The Precipice (13 page)

She wondered with a sad heart what had become of Slater and his passengers. This was absolutely awful. Poor Slater.

Elizabeth suddenly felt very vulnerable out on the beach alone, shrouded in fog. She had seen enough. She suddenly needed to get out of there. Little did she know, if she had taken just a few more steps, she would have kicked something very hard that was lying in the sand. A life preserver with a name printed on it:
The Seward Lady
.

She turned to start heading back across the beach toward the wooden stairs. Elizabeth stopped in her tracks. In the time she had been standing there remembering Slater and his vessel, the fog rolled in and completely swallowed the beach. She could only see a few yards in front of her. Elizabeth was fighting panic rising up inside of her. She needed to remain calm. The ocean was on her left and she could hear the waves crashing onto the beach. She just needed to keep that sound on her left as she headed back across the beach. Without anything to look at besides the white fog all around her, she started her feet moving again and reminisced about the times she and her grandmother would walk the beach after a storm when the waves were still crashing in. The sound was like a roar. The large shells she harvested from the beach faintly mimicked the sound if you held them up to your ear. Right after a storm was the best time to find wonderful shells and sand dollars that had been washed onto the beach by the powerful waves. You had to get to the beach before everyone else found the treasures that the sea had left behind.

Elizabeth had covered a few yards across the sand when she realized the texture of the sand had changed beneath her feet. What had been soft and transient was now flat and firm. She was on wet sand! She was veering toward the ocean! She stopped in her tracks again. She resumed her trekking at a snail’s pace, a little further to the right. Soon she was back on the soft sand. She kept walking slowly with her arms out in front of her, hoping to feel the railing of the stairs. Suddenly a rational thought entered her mind. She decided to try sidestepping. If she was heading in the right direction, then if she sidestepped to the right, eventually she would run into the cliff. Then she could just run her right hand along the cliff wall and walk forward until she found the stairway. Slowly she stepped to the right. Methodically moving her right foot, and then bringing her left up next to it. Over and over she did this. Was it working? Or was she veering too far to the right and heading back toward the rocky outcroppings
?
She listened for the waves. She thought they were still directly to her left so she resumed her sidestepping with her right arm extended, hoping to feel the side of the cliff. Step one, two. One, two. One, two. After several minutes, her right hand pushed against a cold, hard, wet surface. The cliff! Now she picked up her pace and headed toward the stairway with her right hand running along the cliff, brushing across the occasional tuft of grasses or cliff roses along the way. She held her left hand out in front of her.
One foot in front of the other. Keep going. Steady pace. Keep breathing.
Suddenly the palm of her hand bumped against something hard. “Ow!”
The stairway railing!
She breathed a sigh of relief and headed up the stairs, with one hand firmly on the railing.

When she reached the top, the fog was not quite as thick as it had been down on the beach, but it was rolling in off the water quite rapidly and starting to obscure the inn and its outbuildings. The roar of a car engine caught her attention again. A car was already heading back down the inn’s access road. Between the fog and the distance between the car and herself, she couldn’t really tell what it looked like. If anyone had gotten out of the car, they were already safely inside the inn. She retraced her steps across the front lawn in the hopes of hooking up with Rashelle again—if she was back yet.

To Elizabeth’s surprise, Rashelle met her at the front door of the inn. She imagined that her face showed what she was thinking. She was dying to ask her where she had been and whom she had been with, but she kept her mouth shut. It was probably none of her business. “Alright, let’s go get that wine now.”

Rashelle nodded.

Chapter 15

T
he two friends headed up the stairs, down the hall and turned into the third room on the right, right across from Elizabeth’s room. It was a mirror image of Elizabeth’s room. Rashelle pulled the chilled bottle of chardonnay out of a mini fridge that she was apparently using as a table, on the side of the bed closest to the door. She had the bottle opened in no time and was quick to apologize that it was not Lizzi’s favorite, as she poured two large glasses.

“Oh, at this point, I’ll take anything.” Elizabeth eagerly put the glass to her lips and took a sip. The friends looked deeply into each other’s eyes. The event in the kitchen earlier in the evening came rushing back to both of them. They were in territory they had never visited before and never dreamed they would ever be near. They both stood there and sipped the dry white wine, lost in their quiet thoughts for a while.

Finally the designer from the city spoke, “Rashelle, what the hell is going on here? And how did I get so involved?” She was shaking her head in disbelief. “It seems like things only got worse after I got here—like I’ve made it all worse.”

“Lizzi, don’t be ridiculous. This whole thing has nothing to do with you. Unfortunately you’ve gotten all wrapped up in it just by being here. Your intentions were good. You came to help.”

“And I made it worse by leaving the scene of a crime earlier! What was I thinking?” She turned and headed for the chair on the other side of the bed.

“Liz, you had to!” She suddenly realized their voices were escalating. Her Brooklyn accent was coming through loud and clear. She tried to bring it down a notch or two. “You know how that would have looked if someone had seen us.” With the heel of her hand she jammed the cork back down into the neck of the wine bottle and placed it back in the small refrigerator and flopped down on the bed.

Elizabeth whipped around and looked right at Rashelle. “Thank God no one did! I thought sure someone was going to walk in on us. And that was a close call with the lieutenant.” She dropped into the comfortable floral armchair.

“That’s for sure.”

“I wonder how long it will take them to find the body.” She kicked off her shoes and propped her feet up on Rashelle’s bed.

“I don’t even want to think about it.” Unbeknownst to them, the body had already been discovered. The lieutenant was reviewing a CD that had mysteriously shown up in his squad car that was related to the corpse in the kitchen.

The two friends polished off the bottle of wine, opened a second, and got about halfway through that one when they fell asleep, Lizzi in the chair and Shelle on top of the covers on her bed. Neither one heard the officer knocking on the door across the hall in the middle of the night.

Seconds later the two friends were awakened by a hard knock on Rashelle’s door. It startled them. They both struggled to get to their feet, still half asleep, trying to grasp what was going on. Rashelle was chilled from lying on top of the covers most of the night. She wrapped her arms around herself. Elizabeth immediately grabbed her neck that was screaming from being in an awkward position while she slept in the chair. She groaned and rubbed the side of her neck hoping for some relief. The firm knocking began again, this time even louder. Rashelle rubbed both eyes with her hands, trying desperately to wake up, as she headed for the door. They both were afraid of who it was going to be. Rashelle glanced back to Elizabeth as she grabbed the doorknob, her forehead wrinkled with concern. Slowly she turned the knob and pulled the door open.

There stood Kurt. Behind him was Lieutenant Perkins. Kurt was holding a computer disc. Perkins had a laptop computer tucked under one arm. “Ladies…” Perkins spoke sharply. “You have a little explaining to do.” Kurt pushed his way into the room with the lieutenant right behind him. Rashelle’s lack of sleep left her in no mood for their intrusion.

“What are you doing?!” She was already shouting. “What time is it? How dare you barge in here!” She was furious. “What the hell are you doing?”

“SILENCE! Miss Harper, Miss Pennington, you both need to take a look at this.” The lieutenant wasn’t taking questions.

The girls’ eyes grew wide. They ventured a glance at each other while the lieutenant made his way toward the table by the window. He and Mitchell got busy setting up the computer. Elizabeth noticed through the window that the sky was getting slightly brighter, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. It was still very early morning. She wondered what kind of a day it was going to be. It couldn’t be good if it was starting out with a state police lieutenant barging into your room, looking for a chat.

The lieutenant seemed to be all set to share his discovery with them. He turned around and looked from Elizabeth to Rashelle and back again. “Alright ladies, see if you can explain this.” He pushed a button that set the screen in motion. The girls stepped closer, tentatively, not sure what they were going to see.

They stood there watching carefully as the video advanced and they started to recognize the setting. It was the kitchen in the inn. Suddenly they recognized themselves. They both gasped. How could it be? They were suddenly reliving the nightmare from which they had fled hours earlier. How could they possibly be watching what they had been replaying in their minds over and over again? There they were, standing over the body in a heap on the floor in the kitchen. Elizabeth chanced a look at Kurt but his eyes weren’t sympathetic.
What is going on? Who could possibly have filmed what happened earlier? No one was around
! Lizzi’s head was spinning. She looked to Lt. Perkins who returned an expectant gaze. She realized she had some explaining to do, but she wondered if she needed a lawyer before she opened her mouth.

To Elizabeth’s surprise and horror, Rashelle spoke first. “It was all my fault. I told her to run.”

“We can see that.” Kurt was unusually quiet. Rashelle realized the video did not leave anything to the imagination, except who shot the footage. “What we would like to know is what happened before the video starts.” It dawned on them that the video started after they burst through the kitchen door and found the body. The video implied they were caught on the CD after they committed a heinous act.

It was Elizabeth’s turn. “Look, I know this looks bad—”

“Yeah, it looks bad!” The lieutenant’s voice was booming. “Looks like you guys have been caught red-handed!” He was not amused.

“Red-handed!! We didn’t do anything! We walked in on this!”

“So why did you run? That makes you look a little guilty when you run.”

“I know. It wasn’t the smartest idea.” She turned toward Rashelle and glared. “We were scared with everything that was going on at the inn. But you have to believe me that we just stumbled into the kitchen and found this body. I don’t even know who it is. Besides, you had just accused me of having some sort of connection with the missing girl. I was scared!”  “Well, lucky for you we are more interested with who shot the video, than in what you were doing. It is entirely possible that the person filming the event set it all up. Who do you think it is? What can you tell me about the scenario? Is there anything unusual that you noticed?”

Elizabeth realized she didn’t have a lot of information to help the lieutenant. ”I wish I knew…”

Perkins slammed the laptop shut. “Great!” He snatched up the computer, turned and stormed out of the room leaving the tennis pro, or whoever he was, behind. The three just stood there and looked at each other. The silence was deafening. Finally, Kurt threw out a suggestion to break the ice.

“Why don’t we go get some coffee? Looks like it will be a long day.”

“Yeah, great idea. We’ll catch up with you.” She still wondered whose side he was on.

Kurt turned to connect with Lizzi. He looked into her eyes.

“…we, uh…,” she realized they were fully clothed in yesterday’s outfits, never having taken the time to change into pajamas earlier. “We just need to freshen up a bit.” That sounded plausible to her. He shook his head slightly.

“Yeah, okay. See you downstairs.” He headed for the door. His dirty blond hair was looking tired and limp, probably the way the rest of his body felt. Who knows how much sleep he had gotten since the girl’s disappearance. For some reason, he seemed to be very involved in the investigation. Maybe the police were just keeping him where they could keep track of him.

Once he had cleared the doorway, Rashelle and Elizabeth’s eyes locked. Lizzi followed his footsteps to the door and watched him head down the hallway. Gently she closed the door and turned to Shelle. “We need to find out who filmed us in the kitchen!” She restrained herself from saying ‘I told you we shouldn’t have run!’ She needed to focus on being more productive than that. “Let’s go grab some caffeine. We need to wake up and get in the game.”

Rashelle mumbled something unintelligible, but followed along behind her friend as she headed downstairs.

Chapter 16

A
fter an unsettling awakening, Elizabeth and Rashelle found themselves in the sitting room in search of coffee. They drained the coffee carafe leftover from last night that had been set up in the corner, into two Styrofoam cups. Rashelle sipped hers black while Elizabeth stirred in a little sugar and then pressed the cup to her lips. The liquid morning was lukewarm, but welcome under the circumstances. Kurt was already sipping his early morning java, standing over by the windows on the front of the inn, looking out to the tempestuous ocean. Elizabeth and Rashelle didn’t dare look at each other or at Kurt. They busied themselves with their coffee at the little table in the corner, feigning sleepiness.

The lieutenant burst through the front door with two people in tow. Elizabeth looked up and was puzzled to see Mr. and Mrs. Hutchins. They were swiftly escorted into the dining room where a sleepy Chief Austin and other police officers were milling about, and were no doubt dealing with the body discovered in the kitchen. Perkins was obviously interested in what connection the Hutchins might have with the victim.

Elizabeth glanced to Rashelle. She had to work at keeping her facial expression under control. Kurt appeared from behind them and exited the sitting room heading for the dining room. It was as if he had a silent pager and had been beckoned. Once he was lost in the crowd Elizabeth felt comfortable to speak.

“Shelle, we need to get out of here!”

“What are you talking about?” Her face showed particular confusion.

“Trust me.” She grabbed her friend by the arm and headed through the lobby toward the back porch, keeping her feet as quiet as possible. They passed through the porch. Lizzi tried to put out of her head the scene they had witnessed and become part of a few hours earlier as they neared the door to the kitchen. Quietly they slipped out the back door of the porch leading to the backyard. Lizzi let go of Shelle’s arm long enough to turn around and catch the screen door so it wouldn’t slam shut. She re-established her grip on Rashelle’s arm and led her toward the path to Acadia House. Rashelle was starting to catch on. Their feet moved swiftly and quietly down the path. It was still quite dark out.

Before long they were heading up the steps to the porch in front of the Hutchins’ room. Rashelle knew what was on Lizzi’s mind. She watched as her friend reached for the door knob. It turned slightly, but soon met with resistance. They must have locked it behind them when Perkins retrieved them.

“Who locks their door in Maine?” Elizabeth threw her hands up in the air.

Rashelle decided that was a rhetorical question. She watched as Elizabeth tried the windows on the left side of the door, grunting with each attempt. Both stubbornly wouldn’t budge. She headed down the steps of the porch with Rashelle right behind her and turned at the bottom to go around the side of the building. The grass sloped downward, dropping to an elevation several feet below the windows that ran along the side of the Hutchins’ room. She was grateful that theirs was an end unit. There were three double hung windows of equal size that were spaced evenly along the wall. She reached up to the nearest one and grabbed onto the window sill but couldn’t get enough leverage to push it open. Rashelle quickly laced her fingers together with her palms facing upward and formed a stirrup for Elizabeth to step into. “Here, Lizzi! I can give you a boost!”

Without hesitation, she stepped into her friend’s hands and found herself sliding up the clapboards on the side of the building, clawing with her hands. She was waist high with the sill, but she knew she was working on borrowed time so she very quickly gave the bottom half of the window a push upwards. To her surprise it moved! They had forgotten to lock their windows, as least this one. “Shelle, we did it!” In their excitement, they both jiggled a little too far in opposite directions and Elizabeth toppled out of Rashelle’s hands. Head first, she plummeted toward the ground. She reached out with her hands in time to break her fall, landing in a heap on the grass, a little stunned. Under different circumstances, this would have been hilarious, but neither was laughing.

“Liz, I am so sorry!” Rashelle rushed to her side.

“Shhhhhh!” She struggled to her feet and brushed off her pants. She didn’t have time for apologies. They were speaking in hushed tones, “Don’t worry about it. Just get me up there again. It’s our way in.”

They repeated the successful steps leading up to Elizabeth’s fall, this time being careful not to get too exuberant in their success. Elizabeth pushed upward on the window and it slowly moved in the right direction a little further. She could feel her foot slipping in Rashelle’s grip. She gave the window one more push and it opened to a full twelve inches. Hopefully it would be enough to squeeze through. She grabbed onto the sill with both hands and hoisted herself up with a grunt. For one crazy moment she was balanced on the sill on her stomach, half-in and half-out, with her head aiming toward the floor and her feet dangling outside. She felt stuck! It was almost comical. It reminded her of a time when she was little and she tried on an old ring that was in her grandmother’s jewelry box. It must have been a ring that was meant for an infant or at least someone smaller than her at the time. It really didn’t fit little Lizzi but she really liked the little pearl ring. She kept pushing until it was all the way on her finger, so she could admire it. When it came time to remove the ring, it was even more stubborn than when she struggled to get it on. The more she pulled, the more her finger swelled. Elizabeth was stuck with her grandmother’s ring on her finger. A ring that she didn’t have permission to be wearing. Finally, in tears, she had to go find her grandmother and tell her what she had done. The pain in her finger was nothing compared with her fear of her Nana’s reaction. Remarkably, Amelia quietly helped Elizabeth remove the antique ring with soap and hot water, with few words spoken. Little Lizzi’s lasting feeling about the event was one of tremendous guilt. She would have felt better if her grandmother had at least raised her voice. She often wondered what the story was behind that ring, but never dared to ask.

There was no turning back. She was practically in. Obviously there was no comfy couch below this window. Her dangling arms could feel nothing soft to land on upon entry. She would have to try to land as gracefully as possible. A couple more wiggles and her rear end just cleared the bottom of the open window. She could feel the floor with her hands. She pulled her legs in and spilled into the Hutchins’ room with a quiet thump and a groan.

Rashelle watched in silence as Elizabeth disappeared into the window. She stood alone in the quiet before the dawn, with the dark woods behind her. The cool ocean air gently played with her hair.

“Pssst!” Rashelle was startled. There was Elizabeth standing at the end of the porch in front of the Hutchins’ room motioning for her to move. “Come on!” She was beckoning her to slip in the front door. Rashelle quickly headed to the porch and followed her friend inside. They closed and locked the door behind them to leave it exactly the way they had found it.

Once inside they turned and looked at each other. “What are we doing?” Rashelle didn’t seem so sure about this. She probably didn’t want to get fired.

“We just need to have a closer peek. It could be nothing, but something about these guys…well, I don’t know. We have the opportunity because Perkins has them tied up for a while.”

“Hopefully it’s long enough.” The assistant day manager at the Pennington Point Inn was looking a little uncomfortable that they had just broken into a guest’s room.

The room was set up in an open floor plan divided into three areas, each with its own purpose. Once inside the door, there was a sitting area with a solid blue, denim loveseat positioned under the front window and two tulip chairs, upholstered in a complimentary floral, located across from the love seat. A floor lamp in the corner to the left was the only light on and was set on low, providing a soft glow on the room. The focal point of the seating arrangement was a distressed pine armoire positioned on the outside wall to the right of the lamp. The doors were closed but, presumably, they concealed a television. The window Elizabeth had entered through was to the right of the armoire. The girls glanced at the coffee table in the center of the seating area. There were magazines tossed haphazardly across the top of it, as well as a couple of soda cans and wrappers from snack food bags.

They started moving away from the front door, further into the room, away from the only light source. They didn’t dare turn on any other lights so as not to draw attention to activity in the room. Elizabeth led the way with Rashelle right behind her. Their feet were moving slowly but methodically. Lizzi saw something out of the corner of her eye toward her left. She stopped her feet and Rashelle nearly ran into her from behind. Elizabeth glanced back at the windows on the left. Softly she gasped. The face of a young girl was at the window that she had shimmied into earlier. Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide.

“What?!” Rashelle whispered but was desperate to know what her friend was looking at.

“Look at the window…the window I came in before!”

“What?!” Rashelle obviously wasn’t seeing what she was seeing, even though she was looking right at it.

Elizabeth shuddered as she watched the girl slowly fade away. “Don’t worry about it. It was nothing. Must have been my imagination. Let’s keep going.” She tried to shake off the image of the young girl.

The next area contained a small dining table that was cluttered with papers. There were also what looked like a fax machine, a color printer, and a laptop computer taking up the center of the table. This area made the Hutchins’ room look more like an office than a vacation destination. There were some other items on a credenza against the outside wall, but it was hard to tell exactly what they were in the limited light. Elizabeth furrowed her brow and kept walking. She didn’t know how much time they had before the Hutchins were going to come strolling back through the front door. This would not look good. They had to get out of there quickly. Beyond the dining area was a small kitchenette with a microwave, mini-fridge, sink, and some cupboards. Straight ahead was a doorway into the bedroom area, which was pitch black, but they didn’t have the luxury of turning on any other lights. Just inside the door, they stood still for a moment to allow their eyes to adjust to the dark room. To the right was a small bathroom and the bed was to the left. It was so dark in the corners of the room that they couldn’t tell what was really there. Hopefully nothing was hiding in the shadows. Straight ahead was the back door. They started to move again very slowly. The girls had just slipped past the queen-sized bed when they heard the distinctive sound of breaking glass behind them, near the front of the unit. They froze in place and looked at each other. Hopefully they were concealed in the shadows of the rear of the room. Elizabeth whispered, “Let’s go!” She grabbed Rashelle and pulled her toward the back door that opened to stairs leading down to the grass below. Quietly they exited, holding their breaths, closing the door softly behind them. They prayed their presence would not be detected. Once clear of the stairs, they ran along the back of the Acadia House trying to clear the area as quickly as possible. When they got to the end of the building they turned right to head back toward the main building. They weren’t expecting company.

“Good morning, ladies.” Elizabeth and Rashelle looked like two of The Three Stooges, trying to stop without bumping into Mitchell. “Funny time of the day to be out for a stroll. What brings you out here?”

Elizabeth and Rashelle hesitated and didn’t dare look at each other. They knew this looked rather suspicious, but Elizabeth was getting tired of Kurt’s questions. She decided to act belligerent.

“Oh, for God sake, would you get out of our way. I could ask you the same question.” She moved toward him intending to push her way through, but he reached out and grabbed her arm so firmly that it hurt. What had she been thinking, that she could really muscle her way past him? Reality check.

“You listen to me and you listen good.” He pulled her toward him. His face was inches away from hers. His tone was almost scolding. Rashelle stood there helplessly watching the scene unfold. “This is not the time for being a smart ass. I don’t have to tell you what this looks like after the video we watched earlier. There is a murder investigation in progress and your cooperation is imperative.” He loosened his grip and let her pull back slightly but still had her in his control.

“Okay, okay. We just needed a little fresh air…and thought it wouldn’t hurt to see if there was anything unusual going on outside since it seemed like everyone else was inside.” Elizabeth held her breath, hoping her off the cuff explanation would fly. He glared into her eyes for a few seconds longer as if he was considering her excuse, and then slowly released his grip. She fell backwards, but caught herself after taking a couple steps in reverse. She was indignant that he had treated her that way.

“Kurt!” Rashelle didn’t like the way their encounter was deteriorating.

He shot her a look of annoyance. “Oh, give it a rest! We are all under a lot of pressure right now. We don’t need anyone fooling around, sticking their noses where they don’t belong.” He looked from Rashelle to Elizabeth and back again. “Follow me.” His tone was gruff. He sounded tired and angry.

The girls looked at each other and decided to play along and follow Kurt as he headed back to the inn. They were both heaving a sigh of relief. Perhaps they had been able to slip out of the Hutchins’ room without being detected. They got in a single file behind the frustrated tennis pro, like they were back in elementary school heading for gym class. The horizon was getting a little lighter. It was almost daybreak. It was an overcast, Sunday morning with an ominous gray sky; a harbinger of worse weather to come. The dark clouds were…like a blanket of sadness that enrobed the inn.