The Stroke of Winter(55)

Just then, a police car pulled into the driveway—Nick’s backup squad. He slipped his gun back into its holster. The simple reality of it, a car pulling into the driveway, broke the otherworldly spell that had descended around them.

“So, let’s go down this path,” Nick said, clearing his throat. “We all saw a person in the window. But nobody was here by the time I entered the room just a moment later.”

“Right,” Wyatt said.

“Okay,” Nick said. “How could that possibly be? The dogs got up here before I did—this white dude was already in the room, I’m thinking.” He nodded his head toward Storm. “In theory, someone could have run out of here and down the hallway toward the front stairs as I was running up the back stairs. But, if that happened, how did they get past the dogs?”

Wyatt shook his head. “They couldn’t. There is no possible way an intruder got past a German shepherd guarding his home. And if, in the highly unlikely event that he did, the dogs would have chased him, not stayed in the room barking at nothing.”

Nick nodded, considering this. “Absolutely right.” He squinted his eyes and walked to one of the walls, running his hand along it.

“Many of these grand old Wharton homes have things like secret passageways and false wall panels. Does yours?” he asked.

Tess shook her head. “No,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “I remember my dad telling the story about how, when he and his brother were little, they wished there were secret passageways. But there weren’t. So instead, they used to climb into armoires, pretending they were the gateways to Narnia. They drove my grandma crazy with it all. Every time she’d open an armoire to get a sweater or something, she’d find my dad and his brother huddled in the back of it. Nearly scared her to death.”

“Okay then,” Nick said, with a slight smile. “I don’t see how someone could’ve gotten out of this room without me seeing them or the dogs chasing them. But I’m going to have my officers search the house anyway.”

“Great,” Tess said. “Thank you, Nick.”

“I’ll go fill them in,” he said over his shoulder on his way out of the studio. “And then, let’s meet downstairs to talk a little bit more.”

With Nick occupied, Wyatt enveloped Tess in a hug. She rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re shaking,” he said, his voice low in her ear.

“What just happened, Wyatt?” Tess whispered.

He shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said. “But I do know one thing. There is not a chance in hell a person could’ve gotten out of here past the dogs.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE



Downstairs in the kitchen, Tess put on the tea kettle with shaking hands. Her heart was still racing. Wyatt had snapped off his dogs’ leashes, and the three of them—Maya, Luna, and Storm—were curled up by the fire. So different from the snarling three-headed Cerberus they had been moments before.

“I guess we shouldn’t have wondered if these three would get along,” Wyatt said. “It’s like they’re family already.”

Tess managed a smile. “Comrades in arms.”

Wyatt raised his eyebrows. “That’s right. They were battling something. The question is, What?”

Nick came through the kitchen door to join them.

“Okay,” the chief said, pulling out a chair and sinking into it. “My guys are looking around the place. I don’t think any of us has any idea what was making that noise.”

Tess shook her head, looking from Nick to Wyatt and back again. “What do you think it was?”

Neither man spoke. Nobody knew quite what to say.

“How about we start at the beginning?” Nick said, finally. “When did you leave the house today?”

Tess winced. “That’s not really the beginning,” she said.

Nick raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

All at once, Tess wasn’t sure how much to tell the chief of police. Should she mention the paintings? It seemed to her that something wholly otherworldly was happening, but . . . what if it wasn’t? What if a real person was creeping around inside the studio? There could be only one reason. The paintings. And there were only two people in Wharton, other than Wyatt, who could potentially know about them. Hunter and Grant.

Should she say all that? Should she cast those doubts on these men who were, in all likelihood, guilty of nothing but helping her with some demolition?

She looked at Wyatt, trying to somehow project her thoughts into his.

He nodded, as if reading them. “It started a couple of days ago when Tess asked me to help open up the back room of the house, which we now know is the studio, which we were just in.”

“Open it up?” Nick asked. “Why? It was locked, and no key?”

Tess shook her head. “Not exactly. It was locked, yes, but my grandmother had shut off that part of the house a long time ago. There wasn’t even a knob on the door. So, it had to be opened by force, so to speak.”

Nick looked at her and then cast his eyes up, as if remembering the room. “Why did she shut it off?”

“That’s unclear,” Tess said. “She always said it was because the whole house was too expensive to heat, but that never really made a lot of sense to me.”