The Village of Gerard's Cliff (7 page)

Outside, a wailing siren split through the air for just a
moment, then stopped abruptly. Connor, now on the landing, could
see its flashing lights through the window by Allie's desk. Hearing
footsteps, he turned to see Allie running down the hall. She looked
up at him for a second, then ran down the stairs, the blanket
billowing behind her.

Allie opened the front
door just as the policeman was walking up the steps. Through the
open door, Connor could see her telling the cop what she had heard.
The cop pulled out a flashlight, leaving to check out the back of
the house. For a moment, Connor considered putting his gun back in
the table drawer, but decided to keep it on him, just in case. He
stood in the landing, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed.
Allie had closed the front door, and either from nervousness or
chill, was lightly rocking on her heels. He nodded down to her, and
noticed that her feet were no longer bare, but clad in a pair of
his black socks. Damn, he thought.

Connor heard the cop's
boots stomp up the porch. He heard him tell Allie that he couldn't
see anything suspicious, suggesting that it could have been an
animal, since he had noticed that the lid of the trash can in the
back had been knocked over. They would patrol more often for the
next couple of nights, the policeman informed her. Allie thanked
him, and still holding onto the blanket, shut and bolted the door.
She turned around and shivered. "So much for our intrepid police
department," Allie noted sarcastically, as she pulled the blanket
around her more tightly, looking up for Connor.

"I want to check things
out for myself," Connor said, and she jumped. He had descended the
rest of the stairs while she was closing the door, and was standing
near her desk, hands on his hips.

"My God, you scared me
half to death." Allie yelled, immediately feeling better at not
having to whisper any more. "I'm coming with you," she added
soberly, as he headed into the dining room.

When she caught up to him,
Connor looked down at the blanket still around her, and smiled, his
eyebrows raised in amusement.

"Alright, let me put a
jacket and shoes on first." Allie gave him a sarcastic look, and
sighed loudly.

With Connor walking ahead,
they passed through the kitchen into the back hallway, Allie
nervously glancing around her.

"I'll wait here." He
stopped in the hallway, and she hurried past him into her bedroom
and shut the door. He thought of something and walked over and
tapped her door.

"Where are your
flashlights?"

"In the kitchen drawer
under the coffeepots." Allie called back. Before he had gotten back
to the hall with the two flashlights, he saw her emerge from her
room, tying her hair back into a ponytail. She had changed into her
sweatpants outfit from the night before, and thrown on a short
black jacket, and white tennis shoes.

"What do you want to check
out first?" She took the flashlight he held out to her.

"Basement first, I
think."

"Ok, just to let you know, I detest that basement,
actually,
any
basement." She shivered. "It's horrible. I've only been
down there twice in the last seven years."

At Connor's questioning
look, she continued. "....once when we first moved here, and the
last time was after Patrick died."

She motioned with her
flashlight toward the narrow basement door, painted white as all
the doors and trim were at the inn. She had hung a small twig
wreath on the door, in an attempt to make it appear more cheerful.
Connor saw her look of dread as he placed his hand on the door
knob.

"You can sit at the top of
the stairs, if you want, and I'll look around." he offered,
smiling.

"That's okay...I can
handle it." He heard her take a shaky breath.

Connor opened the narrow
door, and pointed the flashlight beam down the stairway, noticing
that it was very old, and crudely built with exposed lumber. He had
been in several basements, at one time or other, but this one did
indeed, look pretty bad. Allie turned her flashlight on as well,
shining hers down beside his. They both leaned back in disgust,
reacting to the damp, musty smell that wafted up to
them.

"Let me go first," Connor
suggested, to which Allie laughed. "Be my guest." adding, "Oh,
there's a light half-way down." He ducked his head as he eased his
tall frame down the stairs, almost hitting his head on a low-lying
pipe. Allie followed, leaving the door ajar. Encountering the
dangling bare light bulb, he pulled the string. Allie realized that
its glow was just enough to give the basement a disconcerting,
eerie play of light and shadow. He took the last steps quickly,
then turned to Allie. "I'm going to check the door and
windows."

Allie plopped down on the
third step from the bottom, glad to let him take charge. She
glanced nervously up behind her, expecting either the door to slam
shut at any moment...or to see someone at the door watching her.
Connor had disappeared around the stairs to her left, keeping his
flashlight on. She could see the light flickering in the darkness,
since the one bulb did not illuminate the entire basement. She knew
there was another dangling bulb in the other direction.

"So far, so good." Connor
emerged to her left. He started past her. "Are you coming?" He
glanced back.

"I guess." Allie
reluctantly stood up from her disagreeable perch on the neglected
stairway, and descended the last two steps, turning on her
flashlight. She caught up to him, and they moved slowly through the
dark basement. Allie looked up at the maze of low-lying pipes and
ductwork that hung from the joists, and noticed that several of
them had long strands of cobwebs draped on them. Feeling much
colder in the basement, Allie wrapped her free arm around herself
as she ducked her head.

Connor, in a crouching
position most of the time, started inspecting the narrow windows,
as she stood behind him, shining a beam of light on the wall beside
him.

"Looks good - nobody's
tampered with anything that I can see so far." He was feeling
around the wood and metal frame.

"Good." Allie had just
noticed Patrick's fishing gear propped up against the wall of an
alcove behind her. Bending down, she checked out the fishing poles,
nets, and tackle box, shining the light over them. She reminded
herself to take them to a donation center in the village as soon as
possible. She spun around as light flooded their immediate area,
and realized that Connor had found the other dangling light
bulb.

Connor walked around
cautiously, peering around boxes, and looking under shelves. Allie
spied her Christmas boxes in a corner and immediately had an idea.
"Connor, would you mind helping me get these boxes upstairs when we
go back up?"

She looked around for him,
and saw him peering intently into another alcove which was bare
except for a small table and chair. He turned on his flashlight and
a sent a beam of light across the wall, feeling the rough plastered
surface with his hand. What was he looking for there, she wondered
absently, more intent on getting her boxes upstairs, now that the
windows and door seemed secure.

"Sure." Connor was bent
over the small desk, opening the front drawer.

"What are you looking for
in there?" Allie moved over to stand beside him.

"Oh, nothing, it just
caught my eye." He immediately moved over to another area, and
after shining his light around for a minute, turned to
her.

"All clear down here. I
want to check outside though. It's starting to get light." He put a
hand on his hip, thoughtfully. "I'm not entirely convinced that it
was an animal." He looked at the stack of boxes. "Well, let's get
these up and I'll go outside after that."

It took them two trips
each to lug the various sized boxes, some overflowing with
decorations, up the unsteady stairs, and up to the kitchen, where
they set them in the corner by the porch. Allie stayed in the
kitchen, looking over the contents of one of the boxes, while
Connor went outside with the flashlight. In the purplish tinge of
pre-dawn, she could see the faint yellow beam of light flickering,
as he crunched around the parking area and into the
backyard.

Then she jumped. There it
was - the same thunking sound she had heard during the
night.

A moment later, Connor
walked back in through the porch door. "Okay...the cop was
wrong...."

"I heard that sound
again." Allie felt herself shudder.

"It wasn't an animal.
Someone was trying to break the metal handle on the basement window
near your bedroom....it's damaged. I don't know how the cop missed
it - you can tell someone had been kneeling in front of the window,
too."

"Oh." Allie's new-found
feeling of relief was immediately replaced with a new, sinking
feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Connor walked past her to
the island, leaned on it with his back to her, and began tapping
the end of the flashlight on his palm. "I suggest you call the
police and have them come back out and check for fingerprints." He
looked down at the flashlight, continuing to tap it.

"Gerard's Cliff is such a
safe place to live." Allie lamented. "You never hear of anything
like this happening here." She shut her eyes for a
moment.

" Allie, do you own a
gun?"

Allie's eyes shot open and
she stiffened, not expecting this. She looked at his tall frame,
and strong, broad shoulders, his head slightly bowed as he still
stood with his back to her. She pondered his question. He swung
around. "Do you own a gun?" Connor seemed annoyed with her, his
voice rising. She blinked, her eyes widening, suddenly wary of
him.

"Yes...um...Patrick had
one.." she stammered. "It's in the safe under the desk." She was
starting to feel very worried. "I haven't gotten it out
myself...."

"Do you know the
combination?" He interrupted her.

"Of course..." She rubbed
her lips together.

"Then...go....we need to
get it." Connor swung the flashlight in an arc toward the kitchen
door. Allie put down the ornament she was holding and hurried past
him toward the dining room.

When they reached the
desk, Allie knelt down to a small, gray metal safe that was bolted
to the floor under the overhanging desk, and pushed several
buttons....the safe door popped open. But, she wasn't going to pick
up the gun...she hated guns. She got up and Connor moved into her
place, wedging his much larger body down into the cubby of the
desk, until he was laying on his side. He inspected the contents of
the safe, then got up, holding a .32 caliber revolver in his palm,
and, in his other hand, a container of bullets.

Allie took in a deep, troubled breath, and blew it out. She
hated guns with a passion, had vowed never to shoot one. She and
Patrick had gone target practicing
once
on their property, when there were no guests, but
she refused to go again. He would go out occasionally, usually when
she was off painting, and she would always cringe when she heard
the shots. She had not grown up around guns, and equated them with
killing...she would never like them, or think of them as something
for sport.

She watched Connor
silently as he inspected the gun, making sure the chambers were
empty. She thought that he seemed awfully familiar with it, which
made her feel both comforted, and uncomfortable at the same
time.

"Do
you...shoot...guns..very often?" Allie suddenly felt like she was
talking to a different man. He was clearly in charge now, and very
quiet, and brusque.

He continued checking the
gun, his jaw tight, not looking at her.

"Sometimes." His short,
gruff answer made Allie feel impatient, and she fiddled with the
edge of the desktop as she watched him. He checked down the barrel
of the gun.

"Are you sure we need
that?" Did he really expect that she would need to shoot an
intruder. Suppose she shot an innocent person by
mistake.

He turned sharply, and
stared at her. "Yes...you do. Do you know how to shoot this?" His
tone of voice was making her very nervous. She wasn't sure she knew
how to take this new Connor. He was trying to help, she knew, but
he was scaring the hell out of her. He glared at her
impatiently.

"I practiced with it
once...with Patrick...shooting at tin cans on a log." Allie felt
sick at the thought of pointing, what was sure to be, a shaking,
loaded gun at another human being. "I didn't do very well..." she
trailed off. But, she thought suddenly...she was ready to hit Ethan
over the head with whatever she could grab, wasn't she, in order to
protect herself. If she had found her scissors, somehow, wouldn't
she have stabbed him? If it had come down to either Ethan or
herself, if he had gotten more violent, Allie knew she would have
done whatever it took to protect herself and her property. It had
never really been an issue before now. Until Patrick had died, she
hadn't been worried about being safe at the inn.

She decided that if this
was what it took, she could handle it. "I'd like to try again."
Allie looked up at Connor, her brown eyes determined. "Will you
show me?"