Daughters of the Lake(53)

Before Simon could protest, she hurried out of the room and into the library and picked up the phone, fishing a business card out of her pocket. She dialed.

“Stone.”

“Hi!” she said, her words tumbling out of her mouth faster than she had intended. “Detective Stone! This is Kate Granger.”

“Hello, Kate Granger,” he said. “Queenie missed Alaska on the lakeshore this morning.”

Kate smiled into the phone. “She’s out in the backyard. I haven’t walked her yet.”

“At this hour? That’s just lazy dog ownership, if you ask me,” he teased her.

“Oh, believe me, she’s already voiced her grievances.” Kate chuckled. “But I told her to give me a break. I had a rather rough night.”

“Oh?” he said, the chuckle evaporating from his words. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

Why had she blurted that out? She hadn’t intended anything of the kind. “No, no,” she said, backpedaling. “It’s really nothing. That’s not why I’m calling.”

“So, then, what can I do for you?”

Kate took a deep breath. “This is going to sound like an odd question, but I’ll just say it. Have you actually seen the body of our woman who washed up on the beach?”

“Why?”

“I’m just wondering. Humor me.”

“I have seen it, yes,” he said. “I told you the truth, now it’s your turn to do the same. Why do you ask?”

“How about meeting for lunch today? I have something to show you that I stumbled across, and . . . I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all. But it might be useful in this case, and I really think you should see it.”

Again, silence. He certainly wasn’t a man who talked too much, Kate thought.

“I can’t do lunch, but what about this afternoon?” he offered. “Say three o’clock?”

“Meet me at Harrison’s House?”

“I’ll see you there at three.”

And then he hung up, leaving Kate with just a dial tone, wondering if she had done the right thing.

She returned to Simon pouring her a fresh cup of coffee. “What was all that about?”

Kate sat down, hard. “I did something that might have not been the smartest of all things.”

Simon scowled. “Did you call Kevin?”

She shook her head. “I called that detective. Nick Stone.”

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows. “And why did we contact the delightful Mr. Stone?”

“I wanted to show him the photo we found,” she admitted. All at once, Kate’s reason for calling Nick Stone seemed rather silly.

Simon narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you really think that’s a smart thing to do? I mean, what’s he going to do with a photo taken more than one hundred years ago?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “But I know it’s her in the photo, and I felt I owed it to him to tell him.”

“But, why?” Simon wanted to know. “Kate, you don’t owe him anything. He’s investigating a murder in the here and now and thinks you might be a part of it.”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t, not anymore. And don’t forget, he actually took me seriously when I told him about the dreams. I looked at mug shots for hours!”

“She does protest too much,” Simon said, raising his eyebrows. “So when and where are you seeing the good detective? I’d love to be a fly on the wall.”

“This afternoon,” she said. “And you don’t have to be a fly on the wall. You can be the fly in the ointment that you are because he’s coming here.”

Simon cackled. “And just like that, the day got a lot more interesting.”

Kate reached across the table and pinched his arm. “And I’m going to spend most of it going through trunks on the third floor,” she said. “After I walk Alaska.”

“That dog didn’t leave your side last night, I’ll have you know,” Simon told her. “She was on the bed watching you every time I checked on you. Which was often. I’d poke my head into your room, and she’d stare at me with this look on her face like I’ve got this.”

Kate smiled and pushed her chair away from the table, feeling lucky to have two pairs of such watchful eyes on her.

An hour later, after a good walk in the chilly air, Kate was sitting on the floor of the ballroom in front of an open trunk, sifting through its contents with Alaska by her side.

“You’re really determined to do this, aren’t you, my dear?”

Kate didn’t hear the words of Harrison Connor, nor did she see him sitting next to her as she went through the trunks that contained many more mysteries and secrets about life at Harrison’s House than Kate could possibly decipher.

She moved from one trunk to another, sifting through memories and mementos.

He rose to his feet and walked to the wall of windows, scratching Alaska behind the ears as he passed. “Such disrepair,” he sighed, running one finger down the dusty shutters. “I’m so glad you and Simon are tending to it.”

Kate didn’t hear these things, but her bodyguard did. Alaska’s ears had been on high alert, and now she was staring at the windows with great interest. Not suspicion, just interest. As though she knew the ghost of Harrison Connor meant no harm.