Town in a Pumpkin Bash (37 page)

She didn’t have to wonder about it too long, for something odd caught her eye.

At the far end of the room, moving slowly through the crowd in her general direction,
she saw someone wearing a skeleton costume and mask, carrying a black plastic pitchfork.

First she caught just a glimpse of it—an arm or leg, the bones imprinted on the black
fabric oddly luminescent, or just the skull itself as it wove through the partiers.
At times it seemed to be looking straight at her, watching her. Candy felt a chill
as she realized it appeared to be exactly the same mask she’d seen looking in through
the window at Sapphire Vine’s house a few days ago.

Candy turned, about to say something to Tristan, but he’d disappeared. She searched
the room, and spotted Mrs. Pruitt talking to an elderly couple, laughing and joking
with them. But there was no sign of Tristan.

He must be mingling, Candy thought, as she surreptitiously searched for the skeleton
costume again.

But it, too, had disappeared.

Candy drifted to the right, weaving her way through the crowd, half-empty champagne
glass in hand, feeling strangely out of place without Tristan. Several masked and
costumed guests nodded politely at her has she passed, and a few offered brief greetings,
but Candy was too preoccupied to engage anyone in conversation.

What had happened to Tristan?

And the skeleton?

She saw it then, standing near the door that led out of the room. It seemed to be
watching her again, grinning. And then suddenly it was gone, ducking out of the room
into the front hallway and foyer, where the staircase to the second floor was located.

Candy hesitated.

Should she follow? Was the person in the skeleton costume the same one who had kidnapped
Olivia March? Was it the same person who had killed Sebastian J. Quinn?

She looked back down at her watch. It was a few minutes before nine.

There was only one way to find out.

She scanned the room one last time, hoping that her backup was near, and watching.

Then she took a deep breath and started across the room, following the skeleton figure
out into the foyer and up the stairs to the second floor.

At the top of the stairs, she paused, holding tightly to the banister as she looked
both directions.

The skeleton had disappeared. On either side of her stretched the two hallways, one
leading to the left, to the Lavender Wing, where Mrs. Pruitt’s bedroom was located,
as she’d told Candy a few days earlier. To the right were the bedrooms of the late
Cornelius Pruitt and his wife, the late Abigail Pruitt, maintained as they’d been
when both were alive.

Candy heard a creak coming from that direction, the smallest of sounds, as if a door
had swung open a fraction of an inch. “Hello?” she called in a loud whisper. “I’m
here, just like you asked.”

She took a few steps to the right, but heard no other sounds coming from the hallway.
The door to Cornelius Pruitt’s room, straight ahead at the far end of the hall, was
closed. But it looked as if the last door on the left—the one that led to Abigail’s
bedroom—stood open a few inches.

“Hello?” Candy called again, taking a few steps closer, her back hugging the wall.

The voices from the party downstairs drifted up to her, crescendoing as the nine o’clock
hour chimed somewhere in the house. In the mix of voices and sounds from below, she
thought she heard someone call her name.

For a moment, she hesitated. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea, following a stranger—and
supposed killer—along a shadowed, deserted hallway into a dark room. She thought briefly
about heading back downstairs, but something prevented her from retreating. She wasn’t
the only one involved in this mystery anymore. Someone had been taken hostage. Someone’s
life was in danger. And at this moment, she was the only one who could help, because
she carried in her purse the item the kidnapper wanted.

So she took a few more steps forward, toward the end of the hall. When she reached
the last door on the left, which stood ajar an inch or two, she placed her hand on
the knob and pushed.

The door swung open with the barest creak, a skittering sound that swelled in the
sudden stillness.

Candy stopped at the threshold, standing perfectly still, her breath held deep within,
her skin tingling as she scanned the scene before her. The room was dimly lit and
deeply shadowed—and empty, as far as she could see. Only a single pool of light, cast
by a small shaded lamp sitting on Abigail’s writing desk, provided illumination on
the far side of the room. But the area of the room immediately to Candy’s right, off
to the side of the canopied bed, was hidden in shadow.

The drapes were pulled shut, but Candy could hear faint sounds of the dark sea beyond.
“Are you in here?” she breathed into the eerie stillness. “I’ve got what you want.”

Hesitantly, she took a few steps forward, into the room. “Hello?”

There was a shift of shadows then, a swish of movement.
Candy jumped back, halfway out the door, her pulse quickening and her heart catching
in her throat as the skeleton emerged from behind the brocade curtains that covered
the far left window, near the opposite corner.

“Shut the door,” a voice croaked.

The costume’s bones glowed in the faint light, and the rest of the black fabric almost
entirely disappeared, making it seem as if she were being addressed by a real skeleton.

Candy hesitated for a moment, finally taking a few steps back into the room. She shut
the door softly behind her but remained alert and ready to run if required.

The area around her darkened even more, as the faint light that had been coming in
from the hall was cut off. She was left standing in shadows.

“So you have it?” the skeleton asked in its harsh, muffled voice.

“Not the key, like you asked. But I found the diary,” Candy said. “It’s right here.”
She opened her small clutch purse and withdrew the leather-bound volume. It smelled
a little musty, having sat in a dark, damp basement for more than two years. But otherwise
it was in good shape.

She considered for a moment what to do with it. Finally she walked forward and placed
the diary on the center of Abigail’s bed.

“I thought I should return it to where it belongs. Abigail probably wrote that diary
sitting in this very room—at that very desk.” Candy pointed before retreating again
to the interior wall, near the door, just in case she had to flee fast.

“I want the key,” the skeleton said, touches of anger and impatience in its voice.

“You read the clue…right? You’re the one who stole that volume of Pruitt history from
my car, right? And my daypack? You must have seen the note inside the book.”

The skeleton grunted and shifted again. It reached a bony hand inside its costume,
and withdrew a small shiny object—a silver pistol, Candy realized.

The skull mask seemed to grin as the skeleton leveled the weapon at Candy. “No more
games. I want the key.”

“Why?” Candy asked, knowing she was pushing her luck, but also knowing this might
be her only chance to get answers to her questions. “Why do you want the key so badly?”
She paused a moment, her gaze shifting toward Abigail’s desk. “It opens the document
drawer, doesn’t it? That’s what you want. You want what’s inside.” Candy looked back
at the skeleton. “What’s in there that’s worth murdering someone for?”

The skeleton seemed to tense, and Candy stiffened, too, not knowing what was coming
next. She almost closed her eyes, fearful this might be the end. But after a few moments
the skeleton waved the pistol at her, signaling for her to stay where she was. Then
it walked forward to the bed, and still holding the gun on Candy with one hand, snatched
up the diary with the other.

“Don’t move,” the skeleton said.

“Not a muscle,” Candy assured it.

The skeleton retreated to its far corner, taking along the diary. A few moments later,
Candy saw a small pen-sized flashlight click on. The skeleton turned the narrow beam
of light into the diary’s binding, searching the tight pocket along the spine. The
skeleton then pulled out another tool, a thin blade, sliding it along the length of
the narrow space.

It took a few moments, and Candy waited anxiously, knowing exactly what the person
dressed in the skeleton costume would find in the book’s binding.

The same thing she and Maggie had found.

“Nothing,” the skeleton said after a few moments of careful searching. Finally, it
tossed the diary back onto the bed. “The key’s not there.”

“No,” Candy agreed, “it’s not there anymore…but it
was
.”

The skeleton took a step toward her, holding out the weapon dangerously, aiming it
at her chest. “You’re not listening
to me. Don’t play games!” it repeated in a forced, gravelly voice, brandishing the
pistol.
“Where is the key?”

“Sapphire Vine found it first—and she hid it in a different place.”

“Where?” the skeleton demanded angrily, the pistol shaking in its hand.

Candy swallowed hard. “I’ll tell you,” she said, “but first show me Olivia March.
I want to make sure she’s alive and unharmed.”

“What makes you think she’s unharmed?” the skeleton asked. “I made no such promise.”

“But you…”

“The key!” The skeleton thrust the pistol forward. “Now! Or I can guarantee you, both
you and Olivia March will die!”

Candy knew she had no other choice, and had no more cards to play—except one.

Pressing her lips tightly together, she opened her clutch purse again and withdrew
an old metal key ring with perhaps a dozen keys hanging from it, as well as a well-worn
miniature metal lighthouse, painted white and red. Many of the keys on the ring looked
old and unused, their nickel and brass surfaces worn and dull.

Candy pointed to the diary. “Like I said, Sapphire figured it out first, several years
ago. She got her hands on that diary long before you or I had any idea what was going
on. But that was Sapphire’s skill, I guess. She always was a step or two ahead of
everyone else. She always knew
exactly
what was going on around town—and how best to use that information for her own benefit.
And in the end, that’s what got her killed.”

“Where is the key?” the skeleton demanded impatiently.

Candy sighed and held up the key ring, jangling it in the
air. “It’s right here. You’re looking at it. I’ve been looking at it, too, for quite
a while, not even knowing what it was. This key ring has been sitting in a junk drawer
in the kitchen of Sapphire Vine’s old house on Gleason Street. We thought they were
just duplicate keys—and most of them are. But there were one or two we could never
identify. We never found the locks they opened. They’re sort of like orphan keys,
you know? Keys without a home. Anyway, as close as we can figure, after Sapphire stole
Abigail’s diary from the library downstairs, right from under Mrs. Pruitt’s nose,
she stashed it in her red purse and took it home to examine it. She must have found
the key almost immediately. She probably did the same thing you just did the moment
she was alone with the diary. She knew exactly what she was looking for—and there’s
only one way she could have known.”

Candy saw the eyes behind the skeleton’s grinning skull mask shift curiously. “And
what’s that?” By the tone of the voice, Candy could tell the person behind the mask
was sneering at her.

“It’s simple,” Candy said softly. “Your mother told her.”

The skeleton froze. The eyes behind the mask widened. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.” Candy’s voice took on a sharper edge, an almost accusatory tone. “It
happened when they were both in that mental institution down in Portland, didn’t it?
Sapphire was there because her husband, a young man barely in his twenties, had died
tragically in a car accident. She was pregnant at the time of his death, and after
the baby was born, she wound up giving it to a foster family. In the months that followed,
the loss of her husband and then her child literally drove her crazy. It’s one of
the reasons she wound up in that institution. And while she was there, she met another
patient—a woman named Emma.”