Dead By Dusk

"I have no idea," Stephanie said honestly.

"So scary!" Suzette said.

Stephanie reached back and unhooked her cross, offering it to Suzette. "Here, take this."

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

"The old fellow gave it to you."

"I know, but you take this one. I'll go and buy one from him tomorrow. I'll take someone with me—someone who really speaks Italian. I want to know what he was trying to say to me."

"I think he was just talking crazy."

" He was talking crazy!" Stephanie exclaimed. "Right. A girl is found buried—but they decide she was killed by animals. Then her mother lops her head off when she's lying in her coffin. We all dream—weird things. Then Grant finds a human arm on his porch. And the old fellow is talking crazy? Hmm. I think I want to know what he was saying."

Suzette nodded miserably. She strode across the room, then glanced at her watch. "It's five. Think it will be okay if we go soon?"

"Yes," Stephanie said.

"It's okay if you go right now," Drew said from the doorway. "I'm going to hang out a while longer.

Arturo just sent Giovanni with a car from the resort to pick you girls up. Go back and get some sleep. I'll stay until after he wakes up for real, has some breakfast, and talks me into believing it's okay if I leave."

"I should stay," Stephanie murmured.

"No. You look like hell. If you all go, I'll sleep in the chair. I'll be fine. Then, when I'm totally crashed tomorrow, you guys can take over."

Doug tossed on the bed and flopped over, restlessly clawing at his neck.

"What's he doing now?" Drew wondered worriedly.

"Think he's… allergic to metal?" Suzette suggested.

Drew frowned, looking at the cross. "Is this his?"

"We don't know—I don't remember seeing it on him, either," Stephanie said.

"Maybe one of the nurses is praying for him… and thought he needed it," Suzette said. "You know how some people feel about actors—especially comedians. Maybe she—or he—thought he needed all the help he could get."

"Yeah, but look," Doug murmured. "It looks like it's irritating his skin! We'd better get it off."

"Maybe," Stephanie murmured.

And maybe Doug did indeed have an allergy. Once Drew had turned Doug over and Stephanie had gotten the clasp undone, he seemed to be fine, falling back into a restless sleep. The irritation on his throat seemed to disappear almost immediately.

"There, feel better?" Drew asked Stephanie. "Get going—Giovanni is here."

At last, Stephanie agreed. She felt guilty leaving, but the others convinced her.

Outside, Giovanni was waiting for them with the resort van. He was sympathetic and charming. Despite the way he spoke, with the right words and duly respectful of the gravity of Doug's condition and the events of the day, he looked at them all—with appreciation. He was an attractive and charming young man, trying to lift their spirits as they returned.

"Lena agreed, she's bunking in with me," Suzette, in the middle seat, told Stephanie, who was up front.

"That's good," Stephanie said.

"Stephanie, Liz will be… alone?" Suzette said.

Lena elbowed her in the ribs.

"Oh, yeah, right… Clay?" she said, looking at Liz.

"We're very close, of course, but don't worry about me. I'm fine—really. Especially right now. I think I'm going to hang in the lobby until they open the restaurant for breakfast."

"And you… well, I guess you're fine, too," Lena said, looking at Stephanie.

"I'm fine," she assured them, looking ahead.

Fine.

Yes, she'd be fine. Alone!

Grant was surely in his own place. And surely exhausted by now as well. In the hours that they d been at the hospital, he had probably spent most of his time with the police!

Giovanni pulled in front of the resort. Stephanie was the last out, thanking him for having come at such a late hour.

"My pleasure," he assured her. "But… Mr. Peterson… he went back to his place."

"Yes?" she said.

He flushed handsomely, dark lashes sweeping his cheeks as he looked down. She realized that Giovanni—like most of the resort—was surely aware of where Grant had been sleeping.

"I thought you might want to know where he was."

"Thank you, Giovanni. And good night."

She started toward the main entrance. Suzette was waiting for her; Liz and Lena were just ahead. "Was the sensuous-eyed young Italian trying to make you feel the need for male companionship through the night?" Suzette asked.

Stephanie had to laugh. "I get the impression he'd like to spread love around the world. But he's always respectful. Hey, you all still be careful, okay?" she said. Then she gave them a wave, hurrying out, anxious. She felt nothing but absolute exhaustion. And she wanted desperately to be alone.

She nearly ran out back, grateful that it was so close to morning—to dawn, to the bright light of the sun.

And yet, when she hurried from the rear doors of the resort down the trail to her own place, she realized it was still very dark.

Fumbling in her purse, she found her room key.

As she neared her door, she found herself thinking about Grant.

What had he felt when he approached his own door—and saw a human arm there?

Or had he put it there?

Chills ripped into her, and she ran the last few steps to her door, opening it quickly. She loathed herself for having such vicious thoughts—surely, he was having his problems, but to suspect such things about a man she…

Loved.

That was just it! Oh, Lord, women could be such fools, letting an all-consuming passion, a hunger for the intimacy of such a sex life, interfere with logic and sense. She couldn't do that. She couldn't tell herself that just because she needed him beside her, because he made the earth and the heavens rise and explode like fireworks, that there couldn't be something wrong with him.

Very wrong.

Shaking her head, she pushed open the door. As she did so, she had a sense of a shadow, huge, bat-like, sweeping the night behind her.

She stepped in and slammed her door, and turned on every light in the place.

She ran up the stairs, turned on more lights, and washed her face. She stepped into the shower and let the water run, then froze.

A shadow seemed to have swept through her room.

She turned off the water and stood dead still.

Listening.

She waited. Nothing.

At last, as quietly as she could, she opened the glass door and groped for her towel, looking out to the bedroom.

Nothing.

She wrapped the towel around her, and tentatively stepped into the bedroom. The lights were on, as she had left them. The glass doors were locked; the draperies were still.

She exhaled, and knew she had to run downstairs—if she didn't, she'd never sleep.

Clutching her towel, she started down the stairs. Step by step.

The lights were blazing. As she had left them.

She stepped more quickly, hurrying down to the first-floor landing. She checked the hall closet, then the kitchen, and the doors that led to the beach. Everything was locked, as she had left it. And she wasn't turning the lights off. She'd have to worry about conservation at some later date.

At the foot of the stairs, she made one long, last assessment of her ground-floor area.

Lights were on, doors were locked, place was empty.

She started back up the stairs, reached the landing, and headed to her bedroom area. There, she paused, dead still, terror gripping her heart.

The draperies were breezing in, like great, puffy white ghosts, billowing.

The back door was open.

There seemed to be… a shadow. A shadow emerging, growing, from the corner of the room.

A shadow…

Quickly gone.

For suddenly, the whole of the little cottage was plunged into darkness.

Chapter 14

Liz had waited until Suzette and Lena left the lobby, walking out arm in arm to Suzette's cottage.

She had no intention of waiting around until breakfast.

Her room was on the second floor of the main resort, facing the cottages. She hurried to it. Opening the door, she looked in. "Clay?"

There was no answer. Nor had he left her a message of any kind.

She strode across to the window. From her vantage point, she could see the area of the beach on both the left and the right, and the entries to most of the cottages.

She could see Stephanie's place, ablaze with light.

She could see Lena and Suzette, just reaching the latter's cottage. Lena was standing at the door, looking around, apparently urging Suzette to join her. Her arms were wrapped around her chest.

Lena was digging in her purse for her room key.

She surveyed the beach area the best she could.

It remained quiet.

Then, she saw it.

A sweeping black shadow, descending.

Then, Stephanie Cahill's place plunged into darkness.

Her heart slammed.

The time had come.

Turning away from the window, she raced out of her room, heedless of the door flying closed behind her.

She was desperate to make it out of the resort, and over to the cottage in time.

Stephanie stood in the total darkness, blinking and frozen, staring into the corner where she had seen the shadow.

There was a commotion at the glass doors, someone coming through, entangling in the billowing drapes.

She wore nothing but a towel, and carried no weapon, but instinct warned her of the most acute and terrible danger.

She needed something, anything!

Then, suddenly, there was more noise at the sliding glass doors and the draperies weren't just billowing, they were exploding into her room. As they did so, the complete and sudden black was eased.

Outside, the dawn was coming at last.

And now, in the pale light, she saw that her draperies had been cleanly pulled from the curtain rod. It appeared that they had turned into a massive ball on her floor. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">