Moonlight Becomes You

few calls of my own.”

He turned to look at his wife. “You didn’t stay for the dinner in Boston last night, Odile. And wherever you went, those shoes of yours got terribly muddy, didn’t they?”

89

She couldn’t keep track of the numbers anymore. It was no use.

Don’t give up, Maggie urged herself, trying to force her mind to stay alert, to remain connected. It would be so easy to drift away, so easy just to close her eyes and retreat from what was happening to her.

The picture Earl had given her-there had been something about Liam’s expression-the superficial smile, the calculated sincerity, the practiced warmth.

She should have guessed that there was something dishonest about his sudden attentiveness. He had been more in character when he abandoned her at the cocktail party.

She thought back to last night, to the voice. Odile Lane had been arguing with Liam. She had heard them.

Odile had been frightened. “I can’t do it anymore,” she had wailed. “You’re insane! You promised you’d sell the place and we’d go away. I warned you that Maggie Holloway was asking too many questions.”

So clear. For the moment so clear.

She could barely flex her hand any longer. It was time to scream for help again.

But now her voice was only a whisper. No one would hear her.

Flex… unflex… take short breaths, she reminded herself.

But her mind kept coming back to just one thing, the first childhood prayer she had ever learned: “Now I lay me down to sleep…”

90

“You could at least have told me that you owned Latham Manor,” Earl Bateman said accusingly to his cousin. “I tell you everything. Why are you so secretive?”

“It’s just an investment, Earl,” Liam said soothingly. “Nothing more. I am completely removed from the day- to-day operation of the residence.”

He drove into the parking lot of the funeral museum, stopping next to Earl’s car. “Go home and get a good night’s sleep. You need it.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to Boston. Why?”

“Did you come rushing down today just to see me?” Earl asked, still annoyed.

“I came because you were upset, and I came because I was concerned about Maggie Holloway. Now, as I’ve explained, I’m not as concerned about her. My guess is that she’ll show up soon.”

Earl started to get out of the car, then paused. “Liam, you knew where I kept the key to the museum, and the ignition key to the hearse, didn’t you?” he asked.

“What are you driving at?”

“Nothing, except to ask if you told anyone about where I keep them?”

“No, I didn’t. Come on, Earl. You’re tired. Go on home so I can get on my way.”

Earl got out and slammed the door.

Liam Moore Payne drove immediately out of the parking lot to the end of the side street. He didn’t notice a car pull out from the curb and follow at a discreet distance when he turned right.

It was all unraveling, he thought glumly. They knew he owned the residence. Earl had already started to suspect that he had been the one in the museum last night. The bodies were going to be exhumed, and they’d find that the women had been given improper medications. If he was lucky, Dr. Lane would be blamed, but Odile was ready to crack. They would get a confession out of her in no time. And Hansen? He would do anything to save his own skin.

So that leaves me, Liam thought. All that work for nothing! The dream of being the second Squire Moore, powerful and rich, was gone. After all the risks he had taken-borrowing from his clients’ securities; buying the residence on a shoestring and pouring money into it; figuring out Squire-like ways to get other people’s money-he was, after all that, just another failed Moore. Everything was slipping through his fingers.

And Earl, that obsessed fool, was rich, really rich.

But fool though he was, Earl wasn’t stupid. Soon he would start to put two and two together, and then he would know where to look for his casket.

Well, even if he figured it all out, Liam thought, he wouldn’t find Maggie Holloway alive.

Her time had run out, of that he was certain.

91

Chief Brower and Detective Haggerty were about to leave for the day when the call came in from Earl Bateman.

“They all hate me,” he began. “They like to ridicule the Bateman family business, ridicule me for my lectures- but the bottom line is they’re all jealous because we’re rich. We’ve been rich for generations, long before Squire Moore ever saw his first crooked dollar!”

“Could you get to the point, Professor?” Brower asked. “What do you want?”

“I want you to meet me at the site of my planned outdoor exhibit. I have a feeling that my cousin Liam and Maggie Holloway together have played their version of a practical joke on me. I’ll bet anything they took my casket to one of the open graves at the exhibit and dumped it there. I want you to be present when I find it. I’m leaving now.”

The chief grabbed a pen. “Where exactly is your exhibit site, Professor?”

When he hung up, Brower said to Haggerty, “I think he’s cracking up, but I also think we may be about to find Maggie Holloway’s body.”

92

“Neil, look at that!”

They were driving along a narrow dirt road, following the Jaguar. When they left the main road, Neil had turned off the headlights, hoping that Liam Payne wouldn’t realize they were there. Now the Jaguar was turning left, its headlights briefly illuminating a sign Robert Stephens strained to make out.

“Future site of the Bateman Outdoor Funeral Museum,” he read. “That must have been what Bateman was talking about when he said the stolen casket was going to be part of an important exhibit. Do you think it’s here?”

Neil did not answer. A fear so terrible that his mind could not tolerate it was exploding within him. Casket. Hearse. Cemetery.

If Liam Payne had been ordering residents of Latham Manor to be murdered, and then placed symbolic bells on their graves, what would he be likely to do to someone who had put him in danger?

Suppose he had been in the museum last night and found Maggie there?

He and someone else, Neil thought. It must have taken two of them to drive Maggie’s car and the hearse.

Had they killed her and taken her out in that coffin?