The Kill (21 page)

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It is if you’re fixing to nail a fence board back up, and Charles insists on hooking his nail gun up to a generator when you could just pound a couple of nails with a good old-fashioned hammer in the blink of an eye.”

Abigale smiled. “I get the picture.”

“Charles isn’t so hard to stomach, I guess. He just doesn’t know any other way than throwing his money around—never mind that the ink’s still wet on it. But I wouldn’t turn my back on Tiffanie for an instant.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s a social climber of the highest order. I often wonder if there’s anything she wouldn’t do to be accepted in the right circles. From what I’ve seen, she knows no limits. No wonder Charles strays from time to time.”

“What has she done?”

“Well, for example, she wanted to enroll her daughter in preschool: she has a three-year-old, cute as a button, but spoiled rotten. Anyway, the class was full, so her little Brooke was placed on the waiting list.” Margaret cackled. “You’d have thought the President’s daughter had been denied admittance to the Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn. Tiffanie called everyone, trying to figure out a way to pull strings and get Brooke enrolled in the class.”

“Did anyone help?”

“Nope.” Margaret’s tone was smug. “She hit a brick wall. But that didn’t stop her. Tiffanie figured if she couldn’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, she’d bring the mountain to Mohammed. She got Charles to pony up the money for a full-time teacher’s assistant so the school could accept more students to the class.”

“Did the school agree?”

“How could they not? It benefited all the kids.”

“Oh, my.”

“Anyway, we’ve wasted enough time talking about the Jenners. You’ll meet them soon enough and you can form your own opinion. I’d better stop bending your ear and let you get on the road. It’s already raining something awful and there are storms in the forecast.”

Abigale tilted her head toward the window and heard the soft melody of rain pinging against the glass. A perfect night to curl up by the fire with her glass of wine and a good book.

“I think I might stay here tonight, Margaret.”

There was a long silence. “You don’t have any of your belongings.”

“That’s okay. I always carry essentials in my bag. I’ll be fine for tonight, and I can pack up the rest of my things tomorrow.”

“The rest of your things? You mean you don’t intend to stay here at all?”

Abigale hadn’t realized until the words were out of her mouth that she really wanted to stay at Dartmoor Glebe. And not just for one night. “I’m not sure, Margaret. It just feels right for me to stay here. I feel closer to Uncle Richard.”

“I can understand that. You do whatever makes you feel best. I just worry about you being in that big house all alone.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Um-hmm. Make sure the doors are bolted. When I got there today the front door was unlocked.”

What was this all about? Abigale had never known Margaret to lock anything. “Has Middleburg changed that much over the years?” she asked. “As I recall, you used to leave your car running when you went into the post office to get your mail.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Margaret replied. “But whoever shot Richard rifled through his wallet and could have gotten his address from his driver’s license. It stands to reason he might try his luck at burglarizing the house.”

Abigale glanced at the darkened hall and felt a tiny shiver run up her back. The house suddenly felt less cozy, but not enough to make her change her mind. “Okay. I’ll check the locks. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“All right. And just so you know, Thompson lives in the gatehouse at the front of the property and Michael lives in the tenant house back by the kennels. Either one of them could be there in a flash if you have a problem. Let me give you their phone numbers.”

Abigale scribbled the numbers on a legal pad. “Thanks, Margaret. Good night.”

“Good night, dear.”

Just as Abigale was about to hang the earpiece on the base, she heard Margaret’s voice.

“Wait! Abigale?”

“Yes?” she said, raising the earpiece.

“There’s a gun in the drawer of Richard’s nightstand. Just in case.”

A
bigale jerked awake, her heart pounding. It took her several seconds to shake off the fog of sleep and remember where she was. She realized she must have had a bad dream, though she remembered nothing of it, just felt a drumbeat hammering inside her chest.

The digits on the Disney clock beside the bed glowed red in the dark room: 11:23. She had kicked the covers off in her sleep and chilly air pricked goose bumps on her arms. Abigale grabbed the blanket and puffy comforter, pulled them back up to her chin, and turned onto her stomach, greedy for sleep.

A throaty growl of thunder rolled in the distance, and the wind whistled across the gutters as it pelted rain against the windows. She snuggled into the cocoon of the mattress, lazily cognizant that the rumblings outside her window were claps of thunder rather than explosions and small-arms fire, night sounds all too commonplace in Afghanistan.

A muffled thump from downstairs joined the cacophony of sounds, almost like a cabinet door banging closed. She wiggled deeper under the covers. Probably a loose shutter blowing in the wind. She’d mention it to someone tomorrow.

Bang
. There it was again, tugging at her consciousness. Abigale squeezed her eyes shut, fought to ignore it.
Bang-bang
. A double thump, louder this time. She envisioned a shutter crashing against a window pane and felt a twinge of guilt for lying there, all nestled down in the bed. Uncle Richard would never have disregarded the threat of damage to Dartmoor Glebe. She could almost hear him, as she had summer after summer, cautioning the window-washing crew that the original glass panes were irreplaceable.

Abigale sighed and smothered a yawn. Flinging off the covers, she shrugged into the robe she’d dropped on the foot of the bed. Lightning flashed, making dark objects seem to jump out at her, and she fumbled for the light switch by the door.

Light from the bedroom spilled into the hall, giving her some guidance as she felt her way down the long passageway toward the stairs. A shiver shimmied down her back and she wrapped the robe tighter, yanking at the belt. Had the temperature really dropped that much, or did the howl of the wind add to the feel of chill in the air?

She switched on the lamp by the landing and headed down the stairs, flinching as another bang echoed from the darkness below. It sounded farther away than it had when she’d been upstairs, which meant the loose shutter was probably at the far end of the house, beneath her bedroom. That was her luck, wasn’t it? No way it could have been a window closer to the door. She decided she’d check it from the inside first.

Her bare feet padded softly on the oriental carpet in the foyer as she cut through the darkness, and she felt a cold prickle flutter in her stomach. The lamp above bathed the ceiling with a dim glow, but the downstairs was black as pitch. If Margaret hadn’t voiced concerns about her staying there alone Abigale would probably have thought nothing of it, but Margaret’s words rang in her ears, unleashing her imagination.

“Shit.” She reached down and rubbed her shin where it had collided with the corner of the hutch.

Abigale groped unsuccessfully for a light switch, then gave up and let her hand trail along the wall, mindful not to dislodge a painting, as she felt her way toward the hall. Her feet touched the cool oak-planked flooring and she rounded the corner, breathing a sigh when she saw the glow of light coming from the study. She thought she’d turned the lights off before she went to bed, but she’d nodded off in the study reading
A Portion for Foxes
and had been so groggy when she decided to go upstairs that she must have forgotten the lamp. Thank God for that.

Halfway down the hall, she froze. The last bang sounded as though it came from
inside
the study. Abigale held her breath, straining to hear. Nothing but a far-off grumble of thunder. Had she imagined it?

She crept forward, then jerked back. What was that? A low rumble, but not thunder. Not outside. More like something rolling and thudding to a stop.
In the study
.

The hair on the back of Abigale’s neck pricked to attention. Was someone in the house? She threw a quick glance into the dark abyss behind her and flattened herself against the wall, eyes glued on the study door.

Abigale craned her head toward the study, straining to hear over the war-drum beat of her pulse pounding in her ears. She forced deep breaths and felt her heart slow, slam less violently against her chest.

No more sounds from the study. Just the faint whistle of wind. Rain pelting against the windowpanes. “Get a grip, Abigale,” she muttered. This wasn’t a war zone. Bad guys weren’t lurking around every corner.

Smiling at her foolishness, she padded forward, the dark hall once again swaddling her with familiarity. Almost as if her uncle was beside her. In fact, given that she was now fully awake, after she fastened the shutter she might pour another glass of wine and ride out the storm in the study.

Abigale was about to enter the study when a shadow danced across the wall of bookcases to her left.
What the hell was that?
She drew back, her knuckles white where she gripped the door molding. There! It moved again. The shape was indistinct, but it was large, rising up along the shelves of books and mushrooming against the ceiling. It moved slowly, looming across the room. Then, the raspy sound of someone clearing his throat.

Fear trickled icy fingers down Abigale’s spine. Margaret’s warning rang in her ears:
The murderer took Richard’s wallet and knows his address
.

She pressed her shoulders to the wall and slowly crept away, her wet palms fumbling behind her for guidance. Carefully, she slid one foot sideways across the other, never taking her eyes off the study. She heard the thump of wood against wood, followed by what sounded like a stack of papers smacking down.

Abigale inched her way back twenty feet or so, then stopped and listened. From that vantage point she could no longer see the interior walls of the study, couldn’t monitor the shadowy movements.

Should she make a dash for the car? The keys were hanging by the back door. But her cell phone battery was dead, the charger in her duffle back at Margaret’s. She wouldn’t be able to call for help from the car. She remembered Margaret telling her that Michael and Thompson lived nearby, but if she drove to get one of them, the intruder—
her uncle’s murderer?
—might get away. She wasn’t willing to risk that. No. She’d call from here.

Her eyes darted to her left, spotting the dim outline of the winding staircase. The phone in the kitchen was closest, but she preferred to put more distance between her and the intruder before calling for help. Casting one final look in the direction of the study she turned and fled, cringing as the sound of her slapping footsteps seemed to thunder through the silence.

A
bigale flew across the foyer and sailed up the stairs, eating up two steps at a time. She barely slowed as she flung open the door to her uncle’s bedroom. The light from the hall streamed a path halfway to the bed, beyond which she saw only inky darkness. Stumbling beyond the light to the bed, her hands slid along the mattress until her fingers hit the edge of the nightstand. She searched blindly for a light, grasping the cold metal feet of a lamp base. Her hands ran up along the thick crystal column, searching for a switch at the neck of the lamp. Nothing.
It must be on the cord
.

She felt her way back down the lamp and located the cord that emerged at the back of the base, slid her shaky hand along the rubbery cord to the in-line switch, and flicked it with her thumb and forefinger. The switch slid through her fingers and Abigale jerked her hand back, swiped her sweaty palm against the bedspread, then groped for the cord again.

The instant her knuckles scraped against the cut crystal, Abigale realized she’d aimed too high, shoved too hard. Both hands flailed in the dark, stretching for the falling lamp as it crashed to the floor. The clatter seemed deafening in the stillness of the bedroom, but was it loud enough to be heard downstairs? Abigale’s heart pounded against her chest. She held her breath, listening.