“Hm?” he said, turning back.
“Don’t worry. I swear, I’ll have my back to the wall like a Mafia capo—I won’t let anyone near her while you and Mike are out tomorrow,” Jackson promised.
“I know you will,” Thor assured him.
He started to head down the hallway to Clara’s room and then paused.
There was someone in the hallway. For a moment, he wondered if the ghost of Amelia Carson was lingering in the shadows, but it was not Amelia. Whoever was there was tall and broad-shouldered—a man.
“Who is that?” he demanded, speaking loudly for the person to hear, but glancing back with a questioning frown for Jackson and the officer who was positioned against the wall heading toward the other section of the cabin.
Jackson was quickly on his feet.
“No one walked here by me,” he said tersely.
Thor strode the distance to the man.
“Hey!” came a voice of protest. “It’s Marc Kimball, and I own the place!” Kimball said, coming into the glow of light in the living room.
“But how did you get there?” Jackson demanded, coming to stand by Thor.
Kimball was silent, just looking at them belligerently for a moment.
“I said good-night to you. You went up the stairs to your room,” Jackson said.
Kimball shrugged. “It is my house, gentlemen, and I am free to move about it as I choose.”
He had been coming to knock on Clara’s door, Thor was certain.
He was amazed at the cool control in his voice when he spoke. “Of course you are, Mr. Kimball, but we’re trying to protect everyone in this house. If there are secret stairways, we need to know about them.”
Kimball pointed down the hall in the direction from which he had come. “No secret stairway—you just push the panel. Go on up and it leads to my private rooms. Well, it leads to another panel, and then my private rooms.”
“Why were you sneaking down the back stairs?” Thor asked.
Sneaking. Wrong word.
“Special Agent Erikson—I do not have to sneak anywhere in my house,” Kimball informed him.
The door to Clara’s room opened and she stepped out, blonde and beautiful in a silk bathrobe.
“Hey!” she said. “Is everything all right?” She gave them all a dazzling smile. “I’m incredibly lucky—all of you keeping watch like this. Thank you, Mr. Kimball. With these gentlemen, it’s their work. You’re going above and beyond—hospitality, and guard duty. It’s all truly appreciated. I feel wonderfully safe here at night. Thank you!”
Kimball turned his attention to her. “I was hoping not to wake you, but I did want to make sure that you were all right. You are my guest—I’d loathe for any danger or any ill whatsoever to come your way in my house.”
“So kind,” Clara murmured. She looked them all over again like a sweet Southern belle. “Thank you all, and good night.”
She went back in her room and closed the door.
The three men in the hallway stood there in silence for a moment. Then Kimball cleared his throat. “Well, then, good night.”
He went back down the hallway. The panel he’d referred to looked like part of the wall. When he pushed it, however, it slid open. Then he disappeared into darkness.
“I don’t like it,” Thor said.
“At least we know it’s there now,” Jackson said.
“I don’t like that he came down here.”
“He makes no bones about the fact that he’s attracted to Clara,” Jackson said.
“I don’t care what he says about it being his house—he was sneaking around in it,” Thor said.
Jackson didn’t argue that. He thought that Clara was probably a good actress; she’d managed to still a possible fight with down-home Southern charm.
He didn’t have to ponder it long; her door opened again and she stepped out, looking anxiously at them. “He’s gone?”
They both nodded.
She swallowed. “He could have been coming to...well, it was slimy one way or the other, whether he wanted to kiss or kill me.”
“I’m coming in. I’ll get a chair and sit in front of the door while you sleep,” Thor said.
He waited for her to argue.
She didn’t.
“Now I’ll be looking in both directions,” Jackson said. “The two of you, get some rest. If anything goes on from here, the cops and I will handle it. Good night, Clara.”
He walked back to the living room. Clara had already turned to head into her room. When Thor entered and closed the door, she swung around to face him. “Amelia was here. She was here for quite a while.”
“And you learned...?”