“I should have stopped Susan from going to the Overlook,” I said for the tenth time.
Nat squeezed my hand. “You couldn’t have known.”
But that was what bothered me. I should have known. Now that we were sitting at Moroni’s, each with a giant cup of latte in front of us, courtesy of Angelica, the danger to Susan seemed so blatantly obvious that I felt ashamed of myself. Eve Silver would have caught the whiff of danger from a mile away. I had been standing next to Susan before she left for her lunch break and all I could think of was Liz. Without a script, this sleuthing stuff was hard.
Angelica swept over to our table with a plate of pizzelle—delicious, crunchy waffle cookies, with a hint of anise.
“Eat, drink,” she ordered, and hurried back to the counter to serve the steady stream of customers.
Once she learned what had happened, she’d refused my offer to help and insisted I sit down.
I took a sip of my coffee. The steamed milk made the coffee taste as rich as hot chocolate. I closed my eyes, savoring it.
When I opened them, Nat was staring at me.
“You all right?”
I shrugged. “I’m not the one in danger. If only I could call Liz to make sure she was all right.”
“She doesn’t have a phone.”
“Then I wish we could know whether Susan is alive or—”
I choked on the last word, suddenly feeling the day—and the past few days—bear down on me. Mark had been killed on Tuesday. Today was Friday. Yet it felt like an eternity had passed.
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” I mumbled to myself. Then, remembering the silent promise I’d made to Angelica, my heart skipped a beat. “Oh, no. Tomorrow’s Saturday. Angelica needs to be ready for tomorrow’s cannoli competition, and I’ve done nothing to help her.”
“You’ve done plenty,” Angelica said.
She’d finished with the last customer and came to retrieve our empty cups and plates.
“I’ll handle the dishes,” I insisted, and when Angelica protested in her motherly way, I added, “I’m better off working than stewing on all the things I should have done and didn’t do.”
Nat explained he’d better get back to work, too. A moment later, he was gone, and I was wearing an apron and standing at the worktable in the kitchen, filling cannoli shells with ricotta cream for the big day tomorrow.
My attempts to stay entirely focused on the present moment and the task at hand proved difficult—I reached for a spatula and saw a knife nearby and shuddered.
Where is Steve? Is Susan all right?
Caught in a trance of cannoli making, I lost track of time. When I heard Anthony’s voice up front, I snapped out of my daydream, quickly washed my hands and wiped them off, and hurried to the front counter.
“Anthony,” I exclaimed.
He was standing by the cash register and so was Angelica, who was looking worried, but he gave me a smile when she saw me.
“She’s alive,” Angelica said, clasping her hands together. “Susan’s alive.”
“Is she all right?” I asked Anthony.
“She’s at the hospital,” he said. “After a long search, we found her in the woods, half a mile from the Overlook. Despite the shock, she’s been able to tell us everything. Her attacker ambushed her on the trail and she ran. When he caught up with her, she fought him off, but she sustained several knife wounds. Nothing life threatening, though. She’ll recover.”
I was so relieved I nearly cried. Angelica, seeing my face, took a step toward me and put an arm around my shoulder.
“Did you catch him?” I asked Anthony.
He shook his head, a grim look on his face. “The perp is still at large, and although Susan thinks it was a man, the person wore a ski mask. So we don’t have a detailed description. But we’re keeping an eye out for the Lexus you saw, and based on your description of this guy, Steve, we at least have a good lead. Assuming he is the one who attacked Susan.”
“What about Liz?” I asked.
“We’ve posted a patrol car by the boathouse and a pair of officers will remain on guard around the clock.”
I wondered how much Liz would dislike that—a lot, I suspected—and imagined she’d take off in her canoe at the first opportunity she had. But it reassured me the cops were taking the threat seriously.
Anthony’s radio crackled and the dispatcher spoke.
“There’s been some development—I have to head back to the station.” Anthony gave me a nod, his expression serious. “I thought you’d like to hear Susan’s alive.”
“Thanks, Anthony.”
After he left the bakery, I stared at the door for a moment. Angelica did, too. Then she undid my apron on the back and slipped it over my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked, surprised.
“I’m getting back to work,” she said. “But you, Bernie, are going to the hospital to visit Susan.”
We looked at each other for a moment. She’d known what I wanted to do even before I could articulate it to myself. I threw my arms around her and gave her a long hug. She held me. When we separated, she touched my cheek. “You’ve got important work to do, sweetie, and it’s not making cream for cannolis. Not right now.”
* * *
A police officer, sitting on a chair and reading a glossy travel magazine, guarded the door to Susan’s room on the third floor of the hospital. He looked up.
“You can visit for five minutes,” he said. “But the door stays open.”
Susan lay propped up in bed, thin tubes coming out of heavily bandaged arms. When she saw Nat and me coming through the door, she smiled weakly.
“It’s so good of you to come,” she said.
“The nurse said you’re going to recover,” I said.
“I won’t even have permanent scars—thank God.” She gazed upward and made the sign of the cross, tugging at the tubes. “I can’t believe how lucky I was.”
Nat laughed. “Even after a killer attacks you, you’re worried about how you look.”
“An actress is half talent, half good looks.”
I shuddered. Jay Casanova used to say that. It summed up his casting philosophy. If Susan had taken such maxims to heart, she really would make a good Gold Girl, or whatever replaced the concept now that Jay was in prison.
“Anthony Ferrante told me you fought off the attacker,” I said. “That was very brave.”
Susan gave a little shrug. “I didn’t feel brave. I felt terrified.”
She told us what she’d told the cops: she’d taken the forest trail to the Overlook to eat her lunch when a man in a ski mask had jumped out.
“He said nothing, but I’m pretty sure it was a man, and I’m pretty sure it was Mark’s cousin. He had a knife, and he slashed at me. I screamed. Of course, with my bad luck, there was no one else out in the woods. So I turned and ran. He caught up with me, and then, desperate, I grabbed a broken branch off the ground and fought him. He cut me, but I clubbed him across the head and he staggered off. I called 911, but my phone battery was low and it died while I spoke with the emergency dispatcher. I wandered in the woods for a while, hiding behind trees every time I heard a sound, afraid the guy was coming back. Finally, the cops found me.”
I thought for a moment. “Any idea how he knew you’d be at the Overlook?”
Susan shook her head. “Maybe he followed me.”
“It is interesting that he’d attack you,” I said. Then thought better of the word choice. “Uh, horrific, nightmarish, I mean. But also unexpected. Why not attack Liz first?”
“Maybe it was too obvious,” Susan suggested.
Nat nodded. “You spotted him in town, Bernie, and chased him off. Then we turned up at Liz’s trailer, followed by Anthony. Maybe Steve was spying on us. The police cruiser might have rattled him, and he changed his plans.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
Still, I couldn’t help but feel I was missing some crucial detail. Steve, if he was the killer, knew more than we did, and yet his attack on Susan seemed so desperate.
“Mark’s murder wasn’t exactly smoothly executed,” Susan said, when I shared my thoughts. “In Cafe Roma, Steve probably got interrupted and had to run off, so he set the body on fire to cover his tracks. When he attacked me in the woods, it wasn’t a well-rehearsed ambush. Maybe he’d planned to hit Liz, then saw Anthony hanging around, so he decided to get rid of me instead. He would have to get rid of me sooner or later, anyway.”
I nodded. “That’s true.”
“But he’s pushed his luck,” Susan said. “The cops will catch him now.”
I hoped she was right. I gave her a reassuring smile and gently squeezed her hand, wanting her to feel comforted by the idea that the cops would catch her attacker soon.
The police officer guarding the door told us our five minutes were up.
As Nat and I walked out of the room, he asked me, “You don’t look convinced. You don’t think they’re going to catch him any time soon, do you?”
I was quiet for a while. We stepped into the elevator, and I pressed the button for the lobby. “Either Steve is insane or he’s incredibly confident. Maybe both. Once he’s removed the obstacles to his inheritance, how does he expect to collect the money? The cops know he’s the killer.” I shook my head. “I worry he’s got a trick up his sleeve.”
“Maybe it’s like Susan says, he’s not as smooth as he’d like to be. Maybe he’s desperate. Why else kill in the first place?”
“Either way, for as long as he’s on the loose, he’s a threat to both Susan and Liz,” I said. “I just hope the police can keep a close watch on Liz…”
The elevator doors opened, and as we stepped into the lobby, I nearly collided with two cops in uniform talking to Peter Piatek. Peter had a camera slung around his neck.
The cops turned. It was Anthony Ferrante. Next to him stood Chief Tedesco.
She frowned when she saw me. Then a smile twisted the edge of her mouth. “Perfect timing, Miss Smyth.”
She stepped toward me. A loud click made me jump as something snapped onto my wrist. I looked down to see a handcuff.
“What’s going on?” I asked, shuffling back a step.
“Bernie Smyth, I’m arresting you for the murders of Mark Lewis and Liz Lewis. Anything you say can—”
”Liz Lewis?”
I looked at Anthony.
His face was ashen. “We found her in her trailer,” he said. “Stabbed in the back with a carving knife.”
The floor tilted. My head spun. With my free hand, I grabbed Nat’s arm to keep from falling.
“No,” I muttered.
“Yes,” Chief Tedesco said, triumphantly. “And your fingerprints are all over the knife.”
A heavy silence hung over the hospital lobby. A click-click-click broke it as Peter Piatek, camera held up, snapped photos of me.