CHAPTER TWELVE

Anne's face seems distraught as she places the folded paper in my hand. She still looks lovely. She still looks perfect. She always looks perfect. Where I am short and rather stumpy, she is tall and graceful. I have a face that is kindly called cute or perhaps even pretty. Her features are noble, feminine and beautiful.

At the moment, her perfect face is distraught. I want to ask her why, but for some reason, I can't speak. Perhaps the moment seems too significant for words.

She frowns and looks past me. I turn around. There's nothing, just the pond that's always been in the backyard.

When I turn back around, she presses a folded piece of paper into my hand. "I found this in Dad's room." She rushes off before I can ask what it is. I open it and it has a date on it. Thirty years ago almost. It's an important date but why? She's not missing anymore. She just handed me this paper.

I look at it again. Elena attempt four imminent. She may go farther this time .

I close my hand and look questioningly up at Anne. "I don't want to talk about Elena," she says, "she's a bitch." She turns and runs away. I open my hand and then unfold the paper again…

Wait… this note isn't something my father wrote. Anne didn't hand it to me. This came from Isabella. This isn't from Anne at all and…

***

I wake with a start, and my breathing is ragged. It's been years since I've dreamed of Anne, but now I've dreamed of her two nights in a row. This dream shouldn't terrify me as much as the dream the night before, but my body shakes, and I am coated in sweat as though it was.

I try to calm down, counting my inhalations and exhalations to regulate them. Slowly, my body calms and my mind adjusts to being awake. My heartbeat slows down, and after a moment, the tension in my shoulders softens.

I take a few more breaths and then sit up and reach for my phone. I'm a little frustrated to see that it's only half past two. I'm too awake to sleep again. Perhaps I'm just afraid to risk another dream.

I slide out of bed. The room is cool, and it helps clear my mind a bit. That's good. I can't let myself get confused about this. I can't. I'm going to find out the truth. Annie needs me to, and I can't let it go like…

Isabella needs me to. Isabella, damn it.

I walk to the desk and sit. It seems my thinking is still muddled. For me, the best clarity always comes when I concentrate on something challenging.

The problem is that the only challenging thing available for me to concentrate on right now is Johnathan's murder.

Well, that's good, right? Isabella needs me to concentrate on that. So does Elijah. So do Samuel and Cecilia, even if they're not aware that I'm working on this.

I stand and put my slippers on but pause before I leave the room. Theresa is aware of my snooping. She wouldn't be aware of that if she wasn't watching me. She'll almost certainly be watching now.

My hand rests on the handle as I consider the risk. On one hand, Theresa's threat is hardly empty. Whether there's any legitimacy to the claim of my hospitalization or my conflict ( assault) with my mother and sister, simply raising that rumor could be enough to cost me my position.

On the other hand, my threat isn't empty either. Certainly, Theresa has moved the jewelry and the dresses by now, but if Cecilia looked, it wouldn't be hard to find evidence of Theresa's behavior. Whether Cecilia misses the jewelry or not, she won't tolerate a maidservant who steals from her.

And I have a skillset outside of service. I have two and a half decades of experience as a schoolteacher. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology, and while I'm far too old to consider a career as a therapist, I have enough put away that I could return to school for a few years and find work as a school counselor or social worker. Losing my job would be difficult for me but devastating to Theresa.

I dare you , Theresa.

I push the handle down and step into the hallway. There's no sign of anyone else awake, but then, there never was, and Theresa is still aware of my nightly wanderings.

Well, let her follow me. I welcome that confrontation.

I head to the first floor and cross to the north wing. The air is considerably colder downstairs, and I wish that I had thought to bring my coat. It's too late to go back, though.

I head into the library and cross to the study beyond. A fine layer of dust lays over everything, unbroken by footprints other than my own from my first night here. No one else has disturbed anything.

That doesn't necessarily mean I'll find anything in the study, but so far the only real evidence I've obtained comes from Johnathan's private thoughts. This is the best place to discover more of those thoughts if there are more to be found.

When I enter the room, my eyes move to the small gallery beyond the desk and the personal library. Part of me hopes to see the paintings and sculptures I come across in the mysteriously vanishing art room the night before, but there is only the modest collection of contemporary pieces I find the first time I explore the room.

Most of me is grateful for that. I'd rather believe I simply dreamt the whole thing, even if it calls my sanity slightly into question.

I walk behind the desk and open the drawers one by one. I'm not sure what I'm hoping to find, but I'll know it when I see it.

The final drawer reveals a crossword puzzle. This one is hand drawn and the clues are written in Johnathan's own handwriting. It appears his interest in crosswords extended beyond simply solving them.

I take the crossword out and realize I don't have a pen. A quick glance reveals a fountain pen and inkwell on one corner of the desk. It is at what I imagine the limits of Johnathan's reach were, but I am a solid foot shorter than he was and have to lean precariously over the desk to reach it.

The crossword is a simple one. There are eight horizontal lines and five vertical. The title Johnathan gives the puzzle is a rather depressing tongue-in-cheek. WHODUNIT?

I start with the first clue across. Thinks she's better than everyone.

My first instinct is Elena, but there are seven letters there, not five. I frown a moment. Then the answer comes to me. I write Theresa into the box and smile grimly. The noose tightens.

The next clue across reads, the most innocent. That's an easy one. I write Samuel, then proceed to the next.

The clue reads, u sed to golf together. I leave that one blank for now. The following clue reads, would never desecrate his knives like that. I chuckle and write Paolo's name.

The final three clues across also refer to events with which I'm not familiar, so I leave those blank and move on to the Down clues.

The first reads, thief in the night.

I frown when I read that. There are seven letters, just as there are with Theresa. While I certainly feel the first clue applies to Theresa as well, this clue admittedly applies more closely. I hesitantly fill in Theresa and leave question marks in both places. One of those names needs to change, but which clue and what name replaces Theresa's?

The second clue reads, sees through the lies. Six letters. It's positioned so that the third letter is the same as the fourth letter from the first clue across. Third letter. Who here has six letters in their name?

The only answer is Elijah, but if it's Elijah, then who is the real answer to the first clue across?

I am disturbed too, by the fact that Johnathan used this clue to refer to his oldest son. Sees through what lies? Theresa's? Elena's? Johnathan's?

Perhaps it's not Elijah. I must remember that I know very little about Johnathan's life. Already, there are several spots filled by people I've never heard of.

But something tells me I'm not wrong about this one.

The next clue is Deals drugs. Deals death?

That one's easy as well. I write Simon and move on.

The clue here is knows who she really is.

Another amorphous she. Is this the same she who thinks she's better than everyone else?

Also six letters. It can't be Elijah, though, because the second letter is also the second letter of Samuel. I can hardly imagine anyone to be more innocent than Samuel.

Then it comes to me. I write Harrow and frown down at the puzzle. What does Harrow know? And why is it not Elena? In the tape I watched, Johnathan waxes lengthy about how dangerous Elena is. He all but comes out and says he believes Elena is trying to kill him. My limited experience with the woman suggests that if anyone is capable of such an atrocity toward Johnathan, it has to be her.

But Johnathan didn't seem to think so. At least not when he wrote this puzzle.

Then again, perhaps I'm reading too much into it. The clue to the first across was only thinks she's better than everyone. That's hardly the same as definitely the one who killed me.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that name is the key.

I move onto the next clue. Student who betrays her master . Five letters. Well, there's Elena.

The next clue for down is placed oddly. It's first letter occupies the sixth letter of the first clue across. It's long, eight letters. It's third letter is the a in Samuel and the final letter is the a in Paolo.

Isabella. I know that even before reading the clue. Must protect her!!

I feel a chill as I read that. The emphasis is evident not only in the double exclamation points but the depth of the ink and the slight tear of the e in protect. Johnathan was clearly worried about her.

Why? Why her specifically?

I return to the first clue across, and I see it. My blood runs cold, but it's too clear now to be anything other than what it appears to be.

Seven words across. Fourth letter I. Sixth letter I. Thinks she's better than everyone.

Cecilia.

I don't write her name down. I can't bring myself to. I can't bring myself to believe that the children's mother would have killed their father. I can't be the reason they lose her so soon after losing Johnathan.

Not Cecilia. Surely not Cecilia.

But she's the first clue, and that clue is inscribed with nearly as much emphasis as must protect her!!

I sit for a long while before finally replacing the pen and inkwell. I debate for a moment what to do with the puzzle, then decide to take it to my room.

I need more time to think on this. I can't believe that Cecilia could be responsible for the death of her children's father.

As I leave the study, however, the ugly sneer she wears the last time she mentions him burns itself into my mind.

Ah yes. Their dear father.

Surely not. Surely it isn't so.

I look up the stairs toward Cecilia's room, the one she used to share with Johnathan. I wonder what dreams accompany her as she slumbers in their marriage bed.

And does she greet those dreams with fear or with triumph?