Fatal Flowers. V. J. Banis

water was a large island situated a mile or two from shore. The coastline itself was completely flat and bare, except for a low slung building hugging the water’s edge. Which turned out to be a combination garage and boat house.

      Leland nodded out toward the sea. “Falcon Island,” he said. “It’s been in my family for generations.”

      I could see nothing but a blur in the distance. I saw no house, just the dark colors of trees and undergrowth. It looked most foreboding.

      Leland slowed the car and headed toward the boat house. Its doors suddenly opened automatically. Just as we started into the garage I gasped. There, parked in the adjacent parking stall, was an old-fashioned limousine—the type usually associated with stars of the silent screen. It was lavishly ornamented, shiny and polished and dripping with chrome plate.

      I had seen it before. It was the car into which the brutish chauffeur had recently carried the unconscious girl.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “That car,” I gasped, staring at the antique limousine. “That’s the car the girl was carried off in.”

      Diana fumbled with the veil on her hat. “You’re talking nonsense, Alice.”

      “I’m not,” I said defiantly. “I couldn’t make a mistake about a car like that.”

      I saw Diana and Leland exchange glances in the rear view mirror.

      Diana turned on me. She looked angry. “I don’t know what you saw, or claimed to have seen, back in Gulf Point, but I can assure you, my dear, that that limousine has been here at the landing since yesterday afternoon. Martin has been working on the motor. The car isn’t operable.” Her eyes glinted at me.

      “But I know what I saw,” I insisted.

      Leland was out of the car, holding open the back door for Diana and me. It was the same limousine; I was positive of it. I knew what I had seen and no one was going to convince me otherwise.

      Diana was glaring at me. “I do hope you are not insinuating that our chauffeur goes around spiriting away young, defenseless girls.”

      “I know what I saw,” I said, but there wasn’t as much defiance or conviction in my voice as I had wanted.

      “Really, Alice, you’re being impossible.” She got out of the car.

      With the help of Leland and my crutch I climbed out after her and stood looking at the old limousine. I hadn’t been mistaken. This was the very same car I saw back in the open field.

      “This way, Alice,” Leland said softly, touching my elbow.

      We rounded the garage and started toward a speedboat moored at the landing. “If it will make you feel better, Alice,” Leland said as we straggled along behind the imperious Diana Hamilton, “we’ll speak to Martin when we get to the house. Perhaps he allowed a friend to borrow the car.”

      “Thank you,” I said, smiling at him. I felt he was on my side, or at least trying to be.

      Diana clambered into the boat without assistance. Diana Hamilton, I felt, never needed assistance from anyone. She had made her own way all of her life and the mere idea of her getting old didn’t break that habit. Changing her name to Braddock had obviously not affected her; she was and would always be Diana Hamilton, no matter how many husbands she’d had. And she’d had a few, I thought, remembering the gossip columns and fan magazine articles I’d read. Five—and Leland Braddock made six.

      She didn’t rise to help me when I dropped my crutch and almost tripped into the speedboat. Leland grabbed me before I had a chance to fall. Diana merely looked annoyed. She was not the type of woman who enjoyed being involved with weakness of any kind. She kept her head averted until I’d seated myself beside her.

      Leland took the controls, Diana and I behind him on the double seat. He backed the speedboat away from the landing and turned it toward Falcon Island.

      No one spoke on the trip across; the roar of the motor made conversation difficult. For this I was glad. It gave me the chance I needed to gather my wits about me and instill resolve back into my mind.

      Falcon Island loomed ahead of us like a beckoning specter. It looked dark and misty from this distance and I saw no signs of a house anywhere, just a line of trees that butted the sea. Overhead the sky was clear and blue with puffy white clouds scattered here and there. Under other circumstances I would have leaned back and reveled in the beauty of my surroundings, but I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself. I wanted to be back in Hilsborough where I belonged. I wanted to stand in front of my schoolchildren and tell them about King Arthur, The Prince and the Pauper, The Little Match Girl. I wanted my simple unencumbered life back again. I didn’t want the clutter of a famous mother, a stepfather I’d never seen or heard of, an island that was completely isolated from the entire world.

      I was a victim of a happening. A plane crash. Five horrifying minutes of a plane-load of passengers plunging down, down, down, and then nothing, blackness, utter and complete silence...only to awake to find myself in another existence.

      I threw back my head and let the fresh sea air cleanse my thoughts. I pinched shut my eyes. I wouldn’t think of the screams, the panic, the sounds of violent death. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t think of any of it.

      Leland made a wide sweep to the left. I saw the trees fall back; we were approaching the island from a side that faced out toward the open sea. A sandy beach ran along this side of the island, looking smooth and warm and very inviting from this distance.

      Now I could see Falcon House. It sat on a slight hill overlooking the trees, the beach, the sea itself. It was a rambling affair of many turrets, towers, cupolas, all painted a dismal gray, with trim of a still darker shade of gray, almost black.

      Even at a distance, I could see it needed repairs—major repairs. The shutters on several windows had fallen from their hinges, boards covered other windows and doorways, and here and there was evidence of a roof that sagged, a cupola that had toppled.

      Why did Diana Hamilton insist upon living in a crumbling house? Surely money was no object. Leland Braddock was not young; he had to have money in order to attract the attention of such a celebrity as Diana Hamilton.

      “It must have been lovely in its day,” I said, testing their reactions.

      Leland had cut the motor and jumped out to tie up the boat. “Yes, it was quite a show place at one time. Unfortunately it was never a good show place. Falcon House, like my lovely wife,” he said, smiling at Diana, “dislikes publicity intensely. They’ve both had more than their share and are now content just to live out their lives in anonymity.”

      Diana gave us both a frosty look. “Unfortunately, we cannot always do what we choose,” she said.

      “Never mind, darling,” he said pleasantly, putting out his hand to help me from the boat.

      Again Diana got out without assistance. Once on the jetty Leland put his arm around her waist. I saw her stiffen slightly, then relax against him.

      He patted her tenderly. “This thing will all blow over in a couple of days,” he said.

      “I hope so,” she answered, almost to herself.

      Leland turned to me. He released Diana when he saw me struggling with my crutch. “Here, let me help. That thing must be most difficult to manipulate.”

      “I’m getting rather use to it, really,” I said, as I hobbled along beside them.

      A man in a chauffeur’s uniform was hurrying toward the landing to meet us. He was bareheaded, with silver-blond tussled hair; his face was square, Germanic, and his features looked as though they’d been chiseled out of stone.

      “Oh, Martin,” Diana said. “My—Miss Whelan’s luggage is at the station at Gulf Point. Is the limousine repaired? Can you go and fetch them?”

      I thought I saw the slightest glimmer of a question pass across the chauffeur’s face. “Yes,