A Dark and Stormy Murder (A Writer's Apprentice Mystery) (12 page)

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s have a midnight snack at three in the morning.”

We went to the kitchen, where, through the dark window, I could see a glimmer of Blue Lake on the horizon. Camilla flipped on the light over the sink and rummaged in the refrigerator. She took out a little cake plate, removed the cover, and revealed that Rhonda was a genius at desserts. Each cupcake was uniquely decorated and piled high with a different color of frosting.

I sat down and Camilla set the plate before me. She saw my face and said, “Yes. I am trying to encourage her to write a cookbook. She has a gift and doesn’t fully realize it.” She pointed at a cake piled high with a froth of cream-colored frosting. “That one is a carrot cake. This one?” She pointed at another, frosted blue with a little sailboat on top. “Has jam inside. Surprisingly delicious.”

I moaned softly. “And that coffee-colored one?”

“Chocolate cake with hazelnut frosting.”

“Sinful. Yes, Rhonda needs to be recognized by the world.”

Camilla poured us each a glass of milk and returned to the table. She sat across from me and took a pink cupcake covered in red glitter and a red frosted heart.

“A romantic choice,” I said.

She shrugged. “You’ve read my books. You know I’m a romantic at heart.” She took a bite and pointed at the cupcakes. I selected the chocolate one and bit into it. It was a perfect moment of blissful flavor that exceeded expectations.

“Mmmm!”

“Yes. I’ve thought about a way to hook a publisher. What if she called it
The Blue Lake Cookbook
? Is that too vague? They could market the small-town appeal.”

“I think it’s great. I would buy it, and I know Allison would. All the Martha Stewart types would. It’s all about the visuals. If you put these cupcakes on the cover, it would sell like crazy. But even one of her salads or casseroles would make people buy. She has a visual flair.”

“Here we are planning Rhonda’s success; perhaps we should also focus on our own,” Camilla said with an almost conspiratorial tone.

“Yes.” I took another bite and closed my eyes to enjoy it. When I opened them, I was surprised by the look on Camilla’s face. For the first time since I had met her, she looked happy; not just quietly amused or laughing at me, but happy. I wondered why.

“How is the chocolate?”

“As good as you’d imagine.”

We grinned at each other, and the dogs snuffled at our feet, half asleep now that their job was over.

“Camilla?”

“Yes.”

“I really love
The Salzburg Train
. I love all your books so much.”

“Thank you, dear.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“When I interviewed with you, over the phone—it seemed that you decided to hire me after that one answer—when I said my favorite character in
The Lost Child
was Colin, the boy. I wondered—I’m not sure how to put this—if Colin was important to you because he was perhaps based on a boy you knew?”

Camilla licked some frosting from her finger and smiled down at her plate. It was a sad smile. “You really do understand me, so much better than even my editors do. They wanted me to make changes to Colin, to his character and the overall plot, and I had to refuse.”

I sat up straight in my chair. The thought that someone had wanted to tamper with the perfect plot of that book was shocking. “Of course you did.”

“Colin is not exactly a boy I knew. None of my characters are anything but amalgams of other people. But—when my husband and I had been married for two years—long, long ago—I became pregnant. We were quite excited, and made plans to raise the baby in England with summer visits here, to Blue Lake, where his (or her) father would teach him to fish and sail. We had many happy times, imagining it.”

I couldn’t look at her. I had read every biography of Camilla ever written, and I knew that she had no children.

“In the fifth month, I developed complications. I ended up in the hospital, and we were eventually told that our child was not meant to be—that no child was meant to be.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

She picked up a crumb with one finger, then brushed it back off again. “It was a boy—my lost child.”

“Oh, Camilla.”

“He stayed with me—the boy who might have been. He is my child, in many ways, and he appears in a variety of books, at different ages. In
The Lost Child
, he is Colin, aged nine. In
Twilight in Daventry
, he is Maximillian, aged sixteen.”

“And in
Stars, Hide Your Fires
, he is Ian, aged six,” I said.

“Yes. He is my boy in all his possible incarnations. In my books, I can give him life—the best life I can imagine for him.”

“That’s beautiful. Thank you for telling me, Camilla.”

“I’ve never told anyone, as a matter of fact.”

She must have seen my surprise, because she gave a Gallic shrug and said, “No one ever asked.”

I nodded, suddenly speechless. I tried to picture Camilla when she was twenty-something and awaiting a child with her husband. She had been quite young when she published her first book—only twenty-four. How old had she been when she became pregnant?

Camilla yawned. “I’ve enjoyed our culinary tryst, but I must get back to bed. Please eat all that you want, and then just pop the plate back in the refrigerator. We can let Rhonda snack on her own creations tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

I watched her walk out of the room and heard her slow tread on the stairs. I stared at the brightly colored cupcakes on the plate and wondered about Camilla’s lost child. If he had been born, would she ever have written all those wonderful books?

Her life, to me, had been a study in glamour—from London editorial offices to European book tours to speeches before
screaming fans—and yet I was sure she would give it up in a second for a chance to go back, to somehow save her boy.

For a moment, the idea of loss overwhelmed me: Camilla and her lost child; Sam West and his lost spouse; Martin Jonas and his lost life.

With a sigh I wrapped up the remaining food and put it back in the fridge. I looked back out at the glimmering lake, so mysterious and cruel in its relationship to nature and fate.

Lestrade wandered into the kitchen, his night eyes glowing. He blinked at me in the dark, clearly surprised to see a human up at this hour.

“You’re the one who woke me up, remember?”

He licked his paw. I scooped him up and walked up the staircase. “Sometimes life is funny, Lestrade. And sometimes it is terribly unfair,” I whispered in his ear.

By the time I climbed back into bed, Lestrade was purring and half asleep. No cat had ever lain awake worrying over some external drama. I vowed to live my life in a more catlike manner.

It worked; I was asleep in minutes, and the next morning I woke refreshed.

10

How quickly the sweet can turn bitter, Johanna mused as she read the note Frau Albrecht had given her with a pitying expression. Perhaps she had always known that disappointment awaited her, from the moment she stepped off the train and into her new life.

—from
The Salzburg Train

I
GOT TO
Sam West’s place at nine o’clock and was surprised to find he was not smoking at the end of his property. I walked farther, realizing that I had never even seen the entrance to his house. The driveway curved, and around the bend I beheld a grand brick and stone structure—not a Gothic-looking home, but a modern, Wright-inspired building that seemed at one with the bluff. The landscaping was minimal but meticulous; I wondered if West had done it himself. That was one way to fritter away the hours while one avoided humanity. I remembered him quoting Sartre to me on the day I met him: “Hell is other people.”

I reached the large wooden entrance door and rang the bell embedded in the brick on the right-hand side. West’s voice came over an invisible intercom: “Come on in, Lena—it’s open.”

It was. I stepped into a hall with rust-colored tiles and
sandstone walls. It was refined and masculine; I’m not sure what I had expected to see in Sam West’s house—perhaps an empty building with an open suitcase and minimal furniture?—but what I found was a well-appointed home with sophisticated décor. The painting above his hallway table looked expensive, and if I knew anything about art (which I didn’t, really), I would have guessed it was an original Remington—a Native American with an elaborate tribal headdress sitting proudly on a beautiful palomino.

“Hello?” Sam called.

“Hello. Where are you?”

“End of the hall. Turn right. That’s the kitchen.”

I followed these directions and turned into a big, bright space dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the forested bluff. “Wow,” I said.

“Great view, right? I do a lot of philosophizing in here. Look what I have for you.”

I turned to his kitchen—surprisingly cozy, considering its size—and saw that he had set a plate of waffles on his antique wood dining table, and that he was making more with a homemade waffle press.

“You made me waffles,” I said in disbelief.

“You clearly loved them. I also ordered a vat of butter,” he joked with a crooked smile. In the bright light of his kitchen, his eyes were impossibly blue.

“I am overwhelmed. This is lovely. Are those fresh flowers?”

“I confess, they are from the florist on Main Street. I picked them up the other day for a little color.”

“This place is stunning. I had no idea. And yet you don’t entertain—?”

“Not to speak of. Camilla has been over for the
occasional lunch, as have a couple of other select people I do not despise. Sit down. Take off your coat,” he said, pulling out a chair for me. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.” I looked around me, feeling dazed, at the scrubbed white walls, the gleaming silver appliances, and the custom-made backsplash of blue tile, on which was painted something that looked familiar.

“Is that—da Vinci?” I asked.

“Good eye. It’s a reproduction of one of his drawings—he sketched it for ten years, honing the image until he was finally ready to sculpt it. This one is called
The Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior
. I’ve always admired it.”

“So naturally you had an artist re-create it as a backsplash in your kitchen,” I joked.

“Naturally.” He grinned. “Listen, I’m afraid these first few waffles came out sort of—crispy. I’m sure there’s a secret to it, but I’m still getting the hang of it. I’ll do it until I succeed, if I have to pile waffles to the ceiling.”

“It smells amazing in here. This is so nice of you, Sam.”

He walked toward me, holding a serving plate; his natural gait looked deceptively lazy, just as his jeans and V-neck sweater could almost fool someone into thinking that they weren’t expensive. My eyes lingered for a moment on his jeans, his sweater, and the curling brown chest hair visible at the edges of his collar. He reached the table and leaned over me, setting down a plate. His scent was clean and masculine and inexplicably erotic. “There you go. Give them a try.”

“I should be all polite and wait until you sit down,” I said. I was already putting two waffles on my plate and reaching for the butter. He had a bowl of pecans sitting there, too—something else to sprinkle on an already indulgent feast. I
thought with guilt of my cupcake snack with Camilla. Would this town make me fat in a matter of weeks?

“I would be disappointed if you didn’t eat them while they were hot.”

He stood for a moment, watching me. I glanced at him briefly and noted that his hair was still slightly damp where it curled against his ear. Then I returned my attention to my food. I forked off a huge bite and shoved it into my mouth. “Mmmm,” I said, smiling at him with syrup-coated lips.

He grinned. “Let me get your coffee.”

“You didn’t smoke today, did you?”

His expression was both surprised and distracted. “Uh—no. I was busy.”

He brought coffee for me and for him, then another plate of waffles. “It’s delicious, Sam. Thank you again.”

“You’re very welcome. It’s only fun to cook for people who enjoy eating.”

“I’d be embarrassed by that if there were any point in it.” I was still savoring the flavor of the food in my mouth. There was something special about these waffles—they had a vanilla aftertaste and some other flavor I couldn’t name—and they had been specially made just for me. “I might have to eat an unusually large number of waffles just to be polite.”

He laughed, sipped his coffee, and put some food on his own plate. Then he pointed to his windowsill, where I saw the manila envelope that contained my contract. “I looked that over,” he said. “I suppose you know that Camilla has been very generous.”

“I had that idea. But she suggested that I have someone look it over for me, because she wanted me to be sure.”

“You can be. She’s even put in some extra codicils for your protection. First, you can back out at any time if you feel that the arrangement is not beneficial to your career. She defines that more clearly in the part I marked with a yellow tab. Second, you have opportunities for salary raises every six months, assuming you meet certain criteria. Those are marked with the red tab. She’s put a lot of thought into this. The pay seems fair—”

“It’s more than fair.”

“And she allows a great deal of latitude regarding your hours and your workload.”

“She’s amazing. And so is this waffle. This is like a fantasy town where all my dreams come true. It’s like Brigadoon.”

His face closed for a moment, and I set down my fork. “I’m sorry. I know it hasn’t been that for you. I’ve been thinking about it a lot—how horrible it must have been to have them turn on you that way, when they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know a thing about you!” I said indignantly.

He studied his fork, smiling slightly. “Neither do you. Why would you defend me?”

“Because you’re a nice man. You told me you have no idea what happened to your wife, and I believe you. I have good instincts about people.”

He poked at his food without actually taking a bite. “I assume you’ve been warned away from me.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said.

“You’re a bad liar. Lena, it means a lot to me that you would take my side.”

I picked up my fork again, stealing a glance at him, focusing on his eyes, then lowering my gaze to his sweater.
It was a cerulean color and seemed to be cashmere; it would be outrageously soft to the touch . . . “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.” He sipped his coffee.

“Your wife—I don’t see how she could just disappear without them being able to trace her. I mean, are you thinking she ran away?”

He shrugged. “I suppose I hope so. I hate to think she was the victim of foul play. We were—estranged at the time she disappeared, which of course makes me look fishy to the police—but I didn’t wish any harm to Victoria.” He sighed and stared into his coffee cup. “Still, after a year, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which she runs away, yet doesn’t use her credit cards, or call friends or family.”

“What about her phone? Can’t they trace that?”

“The police have the phone. She left it behind. She hadn’t used it for quite some time.”

“Oh. Wow. But—I mean—you hear stories about people who get new identities and things. I don’t want to sound foolish, but is there any chance that she—planned to run away?”

He leaned back, his face solemn. There were deep laugh lines next to his mouth and tiny creases next to his eyes, so deep that one could touch them with a gentle finger and sense the struggles of the man beneath the skin. “She was the kind who ran away—from problems, from fights, from confrontations. She would tell me, when we were at odds, that someday she was just going to sail away. Or fly away. Or run away. She had a variety of metaphors, but they were all graceful images of retreat. She wasn’t much of a stay-and-deal-with-it type of woman.”

This made me sad for Sam, but also for Victoria, who sounded troubled. “She was unhappy?”

Sam sighed. “Not exactly. But she was selfish, and that can lead to discontent. There’s no doubt Vic was self-centered. It’s one of many reasons we were splitting up. She was all about herself. She had ruined her company—she had her own fashion line—and had declared bankruptcy a few months before she disappeared. And she was dabbling in drugs. Pot, at first, but I thought she was getting into harder stuff. We were so different, with opposing stances on almost everything, and one day we looked at each other and couldn’t even imagine why we were together—God, I’m talking too much. And I don’t think I even answered your question.”

On the contrary, he was supplying me with information I’d been craving since I’d met him. “Could there have been another man?”

He sighed. “It’s funny you would say that. I tried to argue that a year ago. I told them that she had been texting constantly a week or two before she disappeared, on a phone I had never seen before—a red phone. When I asked where she got it she just shrugged, said a friend had lent it to her so she could decide if she wanted to buy one for herself. That seemed plausible enough.”

“Sure. Did the police try to trace this phone?”

“They can’t—we don’t know who gave it to her. And frankly, I’m not sure if they believed me. Remember Harrison Ford in
The Fugitive
, telling everyone about the one-armed man? No one thought there was really a one-armed man. He had to prove it to them.” His jaw tightened, and he looked out at the beautiful bluff.

“Wow.”

He sighed. “Anyway, I asked her what her latest obsession was—she had an obsessive personality, and she would
go through things, hobbies, people—in waves. She’d be fascinated for a certain time, and then eventually she was done. That was the pattern of our marriage, as well. We fascinated each other, at the beginning.”

I leaned forward. “So it was probably a
man
, Sam! Who else would give her a phone when she already had one? He wanted her to have something private, something you couldn’t check, because she was having an affair!”

He shrugged. “Why would she bother? We were all but divorced. She could have started a relationship with anyone she wanted. We were only still living together so that we could sort through our possessions. How pathetic does that sound?”

“It doesn’t. You’re not the first person to get divorced. Were there—any children?”

“No. I’m glad of that now.”

I swirled a bite of waffle in some syrup; I had lost interest in eating, though. “It still sounds like there was a man.”

“Maybe. But even if she ran away with someone—I can’t believe that Vic, despite her selfishness, would let me take the rap for all this. She wasn’t an evil person. There—you hear that? I’m talking about her in the past tense. The cops picked up on that, too, and then they made their decisions about me.”

“Oh, Sam.”

He said nothing. He ate his food and looked out the grand windows.

I thought about what he had told me. “If she had the red phone with her, she would have been able to call or text you, right?”