Sighing, Clara set her brush down and headed out. Amelia followed her.
She didn’t have to worry about it being just her, Jackson and Marc Kimball—the crew of Wickedly Weird Productions had returned.
Just returned. Nate Mahoney was handing his coat to Magda when Clara reached the living room, Becca Marle was speaking animatedly to Jackson, and Tommy Marchant was just coming through the door.
“Clara!” Tommy said, seeing her across the room. “Hey, you’re here. Nice to see you. I heard the cast was on the Fate now.”
Everyone turned to look at her. “I’m still here for the moment. I’ll be joining the cast soon enough.”
There as a moment of silence in which it seemed everyone waited for an explanation.
Except for Magda.
“Hey, wipe your feet there, Mr. Marchant!” she said. “This isn’t a barn!”
Tommy wiped his feet and everyone shuffled. Marc Kimball came out to the living room looking less than pleased.
“You’re all here,” he said.
“The police have told us—more or less ordered us—to get out here and pack up at the Mansion,” Nate Mahoney explained. “And they escorted us here. I think they wanted one of the FBI guys with us as well while we packed up our things.”
“Yes,” Jackson said. “I believe we have breakfast and coffee ready here, then we can all head on over.”
“Yes, do come on in,” Marc Kimball said. “Every day will be a step closer to finishing with this ghastly business.”
“When we catch the killer,” Jackson said, “that’s when we’ll be finished with this ghastly business.”
“Of course,” Kimball said. “Come in. Magda, we’ll need more plates.” He forced a smile.
Clara couldn’t help remembering that he’d come to her door in the night; she tried to slide by him and head into the dining room and sit at the end of the table.
No good; he found his way right after her.
But she was going to be all right. She heard a whisper at her ear.
“Don’t you worry, I’m watching the rich weirdo!”
Amelia was behind her.
*
Black Bear Island was actually small, a piece of earth and rock shot up by ancient volcanic activity and cut and carved by the movement of ice and glaciers.
That day, it seemed huge.
Thor and Mike rode snowmobiles to the forest and went through it bit by bit. They found bear markings, a hungry moose and dozens of bears.
Nothing more.
They’d sectioned different areas and each started from opposite ends; they’d comb the ground until they met in the middle each time.
It was in the midst of dense pines—leaves and branches so thick that the sun barely made its way through—that Thor suddenly stopped.
He stood dead still, looking, listening.
There was someone ahead of him in the forest. A dark shadow. But the shadow didn’t move, nor make a single sound.
He moved forward. It seemed a single ray of sunlight penetrated the green darkness.
He stood still again himself, his heart beating.
He was imagining things, he thought. Mandy Brandt was really gone; he’d never encountered her as a ghost. He’d only seen her in his dreams.
But she was there today. Caught in that single ray of sunlight.
Words tumbled from his lips; words he had said a hundred times.
“I’m sorry, Mandy. So sorry!” he said.
And he thought that she smiled. She came toward him and lifted her hand, setting it gently on his cheek. He felt the touch softly.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You are not to blame. You must keep going. You know the island. You can find the truth—you can stop him.”
The ray of sunlight was suddenly gone. He was standing by himself, talking to a large pine tree.
Mike reached him, unaware.
“Nothing. Damn it, nothing at all,” Mike said.
“The cliffs and caverns,” Thor said, turning to him. “I know the Coast Guard has been patrolling, but we can get into the cliffs. There’s a weapons stash here somewhere, and we’re going to find it.”
*
Not about to stay with Kimball, Emmy, Magda and Justin Crowley, Clara joined Jackson and the crew of Wickedly Weird Productions.
She’d wondered if Amelia would come to the Mansion.
But Amelia disappeared at some point after teasing both her and Jackson during breakfast, trying to make them appear to be talking to themselves. Clara had followed Jackson’s amused cue and ignored Amelia.
The Mansion had changed drastically from the morning when Clara had walked in looking to meet up with Natalie and Amelia and the Wickedly Weird crew and seen nothing but bodies, body parts, blood and guts.
The stage blood had been cleaned from the floors.
The body parts and props had been piled up in a tangle on the beautiful hardwood living room floor.
Forensic teams hadn’t actually cleaned up; they had made sure that all the blood was stage blood and they had garnered all the property that was meant to horrify, inspected it thoroughly and deposited it where the crews could look through it.