When she arrived back on Beacon Hill, Sophie found the gate to the archway and courtyard unlocked and thought nothing of it as she shut it firmly behind her, locking it again. Her afternoon on her own had left her feeling more normal--determined, even, to back off from trying to find answers to last September herself. Cliff Rafferty and now Jay Augustine were dead. Percy Carlisle was still out of touch. She'd done what she could to figure out what was going on, and she'd told the police everything she knew.
The police included Scoop, she reminded herself. Whatever attraction she felt toward him didn't change the fact that he was a police officer, as well as a victim of the spiral of violence over the past summer.
The archway, which was unlit, felt cold and dank, reminding her of the cave. It was late afternoon and downright chilly, a sign of the short, frigid winter days ahead. She hadn't lived through a full-blown New England winter in several years. She decided she might as well look forward to a nor'easter, because one surely would blow through Boston before too long.
The courtyard was much darker than she'd expected. The wind or a cat, or maybe even a squirrel, had blown over one of her mums--a white one. She crouched down to right it and stopped, her hand in midair, convinced she'd heard a rustling sound. There was no wind now, not even the stirring of a breeze.
Sophie didn't breathe as she listened.
She heard a whisper in the shadows by the landlords' stairs and shot to her feet. The door to her sister's apartment was shut tight, no sign anyone had broken in.
She heard more whispers--or what sounded like whispers.
A cat yowled, startling her. She jumped back, her heart pounding. She couldn't see the cat but thought the yowl had come from under the stairs. Had the cat been spooked by the whispers, too?
Enough, Sophie thought, and bolted back through the archway, digging out her iPhone and dialing Scoop's number as she headed through the gate and up the stairs to the street. She heard him pick up. 'Are you near Beacon Hill?' she asked before he could speak.
'I'm at the Whitcomb. What's wrong?'
'I'm okay.' She looked up and down the quiet street as she spoke but saw no one. 'I heard something in the courtyard. Whispers. It could have been a cat--'
'Where are you now?'
'On the street.'
'Is anyone with you?'
'No. I'm not worried. I just don't want to go back to the courtyard by myself.'
'I'm on my way.'
While she waited, Sophie peered down the steps through the open gate and archway, but she didn't see a neighbor, a cat, anything. She stood up straight and watched a young couple walk past her, holding hands. They exchanged a pleasant greeting, and as she watched them continue past her, she spotted Scoop making his way up the steep street, moving fast. She waved to him, wishing she could say with assurance the whispers were nothing, that no one had been out in the courtyard with her.
'It was quicker to walk,' he said when he reached her, slipping an arm around her as if it didn't occur to him to do anything else.
'I could have mistaken--'
'Either way, I'm glad you called me.' He winked at her. 'Better safe than bonked on the head, right? I'll take a look.'
'I'll go with you,' she said. 'Honestly, it could have been a cat.'
'That'd be good. I like cats.'
They went down the steps and through the archway back to the courtyard, quiet and still in the fading daylight. Scoop took a quick look around, but none of the neighbors that shared the courtyard had doors wide open or windows broken. No one was lurking behind a bench or under the stairs where Sophie had heard the cat.
'Any other exits besides through the archway?' Scoop asked.
'There's a skinny walk out to the street behind us. It has a locked gate. It's seldom used. I don't even have a key.'
'Hide under the stairs, then scoot out the back while you head through the archway.' He shrugged, contemplating the situation. 'It could work. Let's take a look at your apartment.'
The door was locked, not so much as a fresh scratch in the dark green paint. Scoop checked the windows. 'Anything look different to you?'
'No, nothing. If I hadn't heard the whispers...' Sophie pulled her sweater tightly around her, cold now. 'I'm on edge.'
'Understandable,' he said, glancing back at the pretty courtyard. 'Did your sister give a key to anyone?'
'I don't think so. The friend who was here over the summer returned her key and said she didn't make a copy.'
'Who else knows you're in Boston, staying here?'
'My family. A few friends, the tutoring center. Colm Dermott knows. He probably told Eileen Sullivan.'
'The Carlisles,' Scoop added.
'I imagine just about everyone in the Boston Police Department knows, too.'
He plucked a wilted blossom off a yellow mum by the door. 'It's a Harry Potter sort of place you've got here. Let's go inside and see if anyone paid you a visit while you were out.'
As she dug out her keys, a black-and-white shorthaired cat leaped out from under the stairs and landed on all fours by a small wrought-iron bench. 'Hey, there,' Sophie said, gently, keeping any tension out of her voice. 'I haven't seen you before. Where are you from?'
The cat arched its back and hissed, more out of fear, Sophie thought, than aggression. She hadn't seen the cat in her few days at the apartment. Scoop squatted down. 'What's up, fella? Something spook you out here?'
An older woman came out of another apartment across the courtyard. 'There you are,' she said, gathering the cat up into her arms. 'I've been looking all over for you.'
Scoop stood up. 'He's your cat?'
She nodded. 'He never gets out. I was washing windows. I turned my back and he was gone. At first I thought he was hiding in the house. Something must have startled him for him to have jumped out the window.'
'How long ago was this?' Scoop asked.
'Maybe ten minutes. I'm so glad he's all right.' She nuzzled the cat, who was purring now, clearly calmer. But the woman stiffened as she glanced from Scoop to Sophie and back again. 'Is something wrong?'
'It's okay,' Scoop said. 'Did you see or hear anything unusual out here in the courtyard?'
'No, nothing. I've been here all day, too.' The cat wriggled in her arms. 'I should get him back inside.'
She returned to her apartment, and Sophie stuck her key in the lock. 'Maybe it was just the cat,' she said, pushing open the door.
'And maybe what startled you is what startled the cat.'
They entered her apartment, which obviously hadn't been disturbed, but Scoop checked its entire four- hundred square feet, including the bedroom. Sophie had made the bed, put her clothes away, hadn't left out anything too personal--not that he'd care. He was looking for an intruder, not lace undies on the floor.
Not that she even
'I'll be fine here,' she said when he returned to the main room. 'I can use the dead bolt. Even if someone else has a key--'
'If someone wants to get in here, they can get in. A brick through the window would do it. Who needs a key?'
'I'm glad you're on our side,' Sophie said dryly.
He shrugged his big shoulders. 'I'm just saying.'
They both were standing in the middle of the room as if they didn't quite know what to do with themselves now that the crisis--or whatever it was--had passed. 'I'm sorry I got you up here.'
'Did you hear whispers or didn't you?'
