The Kill (46 page)

“Well, you won’t find him here. James hasn’t worked here for a couple of months.”

Abigale stared at the number in the phone directory. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. You a friend of his?”

“Yes. Sort of.”

“Then pass on a message when you talk to him. Tell him Donald says he has one more week to settle his tab. He’ll know what I mean.”

The doubts about Thompson that had been nagging Abigale since she’d viewed the photo of him entering Dartmoor Glebe mushroomed into full-blown alarm. She’d heard Thompson make comments several times since she’d been there about how busy he was at work. Did he have a new job and the hunt directory just hadn’t been updated? No. The night she’d met Thompson, he’d told her he worked at Knightly & Knightly. She remembered that clearly. Not that he used to work there; he’d said he was a partner. But according to the man on the phone, Thompson hadn’t worked there in months. So Thompson had lied. She thought back to their encounter when he’d come into the house to look through her uncle’s files. In the middle of the night. At the time, she’d written it off. Pegged Thompson as a workaholic. Was that it? Or was he doing something underhanded with the files?

Abigale pictured Manning, slumped over the computer trying to make sense of the hunt bank account. He’d found something in the numbers that bothered him. Something he planned to ask Thompson about. She wished she had paid more attention to his concerns, but she was so caught up in her own meeting with Dario that she’d barely given it any thought. And now, something was wrong with Manning. Something that went beyond his normal moodiness. Beyond his drinking. She could feel it. Did it have something to do with the meeting with Thompson? Had something happened at the meeting with Thompson that had caused Manning and Margaret to go on this mysterious trip to Pennsylvania?

Damn it!
She jumped out of the chair and grabbed her cell phone. To hell with waiting for the furnace repairman. Duchess followed her to the mudroom, wagging her tail expectantly as Abigale shrugged into her raincoat.

“Come on, girl,” Abigale said. “We’re going to Dartmoor Glebe.”

T
hompson yanked the Luger out of Margaret’s mouth and let her slump to the floor. “What a good son you are, Manning. I know how hard it must have been for you to lie to your precious Abigale. I could tell you wavered once or twice, but even in your drunken state you knew I’d pull the trigger on Margaret, didn’t you?”

He powered down Manning’s cell phone. “I think that was nice, though, the way you said goodbye to Abigale. And how you reminisced about riding back in a storm to retrieve her hunt horn. I’m sure she’ll carry that memory with her for a long time.”

Manning didn’t bother to reply. Thompson had made a mistake showing him the picture Abigale had sent in her text message. Of course, Thompson didn’t know that the trail near Goose Creek was where he’d found the hunt horn.
But Abigale did
. And when she discovered that something had happened to them, maybe she’d figure out he’d been trying to tell her to look for them by Goose Creek.

“Of course, Abigale will also remember the way you slurred your words,” Thompson continued. “The sad fact that you were drunk. Poor girl, she’ll probably blame herself for not doing more to prevent you from driving home. But then, that was the point of the call, wasn’t it? We want to make sure they know right off the bat that you were intoxicated, so some deputy doesn’t get a hair up his ass and conduct too thorough an investigation when they find your car in Goose Creek.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you, Thompson?” Manning muttered.

“I have. In fact, why don’t you drink to that?” Thompson shoved the bottle in Manning’s mouth. “Bottoms up.”

He waited until Manning stopped sputtering and had caught his breath, then plastered a fresh strip of duct tape across his mouth. “Be careful not to puke now. If you asphyxiate yourself, you’ll ruin all my plans.”

Thompson tossed the roll of duct tape on the developing table and crouched down next to Margaret. “It’s showtime,” he said, slicing the duct tape that bound Margaret’s feet.

Manning let his head drop to his knees. He tried to fight the fog that coddled his brain, but numbness sucked him toward oblivion. He was vaguely aware of Thompson hauling his mother to her feet and shoving her toward the door. Then darkness engulfed the room and he let it swallow him up.

A
bigale pulled around to the back of the house—
her
house—and parked as close as she could get to the mudroom door. Wind whipped rain in her face as she opened the driver’s door. She quickly slammed it, then tugged the back passenger door. “Come on, Duchess!”

Duchess trotted ahead to the house while Abigale scurried gingerly across the wet leaves on the stone walkway. Abigale fumbled to insert the key in the lock and the Lab nudged between her legs and the door, thumping her tail impatiently. “I know, just give me a second,” Abigale murmured.

The lock turned and Abigale stumbled over Duchess as they both tumbled into the mudroom. She shoved the door closed and flicked on the light switch. Looking down at her jeans, she saw that they were drenched. Just from the short jaunt to the door. She bent down and plucked a crimson maple leaf off the sole of her boot. She shucked off her rain jacket and tossed it over an empty hook.

The house was gloomy and had a musty, unlived-in smell. There was still an hour or so until nightfall, but the darkened skies seemed to ooze into the house, dimming every crevice. Abigale switched on lights as she headed toward her uncle’s study. She checked the front door just to make sure it was locked, that she hadn’t misread the blurry photo and erroneously assumed Thompson had a key in his hand. She even reached out and jiggled the dead bolt to satisfy herself it was fully engaged.

Faint traces of footprints crossed the oak flooring leading from the oriental carpet down the hall toward the study, as if confirming that was where Manning’s and Margaret’s meeting with Thompson took place. She switched on her uncle’s desk lamp and glanced around the room. Duchess sniffed the love seat and looked at Abigale with a pleading wag of the tail. “Sure, go ahead,” she said.

The Lab leapt onto the cushion and circled around for a comfortable spot. Abigale eyed her uncle’s desk and bookshelves, not really sure what she was looking for. Nothing seemed out of place. The file drawers were all closed. No papers were strewn around. Abigale’s hopes melted to disappointment. What had she expected? A note, telling her what had happened? Evidence of some kind of scuffle? It was ridiculous when she thought about it, to blame Thompson for Manning leaving town, for his drinking. Thompson had likely been dishonest about some things—maybe even cooked the books—but Manning’s troubles went beyond that. And the answer didn’t lie here.

She thumbed the switch on the desk lamp. “Let’s go, Duchess.”

Duchess plodded along at Abigale’s side, her tail drooping forlornly as if she sensed Abigale’s mood. But when Abigale switched off the foyer light and crossed the kitchen toward the back door, the Lab held back.

“Come on, girl.”

The dog just stared at her from the hallway.

“Duchess, come on.”

Duchess skulked toward her, stopping halfway across the kitchen.

“What’s the matter, girl?” Abigale walked over to the dog. “What is it?”

The Lab barked and bounded back to the hall. Abigale followed her and found her prancing in front of the basement door. What was she all wound up about? She bent down to pet the dog, then froze—Duchess’s paws danced impatiently amidst a blur of human shoe prints. She whirled around, following the prints with her eyes. How had she missed the parade of shoe prints leading back and forth from the basement door to the mudroom?

Abigale squatted down. The prints had a thick tread mark, like those from work boots or muckers. They were fairly large, possibly from a woman with big feet but more likely from a man. She peered closer and saw the smattering of paw prints. A shiver shot up her spine. Duchess’s paws should be dry by now. She reached down and smeared a fingertip through one of the fresher-looking shoe prints. It was still wet.

“Good girl,” Abigale murmured, throwing an arm around the dog. Duchess let out a shrill bark and nudged the door with her nose. “No,” Abigale whispered. “Shhh, take it easy now.”

She jumped to her feet, her heart pounding in her ears. Should she go down there? A voice in her head screamed for her to call 9-1-1. She glanced at the bottom of the door. No light shined through the strip. Whoever belonged to the shoe prints had to be gone. But someone had been down there.
Recently
. She eased the door open and peered down the steps into blackness.

Duchess stood statue-still and cocked her head, listening. Abigale brushed her fingertips across the dog’s silky ear. “Do you hear anything, girl?” Duchess looked up at her and whined.

Abigale sucked in a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go,” she said softly. She tugged on the cord that hung from the wall, bathing the stairwell in light. Slowly, she lowered her foot to the first step. Duchess leapt past her, toenails skittering across the cement stairs. “Easy,” Abigale called in a loud whisper. “Wait!”

Duchess skidded to a stop and stared up at her. Abigale’s boots tapped quietly as she hurried down the stairs. The stairwell bulb flooded a path of light a few feet from the base of the stairs. Beyond that was inky darkness. She remembered being down there as a kid: she and Manning used to play “rock, paper, scissors” to settle who would dash into the blackness and pull the next light cord. She doubted Manning was truly afraid of the dark, but she was. And, sometimes, he would wait until she was swallowed by the shadows and then let out an evil shriek. She always knew he might do it—and she swore that she wouldn’t react—but no matter how much she steeled herself for it, she invariably jumped and screamed.

Abigale pushed into the dark, wishing Manning was with her now. Duchess pressed against her leg as they inched forward. Abigale’s arms stuck straight out in front of her, blindly feeling for the dangling cord. Her fingertips brushed it but batted it away. Damn it. She groped the air and finally wrapped her hand around it.

She squinted against the sudden light, orienting herself. The basement was as she remembered it. The long center room was empty, except for a pile of outdoor furniture stacked along one wall. Her uncle’s workshop was at the far end. Her eyes stopped at a door in the shadows next to the workshop. That was new since she’d last been down there. She looked down at the cement floor. The shoe prints were less noticeable than on the floor upstairs, but she saw a faint trail leading through the dim light toward the unfamiliar door.

“Come on, girl,” Abigale murmured to Duchess. Every nerve in her body seemed on fire as she neared the door. She balled her hands into fists to stop the trembling. The door fit snugly against the frame and had a metal threshold across the bottom. No way to tell if a light was on inside. A dark bulb was mounted above the door frame, reminding Abigale of a signal outside a darkroom. She grasped the handle, half-expecting it to be locked, but the knob turned easily in her hand. Abigale pushed gently and the door swung open.

Muted light spilled onto a cement floor and the stale scent of booze tickled her nostrils, reminding her of a fraternity house on a Sunday morning. Was this some kind of liquor cellar? She groaned. Of course. Uncle Richard used to store the alcohol for hunt events down here. He must have decided to build a special room for it.

Relief and disappointment collided and Abigale slumped against the door jamb. Now the shoe prints made perfect sense. Smitty or someone else had probably been restocking unused boxes of liquor from the races. Or Uncle Richard’s memorial service.

Abigale heard Duchess whine inside the room and she groped along the interior wall for a light switch. Her fingers fumbled across a small picture frame, knocking it off kilter. She slipped her hand higher, frowning as it bumped another frame. Why would Uncle Richard hang pictures on the wall of a storage room? She stepped into the room and squinted at the wall, catching the outline of a switch-plate cover. She flicked on the switch, then blinked rapidly as she stared at a wall of her framed photographs.