Hurricane House (7 page)

The harp and celesta cued her to dance forward. She stepped through the master bedroom, precise as a laser, her jumps quick and soft, legs perfect with every turn as she envisioned herself wearing a flowing, pink skirt. She pirouetted, once twice, three times, until a jarring noise made her stop.

Was someone clapping? She looked around the room, in search of the noise. It seemed to come from the walk-in closet.

Roxanne turned down the volume on Tchaikovsky and listened. She no longer heard the clapping sound, only the rain and hail pounding the tin roof.
She walked to the closet, bracing herself for the unknown as she opened the louvered door and flicked on the light. To her left, she saw Mason’s Hawaiian shirts, summer suits and scuba gear. On the right, she’d hung her frilly blouses, Capri pants, jeans, jogging suit, and that mink coat she needed to store. Her red sequined dress—notorious for slipping off its hanger—had fallen in a heap on the floor.

As Roxanne reached for the dress the lights flickered and died. No way she planned to hang around the pink palace with no electricity.

She felt her way out of the dark closet and fumbled through her chest of drawers for something to wear. By the time she’d located shorts and a t-shirt, the lights came back on.

Roxanne sighed in relief and changed her mind about leaving. She turned up the volume on Tchaikovsky; then returned to the closet to re-hang the sequined dress. Roxanne’s sense of order wouldn’t let her leave the dress on the floor.

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake muted the storm outside and gave her enough confidence to enter the closet on her toes. She bowed, as if receiving a standing ovation, and picked up the fallen garment. She heard no clapping this time, but beneath the dress, she saw a pair of men’s loafers, tapping out Tchaikovsky’s melody.

Chapter Nine

Gerry, Alabama,
Maeva’s Home

    
After researching and printing the information on the missing women, I ran out into the rain for my receipts and travel logs. The Silverado was parked in an unsheltered driveway. My tee-shirt and denim overalls were soaked by the time I reached it.

If I’d built a garage, I would have driven the truck in there. Dad had planned to build one before the ALS crippled him. Of course, nothing was stopping me from building the garage.

I quickly opened the truck’s storage bin behind the cab and located the cardboard box. Being careful not to drop it, I lifted the large box and stepped down from the truck’s running board. I would have been okay if I hadn’t looked up. I heard the crack of a tree limb breaking off from the tall pine too close to the house and the noise startled me.

That’s when I lost my grip on the box. The entire contents, receipts and tax records, went sailing in the wind and rain.

I raced around, grabbing at wet slips of paper, spiraling in the wind, but my efforts proved to be futile, and I’m sad to say, I recovered very few receipts by the time I heard the landline inside the house ring and ring and ring again. I thought the call must be important because whoever it was wouldn’t stop calling.

I ran inside to answer it. Might as well continue my recovery efforts once the storm had quieted. “Yes?” I panted into the phone.

“Maeva?”

“Yes,” I repeated, unable to identify the woman’s voice.

“Hi, it’s Lilah. How’ve you been?” Lilah’s mom and dad once owned a home in Gerry. She’d grown up there, but she’d married and left for Sea Grove Beach before my family moved to Gerry. I met Lilah for the first time when Catastrophe Claims, Inc. sent me to do the claim on her two-story, four-bedroom on stilts after Hurricane Ivan came through and blew shingles off her roof.

“Could be worse. How’re you doing?” I frowned at the soggy box and the few tax records I’d managed to recover. I examined one of the receipts. It was wet and illegible.

“I’m trying to get to London. The Panama City Airport canceled my flight, thanks to the hurricane. I can catch a connection in Montgomery leaving tomorrow morning. I’m on my way there now.” “Are you going to London for work or pleasure?” “Meeting Jay, my fiancé. I’m sure I’ve mentioned him to you.”

“Oh, yes, you did. He’s a...uh...musician, right?”

“That’s right. Jay’s finishing up a gig and wants me to join him. So I’m taking two weeks off.” Lilah’s voice sounded happy and I smiled at her obvious delight.

“Sounds like fun. Hope y’all have a wonderful time.” “Thanks, Maeva. We will if I can ever get there. Before I leave, I’d like to talk to you if you have the time.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Not over the phone. I’d like to come visit you this afternoon. May I?”

“But you said you’re catching a plane to London.”

“I’m spending the night in Montgomery. Flight leaves tomorrow. Right now I’m not far from you, but I’ll need directions.”

“It’s the split-level, A-frame, facing Lake Gerry, off Hartford Highway. Coming from your way, turn left after the patch of kudzu and pines. Mr. Simmons’ horse pasture is on the right. When you see it, look left and pull between the two brick pillars with ‘Larson’ across the top.”

“I apologize for the short notice,” Lilah said. “I hope it’s okay for me to pop in. I need to give you the information you wanted.”

“Of course, but promise me you won’t notice my house. Looks like the hurricane already came through here.”

“No worse than mine.”

After I hung up from Lilah, I stripped out of the wet jumper, put on a terry jogging suit and reflected on my uncanny connection with Lilah. No question our histories are similar. She lost her parents and then her husband died. Very sad, but she had no reservations about sharing her story the day we met. I shared with her, too. As a matter of fact, I released a flood of emotional sharing. I was going through the anger stage of grief then and looking back, I’m ashamed to say I vented too much. “I can’t understand why Adam had to go after that pedophile without backup?” He knew the guy was dealing drugs and dangerous,” I remember saying.

“Maybe he couldn’t wait to nail him,” Lilah had offered.

“Yeah, but he’d already gotten the little girl out of the house safety. He should have called for backup before returning.”

“Get over it,” I could hear my sister’s voice saying.

I melted down anyway. Sobbed while I washed my face, over and over, brushed my teeth and brewed coffee. When the doorbell rang, I dried my eyes for the umpteenth time and took deep breaths before greeting Lilah. “Hi, come on in. Great to see you.”

“Hi,” Lilah said, struggling with her umbrella, trying to close it.

“Don’t leave it outside. It’ll blow away.”

Lilah paraded her dripping open umbrella and a trail of expensive perfume inside the house. She wore a silk, lavender pants outfit and had her blond hair in a French twist.

“I really apologize for popping in on you like this,” she said, hugging me.

I pointed to the beige couch. “Have a seat. I’ve made coffee. How do you take yours?”

“Cream and honey. That is, if you have honey. If not, just cream.”

“You like honey in your coffee, too?”
Lilah nodded.

“Did you have Mrs. Skipper in seventh grade?”

Lilah smiled, looking lovely, though wet and windblown. “I did.”

“She thought honey could cure everything.”

Lilah threw back her head and laughed. “I know. I loved her and her southern drawl, even though she confused me when she said the equator was a line—in her accent it sounded like li-on—running around the earth.”

“That’s funny,” I said, pushing the rock collection aside to make space for the coffee tray with two gold china cups and saucers, paper napkins, silver spoons, the half-filled coffee pot, Half & Half in a cream pitcher, and a jar of honey. “My place is a wreck. I’ve been trying to make a dent in cleaning it today.”

“Don’t apologize,” Lilah said, reaching inside her tote, withdrawing a reporter’s pad. “These are my notes. You said you’d be interested in reading everything I found out about Tara Baxter.” Lilah pressed her lips together, as if weighing her words. “As I mentioned, Centennial Magazine hired me to write an article on the Miss America pageant. Tara Baxter, if she had lived, may have become the next Miss America.” Lilah shoved the pad at me. “After you’ve had a chance to read my notes, I’d like to know what you think about the information I uncovered on Tara’s death.”

I poured Lilah’s coffee before I reached for the pad. “Thanks for sharing your notes. I searched the Internet today, looking for reports of missing and murdered women in the Panhandle.”

“So you think Tara’s death wasn’t an accident or isolated occurrence.” “I just don’t know what to think, Lilah. That’s the problem. I can’t seem to erase the image of her, and I feel obligated to find out what happened.”

“On your Internet search, did you find other missing women in the area, where foul play was suspected?”

“Two women were reported missing this year.”

Lilah withdrew a new pad and pen from her purse. “What are their names and circumstances?”

“Helen Rapier from Panama City Beach and Karen Lovett from Pensacola. Both young, single, professional. Helen was participating in a triathlon when she disappeared. Karen was scheduled to fly out of Pensacola for a business meeting in Atlanta, but she never made the flight.” I flipped open the pad Lilah had given me and glanced through her notes.

“I’ll check into this when I get back, and also, I’ll give you a copy of my article when it comes out.”

“I’d appreciate that. Tara’s death definitely needs a closer look, and as you know, my sister and I own property on Paradise Isle. I’m very familiar with the area.” I poured coffee for myself.

Lilah sipped hers. “Yum, tastes like hazelnut.”

“I’m glad you like it.” I stirred cream and a teaspoon of honey into my cup.

Lilah nodded and smiled. “Very good.” She pointed to the triangular rose quartz on the coffee table. “I love your rocks. You said you were a collector and...” she paused to reach inside her tote. She withdrew a white box, held the box in her left palm, opened it with her right; then pulled out a large, tear-shaped crystal, dangling from a black ribbon. “I wanted you to have this. Sorry I didn’t wrap it.”
I studied the crystal and saw a multitude of colors, blue, lavender and gold, even pink. “Beautiful...but...why give this to me? It’s not even my birthday.”

Lilah tied the necklace around my neck and laughed. Her breath smelled like mint, no hint of coffee breath. “A psychic in New Orleans, named Martha, loaned this necklace to me. I call it my Mardi Gravestone, because Martha gave it to me after a graveyard tour.”

I couldn’t stop looking at this stone. “I seem to remember you telling me about that. Wow, it’s huge. Sparkles like a diamond.”

“Martha said it’s an aurora crystal from Vienna. It’s the finest in the world, a universe unto itself. Anointed water frozen into stone. It’s supposed to protect the wearer with the sun’s power, warding off evil spirits.”

“If anyone needs to ward off evil, I do.”

Lilah chuckled, as if she thought I was kidding, and picked up the rose quartz from the coffee table. “Martha said to use my discretion in passing on the necklace.” Lilah cleared her throat. “When she first gave it to me, I had no idea a crystal could possess powers, and from what you’ve said about your stone collecting, I thought you would love this one.”

“I do, I really do,” I said, staring at the crystal. The longer I glanced at the stone I began to see images in the prism, and I know this sounds crazy, but I saw Adam’s face. My heart raced and my eyes burned. In fact, I felt so dizzy; I had to clutch the edge of the sofa to keep from fainting.

Lilah touched my arm. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I managed to say. “I love the necklace. I really do.” “For me, it became warm and changed colors, as if to warn me.”

I picked up the crystal again and thought I heard Adam’s voice. “Tara’s death wasn’t an accident.” I gulped back the scream that nearly erupted and took deep breaths to calm myself. For a moment I couldn’t speak.

Lilah said, “I hope my visit hasn’t upset you.”

I focused on the pad she’d given me, flipping through it in an effort to gain control of my emotions. “Oh, no, I’m glad you’re here, Lilah.” I tried to smile. “And I’m thrilled about the necklace you brought me, and I look forward to the reading your notes.

Lilah blotted her lipstick with a napkin. “I knew you’d be chomping at the bit to investigate this.” Her green eyes widened. “I know you investigate claims, but didn’t you once tell me you’re a certified private eye?”

I laughed nervously, thinking some private eye. I’m now seeing my dead fiancé and hearing his voice. “I’ve done a couple of jobs for hire, but that’s all.”

Chapter Ten

Geneva VanSant

      Geneva VanSant opened the front door to her beach townhouse, not knowing what to expect. The man in the hooded slicker, who’d been banging on the door, wiped the rain from his face and flashed a badge.

“We’re evacuating Paradise Isle.” He pointed to her blue Mustang. “Your vehicle?”