Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [16]
“And he could be leading us to the cliff. We’d never know until—”
Before I finished speaking, the moon broke free of the clouds. The woods released us to a sweep of manicured carpet grass. Two hundred yards ahead was the cliff’s edge. Jerome waited, his flashlight beam playing across our faces. “Did anyone check at the bottom of the cliff?” he asked.
“Holy shit.” I remembered the object in the sheer material falling into the river.
“I’ll call the police.” Tinkie reached into her pocket for her cell phone.
“Wait.” I restrained her. “We don’t have any more evidence than when Eleanor called them.” Out on the open lawn, the wind was constant and strong. I had to lean close to Tinkie and speak loudly.
“Are you coming?” Jerome yelled.
We walked reluctantly to the bluff. There were no railings or markers or even steps down to the water. The cliff had been cut out of the land by the passage of the river, the wind, and time. We pointed our flashlights down, but the beam failed to reach the bottom. Moonlight revealed a section of the cliff dropped straight to the water. We stood above a rocky jut of land. Downriver the Natchez-Vidalia Bridge connected Mississippi to Louisiana. The twin, cantilevered spans were, technically, the tallest bridge in the state.
Moored upriver from the bridge was a riverboat casino. The wide Mississippi seemed tame and slow moving, but I knew better.
“No sign of her down there.” Jerome’s stronger flashlight beam swept the land and the river. “If she’s on the grounds, we’ll find her.”
He turned toward the house. Tinkie and I lingered a moment before we followed him. A gust of wind from the north carried an out-of-season chill, and Tinkie gasped. It caught me unprepared, too. It was summer in Mississippi. Jack Frost had long been run out of the territory, but this wind had plenty of nip in it. I thought of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee.” The wind moaned low and plaintive through the trees.
In many ways, Briarcliff brought Poe’s work to mind. The house was menacing with the moonlight striking silver in the damp stone edifice. The gothic overtones of the architecture and setting couldn’t be denied.
A pale, fluttering object scuttered across the lawn. I rushed to pin it with my foot. When I picked it up, I realized it was part of a gossamer gown, a strip of lace that likely adorned the hem. Holding it triggered a gut-dropping twist of anxiety.
“The thing I saw fall in the river could have been wearing something like this,” I told Tinkie. It could have been a woman.
“We have to show this to Eleanor.” Tinkie spoke with determination but didn’t move.
“And Jerome.” I, too, hesitated. The gardener was now far ahead of us, headed to the back lawn. I forced myself to call out to him.
“Come on, if you’re comin’,” he grumbled.
When we caught up with him, I showed him the lace. He shook his head. “Could have blown in from anywhere. Never felt a wind like this, this time of year.” Earlier he’d kept his face blank, but now I clearly saw distress. It struck me that he recognized the fabric, and I wondered again if Monica and Jerome had more than an employer-employee relationship.
“We must show this to Eleanor,” I told him. His reluctance to be a part of that scene was clear.
“I’ll keep searching the gardens. She has to be around here.”
In all probability she was safe, but if someone had been able to break into Briarcliff and steal a four-million-dollar necklace, who was to say they hadn’t returned to harm the sisters.
“If you find anything, let us know,” Tinkie told him.
“Do you think you have to tell me that? I’m not daft, lass.” He strode around the side of the house, leaving us to face Eleanor and show her the scrap of material we’d found and which might shed the worst light possible on Monica’s strange disappearance.
* * *
Eleanor’s hands trembled as she clutched the lace. “It’s hers. It’s Monica’s. She has a gown … she bought it in Geneva. She called it her Gloria Swanson gown. When she wore it, she was ready for her close-up.” Her fingers stroked the airy fabric. “She loves