Killing the Carnations (A Heavenly Highland Inn Cozy Mystery) (7 page)

“
That’s it!” Vicky gasped as a childhood memory returned.

“
What?” Aunt Ida questioned with confusion.

But Vicky didn’t reply
, she just started searching the wall.

“What are
you doing?” Aunt Ida asked again with a quizzical look. But, before Vicky could answer she noticed a piece of moulding at the base of the wall missing. She pushed at the section and the wall dipped inward. Aunt Ida and Vicky stared in shock.

“
Aunt Ida, do you see what I'm seeing?” Vicky asked as she shone her flashlight into the dark space beyond the hidden door.

“
I think so,” Aunt Ida tilted her head to the side. “But I don't know what we're looking at exactly.”

“
I think it used to be the passageway that led form the storeroom to the old laundry,” Vicky gasped and poked her head inside. She had a faint memory of running along a corridor with Sarah when they were kids. It led from an old storeroom upstairs to the old laundry room downstairs.  It was designed to be a quick way to get the heavy laundry from the upstairs rooms to the laundry room but when her parents did a small renovation and installed lifts they closed off the passageway and made the storeroom join the adjacent room to make a big guest room. They also moved the laundry room indoors.

“I thought it was
completely closed off years ago!” Aunt Ida exclaimed.

As Vicky loo
ked closer, she played the flashlight beam along the floor. She noticed right away a pattern of shoeprints in the thick layer of dust.

“
Someone has been here,” she said breathlessly. Her heart began to race as she suddenly realized that the person who had left those shoeprints behind, had probably been Charleston's murderer.

“
We should follow them,” Aunt Ida stated.

Vicky
hesitated for a moment before entering the tunnel. She knew that she should tell Mitchell about what they had found. He would want to investigate it, and have the techs check for any evidence left behind. But it was so tempting to head down the passageway. If they didn't look now, then whoever the murderer was might decide to clean up his or her tracks, and in that case all the evidence would be lost.

“
Wait, let me take a few pictures,” Vicky said quickly and pulled out her phone. She snapped photographs of the shoeprints, and the surrounding walls. The passageway wasn’t very wide, it was just big enough for a long, narrow, trolley. She and Ida would have to walk single file. There was nothing she could see on the walls themselves, but Vicky knew that crime scene techs could find things that were invisible to the naked eye.

Vicky stepped in first. S
he did her best not to disturb the shoeprints that were in the dust, but she knew she was creating new ones of her own. Then Aunt Ida followed after her. Vicky held her flashlight out in front of her and shone it down the passageway.

“
I can't believe you can still access this,” she muttered as she shook her head. “Stay close to me, I have no idea how strong these floors are or how many spiders...” she realized her mistakes the moment she said the word.

“
Spiders?” Aunt Ida gasped and Vicky glanced over her shoulder sharply.

“
Shh,” she warned her aunt, as she knew that Aunt Ida could begin shrieking very loudly when spiders were involved. “I'm sure if there were any, they were scared off by whoever walked through here,” as she turned back around she cringed, hoping that her words would turn out to be true. In the beam of light that the flashlight cast she noticed that the shoeprints seemed to be even and large. She assumed that they would have come from a man. But who? She wasn't certain of that. At least they didn't have heel marks, indicating that the criminal they were seeking was not likely Amanda. The passageway abruptly curved and sloped downwards.

“
Where does this come out?” Aunt Ida asked.

“I don’t know, I thought they closed this off.  The outside laundry room no longer exists,” Vicky whispered back. She had tried to keep her bearings as to where they would be in the inn, but she had lost track when the corridor began to slope. She shone her flashlight ahead of her and saw that the passageway came to an abrupt end. All that was in front of her were stones, maybe they only blocked off this end.

“
We should go back,” Vicky suddenly said, her breath catching in her throat. But as she started to turn back, she caught a flash along the corridor wall. Someone carrying a flashlight was coming. “Aunt Ida,” she gasped out as quietly as she could. “Come close to me,” she said quickly and flicked off her flashlight.

Aunt
Ida huddled close to Vicky and the two women held their breath as they heard footsteps slowly approaching. Vicky leaned her shoulder against the side wall as the passageway was still very narrow. She felt her shoulder strike something protruding from the wall. Suddenly she was falling through the wall, and pulling Aunt Ida down with her. She landed hard on the floor, and Aunt Ida landed rather softly right on top of her. Vicky helped her aunt up to her feet and fearfully looked in the direction of the tunnel. The hidden door that had swung open when she depressed the lever for it, had swung back closed.

“
Where are we?” Aunt Ida asked with some confusion as she looked around the small room. It was familiar, but not one of the guest rooms at the inn. Then Vicky noticed the framed painting hanging on the wall.  It was of a vase of carnations that Vicky knew Emily had painted.

Vicky cupped her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping out loud. When she composed he
rself she whispered to her aunt. “We're in Emily's room.”

“
Emily?” Aunt Ida said with surprise. Just then they heard footsteps from the wall. Whoever had been following them had reached the end of the corridor. Vicky waved frantically towards the closet. She and Ida crept as silently as they could into the closet and closed themselves inside. They both waited to see who would come through the opening in the wall. But no one did. Minutes passed by, and nothing happened.

“
Maybe the person didn't know the door was there?” Vicky whispered to her aunt.

“
But how could he not know, if he's the killer?” Aunt Ida pointed out with mounting frustration. Vicky was just about to open the closet door when the door to Emily's room swung open. Emily walked inside and sat down on the foot of her bed. She looked morose as she stared hard at the floor. She reached up and released her blonde curls. As her hair tumbled around her shoulders, Vicky peered through the slats of the closet.

“
There you are,” a voice said from the doorway with annoyance. “I've been looking everywhere for you.”

“
What do you want, Henry?” Emily asked brusquely. She didn't usually talk to anyone that way.

“
I just wanted to see if you were okay,” Henry explained in a hurt tone. “I heard you two arguing...”

“
You didn't hear anything,” Emily snapped and glared at Henry.

“
But I did...” Henry began to say again.

“
You didn't,” Emily shot back. “We were just role-playing.”

“
Role-playing?” Henry replied with a shake of his head. “I don't think so. I heard you crying. Then when I came over, you were gone. Look Emily, I'm not trying to get into your business, but you should know that you don't have to put up with that kind of treatment.”

All of the fire and fury seemed to drain right out of Emily and she began to quietly cry. Vicky had to fight the urge to go to her and comfort her, as she knew that there was no way they could explain hiding in her closet.

Henry sat down beside her and patted her back gently. “It's okay hon, let it all out.”

Emily gulped and shook her head.
“It's nothing. I just expected too much, that's all.”

“
Shh,” Henry soothed her. “Why don't we go hit up the freezer for some of that gourmet ice cream?”

“
But won't Vicky or Sarah be mad?” Emily asked nervously.

“
What they don't know won't hurt them,” Henry said conspiratorially. Vicky narrowed her green eyes sharply and bit into her bottom lip to keep from correcting that statement. Instead she felt Aunt Ida squeeze her hand firmly. As Henry and Emily left the room, Vicky let out a sigh of relief. She opened up the closet door so that she and Aunt Ida could have some breathing room. As they stepped out of the closet, Vicky stepped down on something hard. She glanced down to see a pillowcase, wrapped up several times into a small bundle that had been shoved into the bottom of the closet.

“
What's this?” she murmured as she crouched down to peer at it.

“
Just looks like some dirty laundry,” Aunt Ida shrugged as she glanced nervously around the room. “We should get out of here before they, or the guy from the corridor comes back.”

Vicky nodded, but she was distracted by the pillowcase.
“There was something hard inside it when I stepped down,” Vicky said quietly. She reached out and picked up the pillowcase. When she unwound it, she revealed a corkscrew with a long wooden handle.

“
Aunt Ida?” she breathed as she turned around to show her the corkscrew. She was careful not to touch anything but the pillowcase.

“
Do you think that's it?” Aunt Ida looked at the corkscrew with horror. Vicky immediately began wrapping the corkscrew back up. She tucked it back into the closet where she found it.

“
We have to let Mitchell know about this,” she said quickly. “All of this.”

“
But first we need to get out of here,” Ida said quickly. “We don't want to be next on the list.” Vicky dialled Mitchell as they left Emily's room. When he answered, she hesitated.

“
Vicky?” Mitchell pressed, waiting to hear why she had called.

“
Mitchell, Aunt Ida and I found a hidden passage,” Vicky said haltingly.

“
A what?” Mitchell asked, both surprise and alarm changing his tone.

“
I thought my parents had it closed off years ago. It leads from the room where Charleston was killed, to the staff quarters,” she explained, though she was still hesitant. She really liked Emily. She couldn't see her as a killer. Not only that but the shoeprints in the passageway had been very large. She was certain they were not Emily's.

“
Vicky, I have to tell you something, I've been calling for ten minutes,” he added with annoyance. Vicky had turned her phone to silent. It was a good thing she had, considering that they had just stepped out of the closet they were hiding in. She was so busy listening to Mitchell, that she didn't notice the person walking up to them, until she heard Aunt Ida gasp.

“
Uh,” Vicky stared at Nicholas, who was standing right in front of both of them. “Is it that you released Nicholas Brendan?” Vicky whispered into the phone.

“
We had to,” Mitchell replied with a sigh. “He had a very expensive lawyer, and we didn't have any DNA evidence to hold him on. The corkscrew in his room came back clear, but it could have been wiped clean.”

Vicky was holding tightly to her cell phone. Did that mean that it had been Nicholas that followed them down the passageway? But why would he need to sne
ak into Emily's room? All of a sudden, it all made sense.

“
You did this, didn't you?” she asked as she widened her eyes.

“
Vicky, who are you talking to?” Mitchell asked.

“
Vicky, don't say that,” Aunt Ida insisted.

Nicholas only blinked.
“I'm sorry if I startled you. I was looking for the two of you. The security guard said that you were in Charleston's room. But when I went there, you weren't there,” he explained.

“
You would know where we were,” Vicky said calmly. “Because, you followed us down the same hidden passageway that you used to plant this evidence in Emily's room.”

“
What evidence?” Mitchell asked on the phone. “Vicky, I'm coming over there right now.”

Vicky hung up the phone and continued to glower at Nicholas. He looked as if he was going to attempt to defend himself, but instead he sighed with defeat.

“All right, it's true,” he shook his head.

“
What's true?” Aunt Ida asked with apprehension.

“
I did follow the two of you down the passageway,” he admitted and ran his fingertips along his forehead, and back over the area that was receding.

“
Oh no Nicholas, it can't be true,” Ida gasped out as she looked at him.

“
It is true,” he said grimly. “I did follow the two of you. The door was partially open, and when I looked inside I saw a flashlight beam. I was worried that somehow you'd been hurt. So I followed you.”

Aunt Ida smiled with relief.
“So you didn't know the passageway was there before hand?”

“
Of course not,” Nicholas insisted with frustration. “I didn't do this. I didn't hurt Charleston, and I didn't plant any evidence,” he added as he looked over at Vicky. “In fact, I don't even know where you two went. When I reached the end of the passageway there was no way out. How did you get out of there?”