The Sound of Secrets. Irene Brand
the house, they saw the detective strolling along the driveway leading from the house to Bay View Road. He stared intently at the ground. Portia pulled Rissa into a secluded nook where they could watch Drew without being seen. He wore a dark brown leather jacket over his neat tan trousers. Tall and muscular, Drew carried himself with a commanding stance of self-confidence.
He had a camera slung over his shoulder and, as they watched, he stopped suddenly, lifted the camera and snapped several photos of that spot. He checked the screen of his digital camera, and, ostensibly satisfied, he moved on, with his eyes still watching the ground before him. Portia turned worried eyes on her twin when he stooped and picked up an item.
“I didn’t check out the driveway this morning. What do you suppose he’s found?” she whispered.
Rissa shook her head.
The sound of a car coming up the hill reached their ears and soon their father’s Jaguar came into view. He was driving at his usual breakneck speed. He honked the horn angrily when he saw Drew. He swerved quickly and Drew jumped several feet to avoid being accidentally run down.
The twins exchanged troubled glances and reached the garage just as Ronald wheeled his Jaguar into his parking place and stepped out of the car, his eyes blazing with fury.
Although he was just a few years shy of turning sixty, Ronald was still as handsome and vigorous as he had been in his youth. Jerking a thumb toward Drew, he demanded, “What’s he doing here?”
“Good to see you, too, Father,” Rissa muttered sarcastically, but if Ronald heard, he ignored her.
“He said someone called about the commotion in the gazebo last night,” Portia said.
His dark face irate, he lifted his arm as if he might strike her. Rissa choked back a terrified cry. Although Ronald had never displayed any love or tenderness toward any of his six daughters, she’d never known him to lay a hand on any of them.
“Did you call that boyfriend of yours?”
“No, I didn’t,” Portia gasped and stepped closer to Rissa.
“What did happen in the gazebo, Father?” Rissa asked, attempting to deflect his displeasure from Portia.
Ronald’s eyes glowered down at his twin daughters, but he lowered his hand.
“None of your business,” he said, before he brushed by them and entered the house.
He was detained when a firm hand grabbed his shoulder. Rissa couldn’t imagine that Drew could have so quickly covered the distance from where her father had almost run him down to the front of the house. Ronald turned furious eyes on Drew, but he couldn’t break the ironclad hold on his shoulder.
Drew’s eyes were blazing with fury. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but it held an undertone of cold contempt. “You’re driving a little reckless this morning, aren’t you?”
“It’s my own property. I can drive as fast as I want to.”
“Yes, you can, but you probably won’t like it if I charge you with wanton endangerment.”
“You wouldn’t dare! I could have that badge of yours in a hurry if you make such a charge.”
“I doubt that, Mr. Blanchard. You might not know it, but you don’t have the influence in this community that you once had.” He removed his hand. “I’m warning you—don’t try to interfere with our investigation.”
Without any apology to Portia and Rissa, Drew walked purposefully to his car and drove away. What could he say to them? Their father was probably a murderer, or at best, he had a lot of explaining to do.
Turning frightened eyes to her twin, Portia said, “Would he have hit me?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Rissa said, putting an arm around Portia, unable to reassure her sister when her own suspicions were rampant. “Let’s go inside.”
Through the rearview mirror, Drew saw Rissa and Portia follow their father into the house. Small footprints going from the gazebo and back again proved that whoever the woman in the gazebo had been, she had not been killed. He had followed steps from the gazebo to the spot where the woman had left her car. He’d snapped pictures of the tire tracks, but the rain last night had all but obliterated them. And it looked as if Ronald had swerved to drive across the tracks when he’d come home. Fortunately, Drew had already taken a picture of them. But what could he do with the clues he had found? He glanced at the key chain he’d picked up. There was no key on the chain attached to a porpoise in flight—a relatively common item found in gift shops. Could this key chain provide any new leads in the string of incidents that had involved the Blanchards for the past few months?
His partner, Mick, was in a quandary—trying to work on cases in Stoneley without causing trouble for Portia or her family. And now that he’d seen Rissa Blanchard again, Drew was in the same fix. Throughout the weeks since he had met her, he’d tried to convince himself that Rissa wasn’t as fascinating as he’d thought at their first meeting. Now he wasn’t so sure.
But he and Mick were cops first. Whatever their feelings toward the Blanchard twins, they were committed to upholding the law. He only hoped that they could do their job without bringing disaster upon Rissa and her sisters.
Drew rounded a curve and pulled to one side of the road. He locked the car and walked along a trail that took him toward the bluffs behind Blanchard Manor. From this point he had a bird’s-eye view of the house and the crystal-blue waters of the Atlantic. Rissa’s heritage! He cringed when he considered how ridiculous it was for him to think about pursuing a relationship with her. She would probably laugh in his face if he asked her out.
And who could blame her? Rissa had been born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. He, on the other hand, not only came from a poor family, but a dysfunctional one, as well. He lived from month to month on his salary, trying to help his mother support his two younger sisters. Financially he had nothing to offer any woman, and physically? To look at his strong body, no one would ever suspect the secret that prevented him from seriously dating any woman, let alone someone as special as Rissa.
The house was quiet when the twins returned and Rissa figured everyone was trying to rest after the commotion of the previous night. Portia went into the library to find Web sites for wedding consultants in Portland. Rissa went upstairs to the room she and Portia had always shared. Her memory was hazy about her life before they had moved to this house, which happened soon after their mother had died—or disappeared, as her father had recently revealed. She did have a hazy recollection of her mother rocking her to sleep a few times. Rissa was deeply immersed in her memories when Portia entered the room.
“I can’t believe that our mother is still alive,” Rissa said. “Let’s go over again what Father said about it. I was so shocked that I don’t remember everything he said.”
“He had faked our mother’s death so we wouldn’t have to know that she was suffering from postpartum depression. The best I can understand, she’s been in a mental institution all of these years—when we thought she was dead—but she disappeared from there about eight months ago. No one seems to know where she is now.”
“Could she have been the woman in the gazebo last night?”
“Surely he wouldn’t tell our mother that he would kill her if she ever came to the house again!” Portia’s brown eyes, so like Rissa’s own, were full of pain.
“At this point, I’m willing to believe almost anything about our father.” Rissa took off the boots she’d worn for their hike and stretched out on the canopied twin bed.
Almost immediately a knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” Rissa invited.
Peg Henderson, Howard’s private nurse, peered around the half-opened door.
“Welcome home, Rissa,” she said, her sky-blue eyes brimming with friendliness. Peg had become a fixture in the Blanchard household since Ronald