Puck took a few breaths and looked at the way up. She put the phone and the watch in her pocket and climbed out.
Once she got to the top, she threw up. Her stomach retched and heaved and emptied itself.
Still barefoot, she made her way to a tree and sat down. She needed time to think about what to do. When her heart had calmed enough, she looked at the watch.
Using her thumbs, she cleaned off the back, then held it up to the light. It was engraved on the back.
TO SEAN THORPE. FIRST PRIZE. 1991.
Puck leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes. Sean had been her friend, a true friend. That his body was here was proof that he had not run away as everyone said he had.
But then Puck had never believed what they’d said about him. The affair. The betrayal of everyone. They even blamed him for all that happened later. She’d heard them say, “If it hadn’t been for Sean, Nicky would still be alive.”
Puck told them that Sean wasn’t like that. If nothing else, he wouldn’t have left the horses without food or water. “Something happened to him,” she’d cried. “I know it did.”
But no one would listen to her. Certainly not the police.
She put the watch in her pocket, covered the broken opening with branches and left the Preserve.
For the next two years she didn’t enter that area of the estate. And she never came close to telling anyone about what she’d seen.
Her only reaction to the horror of what she’d discovered was that she kept even more to herself. She’d always been a loner, but the effect of what she’d seen deepened her reputation of being “odd” and “different.” But that was all right. Better that than being the one who had introduced murder to Oxley Manor.
Her silence wasn’t altogether altruistic. She worried that the person who had put Sean in that place would find her shoes there. And that person would know what she’d seen.
OXLEY MANOR
PRESENT DAY
Puck was out of sight in the pantry when she first heard the name Sara Medlar.
“Never heard of her,” Puck’s mother said to Mrs. Isabella Guilford, the owner of Oxley Manor.
“She paid to restore this place, Mrs. Aiken,” Isabella said. “I owe her—” She waved her hand. “I don’t want to think of that, but let me say that I cannot turn her away. She and two others are flying in from Florida in three days.”
“The house is closed.” Puck’s mother slammed a heavy copper pot down on the big oak table. Even though it had been years, she refused to accept that her beloved Oxley Manor was now a hotel.
“That’s why she’s coming. She’s bringing her niece and her honorary grandson, Jack.”
“‘Honorary grandson,’” Puck’s mother muttered as she began chopping carrots. “I guess you expect me to cook for them.”
Isabella gritted her teeth. Since the hotel was closed all of March and there were no guests, yes, Mrs. Aiken would need to do the cooking. Bella knew the cantankerous old woman would love being the boss of what she still considered “her” kitchen, but she also knew she’d have to coax her. Why oh why couldn’t Sara come when the place was staffed?
“Just three of them?” Mrs. Aiken asked. “And all Americans? I don’t know how to make pizza. Or those two-pound hamburgers.”
Bella refrained from rolling her eyes. Instead, she straightened her shoulders. “This weekend will be a full house. There will be seven guests in total. All but Sara will leave on Monday. Her two are going to tour the Highlands.”
“So what about her?” Mrs. Aiken asked. “What’s she going to do?”
“I assume you mean Sara. ‘She’ as you call her, can do anything she bloody well wants. But she’s staying here alone so she can write.”
“About what?” Mrs. Aiken snapped.
Bella had her hand on the doorframe. “I don’t know. She said she found some old story on the internet that everyone had forgotten about. Something about a couple of lovers who ran off together.” She stepped into the hallway.
“Wait!” Mrs. Aiken called, and Bella looked back into the kitchen. “You mean that girl and the man in the stables?” Her voice was hoarse.
“I guess so. That was before my time.”
“Who is coming?” Mrs. Aiken whispered.
This time Bella did roll her eyes. “I don’t remember their names. Sara said they were part of a club and had a party the night the couple ran away together.”
“Nadine, Byon, Clive and Willa,” Mrs. Aiken said softly. “They’re the only ones left.” Her face had drained of color.
Bella hadn’t thought of it, but Mrs. Aiken was probably there the night the couple ran off together. From Mrs. Aiken’s expression, Bella knew she should be sympathetic. But why was that so traumatic to her? “Yes, I think those are the names. Sara wants to talk to them. I think she wants to use the runaways as a plot for a book.” Bella sighed. “Since she retired from writing, that makes no sense. Maybe she’s just bored. Whatever the reason, they’ll need food. Can you do it? If not, I’ll hire a caterer.”
Mrs. Aiken seemed incapable of speaking, but her nod was good enough for Bella. In a few minutes, six girls were coming to clean and she needed to oversee their work. She quickly walked down the hall. “Deliver me from drama,” she said, then hurried to answer the bell on the front door.
In the kitchen, Puck was still in the pantry, unseen by anyone. She watched her mother as she tried to put the sliced carrots into the pot. But her hands were shaking too badly. She dropped the carrots onto the floor, then went out the back door.
Puck slipped out of the pantry, went through the house, then outside. She hurried to her own house and grabbed her laptop. She wanted to find out who this Sara Medlar was. Thirty minutes later, she leaned back in her chair, her heart pounding in her throat. She’d read through all the hype: sixty million books in print, years on the New York Times Bestseller List, etc. That meant nothing to her.
What mattered was a small article in the Miami Sun Sentinel. A reporter said it was strongly rumored that Sara Medlar, along with her niece and her “almost grandson” had solved two old murders. “Murders that others dismissed,” the reporter wrote.
When the Morris women were brutally murdered, people cared so little no one even noticed they were missing. They were Forgotten Murders. The police deny it, but the scuttlebutt is that the Medlar trio solved the case.
Puck stared at the screen. It was the same with Sean. Everyone had forgotten about him. And what about Diana? Was her body in that odious pit with Sean’s and she’d missed it?