On Monday morning, while Heather dealt with kidnappers and the police, Lily and Ian dropped Connor off at his grandmother’s house while they ran errands and looked at light fixtures for Ian’s new office. When they returned home, they noticed several police cars parked in front of Marlow House.
“Oh no, I hope everyone is okay!” Sitting in the passenger seat, Lily turned around while Ian pulled into their driveway, her eyes not leaving Marlow House and the police cars. “Heather and Marie are babysitting the twins while Walt and Danielle are at brunch!”
Ian and Lily got out of their car and rushed across the street to Marlow House. When they got to the front door, they found it open, and inside were police officers, with some standing in the entry hall talking, others taking photographs, and some coming and going from the basement.
The first person they recognized was Joe, who was talking to another officer. Joe looked up when Ian and Lily walked into the house.
“Are the babies okay?” Lily blurted.
Joe looked at Lily and Ian and nodded. “Yes, they’re in the living room with Heather.”
“What happened?” Ian asked.
“Kidnap attempt.”
Lily’s right hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my gawd!”
“Heather’s in the living room; she can explain everything. I need to finish up here.” Joe turned back to the officer he had been talking with to resume their conversation.
Lily and Ian hurried to the living room. When they walked in, they found Heather sitting with the babies on a blanket spread on the floor, with Max sleeping on the edge of the blanket.
“Heather!” Lily cried out, rushing toward them.
* * *
“Is Connor with his grandma?” Heather asked after moving to the sofa with Lily, where they both sat, each holding a baby. Ian had gone back out to the entry hall to talk to Joe and the other officers.
Lily cradled Addison in her arms. “Yes. So what did you tell Walt and Dani?”
“When I finally called them, they were just getting ready to leave the restaurant. I told them not to worry, everything is fine, but some things happened, and don’t freak if they come home to police cars in front of the house.”
Lily groaned. “Knowing Dani, that’s going to drive her insane not knowing what happened.”
“I didn’t want to blurt out someone tried to kidnap the twins. Or that Clay Bowman somehow unlocked the doors at their end of the tunnel.”
Lily glanced around the room. “Is Marie here?”
In answer to Lily’s question, a throw pillow lifted from the sofa and then fell back down.
Lily looked at the throw pillow. “Hi, Marie. Thank God you were here!”
“Eva was here too. But she left with Betsy.”
Lily frowned. “Betsy?”
“Yep. Betsy Francas, the woman who made the twin quilt. Well, she’s a ghost now.”
“So she is dead? Was that who they found in Jameson’s root cellar?”
Heather nodded. “Yep. Someone murdered her.”
“Is she responsible for what’s been going on in the nursery?” Lily asked.
“You mean is she our poltergeist?”
Lily nodded.
“I don’t think so. Walt and Danielle stopped over to the Jameson place yesterday, and Danielle got out of the car and looked around. They didn’t see Betsy, but she saw them, and she followed them back here. So until yesterday, Betsy’s ghost had been hanging out at the Jameson place.”
“Who murdered her?”
“She didn’t tell me. With everything that happened this morning, she was overwhelmed. Eva suggested the two of them go somewhere and talk.”
Motion from the window caught Lily’s attention. “Um, Danielle and Walt just ran by.”
Heather glanced at the doorway from the hallway, waiting for the anxious parents to run into the room.
* * *
Lily and Heather had moved to the recliners facing the sofa, where Danielle now sat, nursing the twins, with Marie by her side. After Heather explained all that had happened, Walt left for the entry hall to find Ian and talk to Joe and the other police officers.
Heather stood up. “Danielle, I want to show you something.” As she approached Danielle, she took out her phone. “Remember how I told you Max attacked Clay?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think you appreciate Max’s fierce loyalty.” Heather pulled out her phone, opened her photo app, and pulled up the photo she had taken of Clay. She showed it to Danielle.
Danielle’s eyes widened. “Holy crap! Max did all that?”
Still sitting on a recliner, Lily cringed. “Heather already showed me. It’s brutal.”
“Yep, he did all that.” Heather pulled the phone from Danielle, gave the picture another quick look, and closed the photo app. “Marie had to pull him off Clay.”
Marie glanced briefly at Max, who napped under the coffee table. “I didn’t do it for Clay. But the way he was flailing about, I was afraid he would knock Max to the floor and then try kicking him. I remember when he tried that with Hunny.”
Danielle smiled down at Max. “Someone’s getting chicken for dinner.”
After Danielle finished nursing the twins, Marie helped her change their diapers. Once they were dry and content, Danielle returned with them to the sofa. “When Chris gets back, I want to talk to him again about finding a buyer for the gold coins. And I also think we need to find a home for the Missing Thorndike.”
Lily looked at Danielle. “What are you saying?”
Danielle looked down at her babies. “This isn’t the first time someone tried extorting us for the gold coins and necklace. But this time, it put Addison’s and Jack’s lives at risk. It’s just not worth it. There’s no guarantee Marie or Walt will be here to save the day when it happens again, and it will happen again.”
“How will selling the gold help?” Heather asked.
“If someone tries to extort us for money, it’s more difficult to take that much cash out of the bank. It draws too much attention to the kidnappers. But going down to the local bank and me taking something out of a safe-deposit box is a totally different thing.”
“You also want to get rid of the necklace?” Lily asked.
“I’m going to talk to Walt and Eva about lending the necklace to a museum. Not our little museum here. I was thinking there has to be some sort of theater museum somewhere, something for silent screen stars. That would be a perfect place to have Eva’s necklace on display.”
Lily looked over at the babies. “I understand what you’re saying. It’s too easy for someone to extort you when you keep a fortune in a local safe-deposit box.”
“And if it weren’t for Marie, it would be gone by now, anyway.”
* * *
Brian and another officer sat with Clay in the emergency room as the nurse cleaned the inflamed wounds covering Clay’s face. The prisoner sat on an exam table, his wrists handcuffed behind his back. Clay winced from pain as the nurse dabbed moist cotton balls over the scratches and applied ointment.
“How did this happen?” the nurse asked. “It looks like someone locked your head in a cage with a pissed-off cat.”
“That cat was crazy,” Clay grumbled. He looked at the nurse, who had just finished cleaning up his face. “I need to have a blood test, too.”
“What are you talking about?” Brian asked.
“There’s mold or something in that tunnel.”
Brian frowned. “Mold?”
“Yeah. I spent the night in the tunnel last night, and this morning I’ve had all kinds of crazy hallucinations. It’s got to be some sort of toxin. Probably why that cat flipped out.”
“What kind of hallucinations?” the nurse asked.
“A baby quilt attacked me.” Clay began.
The nurse frowned. “A baby quilt?”
“Then Rodney floated down the hallway. Literally a couple of feet off the floor. Guns twirling over his head. All sorts of crazy stuff.”
The nurse looked at Brian. “Maybe we should take a blood test.”
* * *
Brian had called the chief before leaving Marlow House to ask him if he wanted to come down to the station and be there when they brought Clay and Rodney in. Since the chief couldn’t drive yet, Joe had volunteered Kelly to give him a ride, and the chief accepted the offer.
Clay and Rodney were in lockup, and the chief was in his office on Monday afternoon, discussing the case with Joe and Brian, who stood by his desk, when Fred Lyons walked into his office.
“Fred,” MacDonald greeted him while remaining seated behind his desk.
Fred glanced at Joe and then Brian, giving them both a nod before looking back at MacDonald and asking, “He’s here?”
MacDonald nodded. “He’s in lockup.” The chief turned to his two officers and said, “I called Fred to tell him we have Clay.”
“And he tried to kidnap the Marlow twins?” Fred asked. The chief had given him the abbreviated version of what had happened over the phone.
The chief nodded. “Yes.”
“Oh crap,” Fred groaned, taking a seat facing MacDonald. He rested his face in his palms and shook his head.
“Umm, we’ll leave you two to talk,” Joe said.
“But before we go, I think we found your coin collection,” Brian said.
Fred looked up at Brian. “You did?”
“Yes. Clay wasn’t working alone. He was working with some guy named Rodney Healy. We found his truck parked down by the pier. What we assume is your coin collection was found shoved under the seat of the truck. It looks like some of the coins are missing.”
Fred nodded and put his face back in his palms.
Brian and Joe left Fred and the chief alone, and the chief filled Fred in on Clay’s arrest.
“Clay somehow got his hands on the keys to the doors on the Marlow side of the tunnel, which is how he got in. We found the keys in the tunnel and showed them to Walt, and he said they’re the duplicates that the museum made for their upcoming tunnel display. I called Millie Samson. She said the last time she saw the keys was last Saturday, and she didn’t realize they were missing. She thought one of the docents moved them. We aren’t sure how they ended up with Clay.”
Fred groaned again. “I think I know.”
* * *
Eric and Zack sat next to each other in the interrogation room, with their mother on the other side of Zack, their uncle Fred on the other side of Eric, and Chief MacDonald sitting across the table from them.
“Boys, have you seen these before?” MacDonald dropped the keys on the table between Eric and Zack. The boys looked at the keys and then looked briefly to their uncle, who stared at them.
“What is this about? Why are we here?” Debbie demanded.
“Debbie, let the boys answer the chief’s question,” Fred snapped.
Debbie glared at her brother-in-law but said nothing.
“Umm, there were keys like those at the museum,” Eric said.
“These are the keys from the museum.” The chief reached across the table and picked them back up. “Who do you think took them from the museum?”
Eric shrugged in response, but Zack blurted, “Where’s our dad?”
“You gave the keys to your dad, didn’t you?”
Eric and Zack briefly looked at each other and then looked back at the chief.
“Did our dad tell you that?” Zack asked.
“What’s going on? Where’s Clay?” Debbie demanded.
“Did you know Clay was in Frederickport?” Fred asked Debbie.
Debbie bit her lower lip nervously and shook her head. “He’s here?”
“Did you help him plan the kidnapping?” Fred shrieked.
Debbie furrowed her brows and looked confused. “Kidnapping? What are you talking about?”