Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [74]
When Tinkie took a stand, her head was harder than mine. “If the drop sounds too dangerous, we’ll warn her. That’s it. Nothing more.” Like my partner, I had some guilt at the idea of just walking away. Even if it was the smartest thing to do.
“Do you think Hightower is still on the grounds? He may know something about Monica and Jerome.” Tinkie inhaled deeply and stretched.
“He wasn’t hurt. He’s just a crybaby. He popped up like a jackrabbit and took off.” I leaned down to kiss Sweetie’s muzzle. “So what do we do about the open window?” I’d almost forgotten the incident that had driven me and Sweetie out into the night.
“Tomorrow Eleanor can find a hammer and nails. To hell with historic detail. I intend to make certain all of the downstairs windows are secure. The nails can be removed later.”
It was too little too late, but I nodded in agreement. My brain was still knotted around the whole John Hightower incident. That Monica was a predatory lover, I didn’t doubt. What I didn’t believe was that she’d be attracted to a man like John Hightower. He simply didn’t have the va-va-voom factor.
And Millicent. What was her true role in all of this?
“Let’s get some sleep,” Tinkie said. “It’s after four o’clock. We can still snatch a couple of hours before daybreak.”
I held no hope of sleeping, but I pretended to go to my room so Tinkie would rest. As soon as her door closed, Sweetie and I went to the front parlor. I settled on a sofa with my hand dangling onto Sweetie’s satiny head. Together, we waited for the dawn.
* * *
Against her nature, Tinkie was up at first light. I heard her in the kitchen grinding coffee beans and humming an old standard. I hadn’t truly slept, but I had drifted into a strange dreamy state where I knew exactly where I was and what was happening around me, but I also traveled backward through time to summer mornings when my mother hummed in the kitchen at Dahlia House. She’d loved the tunes of the 40s and often sang them around the house. And she could sing, in a clean, resonating contralto.
I knew the lyrics to Tinkie’s melody. “A Dreamer’s Holiday,” a Perry Como classic from 1949. It was one of my mom’s favorites. Sometimes, in the music room, she’d crank up the old stereo and play the 78 rpm record so she could hold me and dance.
“‘Climb aboard a butterfly…,’” I crooned softly, until Sweetie Pie started to howl.
Tinkie popped around the corner. “I knew you weren’t asleep, but you looked so peaceful.”
“Is the coffee made?”
“It’s brewing. Shall I wake Eleanor?”
“I think so.” We had to determine if John Hightower had left Briarcliff, and we couldn’t leave Eleanor alone. She’d have to come with us.
Tinkie started up the stairs just as a heavy knock fell against the front door. I had a momentary visual of the old Vincent Price classic The Fall of the House of Usher. I’d heard the story of director Roger Corman, when asked by the studio, “Where is the monster?” replied, “The house is the monster.”
So it was at Briarcliff. Everything, even a knock at the door on a summer morning, seemed sinister.
The heavy rap came again as the person outside demanded entrance. Dread, my current BFF, marched in goose bumps along my skin as I walked to the door. I put my hand on the knob and opened the massive wooden doors of Briarcliff.
“Ms. Delaney.” Barclay Levert looked every inch a descendant of the Levert clan. He wore a black shirt open at the throat, black slacks that suited his build, and his dark hair was clipped in a queue at the nape of his neck. “May I enter?” he asked.
“Are you a freaking vampire?” I snapped. “Do I have to invite you in?” Barclay unsettled me, and I turned abruptly and walked back to the parlor. Tinkie, on the other hand, almost skipped out of the kitchen to greet him.
“Oh, Barclay,