C. Jimmy Hume. He reminds me of Jack when he was young. Jimmy finished high school a year early and attends OU. He’s a geology major and will likely go to work for Hume Oil when he graduates. He rock-climbs, surfs, spelunks, and never met a dare he wouldn’t take. He visited Jack several times in Africa. He’s crazy about Shannon Taylor.
D. Shannon Taylor. The daughter of The Castle housekeeper, Margo Taylor, Shannon will be a freshman at Oklahoma State this fall. She helps out at The Castle in the summer. Evelyn’s companion is the wife of a Goddard professor and they usually spend the summer in France. While the companion is gone, Shannon drives Evelyn. Shannon and Jimmy have been dating on and off since middle school, but when Jack arrived at The Castle, Shannon was dazzled by him.
A smile transformed Kay’s face. Despite the traces of tears, she looked rueful and amused and understanding, a woman with a long view and a generous heart. “I could have told Shannon.” In the margin of her notepad, she sketched a heart with an arrow. Across the heart, she wrote:
Kay pulled a laptop toward her, flipped up the lid. In only a moment, a striking picture filled the screen. The background was mesmerizing, falls tumbling behind him in a feathery spray of white, but despite the magnificence of thundering water, the man in the foreground dominated the photograph, thick silver hair, broad forehead, strong nose, high cheekbones, chiseled chin, full, sensuous lips. He was in safari garb, topee hat, khaki shirt and shorts, boots. A patch covered his right eye. An angry red scar curled down one cheek. Whether it was his expression of barely leashed intensity or the way he stood, or something more, the image radiated vigor and recklessness and the make-me-any-bid challenge of a gambler. Beneath the vitality, there was also an underlying gravity, suggesting he had been tested in many arenas and was sadder and wiser for his experiences.
I’m not sure I would have recognized him. After his wife and daughter’s death, Jack had left Adelaide as a very young man with coal black hair and smooth features. He’d returned as an older man whose scarred face and confident bearing reflected adventures in a dangerous environment.
“While he’s asking me to leave my world behind and move to Africa, he’s breaking a college girl’s heart. Like he wrote, there’s no good way to say thanks, but no thanks.” Kay’s smile fled. She picked up her pen, added to the note on Shannon.
8. Was Shannon distraught enough over Jack to have wanted him dead?
E. Margo Taylor. The housekeeper’s face looks hard as granite at any mention of Jack. Was she angered by her daughter’s pursuit of him? Or did she think he was taking advantage of Shannon?
F. Laverne and Ronald Phillips. Laverne claims to be clairvoyant. Diane consulted her several years ago in Dallas. Laverne insists she is in contact with James Hume. Diane begged her to come to Adelaide and live at The Castle. Every Wednesday night, they hold a seance. It’s all nonsense, of course, but Diane believes every word. Neither Laverne nor Ronald is likable. Laverne tries to be a grande dame, but she’s all theater and no substance. Ronald is like a fancy lapdog, always deferring to her, talking about her “gift.”
“Oooh.” I knew I sounded appalled. “Heaven doesn’t approve.”
Kay’s expression was a mixture of disdain and perplexity. “What is with my subconscious? Seances may be stupid, but I doubt they rank as immoral. I had no idea I was such a prig.”
Prig! I reached out and gave her arm a sharp pinch.
“Ouch.” Kay looked at her arm. “Maybe I need a nightcap.” She popped from the chair, walked to a wet bar. As she filled a tumbler with ice, I put another glass next to hers. With scarcely a pause, she scooped more ice. “Sure. The more the merrier. Me and my little helper.” A line of single-serving bottles included Scotch, bourbon, and gin. She poured Scotch and added club soda.
I opened a little gin bottle.
She watched as a bottle of tonic water was lifted and poured. “I loathe gin and tonic.”
“I don’t,” I answered sweetly. I carried the drink across the room.
Determinedly ignoring the moving glass, Kay stalked back to the desk. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to take a break. In fact, I don’t need a drink.” She turned, marched to the sink, dumped the contents of the glass, and returned to the desk. “I freaking hope when I figure out what happened to Jack, my mind gets its groove back.” She slammed into the chair.
I took a sip. The glass tipped.
She covered her eyes with one hand.
“If it makes you feel better…” I swirled back into being.
She dropped her hand and swept me with a hostile glance. “At least you’re better-looking than Poe’s phantasms.”
“Faint praise is worse than no praise at all.” I took another sip. “Excellent gin.”
She tapped her fingers irritably on the desktop. “Okay. I get the message. I’m missing something. Obviously, I won’t be rid of you until I figure out whatever it is I haven’t figured out.”
“I’ll help.” I pushed a hassock near the desk, settled on it. “How did you manage to be invited to stay here?”
“I didn’t know Jack had died. I kept e-mailing to no answer. I knew something was wrong. I called. It was the day of Jack’s funeral.” Her lovely face was stricken. “I ended up speaking to Diane. She told me he’d fallen down the balcony steps. I kept pressing her. I suppose I sounded incredulous. She kept talking about an accident. I remembered his e-mails. I knew he’d been murdered.” She snapped her fingers. “I knew it like that. It didn’t take five minutes on the phone with Diane to know she was a patsy. I told her Jack had asked me to come this week and make plans for a book I was writing about him. I asked her if I could go ahead and come, that I’d promised him about the book. She agreed.” She looked around the lovely room. “I’m in the room where he stayed on his visit. It’s as near to him now as I’ll ever be. What happened tonight proves I was right. Someone pushed him, and someone’s going to pay.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police someone tried to kill you tonight?” My tone was both sharp and puzzled. She knew and I knew she had been lured to the cul-de-sac and the vase had been pushed. Yet she’d done everything in her power to prevent an investigation. Now that I realized she suspected Jack Hume was a murder victim, I felt bewildered. “What were you thinking? What’s to keep the murderer from trying again?”
