Kilt Dead (25 page)

“Well, yeah, but you can’t scrimp and expect results.”

“My aunt put a good deal of money into The Spruces”
Solemn, reproachful green-blue eyes shifted from Sam to
Dan.

“No one twisted her arm to invest,” Dan said carefully.

“I know that, but-“

Belatedly catching on, Sam barreled forward. “We
can’t tell you the hotel is a sure thing, Liss, but your aunt
knew that going in. She believes in what we’re trying to
do here”

“We cut costs by doing the work ourselves,” Dan reminded her.

Liss didn’t seem to find that reassuring.

“When we open, rooms will go for $250 to $300 a
night.”

“I can do the math as well as you can, Sam. It will take a long, long time for The Spruces to start paying off for
investors.”

“What can I say? Our dad and your aunt think the risk
is worthwhile. Margaret Boyd isn’t the only one out on a
limb. Dad went into hock up to his eyeballs to finance his
dream”

Liss drew in a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, I get that.
And … it is beautiful.” She let her gaze rove over the
luxurious lobby again. “But I can’t help but worry about
what might happen to Aunt Margaret”

“Money aside,” Dan said quietly, “this place is part of
our heritage. We’re committed to preserving it.”

Liss spent the evening brooding. It had been a mistake
to visit the construction site. Nostalgia … or something …
had gotten to her. She’d come within a heartbeat of offering to put a chunk of Mrs. Norris’s estate into the hotel
project.

Temporary insanity-there was no other explanation.
The place … or the man … had cast a spell on her.

She certainly hadn’t dropped in on Dan with investment in mind. When she’d seen the state her aunt’s finances were in, she’d been appalled. She’d started thinking
about them again on the way back from Fallstown, prompting her to stop first at Ned’s apartment and then at the
construction site. Assuming she got Mrs. Norris’s money
that she wasn’t arrested for murder and barred from collecting her inheritance the Emporium had priority. If she
put any money into Moosetookalook’s economy, it should
be in her aunt’s shop.

Liss went to bed late, exhausted, but her sleep was
restless. The slightest sound woke her. A dog barking. A
car with a faulty muffler. And the third time, an odd thunk,
as if someone had bumped against a piece of furniture.

Groggy, Liss lay in the darkness staring at the ceiling. Straining to hear, she didn’t move a muscle. At first her
own quiet breathing, a little fast from being jolted awake,
was the only sound in the stillness. Then she heard it-a
soft footfall, then another. Someone was in the apartment.

A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table told
her it was 3:35 in the morning. She kept a small travel
flashlight on the nightstand, too, and closed her hand
around it as she slid out of bed. There was no extension in
the guest room but her cell phone was in her purse. Liss
tried to remember where she’d left it and realized with a
silent groan that it was in the living room next to the sofa.
Damn!

Moving to the door, she put her ear against the wood
and listened hard. She thought at first that she must have
been mistaken, that she’d imagined the earlier sounds.
Nothing seemed to be stirring beyond the barrier. She felt
for the knob and slowly turned it, praying the door hinges
wouldn’t squeak. Inch by inch, perfectly silent, the portal
swung inward and Liss peered out through the opening.

At first she could see nothing but a few pale streaks of
light from the streetlight. They slitted through the edges
of the living-room drapes. Then she saw it, off to her
right, the illumination from the screen on her laptop.

Only she distinctly remembered closing it before she
went to bed.

Was someone still there? With as much stealth as she
could manage, she started to move toward the kitchen
then stopped. Cliche much? “Our intrepid heroine,
clad in filmy nighty, walks straight into the villain’s
clutches. “

No, thank you!

She prudently retreated, stopping only to feel around
for her shoulder bag. She still had the small flashlight in
her hand but she didn’t dare use it. Her bag was not on the
floor next to the sofa where she’d left it. It was on the sofa, and open. Someone, whoever was in the apartment,
had rifled through it.

Liss didn’t need the soft curse from the kitchen to spur
her on. Grabbing the bag, she fled with it back to her room,
locking the door behind her. A moment later, she had her
cell phone out and had hit the speed-dial number she’d
programmed into it only a few days earlier.

Dan picked up on the third ring. “Wha-? Hello? Who
is this?”

“Dan, wake up. There’s someone in my aunt’s apartment “” She sank down on the end of the bed, her legs too
shaky to hold her any longer.

“You sure it’s not just Lumpkin?”

He still sounded only half awake. Liss hoped he wasn’t
going to need two cups of coffee before he’d be coherent.

“Liss?” She heard a creak and a curse on his end and
hoped that meant he’d gotten out of bed.

“I don’t know where Lumpkin is, but I’m fairly certain
he doesn’t have the dexterity needed to search my purse.
There’s someone out there, and by now I’m pretty sure
he’s figured out that I’ve locked myself in my room because I know it.”

“Stay put and call 911,” Dan ordered, and broke the
connection.

Liss had just finished talking to the emergency dispatcher when she heard an unearthly howl from the direction of the kitchen.

“Lumpkin!” Springing to her feet, Liss dropped the
phone and unlocked the door.

cross the town square, Dan pulled on the jeans he’d
left on the floor by the bed. He didn’t bother with
shoes or a shirt. He stopped only long enough to collect the
heavy-duty flashlight he kept handy for power outages
and was in such a rush that he left the door of his own
house unlocked. Eyes glued to the windows above the
Emporium, he sprinted across the green. There were no
lights showing. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or
a bad one.

The sound of running footsteps behind him made him
glance over his shoulder. He couldn’t see who it was, but
there was enough moonlight to show him that the figure
was coming from the direction of the police station and
was in uniform.

“I’ll go around back,” Dan shouted. “You take the front “

He didn’t wait for agreement. Nor did he check his
headlong pace until he realized that the rear entrance was
wide open. His stomach in knots, Dan forced himself to
go slow, shining the flashlight ahead of him, even though
what he really wanted to do was run straight through and
head up the stairs to Liss.

There was no one in the stockroom this time, dead or
otherwise, but the door to the shop, ordinarily kept shut,
was only halfway closed. He hauled it the rest of the way open and plunged through. Still no one. He headed for
the front door, but as soon as he unlocked it, he made a
beeline for the sales counter and the stairs behind it.

He took them two at a time, calling Liss’s name as he
burst into the apartment. He almost collapsed with relief
when he heard her answering shout. The beam of his
flashlight caught her as she emerged from the kitchen
wearing some kind of filmy negligee that had his eyes
popping. He had only time enough to flick on the overhead light before she flung herself straight into his arms.

“He’s gone,” she whispered. “I heard him go”

“You’re trembling.” He wrapped his arms more tightly
around her but it didn’t help. Not when he was shaking,
too.

Heavy footsteps and the sound of labored breathing
announced the arrival of Jeff Thibodeau. He had his gun
out when he came through the door, but he quickly holstered it when he recognized them.

“She says he’s gone”

“Better make sure” He headed for the bedrooms.

“I’ve got to find Lumpkin.” Liss freed herself from
Dan’s embrace and got down on hands and knees beside
the sofa to peer underneath it. “There you are, my brave
boy. My hero”

A low growl greeted this overture.

“Liss, why were you in the kitchen?” It had taken him
a moment to realize she hadn’t stayed safely locked in the
guest room but had come out into the apartment, possibly
while the intruder was still on the premises.

“I was looking for Lumpkin.”

“Christ, Liss! That cat isn’t worth-” He broke off
when he saw the look on her face. He wanted to shake
some sense into her. He wanted to lock her away somewhere she’d be safe. He wanted … too damn much. He
settled for offering her a hand to help her to her feet.

Thibodeau returned to the living room. “All clear. You want to take a look around, Liss? See if anything is missing?”

A short time later, Liss had checked all the rooms in
the apartment. Her face wore a puzzled expression. “The
only thing I’m sure is gone is a looseleaf with a blue
cover. I can’t find it any “

“I’ve got it,” Dan cut in. “I, uh, took it home with me
the other night to have another look at it.”

After a considering glance in Thibodeau’s direction,
Liss let the subject drop. “Then it doesn’t appear that the
thief took anything, but someone was definitely here and
he did go through my purse”

As she told them about her foray into the living room
to fetch her cell phone, Dan’s heart almost stopped all
over again. He understood why she’d taken the risk, but
he wasn’t happy about it.

“And I’d left my laptop closed,” Liss added. The three
of them congregated around the kitchen counter on which
the notebook computer rested. “It’s open now.”

“You protect your files with a password?” Thibodeau
asked.

“It never seemed worth the bother. Mostly I use it to
surf the Web and send email.”

There was a pad of paper and a pencil next to the laptop. Dan moved closer. She’d made several notations. It
was easy enough to see what she’d been researching.
She’d found the website of a hotel over in New Hampshire. Like The Spruces, it had been closed for a while
before someone bought it and fixed it up. It had reopened
as a resort and spa in 2002 in a town no bigger than
Moosetookalook. From everything Dan had heard, the
place was doing okay. But the figure Liss had written down
and underlined twice was $20,000,000-the total cost of
the renovations.

“Could you tell if the intruder was a man or a woman?”
Thibodeau asked.

“No, but you might try looking for someone with a
bite on the ankle.” She gave a shaky laugh and pointed to
a tuft of fur on the kitchen floor. “That’s why Lumpkin let
out such an ungodly howl. Whoever was in here stepped
on his tail.”

“And you came charging out to rescue him. Geez,
Liss, where’s your common sense?”

She lifted an eyebrow, her gaze moving from Dan’s
bare chest to his bare feet. Then she ignored him to take a
can of tuna out of the cupboard and open it. The sound of
the can opener combined with the smell of fish was
enough to lure Lumpkin out from beneath the sofa.

“I’d better check downstairs,” Liss said when she’d finished making much of the damned cat.

Both men went with her while she walked through the
displays and inspected the stockroom.

“No sign the lock on this door has been tampered
with,” Thibodeau said.

“Did the state police find Margaret’s back-door key?
The one she used to leave over the door?” Sherri had said
she couldn’t find out if they had it or not, that the troopers
had clammed up on her when she asked.

“No idea,” Jeff said.

“Damn. If the person who killed Mrs. Norris used that
key to get in and took it with him-“

“Then tonight’s intruder may have been her killer.”
Liss’s face lost color with alarming speed. She turned
wide, frightened eyes to Dan.

All he could think of to do was take one of her small,
soft hands in his own big, work-hardened paw and give it
a reassuring squeeze.