Secrets of His Own Page 10

  Cochburn had said she wasn’t lucid enough to make much sense when he’d spoken to her yesterday, but Carrie had no way of knowing how hard he’d even tried. Perhaps he’d only pretended to speak to Alma to appease her.

  He also said that Alma rarely left her third-floor quarters, but she’d been out and about last night. Maybe the woman wasn’t quite as demented—or housebound—as the attorney had let on.

  Would Alma talk to her? Carrie wondered.

  Maybe after all these years of isolation, she might enjoy some afternoon company. Besides, all she could do was say no.

  Turning away from the pool, Carrie walked over to a set of French doors that opened from the back of the house into the courtyard. She tried the latch and found that it was unlocked. Glancing over her shoulder, she quickly stepped inside.

  Cochburn had mentioned nothing about rules or regulations regarding the mansion. If the main house was off-limits to the tenants, he surely would have said something. After all, he’d made a point to warn her about the swamp.

  But Carrie still felt as if she were trespassing as she paused inside the door and glanced around.

  The interior of the house was dim and cool. The walls were stucco, the floors a dark red Mexican tile. Carrie found herself in a long, wide hallway that led, she presumed, to the front of the house.

  She followed it all the way to the foyer and to a wide, curving staircase trimmed with an intricate wrought iron banister.

  All the way down the hallway, Carrie kept glancing over her shoulder. The house was so quiet, almost like a tomb. Through open doorways, she glimpsed high-ceilinged rooms and furniture covered with sheets. She tried to imagine how it must have been in its heyday with the doors and windows thrown open to the breezes and the sound of children’s laughter drifting up from the beach.

  And then one night, Alma and Carlos had returned from a celebration on the mainland to find that the family had vanished. The blood in the boathouse where Carlos now lived was the only clue that violence had been done, but the bodies had never been found.

  Carrie preferred to think that Andres had packed up his family and fled in the middle of the night, perhaps one step ahead of the law or a brutal enemy. She wanted to believe that they’d landed somewhere safe and sound, and that the girls—grown now—were leading happy, normal lives.

  But as she made her way up the creaking stairs, a dark oppression settled over her. Somehow she didn’t think the Santiagos had had a happy ending. The house seemed secretive, brooding, as if memories of something evil were trapped inside the walls.

  At the top of the stairs, another long hallway opened before her. At the end, she could see the stairway to the third story, but Carrie lingered on the second floor, reluctant to disturb Alma Garcia. She couldn’t help remembering Robert Cochburn’s description of her. “She’s harmless. Crazy as a bat, but harmless.”

  Her behavior the night before certainly seemed eccentric, to say the least, but Carrie could only imagine what her own frame of mind would be like after thirty years of isolation on Cape Diablo.

  As she made her way down the hallway toward the staircase, she tried a few of the doors. Most of them were locked, but she found an open one near the end of the corridor and glancing over her shoulder, slipped inside.

  She’d hoped it would turn out to be the children’s bedroom. Tia had seemed so obsessed with the little girls in her letter that Carrie was curious to learn more about them. Obviously, Tia felt a kinship with the children and Carrie still wondered, despite Nick’s doubts, if perhaps she had stumbled across something about the missing family that had put her own life in jeopardy.

  But rather than being a child’s bedroom, the area appeared to be used for storage. Boxes, trunks and discarded furniture had been piled into the space in a haphazard fashion.

  Taking another quick glance down the hallway, Carrie closed the door softly behind her and stood gazing around. Dust motes danced in a beam of light from the window and cobwebs glistened in shadowy corners. On first glance it appeared as if no one had been in the room for years, but then she noticed the telltale footprints on the dusty wood floor and evidence that some of the boxes and trunks had recently been rearranged.

  Had Tia been up here? Had she gone through the old boxes and trunks looking for clues about the missing children?

  Had someone caught her in here?

  Carrie shivered as she threw another glance toward the door. Maybe she shouldn’t be in here, either. She thought again of Alma Garcia’s strange behavior by the pool and the muffled voices she’d heard on the other side of the wall. Who had she gone to meet outside last night?

  Something strange was going on here. Something Carrie didn’t yet understand, but whatever it was, she had a bad feeling that Tia had ended up in the middle of it.

  Kneeling, she blew a film of dust off one of the trunks and opened the lid to have a quick peek inside. The smell of moth balls drifted up from the hodgepodge of clothing and toys. Someone—probably Alma—must have put away the little girls’ things after they were gone.

  But as Carrie sifted through the items, she realized that the clothing and toys had belonged to a little boy. The T-shirts and shorts were unmistakably masculine, as were the tiny toy soldiers and plastic boats.

  Who had these things belonged to? she wondered. Cochburn had said nothing about Andres Santiago having a son. Neither had Tia. She’d only talked about Reyna and Pilar.

  Had Alma Garcia had a child?

  A worn Teddy bear had been stuffed in the bottom of the trunk, and as Carrie pulled it out, a chill descended over her. She glanced quickly over her shoulder to see if someone had come up behind her. No one was there, of course, but the feeling of being watched was so strong that her heart started to pound in fear.

  Quickly she placed the bear back in the trunk and closed the lid. The feeling dissipated, but Carrie was still unnerved. She wanted to leave the room, but for a reason she couldn’t explain, she walked over to the window and glanced out.

  Beyond the stucco wall, the crystalline waters of the Gulf shimmered in the blazing sun, but her attention was caught not by the glorious view, but by a movement below in the courtyard. It took her a moment to pick out the man from the shadows, and she thought at first it might be Nick. But as he trudged out of the shade into the full sunlight, she saw that the man was much older. His stooped shoulders and shambling gait made him seem ancient.

  He stood at the side of the pool, gazing into the murky depths much as Alma had done the night before. He seemed transfixed by something, and Carrie wondered what he and Alma found so fascinating about the water.

  And then she saw it. It was only a flash. A brief glimpse of something small and dark floating beneath the surface. A shadow, maybe, or…

  A body.

  Carrie’s heart slammed against her chest. It was just a shadow, she tried to tell herself. She’d been fooled before by the murky water. It was just a shadow.

  A shadow that seemed to disappear before her eyes.

  Carrie blinked. It had been there one moment and now it was gone.

  Slowly the old man turned and his gaze lifted to the window where she stood…almost as if he’d known all along that she was there.

  A fishing hat was pulled low over his face, shading his eyes, but even from that distance, Carrie could tell that his skin was leathered and creased from years of working under the hot sun.

  Something about the way he stared up at her, the way his dark eyes seemed to pierce right through the glass, caused her to step back from the window with a gasp.

  When she glanced back, he was gone, too.

  Carrie had no idea how he could have disappeared so quickly. When she’d first seen him, his movements had seemed labored and deliberate, almost as if he were in pain, but in the space of a few seconds he’d vanished just like the shadow in the pool.

  She tried to tell herself that he’d merely stepped back into the shade of the house where she couldn’t see him. She didn�
�t believe in ghosts even though she’d been haunted by her past for years. Besides, she knew who the man was even though she’d never set eyes on him before. He was Carlos Lazario, the caretaker.

  If she ran downstairs, she might be able to catch up with him and ask him about Tia. She hurried over to the door, but as she drew it open, the squeak of floorboards in the hallway halted her.

  Carlos?

  She didn’t think he would have had time to get inside and up the stairs. Not unless he knew a secret passageway. Carrie thought about the way he’d stared up at her, and nerves fluttered in her stomach.

  Trying to calm her racing heart, she glanced out into the hallway. When she saw Alma Garcia, she quickly stepped back from the door.

  Carrie waited until she was sure Alma had passed by the storeroom before glancing out again. She saw Alma pause in front of the room at the top of the stairs and bend to set a wicker laundry basket on the floor. Then she unlocked the door and disappeared inside.

  Carrie had no idea what the woman was doing. If she was cleaning the room, she might be inside for a while and Carrie had no desire to be trapped in the dusty storeroom for the rest of the afternoon. Slipping into the hallway, she quietly closed the door behind her, then tiptoed down the corridor.

  Alma had left the door slightly ajar, and Carrie could hear her talking to someone inside. Carrie hesitated just outside. Who was in there with Alma? And why had the door been locked?

  Could Tia be inside?

  Carrie placed a hand on the door, intent on shoving it open and confronting Alma Garcia, but then she froze as the woman’s voice rose in irritation.

  “Stop hiding from me! I’m warning you both. I’m in no mood for games.”

  A pause. Then, “If you aren’t out here by the time I count to ten, I’ll have to tell your father how naughty you’ve been. You don’t want that, do you? No, I didn’t think so. Now come out at once!”

  Carrie didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more alarmed. Alma Garcia was inside that room scolding two little girls who had been missing for over thirty years. Her dementia was even worse than Robert Cochburn had indicated. He had said she wasn’t dangerous, but obviously he didn’t know the full extent of her condition.

  “All right, have it your way,” she said with a resigned sigh. “But when I find you…” Her voice trailed off on an implied threat.

  Carrie hurried back to the storeroom and slipped inside. Watching from a crack in the door, she saw Alma leave the room, gather up the basket and continue down the hallway, stopping at each door to look inside. A few minutes later she disappeared down the stairs.

  Slipping from her hiding place, Carrie followed at a discreet distance. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she hung back, not wanting Alma to spot her. But she needn’t have worried. The older woman seemed oblivious to anything but her fruitless search.

  Carrie had almost decided to leave Alma to the hunt when she saw the woman open a door and descend another set of stairs. Carrie wondered if the steps led down to some sort of wine cellar. She wanted to investigate the space herself, but knew that she would have to wait until Alma left.

  It didn’t take long. The woman appeared a few moments later, and Carrie waited until she was out of sight, then she glided silently across the tile floor and tried the door. It opened on well-oiled hinges and Carrie stood at the top of the steps, looking down into a dark abyss. She felt for a light switch and flipped it. A bare light bulb was the only illumination, so Carrie moved cautiously as she made her way down the steps.

  At the bottom of the stairs was another door, this one locked tight. Carrie couldn’t budge it. She put her ear to the thick wood, but she could hear nothing inside.

  “Tia?” she whispered. “Are you down here?”

  The only answer that came was the stealthy scurry of something in the shadows.

  Rats, Carrie thought with a shiver. She remembered the smell in Tia’s apartment the day before, and wondered if this was how the rodents were getting inside the house.

  Going back up the stairs, she turned off the light and closed the door behind her. Then making sure the coast was clear, she hurried from the house, suddenly anxious to be out in the sunshine.

  THAT NIGHT CARRIE STOOD at the window and watched flashes of lightning in the west. Another storm was moving in from the Gulf, and she wondered how soon it would hit. Not that it mattered. Bad weather was the least of her worries.

  Her gaze lifted to the back of the mansion. Something flickered briefly in the glass, but she couldn’t tell if it was reflected lightning or if someone was up there moving about.

  Carrie thought instantly of Alma Garcia and the way she’d gone through the house looking for the missing children. She’d seemed oblivious to everything else almost as if she’d been sleepwalking, but Carrie didn’t think that was the case. The woman lived inside her own little world. A world that had stopped turning for her over thirty years ago.

  But was her self-imposed exile from civilization the sole cause of her dementia or could the island itself be to blame?

  The notion struck Carrie suddenly and she shivered.

  Could a place be evil?

  Could violent emotions linger for so long that they somehow became a presence?

  Carrie had sensed something strange from the moment she first set foot on the island. She’d experienced the same sensation in that terrible little cabin in the woods fourteen years ago. She didn’t know if the evil was real or her own imagination, but she was suddenly very frightened.

  Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she tried to rationalize her fears. If violence had been done on Cape Diablo, perhaps the lingering vibes were from the demise of the Santiago family. Her premonitions of danger might have nothing to do with the present, but as the storm drew near, her unease deepened.

  Tia’s letter.

  The strange phone call that had come in the middle of the night.

  The friendship pendant that had been left on the floor for her to find.

  Someone had laid a very clever trail for her to follow, and that trail had brought her to Cape Diablo.

  Carrie could think of only one person who would be obsessed enough to use her guilt against her.

  Her recklessness had caused her and Tia to leave the campgrounds that day, and her guilt had kept her from succumbing to the terror of their situation. She’d wanted desperately to rescue Tia because it was the only way that she could redeem herself.

  But instead, she’d saved herself and left Tia in the clutches of a monster more frightening and dangerous than anything either of their imaginations could have conjured.

  She doubted that Tia had ever been able to forgive her, because Carrie certainly couldn’t forgive herself.

  As she watched the lightning, her mind drifted back in time. She didn’t want to think about the past, but on Cape Diablo, the memories had grown too strong to resist….

  THE SCREAMS HAD FINALLY stopped, but the silence was even more terrifying. Carrie tried not to think about the unnatural quiet and what it might mean. Tia was still alive. She had to be. And Carrie would find a way to save them both.

  But Tia had been gone for a long time. Hours and hours. Their captor would be back soon. For Carrie.

  She shivered uncontrollably thinking about what he might do to her. What he had already done to Tia. It must have been something awful. Something…unspeakable. Tia’s screams were like nothing Carrie had ever heard before. They hadn’t even sounded human.

  But now Carrie longed for those screams because the quiet meant…

  No, she wouldn’t think about that.

  She wouldn’t let herself think about anything but finding a way out.

  But she’d been over their tiny prison a dozen times, and had almost given up hope when she discovered something at the window.

  The metal grid covering the opening was bolted into the wall on all four sides, but near the bottom left corner, one of the screws had worked loose in the rotting w
ood. Carrie still couldn’t twist it with her fingers, though, and the only tool she could find was the edge of the friendship pendant she wore around her neck. The metal was thin and frail and she had to be very careful not to bend or break the heart as she worked at the screw.

  It took her a long time and when she was finished, her fingers were numb from where she’d gripped the edge of the heart. She slipped her hands up under the grid and tried to work it loose, but the other screws held it in place. She would have to remove the others, but that could take hours and she instinctively knew she didn’t have much time. Crossing the floor, she pressed her ear to the door and listened. She could hear nothing. She had no idea if Tia was even still inside the cabin. Maybe he’d taken her out into the woods and…

  Don’t think about that!

  Carrie hurried back over to the window and started working on the second fastener. This one took even longer because it was still screwed tightly into the wood.

  After a while, Carrie began to worry that she might never be able to loosen it, but she kept at it until she felt it give slightly. A little more pressure…another turn…and she finally had it free.

  Once again she tried putting her hands underneath the bottom of the grid and tugging it away from the wall, but the opening between the metal and the window was still not large enough for her to slip through.

  By now hours must have passed. Carrie had no idea how long they’d been in the cabin or how long Tia had been gone. Her stomach growled for food and her muscles ached from remaining in one position for so long. But she wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t.

  The third screw finally free, Carrie slipped the chain around her neck, then gave the grid another yank. The bottom gave way from the wall just enough so that she could squeeze up under it. Then she could pull herself up to the windowsill.

  But first she would wait for their abductor to bring Tia back. Carrie couldn’t leave without her. They were in this together.

  Crawling over to the mattress, she lay down facing the window. Maybe if she pretended to sleep, he would leave her alone when he came back. Then she and Tia could climb out the window and somehow they’d find their way back to camp. Or to a road. Somewhere, anywhere, far far away from this awful place.