• eight •

Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist; an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully moulded arms bare, one of them up-raised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head.

—Jane Eyre

Marguerite, Reed French professor and Emily’s closest friend, called that evening from Portland. “Chérie, why have you not called me? For weeks I do not hear one word. You are not having more murders, I hope?”

“No real ones, thank God. We are planning a fake one on Saturday.” Emily told her about the upcoming fundraiser.

“Mais chérie, c’est très amusant! Il faut que je ce vois. You will invite me down for the weekend, non?”

Oh, dear. She should have seen this coming. “I would, Margot, of course, but between the remodeling and getting ready for the party, the house is in chaos. We wouldn’t have a minute’s peace.”

“Peace I have plenty of at home. A little excitement is just what I need. I will see you on Friday night. Besides, you need my special touch in the arrangements, non?”

Marguerite did have an amazing knack for table settings and centerpieces. “True. But it is a fundraiser—a hundred dollars a head. You’ll have to pay for your ticket like anyone else.”

“Mon dieu, cent? Alors, it is the price of a night in a hotel. You will not charge me for the room, I hope?”

“Of course not. You may have to put up with people traipsing through your room during the party, though. I think they’re going to want to use the whole second floor.”

“Then I will leave my diamonds at home.” Marguerite trilled a laugh. As Emily well knew, a Reed professor’s salary didn’t run to much in the way of diamonds. “À bientôt.”

Emily put down the phone with a sigh. Whatever the coming weekend might be, it certainly wouldn’t be boring.

*   *   *

The drama teacher who was orchestrating the mystery game came by a couple of days later to scope out the house. Katie let her in and brought her back to the library, where Emily was immersed in Wuthering Heights. If ever there was an antihero, Heathcliff was it. On this reading, it struck her with great force how much hatred was contained within that house, and all focused into the person of Heathcliff. Even his passion for Cathy looked more like hatred, a good part of the time, than love. Emily felt as if she were drowning in a Yorkshire bog of envy, resentment, and bitterness. She was happy to be interrupted.

The drama teacher bounced into the room, brightly colored garments trailing after her. A cloud of frizzy dark hair stood out a foot from her head, and her eyes were as wide as a child’s on her first sight of a Christmas tree. “What a house!” she exclaimed, standing in the middle of the room with her hands raised and turning to take it all in. “The energy! This place was absolutely made for a mystery play!”

Emily stood. Katie said, “Mrs. Cavanaugh, this is Cordelia Fitzgerald, the drama teacher.”

Emily’s eyebrows rose. Who was the Montgomery fan, this woman’s mother or she herself? She suspected the latter—the name of Anne Shirley’s imaginary alter ego was a bit rich for common use.

“Pleased to meet you.” Emily put out her hand.

Cordelia clasped it in both of her own. Emily was nearly overcome by the waves of heavy floral scent that emanated from the woman. “I can’t thank you enough for giving us this opportunity. It’ll be a godsend to my students—the chance to expand, to stretch themselves in this environment. We have a sweet little mystery all worked out, and I’m using only my best students—including a few alumni. We need some people with experience to do this place justice.”

“So what’s the plot?”

Cordelia wagged a finger under Emily’s nose. “Ah, ah, ah—mustn’t peek until the curtain goes up. That would be cheating.”

“Oh—but I wasn’t planning to participate in the game. As the hostess, I need to know what’s going on. Make sure everything is—well, in order. It is my house, after all.” And I want to know what a bunch of strangers are planning to do in it.

Cordelia closed her eyes and shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’ll take care of everything. If you knew, you might give something away. Inadvertently, of course.” She smiled brightly at Katie. “Now, Katie dear, if you’ll just show me around all the rooms that will be open. Including that secret passageway.”

Emily made a snap decision. “I’m afraid the passageway is off-limits. It comes out in my bedroom, and I don’t want that room used.”

“Oh, but we must!” Emily had rarely seen a grown woman pout. It wasn’t pretty. “I was counting on that. In fact I’ve built the plot around it. The secret passageway is absolutely essential!”

Cordelia clasped her hands, almost under Emily’s chin. Emily’s head filled with floral perfume till she could hardly breathe, let alone think. After all, the Beatrice-Forster room wasn’t really her own bedroom. She could move her personal things back upstairs for one night.

“All right, you can use the passageway. But please don’t use that bedroom any more than you can help.”

A summer garden enveloped her in a smothering hug. “You’re a darling. We’ll be so careful, you won’t even know we’ve been in the house. Now come along, Katie dear. Let’s case the joint.”

After that invasion, returning to the stark, cheerless, aggressively masculine world of Wuthering Heights was almost a relief.

*   *   *

The murder party was only a few days away, and Katie flung herself into preparations with the fever of someone striving to drown out unwelcome thoughts. Emily felt de trop in her own home. The little outfit she was knitting for Lizzie was almost finished—time to go yarn shopping for her next project.

The weather was cloudy but not actually rainy, so she went to the garage to get out the Vespa. Billy Beech was raking leaves under the poplars on the far side of the lawn, his spherical form bobbing like an apple in a barrel of water. He straightened and hailed her.

“A lovely good morning to you, dear lady. At last, you see, the sky has abated its flooding in beneficence so that I may prepare our grounds for the coming festivities.” Billy puffed his way through his ponderous sentence and paused to wipe a bandanna over his sweaty brow. Emily wondered, not for the first time, whether Billy deliberately mugged up on Victorian literature to fuel his flowery speech patterns or whether by some bizarre genetic fluke they came naturally to him.

“Yes, thank God for that. I’m sorry you have to deal with all these wet leaves, though.”

Billy flourished his bandanna in resignation. “It is the lot of my kind, dear lady. To grumble would only make the work more onerous. Is everything in order indoors?”

“Yes, thanks. The remodeling crew has the work under control, and Katie’s getting the whole place even more spotless than usual for Saturday.”

Billy gazed a bit wistfully at the attic windows. Emily guessed he was missing the indoor portion of his usual work, which would likely be a little easier on his stout, aging frame than was his current task.

“Don’t worry, Billy—we’ll all be back to normal in a few weeks.”

He bowed his acquiescence and pocketed his kerchief with a final flourish, then returned to work.

Emily puttered into town on the Vespa and pulled up in front of the yarn shop, Sheep to Knits. Beanie, the young proprietor, hailed her from her perch behind the back counter. “Hey, Mrs. C! I was just thinking it was about time I saw you again.”

“Yes, Lizzie’s sweater is done and I’ll finish the hat tonight. She’s moved into her big-girl crib now—she needs a bigger blanket.”

“I got a new cotton-acrylic blend in—so soft you wouldn’t believe it. Come feel.”

Beanie held out her knitting—a strip about twelve inches wide, the top few inches of which consisted of a sort of roaming seed stitch in a cheery yellow. Below that were cables in a nubbly deep purple tweed, then a dropped-stitch pattern in a green-and-black eyelash yarn, then a few inches of intricate lace in a fine pale blue mohair. Beyond that the strip became Beanie’s garment, winding around and around her body with a randomness that would have baffled the most accomplished sari wrapper. A black tank and leggings made sure she was decent, while tattoos covered what could be seen of her arms.

Emily rubbed the yellow yarn between her fingers—it was indeed soft as pure cashmere. “Washable, I presume?”

“Machine wash and dry. Only thing for a baby. It’s over there.” She pointed to a table heaped with all the colors of an Easter basket full of eggs. Beanie’s shop never reflected the season outside her windows but always anticipated the next one.

Emily picked up an aqua, a salmon, and a spring green in turn, but finally settled on the same yellow Beanie was knitting with. Yellow was a good color for Lizzie and would harmonize with Katie’s decor.

As she was filling her basket with enough skeins to make a crib-sized blanket, the outside door tinkled open and a tall manly form ducked in. Emily did a double take as she recognized the bookstore owner. “Ben! I didn’t expect to see you here. Are you taking up knitting?”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Uh, no, I, uh…” He ended his nonsentence with a nervous smile and headed to the back of the shop, where he held an inaudible conference with Beanie. Emily immersed herself in pattern booklets, smiling. Months ago, when she first came to Stony Beach, she’d detected a wistfulness in Ben where Beanie was concerned and had dropped a hint or two in Beanie’s ear. Apparently the hints had been effective.

When Ben turned to go, both his face and Beanie’s were subtly radiant. “See you later then,” he said, and with a nod to Emily strode out of the shop. Emily noticed a new bounce in his step.

She took her selections to the counter. “Everything okay with you, Beanie?” She tried to keep her tone neutral but suspected she wasn’t managing to keep the twinkle out of her eye.

“Absolutely fabulous, Mrs. C.” Beanie dropped her voice to a whisper. “Aren’t Ben’s dreads to die for?”

Emily made an affirmative noise. Her deduction about the dreads had apparently been correct.

“He just invited me to go to your murder party with him. Way cool, ’cause I couldn’t afford a ticket on my own.”

“Wonderful! I hope you’ll enjoy it. Katie’s knocking herself out, and I think most of the tickets have been sold.”

“Hey, Windy Corner? Murder mystery? Costumes? Bound to be epic. What could go wrong?”

At Beanie’s last words, a finger of ice crept up Emily’s spine. What indeed?

*   *   *

Luke stood up at his desk, stretched his back, cracked his neck. Must be lunchtime—he’d been sitting too long. What he needed was a good crime to get him out of the office. Problem was, any crime that happened on his beat would have to happen to somebody he knew. That was the side of being a small-town sheriff they didn’t talk about on Andy Griffith.

Granted, he’d just had a break from his desk. He’d gotten back late last night from the firearms training in Portland. And he’d missed Emily something fierce. If only she’d agreed to come along—he wanted to take her out to fancy restaurants, maybe the symphony or something, show her he wasn’t just a country bumpkin with no culture. But she wouldn’t come. And anyway, he’d been so bone tired at the end of each day, all he wanted to do was lie on his hotel bed, eat room service food, and watch the tube. He hated to admit it, but he wasn’t getting any younger.

But he was home now, and at least he could take her to lunch. He pulled out his cell phone and called Windy Corner. Katie told him Emily was out, so he called her cell. It rang once and went to message. Figured. Either she didn’t have it on her, or the battery was dead, or she’d never bothered to turn it on in the first place. He’d talked her into getting the cell back in the summer when her life was in danger. Now that danger was past, he couldn’t get her to see carrying a working cell phone was a good idea.

Oh, well, he’d walk down to the Crab Pot and maybe run into her along the way. But when he opened the front door of the one-story cottage that housed the sheriff’s office, there she was, just pulling up on her Vespa. His heart did a little flip, as it always did whenever he saw her. How had he survived all those years without her?

“Hey, beautiful. I just tried to call you to invite you to lunch. You running around without your cell phone again?”

Emily felt around her skirt and jacket where pockets should be but weren’t. Why did women put up with clothes with no pockets? “I must have left it at home. It doesn’t seem like an appendage to me yet. But here I am anyway, appetite and all. Want to hop on?” She waved at the seat behind her.

Luke eyed the Vespa. He trusted that machine about as much as he would a giant version of the wasp it was named for. Good stiff breeze could blow it right off the road. He didn’t like to see Emily riding it, although he had to admit she made quite a picture with her long full skirt and ladylike jacket topped by that funky green helmet—like two centuries mashed into one. “I can’t be seen around town riding shotgun on that thing. Bad for my image.”

“So drive then.” She scooted back on the seat.

“No license. Can’t we just walk?”

“Oh, all right.” She turned off the Vespa, set the kickstand, and took off her helmet. Her braid came loose from its pins and tumbled down her back. She used to wear it like that when they were kids—when he first fell in love with her. He could remember the very first time he undid that braid.

He moved up close to her and fingered the little curls that escaped along her hairline. “I like your hair like that. Reminds me of the old days.” He put his arms around her waist, pinning her to the bike, and kissed her like he was making up for lost time. Which he was.

When he gave her the chance, Emily murmured, “Isn’t this bad for your image, too?”

“Heck no. Kissing the most beautiful woman in town? I get all kinds of sheriff points for that.”

Emily smiled and slid off the seat. “Let’s go eat. I’m starved.”

As they ate, she filled him in on what had been going on while he was away. When she told him about Jake attacking Katie—and the history behind it—he felt the blood go straight to his head. He’d asked for a crime, but he sure as hell hadn’t wanted Katie of all people to be the victim.

“That bastard. She could just charge him with assault, you know. No need to bring up the past.”

“But don’t you suppose the defense would use their previous relationship against her? Make it look like she was consenting all along?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Man, it burns me up. I’d like to round up that whole damn family and send them off to Siberia or something. Upstate Alaska maybe. Times I wish we didn’t live in a free country.”

“Coming from you, that’s quite a statement.” He’d flown the biggest Stars and Stripes in town on the Fourth of July—one at the office and one at home.

“I love my country. Doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect. You say you fired Jake?”

“On the spot. When I told Jeremiah Edwards, he said he would’ve done the same.”

“Let’s just hope he stays away. If he shows up again, let me know and I’ll get a restraining order out on him.” It wasn’t much, but it was something, and all he could legally do unless Katie pressed charges.

“He doesn’t strike me as the type to be that persistent. Seems more likely he’d just find some new prey to go after.”

“Probably right.” He lifted his burger to his mouth, but his stomach rebelled. He put it down again. “That’s put me off my feed, dagnabbit. Give me some good news so I can finish my lunch.”

She pondered, chewing a bite of crab melt. “Good news … Well, everything’s in order for our murder party. And Marguerite’s coming down for the weekend.” She made a face like she wasn’t sure that was all good news, either. “You are coming, right? I have to admit I’m a little nervous about the whole thing. That drama teacher is something else—she wouldn’t even let me in on the plot. And murder doesn’t seem like something to play around with, you know?”

It sure as hell wasn’t—especially not with all the people he cared about most in the world right there in the house. “I’m with you there. Would’ve chosen something else if it was me. But it’s not likely anything’ll go too far wrong. And I will definitely be there just to make sure. Nobody’d be stupid enough to commit a real crime with the sheriff on the premises. I hope.”