Only when the breeze hit her was she able to catch her breath. The rain whipped against her face, but the pain in her gut was almost too much to bear.
The murderer had been in that room. She was certain. She had heard the murderer’s voice. And recognized it. But how? How could she possibly recognize something she had never heard before?
Chapter 39
He found her hidden in a crevice between the roots of the banyan tree. Jeremy had walked past twice, not noticing her behind the curtain of rain that streamed down as from a broken gutter. Even as he stared directly at her, she seemed to blend in with the tree in her dark, hooded sweatshirt.
He darted through the sheet of rain and pushed into the nook beside her. Elise’s arms were crossed tightly in front of her chest and the cascading rainwater made a pattern on her face.
“Hey, Ellie,” he said softly. There was barely enough room for the two of them and his suit pants and shirt were soaked through. “Can I take you home?”
She shook her head.
“What about Grandpa’s house?”
“N-no.” Her lower lip was trembling. He had been back at PCM’s offices with Robbie when he’d received her call. She was hiding in the park, Elise had said, sounding terrified.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Jeremy asked now.
“I’m so scared.”
“I know, Ellie.” He slipped his arm around her. Her entire body was shaking. “You’re all wet. Let’s at least get you some dry clothes, or sit in my car.”
“No. Not yet.” She burrowed her face against his neck. He could
smell the baby shampoo she still used to wash her hair. “The, the murderer. I’m not safe.”
“You are safe. The murderer has no reason to hurt you.”
“He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“I-I heard his voice.”
Jeremy’s stomach dropped. “What are you saying? You heard his voice? When?”
“On the yacht. I was there with Carlos. And we heard voices above us. And one of them— when I heard it, I thought I was going to pass out. It was the murderer.”
“But, Ellie. You never saw the murderer or heard him speak.”
“I know it was his voice,” she said. “I know it.”
“Okay, I believe you.” He needed to keep her from becoming hysterical. He’d calm her down, then get her some dry clothes. “You heard voices. Then what happened?”
“Then they came down below. They were very angry when they saw us.”
“Who? Who saw you?”
“Carlos’s parents and Mom’s partners— Irv and Bud.”
“The four of them were on the yacht?”
She nodded against his chest.
“Which one sounded like the murderer?”
She shook her head. “I-I don’t know. They sounded different when they came down below.”
“What exactly did you hear that made you think it was the murderer?”
“I don’t know exactly what it’s called. Do you remember Daddy used to say every voice is like a musical instrument with its own special sound?”
“But had you ever heard the murderer speak before?”
“I don’t know.” She started to cry. “This is so frustrating.”
“I know it is, Ellie.”
“I-I hear the voice in my nightmares.”
“The murderer’s voice?”
She wiped her nose. “And it was the same as the one I heard on the yacht.”
How could this be? Was his sister psychic or was this a repressed memory? “Tell me again what happened that night— the night you came home.”
“I hate trying to remember.”
“Just this one time.”
She was quiet for a moment, then made a soft squeaking sound. She was sucking on the end of her braid. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I got to the house with Carlos, and it was late and I thought Mom was going to be mad. And the door, it just opened. And I remember thinking Mom and Dad had gone out looking for me and left the door unlocked. But something was wrong. It was dark and the house smelled funny. And Carlos said maybe we should leave.”
“And did you leave?”
“Carlos said, ‘Come on, Elise. Let’s get out of here.’ He pulled on my arm.”
“Why was he pulling? Didn’t you want to go with him?”
Her closed eyelids fluttered ever so slightly. “There was a shadow.”
“In your nightmares, you see a shadow.”
“Not in my nightmare.” She opened her eyes. “That night I saw a shadow in the foyer.” Her fingers gripped Jeremy’s wrist. “A large, dark shadow. It was perfectly still, but I knew it was wrong. It didn’t belong in our house. I took a step toward it. It still didn’t move. But I could hear it. I could hear it breathing.”
Jeremy was holding his own breath. “What about Carlos?”
“I don’t know. I guess he left.”
“Go on. Go on, Ellie.”
Elise trembled against him. “I smelled something weird. And I thought, there’s someone in our house. But I couldn’t move. I just stared and stared at the shadow. And then I could see it wasn’t a shadow, but his face was all dark. No nose, no mouth, no hair, just eyes. Bug eyes, like goggles. And he was staring at me. And I wanted to scream, but nothing came out.”
Jeremy’s pulse was racing. “He must have been wearing a ski mask and night goggles.”
“And then he said something.”
“Jesus. What? What did he say?”
She closed her eyes again. “It was hard to understand, like the voice I heard on the yacht.”
“He was probably covering his mouth. That’s why it sounded garbled.”
“Covering his mouth.”
“What happened next?”
She shook her head.
“Did he touch you?”
She seemed to be studying the dripping rainwater. “I-I don’t think so.”
“Then what? Do you remember him leaving?”
She started to cry. “I don’t know. Stop asking me. I can’t remember anything else.”
“Okay, Ellie.” Jeremy hugged her tightly. “I’ll take you to Grandpa’s.”
They drove in silence most of the way. He had made Elise take off her wet sweatshirt and wrapped her in a blanket his mother had kept in the trunk of her car.
Elise seemed hypnotized by the windshield wipers. She had seen the killer. No wonder she had been freaked out being back in the
house. And all those nights he’d left her alone. Well, that wouldn’t happen anymore.
“You did really well remembering all that stuff,” Jeremy said. “I think it will help the nightmares go away.”
Elise kept staring at the wipers, her head gently rocking from side to side.
“I know you’re worried that the murderer’s coming back for you, but he has no reason to think you recognized his voice.”
“He…he thinks I figured it out,” Elise said very quietly.
“Figured what out?”
“The papers. He saw me looking at the papers.”
“What are you talking about?”
“On the yacht, Carlos found these files. And I wondered why they’d been hidden, so I started going through them.”
“You found files?”
“Accounting stuff, like Mom used to work on. But nothing made sense to me. And then they all came down to the cabin and started yelling at us.”
“You mean the Castillos and Mom’s partners? They saw you going through the papers?”
She nodded. “And I got this feeling there was something important in them. Something I wasn’t supposed to see.”
“They might just be Enrique’s personal files. They don’t necessarily have anything to do with what happened to Mom and Dad.”
“But you weren’t there. You didn’t see them. How they looked at me.” She started to cry again. “Don’t you understand, Jeremy? The murderer was in that cabin with me.”
“It’s okay.” He reached for her hand. “I believe you. You don’t have to be frightened.”
She rested her head against the side window and stared again at the windshield wipers.
Chapter 40
Jeremy believed she was being paranoid, but as soon as he’d gotten his sister settled at his grandfather’s house, he called Judy Lieber on his cell phone.
“What’s up?” Lieber asked.
“I want to make you aware of some recent developments,” Jeremy said, hoping he wouldn’t come across like the boy who cried wolf. It had been only a few days since he’d spoken to her at the park. At the time, he had been certain that the murderer had targeted his father and that Marina was only interested in helping him.
“I’ve been wondering about all those leads on who was out to get your father,” Lieber said.
He couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic. It didn’t matter. He stood in the corner of the living room pulling on the venetian blind strings. He could hear his grandfather in the kitchen, clanking pots, running water. “My sister may have seen the murderer that night.”
There was a long pause. “I’m listening,” Lieber said.
“I think she’s been blocking it out, but tonight she remembered something.”
“That can happen. What does she remember?”
“When Elise and Carlos got to the house that night, they went inside.”
“Carlos Castillo said they could tell something was wrong— the house smelled funny— and they ran out.”
“Not they,” Jeremy said. “Just Carlos. Elise thought she saw something in the foyer; she was paralyzed with fear.”
“So Carlos left her?” Lieber said. “That’s not his story.”
“Maybe he was ashamed of leaving her behind.”
There was silence. “Where are you now?” Lieber said finally. “Where’s your sister?”
“We’re both at my grandfather’s house.”
“Good. I’ll be there in a half hour. I need to talk to her.”
“Wait. Please. Elise is very upset. Something happened tonight and she’s spooked. Can you talk to her in the morning?”
“What happened?”
“She was on the Castillos’ yacht with Carlos. She found some papers, which she believes may be connected to our parents’ murders.”
“What kind of papers?”
“Accounting reports. She couldn’t figure out what they meant, but they’d been hidden.”
“Jeremy.” There was a tinge of impatience in Lieber’s voice. “Many people keep personal papers hidden on their private property. Why does Elise think they have anything to do with your parents? Were their names on them?”
“No. Nothing like that. It’s just, Mr. and Mrs. Castillo, Bud Mc-Nally, and Irv Luria surprised her while she was going through the papers. They seemed very angry.”
“Well, wouldn’t they be?”
How foolish Jeremy must sound to her. “But she heard their voices,” he said. “When they got on the yacht, she recognized the murderer’s voice.”
“Back up,” Lieber said. “Had the murderer spoken to her at the scene of the crime?”
“She says he had.”
“And what did he say?”
“She doesn’t remember. His voice was muffled.”
“So she saw the murderer and he spoke to her.”
“That’s right. And from what she described, I’m guessing he wore a ski mask and maybe night goggles, so he could see in the dark. And now she’s afraid he believes she recognized him on the yacht. That he wants to hurt her.”
Lieber was silent. In the background he could hear phones ringing, people talking. Was she still at her office? “Then who is it?” she said finally. “Who’s the murderer?”
“Well, it’s one of them. Mr. or Mrs. Castillo, McNally, or Luria. She’s positive. She recognized the voice, but she couldn’t tell whose it was.”
He was pretty sure he heard Lieber sigh. “Jeremy,” she said. “This may not be my business, but has your sister been getting enough psychological support— from you, your grandfather, her friends? Is it possible she’s just very lonely?”
“That’s not it.”
“She’s only sixteen. She’s experienced a tremendous shock. She really should be speaking to a professional— someone who can help her sort this out.”
“She found suspicious files on the Castillos’ yacht.”
“We don’t know that they have anything to do with your parents.”
“Well, can’t you get a warrant to search the yacht and look at them?”
“Do you honestly believe if someone saw Elise going through papers that might connect them to the murders they’d leave them lying around for the police?”
“You’re right,” Jeremy said. “The papers are probably gone.”
Elise came into the living room. Her hair was wrapped in a towel and she wore an old bathrobe that used to belong to their mother. Her face was flushed as though she’d taken a hot bath or
shower and the blue-green bruise on her face was more vivid than ever. “Who’s that?” she whispered.
He covered his cell phone with his hand. “Detective Lieber. She wants to talk to you.”
“Oh Jeremy.” Elise’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to have to do it again.”
Lieber was talking into his ear. “Tell her I’ll come by tomorrow morning. Early. Before school.”
“She’ll come by in the morning,” Jeremy told his sister. Then into the phone in a low voice so his grandfather couldn’t hear him in the next room. “But what about the threat to my sister? What if she’s right about the murderer? That he believes she can identify him?”
“I’ll send someone over to watch your grandfather’s house tonight.”
“Thank you,” Jeremy said.
“Make sure she stays in.”
“Right. I don’t think we have to worry about that,” he said, but she’d already hung up.
Lieber had made him feel foolish. True, Elise’s story didn’t quite make sense. To someone who didn’t know her, she sounded like a hysterical child seeking attention. But Jeremy knew his sister never made up stories or embellished.
His grandfather came into the living room carrying a tray with cups, a steaming teapot, a couple of packages of cupcakes and a jar of honey. His arms were trembling under the strain.
“Let me help you with that, Grandpa.” Jeremy took the tray and set it down on the coffee table.
“Tea and honey,” his grandfather said, sitting down next to Elise on the sofa. “Your grandmother used to say it’s the best remedy in the world. A panacea for whatever ails you.” He poured the tea into the three cups. He hadn’t asked what had happened tonight— why Elise
had been sopping wet and so upset. That had always been his way. Just to be there for them.
Jeremy went to his grandfather’s desk. He found a pen and an old-fashioned columnar pad that this grandfather used long after electronic spreadsheets had been invented. He put the pad down on the coffee table near Elise. She was holding the hot cup in her hands, inhaling the heat.