Amanda Stevens - Killer Investigation

Bolstering her resolve, she walked down the flagstone path toward the summerhouse. The garden had been neglected since her grandmother was no longer around to browbeat the yard crew. In six months of Charleston heat and humidity the beds and hedges had exploded. Through the untrimmed canopy of the magnolias, the summerhouse dome rose majestically, and to the left Arden could see the slanted glass roof of the greenhouse.

The rhythmic thud was coming from that direction. The greenhouse door had undoubtedly been left unsecured and was bumping in the breeze.

Before Arden lost her nerve, she changed course, veering away from the summerhouse and heading straight into the heart of the jungle. It was a warm, lovely night and the garden lights guided her along the pathway. She detected a hint of brine in the breeze. The scent took her back to all those nights when she’d shimmied down the trellis outside her bedroom window to meet Reid. Back to the innocent kisses in the summerhouse and to those not so innocent nights spent together at the beach. Then hurrying home before sunup. Lying in bed and smiling to herself as the light turned golden on her ceiling.

Despite the dark shadow that had loomed over the house since her mother’s murder, Arden had been happy at Berdeaux Place, thanks mostly to Reid. He’d given her a way out of the gloom, an escape from the despair that her grandmother had sunk more deeply into year after year. Evelyn Berdeaux Mayfair had never gotten over the death of her only daughter and sometimes Arden had wondered if her presence had been more of a curse than a blessing, a constant reminder of what she’d lost.

Her grandmother’s desolation had worn on Arden, but Reid had always been there to lift her up. He’d been her best friend, her confidant, and for a time she’d thought him the love her life. Everything had changed that last summer.

Too soon, Arden. Don’t go there.

There would be time enough later to reflect on what might have been.

But already wistfulness tugged. She paused on the flagstones and inhaled sharply, letting the perfume of the night lull her. A moth flitted past her cheek as loneliness descended. It had been a long time since she’d felt so unmoored. She blamed her longing on Reid’s unexpected visit. Seeing him again had stirred powerful memories.

Something darted through the trees and she whirled toward the movement. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t kept track of her surroundings, of the danger that had entered the garden.

She stood frozen, her senses on full alert as she tried to pinpoint the source of her unease. The thumping had stopped, and now it wasn’t so much a sound or a smell that alarmed her but a dreaded certainty that she was no longer alone.

Her heart started to pound in fear as she peered through the darkness. The reflection of the rising moon in the glass ceiling of the greenhouse cast a strange glow directly over the path where someone stood watching her.

In that moment of terror, Arden wanted nothing so much as to turn and run from the garden, to lock herself away in Berdeaux Place as her grandmother had done for decades. She could grow old in that house, withering away with each passing year, lonely and desolate yet safe from the outside world. Safe from the monster who had murdered her mother and would someday return for her.

She didn’t run, though. She braced her shoulders and clenched her fists even as she conjured an image of her own prone body on the walkway, with blood on the flagstones and a crimson magnolia petal adorning her cold lips.

“Arden?”

The voice was at once familiar and strangely unsettling, the accent unmistakably Charleston. A thrill rippled along her backbone. She had lots of videos from her childhood. Her mother had pronounced her name in that same dreamy drawl. Ah-den.

He moved out of the shadows and started down the path toward her. Arden stood her ground even as her heart continued to flail. The man was almost upon her before recognition finally clicked. “Uncle Calvin?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said in his elegant drawl.

“No, it’s okay. I just... I wasn’t expecting anyone to be out here.”

“Nor was I. You gave me quite the start, too, seeing you there in the moonlight. You look so much like your mother I thought for a moment I was seeing her ghost.”

For some reason, his observation sent another shiver down Arden’s spine.

As he continued toward her, she could pick out the familiar Mayfair features—the dimpled chin and piercing blue eyes melding seamlessly with the Berdeaux cheekbones and nose. Arden had the cheekbones and nose, but her hair wasn’t quite so golden and her complexion was far from porcelain. Her hazel eyes had come from her father, she’d long ago decided. A frivolous charmer who’d skipped town the moment he’d learned she was on the way, according to her grandmother. Still, the resemblance was undeniable.

“Ambrose told me a few days ago that you were coming, but somehow it slipped my mind,” her uncle said. “I’m so used to letting myself in through the garden gate I never even thought to stop by the house first.” He came to a halt on the path, keeping distance between them as if he were worried he might startle her away. “I hope I didn’t frighten you too badly.”

“It’s not you.” She let out a breath as she cast a glance into the shadows. “It’s this place. After all these years, the garden still unnerves me.”

“I’m not surprised.” His hair looked nearly white in the fragile light as he thrust it back from his forehead. He was tall, slender and somehow stylish even in his casual attire. In her younger years, Arden had thought her uncle quite dashing with his sophisticated demeanor and mysterious ways. She had always wanted to know him better, but his remoteness had helped foster his mystique. “Even after all these years, the ghosts linger,” he murmured.

“You feel it, too,” Arden said with a shudder.

“No matter the time of day or year.” He paused with a wan smile. “You were so young when it happened. I’m surprised you still feel it so strongly.”

“It’s not something you ever get over.”

“No, I suppose not. I was away at the time. Father and I had had a falling out so I didn’t find out until after the funeral. Maybe that’s why the impact only hit me later. I’m sorry I wasn’t around to at least offer some comfort.”

“I had Grandmother.”

“Yes. I remember hearing how she clung to you at the funeral. You were her strength.”

“And she, mine, although I don’t remember much about that day. It passed in a haze.”

“Probably for the best.” He gave her another sad smile. “So here you are. Back after all these years.”

“Yes.”

“It’s been a long time. Everyone had begun to think that we’d lost you for good.”

Arden wondered whom he included in that “everyone.” Not her grandfather, surely. Clement Mayfair had never shown anything but a cursory concern for her welfare. “I’ve returned periodically for visits. I spent almost every Christmas with Grandmother.”

“And now you’ve come home to any empty house and me looking like something the cat dragged in. I apologize for my appearance,” he said as he held up his gloved hands. “I’ve been working in the greenhouse.”

He looked nothing short of pristine. “At this hour?” Arden asked in surprise.

“Maybe you’d like to see what I’ve been up to. That is, if you don’t mind the general disrepair. The greenhouse is in rather a dismal state so mind your step.”

“What have you been working on?”

His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “You’ll see.”

He turned and she fell into step behind him on the flagstone pathway, following his graceful gait through borders of silvery artemisia and pale pink dianthus. She felt safe enough in the company of her uncle. She didn’t know him well, but he’d always been kind. Still, she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder. She couldn’t help remembering that her mother had been murdered on an evening such as this.