I took one more step forward, caught a whiff of decay, then stopped, suppressing the automatic response of sick that rose in my throat.
“She was hanging up there,” Cerny said beside me, and automatically, I looked up at the oak tree. I wished I hadn’t. There was a length of rusted chain hanging from the lowest branch. It looked a lot like the chain that had been wound around the barn doors. “She must’ve hanged herself.”
I lurched back and vomited into the leaves. When I was done, I sat down, gasping and wiping tears and snot and vomit. When I stood again, I felt Heath’s hand on my shoulder, leaning on me for support.
“Are you okay?” he asked me in a low voice.
I nodded. “It’s her. It’s Glenys.”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, then pulled me back toward the car, a couple of yards away from Cerny and Glenys’s still form. I grasped his jacket, two fistfuls, and held on to him as tightly as I could.
“Do you think he killed her?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. But we have to get down to Dunfree. Report it to the police there.”
“The car is wrecked. My knee feels like a truck ran over it. We can’t walk down to Dunfree.”
My eyes cut to Cerny. “We could take his car. Or one of the others.”
Heath shook his head. “And let him get away? No fucking way. Let’s just get him back to the house and see that he’s . . . I don’t know, secured, I guess. He seems pretty distraught. Maybe if we just talk to him, he’ll stay put. I’ll get a bag of ice on my knee. We’ll call the police and then, when they show up, get the hell out of here.”
The temperature was falling, and I felt a few drops of rain hit me. It had gotten colder, just in the time we’d been out here. I felt myself begin to shiver uncontrollably.
“The whole thing is just wrong,” I said.
Heath glanced over at the doctor. “Agreed. The guy’s a kook—and, I don’t know, maybe he even had something to do with this whole . . . Glenys situation—but either way, we need to let the police handle it.”
He was right. I knew he was, but the last thing I wanted to do was go back to that house.
“Don’t worry.” Heath touched my face. “I may have a bum knee, but he’s old. If he tries anything . . . if he tries to hurt you, I’ll beat the ever-loving shit out of him.”
Heath gestured at Cerny to get his attention. “It’s going to take the police a good half hour to get up here,” he yelled. “We’ll go back to the house and wait there with you. It’s getting cold. And dark.”
“We can’t leave her. There are animals . . .” Cerny’s voice trailed off.
Oh my God.
Heath snapped at the doctor. “Cover her with your jacket, if you want.”
Cerny shucked off his tweed jacket and Heath hobbled through the leaves and draped it over the upper half of Glenys’s body. A makeshift shroud. Would that really keep the animals off her? I didn’t know how these things worked—these very basic, human events of life and death and nature. Other than Chantal in her nest of white satin, I’d never seen a dead person.
“Go get your car. Wait for us up at the road,” Heath said to Cerny, who nodded like an obedient child and lumbered away. I pulled open the door of the Nissan, scooped the knife out of the door pocket, and held it up.
“Okay,” Heath said dubiously.
“Just in case.” I slid the blade between my wool sock and boot, then pulled my jeans over the handle. I offered him an arm. “One of us should have a weapon.”
Cerny drove us back up to the house, disappeared into his office for several minutes, then rejoined us in the front hall. “Dunfree police are on the way.” He raked a hand through his wet hair.
I glanced at Heath. “Maybe we should call too.”
Cerny handed his phone to Heath, who limped into the library to make the call.
“I’m sorry for running out in the road,” Cerny said. “For behaving so . . . erratically. I was distraught. Not thinking straight.” He shook his head. “I didn’t expect to find her in that state.”
The image of Glenys flashed into my brain. Her body covered by Cerny’s tweed jacket, anointed by the freezing rain, slowly stiffening, cold under the low white clouds, the dampness soaking to her skin. The temperature would probably plunge tonight—the first drop of the fall—but it would be okay, the police would get to her before then. They would zip her up in one of those black bags, and she would be protected from the cold and wet.
I wanted to ask him who she really was and why she’d lied to me, but that would have to wait for when the police arrived. For now, I just wanted to make sure Heath was comfortable and keep this maniac as calm as possible.
The doctor sighed and scrubbed at his eyes. “I could use a drink. Join me?”
“Yeah, no,” I said with a twist of my lips. “No drink for me.”
Cerny scuttled back to his office, and I went into the library. Heath was leaning against the mantel, just hanging up the phone.
“Are they coming?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Do you think Luca got out? Maybe he’s called the police too.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on any help from him. Ten to one, he’s illegal.”
“What if Cerny killed him too?”
“Daphne, come on. We don’t know for sure that he killed Glenys—or whatever her name is. He said she hanged herself with the chain.”
“He also said this was a couples’ retreat, introduced us to a fake couple called the McAdams and told us they were staying in an empty room upstairs.” I was on a roll. “Glenys was in her sixties, and that branch was at least seven or eight feet off the ground. Tell me how a woman that age, or any age, for that matter, could”—I swallowed—“loop a heavy metal chain around her neck, throw it up over a tree, and attach it all by herself? Not to mention I didn’t see a clip or a lock or anything that would’ve held it fast. The whole thing defies the laws of physics.”
Heath shook his head wearily. “I don’t know, Daphne. Maybe we overlooked whatever Glenys used on the chain. I mean, it could’ve fallen in the leaves, right? And look, obviously, the guy’s a nut. But I don’t think he’s dangerous. If he did kill her, wouldn’t he be long gone by now?”
“You’re assuming he’s in his right mind.”
“Anyway, when the police get here, we’ll tell them everything. Let them handle it. I’m going to sit down.”
“I’ll get you some ice.”
“No.” He put his hand on my arm. “We stay together until the police come.”
He eased himself down on the dusty, threadbare sofa and leaned his head against the back. His dark hair and jacket were still damp, but he made no move to dry off. He seemed too focused on the pain. Cerny—or Luca—had lit the gas fire and it was crackling in the grate, animating the fiend behind it.
I moved closer to the fire, rolled my stiff shoulders, and closed my eyes. I pictured Jerry and Donna McAdam the way I’d seen them when we first arrived at Baskens, standing by the bay window, wineglasses in hand. It was hard to believe they were nothing but actors in a play, random people who Cerny had convinced or paid to come up here and lie to us.
Jesus. It was all so preposterous.
Shortly, Dr. Cerny returned with our phones and a tray with two crystal tumblers of brown liquor. He’d already partaken back in his office—I could smell it in a cloud around him, bourbon or scotch, I couldn’t tell the difference.
“Did you drug it again?” I asked Cerny. Across the room, I could feel Heath stiffening, wanting to intervene, but I didn’t care. I was through holding my tongue.
Cerny met my gaze. “I’m sorry about before. I thought it was for your own good.”
“Have a seat, Dr. Cerny,” Heath said. “I think it’s time we all had a talk.”
“I’m not—” Cerny said at the same time, but at the look on Heath’s face, he shut his mouth. I suddenly felt inexplicably gripped with fear.
“I don’t want to talk,” I said.
“I know you don’t, my dear,” Heath said. And, for some reason, I wanted to say something nasty in return. Heath had never called me that—my dear. I hated the way it sounded coming from his mouth. But I was just on edge.