Killer Investigation. Amanda Stevens

       Chapter Three

      Arden finished unpacking and then took a quick shower, dressing in linen pants and a sleeveless top before going back downstairs to decide about dinner. There was no food in the house, of course. No one had been living in Berdeaux Place since her grandmother’s passing. She would need to make a trip to the market, but for now she could walk over to East Bay and have a solitary meal at her favorite seafood place. Or she could unlock the liquor cabinet and skip dinner altogether. She was in no hurry to venture out now that twilight had fallen.

      At loose ends and trying to avoid dwelling on Reid’s visit, she wandered through the hallways, trailing her fingers along dusty tabletops and peering up into the faces of forgotten ancestors. Eventually she returned to the front parlor, where her grandmother had once held court. Arden had a vision of her now, sitting ramrod straight in her favorite chair, teacup in one hand and an ornate fan in the other as she surveyed her province with quiet satisfaction. No matter the season or temperature, Evelyn Mayfair always dressed in sophisticated black. Maybe that was the reason Arden’s mother had been drawn to vivid hues, in particular the color red. Arden supposed there was irony—or was it symmetry?—in the killer’s final act of placing a crimson petal upon her lips.

       Enough reminiscing.

      If she wasn’t careful, she could drown in all those old memories.

      Crossing over to the French doors, she took a peek out into the gardens. The subtle glow from the landscape lighting shimmered off the alabaster faces of the statues. She could hear the faint splash of the fountain and the lonely trill of a night bird high up in one of magnolia trees. Summer sounds that took her back to her early childhood days before tragedy and loss had cast a perpetual shroud over Berdeaux Place.

      Checking the lock on the door, she turned away and then swung back. Another sound intruded. Rhythmic and distant.

      The pound of a heartbeat was her first thought as her own pulse beat an uneasy tattoo against her throat.

      No, not a heartbeat, she realized. Something far less sinister, but invasive nonetheless. A loose shutter thumping in the breeze most likely. Nothing to worry about. No reason to panic.

      She took another glance into the garden as she reminded herself that her mother had been murdered more than twenty-five years ago. It was unreasonable and perhaps paranoid to think that the real killer had waited all these years to strike again. Reid was right. The magnolia blossom found at the murder scene couldn’t be anything more than a coincidence.

      Arden stood there for the longest time recounting his argument as she tried to reassure herself that everything was fine. A jury of Finch’s peers had found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He would never again be a free man. And even if another killer did prowl the streets, Arden was as safe here as she was anywhere. The property was sequestered behind brick walls and wrought-iron gates. The house had good locks and, ever since the murder, a state-of-the-art security system that had been periodically updated for as long as she could remember. She was safe.

      As if to prove to herself that she had nothing to fear, she turned the dead bolt and pushed open the French doors. The evening breeze swept in, fluttering the curtains and scenting the air with the perfume of the garden—jasmine, rose and magnolia from the tree that shaded the summerhouse. She’d smelled those same fragrances the night she’d found her mother’s body.

      She wouldn’t think about that now. She wouldn’t spoil her homecoming with old nightmares and lingering fears. If she played her cards right, this could be a new beginning for her. A bolder and more exciting chapter if she didn’t let the past hold her back.

      Bolstering her resolve, she walked down the flagstone path toward the summerhouse. The garden had been neglected since her grandmother was no longer around to browbeat the yard crew. In six months of Charleston heat and humidity the beds and hedges had exploded. Through the untrimmed canopy of the magnolias, the summerhouse dome rose majestically, and to the left Arden could see the slanted glass roof of the greenhouse.

      The rhythmic thud was coming from that direction. The greenhouse door had undoubtedly been left unsecured and was bumping in the breeze.

      Before Arden lost her nerve, she changed course, veering away from the summerhouse and heading straight into the heart of the jungle. It was a warm, lovely night and the garden lights guided her along the pathway. She detected a hint of brine in the breeze. The scent took her back to all those nights when she’d shimmied down the trellis outside her bedroom window to meet Reid. Back to the innocent kisses in the summerhouse and to those not so innocent nights spent together at the beach. Then hurrying home before sunup. Lying in bed and smiling to herself as the light turned golden on her ceiling.

      Despite the dark shadow that had loomed over the house since her mother’s murder, Arden had been happy at Berdeaux Place, thanks mostly to Reid. He’d given her a way out of the gloom, an escape from the despair that her grandmother had sunk more deeply into year after year. Evelyn Berdeaux Mayfair had never gotten over the death of her only daughter and sometimes Arden had wondered if her presence had been more of a curse than a blessing, a constant reminder of what she’d lost.

      Her grandmother’s desolation had worn on Arden, but Reid had always been there to lift her up. He’d been her best friend, her confidant, and for a time she’d thought him the love her life. Everything had changed that last summer.

       Too soon, Arden. Don’t go there.

      There would be time enough later to reflect on what might have been.

      But already wistfulness tugged. She paused on the flagstones and inhaled sharply, letting the perfume of the night lull her. A moth flitted past her cheek as loneliness descended. It had been a long time since she’d felt so unmoored. She blamed her longing on Reid’s unexpected visit. Seeing him again had stirred powerful memories.

      Something darted through the trees and she whirled toward the movement. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t kept track of her surroundings, of the danger that had entered the garden.

      She stood frozen, her senses on full alert as she tried to pinpoint the source of her unease. The thumping had stopped, and now it wasn’t so much a sound or a smell that alarmed her but a dreaded certainty that she was no longer alone.

      Her heart started to pound in fear as she peered through the darkness. The reflection of the rising moon in the glass ceiling of the greenhouse cast a strange glow directly over the path where someone stood watching her.

      In that moment of terror, Arden wanted nothing so much as to turn and run from the garden, to lock herself away in Berdeaux Place as her grandmother had done for decades. She could grow old in that house, withering away with each passing year, lonely and desolate yet safe from the outside world. Safe from the monster who had murdered her mother and would someday return for her.

      She didn’t run, though. She braced her shoulders and clenched her fists even as she conjured an image of her own prone body on the walkway, with blood on the flagstones and a crimson magnolia petal adorning her cold lips.

      “Arden?”

      The voice was at once familiar and strangely unsettling, the accent unmistakably Charleston. A thrill rippled along her backbone. She had lots of videos from her childhood. Her mother had pronounced her name in that same dreamy drawl. Ah-den.

      He moved out of the shadows and started down the path toward her. Arden stood her ground even as her heart continued to flail. The man was almost upon her before recognition finally clicked. “Uncle Calvin?”

      “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean