quarters.
Just how crazy was he?
At the first opportunity, that was a question she’d explore with William, and perhaps pay a visit to Amos, the caretaker, while he was recovering at his niece’s house. She stepped into the room and slowly cast the thin flashlight beam across the room, moving left to right. On the left, at the back of the room, she saw another door and the light fell across a claw-foot tub beyond it. Then she scanned over his bed, still made up with sheets, and paused at the nightstand, with its collection of pill bottles and a half-empty glass of water still standing next to them.
Clearly, Alaina hadn’t spent much time, if any, in this room. Not that she blamed her. The room was unsettling. The air was stiller, as if she’d stepped into a vacuum, and not a single sound echoed through the exterior walls and into the bedroom.
Like a tomb.
The thought ripped through her, and despite the heat of early fall, she shivered. The thought was too accurate for comfort. Her stepfather had locked himself away from society, then practically barricaded himself in this room and died. It was something a sane person simply couldn’t wrap their mind around.
She lifted the flashlight beam from the nightstand and continued along the back wall to the right, where she almost missed a wooden door, carved to match the paneling. Closet, maybe?
She didn’t want to take another step into the room, but she would be working just outside this room and had to know that it was secure. Her heart pounded as she inched across the bedroom, feeling as if every step took her farther and farther away from safety. When she reached the door, she placed the flashlight on the nightstand, the light shining onto the ceiling and casting a dim glow around her.
She tightened her grip on the pistol and slowly turned the doorknob and eased the door open. As the light filtered into the opening, she frowned. The clothes she’d expected to see were nowhere in sight. Instead, a steep flight of stairs led down to the first floor.
A shock wave of fear ran through her and she released the doorknob and staggered back a couple of steps. During her tour of the first floor, she’d found the servants’ stairwell close to the laundry room, but she’d assumed the entry would be off the hallway upstairs. She’d never considered that the stairs would lead straight into the master bedroom.
Someone could have been here.
She grabbed the flashlight and hurried out of the room and back downstairs, rushing across the entry to the back of the house, where she’d seen the exit for the servants’ stairs. The door was closed, but before she could think about all the potential dangers, she yanked it open, pointing her pistol inside.
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until it rushed out in a whoosh. Get a grip, she told herself as she pushed the door shut, noting that it didn’t make a sound as it closed. If someone had passed this way earlier, she wouldn’t have heard them exit. But the big question was, if someone had been in the house, where were they now?
The laundry room was at the end of the hallway, just a few feet beyond the servants’ stairs. She hurried to the laundry room to check the back door. The knob turned easily in her hand, and she pushed the door open and looked out into the backyard that had been swallowed up by the swamp. Vines and moss clung to every branch of the cypress trees that loomed above, while moss and weeds choked out any remaining sign of lawn.
She stared at the tangle of foliage and decided it made her just as uneasy as the master bedroom. It wasn’t just here, either. The swamp surrounding her cabin felt equally as ominous—as if it were a living entity and resented her trespass. For a girl who’d lived in some of the toughest neighborhoods across the country, it was unnerving to get such powerful feelings from a bunch of trees and brush.
She pushed the door shut and locked the dead bolt, her mind made up. Someone had been in the house. They’d stayed hidden upstairs while she was searching the first floor, then used her trip upstairs as an opportunity to slip out of the house unseen. They probably thought she’d dismiss the unlatched back door as an oversight, but they were wrong. Street-smart women like Danae didn’t have “oversights” on things as important as exterior doors, and she was certain it was locked when she’d examined the first floor earlier.
In the past, when her safety had been threatened, she’d simply packed up and moved on. She’d had no roots and nothing of value to keep her tied to any one place, especially a dangerous one. But now she had something to lose. Something huge. Running was out of the question, so she hurried back to the kitchen and pulled out her cell phone.
For the first time in her life, she was calling the police.
Chapter Five
Zach paced the tiny caretaker’s cottage, aggravated with almost everything. His original enthusiasm over scoring the LeBeau estate job was seriously compromised after meeting Danae LeBeau. The heiress had enchanting features and a stellar body, but was prickly and suspicious and was already making a mess of his carefully laid plans.
How was he supposed to dig around in the house records with her looking over his shoulder? If she were going to be at the house every day alongside him, that didn’t leave him any opportunity to snoop during that time. Now his only option was to find a way inside the house so that he could search for his answers at night.
Maybe he’d luck into a spare key lying around. If not, then he’d make sure to leave a window unlocked—a downstairs one with easy access, if such a thing existed. The swamp had almost swallowed the house, the brush and weeds pushing their way right up to the house walls.
He stopped pacing and ran one hand through his hair. What the hell was he supposed to do until tomorrow morning? Even if he could have distracted his overloaded mind with television, the caretaker didn’t own a set. No television, no radio, not even a crossword-puzzle book. What in the world did the man do for entertainment?
He glanced at his watch for the hundredth time since leaving the mansion. Four o’clock. At this rate, he’d wear out the cabin’s wooden floors before nightfall with all this pacing. Maybe Danae was still at the house. If so, he could always ask if he could take an inventory. That way, he could pick up any needed supplies in order to begin work straightaway the next morning. Surely she couldn’t find fault with that logic.
Mind made up, he grabbed his keys and headed back to the mansion. As he pulled into the drive, he saw a truck with the sheriff’s logo on the door. His hand tightened on the steering wheel as he pulled behind the truck and parked. What could be going on that warranted the sheriff?
He hopped out of his truck, and as he started toward the front door, it opened and a man stepped out. Zach studied the sheriff as he approached the entrance. This athletic man looked to be about the same age as him, the last thing he’d imagined for the sheriff of Calais. An aging, balding man with a potbelly was more what he would have guessed.
The sheriff caught his gaze immediately as he stepped outside and glanced back at Danae, who stood just inside the door. She said something to him and he nodded then made his way across the drive, meeting Zach halfway.
“Carter Trahan,” the sheriff said and extended his hand.
“Zach Sargent,” he replied and gave Carter’s hand a firm shake. “I hope there wasn’t any trouble here.”
“Not at all. I promised Alaina I’d check up on Danae.”
“Alaina?”
“Her
