“We don’t think so. Storm’s confident it was a woman.”
“It was dark.”
“And we have to start somewhere. Jez found a fresh footprint over in the trees where Storm saw the figure. Size seven, narrow, and we’re working to identify the boot that it matches. Erin can take over the lead when she gets here—she’s good at that type of research.”
“How do you know it was fresh? We haven’t had rain in a while, and nobody’s stirring up the dust by the trees.”
“It was in a pile of horse shit. Your foreman said a neighbour went through on horseback the day before yesterday, and the pile is still slightly squishy, which means two things: one, the print is recent, and two, the horse is having some kind of dietary issue, according to Google. The culprit was heading uphill, away from the cottage and into the forest.”
“When is Erin arriving?” I asked. “Assuming she makes it, that is.”
Erin had finally passed her driving test three weeks ago, and I suspected her driving instructor had thrown a celebratory party afterward. Fresno, where she spent half her time with her fiancé, was three hours away.
Ari checked her watch. “Tomorrow morning. Rusty’s driving her, so she’ll get here okay.”
“Is he planning to stay?”
“Just for a night.”
“Where’s he going to sleep? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re short of beds.”
André was on his way too—Storm had volunteered to hop over to San Francisco and pick him up in the helicopter—and Chase was due back the day after tomorrow. At this rate, we’d need to run out and buy an RV because we were still a bathroom down, and I hated waiting in line for the shower.
“Rusty will share the bedroom in the surviving cottage with Erin, and the couch is a pull-out, so I’ll use that. Jez and Storm can take one of the guest bedrooms, you and Nolan have the second, and Marcel can bunk with Chase when he gets back.”
“And André?”
“We found a blow-up bed he can put in the master.”
“André won’t much like that.”
“Well, I didn’t much like having to jump out of a burning building, but sometimes we don’t get much choice. Don’t tell Zach how big the flames got, okay? He worries enough already.”
“I’m not a blabbermouth.”
Ari smiled. “I know. You’re the most secretive person I’ve ever met. If Zach hadn’t assured me you existed for real, I would’ve thought you were some Holodeck computer thing.”
“She’s as frustrating as a computer, but she doesn’t have an off-switch,” Jez said from behind me.
“Ha-ha. Are we actually going to get any work done, or are you just planning to stand around insulting me all morning?”
“Marcel made danishes. There’s no whiteboard, but we found a bunch of posterboard and taped it to the wall in the library.”
Nolan groaned. “The library? Couldn’t you have picked another room? It’s still filled with dust from the Gold Rush.”
“It’s the biggest space apart from the living room, and the living room has floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a guy cleaning the pool right outside. Do you want him and the rest of the staff to find out what we’re doing?”
“There are drapes.”
“Do you normally close them during the day?”
“No, but— Okay, we’ll use the library.”
We all trooped into the library, which contained the same chaotic mess as the study. At some point, Nolan had shoved a bunch of moving boxes in there and never unpacked. No wonder he avoided the older wing of the house. Now that André was taking over the refurb project and I didn’t have to pretend I liked the “eclectic chic” of the study anymore, I’d see if Nolan wanted the place cleared and turned into a more usable space.
Shelves lined three of the walls—the two short sides and one of the long ones. On the long side, two windows nestled between the books, framed by heavy brocade drapes with matching window seats. A fireplace formed a centrepiece on the other long side, and a trio of Chesterfield-style leather couches clustered around a coffee table in front of it. The light was dim, the ambiance gothic. If there was an afterlife, Marielle’s ghost was probably recoiling in horror at the vibes in here.
“We could use a light projector,” I said. “We don’t need to go back to the Dark Ages with posterboard.”
