d taken of the book she’d seen clutched to Hilda’s chest. The one on Karina’s bedroom chair. “Here, look.”
The title was in German. The author’s name was Frederick Varendoff.
“Who is Frederick Varendoff?”
“I have no idea.” Allison did a quick Google search. As she absorbed what she was reading, she sat down on Vaughn’s chair, hard. “Listen to this. Frederick was a promising astrophysicist from Austria. He died in 2012. A single gunshot to the head.” She looked up. “Self-inflicted.”
“It says here that he had a theory about space and extraterrestrial life. He was convinced he had a method for determining if there was life in other galaxies. He received a sizable grant to research the concept. It became his life’s work.” Allison looked at Vaughn. “It never panned out.”
Elle read over her shoulder. “He was survived by his mother, Sophie, and his daughter, Johanna.” Elle grabbed Allison’s shoulder. She squeezed. “This means—”
“That Karina is likely Johanna Varendoff, daughter of Frederick Varendoff.” Vaughn finished Elle’s sentence. “Doesn’t explain why she changed her name. Or how she got here.”
Allison said, “Actually, I think it does.” She pulled the computer toward her. There wasn’t much battery left. They’d have to hurry. “Vaughn, do you have the public records? The ones that show which applicants actually received grants?”
“I do. Let’s see if we can get it to download.”
While they waited for the download to finish, Allison explained. “Frederick Varendoff received a grant to complete his research. What if that grant was from Pay It Forward? What if their money enabled his dream?”
“You said yourself that each board member could choose the projects they wanted to fund. And Mazy told me that Douglas’s father loved space research, especially extraterrestrials. What if Douglas approved the grant?”
Douglas who was now missing.
“Got it.” Vaughn did a word search of the name Varendoff. He found it on his first try. “Wow. Two hundred thousand in 2006. Another four hundred thousand dollars in 2008.”
“Over half a million dollars. Enough to allow a scientist to pursue a passion—even at the risk of losing his credibility, his family, his life” Allison stood. “The foundation gave Karina’s father money. They enabled his addiction to the search for extraterrestrial life. An addiction that ultimately resulted in his suicide. I think we found our motive.”
“But what about Michael?” Elle asked. “How did he fit in?”
Vaughn said, “The picture Jamie found was from 2014, the year Michael was appointed to the board. The year Karina was hired. If I had to guess, I’d say she sought him out, made a proposal. She’d help him get access to the family fortune that he deserved, but he needed to get her in the door.”
Allison nodded. “Only he got cold feet. Didn’t want to kill people. Or maybe he suddenly got a conscience. Or maybe he was just a loose end. So she killed him.”
“With one bullet to the brain.” Elle grabbed her hair, pulled. “That’s what Balzan told me. Michael was murdered with one bullet to the brain. Just like Frederick.”
A round of thunder broke through the ensuing silence.
“Hilda,” Elle said. “We need to find her. She must be in on it too.”
As they left Vaughn’s rooms, Allison paused. “When you took that pill on Wednesday, did Hilda give it to you directly?”
Elle stood there, thinking. “Come to think of it, she put it down. Placed it on a table for me.”
“So Karina could have replaced it?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Is it possible Karina could have been replacing other meds? Like your father’s? Maybe substituting his normal medications for something that would cause delusional behavior—on occasion?”
“I guess it’s possible. But wouldn’t Hilda figure that out?”
Yes, Allison thought. She would. And then she’d also be a problem. “Let’s go,” Allison said. “We’d better find them.”
Elle moaned. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”
THIRTY-FOUR
They decided to involve the others in the search. They had no choice. Balzan’s police had not surfaced, and nor had Dominic. If their theory was right, Karina was making a last stand—going after Sam and Douglas and tying up any more loose ends. She was counting on a clean escape. Karina had no real presence, after all. And no one knew her as Johanna—or so she thought.
Mazy took some convincing. Jeremy did too. He spent the whole time Allison was talking staring at Elle, both judge and jury when it came to Sam’s daughter. It wasn’t until Vaughn showed him the pictures and pointed out that Karina had been in Elle’s apartment earlier that day, doing Elle’s hair, that Jeremy acquiesced.
“Can you three look in the cottages?” Vaughn asked. “We’ll take the basement and Dominic’s woodsheds.” He didn’t mention the forest. No one wanted to go there, not at night. And not during a storm. “And there’s a forest fire. Let’s keep trying to get through to the authorities.”
Elle, Vaughn, and Allison started in the basement. The rooms underground did feel like dungeons, with dank stone corridors and cobwebs thick enough to be used as blankets. They walked hand-in-hand, their flashlights casting weak pools of light—no match for the shadows.
“People were killed down here,” Elle whispered. “It’s part of the family lore.”
“Not the best time for ghost stories,” Vaughn said.
Their feet echoed against the stones. The air, moist and laden with mold, made breathing difficult and Allison’s head throb worse. She pulled ahead, urging them on.
In the farthest recesses, in what was an old castle holding cell, they found Hilda. She was alone and tied to a chair, her head facing a blank wall.
When she heard them, her body tensed. She moaned through her gag.
“It’s okay,” Allison said. “We’re here to help.”
Her eyes welled when she saw their faces. They untied her.
Allison whispered, “Is Karina here? In this basement?”
Hilda shook her head. “She took Sam. But I don’t know where.”
“Is she planning to kill him, Hilda? Is she?” Elle started to shake the nurse and Allison stopped her. “Where is my father?”
Hilda just shook her head again. Her thin shoulders sagged. She had bruises along her arms. Allison figured she must have suspected something for some time. “Has Karina been threatening you?”
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just do my job. I like the girl. I like Mr. Norton.”
“You figured out she was giving him something else. Making his symptoms worse.”
“Baclofen. Restoril. She would use these drugs to make him feel unstable, seem crazy. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong, but then I realized she had switched Miss Elle’s Benadryl. She’s evil.”
Allison thought of the bruises on Shirin’s wrists. “Had Shirin figured that out too?”
Hilda nodded, eyes watering. “She caught Karina drugging Sam. She confronted her. They argued.”
And Shirin ended up dead.
“We need to find her,” Elle said. “Karina must be here somewhere.”
Vaughn sprinted out of the room and toward the stairs that led to the first floor. “What about the stable?” he said over his shoulder. “Did anyone check there?” When no one responded, Vaughn said, “Let’s go, then. We’ll head outside.”
The relentless rain continued to pour.
A terrified Hilda was scared to be alone, so they decided to split up. Elle and Hilda would check the woodshed. Allison and Vaughn, the stables.
They sprinted down the trail that led past the cottages, near the pool, and out toward the stables. The air was chilly, and smoke from the now-dampened fire hung low in the air, choking them and making them cough. Vaughn was faster than Allison, and she struggled to keep up.
“Hope your phone works,” he said. “And you know the equivalent of 911 here in Italy.”
I do, Allison thought. But a lot good it will do if I can’t speak Italian or German. She vowed to learn another language in addition to English. It was about time.
As they passed the pool, Vaughn slowed. “Do you see that?”
He squinted in the direction of the spa. Allison’s gaze followed. There was a light—very faint, but visible—coming from within.
Vaughn glanced back at her. He whispered, “Check it out?”
Allison nodded. Her phone beeped. She looked at it, shielding the light in case it could give them away. Jason, wanting to know if she was okay. She texted back, asking him to track down Balzan. “Tell him his men are missing,” she wrote. “Trouble in the castle spa. And a forest fire.”
She turned off the phone before he could respond.
Vaughn took her hand. “Come on.”
The spa’s front door was locked.
“I know another way in,” Allison said. “Around the side.”
She led Vaughn to a door by the spa’s laundry room. Only this one was also locked.
“Darn,” Allison said. She remembered their foray into Karina’s room earlier. “Do you still have the keys?”
“Oh, man, I completely forgot. I do.”
Vaughn fished them out of his pocket, then he started testing each key. The ninth one worked. Quietly, he opened the door. Immediately they could hear voices.
“I’m not a damn alien,
Sam,” Karina was saying. “I just made that up. Come on, snap out of it. I want you lucid when the bullet comes.”
“You don’t have the guts to shoot us,” another voice said. Allison recognized Douglas’s snivel. “This is becoming bloody ridiculous.”
“Yes, well, I am sorry if I can’t suitably entertain you the way my father’s struggles to prove that stupid theory entertained you over the years.”
There was momentary silence. Douglas said, “We gave him what he asked for.”
“You gave him money because it was amusing to you. You watched as his career deteriorated. As his wife left him. As he became a laughing stock in the world of academia he had loved so much.” Karina’s voice inched higher in pitch. “Still you gave him more. Even after he killed himself, you didn’t reach out to my family. You didn’t accept what you did.”
“We did nothing. He was an adult. He wanted the money, we provided it.” Douglas paused. “My wife did nothing. If this is some crazy vendetta against us, why kill Shirin?”
“She was an unfortunate accident, and she knew too much. I sent you a note from Lara, told you where to meet, but it was intercepted by Shirin. She was angry, went there presumably to confront your lover.” At the mention of the word “lover,” Douglas flinched. “Shirin was a casualty of your selfishness.”
“You bitch.” His tone changed from petulant to groveling. “Please. We can make it up to you. We didn’t mean for your father to get hurt—”
“I will no longer discuss this with you.”
Allison moved closer. She saw the flash of metal in Karina’s hand. She saw that hand go up. She saw Douglas’s mouth form an “o.”
Allison’s outstretched fingers counted down. Three, two, one. “Now,” she mouthed. Allison raised her flashlight. They moved forward.
Lightning flashed. Sam saw them. He screamed.
Karina turned. Allison and Vaughn rushed forward. Allison swung. The heavy metal of the flashlight connected with Karina’s shoulder, knocking Karina down. Karina still held the gun. She raised it again.