The Precipice (8 page)

“We have no concrete evidence that this is anything other than a teenager who has run away from her parents for a while. Amelia will never go for closing down the—”

“It’s not her choice!” The other man insisted. His voice was loud and demanding. “We have a very serious situation and could be losing vital evidence or allowing key witnesses or even the perpetrators the opportunity to walk away, Scot free.”

Elizabeth was starting to feel uncomfortable eavesdropping on their conversation. If they could see her, she would look rather guilty. She was starting to shift her focus from keeping her balance, crouched behind the tree, to what they were saying. Her left foot, which was further down the hill than the other, started to slide. Her body weight must have been balanced predominantly on that foot because her whole body started to slide down the steep hill toward the water. The trunk slipped from her grasp and she felt her whole body heading downward. She could hear the surf crashing against the rocks below. Panic set in. The edge of this part of the cliff wasn’t very far away, but she didn’t know exactly how far. Desperately she snatched at low branches as she tried to stop herself from sliding further. The first branch pulled right off the tree. The second slipped from her hand, but slowed her down a bit. The third branch was the charm. She felt her whole body jolt to a stop. She quickly grabbed the trunk of the tree and held her breath. She wondered how much noise had she made slipping down the side of the hill. Had they noticed? She listened. The air was silent. She couldn’t see their faces to tell if they were just pausing in their conversation or listening for her. She prayed it wasn’t the latter. She would have a hard time explaining herself if they found her. She slowly exhaled and glanced down the hill, beyond her left foot. Her eyes grew wide. She was mere inches away from an abrupt drop off. She was on the edge of the cliff. She stifled another gasp. Her head suddenly felt dizzy. This was where the trail took a right turn and zigzagged the rest of the way down the cliff. They would have been investigating another situation at the inn if she had kept going over the edge. Elizabeth decided to put that out of her head and concentrate on holding on and keeping quiet. She listened for what seemed to be a very long time, longing to hear their voices again. Hopefully, they thought she was just a squirrel. She listened. Finally the voices came back to life again.

“Lieutenant Perkins, look. We don’t know that it’s a serious situation. It could just be –”

“Not a serious situation! Check with the girl’s parents and see what they think! It most certainly is. The evidence we’ve collected so far certainly indicates it is and speaking of checking, I’d like to check with Mitchell and see what he’s been up to.”

The voices started to trail off so the chief must have caught his breath while he was getting yelled at and they started heading back up to the top of the hill again. The squelch from a two-way radio confirmed they were further up the path.

Poor Nana. She will absolutely flip. This will be terrible for business. And Kurt. What did the Lieutenant mean by that? Do they suspect him? If he really is a suspect, what would his motive be? And are others in danger? And what evidence…what have they collected?

Elizabeth waited several minutes to make sure the men were really gone. She wondered what her next move was going to be. She didn’t know where to start.
Were they investigating a murder or a disappearance? Or two disappearances; the girl and Girard. Are they connected?
As she was struggling with these questions she started to slowly make her way out of the woods, carefully placing each step on the hill so she wouldn’t slip again. Finally, she emerged from the pines, relieved that the body sliding was over. She looked up the hill to see someone coming down the path through the trees. The chief? The state trooper? It was too late to dive back into the woods so she stayed put and tried to think of something intelligent to say. Whoever was coming was going to wonder
what she was doing there and why they hadn’t seen her on their way up the path?
In a rash decision, she decided, instead, to continue down the cliff. Chances are she could get down to the bottom faster than whoever was behind her and buy herself more time before she came face to face with him or them. Being out in the open at the bottom of the trail was a safer place to be than cornered in the woods on a trail that was treacherous to descend.

Elizabeth quickly negotiated her way down the steep decline, grabbing protruding pine boughs as she went, skillfully stepping around exposed roots. Footsteps thudded behind her. She felt her pace quickening which made her descent that much more challenging. If she remembered correctly, there were two more hairpin turns in the trail before she was safely at the bottom. She was curious who was behind her but was afraid to sneak a look. Finally she couldn’t resist. She took her eyes off her feet, and where she was placing them, long enough to turn her head and look. Just as she did, she felt her right foot catch on a root or a rock so her head spun back around in time to see herself diving head first toward the trunk of an evergreen. She instinctively put her hands out to break her fall. She landed with a thud on her chest and stomach, knocking the wind out of her, her forehead making contact with the base of the tree trunk. The impact stunned her for a moment. Then she realized the person behind her was approaching. Gasping for air, she tried to scramble to her feet, but was a bit dazed. A firm hand grabbed her from behind.

“Lizzi, are you alright?” Elizabeth’s relief in hearing a familiar voice was palpable. “What happened? You look terrible. Are you all right? I’m so glad I found you! I should have looked at the lighthouse first. That’s where your grandmother suggested but it’s such a long walk down—”

“Shelle, I’ve got my cell phone. Try that next time.” Elizabeth was still trying to catch her breath. She was sure she looked quite awful. She had just cleaned off a five foot section of the path with the front of her clothes. Rashelle helped her sit up. Her cell phone. Had she remembered to put it on silent? Could that have given her away in the woods if it had rung?
She decided that she really needed to get better at being in stealth mode or she wasn’t going to find out anything. Worse yet, she could put herself in danger.

“What were you doing?”

“Oh, just poking around.” She brushed off her clothes and Rashelle started to pull pine needles out of Elizabeth’s hair. “Listen; let’s head back up the hill.” She was struggling to get to her feet. “I overheard part of a conversation. I need to let Nana know Chief Austin is going to start making things miserable for everyone—”

“Starting! He has already put the inn in lockdown. No one in or out. He is determined to get to the bottom of this mess.”

“Wow, he moves quickly. He must have radioed ahead on his way up the hill.”
Great. Vera is never going to believe this!

“Yeah. Basically everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise.”

“What? A suspect? For what crime?” She wondered what the diver could have found.

“Poor Amelia. She’s not taking this well.”

Elizabeth grabbed Rashelle firmly at the shoulders with both hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “You and I are going to find out what is going on!”

Rashelle looked bewildered. “W-we are?” she stammered.

Elizabeth released her grip. “We have to!” She turned away from her and started heading to the top. Rashelle quickly fell in behind her. “My grandmother is on the verge of giving up the inn which has been in our family for…for Lord knows how many years. But several generations anyway. And just because some aggressive attorney is harassing her. Do we know anything about this guy?” She turned to look at Rashelle behind her to make sure she was getting her point. She could feel her voice getting louder. Rashelle opened her mouth to answer, but Elizabeth pressed on. “A female guest is missing and everyone fears the worst at this point. This inn is in lockdown—not good for business! On top of it all, the chief is way out of his league here. He’s never had any experience with missing persons, extortion, or worse. He wasn’t around when that student disappeared years ago, but that was never really resolved and a shadow has hung over the place ever since. We don’t need another scandal.” The pace of her words was quickening with each sentence. She stopped on a turn to catch her breath.

Silence hung in the air as they both pondered the situation. Elizabeth wondered how loudly she had been speaking and if the woods around them had ears. She nervously glanced around them in a three hundred sixty degree swath. One thing she knew for sure, they needed to rally behind Amelia.

They continued up the hill in silence until they reached the bluff. Elizabeth nearly walked right past the bluff in her determination to get to the top as quickly as possible. Suddenly, she realized she had to make a little detour. “Oh! I almost forgot. I left my drawing supplies and chair behind a tree.”

Rashelle gave her a look of confusion.

“Oh, don’t give it another thought. I just needed to travel lightly. It will just take a second.” She stepped into the trees heading for her belongings. “I put them right here behind this…” Her voice trailed off as she walked a few feet into the woods as she had done earlier. She looked from tree to tree and she didn’t find her things. “They were right here,” a tone of panic rising in her voice.
Where could they be?
She retraced her steps from the bluff back to the trees. She was sure of the area. She had played there as a child. She kept looking, certain she was not mistaken. Even if they had fallen over, she should still be able to see them. The underbrush was not thick here. She walked in a circle around the area where she thought she had left them. Rashelle searched the fringes of what Elizabeth was covering. Elizabeth started crisscrossing the small area above the bluff. She was becoming very anxious. Her drawings… They were gone She had nothing to fax to her boss. Vera was definitely not going to be happy about this.
She turned to Rashelle with a look of shock and disbelief. “They’re gone.” Her words were barely audible. She was absolutely devastated.

“Where could they have disappeared? Do you think the Chief would have picked them up and kept them thinking they might be evidence?”

“Oh, why would he do that?!” She was completely exasperated. “Let’s go see.”

Rashelle and Elizabeth reached the top of the trail winded. Elizabeth was looking worse for the wear, but resolute. They walked out into the clearing toward the inn and things looked amiss. Three police cars lined the circular drive. Then it dawned on her.

“Shelle, my car is gone!”

Chapter 9

T
here was quite a commotion going on between state troopers milling about and their squawking radios. Reinforcements had been called in. It was beginning to look like they were being occupied by a foreign police state. Elizabeth searched frantically for her friendly local chief. She finally found him in a sea of navy blue shirts with navy blue wide brimmed state trooper hats. She got as close as she could to the chief and rose up onto her tiptoes.

“Excuse me, Chief Austin…..” He didn’t hear her with the din around him so she reached in and grabbed his forearm and repeated more loudly, “Chief Austin!” He spun around quickly to face her, pulling his arm out of her firm grasp.

“Yes!” a bit short tempered. The chief was starting to wear the stress from the situation on his shirtsleeve. “Oh, Miss Pennington.” He tried to lighten up his tone.

“Do you know where my car is?” She was trying to keep her voice from sounding desperate.

“Well, you may want to speak with Lt. Perkins of the Maine State Police. From what I understand, they had reasonable suspicion to search the car and upon inspection, ordered it impounded and towed to the evidence collection center at the Portland barracks.”

“WHAT!? THEY TOWED MY CAR?” Several officers’ heads turned toward her raised voice. She lowered her volume a couple of notches. “What could they have possibly found that they thought was suspicious?”
What did I leave in it? Did someone put something in it?

“And Elizabeth…,” he leaned over and put his hand firmly on her left shoulder like a father reprimanding his delinquent daughter, “I wouldn’t be making any plans to go anywhere in the near future. I’m sure the lieutenant will want to have a little chat with you.”

The chief removed his hand from her shoulder but held his gaze for effect, then he was quickly swallowed by the sea of state police as the troopers jockeyed for position to hear instructions from Lieutenant Perkins. Elizabeth took a step back to avoid being bumped by the entourage. She couldn’t believe it. They took her little Z4. How was she going to get back to the city? She spun around to reconnect with Rashelle. Then she remembered her portfolio and turned back. “Hey, Chief, did they take my portfolio, too?” She doubted that he had heard the complete question. He looked in her direction from inside the crowd with a look on his face like he was wondering if someone had spoken to him. He was quickly brought back to the task at hand by a man in blue. They had a lot of questions for him. If Elizabeth could have seen through the crowd to the edge of the woods, she might have noticed Kurt lurking just out of sight, keeping his eye on the activity. In particular, he had his eye on her.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. Everything was happening too quickly and was making her feel like she was getting sucked in by the whirlpool of activity. Her head was spinning. She wanted to be in control again. She turned back away from the crowd to search for Rashelle who was right where Elizabeth had left her. Her good friend was standing off to the left side of the driveway with her arms folded and a look of trepidation on her face. Their little Camelot known as The Pennington Point Inn was in a veritable state of turmoil.
Where was a knight in shining armor when you needed him?...or her?

Rashelle looked at Elizabeth for direction. “I have
got
to get back that portfolio. I don’t know who has it but my job, my career, depend on it. My boss is going to be on my back to get design ideas to her. I already got an earful this morning.” Her voice was starting to quiver and Rashelle could tell her friend was starting to lose it. The best thing she could do was to keep her moving. They needed to be productive.

“One step at a time,” she advised. Extending her arm around her friend’s shoulder, she guided her toward the inn. It was time to find Amelia and check in with her. Elizabeth and Rashelle headed up the front steps to the inn and were greeted by Tony on the porch. He wore a furrowed brow and stood at the top of the stairs with his hands on his hips, the cool sea breeze tossing his wavy brown hair about his head.

“Tony, this whole thing is unbelievable!” She was relieved to have someone else to commiserate with.

“Oui, incroyable
!,” he agreed, with his French Canadian background showing through.

“What’s going on?” she pressed. It’s always good to get a fresh perspective on a particularly stressful situation.

“What’s going on? I’ll tell you. I stand here and wait while the police are trying to decide if it’s okay for me to go ahead with the clambake on the beach. The majority of the food is prepared and the guests are going to start complaining any minute.”

“Where is my grandmother?”

“Amelia was not feeling so well so she went upstairs to lie down for a while.”

Elizabeth suppressed a gasp and asked softly, “Is she alright?”

“She’s fine, Lizzi. She was just overtired. I think this whole thing is starting to get to her.”

Elizabeth knew her grandmother was having a hard time dealing with this, which made her very concerned about her
. Dear Lord, please allow me to help her through this difficult time with her health intact.

Rashelle knew they needed to act quickly and any time spent chit-chatting was not going to help their cause. She grabbed Lizzi’s arm again and directed her toward the front door.

Elizabeth bid Tony adieu and followed Rashelle through the inn’s door like a sheep in tow. The tennis instructor watched them from a distance as they disappeared into the inn.

Once inside, Rashelle turned to Elizabeth with her usual spunk and enthusiasm. “I’ve got some more info on the missing girl.” She led Elizabeth through the lobby to the door leading to the front desk. No one was at the desk. Elizabeth casually wondered if that was where her friend was supposed to be. Once behind the desk, Rashelle closed the door behind them and began speaking in hushed tones. “I was at the front desk earlier when the chief came into the lobby with a state trooper and the parents of the girl. They didn’t notice me because I was seated at the computer down below the counter, updating some reservations that had just come in. Well, anyway, they said that this girl is fourteen years old, is about five feet, six inches tall, dirty blond hair, usually pulled back into a pony tail. She was last seen about 3:00 on Thursday afternoon when she headed out to get some fresh air. She wearing a pink t-shirt and jeans, with a light purple, zippered GAP sweatshirt—like the one they found at the lighthouse today.

She let her last comment hang in the air for a moment. Elizabeth considered all the info, and then asked, “Did the parents confirm it was their daughter’s?”

“Yes.”

“To get some fresh air…,” Elizabeth repeated. “Is that another way of saying they were having words and she needed her space?” Rashelle looked at her expectantly, looking for an explanation. “You know, it’s tough to be fourteen. It’s even tougher to be fourteen and on a weekend away with your parents. What were they thinking? This was supposed to be a last fling before she went back to school. For who? Did they really think—what is her name?”

“Uh, Kelsey…Kelsey Hutchins.”

“Did they really think this would be fun for her?”

“Supposedly.”

“Did anyone hear them arguing?”

“There was no one in the room next to them. They requested the end room in the Acadia building, the one closest to the woods.”

“Where are they from and when did they check in?”

“Let’s see. I remember I was on duty when they checked in. It was Thursday, around noon. They had arrived before check-in time. I wasn’t sure that their room was ready so I sent Marion from Housekeeping to check.”

“What did the Hutchins do while Marion was gone?”

“Mr. Hutchins—Bill—just did a lot of pacing in the lobby and his wife, Sara, wandered into the sitting room and sat down to wait.”

“What about their daughter?”

“Kelsey? Well, I never really saw her. She must have been outside or still in the car.”

“So, you wouldn’t know what she looks like if you saw her?”

“No.”

“Did Bill and Sara at least have a picture to show the police?”

“I don’t believe so. I know they apologized for not being more helpful.”

“So, just the three of them registered at the inn.”

“Right.”

“They didn’t have any other children?”

“…not that I know of. I guess I don’t really know...”

“How old would you say the parents are?”

Rashelle looked a little surprised by this question. “Well, I would say around the mid to late thirties.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah, they seemed kind of young.”

“Elizabeth shook her head slightly and pressed on, “How long were they staying?”

“They were to check out on Sunday morning...tomorrow. Although, they asked if it would be possible to stay longer, if necessary.”

“Really?”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. It just seems odd. It’s Labor Day Weekend. Wasn’t this the last weekend before their daughter started school? Wouldn’t they know how long they could stay when they arrived? Who knows what it means, if anything.”

Silence occupied the small space behind the front desk for a moment. Elizabeth continued, “Wait a minute. You didn’t tell me where they were from.”

“Oh! Let me just double check.” Rashelle leaned over the ergonomically correct chair parked in front of the computer monitor. Her long slender fingers danced skillfully across the keys until she accessed the screen she needed. “West Hartford, Connecticut.” 

“And how did he pay for the room?”

“Well, usually we just have the guests give us a credit card number up front and we settle up when they check out. He insisted on paying in cash up front.”

“Cash.”

“Yup.”

“Who does that?!”

Rashelle assumed that was a rhetorical question so she let it go. Elizabeth continued, “Okay, so one theory may be that she went out for a walk and got lost in unfamiliar woods and darkness fell before she could find her way back.”

“But the woods have been searched and they found nothing.”

“It doesn’t mean there isn’t anything yet to find.” The friends exchanged looks of understanding. “Another theory is that she went for a walk on the beach and went too far beyond the beach break water and the tide came in. It got dark before she could make her way back. She fell asleep and missed the first low tide so now she’s waiting for the next low tide. Or perhaps she simply left; she’d had enough of the ‘rents and wanted out. She wanted to do something for the last few days of her summer freedom. She may show up tomorrow morning in time to go home. Won’t she be surprised to find such a large welcoming party waiting to greet her?”

“Yeah!” The friends shared a chuckle. Rashelle got serious again. “She could also have gone down to the lighthouse and gotten too close to the water. She wasn’t with her parents when I passed along the standard warning that we give to all of our guests about rogue waves.”

Elizabeth realized she had to consider that as a possibility as well. It wasn’t just the possibility of getting swept off the rocks; the temperature of the ocean in Maine, even in the summer, made it impossible to survive in the water for any length of time.

“I know the diver didn’t find anything—”

“You do?”

“Yeah, but like you say, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything to find.”

“True…I don’t know if the current would take away a body from there or wash it back up on shore.”

The voice from behind them took them by surprise. “It would carry it away and no one would ever see it again.”

The girls whipped around. “Nana! I didn’t know you…What are you doing here?” Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice how tired she looked. The dark circles under her eyes told of trials and tribulations that had spanned a lifetime. The latest may well be the last for her grandmother. She needed to help her get through this.

Then Elizabeth remembered what Amelia had said when she had interrupted their brainstorming session. “It would wash it away? H-how do you know?” She asked with trepidation.

“Oh, Lizzi, it happened a very long time ago, but unfortunately it did happen.” Her grandmother sounded exhausted, spent physically and emotionally. “Different circumstances, but perhaps the same result. Someday I’ll tell you about it.”

“Amelia, do you think that’s what happened this time?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Anything is possible. She could have gone too far down the beach and around the stone outcroppings where the tide comes in and cuts off the passage back.” Elizabeth glanced at Rashelle. They had already covered that possibility. “For all we know she could have found her way into the tunnels and is lost down there somewhere.”

“The tunnels!” Elizabeth shuddered to herself. Her voice was not much more than a whisper. “I thought they had been all sealed off years ago.”

“Well, they were. But every once in a while one of the staff catches a kid nosing around one of the old entrances and shoos them away. A couple of weeks ago, Kurt mentioned he found two brothers trying to open the back door on the tennis shack. That door leads to the tunnel that goes between the main inn and Acadia House. Acadia was one of two buildings used as dormitories back when Pennington was a school. The other dormitory burned down and was never rebuilt. So the tunnel leads out from the inn and forks part way out, one tine of the fork ends up under the guest rooms in Acadia and the other eventually arrives at an abrupt dead end. Moosehead Lodge was built years later, not far from the footprint of the other dorm, after the main building was operating as an inn. Acadia was converted to guest rooms first and then Moosehead was built further behind it after some of the woods were cleared.”

The girls were listening intently. Amelia always seemed to have something she could teach them about this old inn, yet never seemed to reveal the whole story.

“Well, I just came back down to find my reading glasses.” She glanced at the desk behind the girls that held the computer. “Oh! There they are. I really should tie them around my neck so I won’t lose them all of the time.” Reaching past the girls, she chuckled to herself. Stepping back to face them, she offered a simple explanation, “I just need to lie down and rest for a while. I find if I read first, it relaxes me. I’ll see you girls later.”

They watched her go back through the door. She closed it behind her. The friends turned and looked at each other. It was as if Amelia had tried to steer them in a direction to look.

“Okay. Lizzi. We’ve got to check out those tunnels.”

“Shelle, you don’t know what it’s like down there.”

“You heard your grandmother. She practically spelled it out for us.”