Кей Хупер - Chill Of Fear

The cop eyed them both as they sat side by side on the sofa across from his chair. "You two look pretty chipper, considering a very long night with no sleep."

"Lots of coffee," Diana said.

Nate grunted. "I've had gallons, and I'm still beat. And you'd never know it's Saturday, from all the stuff I'm supposed to be dealing with. Since the Kincaid woman confessed to you that she killed Ellie — the cell phone records show, by the way, that Ellie called an out-of-state number we've traced to a guest who stayed here a couple of months ago, and the doc confirms she was pregnant, so — What was I saying?"

"Since she confessed," Quentin prompted.

"Oh. Yeah. Since she confessed, that pretty well solves the murder. That spelunker team you told me about is coming to check out the caves, but it'll probably be next week before they get here. In the meantime, the forensic anthropological team arrives first thing in the morning, and I'm keeping someone posted in the tack room twenty-four/seven for the duration. The team will also take a look at the skeleton we found in the garden, though the DNA analysis confirms the remains of Jeremy Grant. Thanks for pushing that through so fast, by the way."

"No problem," Quentin said. "Somebody owed me a favor."

"Must have been a doozy. In the state labs, it can take months to get DNA results."

Without responding to that, Quentin merely said, "Has the boy's mother been notified?"

"Yeah. Closure for her."

"Sometimes," Quentin said, "that's what we need before we can put something behind us. And look ahead rather than back."

"The end of an obsession?" Nate asked curiously.

"You could say that."

Stephanie, coming into the lounge just then, said, "I still can't believe my housekeeper was a murderess. Except that part of me can believe it, which is creepy." She, also, looked rather bright-eyed for a night without sleep.

"Think of her as sick," Diana suggested. "Very, very sick."

"Lizzie Borden sick, yeah." Stephanie shivered. "I want to hire a new housekeeper. Soon."

Quentin looked at her. "One who won't write down secrets of the guests?"

"Exactly. Because I'm pretty sure she did. All on her own, though, not because she was paid to."

"That list you showed us of the managers who were paid to record all the secrets they knew of here — it ended with the manager who was here about five years ago?"

She nodded. "Neither of the two managers prior to me was on that list. And neither am I, obviously. I didn't even know about it until I found it. And I wouldn't have recognized it for something suspicious if I hadn't been looking for just that. At first glance, it was just a list of bonuses paid to Management. Nothing unusual, on the face of it. It wasn't until I dug into separate salary records that I could be sure the bonuses were way out of line. Plus, I found the first of the account ledgers to cross-check, and so far at least a couple of those so-called bonuses were paid in cash and off the books."

"I'd call that suspicious," Nate said.

"And I wonder why it ended five years ago," Quentin said. "Stephanie, any idea who was keeping the list?"

She nodded promptly. "If I had to guess — and I do — it was probably Douglas Wallace. I think he instigated the so-called organization of the records in the basement just about five years ago, probably just because he's an anal neat freak. But then he found the sort of stuff he really didn't want to find, and started compiling that list.

"I double-checked some dates, and about the time Doug was going through old records in the basement, the last descendant of one of the original owners had just died."

Nate guessed, "You're saying the secret-keeping died with him?"

"Well, the official secret-keeping. And it makes sense. What probably started out as a pretty ruthless way to get some leverage when necessary back in the old days of robber barons just gradually became a practice nobody questioned and, finally, like a lot of old traditions, became unnecessary."

"We haven't found any recent dates," Diana noted. "Though, like you, I'm willing to bet we'll find a journal among Mrs. Kincaid's belongings. I'll bet she was keeper of the secrets in recent years."

"Maybe she didn't want to see the old tradition die," Stephanie offered. "She was like that, pretty much."

Diana didn't argue, since she had no way of knowing whether the housekeeper's own spirit had been capable of that or if it had been the controlling influence of Samuel Barton.

Stephanie shook her head. "I wonder if this place can ever be anything approaching normal."

"Maybe it can," Diana said. "Now."

"We'll see. Look, I don't know about you guys, but the mundane truth is that I'm starving, and the cook does a wonderful brunch. How about a little good food to balance all that coffee?"

Nate got to his feet promptly. "You don't have to ask me twice."

As Diana and Quentin also rose, Stephanie said to them, "If anybody's interested, I think we'll be able to lay quite a few sins at the doors of The Lodge and the people who owned and ran this place over the years. Do you know, I found in one file a newspaper clipping about a man and his family who'd been killed in a car crash between here and Leisure about ten years ago. The article strongly implied that he'd been depressed and suicidal. And in the very same file was a notation from, I assume, the manager here at the time that a waiter had been fired sometime afterward for making up stories for reporters. The manager had also added another note that the surviving family members should be notified of the false newspaper article. But it was never done."

"How do you know?" Quentin asked.

"No copy of the letter in the file. And that particular manager seems to have been extremely meticulous about copying everything."

"You," Nate informed her, "have too much time on your hands." He took one of them and led her, laughing, from the room.

Quentin was about to follow suit when the little girl they'd seen several times came into the lounge from the connecting library, carrying her dog.

Gravely, she said, "Bobby needs to know that."

"Needs to know what?" Diana asked.

"That Daddy wasn't trying to kill us." She held her dog, rubbing her chin absently in his silky fur. "See, my little brother Bobby wasn't with us. He'd been sick, so he stayed with Grandma while we came here. And when we left, well, it was raining. And foggy. And Daddy wasn't used to mountain roads. That was why."

Quentin was conscious only of shock, but this was clearly a familiar thing for Diana, who simply nodded and said, "We'll make sure Bobby knows the truth. What was your name?"

"Madison. And this is Angelo. He was with us that night. He goes everywhere with me. Everywhere."

"You can both go now," Diana said gently. "And be with your parents."

Madison sighed. "I thought they were here, you know. But... I was always good at imagining things. I guess I imagined them here. I miss them, though. Angelo and me, we're ready to go now. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Madison."

While they watched, the little girl carried her dog toward the doorway, fading into nothingness before reaching the hallway beyond.

"Jesus," Quentin said.

Diana looked up at him, smiling a little. "Everything we went through last night, and you're shaken by one little girl and her dog?"

"Well...I've been seeing her. Clear as day." He frowned suddenly. "Since the morning we met."

"Guess Missy was right. We connected."

After a moment, Quentin reached for her hand and held it firmly. "I guess we did. How do you feel about that?"

"Hopeful."

"You'll go back to Virginia with me?"

"Well, I've got to meet Bishop."

"Diana."

Her smile widened. "I'll make you a deal. You help me convince my father that despite the secrets he kept for my own good, I'm a sane and rational woman, and — we'll go from there. Deal?"