Loe raamatut: «Shake Down»

ONE

Janice Swenson squatted on her haunches, frowning down into the ink-black hole beneath a hatch in the floor. Dank air wafted into her face and she shivered. It was too easy to imagine this whole property rotting beneath the weight of fetid family secrets.

Disposing of this cottage she’d inherited from a distant relative might prove to be more troublesome than Janice would have anticipated. At any other time in her life, she’d have sold the property, sight-unseen, and called it good riddance. But she had her reasons for coming to Martha’s Vineyard to handle the transaction personally.

If her superstitious days weren’t well behind her, Janice might be tempted to think Moran Cottage was bent on doing her in. At her first step onto the front porch, she had nearly plunged her foot through an eroded board. Then as she’d explored the walk-in kitchen pantry, a shelf let loose, tumbling expired canned goods onto her shoulders. A few aches across her back betrayed bruises forming. Now she’d wrestled open a trap door in the floor of the hallway outside the miniscule bathroom and found the cellar.

At least her decade of experience as a Realtor had prepared her to deal with little issues such as lack of power in a run-down property. Janice swiped a flashlight from her belt-loop clip, clicked it on and pointed the beam into the pit. A set of treacherously steep stairs ended in a packed-earth floor.

She frowned. If she wanted to sell this unexpected—and unwanted—inheritance, besides adding onto the bathroom and completely renovating the kitchen, she might have to invest in pouring cement down here. Those projects would eat up a lot of her budget, making it doubly important that she do as much as she could of the simpler tasks herself—basic cleaning, wall-painting, buffing and refinishing the vintage wood floors and brightening up trim and moldings.

The plank steps appeared thick and sturdy, though the pitch of the descent was almost like a ladder’s. Surely there was another entrance from outside the cottage, probably a set of those nearly flat-to-the-ground cellar doors, but why traipse through the overgrown weeds outside when access lay before her?

Janice hauled in a cleansing breath and squared her shoulders. If snakes or spiders lurked below, she might be startled for a split second, but she could thank God neither arachnophobia nor ophidiophobia numbered among her issues.

With one hand on the adjacent wall, she lowered herself and found the top step solid, though the nails emitted small creaks that echoed faintly through the darkness. She continued her descent until her head dipped below the floor then panned her flashlight around the space that yawned like a man-made cavern. Square, oaken pillars, similar to the ones that held up the porch roof, supported the floor above in strategic places. The area seemed to be as large as the entire cabin and to have no interior walls, but the flashlight beam didn’t penetrate far enough to tell.

Could she turn this space into another living area? She’d have to find a better light source to make that decision. There must be an overhead lightbulb with a string, or even a light switch, down here. It would be nice to know where it was for when the power company turned on the electricity later today—provided its staff kept their promise.

Peering intently into the shadows, hunting for that elusive bulb or light switch, Janice lowered herself onto the next step.

Crack!

The board collapsed beneath her foot, pitching her forward. A scream rent her throat and her flashlight flew away as her hands thrust out instinctively to catch her fall. She hadn’t far to go, but far enough for impact with the hard-as-cement earthen floor to rattle every bone in her body. Bright pain speared up her left arm.

Janice lay flat on her stomach, fighting breath into her lungs and groping for a coherent thought. Stupid! She’d become distracted and forgot to pay attention to the conditions in an unfamiliar environment.

Tears filled her eyes and she whimpered as she gingerly gathered herself into a sitting position. Heat banded her left wrist and she hugged the arm to her chest. Great! Now she was injured—whether a sprain or a break had yet to be determined. Either condition could incapacitate her for weeks, and she’d allowed herself only the summer to finish the work, sell the place and shake off the muck of family legacy. This time forever.

Janice collected her flashlight and hooked it to her belt loop. Then she struggled to her knees, and from there, to her feet. One knee stung, but at least no other body part seemed to have suffered more than minor abrasions and bruises. Biting her lower lip between her teeth, she cautiously started up the steep stairs. The third from the bottom step had given way where it would have been fastened to the side panels. Those creaky nail sounds took on new significance.

With a soft moan, she lifted her leg high over the missing step and finally managed to emerge onto the main floor hallway. As much as she would have liked to slide down the wall, huddle on the dusty floor and indulge in a good cry, she forced herself to head up the passage.

Her rental car sat in the weed-infested gravel parking area beside the cottage. The drive from here to the hospital, shaken and hurting, didn’t appeal to her, but neither did calling for an ambulance—if cell service even existed out here.

She rounded the corner into the main room, empty of furnishings like the rest of the cottage. Movement outside the mullioned picture window stopped her in her tracks. Her jaw gaped as oxygen vacated her lungs.

Someone stood on the porch, face framed in a rectangular pane. In the shade of the porch roof, she couldn’t make out features, but the dark craters that must be eyes fixed her with molten intensity. She’d never been one to sense emotion from people the way her psychologist friend Laurel did, but the sheer malice of the glare wrapped Janice in a sheet of ice. So this is what people meant when they said their blood ran cold.

“Who—who’s there?” She forced the words past rigid lips.

The porch boards moaned as the figure tromped away. By an act of will, Janice wobbled out the door in pursuit. Trespasser or not, surely she’d imagined the ill intent. Maybe this person would help her get to the hospital. If not, she’d at least like to be able to describe the intruder if she decided to report the incident to the authorities.

Avoiding the rotten board, Janice crossed the porch and trod down the front steps. A tangy Atlantic breeze billowed through her windbreaker and tossed a veil of chestnut hair across her face. With an exasperated huff, she used her good hand to brush the long strands behind her ear. She should have bound up the unruly mop in a ponytail this morning.

Where had the person gone?

Her gaze spotted no intruder scampering down the hillside strewed with boulders and tufts of greening vegetation. At the bottom of the incline, the slim ribbon of white beach lay empty except for small rocks glinting like grayish marbles amidst shiny granules of fine sand. The playful tussle between surf and sand made a chuckling, shushing sound as sunbeams danced on lacy blue waves as far as the eye could see. The sights and sounds would be calming if she weren’t in pain and alarmed by an intruder.

Clutching her throbbing wrist, she started a cautious circuit of the cottage. If someone was there she’d easily see the person. Moran Cottage poked up from the ground like an impudent blip on ten acres of overgrown pastureland. Though the cottage came with a shed and, of all things, a functional outhouse, the nearest inhabited structure lay beyond a distant stand of oak and maple trees.

At the side entrance to the kitchen, Janice climbed up pitted cement steps and tried the door, but found it locked. At least a vandal or a robber would have to break something to get in. Like the front window? What would the intruder have done if he hadn’t caught sight of her? Was the trespasser merely curious or bent on mayhem?

She moved to the rear of the cottage. Still no one. The pastureland stretched barren and empty. The outhouse was vacant and the shed was locked up tight—no hiding place there. A little farther up the back of the cottage, she found the outside cellar entrance. A rusty chain and enormous, aging padlock secured the doors. She’d need chain cutters to gain access unless the key to the old lock was somewhere among the jumble of antique furnishings and outright junk stored in a rental facility in Edgartown.

Sighing, she scanned the open field once more. Surely a trespasser wouldn’t have had time to get out of sight. Had her senses been addled by the fall so that her mind concocted from thin air the person at her window?

She plodded to the front of the cottage and up the porch steps. Gingerly finding her way over the treacherous board, she pulled her key ring from her jeans’ pocket. She needed to lock up and get to the only island hospital as best she could on her own.

Deep barks erupted from the beach area and Janice turned around. A mottled-brown dog the size of a small pony romped in a circle around a tall man who strolled along the edge of the surf. His attention was on the ocean, not on the cottage or on her.

“Hey!” Janice cried, waving her good arm in the air.

Her stomach lurched with a twinge of queasiness in reaction to prolonged pain. It was definitely a good idea to recruit help in reaching the hospital emergency room.

“Hey!” she hollered again and tottered off the porch, still waving.

The dog halted and let out staccato woofs as it stared in her direction. The animal’s master said something to it, though Janice couldn’t make out what. Then the man lifted a hand toward her and trotted up the faint path between the beach and the cottage, dog loping at his side. A gray Anorak hugged his broad shoulders, and long legs clad in a pair of faded jeans easily conquered the steep hillside. The wind ruffled thick sandy-brown hair above a broad smile.

“Hello,” the man called from yards away. “Shane Gillum here. And this is Atlas.” He patted the top of the dog’s head. “You must be my new neighbor.”

“I’m hurt,” Janice said. “Can you—”

Dizziness swept through her and she staggered back against the porch rails. A snap sounded from the roof overhang and the dog let out a sharp bark.

“Watch it!” Shane yelled, breaking into a run toward her.

A blow hammered the top of Janice’s head. Pain enveloped her skull as the sky and landscape waxed a midnight-blue shot with sparkly pinpoints of light. Then nothing.

* * *

Lips pressed into a tight line, Shane knelt beside the woman sprawled on the ground and checked the pulse at the graceful curve of her throat. Strong and steady. That much was good. Cursory examination of the wound buried beneath thick reddish-brown hair revealed a superficial cut. An amount of blood welled from the injury out of proportion to the size of the trauma—typical of head wounds—but the cleansing blood flow was already tapering off. He wouldn’t touch the site and risk infection.

However, serious injury to the skull might lurk beneath the minor cut. Shane peeled back the lids of her eyes. The pupils were of matching and normal size inside vivid green irises. Uniform pupils were another good sign, but it was too soon to become complacent. He needed to get her to a medical facility as quickly as possible.

Just before that chunk of roofing tile crashed onto her head, hadn’t she said something about being injured? Even while she was speaking to him, she’d staggered. Was one of her legs hurt?

Shane scanned the tall and slender yet very feminine length of the woman’s body. She wore a dirt-smudged blue windbreaker over a gray sweatshirt, a pair of sensible sneakers and designer jeans—expensive, unless he missed his guess—sporting a coat of dust and a small rent in the knee that looked recent and not a part of the design. He skimmed his hands down one leg and then the other. No discernible swelling.

At his side, Atlas whined. Shane ruffled the bristly fur at the dog’s neck.

“It’ll be all right, boy.” Hopefully he spoke the truth. “This wasn’t the way we’d planned to meet the new owner of Moran Cottage, if it came to it, eh?”

Not by a long shot. He’d hoped against hope no one would bother to put in an appearance until his business at the cottage was done, but he’d been prepared for worse to come to worst. Depending on who showed up at the property, he’d considered everything from becoming some crotchety battle-ax’s right-hand man to the role of indispensable island guide to a pasty-faced office drone. That he might be confronted with a model-stunning woman around his own age hadn’t featured in his imagination.

Would he have to stoop to romancing a Moran? Bile rose in his throat.

Maybe this chance to act the hero would prove a blessing in disguise...as long as his own disguise remained intact. Shane’s teeth clenched. Getting close to the heir was his last shot at unearthing the records that would restore his family’s honor. Of course, under normal circumstances he’d help any injured soul without a second thought—was trained to do so. A Moran, however, he’d be tempted to let rot.

The woman groaned and his heart jerked. She was coming around.

Shane yanked his cell phone from his belt pouch to request emergency services, but naturally found no signal. Despite the best efforts of a variety of cellular companies, dead areas were prevalent on the island.

Expelling hot air through his nose, Shane holstered his phone and rose to his feet. He scanned the area for the woman’s mode of transportation. If she’d driven out here on one of those tourist-popular rental motorbikes, he’d have to go all the way back to his leased cabin a quarter mile away to get his Jeep.

But the bumper of a compact car jutted from the side of the cottage. What were the chances she’d left the keys in the vehicle, along with the handbag she wasn’t carrying?

Shane took a step toward the car and his foot trod on a chunk of the roof tile that had fallen. The tile bore his weight without crumbling, not a sign consistent with frail material. Wearing a frown, he bent and picked up the slice of thick red slate. The piece looked considerably newer than the building, though minor pitting indicated enough age to have been on the roof for a couple of decades. No cracks or faults marred the surface or the broken edge.

In his uneducated opinion, the break should have appeared smooth, though not necessarily straight. Instead, regular striations along three-quarters of the broken edge suggested some kind of tool. A small saw?

Every muscle tensed as he gazed across the unfenced pastureland, but he spotted no lurker. What did he expect? A saboteur standing around gawking at the results of his handiwork?

Shane returned his attention to the evidence of tampering. Apparently someone else had a vendetta against the Morans. Given the family history, that hardly came as a surprise.

Or maybe the sabotage was directly connected to Shane’s search. Could his enemies be privy to the information that had sent him here incognito? A chill seeped through him. Was this falling roof tile intended for him and not the injured woman at his feet? Was she innocent of complicity?

Shane snorted. An innocent Moran? The phrase was an oxymoron.

And why mask deliberate mayhem in the guise of an accident? The approach didn’t fit the modus operandi of a crime family that thought nothing of snuffing out the life of anyone who crossed them. Twice now, a hit man’s bullet had nearly added Shane to the dead list, prompting him to change his name, alter his appearance and acquire a dog—a pet his true self would never have possessed. Shane glanced at the Italian Griffin sniffing delicately at the woman on the ground.

She was truly lovely. Too bad she was neck deep in intrigue she might not know existed. His pulse stumbled through several beats then his jaw hardened to granite. God, You don’t play fair! Now, not only must he keep himself among the living, but he was forced to protect a Moran long enough to uncover the truth.