Danielle left the door to the parlor open so she could hear when her guests were coming or going. She had spent most of Saturday at the computer, searching for information on her guests and the possible marriage of Clint. She hadn’t seen the Russoms since they had left before breakfast, and she didn’t expect them to return until later in the evening.
“You’ve been at that computer a long time,” Dirk said from the doorway.
Danielle glanced up and smiled at him while quickly closing the search window. “How was dinner?”
“You were right. Pearl Cove has excellent lobster. Tanya was very impressed.” He stepped into the room and glanced around.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Dirk took a seat on a nearby chair and asked, “Where is Clint? I haven’t seen him since breakfast.”
“He’s up in his room working on his new book.” And avoiding you, Danielle thought. Walt wanted to learn as much as possible about Dirk before listening to whatever threat he had over Clint. “He also goes by his first name now.”
“That’s going to take some getting used to. I’ve always known him as Clint. But I’ll work on it.”
Danielle turned in her seat to face Dirk. “I’m curious, why didn’t you just tell Walt you knew him when you arrived?”
Dirk shrugged. He uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “I intended to,” Dirk lied. “But when you opened that door and he obviously had no clue, I felt a little foolish. So I said nothing.”
“You also implied he’s the reason you decided to stay here.”
“Did I?” Dirk smiled.
“You did.”
Dirk sat in silence for a moment before answering. Finally, he said, “My wife and I had been talking about taking a trip along the coast for some time. I saw Clint—I mean Walt—on television and I looked him up on the computer.” Dirk smiled. “You did ask me if I ever Googled clients. He wasn’t a client, but a colleague. I read about Marlow House and thought it looked rather quaint—and so here we are.”
“January is a little cold to travel along the coast. Had you always planned to come up here this month? Or just after you saw Walt on television?” she asked.
Dirk shrugged. “I tend to be rather impulsive. I suppose Tanya would have been happier had I booked a room in the summer. But I never know what my schedule will be, and I had just sold my last listing, so I figured this would be an ideal time to take a trip, before business picked up again.”
“I see…” Danielle murmured. You mean you figured this would be a good time to blackmail Clint.
“I must say, I am quite impressed with Cl—Walt’s second career. I had no idea he was interested in writing. Who would have thought, from real estate agent to successful author?”
“It looks like the chief won’t be back until Tuesday,” Danielle told Walt on Sunday morning. They were alone in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for their guests.
“The boys missing school?” Walt asked.
“I guess. It’s some family thing in Vancouver. He got my message and text messaged me this morning,” Danielle explained.
“Perhaps we should be talking to a lawyer instead of the chief. I could call Melony,” Walt suggested. “She should be able to find out if the marriage license is legit and what we need to do to get it annulled. I suppose I can afford to give Claudia a settlement if that’s what it takes. Who knows, maybe I am a bigamist.”
Holding a plate covered with a piece of paper towel in one hand, Danielle held a pair of tongs in the other while removing sizzling bacon from a pan. She began to laugh.
Looking up from the fruit he was cutting, Walt asked, “What’s so funny?”
“Us making breakfast for your blackmailers. I mean, really, do we live in bizarro world or what?”
Walt flashed Danielle a grin. “It’s better than making breakfast for Chris’s uncles.”
Danielle cringed. “So true. Now that was creepy. I wonder how it’s going for Chris. He’s supposed to see Simon today.”
“He should have ignored the request.”
In the dining room the guests—excluding the Russoms, who had already left for the day—gathered around the dining room table, waiting for breakfast. Claudia and Rachel had arrived first, followed by Dirk and his wife. Awkward silence permeated the room while Dirk waited for Claudia to finish with the coffee carafe so he could pour Tanya and himself a cup.
Standing by the table were Eva and Marie, who eyed the two chairs they wanted to sit in, but neither chair was pulled out from the table. Leaving the chairs where they were meant that everything from the waist down on the two ghosts would be hidden under the tabletop once they sat down.
“I suppose I can just do this…” Eva snapped her fingers and she was sitting in an invisible chair floating at the end of the table.
“That really isn’t necessary,” Marie told her.
“I will not sit in the middle of that table,” Eva said.
“Give me a minute…” Marie looked at the four people at the table, and when she thought they weren’t looking, she moved two of the chairs out from the table…one at a time.
Rachel was just about to take a sip of coffee when she noticed movement from the corner of her eye. Holding the cup to her lips, she sat frozen as her eyes darted to her far right. Now gripping the handle of her coffee cup, her eyes widened as she watched a chair move away from the table. Saying nothing, she blinked her eyes and turned to the chairs while gently lowering the coffee cup back down to the table. She continued to stare.
“Rachel, what’s wrong?” Tanya asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Licking her lips, Rachel swallowed nervously and then looked to the other people at the table. “Umm…did any one of you happen to notice if those chairs were tucked under the table when we sat down?” She pointed to the two chairs. What she couldn’t see, they were now occupied—one by Eva the other by Marie.
“Obviously they weren’t,” Claudia said impatiently.
“I…I just saw one move. Didn’t any of you see it?” She looked around frantically.
“I swear, Rachel, your imagination is working overtime,” Claudia scoffed.
Fifteen minutes later, when Walt and Danielle were seated at the table and everyone was eating breakfast, Marie said, “I have to apologize. The reason poor Rachel seems so frazzled and out of sorts, I believe she saw me move these chairs.”
“Marie dear, you say that as if you aren’t quite certain she saw you. She did. The poor girl blurted it out, and now they’re all looking at her as if she’s a little daft,” Eva corrected.
Danielle glanced from Marie and Eva to Rachel, who sat quietly pushing her food around her plate with her fork.
“I’m curious, Walt,” Dirk said a moment later. “Have you been working with anyone to help get your memory back?”
“You mean like a psychologist?” Walt asked with a smile.
Dirk shrugged. “I would think they could do something to help you remember.”
“I was told it will probably come back gradually.”
“Rather hard to remember something you never knew,” Marie scoffed.
“Have you been able to recall anything?” Dirk asked. “Like me or Claudia, are we a little familiar? Like someone you just can’t place?”
Walt looked up from his plate, his eyes meeting Dirk’s. “Not really.”
After a few moments of silence, Dirk picked up a slice of bacon and said, “I suppose there are benefits to amnesia.” He took a bite of the bacon.
“Benefits? How could there be benefits?” Tanya asked.
Dirk finished the rest of the slice of bacon and then said, “For one thing, when a friend dies, you don’t have to be sad.”
“If you’re referring to Stephanie, I may not remember her, but I do feel sad she died,” Walt said.
“Actually, I was thinking of Jay Larson.” He picked up another piece of bacon and popped it in his mouth.
“Who’s Jay Larson?” Danielle asked.
“He was an appraiser Clint—I mean Walt—used to work with a lot,” Dirk explained. “He was killed last spring. Poor guy was mugged in LA.”
“That’s terrible. But what do you mean Walt worked with him a lot?” Danielle asked.
Dirk shrugged. “Larson was the appraiser for a lot of Walt’s buyers.”
“I don’t know why we have to discuss business. After all, I’m on vacation,” Claudia said abruptly.
Dirk looked over to Claudia. “Now that I think about it, didn’t you have the seller’s side of most of those sales that used Larson?”
“What were you doing at breakfast?” Claudia asked Dirk later on Sunday when she cornered him alone in the library at Marlow House.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What are you rambling about now?” Dirk sounded bored.
“All that stuff about Jay Larson.”
“I was just trying to help Clint regain his memory. I thought reminding him of people he once knew might help.”
“If you tell Clint about Jay—about any of it—what’s going to prevent him from going to the police? He has amnesia; he probably figures they won’t hold him responsible for something he did before the accident.”
“I seriously doubt amnesia is a get-out-of-jail card. But I tend to agree he might think it is, and I’d rather he not go to the police. I’d prefer he remembers for himself. I’m just trying to jog his memory.”
“And if he doesn’t give you what you want?”
Dirk shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to make good on my threat.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why can’t I?”
“I paid you, Dirk. I sold my condo to pay you off. You took every penny. If you do this, you’re reneging on our deal!”
“I guess you can always take me to court over it.” He laughed.
“That’s not funny.”
The smile vanished from Dirk’s face and he leaned close to Claudia and whispered, “Then perhaps you need to do what you can to convince Clint to give me what I want—for both of your sakes. From what I remember, you and he used to be pretty close, at least before Stephanie came into the picture. Who knows, maybe this will bring you two back together again, and he’ll dump Danielle Boatman. But considering I intend to take a good share of his money, he might want to keep his rich little fiancée.”
“This most definitely is about blackmail,” Eva observed.
“Apparently so,” Marie said with a nod.
The two ghosts sat on an imaginary sofa hovering in midair above the library’s desk. They looked down at the arguing pair. Tears filled Claudia’s eyes as she turned abruptly from Dirk and ran from the room. Dirk smiled and said, “Nice doing business with you, Claudia.” He laughed and then went over to a chair and sat down. Picking up the magazine sitting on the end table, he opened it and began to read.
“I really don’t like that man.” Eva wrinkled up her nose. Waving one hand as if annoyed, she said, “Do something!”
“Do something what?” Marie asked.
“I don’t know. That stuff you do. He needs a good swift kick!”
“Or…something more creative,” Marie murmured.
Eva looked to Marie. “Creative how?”
“Slapping, pinching, and kicking are a bit adolescent, especially when the subject has no idea it’s coming—or where it came from.”
Eva arched her brows. “So?”
Cocking her head slightly, Marie studied Dirk. “I just think something a little more creative…he isn’t a pot of boiling water…”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Eva asked.
“Watch,” Marie said with a grin.
The next moment the chair with Dirk lifted up from the floor until the top of his head hit the ceiling. It then dropped back down to the floor, making a crashing sound—breaking one of the chair’s legs.
“Oh dear…” Marie muttered.