The Heir of Thornfield Manor Read online

  Elizabeth swallowed. Daley was the man from the orchard. She’d meant to look up Daley’s photo when she’d first arrived, after Finley forgot to pull it out for her, but between the hours and exhausting labor, she’d forgotten. Of all the things to forget. Jeez Louise!

  Helen jogged over and handed each of them a stick. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said, though it sounded somehow hollow to her ears.

  “Which reminds me, Elizabeth, he asked to see you.” Alice shoved three marshmallows on her stick.

  “Me? Why?” She fought the urge to face-palm.

  “He likes to meet all his employees,” Helen said. “Last year and the year before, he drove up for it.”

  Alice handed her the marshmallows. “You can find him in his study after we’re done here.”

  Elizabeth glanced down at her clothes and wrinkled her nose. She was disgusting.

  Helen chuckled. “Don’t worry about your clothes. He doesn’t care.”

  “He might care about the stench,” Elizabeth said.

  “If he didn’t have an early morning tomorrow, I’d tell you to shower first.” Alice placed her marshmallows over the fire. “I’m sure he’ll only take a moment of your time.”

  Elizabeth nodded. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She glanced toward the house. In a well-lit room on the second floor, a man stood in silhouette, staring down at the fire.

  Crap!

  * * *

  Elizabeth avoided the large mirror that stood in the hallway just outside the study door, grasping a plate with a s’more on it. She didn’t need the reminder of what a mess she was. Thankfully, it’d cooled outside while they’d been making s’mores, and her shirt had dried. So there was that. The large ornate door to the library stood slightly ajar, and the glow of a dim light lit the dark wood floors.

  She took a deep breath and knocked.

  “Come in,” Daley called.

  Elizabeth stepped inside and planted her feet.

  The room was large, dark, filled with books, and had two stories. A spiral wrought-iron staircase stood in a corner. In the middle of the room, in front of a fireplace, two brown leather club chairs sat opposite a brown leather couch upon a red area rug with gold borders.

  It was a lovely room, but like the rest of the house, it gave her the creeps. Even aside from the Gothic architecture, there was something about the house that didn’t sit well with her. Maybe it was because she knew someone had been murdered here or maybe it was just the house.

  A small Tiffany-like lamp with red glass had been placed on a table between the club chairs, its light creating a red glow around the seats, and next to it was another Mag flashlight. Elizabeth was starting to wonder if Alice had equipped every room in the house.

  Patrick Daley sat in the farthest chair, legs crossed, reading a different book than he’d been reading earlier. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come over here.” He didn’t bother looking up from his book.

  She closed her eyes and breathed, then moved into the room, stopping outside the area rug where he sat.

  He glanced up, his eyes sparkling in the light of the lamp, and signaled to the other club chair.

  She went to the couch instead—a little farther away. She set the s’more down on the coffee table and slid it toward him. “For you.”

  His lips quirked up on one side. He sat his book on the table next to an ornate little teacup and saucer—white with flowers in different shades of blue. “Trying to keep a safe distance?” He signaled to her choice of seats.

  “Uh … yeah.” She rubbed her forehead. “It’s been a long day, and I haven’t had a shower yet.”

  He looked her up and down. She crossed her ankles and interlaced her hands in her lap. His gaze was unnerving, like he was trying to read her thoughts. He made eye contact, and it felt like a dare. Look away, it said, be intimidated. But she had three younger brothers, worked in an office full of men, and had been interrogating criminals for years. She wouldn’t lose at a staring contest. She straightened her spine.

  “Yes, you do look a bit done in,” he said.

  How charming. “I was told you needed something, Mr. Daley.”

  “It’s Patrick. No one calls me Mr. Daley.”

  “Noted.”

  “My ankle is still killing me from this morning.”

  She cleared her throat. “If I’d met you when I first arrived and known you made a habit of climbing trees, I would’ve left you alone.” She’d already apologized in the orchard. If he wanted to persist, then she’d point out his fault in the matter.

  He tilted his head a little. “What makes you think I make a habit of climbing trees?”

  “Why else would a man in a full suit be up a tree, unless it was a habit?”

  He chuckled under his breath. “Sound guess. Wrong, but the logic is good.”

  The detective in her wanted to pry, but the character she was playing didn’t and thought it best to keep some boundaries in place—for now. “Don’t you like s’mores?”

  He tapped his fingers on the arms of his chair. “How long have you lived in California?”

  She faced him. “A little over ten years.”

  “And what brings you to the great city of Thornfield?”

  She cleared her throat. “Found a listing for this job online and thought I’d try something new for the summer.”

  He smiled and leaned back again. “Tell me about your family.”

  “I have three brothers,” she said.

  “And you’re the oldest?”

  She knew this was a job interview of sorts, but it kind of felt like an interrogation. “Yes?”

  “And only girl?”

  “How’d you know that?” She swallowed. “Did you Google me or something?” Finley had told her that the Feds had set up fake info about her online, but she wasn’t so sure.

  “I don’t have much use for the Internet. Everything I know about you, I learned when you caught me out of that tree this morning, and now.” He picked up his teacup and took a sip. “Now, you were telling me about your family?”

  How was it he managed to make her so nervous? “Is this relevant? I don’t see what my brothers have to do with my job here.”

  “This is your interview. My way of making sure you’re suitable for the job.” He rested his cup and saucer on his knee, hot chocolate nearly swishing over the edges. “I have no use for computers, but you’d be surprised how much you could learn from a person after a five-minute chat. As you’re clearly protective of your brothers, we’ll move on. Tell me about your friends.”

  She clenched her teeth and looked at her interlaced hands. Since becoming a cop, she’d not had much time for friends. Lee was really the only friend she had—and that friendship hadn’t come until a year after they were made partners. She worked, she took care of her brothers, and that was about it.

  He sat his teacup back on the table. “I don’t have a lot of friends either.”

  How was it his guesses kept hitting the nail on the head?

  “The fewer people you have in your life, the less chance of them disappointing you or of you disappointing them.”

  She glanced up. “It’s also a lonely way to live.” She’d made her choices, and she was fine with them, but she could still admit she was lonely time and again.

  His eyes cleared, and he made eye contact. “Yes. I guess it can be.”

  She lifted her chin. “How about you? If you don’t mind me asking. From what I’ve heard, you haven’t been here much in the last couple years until recently.”

  His eyes narrowed a little, but there was a wicked twinkle in them that made her think he was more amused than upset that she’d turned the tables. “It was time. You’ve lost loved ones, correct? I’d guess your mother and father. It would explain the protectiveness in your tone regarding your brothers.”

  Okay, so she’d asked for that. But now she was sure he’d looked her up. No way he could guess everything he had otherwise.
She’d have to call Finley and tell him her concerns. “Yes, I lost my parents.”

  He leaned forward. “Then you, of all people, should know a person needs closure if they’re to move on.”

  “Closure?” The way he said it sent shivers up her spine; it was too ominous. It didn’t sound like closure was what he wanted, but revenge.

  “I have to ask you, Ms. Shea: have we met before? You are so familiar to me.”

  She held her breath to keep from gasping, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.” He’d felt the familiarity too, then?

  “I never forget a face, and yours is …” He tapped his lips with his index finger as he stared into space. “As a child, I was a part of a traveling circus.”

  “You were?” Finley had left that part out.

  “Yes. Did you ever go to the circus as a child? We had an elephant and tigers, a trapeze act …”

  She had, actually. “I went as a kid, but I lived in Boston.”

  “We went to Boston once.” He looked up, thinking it through. “That was sixteen years ago. I’d have been thirteen.”

  It would’ve been when she’d gone, then. A memory flashed in her mind of the trapeze act. Luke had been one at the time, and seeing the trapeze artist swinging around had sent him into a fit of giggles. Kyle had been eight and Jake had been five, and after the show they’d been obsessed with … “Peter Pan? Did your trapeze artists do a production of Peter Pan?”

  He grinned wide. “That was us.”

  They’d met some circus people afterward, but he couldn’t possibly remember her specifically. It was so long ago, and she was a child. She couldn’t say she remembered him. That said, every part of her felt as though she did know him. “You don’t remember me from that?”

  “Sadly, no, at least not consciously, but I was in a traveling circus that you came to. Perhaps my subconscious remembers you.”

  Maybe.

  He stared into a space and looked lost in thought. And perhaps a little sad, too.

  After a moment, she spoke. “Mr. Daley?”

  He shook his head lightly as though clearing it of memories from long ago. “You can go.”

  She blinked. Okay … She stood and reached for the paper plate with the s’more.

  “Leave it,” he said.

  She raised her hands as if in surrender.

  As she pulled the door closed behind her, he called out, “Welcome to Thornfield, Ms. Shea.”

  So, he was the heir of Thornfield Manor. Great.

  Chapter Five

  The cool morning breeze stirred about Elizabeth as she made her way to the stables Monday morning. As she crossed the gravel path to the stables and one of the open doors, she noted that the Porsche was gone. It’d been so prominent in its place the last couple days that its absence drew the eye.

  She passed to a workshop area of sorts that Helen had set up for their use in one of the old stables. Helen dug through the neatly organized shelves against the back wall. Elizabeth stopped at an island in the middle of the space under the skylights. Helen used it for planting. At the moment, aside from a container of weed killer, the island was empty.

  Elizabeth placed her hands on her hips. “Can I help you find something?”

  Helen glanced over her shoulder, then went back to looking. “I thought I had two more containers of Preen.”

  Elizabeth sauntered over to the workbench on the right where tools hung on the wall. She grabbed a pair of garden gloves from a bin under the bench.

  “Guess this is all we have.” Helen leaned against the island and pointed at the one container. “How was your chat with Patrick?”

  Elizabeth pursed her lips. “Um …” She supposed Helen would want to know. Alice had asked as well.

  “Did he read you?” Helen smiled.

  “Did he what?”

  “When I first started here, he guessed that I was from Idaho, liked cheesy romantic comedies, that I’d just gotten out of a long-term relationship that ended poorly, and that this was my first big job.”

  Elizabeth scratched her head. “Just guesses.”

  Helen nodded and grinned. “He can’t help himself. He’s a show-off.”

  “He looked us up?”

  “No, he’s just really good at reading people. He’s what they’d call a mentalist. In fact, he’s so good, for years he worked as a psychic and hypnotist—until he realized it was morally wrong, the money wasn’t worth it, and quit.”

  “A psychic?” The circus thing made more sense now. “Don’t psychics research their clients online?”

  “I might have thought that too, if he hadn’t made a wrong guess about me. But I swear he’s the real deal.”

  “What did he guess wrong?”

  Helen grinned. “I’m from Colorado. Next time you see Alice, ask her what he guessed about her. It was eerie.”

  “There are no such things as psychics.” Elizabeth had no problem believing in personal revelation, believing that God would talk to her through prayer or feelings, but she didn’t believe that he would give personal information about her to some stranger. But she did believe that some people could see beyond the grave, but did that contradict her belief about psychics? She wasn’t sure. She’d have to think about that.

  Helen chuckled. “That’s what he always says. Either way, there are some things that no matter how deep you search, you could never uncover.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Talk to Alice.” She picked up the container of root killer. “I need you to run into town and get three more containers of this. Do you know where Thornfield Market is?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Debbie Martel owns the store. Just tell her it’s for me, and she’ll put them on store credit.”

  * * *

  Elizabeth grabbed three containers of Preen from the garden section of Thornfield Market out back and lugged them past the office and toward the checkout.

  Debbie sat at a desk in the office with a stack of pink sheets on one side and a slew of other paper cluttering the desk.

  “I’m ready,” Elizabeth said.

  Debbie spun around. “Oh, hello again. How are you?”

  “Good, and you?”

  Debbie flushed and reached up to her hair, then signaled to her desk. “What a mess this must look.”

  “Oh no, not at all.”

  Debbie smiled. “It is. I know it is.” She sat her stack down and grabbed one of the three containers from Elizabeth and headed for the front. “A few years ago, my computer crashed. I lost everything. Receipts, all my records, and video surveillance. Everything. If it wasn’t for those little pink slips, I would’ve had to close a long time ago. Now it’s just a matter of getting it organized, and I’m afraid bookkeeping has never been my strong suit.”

  They set the containers on the front counter. Debbie went around to the other side of the check stand.

  “Can you hire someone to do it for you?” Elizabeth asked as Debbie rung her up.

  “I’ve thought of it. Maybe this will be the year I finally give in. Until then …” She pulled out a pad of pink slips just like the ones from the back. “How’s Thornfield treating you?”

  “So far, so good.”

  Taking a pen with a flower taped to the top out of an old label-less can, Debbie started filling out the slip. “What do you think of the Daley lands?”

  “Stunning. Big.”

  Debbie nodded. “The family used to open them up to the public every Saturday for years, but not anymore.”

  He did? That was news to her. She thought back over the Daley file and tried to remember what day her murder had happened on. If it’d been a Saturday, Finley would likely have mentioned it.

  “Patrick hasn’t been quite the same since his wife died.”

  “I heard about that,” Elizabeth said.

  “Losing a loved one at such a young age would be certain to change a person,” Debbie said.

  Elizabeth knew that for a fact. When her mother passed
away, she’d had to step up and help with her brothers when she was only sixteen. When her father died three years later, she’d taken on custody of her brothers. She couldn’t imagine what she’d be like, what her life or her brother’s lives would be like had they lived.

  “And he used to be so lively.” She tore the sheet off the pad. “Although he does seem to have improved since last he was here.”

  Elizabeth thought of Daley’s grumpy demeanor and frowned. She should’ve been more thoughtful when she’d talked to him in the library. He’d taken her off guard with his bluntness and his guessing, and it had left her grumpy. But she needed to remember that the man had suffered a terrible loss. She determined to be more sympathetic.

  Debbie pushed the sheet over. “I should’ve asked. This is on credit, right?”

  “It is.”

  “Oh, good. Sometimes I think I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached.”

  Elizabeth smiled.

  Debbie pointed at the different parts she filled in with her pen. “We have the date, for the Daley mansion, and three cans of Preen. Look good?”

  “Yep.”

  Debbie pushed her hair back. “Sign here, please.”

  Elizabeth signed with a swish of the yellow fabric flower.

  “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “That’s it for now.”

  Debbie held up a staying hand. “Oh, wait.” She rushed over to the door where she had stands of fresh fruit and vegetables and grabbed a peach. “Here. These came from the Strongs’ farm this morning. Right off their trees. They’re delicious.”

  “Strong?” That was the other witness that saw the homeless man leave town and head to the manor.

  Debbie nodded. “Susan was in here the day I gave you directions.”

  The tall, lanky lady with the dark roots in her hair. Yeah, Elizabeth remembered her. She pointed at the peach. “How much?”

  Debbie waved her off. “It’s a gift. A little welcome present.” She winked at her. “Trust me. You’ll love it. The Strongs have the juiciest peaches this side of California. Thank goodness they were able to get that loan to keep their property a few years ago, or I’m not sure what I’d have done. Their peaches are a town favorite.”