Crossing the Lion (a Reigning Cats and Dog) (2010) (16 page)

A handrail would be nice
, I thought grimly.
So would a light
.

Once again, I cursed myself for not carrying a flashlight as standard procedure. Of course, like the tray piled with food that was starting to seem more burdensome than tempting, it would have been difficult to hold, anyway.

Still, at least I’d made it all the way up. In front of me was a wooden door with a curved top, the kind that’s usually featured in gnomes’ huts. It was also only as tall as your usual gnome—without his gnome hat.

There was probably nothing up here but an empty room, I decided. After all, this place was too inaccessible for anyone to have turned it into living space. It wouldn’t even be useful for storage, since it would be impossible to drag up anything bigger than a shoebox.

I decided it must have been built as a lookout. Either that or the architect thought it would look cool for his castlelike structure to have a tower. At any rate, I intended to find out, no matter how creepy it was.

Balancing my tray on my forearm, I placed my free hand on the tarnished metal doorknob. My palm was so sweaty that I was afraid I wouldn’t get enough traction to open it even if it wasn’t locked.

So I was surprised when it turned easily in my hand.

I pushed open the door, immediately coughing as a cloud of dust puffed in my face. The hinges creaked loudly, making screeching sounds that were almost eerie enough to send me running back down those stairs.

But I’d come this far. Besides, by this point I was convinced that I’d find nothing but an empty room.

Sure enough, that was pretty much what I saw once I stepped inside. But while there was little light in the small round room, there was just enough that I could make out some shadowy shapes along the back wall. While they weren’t readily identifiable, I was glad that none of them appeared to be shaped like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

But while Quasimodo might not have been up here, I got the feeling someone else was.

At first I thought I was imagining it. But as I stood inside the doorway, I could definitely hear something that sounded like short, quick breaths.

There was someone up here.

Or maybe some
thing
.

My heart was beating as loudly as the telltale version immortalized by Edgar Allan Poe as I squinted in an effort to adjust to the dim light, meanwhile bracing myself for whatever I might see. Some supernatural
being, perhaps, or some grotesque soul who for some horrific reason was forced to live his or her life hidden away from the rest of the world.

And then something moved. One of the shadows rose from the floor and began moving toward me, into the light …

“Tag?” I cried, blinking.

As he emerged from the shadows, I could see a look of terror in his eyes. “Jessie?” he asked in a strained voice. “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me,” I replied crossly, nearly collapsing as a wave of relief washed over me. Now that I’d discovered that the ghoul hiding at the top of this tower was only Tag Merrywood, I felt like a complete fool. “What are you
doing
up here?”

“Uh, just looking through some old things.”

By now I was able to see quite well, and I glanced around the small room. I immediately realized that he couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. The entire space was empty, aside from an impressive number of dust bunnies that had grown to the size of tumbleweeds.

Which could mean only one thing: Tag was hiding out up here.

“I was so pleased to find that old tennis racket,” he babbled on, “that I figured I’d poke around the house to see if there was anything else I could bring back home with me.”

“In that case,” I said dryly, “wouldn’t it help to have some light?” Or, even better, something to actually look
at
?

Sheepishly, he said, “I thought I might find some
stuff from my childhood up here. I was particularly interested in, uh, my old baseball-card collection. But I realize now that nothing’s stored here anymore. I guess somebody cleaned this place out since the last time I came up.”

“That would explain it,” I agreed, still puzzling over what all this was about.

“So, uh, who came to the island just now?” Tag’s voice was strangely thick as he added, “I saw someone sneak over here on a little boat a while ago. A man. Who was he?”

It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what he was referring to.

“Nick,” I finally replied. “My husband. He’s a busy law student, but he decided he could get just as much studying done here as at home. So he found someone to bring him over.”

Tag let out a deep, relieved sigh. “Is
that
all,” he said breathlessly.

He really
is
hiding
, I thought, startled.
And not from his family, either
.

There’s someone out there he’s afraid of
.

That realization led to another: Tag was in some sort of trouble. And from the deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face, I got the feeling it was rooted in something a lot more serious than an angry ex-wife or ex-girlfriend.

“What about you?” he asked in an accusing tone. “What brought you all the way up here?”

Now it was my turn to do some quick thinking. My
tale about getting lost en route to my bedroom wasn’t going to fly.

“I was searching for a good place to have a picnic,” I explained, holding up the tray of food as proof.

“By yourself?” he asked suspiciously. “That seems like an awful lot of food.”

“I’m starving,” I said with a shrug. “It’s way past lunch. I lost track of the time, since I got involved in looking at a bump I found on Admiral’s neck. Brock and I started to talk, and—”

“Ah, yes, Brock,” Tag said coldly. “I’ve been thinking about him myself. In fact, now that we all know that somebody did our poor father in, I’ve been thinking about little
besides
Brock.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew exactly what he meant.

His unnervingly blue eyes glittering coldly, Tag said, “I’m convinced my brother is the one who did the old man in.”

I just stared at him, too astonished to speak. “Why would he do such a thing?” I finally demanded.

“The oldest reason in the book,” he replied with an icy smile. “Money. That is, the money he’s bound to inherit now that the old man is gone.”

I guess my expression showed my surprise, since he added, “I know it looks as if I’m the spendthrift of the family. And it’s true that I like fine things. The Ferrari, the yacht, the houses in Cap d’Antibes and St. Bart’s …” With a boyish grin, Tag added, “Nothing wrong with living the good life, is there?”

“Not if you can pay for it,” I muttered, wondering
how he managed to do so—especially since he’d just told me his high-priced car was only the beginning. While all along I’d simply assumed that all three of Linus’s children benefited from trust funds or some other form of family money, I now knew otherwise, thanks to my conversation with Brock.

“And Brock isn’t good with money?” I asked.

Tag laughed. “My brother may pretend he’s a non-materialistic hippie, but don’t believe it for a second.”

“Really? He certainly had me convinced.”

“He doesn’t crave things like cars and nice clothes,” Tag said. “But he wants the means to support his current obsession. Sometimes it’s a cause, like saving the planet. And other times it’s something that sounds as if it could turn into an actual career. But he never follows through.”

“Missy did make a comment about that over dinner last night,” I noted. “She mentioned that he’d expressed interest in architecture and computer graphics and some other fields at different times.”

“Exactly,” Tag said. “He’s gone through one phase after another. He’ll find some path he’s convinced is right for him, and it’s all he talks about. A few weeks later he’s moved on to something else. Of course, he never actually does anything about pursuing his passion-of-the-month, like applying to programs in whatever he’s so focused on. He’s simply unable to stick with anything.”

“And it sounds as if his current passion is making beaded jewelry,” I observed. “But it doesn’t seem as if you think this new business of his is going to fly.”

“Ha!” Tag said with a snort. “I find it hard to believe Brock would ever be capable of running a business, even on a small scale. Not when he’s always been such a disaster when it comes to money.”

Winston’s words about Linus Merrywood’s disappointment in his children’s potential for running the business that had prospered under his leadership echoed in my head.

“And not only does Brock lack any business sense,” Tag went on. “He also lacks
common
sense. He’s spent his entire life trying to find some get-rich scheme that will set him up for life. Since he never had any money of his own, he was always trying to get our father to lend him money to invest.”

“Did he?”

Tag scoffed. “The old man was much too smart for that. So he’d turn him down, and then Brock would throw a temper tantrum. Eventually he’d find out what a bad investment it would have been anyway.” Shaking his head in disgust, he said, “You wouldn’t believe some of the crazy stuff Brock wanted to waste money on.”

“Try me.”

“One of my favorites was a biodegradable lunch bag some guy up in Vermont had invented,” Tag said. “The idea was to keep schoolkids from generating garbage. The problem was that its revolutionary ‘green’ material biodegraded too fast—in just a few hours. The poor kids who were testing it ended up with apples and peanut butter sandwiches flying
around their backpacks about ten minutes after they got to school.”

He laughed coldly. “Then there were the dot-com guys who claimed they were going to create the next Google.”

“They weren’t up to it?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. After all, if a search engine that was better than Google was out there, I had a feeling I would have heard about it. Switched to it, in fact.

“No one ever found out,” Tag said, “since they skipped the country with everyone’s money before you could hit
enter
.”

“Okay, so your brother doesn’t exactly have a nose for running a business or making worthwhile investments,” I said. “That doesn’t mean he’s capable of murdering someone. Especially his own father!”

Tag’s eyes narrowed. “There’s more to it. You don’t know Brock, so you have no way of knowing how competitive he is.”

“Do you mean he felt competitive toward your father?” I asked.

“No. Toward me.” Tag stood up a little straighter, as if being the object of his younger brother’s competitiveness was something to be proud of. And that was apparently the exact message he was trying to communicate, since he added, “I must admit, I’m a pretty hard act to follow. Living with the pressure of being the younger brother of Taggart Merrywood wouldn’t be easy for anyone.”

Maybe that’s
your
take on the family dynamic
, I
thought,
but according to Winston, all three of Linus’s children disappointed him—including you
.

“Brock’s spent his whole life trying to show me up,” Tag continued. “And my father had no qualms about letting him know what a disappointment he was.”

I took a deep breath before asking the $64,000 question. “What about you?” I asked. “What do you do, Tag?”

He froze. It took several seconds for the stricken expression on his face to soften into one that was more natural. “I … dabble,” he finally said. “Investments, real estate … I’m involved in all kinds of things.”

O-kay
, I thought.

But before I had a chance to ask him to expand upon what “all kinds of things” might include, Tag made a big show of checking his watch. “Hey, we’re getting close to cocktail hour,” he observed. “That means it’s time for me to get out of this creepy tower.”

At the moment, however, what interested me most about the man was not the lifestyle he apparently felt so entitled to—or even that he had tried to convince me that his baby brother had murdered their father.

What I was more curious about was the fact that the arrival of a stranger on Solitude Island had immediately sent Tag into hiding.

Who could he have been hiding from, I wondered, this cocky young man who didn’t seem to be afraid of anything or anyone? While he appeared committed to living a carefree lifestyle that included every
manifestation of the good life on the entire planet, he clearly had something more troublesome going on.

In fact, the more time I spent at the Merrywoods’ estate, the more convinced I became that pretty much everyone on Solitude Island had something to hide.

•  •  •

I was heading back to my room—so poor Nick could finally get something to eat—when I was waylaid again. Only this time it wasn’t by one of the Merrywoods or their entourage.

I bumped into Betty and Winston—literally. They were strolling out of one of the sitting rooms on the main floor, and I careened around a corner, my picnic lunch sliding around on the tray. As I gently collided with Betty, I heard a yelp, which I instantly realized came from Frederick. She was carrying the cute little ball of fur in her arms—although given the wirehaired dachshund’s shape, he looked more like a baseball bat than a ball.

“Jessica!” she cried, looking pleased to see me even though I’d nearly knocked her and her dog over.

“Betty and I were just talking about you,” added Winston, who had deftly stepped aside in time to avoid the collision.

She nodded. “Rumor has it that somebody else has joined us here on the island,” she said, her blue eyes twinkling. “In fact, I heard
three
somebodies have arrived!”

“That’s right. Nick decided to come for the weekend,”
I explained. “And Max and Lou insisted on tagging along.”

“That’s wonderful,” Winston said warmly. “We’re so pleased they were able to join you.”

“Especially Nick,” Betty agreed. “Newlyweds shouldn’t be apart. In fact, I thought of suggesting it myself but assumed he was too busy with law school.”

“
Busy
is definitely the word,” I agreed. Gesturing toward the staircase with my tray, I noted, “He’s up in our room right now, working his butt off. The poor guy didn’t get any lunch, so I thought we could have a picnic.”