He started up the stairs again, calling over his shoulder. His high, reedy voice echoed off the curving walls. “Your friend Gabe? He ain’t what you think he is, and I can prove it. I know you don’t believe me, but ain’t you curious?”
She was, damn it. Almost against her will, she began to climb, higher and higher. Once, halfway up, she stopped to catch her breath. She made the mistake of looking down and was seized by a sudden wave of terror. The stairs spun crazily beneath her feet, and she felt herself about to pitch backward. Panic-stricken, Brooke clawed at the brick wall, trying to gain a handhold. Bile rose in her throat, and she felt a crushing weight on her chest. She knelt and gripped the wooden stair risers at waist level.
“You coming?” C. D.’s disembodied voice floated from above.
“I can’t do this!” Brooke cried when she could catch her breath. “I’m dizzy. I’m afraid of falling!”
“Happens all the time. Don’t look down. Just keep coming.”
Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. She managed to stand upright. She took a step. Paused, took a breath then took another step, and then another.
*
C. D. leaned casually against the glass-enclosed turret. “Took you long enough,” he said when Brooke finally crawled onto the wooden landing. Her hands and knees were blackened from the gritty stairs, and she was sick and scared and bathed in her own sweat.
“Dizzy,” she gasped.
He reached into a Styrofoam cooler and handed her a bottle of water. “Don’t be such a crybaby.”
After she’d regained her hard-won composure, she looked around at what must have been the lens room when the lighthouse was still operational. Queasy as she was, even she would admit that the view was, as advertised, spectacular. She understood why Farrah and her friends trespassed here. From 120 feet up, she could see the roof of Shellhaven and its outbuildings, the dock, and the river, and in the far distance, the mainland. The sweep of untouched beach and endless ocean felt calming. When she turned toward the north end of the island, she could see the state’s ferry boat churning away from the island.
But the sudden head movement brought on another spasm of anxiety and nausea. She slumped down onto the floor.
“You done sightseeing?”
C. D. had made himself a rat’s nest of dirty clothes and a sleeping bag. A backpack was stashed beside a wooden soft drink crate, atop which sat a file folder and a heavy, lethal-looking flashlight.
“Here’s what I wanted to show you,” he said with a smug smile. “My dossier.”
*
Brooke opened the folder and made a show of leafing through the documents, but trying to read the already blurry printouts made her even queasier.
“What exactly do you want from me, C. D.?” she asked.
“I need your help. Your lawyer buddy Gabe tried to kill me.”
Humor him, Brooke thought. Isn’t that what you do with delusional people?
“I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “Why would Gabe try to kill you?”
“Because I know stuff about him. Stuff he doesn’t want anybody else to know. He tried to kill me once, and he’ll try it again unless you help me.”
Oh God. C. D.’s paranoia was in full flower. She eyed the holster on his hip. If challenged, would he become violent or unhinged?
“You’re saying Gabe actually tried to kill you? When was this?”
“Last week. I don’t know the day. I been running and hiding, and I lost track of time.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I been calling him a lot to, you know, try to get him to speed up this inheritance thing. Or just float me a loan, you know, until the court or whoever decides that I’m Josephine’s son and I’m her heir. I guess it pissed him off, because last week when I called, he said I was full of shit, just some damn drifter who was trying to cash in on a sick old lady. He said he’d done some research and found out some bad stuff about me.”
“Like what?” Brooke asked.
“I ain’t a damn saint. Never said I was. Maybe I wrote some bad checks when I was between jobs, and maybe I got in some bar fights and got locked up for public drunkenness for pissin’ on somebody’s tires.”
“Okay,” Brooke said soothingly. “Those kinds of things happen. Totally understandable.”
“Ticked me off, you know? Some damn lawyer digging up dirt on me. So I decided I’d see what kind of dirt I could dig up on him.”
“Is that when you went to the library in St. Ann’s?”
“You know about that?” C. D. asked. “They keep records of who all looks up that stuff? Them librarians said they didn’t do that.”
“I have a confession to make,” Brooke said, coloring slightly. “We—that is, Lizzie and Felicia and I—were worried when you just disappeared. So we went over to your cottage, and we found the key where you’d hidden it, and we went in. I’m sorry, C. D., but really, we were worried that you might be sick or something.”
“Snooping. Spying on me,” C. D. said accusingly. “Big Brother always watching.”
“We found some of those papers you printed out from the library, the old newspaper photos and clippings. I was in the library yesterday, taking my son to story hour. I asked the librarians if they knew you, and they told me you’d been doing a lot of your own research and that they’d helped you figure out how to use the computers and access databases.”
“You know they charge you for stuff?” C. D. said, indignant. “I mean, that library is paid for with my tax dollars. And hell, I’m a senior citizen and a Vietnam vet. But yeah, that’s where I was doing my research. After that crook Gabe dug up his dirt, I figured two could play that game. So I got them library ladies to show me how to look at the clerk’s records in Savannah and up there at Sea Island, where he’s got that fancy house of his.”
Brooke pulled out her phone and pointed at the text message he’d sent her. “Is that where you found this?”
“And there’s a bunch more like that too,” C. D. said smugly. “He’s plastered bad paper all over Savannah. And that place of his up at Sea Island, it’s got all kinds of liens on it.” He tapped the file folder. “I’m not just talking about tax liens, either. Roofers, electricians, landscapers. Hell, the guy that cleans his swimming pool has a lien on that house.”
“Are you sure you’ve got the right address and the right Gabe Wynant?” Brooke asked. “I’ve known Gabe for years. We worked in the same law firm. He’s a wealthy man with a thriving legal practice. I’ve been to his house downtown on West Jones Street several times. It’s probably worth $2 or $3 million. The same for the Sea Island house. Gabe is one of the most respected attorneys in Savannah.”
“He’s a damn crook is what he is. Look at all them small businesses he stiffed.”
Brooke said. “Look, C. D., Savannah’s still a small, gossipy Southern town. If Gabe were in some kind of financial trouble, there would be rumors, and I’d have heard something.”
“How long you been living down here?” C. D. asked.
“Three years,” she admitted. “I guess I have kind of cut myself off from the rumor mills.”
“You know the guy in the $2,000 suit and Rolex watch that drives a Mercedes and a Porsche,” C. D. said. He took off his cap and bent his head down. “Look here.”
There was a knot the size of a hen’s egg on the back of C. D.’s skull with an angry, jagged red scar running through it. “This is the guy I know.”
“Oh my God. Gabe did this to you? When? How?”
“Last week. I called him up and told him I wanted to talk to him about getting an advance on my money, and he just laughed. Said I wasn’t getting a dime. So I texted him the same photo I sent you, of those bad check charges, and all of a sudden, his calendar got freed up in a hurry. He said he couldn’t get down here until early evening. I was supposed to meet him at seven, but it was closer to eight. He said he’d got tied up in traffic, which I think now was just a lie.