Dawn in Eclipse Bay

  “I stopped to use the bathroom.” Lillian kept moving. She went to the coffee table and picked up the tape. Her pulse was pounding. “I’m almost finished with the kitchen.”

  “Terrific.”

  She took a deep breath and made herself walk briskly but not too briskly back into the kitchen. She knelt beside the cartons and went to work sealing them.

  Claire’s footsteps receded back down the hall toward the bedroom.

  Lillian wondered if her heart would ever stop pounding. Clearly she was not cut out for this kind of thing. But there would never be a better opportunity to satisfy her curiosity.

  She finished taping the boxes, got to her feet and went back into the laundry room for more cartons. Her pulse had finally slowed. She moved two large boxes aside to get at the medium-sized one that looked right for the contents of the silverware drawer.

  She noticed the crumpled piece of navy blue cloth on top of the rag basket when she put the boxes down beside it. The blue fabric was not faded or torn. It looked new.

  It looked familiar. She had an artist’s eye for colors. She remembered them.

  Her pulse picked up speed again. Her heart was pounding now.

  Don’t get too excited. Probably nothing. Just a rag.

  Cautiously she reached into the basket, picked up the wad of navy blue cloth and shook it out. It was the shirt Claire had worn the day she had stopped by the cottage to warn her that Marilyn still wanted Gabe.

  There did not appear to be anything wrong with the garment. No rips or holes that would have explained how it had come to be relegated to the rag pile. Could have fallen out of the laundry hamper by accident, she thought.

  She flipped the shirt around to examine the back.

  The smear of dried red paint on the right cuff made her go cold.

  “Oh, damn,” she whispered.

  She had come here this morning on the off chance that she might get some answers. Be careful what you wish for.

  “How are you doing in here?” Claire came to stand in the doorway of the laundry room. “Need more boxes? I’ve got some—”

  She broke off at the sight of the navy blue shirt dangling from Lillian’s fingers. Her eyes went to the paint-stained cuff.

  “It was you who trashed my studio.” Lillian put the shirt down on the washer. “I knew there had to be some evidence somewhere. It’s almost impossible to work with a lot of paint and not get some on your clothes.”

  The blood drained from Claire’s face. She swallowed twice before she managed to speak.

  “You can’t prove anything,” she stammered. “You can’t prove a damn thing, do you hear me?”

  “Probably not. Unless, of course, you kept the VPX 5000. But I’m sure you had enough sense to ditch it. Did you throw it into the bay? That’s what I did with my client files.”

  Claire eyes filled with tears. She seemed to collapse in on herself.

  “There was no need to injure Arizona,” Lillian said. “She had nothing to do with this. Do you realize what might have happened if you had hit her even a little bit harder? She’s an elderly woman, Claire. You could have killed her.”

  “I didn’t want to do it but I had no choice.”

  “No choice? What are you talking about. No one made you hit her and steal her camera.”

  “I had to get the camera.” Claire’s hands knotted into fists at her sides. “Don’t you understand? She had pictures.”

  “Pictures of you breaking into my cottage?”

  “I didn’t see her until I left. I had parked my car in the woods nearby. But when I started to drive away, I saw her truck parked on the opposite side of the road. She wasn’t in it so I knew she was probably nearby conducting her idiotic surveillance rounds. I was afraid she might have spotted me coming out of your cottage.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Claire, you know as well as I do that it wouldn’t have mattered if she had noticed you in the vicinity of the cottage. No one ever pays any attention to A.Z.’s claims and theories. Everyone knows she’s a little weird.”

  “When she came out of the woods a short time later she was carrying that damn camera. I panicked. Of course, no one would have listened if she had claimed to see me near your cottage on the day a break-in was reported. Everyone knows she’s paranoid about people who work at the institute. But they sure as hell would have paid attention if she had produced some time-and-date-stamped photos of me coming out the back door of your place with a tire iron in my hand.”

  “You followed her home, waiting for an opportunity to take the VPX 5000 from her, didn’t you? She knew that she was being tailed.”

  “I watched her for a while but I realized that sooner or later she would go back to that fortress. I got there ahead of her, hid the car in the trees and waited on her back porch behind the woodshed.”

  “You planned to attack her.”

  “No.” Claire wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do. I couldn’t think straight. I guess I had some vague idea of catching her off guard when she went into the house. I just wanted to get that camera.”

  “But something made her walk around the porch to check the rear door. You saw your chance, grabbed the plant stand and hit her.”

  “I didn’t mean to put her into the hospital.” Claire’s voice rose on an anguished wail. “You have to believe me. I just wanted to knock her down. Make her drop the camera.”

  “You gave her a concussion, Claire. You could have killed her.”

  “I told you, I never meant to hurt her.” Claire sniffed. “What’s more, you can’t prove that I took the camera. Just your word against mine.”

  “Sure.” Lillian leaned back against the dryer and gripped the white metal edge on either side. “And since its just us girls talking here, I’ve got some questions. What gave you the idea of going after my client files in the first place? Did you come up with it all on your own or was it something Anderson said?”

  Rage infused Claire’s face. She turned a shade of red that rivaled the paint on the shirt.

  “Flint. I heard that bastard tell Marilyn about your files the day he came to see her at the institute. He actually bragged about them to her. He used them to talk his way into my job. Promised her he could get them for her.”

  “I see.”

  “Got to give credit where it’s due. Marilyn is no fool. She understood the value of those files immediately.”

  “Did Anderson tell her he planned to steal them?”

  “Of course not. He just said he was working an angle to get them. Told her not to worry. He’d handle all the details.”

  “Where were you when they had that conversation?”

  “I was packing up my desk in the adjoining office. Marilyn closed the door but I simply switched on the recording system.” Claire smiled bitterly. “That was one of my jobs, you know. Recording Marilyn’s meetings and conversations with important people. She plans to publish her memoirs someday.”

  “Later you decided to see if you could find my client files before Flint got to them, right?”

  Claire shrugged. “He said they were on your computer. Sounded easy enough. I could have used them the same way Flint planned to use them.”

  “To buy your way into another job?”

  “Yes. The data on your high-end clients would be worth a fortune to any candidate in the Northwest.” Tears welled in Claire’s eyes again. “But I couldn’t find your computer when I broke into the cottage. And there was Arizona with her damned camera when I came out. Everything went wrong. All that risk for nothing. It’s not fair.”

  “That day you stopped by the cottage to warn me to watch out for Marilyn, you overheard my conversation with Gabe when he was on his way back from Portland. You learned that we had concluded I might be the target of a stalker. That made you very nervous, didn’t it? You realized that we were no longer dismissing the break-in as the action of a transient. So you came back to trash my studio to add some credi
bility to our theory.”

  “I got scared. Really scared. This is Eclipse Bay. I knew that if a Harte and a Madison were putting pressure on Sean Valentine, he might actually conduct a serious investigation. I didn’t know where that would lead. I thought that I would be safe if everyone continued to blame the break-in on a stalker who could conveniently just disappear.”

  “Oh, Claire.” Lillian shook her head. “What were you thinking?”

  The bitterness tinged Claire’s voice. “How did you figure it out?”

  “I suppose you could say it was a process of elimination. Gabe and a private investigator cleared the only real potential stalker we had on our list. When we talked to Anderson, he denied the break-ins here in Eclipse Bay. Adamantly.”

  Claire widened in scorn. “And you actually believed that bag of sleaze?”

  Lillian shrugged. “The forced entry didn’t fit with what I knew about him. Anderson is the sort who tries to talk his way in and out of situations.”

  “What about Marilyn? She should have been on your list. She was the one who had the most to gain from those files.”

  “The thing about Marilyn is that she is very up-front about what she wants. She doesn’t sneak around. You, on the other hand, have a history of sneaking around.”

  Claire flinched. “What do you mean?”

  “She was right when she said that you had an affair with Trevor Thornley, wasn’t she?”

  “I told you, I never slept with Trevor.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Claire watched her warily. “Why not?”

  “Because I found out that you were sneaking around with Larry Fulton in the back of his father’s van the summer that he and I were dating.”

  “Larry Fulton.” Claire’s mouth fell open. “But that was years ago. We were in college.”

  “I know. I was pretty sure that he was fooling around with someone else that summer. I just hadn’t realized that the other woman was you. The Willis brothers set me straight a few days ago. They gave me a whole new perspective on you, Claire. Once I started asking the right questions, things fell into place.”

  Claire backed out of the laundry room, never taking her eyes off Lillian. “You can’t prove anything.”

  “You keep saying that.” Lillian came away from the washer. “I’m not arguing the point. I came here today for some answers, not to get you arrested.”

  “Get out.”

  “I’m on my way.” Lillian crossed the living room, paused at the front door and looked back over her shoulder. “Just one more question.”

  “I said, get out of here.”

  “You told me that Trevor was into high heels and ladies’ lingerie and that his tastes would be a real turnoff. Can I assume you lied about that, too?”

  “I hated the dressing up part,” Claire explained. “But the man was on track to be a U.S. senator. I figured I could overlook a few eccentricities if it meant I would be a senator’s wife.”

  “Did he really tell you that he would divorce Marilyn and marry you after he was elected?”

  “He promised.” Claire looked down at the blue shirt crumpled in her hands. “Just like Larry Fulton promised we would get engaged after he broke up with you. Nothing ever works out the way it’s supposed to. It not fair, you know? It’s just not fair.”

  Gabe prowled back and forth across the cottage kitchen. “You shouldn’t have confronted her on your own.”

  “You’ve mentioned that several times already.” Lillian propped her elbows on the kitchen table and rested her chin in her hands. “I’ve explained that I went there on impulse.”

  “What if she had turned violent?”

  “She’s not the type.”

  “You can’t be certain.”

  “Gabe, she knows I can’t prove anything.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “I guess this is one of those situations where you have to let karma happen.”

  “Karma never happens to people like her. Karma is bullshit. The Claires of this world always skate.”

  Lillian looked out the window. “I wouldn’t say that Claire has done a lot of skating in her life. She said that things have never worked out for her. None of her big plans ever jelled. Larry Fulton and I broke up but he didn’t marry her. He married Sheila. Trevor Thornley crashed and burned, so she didn’t get to marry him and become a senator’s wife. She lost her job with Marilyn’s campaign. All and all, Claire hasn’t been what anyone would call a winner.”

  They drove into town for warm croissants and coffee the next morning. Gabe parked in the lot in front of Incandescent Body. He studied the warmly lit interior of the bakery through the windows. A handful of people were clustered inside. The array of vehicles standing in the rain outside included Mitchell’s big SUV, Arizona’s aging truck and Sean Valentine’s cruiser.

  “Looks a little cozy in there,” he said. “Want to go somewhere else?” he asked.

  “There is nowhere else where we can get croissants like the ones they make here.” Lillian pulled up the hood of her rain cloak and reached for the door handle. “Come on, we can deal with this.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Reluctantly he opened the driver’s side door. “It’s a little early for a Harte-Madison scene.”

  “Nonsense. Never too early for one of those.”

  He hunched deeper into his jacket and walked quickly beside her through the drizzle to the entrance.

  He opened the glass door and immediately registered the serious tone of the atmosphere inside. The buzz of conversation was more intense than usual. His first thought was that the sight of Mitchell and Sullivan sharing coffee together had electrified the gossip circuit. But then he realized that no one was paying much attention to the pair, who were seated at a small table with Bryce and Sean.

  Predictably, everyone looked toward the door when it opened. Lillian pushed back the hood of her cloak and bestowed a bright smile on the crowd. Gabe nodded brusquely and headed for the counter. He needed some coffee before he dealt with Mitchell and Sullivan.

  “What’s up?” he asked the Herald who took their orders for croissants and corn bread.

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  Before she could explain, the curtain opened behind her. Arizona leaned out and beckoned urgently.

  “Come on back here, you two,” she hissed. “I’ll brief you along with the others.”

  Gabe looked at Mitchell and Sullivan. They had resumed their conversation with Sean. He was in no great rush to join them, he thought. One of Arizona’s briefings promised to be a lot more entertaining. He glanced at Lillian. She shrugged and turned to go behind the counter.

  He picked up his corn bread and followed her.

  A familiar group of Heralds, including Photon, was gathered at the large worktable. They nodded somberly when Lillian and Gabe joined them.

  “ ’Morning,” Gabe said.

  “What’s going on?” Lillian asked.

  Arizona rapped a rolling pin on the floured table. “A very interesting development has just occurred. Course, the mainstream media and the local authorities, including Sean Valentine, have bought into the cover story being handed out by the gang up at the institute. But that’s only to be expected.” She shook her head. “Poor dupes.”

  Gabe propped one shoulder against the wall and savored a bite of warm corn bread. “What’s the story?”

  “Official version is that Claire Jensen was injured in a single-car accident on her way out of town yesterday. She’s in the Eclipse Bay hospital as we speak.”

  “Good heavens.” Lillian stared at Arizona. “Is she all right?”

  “Sean says she’s pretty banged up but she’ll be okay. He investigated the crash. Said she was driving like a bat outta hell in the rain. Took a curve way too fast. But we all know the truth.”

  Heads nodded around the table.

  Lillian cleared her throat. “Uh, what is that?”

  “It’s obvious. She must have seen somethin
’ she wasn’t supposed to see up there at the institute. Probably stumbled into the underground lab. They faked an accident to try to get rid of her. Lucky for her they botched the job.”

  Lillian looked at Gabe. “And you say you don’t believe in karma.”

  “I stand corrected,” Gabe said. “Learn something new everyday.”

  He took her arm and steered her back through the curtain into the main room. Several pairs of eyes followed them as they made their way to the small table where Mitchell and Sullivan sat with Bryce and Sean.

  Lillian leaned down to give Sullivan a kiss on his cheek. “ ’Morning, Granddad.”

  “Good morning, honey.”

  Gabe nodded at Mitchell and Sullivan. “Glad to see that the two of you didn’t knock each other’s teeth out last night.”

  “When you get to be this age,” Sullivan said, “you have to think twice about risking your teeth. Not that many good ones left.”

  She greeted the others and sat down beside Sullivan.

  “Arizona give you her version of the accident?” Mitchell asked Gabe.

  Gabe set his coffee and partially eaten corn bread down on the table and took one of the chairs. “All part of the big conspiracy up at the institute, according to A.Z.”

  Sullivan chuckled.

  “Got to admit that her take on local news is always a lot more interesting than mine,” Sean allowed.

  “So it was an accident?” Lillian asked.

  “Definitely.” Sean took a bite out of a large, jelly-filled pastry. “She must have been in a real hurry to get out of town. Had to be doing seventy when she took that curve out by the Erickson place.”

  Bryce shook his head in solemn disapproval. “Everyone knows that’s a real bad curve.”

  “The medics who pulled her out of the car said she was spittin’ mad when they got to her.” Sean swallowed the bite of pastry and reached for his coffee. “Kept saying something about how unfair it all was.”

  chapter 26

  On the night of the reception at the Eclipse Bay branch of the Bright Visions Gallery, Sullivan stood with Mitchell, a glass of champagne in his hand, and watched the large crowd ebb and flow around Lillian and her paintings. Warm pride flowed through him.