Family Skeletons Read online

  Their guests brought a banana cream pie and a bottle of Chardonnay with them. Marcus had a stocky build, dark hair and eyes, was more reserved than Ryan, and he had a quiet sense of humor. Sunny had liked him at their first meeting and their friendship had grown. She sensed a strain among the three men at first, but it was the simple awkward moment between strangers who were still strangers. When they went to visit the relatively new SUV in the backyard with its sizable dent in its front fender, Sunny knew they were okay with each other.

  The men had taken their wine with them and Sunny followed them with her glass. Dinner was taking care of itself and needed no help from her for at least five minutes. She leaned against the house wall and sipped chilled Chardonnay. She caught Ryan’s gaze on her and she gave him a questioning look. But he gave her no clue to his thoughts; instead he directed his attention back to Jonathan.

  “The salt air up here could be murder on that paint job,” he said.

  “I wash it every day, hoping to keep the effect as minimal as possible.”

  I can vouch for that. He also cleans the bathroom every day.

  Marcus was testing the seating comfort in the rearmost seats. Cat was staring at the closed passenger’s door as if waiting for someone to open it for her, but the animal wasn’t allowed inside the vehicle.

  “No, Cat,” Sunny said and gently nudged the pet aside. She joined Marcus and they clinked glasses.

  “If we spill any of this in here,” he said. “He might kill us.”

  “Might,” Sunny agreed.

  “Seats eight. Nice, really nice. But only kids could sit for very long back here.”

  Despite the limited space, she managed to cross her legs, then when she looked at him she realized he wouldn’t even be able to change position until she got out of there. “Hmm. Body builders who practice their art have difficulty fitting into small spaces.”

  “And little girls who barely tip the scales at three whole digits can fit anywhere.”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Dinner’s ready. Since you’re bigger than I am, will you hogtie those two and get them to the table?”

  Everybody but Jonathan put their chicken atop their rice. He also was careful to keep his asparagus in its own place, and he ignored the Hollandaise. Nothing touched anything else on Jonathan’s plate.

  Sunny and Marcus watched the other two diners using forks and knives to cut into their chicken and then looked at each other and shrugged. They picked up drumsticks in their fingers and ate the way they wanted to. They helped themselves to extra napkins and paid no attention to how smudged their wine glasses got.

  When she reached for the creamer she’d put the Hollandaise in, she again found Ryan’s gaze on her, and she doubted his attention had anything to do with her table manners. He seemed to be studying her, and that made her uncomfortable. In order to keep herself busy and him occupied with food, she served dessert. But after dinner he insisted on helping with dishes. She wished he’d go find somebody to talk about football with.

  As he applied dishtowel to salad bowl, he glanced at her. “What are you so nervous about?”

  “I’m not nervous,” she said more sharply than she intended. Then she frowned. “Excuse me. I’m just tired. Once I finish this I’m going to bed.”

  “Where does this go?”

  She pointed at a lower cabinet. He put the faux wooden bowl away, straightened, and picked up a platter. “Jonathan seems like a good guy and I think it’s great you found someone. You’ve been celibate for much too long.”

  The pan she was working on slipped out of her hands. “Oh, for...”

  Am I wearing a sign around my neck, or what?

  She looked at him, then quickly away. She stared at the drainer, the cabinet, the sink. “Criminy, Ryan. What makes you think that...”

  He chuckled. “Relax. Like I said, it’s the best thing that could’ve happened to you.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “He strikes me as a tad more conventional than you, however. Let me guess. You dared him, right?”

  She glared at the soapy water, then at him. “For your information, Mr. Know-it-all, he dared me!”

  Ryan laughed so hard he had to put the platter back into the drainer. He gripped the counter with both hands and roared.

  “Oh, for...” Sunny grabbed the dishtowel, dried her hands and then threw it into the sink full of water. “That does it! You can do the stupid dishes by yourself!”

  She stomped down the hall and stopped in the parlor doorway long enough to tell its occupants, “Goodnight!”

  Jonathan and Marcus frowned at her and then each other, clearly wondering what they’d done wrong. She climbed the stairs. At the top she hesitated, then rounded the banister’s railing and went to Jonathan’s room. Abstinence now seemed absurd, and she’d probably left her nightgown in there anyway.

  Come on, let’s be honest here. That cover-up-everything garment hasn’t seen the inside of his room yet.

  She backtracked, grabbed her nightgown from her room and took it to his.

  And now what are you doing, Sunny? Is that flimsy piece of pink nylon supposed to be a token of propriety, or what?

  Oh, shut up.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Everybody slept late the next morning. Which meant that by the time breakfast was over, opposing teams in colorful uniforms were already fighting over a football somewhere. And it was being televised! The men quickly found loge seats in the parlor. Sunny had no help with the dishes, which was fine with her. Cat kept her company. She loved the sausage her mistress had saved and cut up for her but ignored the pancake.

  Once dishes were put away, Sunny grabbed a plastic grocery bag and headed for the beach. Because she figured she’d be back before anyone missed her, she didn’t bother announcing she was going out. The day was shaping up to be a nice one. The sun had chased the fog away, but it wasn’t too warm. Comfortable in cutoffs and a pullover and flip-flops, she pushed her sleeves up to her elbows as she walked, savoring the crisp morning air that was salty with ocean.

  Cat led, trailed, foraged, and leaped after butterflies. Sunny watched her scamper down the trail to the beach and disappear, but she didn’t follow. Instead she made her way past clumps of reeds, many as high as her shoulders, and came to a stop above the deepest recess of the horseshoe. Berry vines grew in abundance all the way down the cliff, and she wanted to gather a bag of berries to serve over vanilla ice cream for tonight. Even she liked ice cream. The slope at the base of the incline made access to the vines difficult from that point.

  At a sharp sound she snapped her head up and her gaze darted toward the grove of cypresses and their windblown branches. She saw no movement, but heard another rifle report. The shot that had grazed her had been louder and closer, so most likely hadn’t been a stray from the trees as she’d thought. The boys must’ve wandered out that day and were taking pot shots here and there, perhaps into the canyon, and then had run scared when they realized what they’d done. But evidently they were now over their scare.

  She continued watching the grove with a mixture of apprehension and annoyance. She was going to talk to Tom about this again, and Matthew and Bev, and the Bowers boys and their father. Better yet, when she returned to the house, she’d ask the three men to go talk to the boys. The message might leave a longer lasting impression if delivered on the spot by three strapping males.

  Damned kids. If they kill somebody they might finally start using their brains. But that’d be a little late for the dead guy.

  She sensed movement behind her but had no chance to turn before hands planted themselves in the wide part of her back and pushed. She was close enough to the edge that she literally flew into space. Her foot tangled in a vine that wrapped around it, and for an instant she dangled head down in the vines. A flip-flop slid off and batted her in the face on its way down. Desperately she closed her hand around a mesh of stems as thorns lacerated her ankle, feeling like barbed wire, and then the
vine around her foot snapped and she plummeted all the way down.

  Her handful of trailing plants had held her long enough for her legs to swing around, and that probably saved her from breaking her neck. She hit on her left shoulder, rolled, hit again on her hip and then finally came to a stop on the sand.

  She heard someone scrabbling down the trial but she couldn’t move; it hurt to breathe. She’d landed on her side, facing away from the trail, and she sensed someone standing over her. Out of self-defense and necessity, Sunny remained still. Then she heard voices rapidly growing near, and next she felt a swish of air as someone ran past her head. After more noise that indicated another descent down the cliff, someone, two people, knelt beside her.

  Hands moved over her, but in a professional way rather than invasive. Jonathan?

  “Is she breathing?” That was Ryan’s voice, from in front of her.

  “Yes,” Jonathan said tightly, behind her.

  “Sunny, sweetheart. Talk to me.”

  “Don’t touch her,” Jonathan warned. “Don’t move her.”

  “I know that, dammit. Sunny, talk to me.”

  Though she still couldn’t communicate, she managed to get her eyes open. Ryan was kneeling, with his gaze directed over the top of her toward Jonathan. “Is anything broken? Is she wounded? She’s bleeding all over.”

  “I don’t see an obvious break, but I can’t tell for sure.” Jonathan sounded both professional and scared. “We’ll see what she can and can’t do when she comes to. I don’t see a bullet wound, no gushing blood. She’s covered with scratches from the thorns so that might account for the blood.”

  “Ohh, shit.” She’d found her voice. It was raspy, but audible.

  Ryan sagged and let his breath out in a long-winded, “Whew.”

  Jonathan gave no reaction. His face lacked expression when she rolled onto her back and looked up at him. “Were you hit?” he asked.

  “Not by a bullet.”

  Ryan held up both hands. “I’m holding up two fingers from each hand. Can you count all four fingers?”

  She looked at him and his hands, then at Jonathan. “Is he supposed to give me hints like that?”

  “She sounds all right to me,” Marcus said. He was out of her line of vision, so she turned toward his voice. Her neck didn’t immediately execute the movement, which gave her concern, but then it cooperated. He’d climbed the slope and was standing at the base of the horseshoe, within the vines themselves and was looking upward. “She must’ve taken a header from up there. The vines scratched her up, but also cushioned her and may have saved her life.”

  “Sunny,” Jonathan said. “I want you to sit up if you can, but take it slow. We need to find out what hurts.”

  “Everything hurts.” She worked to get her limbs coordinated, and finally she managed to sit up. The simple act took so much out of her that once she got her torso upright, she had to lean against Jonathan. He’d not helped her, but she’d caught several aborted moves. As he’d said, they needed to know what she was capable of on her own. The rigid line of his body communicated his tension.

  “What?” he asked quickly when she slumped against him. “Are you going to pass out again?”

  “I never lost consciousness.”

  “You weren’t conscious when we—”

  “Yes, I was. I heard you coming down the cliff, but I didn’t know who you were and I was scared. Then I had to find my air before I could talk anyway.”

  “Why were you afraid? Whom did you think we were?” That was Marcus again. He seemed to be zeroing in faster than anyone else.

  Her gaze traveled up the berry vines to the top. Panic returned, and she battled it back. “I didn’t fall. Someone pushed me.”

  The vines stirred, then shook more aggressively as something moved through them. Marcus whirled to face the threat, and Sunny lost her breath again. Then Cat appeared, leaped to bat at a trailing vine and got them all vibrating again as if a gust of wind had blown through. Then calmly she sat back on her haunches and started grooming.

  Each man sagged. Someone called the cat a not very nice name.

  Sunny put a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “I’m going to stand up. Hopefully under my own power, but I can guarantee I’m gonna lean on you.” Then she laughed weakly. “I still have one shoe on. Slip it off before it trips me up, will you?”

  He did.

  “Who pushed you?” Ryan asked. “One of the rifle shooters?” Though he appeared cold and dispassionate, hot anger emanated from him in waves.

  “I was pushed from behind, couldn’t see who it was. Someone came down the trail but stayed behind me. You guys arrived pretty fast. You didn’t see anyone?”

  “Once we saw you sprawled out like that, we never looked.” Ryan walked to the mouth of the cove and stared for a long moment in both directions. When he returned, he said, “South is clear. Going north, toward Chester, it takes a curve to the inside. Someone might be able to hug the cliff and stay out of sight that way but would be long gone by the time we got up there.”

  “Ryan, come here a minute,” Marcus said. Ryan looked over, then walked away.

  “Can you stand without my support?” Jonathan asked.

  She nodded. When he let go—careful to stay within catching distance she was glad to note—she took a couple of practice steps. She was shaky and sore, but okay. “How come you got here so fast?”

  “You got a phone call and I couldn’t find you. When I looked outside and heard a rifle shot, we all came running.”

  “Jonathan, Sunny. Come look at this,” Ryan said.

  Jonathan glanced that way, then back at Sunny with a frown. He appeared dubious about the prospect of her walking that far. She waved his concern away. “It’s okay. I can manage.”

  As she took cautious baby steps, he hovered a step behind her. It wasn’t necessary to climb the hill of sand, though. They could see what had grabbed their companions’ attention from the base of the mound. Either Marcus had dislodged a piece of driftwood embedded in the vines or Sunny had done it in her fall. He stood next to a piece of rotted wood, maybe twelve inches long and as wide as a telephone pole, with its half-exposed underside darker than the sun-dried side. When they approached, he pulled a layer of vines back so they could get a better look at an exposed white bone.

  No, several small bones.

  A breath lodged in her throat. It was a skeletal human hand, exposed to its wrist.

  Marcus said, tone subdued, “Looks like someone might’ve taken the same fall Sunny did, but wasn’t quite as lucky.”

  “Or it’s the missing victim,” Sunny whispered, gaze glued to the grisly find.

  Ryan gave her a sharp glance. Sunny caught Jonathan’s eye and nodded, silently encouraging him to take over. He explained the baseball bat-cum-weapon found in the attic, succinctly and unemotionally, but the two men who stood atop the small hill seemed to grasp the same sense of menace that had grabbed Sunny and Jonathan when they’d first looked inside the duffle bag.

  “You mean we’re talking about murder, not an accident?” Ryan asked.

  “We can figure out what we’re talking about after we get Sunny to the hospital,” Jonathan answered.

  She shook her head, her attention again riveted on the skeletal fingers. “I don’t need a hospital. Nothing’s broken. I’m just bruised and sore.”

  “You need X-rays and an examination by someone qualified,” Jonathan said evenly. “I don’t want any surprises tonight or tomorrow.”

  “I said I’m fine.” Again she shook her head, but this time in annoyance. “I’ll show you.” She wasn’t looking forward to climbing the cliff but knew she had to. And an almost desperate desire to get away from those bleached white bones was building fast.

  When she turned toward the trail, Jonathan caught her arm. “Are you serious?”

  “How else am I supposed to get up there?”

  He continued to stare at her. Then he broke eye contact, and his manner turned businesslike
as he turned back toward the hill. “Marcus, will you go to the house and call the paramedics? They’ll either have a rescue unit that can traverse the beach or will know who does.”

  “Oh, for... I don’t need—”

  “Shut up, Sunny.” Ryan jumped down from the mound of sand. He walked up to her and then rested both hands on his thighs and bent his knees until his eyes were on a level with hers. “Look at yourself. You’re already turning different shades of purple, and you’d be hard put to find a whole square inch of skin that doesn’t have blood on it. You need to see a doctor. For once in your life, put a lid on that contentious side and do what you’re supposed to do.”

  If she had an injury that was in need of medical attention, she’d know it, but neither man seemed inclined to let her make that call. Marcus was already at the top of the path. From the look of her two companions, if she attempted to follow him, she’d be stopped. So okay. She turned toward Chester and started walking. But they didn’t like that either.

  “Uh, Sunny...” From Jonathan.

  “Sunny!” Ryan’s voice.

  “Cool it,” she warned without turning around. “You won one, don’t push for two.”

  The worst physical threat she faced right now was her muscles freezing up. So a slow walk would serve her better than sitting and waiting. But she didn’t feel it necessary to explain that to her self-appointed guardians. She’d noted how quickly they’d joined forces and was wondering if in the long run that boded well for her or not. Then, with no more argument, they caught up and fell in step. Well, that was one mark in their favor.

  At the hospital, Sunny spent two long hours being peered at, prodded, X-rayed, and bathed in antiseptic. Her eyes stung, and she feared her nose might permanently be wrinkled from the acrid odor.

  Then at long last the doctor followed her to the waiting room and cheerfully made his report to her escorts. He was gray-haired, age-wrinkled, thorough, and in a good mood. “She’s got bruises and abrasions, looks like she put in some heavy overtime as a scratching post, but she’s got no breaks and doesn’t need stitching up. Couldn’t even find a decent sprain.” He slanted a sideways, awe-struck look at her. “Takes a header off a fifteen-foot cliff and all she does is roll around in the sand. Never figure out how she did it.”