Between Here and the Horizon(19)

“I’m…I’m not in New York. I’m on Causeway Island. I’m afraid there’s been some sort of accident over here,” I said quietly, shielding the receiver so Amie couldn’t hear me. “Ronan left a note and asked that I get Mr. Linneman to come as quickly as possible.”

“Oh. I see.” Whispering on the other end of the phone, and then the sound of the handset creaking as it was handed over to someone else.

“Hello, this is Robert. You’re Ophelia?”

Shock rode over me in another wave. He knew who I was? Well, he was certainly at an advantage because I had no idea who he was. “Yes. There’s an ambulance on its way. I was meant to call you first, but...”

“It’s okay. I’m on my way. Don’t let the police take anything before I get there. Are you listening, girl?”

“Yes. Yes.” I nodded, clutching tightly to the phone, as if the receiver were the only thing keeping me upright. “Please. Hurry.”





******



“And what time was it when you came downstairs, Miss Lang? Was the note already there then?”

I’d relocated Amie up to her room when the police had arrived. The red and blue flashing lights of their car had cast long, brilliant shadows across the lawns as it sped toward the house, but the sirens had thankfully been silent. Amie had gone upstairs without a peep, taking her breakfast with her, plate gripped tightly in both hands, before the two uniformed officers had even entered the house.

Now I stood in the hallway outside Ronan’s office with the cops, feeling very small and very useless as I tried to answer their questions.

“I don’t know. I didn’t notice it. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Do you have a key to this door?”

I shook my head. “No. He didn’t want anyone going in there.” I’d already shown them the note.

“We’re gonna have to kick it in then. That okay with you?”

I nodded, throat aching and too swollen to speak unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Stand back then.” The tallest, broadest guy got the job done in one swift movement, slamming the sole of his boot into the door just below the handle. The door sprang open, hitting the wall with a crash. I didn’t look inside the room. I’d seen enough through the window outside; I was going to be dealing with the nightmares for the rest of my life as it was.

I still couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. Less than twenty-four hours inside the house, and the guy who employed me was dead? How did something like this happen? It categorically made no sense whatsoever. It was such a mistake to leave California. I should never have come here.

Both police officers went inside the study. I sat on the bottom step of the staircase and gnawed on my fingernails until they came back out again ten minutes later. “He’s been dead for some time. Body’s very cold. I’m not a forensics guy, but I’d say he’s been there at least six hours, probably.”

Six hours? So he’d come up to my room last night and thanked me for coming out here, thanked me from the bottom of his heart for agreeing to come all the way across the other side of the country to take care of his children, and then he’d come straight down here, tied a noose around his neck and stepped off a goddamn chair? That’s what it sounded like had happened. God, Ronan had been hanging in there, cold and dead, while I’d been prancing around the kitchen in my PJs, making pancakes, fantasizing about what he might look like all ruffled from sleep, complimenting me on my excellent cooking skills. What a nightmare.

The mud from the lawn had dried on my feet and cracked, turned almost white. My big toenail had been bleeding at some point; I must have caught it on something when I ran outside.

“Did you have any suspicion that Mr. Fletcher was planning something like this?” the second cop asked. He was squat and muscular. A redhead with a smattering of freckles across his face that he probably hated.

“No. No idea whatsoever. Like I said, I barely knew him. He hired me to look after his children. I only arrived on the island yesterday.”

Sympathy traveled across the guy’s face. “Quite a shock, then,” he said, which was possibly the understatement of the century. “Where are the children now?”

“Upstairs. I didn’t want them to know anything’s going on.”

The cop nodded. “Okay. We’ll have to call in CPS. They don’t have an office here on the island. Can you take care of them until someone can come and get them? Might not be until tomorrow now. There’s a storm on its way in.”

“Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, sure.” Damn. How long was it going to take Child Protective Services to get here? Long enough, I assumed. Long enough that I was going to have to tell Connor and Amie that something had happened to their father.

Officer Hinchliff (his name was stitched onto the breast pocket of his thick, waterproof jacket) was right about the storm. Out of the window in the distance, the sea looked choppy and angry, the faint outline of the mainland six miles away a grim gray streak, hovering above the water. Lightning was striking out over the ocean, tearing across the cloud-heavy sky one second, gone the next, like the tail of a whip.

“You’re going to have to come down to the station and make a statement as well, Miss. We won’t be able to hand over the documents in Mr. Fletcher’s office until we’ve confirmed that this actually is a suicide.”