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12
THE GUARD AT THE LITTLE outpost had seen Keith before. He tried a quick wave, but the fellow frowned and stopped him.
“Yes?”
“Hey,” Keith said, offering an engaging smile. “You saw me this morning, remember?”
“Yes?” The man didn’t smile. He waited.
“I’m a guest of the Masons.”
“Your name?”
“Keith Henson.”
“I’ll have to call the Masons,” the guard told him.
It wasn’t as if the man were big and brawny, or as if he had a gun, Keith thought. If he had really needed to get through, he would have just gunned the engine.
But he wanted to keep his presence here on the level.
“Go ahead. Amanda is still here, isn’t she?” he asked pleasantly.
The man stared at him again, then relented. “Yes, Miss Mason is still here. Go on.”
Apparently Amanda had invited men to the club before. He must have fit the profile of her previous guests.
He wasn’t sure that pleased him.
Didn’t matter. He parked his car and hurried toward the front entrance. He hadn’t been able to move quickly enough to see what car the couple from Nick’s had taken from the lot, nor had he managed to follow Beth and discover if the couple had been following her, as well. He wasn’t even sure she was here.
As he walked in, he was startled when she came running down the stairs and directly into him.
“You!” she said, backing away as if he had suddenly become poison. He was startled. She wasn’t staring at him with the simmering anger she had afforded him just a little while ago. She was staring at him as if he were some kind of heinous beast.
“What?” he demanded sharply.
“Henry!” she called, and he realized that one of the waiters from the restaurant had apparently heard them, and was hovering near the arch that separated the foyer from the restaurant.
“Yes, Beth?”
“Call the police. Now.”
Keith’s heart sank. What the hell had she found out about him—or what did she think she knew?
“What is it?” he demanded.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? I just found a skull on my desk—another skull—and look who’s hanging around. Again. Henry, call the police,” she repeated.
“Yes, Beth, immediately,” Henry said.
“A skull?” Keith said, staring at her hard. Then he walked past her, heading up the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re going? Don’t you dare touch a thing. The police are on their way!”
He ignored her. She followed him up the stairs, nearly touching him, she was so close. But he continued to ignore her, reaching her office, stopping in the doorway.
“Where?” he demanded.
“On the desk.”
He walked a few feet into the office. There was nothing on the desk that didn’t belong there.
“Where?” he repeated.
She stood next to him and stared. “This is impossible!” she exclaimed.
By then they could hear sirens. Henry had obviously dialed 911.
“I’m telling you, it was there.”
Footsteps were pounding up the stairway.
“What’s wrong?”
Keith turned to see Ben Anderson striding into Beth’s office. Several other men were behind him.
Ben gave Keith a seriously suspicious glare and hurried to Beth’s side. “What is it? What happened?”
“There was a skull on my desk,” Beth said heatedly.
“What?”
“There was a skull on my desk,” she repeated.
Keith saw the emotions flickering through Ben Anderson’s eyes. Dismay, worry, agitation—and a sense of weariness and annoyance.
“Not again,” Ben said softly.
Beth glanced at her brother. “Dammit, Ben. What is the matter with you? When have I ever been a scared-of-herown-shadow, paranoid storyteller?”
“What are you doing here?” he demanded of Keith, as if it somehow had to be the other man’s presence that had brought this on.
“Guest of the Masons,” he said softly.
“All right, what’s going on?”
This time, the question came from a uniformed police officer, who parted the gathering crowd on the landing and came into the office.
The officer, a man of about fifty with clear green eyes and a very slight paunch, looked around, scowling. “Where’s the emergency?”
“There was a skull on my desk,” Beth said flatly.
“A skull?” the officer said.
Beth sighed deeply. “A skull, Officer. A human skull.”
“Where is it?”
“It was there, now it’s gone.”
“I see.”
“I swear to you, it was there.”
“All right, folks. Clear out. Go back to what you were doing. This little lady and I need to have a talk,” the officer said.
“I’m her brother. Perhaps I can help,” Ben said. Beth looked indignant at the soothing tone of his voice, Keith noticed.
“Her brother. All right, the rest of you, please…” the officer suggested firmly. “Unless anyone else saw a skull?” he queried.
Some of the people who had gathered began to head down the stairs again.
Snatches of conversation rose to the office.
“Someone is playing a joke.”
“It’s not that close to Halloween.”
“Hey, didn’t we have a bunch of skulls as Halloween props?”
“Who are you?” the officer demanded when Keith remained.
“Keith Henson.”
“Are you a brother, too? Husband? Boyfriend?”
“I’m concerned,” Keith said.
“Look,” Beth insisted, drawing the man’s attention angrily. “There was a skull on my desk. Can’t you look for fingerprints or DNA, or something?”
The officer looked wearier than ever.
“Miss…this sounds like a case of mischief to me, and that’s all.”
Beth appeared outraged. “You mean that you’re not going to do anything?”
“I’m not sure what I can do,” the officer said. “Look, you saw a skull, but it isn’t there now. Your friends are probably right. Someone is playing a trick on you. Someone down there is laughing right now. Yes, I’d probably arrest ’em for it, if I could. This is malicious mischief. But I don’t know who did it, and I have more important things to be doing than trying to find out.”
“There was a skull on my desk,” Beth said again.
“I’m afraid it isn’t there now,” the officer said quietly.
“So that’s it?”
“What do you want him to do, Beth?” Ben asked in a conciliatory tone.
She stared furiously at her brother, then at the officer. She didn’t even seem to remember that he was there, Keith thought—either that or she was still so suspicious of him that she didn’t even want to acknowledge him.
“I want to file a report,” Beth said. “I want someone to do something. My office had been locked. I cannot believe that I saw what might have been a human skull on my desk and you don’t intend to do a thing about it.”
Keith had the feeling that the officer—Patrolman Garth, according to his badge—had been involved in crank calls more than once.
Garth walked over to the desk, studying it carefully. “There’s nothing here now. No sign of anything. And, I’m willing to bet, there is a master key.”
A tall, gray-haired man burst into the office. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. “What’s this about a skull?”
“Commodore, Beth thinks there was a skull on her desk,” Ben explained.
“Officer Garth,” the policeman said. “And you’re…?”
“Commodore Berry.”
“Perry,” Garth repeated, as if he was beginning to consider the entire place a joke.
“Berry. Commodore Berry,” the man said, highly irritated. “Current elected head of the club,” he explained. “Beth, what’s going on?”
“There was a skull on my desk,” she said.
“But there isn’t now?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted.
The commodore squared his shoulders. “Miss Anderson is not given to hallucinations.”
“Beth,” Ben said quietly, “don’t you think someone might have been playing a little trick on you? A number of people—including me—have those skulls left over from last Halloween. They were part of the table decorations. And the master key does hang on a hook in the maintenance room. We should be more careful.”
“Ah, yes, a master key. Hmm. You decorated your tables with skulls?” Garth asked.
“It was Halloween,” Ben said.
“Beth, is it possible it was a prop skull?” the commodore asked.
Beth appeared torn. “It’s possible,” she admitted. “I saw it and…and panicked, then ran downstairs to call the police.”
“Why didn’t you just call from the office?” Garth asked.
Beth stared at him, lifted her hands, let them fall. “Because there was a skull on my desk! I didn’t expect it to pick itself up and disappear.”
