Hiss And Tell

18

By the time Sunny had mentally worked her way through all the possible suspects, a glance at her watch told her she was about due to head back and get ready for dinner. She strolled along to the guesthouse just in time to see Priscilla emerging from one of the ever-present town cars. Cillie looked very serious indeed in a sage green suit. She waved good-bye to the car—Sunny realized that Cale Kingsbury was in the backseat, also wearing a suit—and waited until the vehicle had gone around a bend in the path. Then Priscilla raised her arms and did a little shimmy.

“My happy dance,” she explained to Sunny. “I’ve been working for months on a project to create food pantries statewide using the 99 Elmet Ladies’ effort as a test program. It took two meetings in one day, but we finally signed the papers and organized the funding. It’s a go! The biggest thing I’ve tried to get off the ground, and now it’s set to happen. I was so afraid something would gum things up when the wedding plans went into high gear, or for the honeymoon.” She heaved a deep sigh and gave Sunny a big grin. “Okay. Now I’m ready to get married.”

“I think you still have a couple of months,” Sunny told her, but she joined in the smile. But then the idea of fouling things up before the wedding tangled with the Rohypnol she’d discovered. Almost before she knew what she was saying, Sunny asked, “Does anyone have a reason to create a scandal around your wedding?”

Priscilla’s cheerful expression faltered. “You mean a scandal besides two people getting murdered on Neal’s Neck?”

Sunny took a moment to search for the right words. None came—at least, none that didn’t involve mentioning the date-rape drug. “I mean something more like a sex scandal.”

Cillie got very formal, almost prim. “That’s not something people usually connect with us Kingsburys.”

“Except, I guess, for people who know about the copse,” Sunny suggested.

Warm color rose in Priscilla’s face, but her eyes grew icy. “That’s kind of personal.”

“You’re right—I was out of line,” Sunny apologized. But her interior reporter’s antennae were quivering. There was something here, but she wasn’t sure what it might be. She took a moment or two to switch the conversation to other subjects and smooth Priscilla’s ruffled hackles, much as she sometimes did with Shadow’s fur. When Cillie was smiling again, Sunny went into the guesthouse and headed upstairs. She only had one unused outfit left in the closet, her coral party number. After a quick shower, she let her hair dry and put on a little makeup before stepping into the dress and heading over for dinner. Then she came out into the hallway, where Cillie stood waiting.

“Wow! Very impressive,” Priscilla said as she took in the outfit. “You make me feel dowdy in this suit.”

“Spoken like a true politician,” Sunny told her.

“Politician’s daughter,” Cillie corrected as they headed downstairs to join Yardley, who actually did look a bit dowdy in her usual beige. The guys didn’t say much when Sunny and the other girls joined them outside, but they each gave her some pretty complimentary looks. And when they reached the big house, Cale Kingsbury greeted Sunny with a big grin.

“You should have led with this dress, Sunny,” he told her after a slow survey. “You know how first impressions are the most important.”

She waved off the flattery. “At the beginning of the summer, my skin burns to exactly this shade,” she told him.

“Oho,” he said, “the nude look.”

Rolling her eyes but grinning, Sunny headed for the dining room. The experiment with alfresco dining was definitely over, although as usual, the meal was buffet style. Both sets of French doors leading to the terrace were closed, and the food was arranged on the sideboard in closed dishes.

Sunny had to hide a grin. Full security in case of a commando cat attack, her inner smart mouth quipped.

The meal was quiet, but Sunny got a lot of sidelong looks from the males in the room, including a couple from the Emperor Augustus. She began to regret having worn such a striking color. By the time dinner ended, she was glad for the opportunity to make an escape.

As Sunny was leaving the mansion, Priscilla appeared at her side. “I was thinking about what you mentioned earlier,” she said quietly. “About scandals. The Neals were more likely than the Kingsburys to get involved in, um, adventures. But somebody else had to deal with a lot of gossip—Eliza.”

Sunny stopped and stared. “What kind of gossip?”

“Look, she’s—she was a friend, and now she’s dead.” Cillie bit her lip. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“Let me help,” Sunny said. “Is it something she could’ve been blackmailed over?”

Priscilla’s eyes went wide. “Maybe. She wasn’t specific with me, but she was pretty frantic about a year ago, right when she broke off her engagement. There were rumors about a sex tape that her fiancé had talked her into—and then managed to lose.”

That could put the kibosh on Eliza’s wedding plans, Sunny thought, although she said nothing. And in the right hands—like the Taxman’s—it could also be a dandy setup for blackmail.

“But I don’t see how an indiscretion like that could’ve led to her getting killed.” Priscilla’s voice was so soft, Sunny could barely hear it.

“I don’t know either, but it may tie in,” Sunny said. “I’m still casting my nets as widely as possible. Then I’ll try to see what facts fit together.”

Priscilla nodded somberly, and they moved together in silence for a little while. But when Cillie made the turn to head for the guesthouse, Sunny shook her head. “I’m going to walk a little more. Try and sort out my thoughts.”

She took a wide loop around the compound, along the paths nearest to the water. Blackmail. Scandal. Sex tapes. Rohypnol, which almost was synonymous with date rape. It seemed like a consistent thread, but how did it tie together?

She was almost to the tip of Neal’s Neck, the headland that jutted out into the water like the prow of a vessel, when she spotted the copse, the only halfway-wild stand of trees amid the otherwise immaculately tended gardens and lawns. That has to be it, Sunny thought, spotting the ruins of an old shingled roof among the foliage. On impulse, she walked over. There was the barest suggestion of a path, overgrown with twigs that tugged at the hem of her dress. She zigzagged deeper into the shadows and found the gazebo. Although the roof was pretty much gone, the base of the structure and the supporting posts had managed to survive. A few token flecks of white remained on the more sheltered sections, vestiges of an ancient paint job. But most of the bare wood had weathered to a silvery color.

Left to their own growth, the surrounding trees had spread up and out to create a green roof where the shingled one had been torn away. In the summertime I guess that’s pretty romantic, Sunny thought. What had Cillie called it? A bower?

As a lover’s rendezvous, however, it looked pretty Spartan. Blankets would definitely be necessary. And maybe some moonlight, too. Right now, the lighting was all wrong. The evening sun had turned the western sky a glaring red, as if a huge fire were blazing just beyond the horizon. That was quite pretty when viewed from the open. But it gave an infernal atmosphere to the shadows in here.

Well, Cale should be happy, Sunny thought, peering out through the screening brush. She tried to remember the poem Dad and his fishing buddies always quoted:

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.

There was a whole scientific explanation for the folklore, something about atmospheric conditions foretelling the weather, Sunny wasn’t sure. But for Mike and his pals, a sky like this evening’s meant a pleasant journey for the next day’s fishing. Maybe we can persuade Cale to take us out on the Merlin again tomorrow.

She was just turning to find her way out again when she spotted something that didn’t belong: a box attached high up on one of the roof supports, smaller than a pack of cigarettes, but thicker—because of the lens. In fact, she might not have even noticed it if a breeze hadn’t shifted the branches on the trees, letting in a shaft of sunlight that caused an orange reflection on the lens.

This was a camera. Sunny had been researching extreme sports for an article on the MAX website, things like BASE jumping, skydiving, and paragliding. Part of the fun for the participants was recording their particular death-defying stunts, so to meet the market, cameras like this one (small enough to mount on the adventurer’s gear or helmet, and that used a Wi-Fi signal to send images to a recorder) were now widely available.

Somehow, Sunny didn’t think this particular camera was part of the Neal’s Neck security surveillance shield. That was supposed to be on the perimeter, aimed outward, not into a secluded rendezvous location. But a camera like this would make a dandy addition to a blackmailer’s bag of tricks, Sunny thought as she slowly made a circuit around the ruined gazebo. Now that she was looking for them, Sunny spotted three other cameras, enough to capture all angles on the floor.

Rohypnol, sex tapes, and a young guy about to get married and maybe make a run for the presidency. It all created an unpleasantly clear picture to Sunny.

She left the gazebo and began pushing her way through the overgrown path. Then a flare of light ten times brighter than the setting sun exploded behind her eyes as sudden pain screamed from the back of her head.

And everything went black.

*

Shadow skulked in the underbrush around the big trees. It smelled different in here than around the rest of this place, more rank and wild. He wasn’t sure he liked that, especially when Sunny pushed her way through the bushes. Unpleasant things could hide in places like this—like the time he’d investigated a thicket and found himself nose to nose with one of those masked critters with the big claws and teeth. It was a good thing that both of them had been surprised enough to back away. That animal had been half again my size, Shadow thought. It would have been a bad, bad fight.

He had another problem. In a confused place like this, he might wind up nose to nose with Sunny. What if she was playing a trick on him? She’d left him very confused, ignoring him, chasing him, ignoring him, and now sneaking into a wild place. So he’d decided not to follow, just to stay on the outskirts and wait for her to come out.

She won’t stay long, he told himself. There’s no food in there—at least, nothing Sunny would like.

That reminded Shadow of his own empty stomach, so he decided to try and find something he could eat. He ranged around the circle of trees, looking for something to stalk, sorting out the smells of wild growth and damp earth, scenting for prey. . . .

The wind brought a new aroma, faint at first, then stronger, becoming more distinct over the wild scents. This was a made smell, sweet and spicy. The scent of Smells Good!

Shadow retraced his steps, circling round the little forest, but when he got to where the scent was strongest, no one was there. He raised his head, sniffing. Smells Good had gone through the bushes! Had he come here to find Sunny? What would they do in this quiet place?

A thought came to Shadow and made him blink. Could they have come here to mate? It didn’t seem like a comfortable place. Shadow considered human beds one of the best things they had.

But then, two-legs were always doing crazy things. He set off through the underbrush to investigate. There was Sunny’s scent, and the stronger aroma of Smells Good. Up ahead, he suddenly heard an odd cry. Was it pain, or something else?

Shadow began shouldering his way through the brush more forcefully, not caring now if he might be heard. Any sound he made would be drowned out by the weird creaking noises that came to his ears anyway. He burst out into an open place, where wooden steps ran up to a platform—and where part of the floor had swung up. A two-legged male was carrying Sunny down into darkness, her head lolling on his shoulder.

He smelled blood!

Desperate, Shadow leaped into the opening, going down, down, down into the dark.

One thing he knew for sure. This was definitely Not Good.