“Mrs. Cahill, this is my job.”
“And if you want to keep it, you won’t push this issue, Tom. I don’t need a nurse and both you and I know it. Somehow it makes my husband feel more secure but that’s his problem, not mine. So, thank you for your concern, but I’m not taking any more bloody pills and that’s that.”
She left Tom standing in his tracks and didn’t give a damn. Too many people were trying to tell her what to do, and it wasn’t flying with her.
She walked back to the suite and closed the door behind her. As she did she heard Tom’s footsteps pound down the stairs. She tried Alex’s door. Of course, it was locked. Again. Why? She drummed her fingers on the doorknob, then on inspiration, walked outside the suite down the hallway and tried the door to the office that opened to the corridor. It didn’t budge. But she’d seen Eugenia open it the other night when she’d been lying on the floor thinking she was going to choke to death.
Someone had taken the trouble to lock it again.
So you’ll just have to devise a means to unlock it. By hook or by crook. Whatever it took.
Marla made her way around the railing to the spot where she’d vomited nearly a week earlier. Kneeling, she ran her fingers over the short pile of the carpet. It was bone dry; the stain had been washed away until it had disappeared.
Had someone—the intruder if he existed—poisoned her, caused her to lose the contents of her stomach? She rocked back on her heels. Tom had told her he’d given her triazolam, a drug she’d never heard of. She stood, leaning on the railing and glared at the lo
cked door to Alex’s office. Something important was hidden inside. Otherwise the damned thing wouldn’t be locked.
So she had to get in.
On quiet footsteps, Marla took the stairs down to the second floor, heard the maid vacuuming in the library, then, cautiously she crept into her mother-in-law’s suite. Nervously she closed the door behind her and didn’t bother with any lights, letting the sunlight filtering through the curtains be her guide and telling herself that she really wasn’t trespassing. This was her home. She had the right to know what went on within these hundred-year-old walls.
The other night Eugenia had extracted the key to Alex’s office from her jacket pocket—a navy blue jacket. Maybe it was still there.
Fat chance. It’s been five days, remember?
Carefully Marla eased the door to the closet open and stepped inside. She snapped on the light and quickly scanned the cedarlined room. Each of her mother-in-law’s outfits was neatly hung on double rails, arranged by color, jackets above, skirts below, matching shoes in cubbyholes near the floor. Marla worked quickly, her fingers damp with sweat as she reached inside the pocket of each jacket—navy blue to flaming orange—and came up with ticket stubs, hankies, a few coins, anything Eugenia had absently left.
But no keys.
“Damn,” Marla grumbled, realizing the key to Alex’s office was probably on the woman right now, somewhere down at Cahill House wherever the hell that was. Nonetheless she started searching the handbags. Furiously she unclasped each and every one and again she came up empty. The closet was hot, stuffy and she was about to leave when she heard the door to Eugenia’s room open. Her heart froze. How could she explain herself if she was found out? She flipped off the light and slowly backed up, parting the clothes and stepping onto the top of the cubby before forcing the garments back together and pulling a plastic-encased gown in front of her. She nearly jumped when she heard the vacuum roar to life. Slowly, tediously, the maid cleaned Eugenia’s room. Marla held her breath. Maybe the maid wouldn’t come into the closet, maybe Marla would get lucky, maybe—oh damn.
There was a pause in the hum of the motor and the door opened, spilling in a shaft of light. Marla didn’t move a muscle as the girl pushed the vacuum cleaner into the tight little room, the roar of the machine nearly deafening. The overhead light flashed on. Marla pressed back against the wall and realized that her cover, the plastic bag she’d found in the rear of the closet was yellowed, the gauzy, beaded white dress inside probably Eugenia’s ancient wedding gown.
Closing her eyes, she waited as the machine bumped against the cubby on which she stood, jarring her bones. She didn’t dare breathe. How long could it take to vacuum a damned closet? Suddenly the machine was switched off.
“What?” the maid called loudly.
Through the crack between a long dressing gown and the plastic cover Marla saw the maid turn her head toward the door. She was a small Hispanic girl by the name of Rosa, a tiny thing who didn’t say a lot as her English was poor at best. Abandoning her idle machine, Rosa stepped into Eugenia’s bedroom.
“Ah, Señora Cahill, si, si.”
Then Eugenia’s voice. “Please, can’t you do this later?”
Oh, God, what now? How could Marla explain what she was doing in her mother-in-law’s private quarters? Sweat dotted her forehead and ran down her spine and her heart was thumping wildly.
“I need to lie down,” Eugenia explained.
“Si, si, I come back luego. Later.”
“And Rosa, please, have Carmen call me when the guests arrive. The Reverend and Mrs. Favier will be here in a while.”
The Reverend and . . . then Marla remembered. Alex’s cousin Cherise and her husband had been scheduled to visit with her but Marla had been bedridden that day. Because of the damned drugs.
She strained to hear the rest of the conversation. When were Cherise and her husband scheduled to show up? Somehow Marla had to escape from the closet without anyone knowing she’d been inside. Before the guests arrived.
Sweat began to run down her arms.
Rosa retrieved the vacuum, then hurried away. Marla didn’t move, didn’t dare step down and a few seconds later she saw her mother-in-law walk into the closet, remove her navy blue jacket and hang it on a rack on the opposite side from Marla’s hiding spot. Eugenia kicked off her high heels and set them directly under the jacket, then shrugged out of her blouse and stepped out of her skirt, leaving her in a lacy slip and panty hose. Wearily Eugenia snapped off the light and closed the door behind her.