Worst Laid Plans (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 1) (21 page)

At the top of the staircase, Mr Hollow paused. “Thank you for tonight, Maddox. It was good to see life breathed into this mausoleum again. Maybe we should have a sit down in the morning and you can tell me about some of those ideas of yours.”

I almost fell flat on my back with shock. “Of course, Mr Hollow, I’d really like that.”

FOURTEEN

I’ve heard of some people having spidery senses.

Not that I’d know much about it.

If there were a scale, I’d put myself at minus ten. Take the surprise going-away party Jenna had thrown for me the night before I left for New York. I was probably the only idiot on the planet who’d actually been surprised when the lights flipped on and people started popping out at me from behind the sofas. I’d screamed my head off.

But something had woken me.

And not just woken me.

I bolted upright in my bed, heart palpitating, wide-eyed awake.

The house creaked around me, but nothing more than the sounds I’d grown accustomed to in my short stay here. Hollow House was an aging relic with arthritis in the joints. She took her time settling into the evening chill and roused with aching slowness into the morning warmth.

The Limlys were three doors down from me and I wondered if maybe I’d heard them returning from their moonlit stroll. I reached for my phone on the nightstand and quickly discarded that idea. It was after two in the morning.

I snuggled beneath the covers and closed my eyes.

After about ten minutes of staring at the inside of my eyelids, I gave up and climbed out of bed. I slid my feet into my flip flops, pulled on a robe and padded as quietly as I could past the Limly’s door and down the stairs.

My mother always swore that a mug of warm milk cured everything from a headache to a stomach ailment to insomnia. Nana Rose, of course, claimed the same thing from a tot of warm brandy, but I decided to go with Mom on this one.

I flicked the switch to light up the passage alongside the bottom of the stairs and made my way to the back of the house. I was just about to push through the swing doors into the kitchen when I heard it.

A scuffling noise.

The kind of noise one of Mr Hollow’s rats might make.

A very large rat.

For some strange reason, I felt no inclination to go investigate.

I pushed through the door, but before it swung back into place, I heard a dull thud, followed by a tinny, ringing sound.

Then nothing.

I pushed out again and stood there, listening hard. Had it come from the direction of Ms Daggon’s room? I couldn’t see, since the passage bent around a sharp corner before it got that far.

Another shuffling sound, quieter, more dulled.

I set off toward the sound. And don’t worry, I wasn’t
that
girl, the dumb one who crept up in the dark on a monstrous rat man fashioned from some sort of swarm intelligence and ended up with her flesh gnawed to the bone. But Mr Hollow had said the rats only came out at night and if we had an infestation, that was something I’d definitely want to know about.

The passage light I’d turned on didn’t extend much around the bend and the white line glowing beneath Ms Daggon’s door was instantly noticeable.

Had Nate switched the light on when we’d been here the other day, then forgotten to turn it off?

He must have.

I paused outside the door, sucked in a deep breath, then shoved the door open and jumped back, just in case the swarm attacked.

A man knelt on the floor amongst the chaos of overflowing boxes and coats, pots, pans, linen and shoes. His gaze flew over his shoulder to me and the first thing I registered, with the kind of relief I’d never admit to, was that it wasn’t the rat man. I seriously had to stop watching horror shows.

“Principal Limly?” I stepped inside with a giddy laugh as I digested the navy windbreaker, animal print pajamas pants and bit off fluff sticking out from his slippers. Trust me, this was one sight I’d never thought, or ever hoped, to see.

“Maddox, what are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. More to the point, “What are
you
doing here?”

“Oh, um, I was…” He shuffled around on his knees to face me, all formal-like with his spine rigid straight and his hands behind his back. “I couldn’t get that photograph you mentioned off my mind and I was, well, I thought I’d take a look.”

“In the middle of the night?” I moved closer. “It’s really important to you.”

“No, not at all. I was merely curious.” He shook his head emphatically. “Why would you think it’s important?”

I hadn’t really thought about it at all, but I was now.

“You decided to spend a night here at Hollow House right after I told you about the photograph,” I said, connecting the dots as I spoke.

It was so obvious, I didn’t know how I’d missed it.

“You didn’t confuse your anniversary date.” I gave him a sympathetic smile. “That was just an excuse to give you an opportunity to search Ms Daggon’s room.”

He pressed awkwardly to his feet, his hands still clasped behind his back. “Did Ms Daggon say anything to you?”

“Goodness, no, why would she…” I remembered my tiny fib about our intimate chat over a cup of tea and amended, “Well, she might have said a few things, but I only wanted you to know that I understand and it’s okay.” I waved at the clutter of boxes. “I’d help if I could, but you see, I’ve already given—”

I cut off as he whipped a hand out from behind his back and I saw a mean, heavy-based pan slinging my way. My temple exploded in pain and then all I saw was black studded with sparks of electric white. My knees crumpled and I sagged, too dazed to put a hand out to soften my fall.

“Maddox, I’m sorry.” Principal Limly’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

I opened my eyes, at least thought I had, but all I saw was those blinding flashes. Something wet mopped my mouth and covered my nose with a sickly sweet smell. I gasped for breath, choking, and then the flashes faded into pitch black nothing.

∞∞∞

I woke up on the tail of a crappy nightmare and a dozen hammers pounding at my temple. Groaning, I prized open lead-weighted eyelids and tried to stretch out the crinkles in my limbs, and that’s when the dream fell apart.

Not a nightmare.

Principal Limly sat across from me in a hardback chair. He wasn’t wearing animal print pajamas.

Had that been part of the nightmare?

I remembered there hadn’t been any nightmare. This was all real.

He’d changed into corduroys and running shoes; kept the navy windbreaker.

My head dipped and my lids drooped.

“The after-effect of the chloroform should already be out of your system,” he said in a kind, worried voice. “But you took a severe knock to the head.”

My eyes lurched open again and a new level of awareness swooped over me. I was seated in a chair as well, my arms tied around the back and my ankles tied to the chair legs. My flip flops were gone, my feet bare. My terrycloth robe was wrapped around me and, beneath that, I still wore the thin cotton pants and camisole I slept it.

I panicked and began to struggle violently, breaths heaving from my lungs as I pushed and pulled and bounced until the chair toppled over.

I hit the cold cement floor with a scream that went in instead of out.

“Take it easy, Maddox.”

The pair of running shoes came closer, hands reached to help, but I was too busy sucking in screams and struggling to care. I kicked out, and felt the rope burn at my ankles. I squirmed and jerked so hard, it felt like I was ripping my arms out of their sockets.

“Maddox!”

The firm order stilled me long enough to realize I wasn’t getting anywhere. Upright or sprawled on the floor, I was stuck to this chair.

“That’s better,” he said, his tone smoothing as he tipped me and the chair into an upright position. He bent down to look me in the eye. “I’m sorry, Maddox, I hope you know that.”

I took a deep breath as I watched him move away, return to his chair, cross one leg over the other. Okay, I had no freaking clue what was going on, but panicking wasn’t helping.

There had to a simple explanation.

There just had to be.

I glanced around the room. It was small, rough cement floor, walls and ceiling. A sliver of sunlight beamed in through a long, narrow window that ran horizontal across the top of one wall.

Was it the next morning already?

“How long have I been out?” I mumbled.

“A couple of hours,” Principal Limly said.

My scowling glare shot to him. “I don’t understand. What’s going on? What are you…?”

My heart gave a mighty kick as I watched him edge an elbow onto the spindly table beside him. It wasn’t the table that had shocked the crap out of me. It wasn’t the small brown bottle that sat next to his elbow. No,
that
would be scary-assed shotgun that lay next to the bottle next to his elbow.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Principal Limly said.

I swallowed past the lump of fear as my gaze swerved to him. His eyes were on me, and he seemed really tired, weary and exhausted as he stroked his beard and looked at me.

I inhaled deeply, released slowly.

This was Principal Limly.

Of course he wasn’t going to kill me.

But he
had
walloped me over the head. Knocked me out with chloroform. Brought me to this dank cement room. Tied me to a chair.

My gaze returned to that brown bottle as a host of far-stretched ideas strung together inside my head. Was he hunting for Ms Daggon’s murderer? Did he think I knew something and wasn’t telling? Worse, did he think I’d done it?

Crazy, sure, but given my current situation, maybe not so crazy.

“If that’s truth serum.” I nudged my chin at the bottle. “It’s not going to work, Principal Limly. I don’t know anything, seriously, and I didn’t murder Ms Daggon.”

He looked at the bottle and gave a hoarse, scratchy laugh that seemed pulled from his gut.

“This was supposed to be finished.” He cursed. “I thought it was over back then, but then Belinda found that photograph, and now you…”

“Are you talking about Mr Biggenhill?”

His eyes returned to me.

“What’s going on?” I prompted when he didn’t reply. “What was supposed to be finished? Talk to me, Principal Limly.”

His shoulders stooped. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about at the beginning?” I said, suspecting I’d already surmised most of that worry weighing on his shoulders. All these years he’d carried Mr Biggenhill’s secret, maybe even helped him escape his life. “That photo places you and Mr Biggenhill at
The Lounge
, a show bar at that ranch establishment.”

“The ranch… If I’d known…” He stood and paced in front of the table, no longer looking at me. “Harold was driving the Thruway every weekend, stalking butterflies on the outskirts of Montezuma National park.”

“Harold? Oh, Mr Biggenhill?”

Principal Limly nodded absently. “He passed me filling up with gas, apparently, saw me standing there right out in the open. Didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that spot with the colony of butterflies was just off the main road and when he saw a car similar to mine pass by again and again, regular like clockwork, every Saturday afternoon…”

He trailed off, paced the floor.

I rotated my ankles to ease circulation. I badly wanted to demand he untie me, but he was clearly unhinged, desperate and depressed. A combination I wasn’t qualified to mess with. Maybe once he’d talked it out, he’d realize I couldn’t help him find whatever answers he was looking for.

I wasn’t so much scared anymore, just uncomfortable. In all honesty, I was more afraid he’d harm himself than me. He’d brought a shotgun, after all, and he’d said it wasn’t to kill me.

“What happened then?” I prompted again, mimicking the sort of tone a psychiatrist would use.

“Not much.” He laughed. “Not until after I accepted the position of department head and Harold decided to follow me, in the name of looking out for public interest. If I’d known he’d seen me driving that road, I wouldn’t…”

He paced to the wall, the one with the window slit just below the ceiling, and stood there with his back to me.

Shoulders slumped.

Arms hanging limply at his sides.

In that moment, he really did look like a wreck of a man, apt to do the unimaginable.

“The funny thing is,” he went on, “that was going to be my last performance. Final show. I was getting married the next weekend and I’d already made the decision to put that part of my life behind me.”

Wait!

What?

I gulped the words down before I could spit them out. This demanded a little more tact than that.