House of Shadows Read online

  “How did you know?” asked Miles.

  “If your theory is correct, and I think it is, then somehow this guy knew you were here the night you were accused of being with some other girl. This supports your theory. He did know. He tapped into the laptop’s webcam.”

  “This is insane!” I exclaimed, as Xander put his and Miles’ laptops on the desk, beside mine and George’s and Jenny’s.

  “Here,” John handed me my laptop. “I’ve downloaded a program that’s running right now. It’ll get rid of the virus for you.”

  I set the laptop on the kitchen table and returned to the group.

  John checked the other machines, but they were clean.

  “So how did I get this virus?” I asked.

  “Did you get any emails from Student Services?” Miles wondered.

  I thought.

  “Yeah. I did. There was a link, I clicked on it because it was from the university. But it was broken, at least that’s the message I got.”

  “Forward it to me and then delete it,” said John. “I’ll check it out.”

  “Okay,” I said. I went back to the kitchen and did that, then I returned to the living room and sat down. Miles stopped pacing, and sat beside me.

  “So back to the unanswered question,” said Annette. “How does this benefit them?”

  “We’ve got to try and rid ourselves of any assumptions about this,” Miles said. “We’ve been so wrong in a lot of ways, assuming that they’re bumbling and had terrible surveillance, and that they were trying to break us up… we need to think outside the box here, because that’s where they are.”

  “We’re assuming they don’t want you testifying…” I said slowly. “The dates on the calendar at least support that they’re aware of the trial and watching for a trial date.”

  “Let’s list what we know,” said John. “They want other people to doubt you, they don’t want you to doubt each other. They’ve put a lot of time and planning and effort into this. They’ve been stealing from you. They haunted your Grandmother to the point that your estate was left empty. They’re considering when the trial will be.”

  “If it was all about stealing from the estate, then it makes no sense that they would be trying to cast doubt in other people’s minds about our relationship,” I said. “Honestly, that would be more likely to drive us back to the estate and away from other people, and that would make it harder for them to carry things off.”

  “This is maddening,” said Xander. “I can’t think of any way this would benefit them.”

  None of us could.

  Chapter 18

  We were all on pins and needles, not knowing what would come next. Bea Hodges was an alias, as we suspected. Fingerprints taken from the guest house made it reasonable to assume her name was really Bea Cochran. Bea Cochran’s mug shot confirmed it. They were one and the same. It was good to know who was responsible for all of the weird goings-on, but there were still so many unanswered questions. The one weighing heaviest on our minds, was where are George Frank and Bea Cochran, now? He never returned to the estate, and she vanished as well. Law enforcement hadn’t been able to locate them, and neither had our PI. We were anxious for them to be caught before they did anything else.

  We continued with life as normally as we could. Miles insisted that I have a “buddy” at all times. I had classes with either him, or Jenny, or both, so that wasn’t difficult, and it did make sense. It’s not like I wanted to be walking alone, anyway. We texted often, when we weren’t together, for the reassurance.

  “Still nothing?” asked Annette, as she stirred the sauce for the pasta that boiled on the stove in our kitchen.

  Jenny chopped cooked chicken into strips, and I made a salad. Tonight was Chicken Alfredo night, using a recipe Jenny said was excellent. She’s a very good cook, so I couldn’t wait to try it.

  “Nope,” I said. “Nothing. The police haven’t seen them, and neither has the Sheriff office. It’s like they just disappeared.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice, if they just vanished permanently,” said Jenny.

  We heard loud cheering next door, and rolled our eyes and laughed. The boys were watching “the game,” whatever that is, at Miles’ and Xander’s apartment next door.

  “That would be nice, if we just knew for sure they disappeared for good. The suspense is miserable,” I said, as I grated parmesan cheese, per Jenny’s instructions.

  “If they haven’t been caught, what will you do about the wedding?” Annette asked.

  “We won’t have it in the rose garden, that’s for sure,” I replied. “That’s too out in the open, when you have stalkers after you.”

  “All those photos were so creepy,” agreed Annette.

  “I will tell you this though,” I said, waving the block of cheese in the air. “They will not stop us from getting married.”

  “No, they won’t,” said Jenny, as she carefully took the parmesan out of my hand.

  Another cheer erupted from next door.

  “Okay,” said Jenny, as she picked up the cheesy saucy pasta dish, and slid it into the oven. “This will cook for thirty minutes, and I almost guarantee you the guys will forget all about the game and be back over here, soon after.”

  “These breadsticks look awesome,” I said, inhaling the garlicky buttery fragrance.

  “Everything looks and smells so good,” said Annette. “You’re starving me to death!”

  Jenny laughed, and poured some type of Italian dressing on the salad, then tossed it with the salad tongs.

  I picked up a stack of plates and began setting the table.

  “Six plates, Anika. Those boys will be back,” said Jenny.

  We chatted, rinsing the dishes used for preparing the food and placing them in the dishwasher, as we waited for dinner to finish cooking.

  “So what’s for dessert?” asked Annette.

  “Tiramisu,” I said. “It looks so good, but cruel Jenny wouldn’t let me test it out to be sure it’s safe for the rest of you to eat.”

  Jenny laughed as she opened the oven door, then took out the Chicken Alfredo.

  It smelled unbelievably good. Jenny set it on the table as Annette finished filling the glasses with ice water, and the door to the apartment opened.

  “What is that enticing aroma from heaven?” asked Xander, planting a kiss on Jenny’s cheek, as he walked into the kitchen with Miles and John.

  Jenny blushed, and I couldn’t help but smile. They were good together, I was glad they figured that out. They sure were stealthy about it, though! I was Jenny’s roommate, and I had no idea when they started dating. Miles probably knew… maybe once we were married, he’d have to start telling me everything!

  “So your game’s over?” I asked, as Miles pulled out my chair, then sat next to me.

  “Are you kidding? Who could concentrate with this next door,” Miles said, waving at the food on the table. “And you,” he said, kissing my cheek.

  “Even the players would walk off the field if they were within sniffing distance of your kitchen,” said John, as he sat next to Annette.

  “Okay then, everyone help yourselves,” said Jenny.

  The food was truly amazing. Jenny should quit college and teach culinary school. She’s awesome.

  “This is excellent, ladies,” Miles said.

  The other guys chimed in, and Annette and I gave the credit to Jenny, to whom it was due, and added our praise for her latest success.

  “So what’s the news on your secret tunnels, man?” asked Xander, as he reached for another breadstick.

  Miles answered as he gathered another forkful of pasta.

  “The security team feels sure they’ve discovered all of the passages. They’ve gone over everything, even measured all of the rooms for unaccounted space.”

  “No small task,” I said. I was impressed.

  “It took a lot of guys on the job to do it,” Miles agreed.

  “How many passages were there?” asked Jenny, adding m
ore salad to her plate.

  “There’s the passage we first found, which leads to the underground room. There are four additional passages, one leading to the cave—” Miles caught Pandora in his hand, as she tried to jump on the table. He set her back down on the floor, and she scampered off.

  “You have a cave on your property?” John asked in surprise.

  “Yes,” I answered. “The riddle written on the paper doll, led to the cave, and the stone-filled crevice where the lost Bannerman family heirloom jewels were hidden.”

  “Wait—what?” asked Xander.

  Xander, John, and Annette looked at me as though I was speaking a foreign language.

  It dawned on me that not only had we not told our friends about Alfred and the attempted murder, we hadn’t talked about the search for proof of Miles’ innocence, either.

  It was easier not to talk about those things with people, because we were both there, doing those things together, and yet—Miles was semi-transparent guy, then. Not in a coma, which is what everyone thought. I was believed to have done all of those things alone, and it was hard to remember and stick to that story when talking about it.

  What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive! Not for the first time was that little rhyme running through my head. I’d rather be tangled in a web than a straight-jacket, though.

  I brought my mind back to the table with everyone else.

  “It’s very cool, you guys,” said Jenny. “It’s amazing, the way Anika tracked down information and solved a one-hundred and forty-four year old mystery.”

  “Are you serious?” exclaimed Annette.

  “We can watch the interview after dinner, if you want,” Miles said. “Anika was on an hour-long news program that outlined everything she was up to, a year ago.”

  “You’ve got me, we have to see this,” John said, speaking for all of them.

  One thing about three hungry guys, there was no food to put away after dinner. We loaded the dishwasher and set it running, then took our tiramisu to the living room and Miles brought up the interview on the television screen.

  I did the interview when I believed Miles was gone from me forever, and I watched it then, also. In the hospital, Miles watched it over and over. This was the first time for us to see it together.

  I doubt anyone else saw the sadness in my eyes on the video, but I did. I’m sure Miles did too, he knew how much I suffered when I thought I’d have to live the rest of my life without him. I remembered so well how I fought to keep that grief hidden as well as I did. Curled up next to Miles on the loveseat with his arm around me, I was so thankful that it was now, and not then.

  John, Annette, and Xander were stunned by the interview.

  “What else are you guys not telling us!” Xander wanted to know. “You—get pushed off a cliff and are in a coma for eleven months. You—solve a hundred-forty-four year old mystery, and find long-lost hidden treasure in a cave. I can’t believe you don’t talk about this stuff all the time! If I did anything even half this cool, I would!”

  We just laughed. Being together, really together, eclipsed everything else for us. And… every time we talked about this stuff, we weren’t able to be fully truthful. So we just didn’t talk about it.

  “That is so amazing,” Annette declared. “The jewelry is spectacular!”

  “I thought it appropriate that Anika’s ring should have one of those jewels,” Miles said.

  I held out my hand so our friends could see.

  “That is so cool!” said Annette.

  “I love it,” I said. “It means a lot to me that it’s a family heirloom.”

  “I had Anika’s wedding band designed and created at the same time as her engagement ring. It’s inlaid with an alternating row of diamonds and rubies, that are also family heirlooms.”

  “Ooh, I can’t wait to see it!” I said. “Why rubies?”

  “Because they’re the color of the crimson roses in the garden,” Miles replied, with that melting look in his eyes.

  I grabbed a magazine off the coffee table and fanned myself in self-defense, which made Miles laugh.

  “It’s amazing how identical you are to your ancestor who was falsely accused,” Jenny said, as she looked intently at Miles.

  “You really are,” agreed Annette, and she also gave Miles a funny look.

  He just smiled.

  “We never finished talking about the secret passages,” I changed the subject. “We got sidetracked at the cave.”

  “Oh, right,” Miles got back on track. “There’s a passage between Anika’s room and Grandma Polly’s. It leads down to the secret room. Another leads from the secret room to the other wing of the estate.”

  “The person that ran into me at the start of Christmas break came from down the hall, so there had to be two of them in the house that night. Alfred’s nephew, and Blondie, aka Bea.”

  “There’s also a tunnel leading to the guest house,” Miles continued. “Either Alfred or his nephew could easily have spoken inside the tunnel, and terrified the Henderson’s. You can imagine how that would echo.”

  “Oh how scary,” Annette shuddered. “But you lived there, right Anika, and you never heard anything?”

  “Nothing. I never heard a thing,” I confirmed.

  “What’s with all the tunnels?” asked John. “You had no idea, right?”

  “None,” Miles said. “I’m certain my parents didn’t, either.”

  Neither did his older brother, we talked about this.

  “What are you going to do about the tunnels?” asked Jenny, as she picked up empty plates from the tiramisu, and carried them to the kitchen.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Miles said. “Fill them in, fit them with ordinary doors… make them passages instead of secret passages. The tunnel to the cave has been fitted with a steel frame, and a door with a lock that will stand up to several loads of dynamite. The security team is certain that it, and the door in the back of the guest house closet, are the only secret entrances into the house itself.”

  “All secret passages are fitted with webcams and motion sensors too,” I added. “Tony and his team monitor the entire estate 24 hours a day.”

  “So, if anyone is still hiding in the castle or tries to get in, we’ll know about it,” Miles said.

  At last the day came that an April trial date was set. We hoped it would be over in time to be back for finals. Even more importantly, we hoped to be back in time for our own wedding. In the meantime, we hoped George Frank and Bea Cochran would be found and arrested, before they could interfere with our lives any further. It was anybody’s guess what would happen, and when, though.

  “What can we use instead of birdseed?” I asked Mom, as we looked at wedding cake designs.

  “Why don’t you want birdseed?”

  “Well, if everyone flings birdseed at us as we leave, it’ll get in the lawn. It’ll sprout, and I feel bad for Lawncare Extraordinaire, that they’ll have to get it all out.”

  “Hmmm…” said Mom. “Well, I don’t know. I suppose you could just go without. Don’t provide anything to be thrown at you.”

  We continued to flip through the design book.

  “But it’s okay, you know,” Mom thought out loud. “If it gets in the lawn. They’ll eventually weed it out, it’s part of the job. And I’m very sure they appreciate having that job.”

  Tryon screeched to a halt as he ran through the room.

  “Oooh, cake!” he said.

  “Yes, wedding cake,” I replied.

  “Cool!” Tryon ran back out.

  “Miles heard from the DA. Alfred’s trial is set to start soon,” I told Mom.

  “Well… that would be good,” Mom said, as she looked up. “Getting that out of the way before your wedding, would be great!”

  “I completely agree. I’m anxious to have that behind us.”

  “How is Polly holding up?”

  I thought about that.

  “It’s hard on her.
She’s been through a lot… thinking she was going to lose Miles while he was in the coma, and then finding out he was there because Alfred Sullivan tried to kill him over the estate.”

  “That poor woman…” said Mom.

  “Yeah. So, Miles talked to Polly about it. At her age, and with everything she’s been through, we don’t think it would be good for her to go to the trial. I mean she has every right to, it certainly concerns her, but it wouldn’t be good for her. So, Miles convinced her to go ahead and finish her traveling with her friend Enid. She’ll be back when school lets out, as she originally planned.”

  I flipped through more pages. “Ooh, I like that one,” I said.

  “I do too. That’s beautiful. I love the bridge,” said Mom, tapping the photo.

  Oh, how perfect! The bridge Miles built the year before he became semi-transparent guy, is what led me to the castle, and to him.

  “That one then, that is perfect,” I said with satisfaction. “I don’t need to see any more.”

  “All right then, I’ll mark it,” said Mom, as she wrote on one of her many wedding prep lists. “Miles is a very considerate young man to realize how hard that would be on Polly, and to want to spare her.”

  “Yeah, he is… he loves Polly, and so do I.”

  I stared unseeing at the photo of the wedding cake in front of me.

  “I want to go with Miles and be there for him at the trial,” I blurted out, and bit my lip, waiting for Mom’s response.

  I was afraid I’d get another lecture about staying away from lines. We wouldn’t be staying in the same room, though. How would this be very different from living next door to each other all school year? With the stalker still out there, not that Mom knew about that, I’d never be able to do anything but worry if Miles went, and I stayed behind. He’d worry the whole time about me, too. I didn’t want to stress Mom out, but I was going with him. Beside him, is where I belong.

  “Well of course you want to go!” Mom exclaimed, giving me a funny look. “He needs you, and your support. You couldn’t possibly stay here and leave him to go through that by himself. I’m sure it’s going to be hard for him, testifying about what that evil man did. I just cannot understand how anyone could ever want to hurt Miles. He is such a sweet, likeable young man.”