Maybe it was my imagination
, Daphne thought at last. Maybe Ashlee was right. Who knew what kind of effect seeing a woman with her throat cut open had had on her, or how long those effects might last?
After all, Mother Angela had always said Daphne had a florid imagination. Daphne would write the most elaborate stories in composition class, about elves and secret tunnels through mountains and Shangri-las filled with exotic birds and rivers that ran with gold. Mother used to say that Daphne could conjure up the most extraordinary tales, that she rivaled the Brothers Grimm, that she had, by far, the liveliest imagination of any student she’d ever worked with.
Maybe she was just conjuring up stories again.
She held on to this belief—this hope—all through dinner. No one mentioned a word about anything distressing. No ghosts, no murders, no sheriffs, no clowns. And Daphne was grateful for that. Although Abigail just sat there glowering at her, and poor Gabe simply continued his pattern of not speaking a word, everyone else chatted amiably with Daphne. Louella told her how lovely she thought her blouse was, and even Suzanne talked about taking a walk with Daphne down to the pond at the far end of the estate: “It’s so very pretty down there—you’ll love it.” Maybe that was because she didn’t notice the sly little smiles her fiancé Donovan kept giving Daphne, and the wink he gave her as he passed the garlic mashed potatoes.
Christopher, however, was the biggest surprise. When he came into the dining room, all four feet of him, he approached Daphne like a peer of the queen’s court. He bowed to her and took her hand and kissed it.
“My official welcome to my new governess,” he said, his button eyes shining.
Daphne had smiled, but she didn’t trust him. At one point during dinner, Mr. Witherspoon had addressed his son.
“Just so that we go on record here, Christopher, in front of the entire household,” the old man said, “you are to give Daphne your full cooperation and obedience, and treat her with complete and total respect, accepting her authority as you would mine. Is that very clear?”
“But, of course, Father,” the boy replied. “I am most anxious to learn all that Miss May has to teach me. I am sure the breadth of her knowledge and experience is impressive. How fortunate I am to be her pupil.”
Daphne and Ben exchanged small smiles. The kid was such a player.
After dinner, Daphne asked Ben if she could take him up on his offer to use his phone. He obliged immediately, handing over his BlackBerry, but he explained that reception wasn’t great out here on the point, and the best place to get the most bars was up in the tower room. He offered to take her there, since Daphne had yet to climb those particular stairs. The entrance to the tower was at the far end of the front foyer. Unlike the grand marble staircase that led to the second story of the main house, these steps were narrow, and iron, and spiral. As Daphne and Ben ascended, their footsteps clanged against the metal and echoed in the darkness.
Ben explained that when the house was first built, in the late nineteenth century, the tower had been used as a lookout for incoming ships. Mr. Witherspoon’s great-grandfather had been a sea captain, Ben said, and his servants—as well as, sometimes, his wife—would climb these stairs to keep an eye on the ocean to spot his ship returning to the harbor. Eventually, old Amos Witherspoon was lost at sea. But for many years afterward, his grieving widow, Millicent, a recluse who grew slightly mad, had continued her treks up these stairs, night after night, so she could stand in the tower room and scan the seas for a sign of her late husband. She was known to call out, “There he is! Amos returns!”—sending chills through the entire house.
The tower room was a round space about fifteen feet in diameter, sparsely furnished with plain sofas against the stone walls, and a round table with a lamp placed directly in the center. Narrow rectangular windows evenly spaced around the entire room looked out over the cliffs and the roiling sea beyond. Ben left Daphne alone to make her call, after first switching on the lamp, which cast an amber glow across the room.
For a moment after he left, Daphne hesitated. The sound of the waves from far below reached her ears.
Then she pressed the digits of the number for Our Lady’s School for Girls.
It was the private number for the sisters’ residence. She recognized Sister Therese’s voice when she answered, and after chatting happily with her for a few moments, she asked to speak with Mother Angela.
“Daphne! My child!” the good mother said exultantly when she came to the phone. “I am so happy to hear from you. How are you, my darling?”
“I am fine, Mother,” Daphne told her, and quickly related a bit of her trip, and some about the house and its people, and the challenges she faced with Christopher.
“You will rise to the challenge, my dear,” Mother Angela said. “Do you remember how well you worked with that little girl whose father had been killed in Iraq? How she blossomed with you as her tutor?”
Daphne did remember little Heather Marie. But she faced more challenges here at Witherswood than she had even with a little girl grieving a father killed in war.
“Mother,” she finally said, “I must ask you something.”
“Of course, my dear, anything.”
“Did you know the history of the Witherspoon family? Did you know about the murders?”
The nun fell silent on the other end of the line. “Oh, my darling child. Yes, I knew. And my heart broke not telling you ahead of time.”
“How could you let me come here without preparing me?” Daphne was near tears. In a trembling voice she told her how she had discovered Maggie’s body, and how the sheriff thought there might be a copycat killer loose. She told her how frightened she was.
Mother seemed to be close to crying herself. “My poor child. How I long to take you in my arms and console you. I had no idea ... none ... that the history of that family would revisit in such a terrible way. My poor, poor child.”
“Were you told not to share the information with me?”
Mother admitted she had been. “Mr. Witherspoon is a good man. I spoke with him ... at length.” Her voice trembled. “He asked me to let him tell you, in his own time and his own way. He ...”
Suddenly Mother’s voice faded. Daphne looked at the phone. The number of bars had dropped from three to two. She walked to the other side of the room.
“Mother? Are you there?”
“Yes, my darling” she replied, her voice coming in stronger once again. “I am always here. No matter the distance, I am always here.”
“You felt you could trust Mr. Witherspoon? You felt sending me here was still a good idea even knowing what you knew about the family history?”
“I did, Daphne. And I do trust Mr. Witherspoon. He is a good man. You can trust him as well.”
“How can you know for sure? You have never met him!”
Silence on the other end of the line. The reception was fading again. Daphne rushed to the center of the room.
“Daphne, my dear, I couldn’t hear what you said.”
“I asked how you can be so sure to trust him, when you’ve never met him. He seems like a good man, but this house is filled with so many mysterious people ... so many secrets.”
“Oh, my dear, I can make out only every other word you’re saying,” Mother Angela lamented. “All I can tell you is that I sent you to the Witherspoons because it is your destiny to be there. It is meant to be. God’s will, Daphne.”
“God’s will? What do you mean that it’s my destiny to be here?” An idea flickered in Daphne’s mind. “Are you saying that this place has something to do with my past? Is this where my parents came from? Point Woebegone?”
“I can’t hear you, my darling. Are you still there?”
“Yes, Mother I’m here! Oh, please tell me more!”
But the connection was gone. Daphne immediately hit redial, but the call wouldn’t go through. There was barely one bar left on the phone. After three more tries, she gave up, and walked back down the stairs of the tower, listening to the echo of her footfalls against the stone walls.
She returned the BlackBerry to Ben and thanked him. He asked if it was good to speak with Mother Angela. Daphne said it was and it wasn’t. She didn’t feel like telling him any more.
Crawling into bed, Daphne stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. What had Mother meant, that it was her destiny to be here? What had she meant, that it was God’s will?
The wind picked up then, howling through the eaves of the house. In the wind, she heard her name. It must be her imagination, she told herself, holding the locket that she wore around her neck in the palm of her hand, the locket that held the last physical link to her origins, to who she really was.
But then her name seemed to get louder behind the wind. “Daphneee, Daphneeeeee ...”
She refused to be unnerved by it. She had a feeling that she’d better to get used to hearing her name when the wind blew. It might be her imagination. But it might also be the ghost of Pete Witherspoon Senior, the serial killer. Or it might be Christopher, taunting her. Or it might be the spirit of crazy Millicent Witherspoon, wanting Daphne to find her lost husband.
It might be anything, in fact.
All Daphne knew for sure was that it was her destiny to be there.
EIGHT
The days passed uneventfully after that. Daphne began her lessons with Christopher, which went better than she had feared. The boy could be exceedingly pleasant at times, complimenting her on her dress or her hair, and other times terribly sullen, barely speaking when she asked him a question. But, perhaps heeding his father’s words, he did the lessons she gave him, completed his homework, and didn’t argue when she told him it was time for bed.
One night she heard the faint buzz of Christopher’s music after the lights went out. Daphne knocked on his door as she’d told him she would do. When he didn’t reply, she went inside, as she’d also told him she would do. He was lying in bed with his earbuds plugged into his iPod, his eyes closed. Daphne tapped on his shoulder and he jumped. “I’ll make a deal with you,” she said. “You can listen to your music for a half an hour after the lights go out, but no longer.” He started to protest, but she said he could take the deal or leave it. He’d agreed, and so far, he’d kept his end of the bargain. The music always shut off half an hour after Daphne heard it go on.
Gradually, over the course of a few weeks, she settled into a routine. Breakfast with Ashlee and Mr. Witherspoon in the dining room. Sometimes Ben or Louella or Donovan or Suzanne would join them. Never Abigail or Gabe. There were no more family meals as there had been in the first couple of days. Cook made food each day and each member of the household ate when he or she pleased. Daphne took lunch at twelve-thirty, when she gave Christopher a half-hour break. Dinner she usually ate on the terrace, often with Ashlee and Mr. Witherspoon or Ben, sometimes all three. She had come to like Ashlee a great deal, even if their lives had been very different growing up. Ashlee’s parents had divorced when she was eleven, and her mother had worked as a stripper to pay the rent. Ashlee said she never quite followed in her mother’s footsteps, but cocktail waitress wasn’t far up the ladder from stripper, and she’d understood that to get the best tips she had to flirt extravagantly and show as much skin as the law allowed. By the time she’d met Pete, she explained, she was trying to make something of herself, landing a job in a respectable restaurant and taking computer courses at night. Meanwhile, her mom had gotten cancer, and so Ashlee was supporting her as well. “Pete was a godsend,” Ashlee told her. “He saved my life.” She smiled sadly. “He understood what cancer does to a family. His first wife—you know, sweet, sainted Peggy—died of cancer.”
Daphne realized Ashlee still had a hard time reconciling the memory of her husband’s first wife with their time together now. She supposed it must be like living with a ghost. She felt badly for Ashlee, since it was obvious she was deeply in love with her much-older husband. And Daphne was sure Pete loved her back just as much. She wondered what that was like, to love a man and have him love you in return.
Yet ... was there a reason for Ashlee’s fears? Daphne remembered that strange moment one night a couple of weeks earlier, when she’d walked in on Mr. Witherspoon in the study. He had been sitting in a chair, holding a photograph in his hands, just staring down at it. He’d been startled when Daphne had come in behind him, and she’d apologized. He said not to worry, but he quickly tucked the photograph into his jacket pocket. Daphne had caught a glimpse of the photo when she’d come upon the old man. It showed a young woman—but it wasn’t Ashlee. It was an older photo, of a woman Daphne didn’t recognize. Might it have been, she wondered, the same woman she’d seen in several photographs throughout Christopher’s room? Might it have been Mr. Witherspoon’s first wife, Peggy, Christopher’s mother? Daphne recalled Ashlee’s bitterness regarding “sweet, sainted Peggy,” whom no one thought she could compare with. But her husband didn’t share their view, Ashlee had insisted. He loved her just as much as he’d loved Peggy. If not more.
Maybe that’s just what Ashlee wanted to believe.
After dinner, Daphne usually returned to her room to read, or sometimes made her way to the library, on the other side of the study. Here all sorts of ancient volumes were crammed in the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The room seemed musty and damp. First editions of Dickens and Twain and Hawthorne and Poe. Old Bibles and prayer books. And in the midst of them all, in a nook specially prepared by Ashlee, a shiny new twenty-seven-inch iMac.
“Ben and Donovan and Gabe all have computers in the rooms, but Pete won’t let me bring ‘one of those goddamn machines’ into our room,” Ashlee had told her with a laugh. “So I installed mine in the library. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? Expensive, yes, but Pete said I should only have the best. Feel free to use it, Daphne, anytime!”
Occasionally Daphne had signed on, but there was little reason to do. She no longer even had an e-mail address, having lost that privilege when she left Our Lady. So she’d check the news, or the weather, or Google a recipe to give to cook. Twice she’d gone on to get additional information to help in a history lesson with Christopher. But other than that, there wasn’t much need for a computer....
Except...
One night, having downloaded some background on Paul Revere’s ride for the next day’s lesson, Daphne had hesitated before signing off.
Her fingers had hovered over the keypad as the Google search engine waited on the screen.
Despite the sudden trembling of her hands, she slowly typed in a string of words. Witherspoon. Murder. Point Woebegone.
She was ready to press SEARCH when she suddenly pulled back.
Ashlee would see. Daphne didn’t know how to hide searches. Ashlee would see that she had searched out information on the serial killings that had taken place in this town. In this house.
Not that Ashlee wouldn’t understand. But Daphne deleted the words anyhow. Quite possibly, she wasn’t ready to read any more details about what had happened here twenty-five years ago.
She’d received a letter from Mother Angela a few days after their telephone call. It was brief, but Mother had reassured Daphne that she was always there for her, that she loved her as she would her own daughter. She apologized again for not telling her about the Witherspoons’ terrible family history, and stressed that she was certain that she could trust Mr. Witherspoon. “He is a good man,” Mother wrote. Daphne could only hope she was correct.
Not that she thought he wasn’t. Old Pete Witherspoon didn’t say much, and kept to himself mostly, but he had been good and honorable in all his dealings with Daphne. Indeed, as the third week of her residence at Witherswood neared completion, Daphne could actually say that she was beginning to enjoy her life there. The food was terrific, her room was comfortable, the grounds were awesome. And except for the surliness of Abigail, who continued to glare at her whenever they passed in the hallway, everyone else was pleasant, or at least tolerable. Even Gabe didn’t unnerve her as much as he had in the beginning. She felt sorry for him, and went out of her way to bid him good day whenever they came into contact. It seemed to be having an effect. The young man in the wheelchair had started to mutter a “good morning” or “good evening” in response to her greetings.
This past week, Donovan and Suzanne had gone off on a trip to Seattle, so for the duration Daphne hadn’t even had to contend with any leering winks. That was a nice change. And while she continued to keep on her guard with Christopher, Daphne thought even the boy was warming up a little. He’d smile at little jokes she made during their lessons, and one day even paid her a bit of a compliment that seemed genuine, and not just for show. Daphne, Christopher said, was better at explaining long division than any teacher at his old school. They were all “dumb-asses” up there, he said. And Daphne was not a dumb-ass, he told her. She smiled, taking it as a real, honest-to-God compliment.
It was a Saturday, and the trees outside the house were on fire with brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges. The smell of autumn was in the air, and Ashlee suggested they go into Point Woebegone for lunch. Daphne had been into the village only for brief trips in the past few weeks: a couple of times with Ashlee to the grocery store, and once with Ben to a tack shop. Never had she gone in just for the fun of it.
“We might as well go now,” Ashlee said, “before everything shuts down. In the winter Point Woebegone closes up. It’s a real ghost town.”
Daphne was excited by the idea of it. A trip off the estate sounded like a terrific break from her routine. They hopped into Ashlee’s white BMW Z4, specially built with pink leather interior. The day was cool but sunny, so they figured they’d put the top down. As the wind whipped their hair, the two young women sped down the winding road, the crashing sea off to their left, into the village of Point Woebegone.
“We should do a little shopping, too,” Ashlee said. “Get you some new clothes. Sweetie, those same old skirts and sweaters are starting to get a bit threadbare!”
Today, in a rare change, Daphne was wearing jeans. She smiled. “I can’t afford new clothes yet,” she said. “I’m still saving.”
“Sweetie, my husband pays you every week and you get free room and board!” She laughed, looking over at her through a pair of oversized pink sunglasses. “Splurge a little!”
“Well, maybe one outfit,” Daphne said.
“We can put it on my charge and you can pay me later.”
“Oh, no,” Daphne said. “I couldn’t do that.”
She was very strict about her money. Mother Angela had opened a savings account for her a long time ago, and Daphne had deposited whatever small money she’d made doing odd jobs back in Boston. Now Mr. Witherspoon deposited her check into that same account every week, and Daphne kept track of her funds the old-fashioned way: with a savings passbook. Her salary was quite generous for a first-time tutor, and it was true that she had virtually no expenses. She’d have quite the savings in a very short time. She guessed that was another reason Mother Angela had wanted her to take this job. What other girl with her lack of experience would land a job this lucrative? She supposed she could splurge a little. She’d use her debit card. She wouldn’t let Ashlee put anything on her account.
Ashlee took her to a little boutique where the clothes seemed far more expensive than they were worth, and far more sexy than Daphne was used to. “Go ahead, try this on,” Ashlee urged Daphne, pushing a short polka-dotted skirt at her. Daphne blushed, arguing that it wasn’t her. But she tried it on anyway. Looking in the mirror, Daphne watched as Ashlee stood behind her, twisting her hair into a new, funky style. In her short polka-dotted skirt and new hairdo, Daphne didn’t recognize herself.
“I can’t believe you talked me into buying that!” Daphne said, laughing, carrying her new purchase as they headed to Rico’s Raw Bar on the beach.
“What would all the good sisters back at Our Lady say?” Ashlee hooted.
“Exactly!” Daphne burned with embarrassment thinking of the look that would cross Mother Angela’s face if she saw her in that skirt. Why had she bought it? “I’ll never have a chance to wear it,” Daphne told Ashlee.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said, telling the maître d’ they wanted a table for two. “I’m sure something will come along.”
That’s when Daphne saw him.
Sitting at a small table with a very lovely blond woman was Gregory Winston.
“Well,” Ashlee said, her voice lowering, “look who’s here.”
Daphne said not a word as the maître d’ led them to their table, which, as fate would have it, was just opposite Gregory’s. There was no way they could avoid him now. Gregory looked up, noticed Ashlee, and smiled politely. Then his eyes moved over to Daphne’s. She saw recognition in his gaze, but he simply looked away and continued his conversation with the woman at his table.
“Oh, isn’t he being gallant,” Ashlee said, smirking, as they took their seats. “Pretending he’s never seen you before. Afraid I’d rush back to Pete and spill the little secret you two share.”
“We don’t share any secret,” Daphne said. “He gave me a ride. It was all very innocent.”
“Mmhmm,” Ashlee said, winking at her and giggling. “Come on, Daphne. He’s a total hunk. If I wasn’t a happily married woman, I’d be all over him.”
Daphne said nothing. The waitress came to take their orders. Ashlee ordered them both margaritas, with salt. Daphne had no idea what a margarita even was. Then they’d have mussels and lobster rolls and coleslaw.
“You are totally checking him out,” Ashlee told her.
“I am not,” Daphne said. In fact, she was doing her best not to look over at Gregory’s table. She had to admit, however, that she was very curious to know who the woman he was lunching with was. His girlfriend? Whoever she was, she was extremely pretty, with gorgeous tanned legs that she kept crossing and uncrossing as if she was displaying them in her white denim shorts.
The waitress brought their drinks and Daphne took a sip.
“Careful, sweetie,” Ashlee told her. “There’s alcohol in there, you know.”
“Alcohol?” Daphne asked.
“Yeah, maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“I’ve never had an alcoholic drink in my life,” Daphne admitted.
Ashlee smiled. “Just sip it slowly and you’ll be fine.”
Within a few minutes Daphne had a light-headed feeling she’d never experienced before. She felt giddy.
“He is pretty handsome, isn’t he?” she asked Ashlee.