ShadowsintheMist (25 page)

She waved a hand and her bangles clinked. “I couldn’t
decide, so I just invited everyone. It’s a Halloween party,” she went on. “Don’t
you think it’ll be fun? Everyone can dress up and we can have jack-o’-lanterns
and cider just like when we were kids!”

I eyed her with doubt. It seemed to me a party was the last
thing we needed, especially with reporters still lurking behind corners waiting
for any juicy gossip. But at the risk of dampening her healthy enthusiasm, I
didn’t say so. Instead, I gestured to the list. “Who are all these people?”

“Oh, most of them are friends of mine from the theater. I
haven’t seen them in ages. That one there,” she pointed with one coral nail, “is
one of the most famous mediums around. I knew her when I was working in LA. She’ll
be lecturing in the area and agreed to come along and conduct a séance.”

I frowned and glanced at the name. Madam De Luna. I hadn’t
heard of her but that didn’t mean anything. “Alicia, I really don’t like the
idea of a séance. It seems pretty morbid, considering…” I stopped.

What was I saying? It was only a bit of harmless fun. I
certainly didn’t believe in communicating with the dead. Or did I? No. I was
worried about Alicia. She was so easily influenced and despite her newfound
enthusiasm, she still wasn’t fully recuperated.

I’d witnessed a couple of amateur attempts at contacting the
spirit world. Every teenager dabbles with ouija boards and slumber party
séances. We used to get a kick out of turning out the lights and frightening
the daylights out of one another. Nothing ever came of it but each experience
left me with an uneasy feeling and I soon avoided them altogether.

I was certain a more “professional” approach wouldn’t change
my opinion, despite the fact I knew most of the production was arranged with
cheap props and theatrical special affects. Besides, Alicia was too recently
recovered to risk being traumatized. Who knew what tactics this woman might use
just to enthrall her audience?

Alicia laughed. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking! But I’m
not such a ninny as you think, Suzanna. I know this stuff is mostly for show
but I like to keep an open mind. If Leo or Giles could talk to us, I know a lot
of people would be interested.” She lowered her voice and leaned closer. “We
may even discover what really happened.”

The suggestion made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle
and I didn’t like the odd glint in Alicia’s eyes.

I handed the list back and stood up. “Well, frankly, I don’t
approve, Alicia. But if it’s what you want, I can’t stop you. I just hope you
remember it could make things a lot worse than they already are.”

She smiled, undaunted. “I knew you wouldn’t be a wet blanket!
You’ll come, won’t you? I mean, I’d really like you to be here—for moral
support.”

I sighed. I was beginning to realize Alicia was very
talented at manipulation. She was right. If she was going to go ahead with this
thing, I was duty-bound to be on hand in case anything went wrong. “Yes. I’ll
come.”

She clapped her hands and put a large check mark next to my
name. “Thanks. Oh, I know you’ll enjoy it!”

I pursed my lips doubtfully and left her to her phone calls.
I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to let her have her fun. Heaven knew, we could use
something to ease the oppressive pall that hung over Beacon.

Chapter Eleven

The Past—the dark unfathom’d retrospect!

The teeming gulf—the sleepers and the shadows!

The past! the infinite greatness of the past!

For what is the present after all but a growth out

of the past?

Walt Whitman,
Passage to India

Kong sat expectantly at the door of the attic, his slanting
yellow eyes assessing me as though he knew what I planned to do and felt it his
duty to supervise.

I went straight to the trunk and opened it, finding the
spiral notebooks on top where I’d left them. I removed the most recent one,
determined to find out whom it was my mother had likened to a “coiled cobra”.
It was very possible this same person might be the one we were all looking for.
Perhaps Anna, with her quiet perceptive instincts, had sensed a manic streak in
someone that the rest of us couldn’t see.

I sat down on the chair near the window and thumbed slowly
through. Eventually, I located the passage I’d glimpsed before and flipped past
it, only to find torn stubble where a number of pages were ripped out. The rest
of the book was empty. I stared at the ravaged edges blankly, then went back to
the trunk and removed each of the other diaries and shook them, hoping against
hope that the missing pages would fall out. I knew it was useless. If Anna had
indeed put a name to her suspicions, someone made very sure it wouldn’t be
discovered.

I leaned back in the chair and stared out the window, filled
with dejection. Who could’ve known about the diaries? David came quickly to
mind. Had he seen through my little white lie about them? Perhaps he’d seen
more when he casually thumbed through the notebook than I realized and came
back later to destroy any damning evidence. But no, anyone could have ripped
out those passages. Chances were they’d been severed even before I laid eyes on
the book. Those diaries had been in that trunk since my mother’s death and in
all those years, any member of the household could’ve come upon them.

Sadly, I opened the book again and read the pages just prior
to the end. Leo had brought Grant to live at Beacon. Anna was skeptical about
the arrangement, finding Grant a “sullen and uncommunicative young man”. Colin
was becoming harder and harder to discipline. There were reports from school
about his fighting. She suspected the other children taunted him about his
father’s precipitous marriage.

“I can’t seem to talk to Colin about it,” Anna wrote. “He
probably blames me for everything. Leo has no patience with him and seems to be
more interested in Grant than his own son. No wonder the boy is so resentful.”

And later, “Giles tells me not to worry. He says I should be
taking it easy but I find it impossible. My nerves are always on edge. Leo is
forever running off to Chicago, or wherever the company needs him and I’m
expected to sit in this museum and amuse myself! At least, I have Suzanna. She’s
such a good girl. I only wish I didn’t have to stay in the house alone.”

I read the next passage. “Grant Fenton is entirely too
ambitious for my liking. It seems unnatural for a boy of that age to spend all
his free time studying or tagging after Leo. And I’ve seen the way he looks at
Suzanna. She’s still just a child! As if I don’t have enough to worry about.”

Puzzled, I considered this paragraph, unable to remember
Grant looking at me in any particular way unless with aloof disinterest. I knew
Grant had considered me a “spoiled rich kid” from the start and, in my own
rebellious way, I did nothing to alter his perception. In those days, I set
great store by my father’s fame and would never admit to myself I could be
attracted to someone like Grant. I realized now that he was on my mind often
and, by avoiding him, I was also avoiding my own feelings.

It seemed to me my mother must’ve been speaking of Grant in
that final entry. The Grant of those days was indeed wound tightly like a
spring, as though with obsessive diligence he could make up for all the early
years of poverty and ignorance. He seemed to have no time for anything or
anyone who couldn’t help him in his struggle up the ladder of success.

I’d never considered the driving force behind Grant. As
children do, I merely accepted his presence, secretly admiring his rough
manners, so different from the studied charm of the nouveau riche with whom I
was used to associating. Grant said what he meant and did what he wanted
without pretense—or so I’d believed. Now I wondered.

Anyone born into such a desperate situation as his would
certainly carry the scars for a long, long time. It would be only natural to
develop a deep resentment toward others born with the proverbial silver spoon
in their mouths. It also seemed likely such resentment could very well fester
and turn violent.

I shivered and put the diaries away. I was having second
thoughts about confronting Grant about his handling of the business. I was
becoming more and more suspicious of his intentions. When all was said and
done, he could very well be the one responsible for the deaths of my father and
Giles.

Hadn’t I considered this before I married him? Wasn’t my
reasoning that, married to him, I would pose less of a threat to him? It now
occurred to me, however, that marriage to him wouldn’t necessarily protect me,
should he decide I was interfering with his plans. Maybe I should back off—say
nothing about Mike and let the vote for chairman slide. I was still unsure what
Grant’s plans were but if Mike’s beliefs were accurate, he was set on
remodeling Dirkston Enterprises to suit his own personal ambitions and would
dispose of anyone who stood in his way.

But he knew I still held the purse strings. If he felt I
wasn’t going to relinquish them to his care, would he simply have me removed?
Even if the money didn’t pass directly to him after my death, Colin could
easily be managed since he’d never had any interest in the company. He’d gladly
turn it all over to Grant, as long as his own comforts were assured.

It was this point that convinced me Colin must be innocent.
He didn’t possess the ambition necessary to commit murder and I could see no
other motive that might evoke such ruthlessness. Still, I wouldn’t rule him out
altogether. There was the marina, which he admitted was floundering. He’d solve
most of his problems by collecting the inheritance.

But even this theory had a gaping hole. It was Colin who
uncovered the contents of Leo’s will long before it was officially read. If he
knew he wouldn’t inherit directly, what was his motive for murdering Leo?
Resentment? Perhaps. He had good cause to despise our father but I doubted it.
The crime was too well executed—as though it was planned or at least considered
for some time beforehand.

It all came back to Grant.

I closed my mother’s trunk and latched the shutters at the
window. Kong watched me intently.

“If only you could talk,” I said absently and bent to stroke
his thick coat. He endured my caress, even going so far as to arch his back
against my fingers and purr loudly. I was ridiculously pleased he chose to
accept my friendship. At least, he was one member of the household I could
trust.

* * * * *

After Giles’ funeral, David spent more and more time at
Beacon. I, for one, was pleased. I enjoyed seeing more of him and I knew it was
healthier for him to be with people than to sit and brood in the empty house
where his father no longer dwelled. We developed a deeper empathy for one
another. We’d both experienced the death of a parent by violent means and,
though I might have preferred to find closeness some other way, those tragedies
formed a common ground on which we could share feelings more intimately than
before.

I think, for the first time, David needed me as a friend.
Colin was there, of course but he never fully understood the depths of sadness
David experienced. Colin felt nothing similar over the death of his own father
and he was too young to remember much about his mother’s death. There was no
one else for David to turn to but me and I liked it that way.

The guestroom near my own was prepared and David stayed
there most nights, away from the haunted emptiness of Spindrift. I could see,
despite a brave front, he suffered deeply and, though he never admitted it, I
knew he wanted me close. He insisted on accompanying me most places, purporting
to worry about my safety. I didn’t object. I told him how Sergeant Davison
encouraged me to leave and he understood that by staying I was taking a big
risk.

Grant came and went unannounced. I could tell by his rigid
face and gruff manners he wasn’t pleased with David’s residency and I was
careful not to allow him the opportunity to confront me.

At David’s suggestion, I locked my door each night. This,
however, didn’t prevent the recurring dream that woke me frequently and left me
shaking and drained. The dream was unlike any other I’d ever experienced and
the intensity of its realism was horrifying. Each time I felt the presence that
had beckoned me at the cabin and surrounded me the first night in the swimming
pool and on the beach. The presence itself didn’t frighten me but the
desperation it emitted did. After the dream, I awoke in a cold sweat, racking
my brain to remember details but able only to piece together a hodgepodge of
sensations and disjointed images.

I must’ve called out in my sleep, for often it would be
David hammering on my door that brought me awake. On these occasions, I fell
tearfully into his arms, allowing him to comfort me with soothing words and hot
tea he fetched from the kitchen.

I tried to ignore the effect these late-night disturbances
had on me, though I found myself sleeping later and later and having to drag
myself about during the day with little or no energy, longing only to return to
the soft security of my bed and the partial oblivion of sleep.

Alicia seemed to have recovered completely from her close
call, though no one but Grant would have the temerity to question her about her
use of drugs and he seemed too preoccupied with the business to worry about it.
With the party only a week away, she was ambitiously organizing costumes for
everyone in the house and suggested I find something from the attic.

She was ridiculously excited when I mentioned Anna’s wedding
gown and insisted it would be the perfect thing. I could be the bride of
Dracula or Frankenstein’s bride. Personally, I didn’t care. Together, we
brought the dress down and I tried it on. It was too small in the bust and hips
and there were a few brown stains on the full white satin skirt but with the
help of Martha and Lottie, the garment was cleaned and altered until it looked
practically new and fitted me well enough.