“Soon she had her own merchandise and one of those buy them while you still can shows on top of her cooking show,” Lucy said with a grin. “Actually, she came to stay here one year.” She turned and looked at June. “Do you remember that? We went to meet her as Lacey got us VIP tickets.”
“Yes,” June said, nodding, and her face fell as dark emotion flashed in her eyes. “That was about two weeks before…” She swallowed. “Before Shaun and the other four men were killed.”
“She didn’t write that resignation letter,” June said, then glanced at the cardboard in the baggie in Holt’s hands. “Maybe Gilbert bought something from the show.”
“Could be,” Holt agreed and passed it back to the officer. “Please see that forensics gets this and let them see if they can connect the part logo to the Barbara Bass show.”
“I’m just waiting for the body to be collected,” Lucy told them. “Once I have Mrs. Clark back at the morgue and I’ve done a more thorough examination, I’ll have something more definitive for you.”
“Thank you, Lucy. I appreciate it,” Holt told her. She gave them a tight smile as he and June walked away.
As they cleared the doorway and watched the forensic team pull up, June turned to him.
“I’m having my doubts about Mrs. Clark typing out her resignation letter,” June told him and took a breath. “I just hope that we don’t find out that Alfred didn’t type his either.”
“Let’s hope not,” Holt told her.
“That letter from Mrs. Clark was typed,” June continued. “It was formal, polite, and so properly structured.” She looked at Holt. “Someone wrote it for her. I’m sure of it.”
“Victoria needed the household accounted for,” Holt said. “If both Alfred and Mrs. Clark simply disappeared without explanation, questions would be asked immediately. Resignation letters would’ve bought her time to escape.”
“We should’ve noticed this,” June said. “The security footage that Sienna gave us shows Alfred loading the safe and the suitcases. It shows Victoria getting into the car and Alfred getting into the car and driving off.” She met his eyes. “Mrs. Clark isn’t in that footage at all.”
Holt looked at the floor cavity.
“We can look at it in a few ways,” he said. “Mrs. Clark left before they did. Someone else got hold of Mrs. Clark before she could meet Victoria and Alfred.”
“Or Mrs. Clark knew something Victoria couldn’t afford to have her know,” June replied. “And she was a loose end that needed tying up. Just like she did to this cabin ten years ago.” She swallowed and glanced around. “One last body in the place shecaused destruction and heartache ten years ago.” She gave a snort. “It’s almost poetic.”
“I agree,” Holt said, turning to look back into the cabin. “The question is what Victoria was looking for.”
“Or what was Mrs. Clark looking for?” Rad’s voice startled them as he came around the side of the cabin. “Maybe Mrs. Clark knew something was hidden here. Came to find it and was intercepted by Victoria.”
“And then the storm came,” June said quietly, “and bought her another four or five days before anyone came out here. So she could disappear with Alfred and whatever it was she came here to find.”
Holt stepped back into the gutted interior of the cabin and looked at what remained of the floor. The afternoon light was dropping through the open roof sections in long, pale columns, catching the dust that moved in the air above the pulled timber, and the cabin was very quiet except for the sound of the officers outside and the distant, persistent sound of insects in the tree line.
June came to stand beside him. “I just hope that Alfred isn’t another victim,” she said.
“I know,” Holt replied and blew out a breath. “Let me give the forensic team instructions and then we need to go see Tom to let him know about Mrs. Clark.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Holt and June climbed out of Carmen’s car, which they’d parked in the Morrison Mansion driveway. They walked to the front door and rang the bell. Only this time, there was no Alfred or Mrs. Clark to greet them at the door. It was Tom.
He’d moved back into the Morrison mansion two days after the forensic teams had cleared it, which Holt had understood without needing it explained. Tom had lived in this house for most of his adult life. The Sandpiper Inn was comfortable, and Margo ran it with characteristic excellence, but it wasn’t home. Tom had the particular, stubborn attachment to his own space that men of a certain generation developed after long enough in one place.
He looked at Holt and June on the doorstep with the expression of a man who had learned over the past several weeks that their arrival on his doorstep rarely preceded good news.
“Come in,” Tom said. “Are you here to let me know you’ve found Victoria, Alfred, and Mrs. Clark?”
They followed him through to the front room. Holt looked at the space with fresh eyes now, seeing the absence of the staff who’d moved through it for years. The particular stillness of a house that had been thoroughly searched and was still reassembling itself into something resembling normal.
“No, we haven’t found Victoria or Alfred, yet,” Holt said carefully as he and June took a seat on the sofa.
Tom sat down in an armchair across from them, eyeing them warily.
“Okay,” Tom said, his eyes narrowing some more. “You only mentioned two of the missing people.”
“We found Mrs. Clark,” Holt told him. He kept his voice level and direct. Tom deserved the plain version. “At the old cabin near Ember Lake. She’d been there for several days.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Tom, but she didn’t make it.”
