Page 84 of The Shape of Night

CINNAMON BEACH, SPRING, #4 IN A SERIES.

Why does that name sound so familiar? I know I’ve heard it before and I know it was a woman’s voice that said the words. Then I remember. It was Donna Branca, explaining to me why suspicion had fallen on Ned Haskell.There was a woman who went missing about five years ago. Ned had her house keys in his truck. He claimed he found them on Cinnamon Beach.

The same beach that keeps reappearing in Ben’s paintings. Surely it’s just a coincidence. Others must have visited this cove, sunned themselves on this same sand.

The dog whines and I glance down, startled by the sound. My hands have gone cold.

Through the living room doorway, I spy an easel and canvas. As I move into the next room, I catch the scent of turpentine and linseed oil. Propped up before the window is Ben’s current work in progress. So far it’s just a sketch, the outline of a harbor scene waiting for the artist to breathe life and color into it. Leaning against the walls are dozens of paintings he’s completed, waiting to be framed. I flip through them and see ships plowing through swells, a lighthouse lashed by storm-tossed waves. I move to the next stack of canvases and slowly flip through these, as well. Cinnamon Beach and the missing woman are still on my mind, still bothering me. Donna had said the woman was a tourist who’d rented a cottage near the beach. When she vanished, everyone assumed she’d simply gone for a swim and drowned, but when her house keys turned up on Ned’s dashboard, suspicion had fallen on him. Just as it’s fallen on Ned now, for the murder of Charlotte Nielson.

I flip to the last canvas in the stack and freeze, the hairs on my arms suddenly standing up as gooseflesh ripples across my skin. I am staring at a painting of my own house.

The painting is not finished yet; the background is dark blue and featureless and patches of bare canvas still show through, but there is no doubt this house is Brodie’s Watch. Night swathes the building in shadow and the turret is but a black silhouette against the sky. Only one window is brightly lit: my bedroom window. A window where a woman stands silhouetted against the light.

I stare down at my fingers, which are tacky with dark blue paint. Fresh paint. Suddenly I remember the flickers of light I’d glimpsed at night from my bedroom window. Not fireflies, after all, but someone outside, standing on the cliff path, watching my window. While I lived at Brodie’s Watch, while I slept in that bedroom, undressed in that bedroom, Ben has secretly been painting this portrait of my house. And me.

I cannot spend the night here.

I run upstairs and cast a nervous glance out the window, afraid I’ll see Ben’s car pull into the driveway. There is no sign of him. I haul my suitcase back down the steps, bump-bump-bump, and wheel it outside to my car. The dog has followed me and I drag him by the collar back into the house and shut him inside. I may be in a rush to leave, but I won’t be responsible for an innocent dog getting hit by a car.

As I drive away, I keep glancing in the rearview mirror, but the street behind me is empty. I have no evidence against Ben, nothing but a glimpse of that painting in his studio and it’s not enough, not nearly enough, to bring to the police. I’m just a summer visitor and Ben is a pillar of the community whose family has lived here for generations.

No, a painting is not enough to alarm the police, but it’s enough to make me uneasy. To make me rethink everything I know about Ben Gordon.

I’m bent on getting out of town, but just as I’m about to turn onto the road heading south out of Tucker Cove, I remember Hannibal. I slap the steering wheel in frustration.You jerk of a cat; of course you’d be the one to complicate everything.

I make a sharp U-turn and drive toward Brodie’s Watch.

It’s early evening and in the deepening gloom, the fog seems thicker, almost solid enough to touch. I step out of the car and scan the front yard. Gray mist, gray cat. I wouldn’t see him even if he were sitting a few yards away.

“Hannibal?” I circle around the outside of the house, calling his name, louder. “Where are you?”

Only then do I hear it, over the sound of breaking waves: a faint meow.

“Come here, you bad boy! Come on!”

Again, the meow. The mist makes it seem like the sound is everywhere at once. “I have dinner!” I yell.

He responds with a demanding yowl, and I realize the sound is coming from above. I look up and through the mist I see something move high overhead. It’s a tail, flicking impatiently. Perched on the widow’s walk, Hannibal peers down at me through the slats of the railing.

“How the hell did you get stuck up there?” I yell at him, but I already know how it happened. In my rush to pack up and leave, I didn’t check the widow’s walk before closing the door. Hannibal must have slipped outside where he was trapped.

I hesitate on the front porch, reluctant to enter the house again. Only hours ago, I had fled Brodie’s Watch in fear, believing that I would never return. Now I have no choice but to step inside.

I unlock the door and flick on the light switch. Everything looks exactly the way it always has. The same umbrella stand, the same oak floor, the same chandelier. I take in a deep breath and detect no scent of the sea.

I start up the stairs, setting off the usual creaks on the steps. The landing is cast in gloom and I wonder if he waits in the shadows above, watching me. Upstairs I flick on another light switch and I see familiar cream walls and crown molding. All is silent.Are you here?

I pause to glance into my bedroom, which I’d left in such haste that the dresser drawers are open and the closet door is ajar. I move to the turret staircase. The door creaks as I open it. I think of the nights I stood at the base of these stairs, trembling with anticipation, wondering what pleasures and torments lay in store for me. I mount the steps, remembering the swish of silk at my ankles and the unyielding grip of his hand on mine. A hand whose touch could be both tender and cruel. My heart is thudding as I step into the turret room.

It is empty.

Standing alone in that room, I’m suddenly overwhelmed with such a sense of longing that I feel as if my chest has been hollowed out, my heart wrenched out of me.I miss you. Whatever you are, ghost or demon, good or evil. If only I could see you one last time.

But there is no swirl of ectoplasm, no rush of salt air. Captain Jeremiah Brodie has departed this house. He has abandoned me.

An insistent meow reminds me why I am here. Hannibal.

I open the door to the widow’s walk and my cat saunters inside as if he’s royalty. He plants himself at my feet and glares up with a look ofwell, where’s my dinner?