“Barreling along at a dangerous speed. It was highly suspicious. Isn’t that right, Brady?”
Before Brady could answer, Jesse said, “I’ve seen Brady barreling along a time or two. I’m sorry, but I think you may be grasping at straws now.” He wrote something in his tablet. “But what was it you said about Miss Vanderbilt?”
“Yes, Nanny’s friend saw someone resembling Consuelo walking on the beach. She was with someone, another woman,” I added. “That’s why we came—to see if we could find any trace of her, either here or at one of the neighboring cottages.”
“You thought you’d go door-to-door, did you?” Jesse looked at me askance.
“Well . . .”
“Emma,” he said, “if Consuelo is hiding or if someone is holding her against her will, how do you think they’ll react to you knocking on their door?”
“But we couldn’t simply not come, could we?”
“What you could do is tell me everything you know and leave the rest to me.”
I regarded the smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose; the auburn hair, in need of a trim; and the easy confidence of his stance, something not always evident in the man but never missing from the officer. In his early thirties, Jesse Whyte wasn’t young, not nearly as young as Brady, but his were the sort of features that would remain youthful until suddenly one day wrinkles bracketed his mouth and crinkled the corners of his eyes. Someday a bit of a stoop might bend his shoulders, and perhaps he’d walk with a hesitant gait. But his ready smile would always be there, and I couldn’t imagine him ever being anything but amiable, dependable, responsible, and honest.
Honest.
An uninvited image formed in my mind—someone taller, more handsome, more exciting . . . but honest? When it suited him, yes. And when it didn’t . . .
“Emma, will you please trust me to find your cousin? That is why you confided in me about her disappearance, isn’t it?”
“Will you find her quickly?” I held my breath waiting for his answer, knowing I could put my faith in whatever reply he gave.
Yet honest Jesse gave no reply other than to give my hand a squeeze and offer me a small smile.
What else had I expected? He would never make a false promise.
The officers carried a gurney from the rescue wagon and placed it beside Lady Amelia. No, Lady Amelia’s body. Their simple act rammed the truth home, straight through my heart. She was dead. Murdered. Whatever she might have been able to tell me, whatever connection there might have been between her, the rugosa roses, Madame Devereaux’s death, and my cousin’s disappearance, would never now reach my ears.
Tears burned in my eyes, and the next thing I knew a pair of arms went gently around me. Overwhelmed, I turned my face into Jesse’s coat front and gave in to surging waves of futility, countered by the familiar comfort of my old friend’s arms steadying me. Suddenly those arms felt all too right; all too easy to cling to and not let go.
But I did let go and with a shaky smile of gratitude, stepped back. Never a believer in coincidences, I no longer entertained the slightest doubt that today’s events, and those at Marble House, were intricately connected to my cousin. But could I—or Jesse—find her in time to prevent yet another disaster?
Those doubts threatened to drown me.
Chapter 15
That night I tossed fitfully, tormented by dreams of Consuelo walking toward me on the beach, her delicate hand outstretched to me. A veil hid her face, but somehow I knew she was smiling, and the confidence of her stride told me she’d reconciled herself to her future, that she was no longer afraid, that she embraced the challenge. She was only some dozen yards away when suddenly she collapsed, a heap of silk and velvet ruffled by the breeze. I ran to her, calling her name, shouting, but when I reached her I found only twisted clumps of sand and seaweed . . . and a single rugosa rose wilting in the afternoon sunlight.
A sense of disorientation haunted me throughout the early-morning hours. I dressed having little sense of what I donned—something sensible in a dark blue muslin, I think. I breakfasted but tasted nothing. I stared out at the ocean beyond the morning-room windows and saw nothing . . . nothing but Lady Amelia’s beautiful, lifeless face interchanging with that of my cousin. For the first time I wondered if Consuelo was even alive, and my heart clenched painfully.
Somehow I resisted calling Jesse, though every instinct willed me to crank the telephone and ask to be connected to the police department. Very well did I know that if Jesse had discovered anything new since yesterday, he’d have already informed me.
I had to ask myself, then, whether it was a yearning for information that continually turned my feet toward the alcove beneath the stairs, or a simple need for comfort, to hear that reliable, reassuring voice in my ear and know I was safe; know things would be all right.