“It took me an hour to get there,” I said. “But when I went inside with Olivia, there was no body in the parlor, and no sign that one ever had been. No blood, no signs of a struggle. The room was immaculate.”
“A lot can happen in an hour,” Nate said. “That’s plenty of time for someone to move a body and clean up the mess.”
Skepticism painted Robert’s face.
Nate looked at Robert. “Bottom line. If you believe anything is going on here other than your wife being under a great deal of strain that maybe caused a momentary…vision, something along those lines, then we should call the authorities in Charleston and let them sort this out.”
“No,” said Colleen. “Not just yet.”
“No,” Olivia said. “I will not have all this dirty laundry aired. I have nothing to do with any of it, but that’s not the way it will look.”
“Liz…” Robert’s eyes traded on years of friendship.
“What exactly do you want us to do?” I asked.
“Just look into it. The house, the aunts, this Seth character. See what you come up with.”
“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” I asked.
“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “I give you my word. And I apologize. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I looked at Nate.
He looked at Robert. “Have you forgotten that Liz and I are getting married Saturday? The morning after, we leave for two weeks in St. John. We already have one case to finish, in addition to all the wedding preparations. Our hands are full right now.”
“Just give it a day,” Robert said. “One day. You can spare that, right, Liz?”
I had already said I’d help my friends. But Nate was clearly not happy with the situation.
Colleen said, “I don’t have a good feeling about this. I don’t know what happened there tonight, but that house has a long history of trouble. On the other hand, if Robert’s no longer vulnerable—because Olivia’s no longer being blackmailed—the town council, and ultimately the island, is less vulnerable. It seems clear this falls under my mission.”
Nate’s eyes met mine and saw the silent request. He glanced away, then back. After a long moment, he said, “All right then.”
Even for friends—maybe especially for friends—we didn’t open a case file without a contract. I pulled my iPad from my purse, opened a contract, and made some case specific notes. Then I emailed the contract to the address Robert gave me.
A few moments later, he stepped into his office and retrieved the printed document. Standing at the kitchen island, inches from Colleen, he checked boxes and filled in the blanks. Then he handed it to me with a check. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t accept this earlier.”
“Oh,” said Olivia. “Just exactly what do you mean trying to hire one of my very best friends to spy on me?”
Nate and I stood and made for the door.
Four
The next morning, we put on several layers of clothes and went for a run. In the pre-dawn hour, it was cold, but at least the rain had quit. Between the wedding, Christmas, and now this new case involving some of my oldest friends, I was on edge. The rhythm of the surf soothed my frayed nerves.
Nate, Rhett, and I made our usual loop around the north point of the island, past the bed and breakfast and the marina, to Heron Creek. There we turned around and ran back past the house, all the way to where Main Street dead-ends into the sand dunes, then home. It was a five-mile loop. Nate and I were quiet, lost in our own thoughts as we ran. For my part, I was noodling over what could possibly have happened on Church Street the night before.
As we headed up the steps to the walkway across the sand dunes, I said, “What are you thinking about?”
Nate shrugged. “Mostly I’m wondering how it is that you and Olivia are such good friends. You and she are very different women.”
I watched where I was stepping, so I had somewhere to look besides at Nate. “Have I ever told you about my friend Colleen?”
“The one who died when you were in high school?”
Colleen appeared. She walked on top of the walkway rail like it was a balance beam. “Be very careful what you say.”
I shot her a look. I wasn’t going to tell him she was still hanging around. I knew that was against the rules, or so she told me.
“Yes,” I said to Nate. “Colleen was my best friend since kindergarten. But she went through a bad time—an awkward phase, Mamma would call it—starting when we were about thirteen. She’d never been on a date. Lots of girls were mean to her. Olivia never was. She went out of her way to stand up for Colleen. And after Colleen died, Olivia was there for me. I know she can be impossible sometimes. But she has a good heart.”