Petals on the Pillow (9 page)

Kelly felt a relaxed coziness that she hadn’t experienced any
where except Ma Jackson’s kitchen. She hated to break the mood, but she wasn’t sure when she’d get another chance. After her little adventure into the unused wing of the house with Betsy, she had a few questions she’d like answered.

“Mrs. Jenkins, how exactly did Mrs. St. John die?”

Mrs. Jenkins stopped stirring the pot she was tending and turned to fix Kelly with a bright blue eye. “Why do you ask, child?”

“Call it idle and prurient interest.”

“I’d prefer to call it something I can pronounce,” Dora said with a sniff.

“Fine. Call it morbid curiosity then.”

The older woman stared hard at her and then shrugged. “It was a drowning accident.” Dora returned to her stirring as if that pronouncement closed the topic.

“I know that. Jeez, you’d have to be blind and deaf not to know that part. The Seattle newscasters covered it for weeks.” Kelly picked up her cup and went to lean against the counter next to where Mrs. Jenkins w
orked. “I mean, how did it happen:.”

Mrs. Jenkins gave Kelly a long and sober look and set down her long-handled wooden spoon. She jammed her fist at her ample hip. “She fell from the dock.”

“Just like that? She fell. That’s it?”

“No. Not just like that.” Mrs. Jenkins slammed the lid down on the pot and turned her back on Kelly. She picked up a long-handled knife and began to chop the onions that were sitting on the butcher block with more vigor than Kelly thought
was warranted.

Undaunted, Kelly followed after her. “So if not just like that, how?”

“You’ll not leave me be until you know, will you?”

Kelly shook her head.

Mrs. Jenkins ground her teeth and kept chopping. “There’s really not much to tell. There was to be a party that night. I don’t remember now what it was for. Oh, we had parties going on all the time back then. Grand ones and little ones. Ones for dress up and others like a picnic on the beach with everyone in their bathing suits and the little ones running around in the grass. This place was always full back then, the halls echoed with laughter all the time.” Mrs. Jenkins paused to wipe at her eye with the back of her hand. “Darn onions,” she muttered.

Kelly leaned one hip against the counter. “I’m not sure I can imagine Harrison St. John running up and down the halls laughing. In fact, I’m not sure I can imagine him laughing at all.”

Dora glanced up at Kelly, but kept chopping. “He was a different man back then, child. So full of life and laughter. He and Mrs. St. John...” Dora sighed. “What a couple they made. Both of them so tall and dark. They were the life of the party back then.”

“And that party? What happened that night?” Kelly prompted.

“Cancelled. A storm whipped up. You’ve seen how fast they can sweep in out here during the summer.” She gestured at Kelly with the knife. Kelly nodded.

“Well, this one was a doozy of a storm. There was no way the ferry could bring people across, much less to a party out in the garden. And of course half the guest list was made up of people from off Ellerby Island. But even the locals were staying in that night. The wind blew hard enough that night to knock over at least two trees by the drive. With all the hustle and bus
tle of getting the tents for the party taken down and the tables and china back safely inside, no one even noticed Betsy and Mrs. St. John were missing until late that night.

“When we couldn’t find them, I thought Mr. Harrison would lose his mind. He tore through this big old house like he was a storm himself, searching for them everywhere. He ripped through the rooms, calling their names until he couldn’t call anymore.

“I’ll never forget the look on his face when we found Betsy. She’d somehow gotten locked into the old maid’s quarters in the east wing. He was so relieved and still so desperate to find Mrs. St. John. He didn’t want to let Betsy out of his arms, but he had to keep searching.

“By the time Mrs. St. John’s body washed up south of here a few days later, we all already knew the worst. She would never have left Mr. St. John or little Betsy of her own will.”

“But why would she go out on the dock on such a terrible night?” Kelly asked.

Mrs. Jenkins shrugged. “I don’t know, child, and I doubt anyone ever will.”

“Mrs. Jenkins. Dora.” Kelly laid her hand on the older woman’s arm. “That night, was she wearing the yellow dress she has on in that portrait? The one that’s over in the east wing?”

The knife in Mrs. Jenkins’ hand clattered to the floor. She took several steps back from Kelly. “Either that one or one very much like it. Why?”

Kelly shook her head. She picked up Mrs. Jenkins’ knife and set it back on the butcher block. “I just ... wondered.” Dora Jenkins eyed Kelly suspiciously. “Yellow was her favorite color. She wore it quite often.”

Kelly thought for a minute. “And Mr. St. John? What did he do when they finally found her?”

“Och, the poor man. It breaks my heart to watch him these days. Turned in on himself the very day after. Worse even than he did when his parents died. And that was bad enough. For weeks after their accident he barely spoke a word. It really wasn’t until he met Mrs. St. John that he fully opened up again.

Then he lost her, too. He still isn’t himself, even though it’s been two years now. He hasn’t gotten over it, poor lamb.”

“Lamb?” Kelly repeated incredulously, thinking of the man who had strode down the hallway away from her this morning after leaving her reeling from being thoroughly and soundly kissed. “Are we talking about the same man?”

A smile creased Dora’s doughy face. “I know he seems imposing now, but when you’ve known someone from a child,
the way I’ve know Harrison St. John Well, let’s just say you can always see the child in him.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Let’s see—” Mrs. Jenkins stopped chopping for a moment. “He must have been about eight years old when I came here. And I was no more than a child myself, mind you. A wee bonnie lass, I was.”

Betsy slid back in through the swinging doors and set the carrots she’d been sent to fetch on the butchers’ block. “You were never a child, Mrs. Jenkins. You were always just the way you are now. Perfect.” She slipped her thin arms around the older woman and squeezed.

Mrs. Jenkins kissed the top of Betsy’s head. “And no matter how big you grow, Little Beth, you’ll always be my sweet child, will you not?”

“Always.” Betsy grinned up.

***

Kelly tilted her head into the salty breeze coming in from the water. Dinner tonight had been just as unpleasant and sti
fling as it had been the night before. Kelly personally doubted that moving the evening meal into a smaller room and not stuffing themselves into evening clothes improved the ambience that much, but she supposed it didn’t hurt it much either.

Either way, she was glad right now to be back in her blue jeans and tank top, and to stand on the balcony outside her room and watch the moon while letting the wind lift her mass of hair from her neck. A huge yawn shook her and she stretched her arms over her head. Tomorrow she’d start the final cartoons for Betsy’s mural. By the time the primer dried, they’d be ready and she could start transferring them. But now, it was time for bed. She slipped back inside her room, latching the French doors behind her.

One of Elizabeth St. John’s sketchbooks lay open on her bed to a photograph of Harrison, Betsy and David Clark. Kelly looked around the room. There was no sign of whoever had brought the book in or left it on her bed. The three in the photograph were all in the prow of a sailboat, arms around each other and huge smiles plastered on their faces. Wind from the Sound was ruffling their hair and sunlight sparkled on the water behind them. The date penciled in at the bottom, in what had become a familiar spiky hand, fixed the photo just a few weeks before Elizabeth St. John’s death. Kelly shut the book and set it on her bedside table.

When she came back from brushing her teeth a few min
utes later, the book was gone. In its place, lay three white gardenia petals.

“Okay. I’ve had about enough of this,” she said out loud, the angry tone in her voice oddly comforting to her. Kelly had regarded the petals as an amusing and slightly sad gesture when she’d thought Betsy was leaving them for her, but now that she was convinced that Betsy was not their source, she found them a little bit threatening. Why on earth was someone leaving these petals on her pillow night after night? What did they mean? What message were they supposed to send?

As she stood there, hands on hips, scowling at the rapidly wilting petals, the lights flickered. Off. On. Off. Then on again for a few brief seconds until with a spit and a loud popping sound they went off and stayed off. Immediately, the room was filled with the sense of a presence so strong that the hairs on the back of Kelly’s neck stood on end. She had never in her life been more convinced that she was not alone in a room. Her heart raced recklessly in her chest and her nerve ends tingled. The only light in the room came from the moon, its pale rays turning the bright colors of the room to ash. The French doors swung lightly in the breeze. Pulled to the doors she was sure she’d shut before going into the bathroom, a sense of dread pooled like bile in the pit of her stomach.

A blue light pulsed at the end of the dock.

“That’s it,” she muttered to herself. “That’s a little over the top.”

She caught a glance of herself in the mirror as she was about to storm out of the room. In the dim moonlight, wild hair waved around her head and dark shadows of fatigue smudged her eyes. Elizabeth St. John, with her sodden dress and seaweed strewn hair, had interrupted her sleep too many times in the past few nights for Kelly to really rest. Kelly figured she’d prob
ably frighten whoever was at the end of the dock more than they could possible frighten her. The smudge on the mirror had reappeared as well. Kelly paused to wipe it out again and then slipped her feet into sandals and stamped out the door of her room. Whoever was playing these little mind games with her had gone too far.

Even in the dark, it only took a few minutes to jog through the labyrinthine hallways of the Manor and out the kitchen door. She could barely remember why she’d found the Manor so confusing when she’d first arrived. Out on the lawn, cool grass curling up around her sandals, she could see the dock.

The blue light still danced at the end, hovering over the choppy water.

Kelly marched down the lawn like an angry schoolmistress about to confront a naughty student.

***

Harrison slumped in the patent leather chair in the dark
ened study. The smell of very old, very expensive leather barely penetrating the alcoholic fog shrouding his mind. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass and listened to the musical clink of the ice cubes.

It was late. Nearly midnight. That would make it close to 3 a.m. on the east coast. He wondered how many boardrooms and conference tables were jammed with anxious looking men in suits. After the faxes and e-mails he and Kendra had sent out today, probably more than a few.

Harrison snorted. A hostile takeover of his own company. It was a brilliant move. Unexpected. Unorthodox. Who could have imagined it? Planned for it? Certainly not David Clark. No, financial maneuvering was not exactly his forte. That ran more toward engineering, aviation and philandering. Harrison rubbed the stubble on his chin and wondered exactly what David was doing tonight. He’d really have to give Kendra a raise.

He drained the last of the scotch from his glass and splashed some more in from the decanter next to him. Yes, he was cer
tain that his action today had hit like a lightning bolt in a half- dozen related markets.

So why did he still feel so ... unsure?

Impatience propelled him from the study and he headed down the hallway, footsteps echoing in the emptiness. The marble floors sent a chill through the thin leather of his shoes.

Uncertainty. Self-doubt. Both foreign concepts to him at one time in his life. Harrison leaned against the doorway to the drawing room and raised his glass in mock salute to the place where Elizabeth’s portrait used to hang.

“All come home to roost, thanks to you, my dear,” he said out loud. The glass nearly jumped out of his hand when he heard the kitchen door slam.

He was through the house in a matter of seconds and out on the lawn a few more after that. What he saw then, however, froze him dead in his tracks.

A figure, unmistakably Kelly with her wild streaky mane tossing in the breeze, inched along to the end of the dock. She extended her hand out in front of her as if she was feeling her way through the dark, even though the moon shone down as bright as a floodlight. Harrison watched as Kelly poked her hand out further.

Blue light licked at her fingertips. Harrison rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand and looked again.

The light spread up Kelly’s arm. It flickered and flashed, crackling like unearthly lightning, climbing to her shoulder. Kelly stood still as a statue, arm still extended. The light climbed higher on her. Now the bizarre flashes ringed her shoulders. They traveled down her torso, and still Kelly did not move.

Harrison broke out of his trance and started to run for the dock. The light surrounded both of Kelly’s legs now. Then in one bright flash, it circled her head.