The Last Clue

A figure appeared behind the front doors.

Mara climbed the steps two at a time. Before she could reach the handle, the door opened inward.

A woman in a gray dress stood there, one hand pressed to her throat. She was perhaps thirty, pale and narrow-faced, with rainwater shining on her hair.

“Detective Voss?”

“Who sent the message?”

“I did.” Her eyes flicked toward the car. “You came alone?”

“For now. Where is Mr. Bellwether?”

“Conservatory.”

“Is he alive?”

The woman’s mouth tightened. “No.”

Mara stepped inside. The woman moved aside, but did not close the door.

“Name.”

“Elise Ward. Secretary.”

“Who else is in the house?”

“Mr. Bellwether’s nephew. His sister. The cook and the groundsman. I don’t know where anyone is.”

“You don’t know?”

A tremor passed through the floor beneath their feet. Somewhere in the house, glass broke.

Elise flinched.

Mara drew her revolver. “Lock the front door.”

“I tried. The key won’t turn.”

“Then find something heavy and brace it.”

“Elise - ”

“I said I tried.” The secretary’s voice cracked. “The storm has warped the frame. The door is swelling shut.”

Mara looked past her into the entrance hall. Bellwether House had been built to impress and maintained to intimidate. A staircase rose beneath a stained-glass dome, its banister carved into twisting sea serpents. Water streamed from the ceiling around the chandelier. The lights flickered once, twice, then steadied at a weak amber glow.

“Take me to the conservatory,” Mara said.

Elise pointed toward a pair of doors at the far end of the hall. “Through there. But the lower passage is flooded.”

“Then we’ll use the upper gallery.”

“The gallery collapsed last winter.”

“Of course it did.”

A violent gust struck the house. The front doors shuddered in their frame. From somewhere beyond them came a low, hollow booming, as if the sea had found a way beneath the floor.

Mara turned back to Elise. “Where are the others?”

“Mrs. Bellwether was in the blue room. Daniel went to the generator. Mr. Pike was outside when the lights failed.”

“Outside now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find them. Keep them in the entrance hall.”

Elise stared at the revolver. “And you?”

“I’m going to see the body.”

She crossed the hall and pushed open the doors. A cold draft struck her face. The corridor beyond sloped downward toward the conservatory, its patterned carpet dark with water. Lamps glowed along the walls, but every third one was dead.

Mara stepped into the passage.

The first floorboard gave beneath her boot.

She jerked back as brown water surged through the gap, spreading across the carpet. A pipe had burst somewhere below. The water rose around the threshold, carrying splinters, leaves, and a silver serving spoon.

“Elise,” Mara called. “How deep does it get?”

“Yesterday it was dry.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

The secretary came halfway through the doors and stopped. “There’s a stairwell to the kitchen. The lower floor may be flooded.”

“May be?”

A light exploded overhead. Glass rained down. Elise screamed and ducked.

Mara pulled her against the wall as sparks hissed in the water. The remaining lamps went out.

For a moment, Bellwether House became a black shape full of running water and distant thunder.

Mara switched on her flashlight. Its beam shook only once before she steadied it.

The flooded corridor stretched ahead. At the far end, the conservatory doors showed as two pale rectangles beneath the darkness.

“Stay here,” Mara said.

“You can’t go alone.”

“I can, and I am.”

“There may be someone in there.”

“That’s why I’m going.”

Mara stepped into the water.

It reached her ankles, then her shins. The cold drove through her trousers. Each step stirred the submerged floorboards, making them shift underfoot. She kept the flashlight low, watching for holes and loose debris.

On the wall to her right, portraits watched from gilt frames. Bellwethers with severe mouths and sea-gray eyes. One portrait had fallen, its canvas floating face down in the water.

Behind her, Elise called, “Detective!”

Mara turned.

A figure stood at the far end of the entrance hall, just beyond the beam’s reach.

“Who is that?” Mara shouted.

The figure moved.

Mara raised her revolver. “Stop.”

The lights flickered back on.

The hall was empty.

Only the front doors remained, bucking against their frame.

Elise had vanished.

Mara held her aim for another breath, then lowered the weapon. “Damn it.”

She pushed on.

The conservatory had been added to the house at the turn of the century, a long room of iron ribs and cloudy glass overlooking the drowned gardens. Water ran down every pane. Vines had forced their way through cracks in the masonry, their leaves plastered against the glass like green hands.

The doors were closed.

Mara tried the handle. Locked.

“Mr. Bellwether?” she called.

No answer.

She pressed her ear to the glass. Beneath the roar of rain, something tapped faintly from within.

Three taps.

A pause.

Three more.

Mara stepped back. “Who’s in there?”

The tapping stopped.

She tested the lock again. The mechanism was old but sound. No key showed in the brass plate. She shone the flashlight through the narrow gap between the doors.

A man lay on his back beside a stone fountain.

He wore a dark dinner jacket. One arm was folded across his chest. The other stretched toward the door, fingers curled as if he had tried to crawl.

Mara’s pulse tightened.

“Bellwether?”

She drew the slim pick set from her coat pocket. It took her less than a minute to defeat the lock. The final tumbler clicked just as thunder rolled over the roof.

Mara opened the door.

The conservatory was warmer than the corridor, but the warmth had a damp, trapped quality. Rain struck the glass overhead in a frantic rhythm. Water dripped from the leaves of potted palms. Somewhere near the fountain, a clock ticked.

Mara entered and shut the door behind her.

The dead man’s face was turned toward the ceiling. Julian Bellwether had been in his late sixties, with a silver beard trimmed close to the jaw. His eyes were open. A narrow puncture wound marked the hollow beneath his left collarbone. Blood had soaked the front of his shirt and dried in a dark fan across the stones.

Mara crouched beside him without touching the body.

No weapon lay nearby.

His right hand was empty. His left was clenched.

She leaned closer. A strip of blue paper showed between his fingers.

Behind her, the door handle turned.

Mara rose and spun, revolver ready.

Elise stood on the other side of the glass.

Her face was barely visible through the rain-streaked pane. She lifted both hands, palms outward.

Mara crossed the room and unlocked the door. “Where did you go?”

“I heard someone behind me.”

“So did I.”

Elise entered, breathing hard. “The hall is empty.”

“Who found him?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“Ten minutes ago. Maybe fifteen.”

“Why didn’t you call emergency services?”

“I told you. The lines are dead.”

“You sent for me.”

“I sent for anyone who might come.”

Mara pointed to the body. “Did you touch him?”

Elise shook her head.

“Did anyone?”

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

Elise looked at Bellwether. “I’m certain I didn’t.”

The distinction landed between them.

Mara glanced toward the glass walls. Beyond them, the garden had disappeared beneath brown water. The stone path was a current. A wrought-iron bench drifted past the conservatory windows and struck a hedge with a dull scrape.

“Where is the key to this room?” Mara asked.

“Mr. Bellwether kept it.”

“Where?”

“In his study.”

“Then how was the door locked?”

“I don’t know.”

Mara looked down at the lock. The bolt sat fully extended. There was no visible damage to the frame.

A sealed room.

Not quite. The conservatory had three exterior doors, but the storm had driven one shut beneath a fallen branch, and the other two opened onto flooded ground. The glass roof was too high to reach without a ladder. No one had come through it without leaving a mark.

Mara knelt beside Bellwether again. The blue paper protruded from his fist. She eased it free.

It was not paper. It was a torn piece of a ledger page, thick and cream-colored. On it, in black ink, someone had written a single line.

MARA VOSS - ASK ABOUT NORTH PIER.

Her hand went cold.

Elise saw her expression. “What is it?”

Mara folded the scrap and slipped it into an evidence sleeve. “Nothing you need to know yet.”

“My name was in his papers?”

“Your name was in his hand.”

Elise backed away from the body. “He didn’t know you were coming.”

“He knew enough.”

A heavy crash sounded from the passage.

Mara turned toward the conservatory doors.

“What was that?” Elise whispered.

Mara moved to the glass and looked out. The corridor beyond was dark again. Water slid beneath the door in a thin, spreading line.

Then the front of the house gave a deep groan.

The conservatory windows shuddered. One of the exterior doors burst inward under the force of the flood, and a wall of brown water rolled across the tiled floor. Elise screamed as it struck her legs. Mara seized the woman’s arm and dragged her onto the stone base surrounding the fountain.

The water rose fast, swallowing the lower shelves and floating pots from their hooks. Bellwether’s body shifted with a soft scrape against the tiles.

Mara grabbed the conservatory door and pulled. It would not move.

She tried again, bracing one boot against the frame. The swollen wood held firm.

“Elise, help me!”

They pulled together. The door shuddered but stayed locked.

A second crash came from the entrance hall. Then another. The sound of breaking glass traveled through the house.

Mara released the handle and raised her flashlight toward the corridor. Through the narrow panes, she saw water rushing beneath the doors, carrying a dark shape past the threshold.

Someone had been standing there.

Now they were gone.

The lights died completely.

Elise clutched Mara’s sleeve. “We’re trapped.”

Mara looked at Julian Bellwether, at the blue scrap sealed in her hand, and at the black water climbing over the tiles.

Outside, the sea battered the cliffs. Inside, something moved beyond the locked doors.

She drew her revolver and faced the dark corridor.

“Not trapped,” she said. “Contained.”

Then the conservatory’s inner lock clicked from the other side.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 10,178 words in the full book.