Before she could lose her nerve, she swung her leg to the other side of the wall and leaped down.
She landed, lost her balance, and fell. When she got up, half her body was white with snow. She shook as much as she could from her clothes and then followed the wall uphill toward the estate. Ahead of her, the gables of the house loomed between the trees. Squares of yellow light dotted the windows. She was approaching from the back, and she veered away from the brick wall to get closer. The trees ended at a landscaped courtyard fifty yards from the house. She saw a stone fountain that was dormant for the winter. A wrought iron table sat in the center of a circular patio with a large pancake of snow on top of it. Deer and rabbit tracks dotted the gardens.
She felt exposed as she crept through the courtyard to the house, whose two wings were connected at a right angle by a rounded turret that looked like something from a castle. A huge bay window in the south wing overlooked the courtyard, and lights were on inside. She stayed low, and when she reached the window, she poked her head above the frame to peer inside. Just as quickly, she ducked back down. Jungle Jack was stretched across a leather sofa, his face only inches from the glass. If he’d glanced left, they would have been staring at each other. Cat shrank down against the rear wall. She could hear the noise of the television inside, but one glance had told her that Jack was alone in the room.
Where was Dean Casperson?
Where was Aimee?
She backed away from the window and made her way around the turret and along the perpendicular wing that was closest to Hawthorne Road. Most of the lights were off. She followed the side of the house until she reached the driveway, where she could see the main gate and the detached garage. She waited, then tiptoed in hushed steps past the double front doors to the far side of the estate. She looked back at the gate. The guard outside wasn’t visible on the street.
The wind was in her face, cold and loud. The tall evergreens swayed. Despite the chill, her nervousness made her sweat. She continued around the corner of the house, where she was sheltered by the walls on both wings. The asphalt driveway curved beside her. On the second floor, twelve feet over her head, she saw lights. Behind the sheer curtains, a silhouette moved in and out of view.
It was Aimee Bowe.
Cat needed to see into that room. She spotted a white catering van parked near the back doors of the south wing, and the top of the van was only a few feet below the roofline of the house. She crept down the driveway until she reached the van. The rear door of the house was open. She could hear voices inside and smell the yeasty aroma of bread baking. The front of the van faced her. She put a boot on the bumper and climbed up the hood to the top of the vehicle, wincing as the steel of the chassis shuddered loudly under her feet. The roof was just above her, but the angle was sharp, and the shingles were covered with snow.
She braced her gloved hands against the gutter, hoping it would hold, and slithered awkwardly from the van to the roof. The wind was fierce there, making it hard to keep her balance. She stood up and put one foot in front of the other like a high-wire artist as she marched through the snow along the very edge of the roof. The drop to the ground loomed beside her. Her boots struggled for traction. It was twenty dangerous feet to the corner, but when she got there, she had a perfect view into the second-floor room in the next wing.
The curtains were drawn, but they were sheer, and when she lifted the binoculars to her eyes, she could see clearly. The large room was a study decorated in dark wood and leather, with a fire roaring in a stone fireplace on the far wall. She saw a wet bar glistening with mirrored shelves and crystal. A brass chandelier hung from the ceiling. The heavy walnut door near the fireplace was closed, but another door on the adjoining wall was open, and Cat could see a bedroom beyond the doorway.
There were two people in the room: Aimee Bowe and Dean Casperson.
Aimee sat on one end of the leather sofa. She had a glass of white wine in her hand, but she held it uncomfortably, and her legs were pressed stiffly together. She wore an orange blouse, black slacks, and sky-high heels. Dean sat across from her, on the other side of a Persian rug, in a wing-backed chair. He wore a heavy Nordic-style sweater and khakis. His legs were crossed, and he looked completely at ease. He sipped his drink from a lowball glass. His face had a casual smile, and he seemed to be doing all the talking.
Nothing was happening between them.
It looked innocent.
Where Cat stood, the wind gusted. She squatted and shoved a hand through the snow to the roof tiles to keep her balance. Under her boots, the snow was melting, making it slippery. She couldn’t stay up there much longer.
What she saw through the binoculars was two actors talking. Nothing more. Yet Cat didn’t like it. It was Aimee’s face that bothered her. It seemed almost vacant, as if she weren’t tracking on whatever Dean was saying. Her eyes had a strange distance. Minute by minute, as Cat watched, Aimee grew increasingly detached from reality. Her eyes opened and closed in slow, lazy blinks. Her head lolled. Dean talked as if he didn’t notice that something was wrong, but to Cat it was obvious.
Then the wineglass tipped and fell from Aimee’s hand.
Aimee didn’t even seem to notice that it had happened. Wine soaked her slacks; the glass broke into pieces on the hardwood floor. At first she didn’t react at all. Then she put both hands on either side of the sofa and tried to get up, but as she did, she fell back. She looked dizzy and confused. Across from her, Dean got up. He didn’t jump up in alarm or concern; he simply walked over and sat down next to her. His hand reached to her face and touched her cheek.
For Cat, the whole thing was a slow-motion horror.
She stood on the roof, paralyzed. She had to stop this, but she didn’t know how. Before she could decide what to do next, her phone rang, startling her with the loud noise of “Uptown Funk.” It was her ring tone for Curt; he was wondering where she was. She reached for her phone, but as her body twisted, she lost her balance. Her feet spilled out from under her, and she toppled backward. She hit the roof, then slid past the gutter with a cloud of snow, and she was airborne.
She couldn’t help it. She screamed. She dropped twelve feet and landed in a drift that broke her fall, but the wind couldn’t cover the noise. Behind her, near the van, she heard footsteps and shouts. Looking up, overhead, she saw Dean Casperson peering out the window into the darkness and barking into a phone. Cat scrambled to her feet and ran. She tore around the curving driveway toward the front of the house, but when she saw the gate, she also could see the security guard outside. He bellowed at her to stop. The gate was opening; he was heading toward her.
Cat switched direction. She barreled into the woods, bounding through the snow like a frightened deer. She could hear the guard behind her. She didn’t dare look back; she just ran. The tree branches ripped at her arms and poured snow into her face. She slipped, got up, slipped, and sprinted again. She zigzagged through the woods until she reached the brick wall on the perimeter of the property, but the wall was keeping her inside now. There was no way to climb. No way to escape.
She ran parallel to the wall with nowhere to hide and nowhere to go. Then, like a miracle, she saw the corner where she’d jumped down into the snow. And there was Curt, on top of the wall, waiting for her.