The Sound of Secrets

“What’s wrong?”

“Something has happened in the library.”

“What?”

“I think somebody has been shot.”

Miranda tossed the covers to one side and grabbed a robe from the foot of the bed. “I thought I heard a shot,” she said anxiously, “but the storm was so violent about that time, I decided I’d been mistaken.” She rushed toward the door. “Who’s been shot?”

“I don’t know. Somebody was pointing a gun at me, and I was afraid to go in alone.” As they hurried downstairs, in a half whisper Rissa explained why she had gone to the library and what she had heard.

Miranda paused. “The shooter may be still in the library. We’d better call Father.”

“I don’t think anyone is there now. I heard someone leaving by the back door, and it was quiet in the library after that.”

With Miranda beside her, Rissa felt her courage returning, and she stepped to the door of the library and felt along the right wall for the light switch. Her hand hovered over the switch briefly. Her fears surfaced again. Did she want to know what had happened in the library? If there had been a murder, the shooter had gotten a clear view of her face. Because she was a witness, would she be the next victim? Reaching into the depth of her spiritual reservoir, Rissa took a deep breath for courage and flipped the switch.

Rissa and Miranda entered the library together. They stared wordlessly at the body of a woman—a stranger—lying on her back beside the fireplace with blood oozing from a hole in her chest and spreading over the black jacket she wore. Clinging to one another, the two sisters moved into the room. Miranda knelt on the floor and checked the woman’s wrist and throat for a pulse.

“She’s dead.”

Rissa had never been this close to anyone who had recently died, and to her, the woman seemed to be asleep, although an agonized expression was on her face.

“How could a stranger have gotten into this house tonight?”

Miranda spoke in a tortured whisper. “I’m not sure she’s a stranger.” Her golden-brown eyes held a faraway look in them as she stared upward at Rissa.

Stunned by Miranda’s words, Rissa took a sharp breath and stared wordlessly. Miranda laid her hand on the woman’s cheek and sifted a few strands of the soft hair through her fingers.

“She looks like Mama,” Miranda said.

Rissa took a closer look at this woman who might be her mother. A few weeks ago their sister Bianca had been given a picture by her now-boyfriend, Leo Santiago, of Trudy Blanchard and Leo’s mom, a friend of hers. Rissa had been amazed at how much her youngest sister, Juliet, resembled the woman in the picture. And this woman on the floor did look remarkably like Juliet.

“Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“I’ll do that while you go upstairs and get Father, Aunt Winnie and Portia. They should be told before the cops get here.”

Rissa took the steps two at a time. She woke Winnie and Portia first. She walked rapidly down a short hallway to the left at the top of the staircase and knocked on her father’s door. No response. She knocked several times and then dared to open the door. What if he was also dead? She turned on a light. But Ronald wasn’t in his bed.

Had her father been the masked man behind the gun? She dismissed the thought as silly—why be masked in his own house?—as she hurried downstairs and entered the library right behind Winnie and Portia.

Winnie stared at the corpse and she murmured, “It could be Trudy. Even allowing for the changes the years would have made, I think it’s her.”

Rissa put her arm around Portia and held her tight. Portia’s dark eyes were lackluster with disbelief.

“Ronald will know,” Winnie said. She looked toward the hall and the staircase. “Did you wake him?”

Rissa lifted her hand to her lips and she began to shake as dreadful pictures built in her mind. “He wasn’t in his room—his bed hadn’t been slept in.”

“Oh, no!” Winnie said. “Don’t even think it. Ronald wouldn’t do this!”

“Ronald wouldn’t do what?”

The four women pivoted almost as one toward Ronald, who stood in the doorway. Standing close together they completely hid the body.

“Where have you been?” Winnie asked. “Rissa said you weren’t in your room.”

“I was reading in my office. I came out when I heard steps running down the hall and Winnie speaking.”

The sound of sirens approaching the house caused rivulets of fear to cascade along Rissa’s spine.

“What’s wrong?” Ronald demanded. “What are you hiding? Step aside.”

Winnie looked at the three sisters and nodded. The shock of discovery hit Ronald full force when his family obeyed his command. His mouth dropped open, and he stared, complete surprise on his face. Any suspicion that her father had killed this woman fled Rissa’s mind immediately. Her father wasn’t a good enough actor to have feigned this shock. But would the police believe it?

Ronald dropped on his knees and in a voice barely above a whisper, he cried, “Oh, Trudy, Trudy, have I lost you again?” He took an emerald-green silk scarf from the woman’s neck and lifted it to his lips.

“We were in Milan on our honeymoon when I bought you this scarf because the color matched your eyes,” he said in a reverent tone that Rissa had never heard him use. “Have you kept it all of these years remembering, too?”

He cradled his wife’s lifeless body in his arms, heedless of the fact that her blood was spreading over the front of his custom-made suit.

“I’ve never seen Father like this before,” Rissa whispered to her sisters.

“Neither have I,” Miranda agreed. “I remember when Mother died—well, left—so long ago. I thought he was glad to be rid of her, but he must have loved her.”

The rise and fall of the siren came louder, then ceased suddenly as the police cruiser pulled to a halt in front of the manor. Portia rushed to the front door and struggled to open it. Mick Campbell entered first and Portia threw herself into his arms. Drew Lancaster stepped around them and quickly surveyed the scene.

“What’s happened? Who is this woman?” he asked.

Sensing Drew’s strength and compassion, Rissa hurried toward him, hands outstretched. “Oh, Drew, please help us. We think this is our mother.”

Drew turned his eyes from the crime scene and grasped Rissa’s hands. Portia was sobbing wildly in Mick’s tight clasp as he whispered comfortingly to her. Drew wished he had the right to comfort Rissa in the same way, but he could do nothing except squeeze her fingers gently and release her.

“I am here to help you,” he said softly. Even in the midst of this tragedy Drew experienced a sudden desire to always be at Rissa’s side when she needed him—a lofty aspiration for a penniless cop.

FOUR

Detective Mick Campbell, a ruggedly handsome, brown-haired man, released Portia and stepped farther into the room.

“Ladies, you’ll have to leave the room until we make our investigation,” he said. No one moved and he stepped closer to the grieving Ronald.

“Mr. Blanchard, you and your family need to leave the room. We’ll take care of things here.”

“No! No!” Ronald shouted. “I want to be alone with my wife! Leave me.”

Peg and the housekeeper, Sonya, crowded into the doorway, both dressed in their nightclothes, and Mick threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Don’t anyone touch anything—this is a crime scene! Will someone tell me what happened?”