Mysteries of Holt House - A Mystery (30 page)

Mike arrived about an hour later. He
stomped back to my room and returned to the kitchen in a state of near
apoplexy. He was furious. After several statements I wouldn’t even try to
repeat, he turned to the group and waved his arms, taking them all in.

“I don’t want Kelly left alone for even
one second. Understand? Not even one second. One of us will be with her
constantly. She’ll be so sick of our faces that she’ll never want to see any of
us again. Does everyone understand?”

There was a general assent from our small
group in the form of mumbles and lots of nodding.

“Mike,” I said. “What about checking the passages
again? He’s becoming bolder, so maybe he’s being careless, too.”

“I know it’s got to be done, but
carefully,” he replied. “It’s obvious he’s close to breaking. We’ve got to
catch him before he can get to you. We’ll do it tomorrow while J.T. and Ted are
at work.”

“For tonight,” David added, “we’ll stay
close to you.”

I coughed a long, hacking cough.

“There you go. You’re still sick and you
need us by your side,” David said triumphantly. I guessed he thought he was
coming up with a new idea.

“Okay,” Josh said, “let’s all go our
separate ways and try to act natural, if that’s possible. He’s got to know
we’ve all seen the mirror. He’ll be waiting for us to react. I hope it doesn’t
set him off more when we don’t react the way he thinks we should.”

“I’m ready to react,” Mike said, clenching
his fist at his side.

Josh had more to say. “Also, I should be
getting more information about the patient from the mental hospital, hopefully
tomorrow. The police aren’t happy about how much information we’ve withheld
from them, but when I commented on how long it would take them to get out here
if anything happened, they relented a little. Not much, but a bit. It didn’t
hurt that I used to be a homicide detective.”

“I didn’t know you were with the Homicide
Division,” David said, sounding surprised. “Interesting.”

We all went our separate ways and tried to
act normal, just like Josh told us to do. We weren’t very good at it. Lucy and
Sharon stayed with me all evening, and I slept in Sharon’s room that night. I
didn’t want to go back to my own room.

J.T. and Ted had seemed perfectly normal
at dinner, which made me wonder if there really was someone else in the house
whom we weren’t aware of. Someone could certainly hide in the passages without
us knowing it.

Sharon and I arose early the next morning,
around five o’clock, and had coffee. Neither of us had slept well. No one else
was up yet, so I let Jem outside and we were able to enjoy some good
old-fashioned girl talk. Friend to friend stuff.

She talked about David and I talked about
Mike, but we kept reverting back to the elephant in the room – the killer. We
couldn’t come up with any solutions, no matter how hard we tried.

Sharon called work and told them she was
sick.

“I’m not leaving you alone,” she said.

I squeezed her hand across the table.

Chapter
Thirty-seven

Sharon and I began fixing breakfast around
six o’clock. Lucy put in an appearance at six-fifteen. I reminded her she was
taking the day off.

“Son-of-a-gun,” she said. “I almost
forgot. Too many things on my mind, I guess.” She looked as tired as I felt.

“Well, you go do whatever it is you have
to do, and we’ll call you for breakfast as soon as it’s ready,” Sharon said.

“You’re such good little girls,” Lucy
said, pinching Sharon’s cheek.

“Get outta here.” Sharon rubbed her cheek.

David wandered into the kitchen shortly
after Lucy disappeared. He helped Sharon and I carry the food out to the dining
room, and then he, Sharon and I sat down and ate together in the kitchen.

“You look tired, David. Although actually,
everyone seems to look tired this morning.” It had been a long night.

“Mike and Josh and I sat up talking most
of the night,” he explained.

“I don’t even want to hear what
conclusions you guys came to,” I said. I wanted to block everything out for a
while. Goodness, but that sand was getting deep. My head was just about
covered.

Jem scratched at the back door and I let
him in.

“Hungry?” He stared at me intently as
though wanting me to read his mind. I took that as a yes.

I filled his food and water bowls and
placed them in the laundry room, which is where I’d begun feeding him after the
weather had grown wet and cold.

Returning to the kitchen, I glanced out
the window. “It’s beginning to snow again.”

“So what’s new?” Sharon sighed. “I’ll go
call Lucy for breakfast.”

Sharon and Lucy returned to the kitchen
and sat down at the table. Jem finished his breakfast and I let him back
outside.

“Have you seen Josh?” Lucy picked up her
fork and began to eat scrambled eggs.

“Not recently,” I replied.

“Oh. We’re going into town for the day,”
she said. “Now how could I have forgotten it was my day off when I made plans
with Josh? They say the memory is the first thing to go. Oh, well, I can think
of worse things.” She glanced out the window and sighed. “It’s snowing again.”

Lucy finished her breakfast and we walked
out to the dining room together. Josh and Mike were just starting to eat, so we
sat down to keep them company.

“Kelly,” Mike said, “I’m going to run a
couple of errands this morning, but I’ll be back by noon. Will you be okay
while I’m gone, or do you want to go with me? Maybe you should come with me.”

“I’ll be fine,” I replied. “Sharon and
David will be here. Are you going to Serenity or Waverly?”

“Waverly. You
can
go with me you
know.”

“No, really, it’s fine. You go ahead and
I’ll see you around noon.”

J.T. strolled in, cheerful as ever, and
ate with Mike and Josh. Ted showed up a few minutes later and took a seat after
dishing up his breakfast.

“How are you this morning?” I asked him.

“Oh, just fine, thank you,” Ted replied.
“I see it’s snowing again.”

“It started a couple of hours ago.”

Lucy and I chatted while the men ate their
breakfast. Ted dripped some jelly on his shirt, muttered something
unintelligible to himself and seemed irritated.

“Excuse me. I’ll have to go change my
shirt. It would never do to appear at work in soiled clothing. Do you think it
will come out or do you think it will stain?” he asked me. He was dabbing at
his shirt, making the spot worse.

“I think I can get it out,” I said. “Leave
the shirt on your bed and I’ll pick it up when I make the bed. I’ll wash it
before the jelly has a chance to set.”

“Thank you, very much.” Ted left the
table, heading for the stairs.

“Such a clean freak,” J.T. said. “I’d have
sworn dirt wouldn’t have the nerve to touch that man. He’s sort of spooky, if
you ask me.”

We all chuckled politely, but didn’t
respond. Even if we agreed with him, we weren’t about to say so.

“Well, Lucy, if you’ll get your coat, we
can leave for town.” Josh placed his napkin on the table and stood.

Lucy also stood. “By the way, what time
are we supposed to pick Marion up at the airport?”

“Her plane should be in around six o’clock
tonight. Assuming it’s on time, that is,” he said, disgustedly. “The last time
I flew, my plane was cancelled and I didn’t get home until the next day.”

Five minutes later Lucy and Josh left for
town, with J.T. and Mike right behind them. Ted came down the stairs wearing a
fresh shirt, finished his cold breakfast, and left for work. I’d offered to
heat it up for him, but he said he’d be late if he didn’t hurry.

Sharon helped me with my housework while
David cleaned up the breakfast dishes for us. What a sweetheart.

“You know,” Sharon said, “I want to see those
passages, too. I think everyone has seen them except me.” She was dusting Ted’s
room while I made up his bed.

“Fine with me, although David and Josh
haven’t seen them yet,” I said. “Since Josh has to pick Marion up at the
airport, David and Mike are going to look through them when Mike gets back. No
reason why we can’t look with them.”

“It just blows me away when I think about
this old house having secret passages. Can you imagine?” Sharon said.

“I know. I keep thinking of Nancy Drew
creeping through a cavern with her trusty flashlight. I think I must have read
every Nancy Drew mystery ever written when I was a kid.”

“I know,” Sharon said. “You loaned them
all to me when you were done with them.”

“I always loved a good mystery, but I
never expected to be right in the middle of my own.”

“Maybe we should have paid more attention
to Nancy’s techniques,” Sharon said, chuckling.

We finished cleaning the second and third
floors, and trudged down the stairs to the living room. I sprayed the jelly
stain on Ted’s shirt and left it on top of the washer.

“I’m pooped,” Sharon said.

“Pooped? We didn’t do that much. Lucy
keeps things pretty well cleaned up.”

“Well, I thought maybe I’d get a little
sympathy, but apparently not.”

“Sorry,” I said.

We walked out to the kitchen where we
found David trying to figure out how to use the dishwasher.

“This is really tough, David, so watch
carefully and learn.” I flipped a lever, pushed a button, and the machine
whirred into action.

“Show off,” he said.

Suddenly the lights went out and the
dishwasher stopped running.

“What the – ” My nerves were on edge and
this didn’t help.

“It’s the wind,” David explained. “It’s
been building up all morning.”

I shrugged, and as I did so, the lights
flicked back on, and the dishwasher went back into action.

“It’s liable to do that all day long,”
David said. “According to the weather report the winds aren’t going to let up
until tonight.”

Jem scratched at the back door and I let
him in. I sat down on the floor next to him and scratched behind his ear. He
wagged his tail in that funny way of his and almost purred like a cat.

“You like that, huh?” I coughed and Jem
looked at me sympathetically. He was such a great dog.

Since we were caught up on our work and
there was nothing else to do, David spent the morning showing Sharon and I the
proper way to throw darts. He was lucky we didn’t throw them at
him
, the
way he kept clucking his tongue and shaking his head.

Jem watched for a while and finally
wandered into the Library. When he returned he was acting odd. He sat down next
to my foot and leaned against my leg, his ears back. Every few minutes he’d
glance toward the Library and growl. It was a low, quiet growl.

“What’s wrong with that mutt?” David
asked.

“I don’t know, and don’t call my pride and
joy a mutt.” I patted the dog’s head.

“I’ve heard that sometimes animals act
funny because of the weather,” Sharon interjected. “Maybe this is going to be a
big
storm today. Look at that sky.” She turned toward the window.

“This
is
going to be a big one,” David
said, whistling. “I hope everyone gets home safely before it gains any
momentum.”

Jem finally calmed down and we turned back
to the dart board.

Mike returned home around one o’clock, and
we all ate lunch together. I wasn’t too hungry so I ate cold chicken while
everyone else ate a heartier lunch.

Jem strolled over to me, stretched and put
his paw on my leg. I bent down to hug him, and Sharon laughed because his nose
began to twitch. He stuck his nose right next to my mouth and sniffed, smelling
the chicken I’d eaten. I backed away, but his nose followed me. He was very
persistent, and I finally had to tell him to go away. Having second thoughts, I
called him back and gave him a bite of chicken.

“Okay,” Mike said, “if you’re through
feeding the dog, let’s get busy and search the passages again.”

We began in Sharon’s room. We pulled out
the bed and Mike lit the oil lamp, handing it to David. He opened the hidden
door and we were just about to step through the opening when I heard the phone
ring.

“Wait for me while I answer it,” I said.

“Hurry up.” Mike looked from me to the
passage.

I ran into the kitchen and answered the
phone. It was Josh.

“Tell Mike and David to meet me in town.
Now!” he ordered. “I’m on to something important.”

“Where do you want them to meet you?” I
asked.

“At the Main Street Café.”

“Are you okay, Josh? Your voice sounds
funny.”

“I think I’m catching what you had. Tell
them to hurry.”