Deadly Fate (Krewe of Hunters #19)(68)

She smiled. She felt safe.

“I’ll be there in one minute,” she promised Kimball.

“Of course,” he told her.

She closed the door and hurried back for her brush; she’d have a mad tangle of hair when it dried if she didn’t brush it out first.

Almost immediately, she heard another tap.

This time, Amelia just seemed to appear before her.

“I’m not being rude, am I?” she asked. “I mean, I knew he was gone. Did you do it? Did you sleep with him?”

“Amelia!”

“Ah, you did! Good for you! Was he great, was he amazing? I’ll bet you he’s great in bed!”

“Amelia, honestly—”

“Oh, come on! I’m living vicariously through you—in a very real sense!”

Clara turned to the ghost and smiled. “He is amazing in bed.”

“I knew it! Yes, say thank you, Amelia, for egging me into it. Because, Clara, you’re really just too much of a prig to do things on your own.”

“I am not!” Clara protested. “Okay, thank you. Now I’ve got to go out—Kimball has already summoned me to breakfast.”

Amelia shuddered. “He’s a creep! I don’t think that I would have slept with him—even if he does have a zillion tons of money and could have catapulted me into being a household name.”

“What did he do creepy now?” Clara asked her.

“He talks to himself,” Amelia said.

“And what does he say?”

Amelia shrugged. “Actually, he was talking about ways to get to you. Trying to figure out how to shake the cops and the FBI and everyone else. To be alone with you.”

A prickling sensation skipped along Clara’s spine. The way that Amelia looked at her, she knew that they were wondering about the same question.

To get her in bed? Or to kill her?

“Don’t worry about me, Amelia,” Clara said. “I’ll make sure that I’m never alone with him.”

Amelia nodded. “Good deal. Well, I guess it’s time to go to breakfast.”

“You’re coming?” Clara asked her, frowning.

“Wouldn’t miss it!” Amelia assured her, smiling mischievously.

Sighing, Clara set her brush down and headed out. Amelia followed her.

She didn’t have to worry about it being just her, Jackson and Marc Kimball—the crew of Wickedly Weird Productions had returned.

Just returned. Nate Mahoney was handing his coat to Magda when Clara reached the living room, Becca Marle was speaking animatedly to Jackson, and Tommy Marchant was just coming through the door.

“Clara!” Tommy said, seeing her across the room. “Hey, you’re here. Nice to see you. I heard the cast was on the Fate now.”

Everyone turned to look at her. “I’m still here for the moment. I’ll be joining the cast soon enough.”

There as a moment of silence in which it seemed everyone waited for an explanation.

Except for Magda.

“Hey, wipe your feet there, Mr. Marchant!” she said. “This isn’t a barn!”

Tommy wiped his feet and everyone shuffled. Marc Kimball came out to the living room looking less than pleased.

“You’re all here,” he said.

“The police have told us—more or less ordered us—to get out here and pack up at the Mansion,” Nate Mahoney explained. “And they escorted us here. I think they wanted one of the FBI guys with us as well while we packed up our things.”

“Yes,” Jackson said. “I believe we have breakfast and coffee ready here, then we can all head on over.”

“Yes, do come on in,” Marc Kimball said. “Every day will be a step closer to finishing with this ghastly business.”

“When we catch the killer,” Jackson said, “that’s when we’ll be finished with this ghastly business.”

“Of course,” Kimball said. “Come in. Magda, we’ll need more plates.” He forced a smile.

Clara couldn’t help remembering that he’d come to her door in the night; she tried to slide by him and head into the dining room and sit at the end of the table.

No good; he found his way right after her.

But she was going to be all right. She heard a whisper at her ear.

“Don’t you worry, I’m watching the rich weirdo!”

Amelia was behind her.

*

Black Bear Island was actually small, a piece of earth and rock shot up by ancient volcanic activity and cut and carved by the movement of ice and glaciers.

That day, it seemed huge.

Thor and Mike rode snowmobiles to the forest and went through it bit by bit. They found bear markings, a hungry moose and dozens of bears.

Nothing more.

They’d sectioned different areas and each started from opposite ends; they’d comb the ground until they met in the middle each time.

It was in the midst of dense pines—leaves and branches so thick that the sun barely made its way through—that Thor suddenly stopped.

He stood dead still, looking, listening.

There was someone ahead of him in the forest. A dark shadow. But the shadow didn’t move, nor make a single sound.

He moved forward. It seemed a single ray of sunlight penetrated the green darkness.