SEVENTY-TWO

THE pair of eyes staring at me became four, then six, and finally eight. I was surrounded!

Luckily, the raccoon family I’d stumbled upon was as spooked as I was and quickly moved on. Heart pounding, I stayed frozen like a female mannequin, until the sound of the animals crashing through the woods faded into the night.

I’d had enough of stumbling around in the dark, freezing and being threatened by local wildlife. It was time to return to the car. But on my way, I spotted a second stone path, illuminated by a pool of light from a window.

You’re in for the penny, Clare. Might as well go for the big bucks.

Unfortunately, the window’s glow emanated from an empty hallway. Nothing to see there. But I noticed another lighted window along the path and moved toward it. When I peeked inside, I saw an absolute wreck of a room. It reminded me of the ransacked office in the Gotham Suite. Inside, Detective Quinn and Owen Wimmer stood beside a crowded desk, poring over documents encased in clear plastic.

The window was sealed tightly, so I couldn’t hear a word being said. But within a minute of my arrival, the men were shaking hands again, and I realized the lawyer was about to escort Quinn to the front door, which meant I had to get back to the Toyota as quickly as possible.

I took the rest of the stone path at top speed, and a seemingly endless trip it was. I ran past a sunroom attached to the main house, a small but vibrant greenhouse, and the dark waters of a reflecting pool.

Not another soul was in sight. No staff. No visitors.

Finally, I raced across the driveway to the detective’s rental car. I’d just dived behind the Toyota when the exterior lights sprang on and Quinn exited the house.

Inside the car, he made sure I was aboard before he started the engine. It wasn’t until we drove through the gate that I crawled out from under the dash, shivering.

“I roamed around in the dark and found nothing,” I told him, hugging myself in the cold car. “Other than a curious sign.”

“What sign?”

“Our friend Ernest, the friendly landscaper’s sign.”

“Ernest Belling does the landscaping for the Brewsters? That is curious.”

“It could be an old sign,” I conceded. “Still, it’s a connection worth pursuing, don’t you think?”

“I agree,” Quinn said, turning the heat on full blast. “You look like you’re freezing. Do you want me to grab a windbreaker from the trunk?”

“Don’t bother. The car’s already warming up.”

“Let’s get you back to the house.”

“Fine, but tell me what you discovered. What did the lawyer say?”

“Plenty. For starters, Wimmer thinks Harlan was murdered, too. He doesn’t know much about Harlan’s Hamptons life—apart from being invited to the house as a guest for a party or two. He says there’s a fixer out here, an attorney, who Harlan consulted, but Wimmer doesn’t know who.”

“Is that why Wimmer came out here? To track down the fixer?”

“No. As the Parkview’s attorney, he says his primary concern is finding Annette. That’s why he came out, looking for any evidence of a vendetta against the Brewsters.”

“Did he find anything?”

“Are you kidding? It’s a cast of thousands. Harlan had enemies way beyond that little Hatfield and McCoy feud. And I was right about extortion. From the cease-and-desist letters I read, Harlan was heavily involved in using the hotel’s surveillance cameras to record embarrassing or possibly criminal behavior by his wealthy and famous guests for purposes of blackmail. Until his death, Harlan hid the activity from Annette and Wimmer, who looks a bit frantic now that he’s uncovering it.”

“How could Harlan get away with it?”

“He didn’t, did he? From the dates on the letters, it appears this was a fairly recent endeavor. He must have been desperate financially. And you heard the sum of his character—he was a reckless, selfish, egocentric man.”

“A cruel one, too, if he really did abuse that young woman. He probably got off on it.” I shuddered and shook my head, wishing any of this would shake some awareness loose of what had happened to me—and Annette.

“So what now?”

In the dim dashboard lights, I saw Detective Quinn’s blue eyes brighten. “There is one more line of investigation worth pursuing, and that mystery directly involves you.”