She smiled at that. “In this town people have genuine celebrity scandals to entertain them. I doubt if anyone would bother to gossip about us, but I understand the concern. I’ll try to find a locksmith today and see about installing better locks.”
She opened the kitchen door for Jake. A thick morning fog was rolling in off the ocean. It would be gone by noon but for now it cloaked the world in a weightless mist.
Jake stepped outside, took in the scene, and looked satisfied. “No one will see me leaving your place, not in this fog.”
“Are you sure you won’t stay for breakfast?”
He stopped and looked at her. He smiled. “You and the fog just talked me into it.”
“I’ll get the eggs going.”
“I’ll come back inside in a few minutes,” he said. “I want to take a look around the outside of the laundry room window and see if I can find any signs of the intruder.”
She tightened her grip on the doorknob. “And if you don’t find any evidence? Will you conclude that I imagined the whole thing?”
He paused at the edge of the back porch. “Regardless of what I find or don’t find, I believe you had excellent reasons to conclude that someone broke into your house last night. I don’t think your imagination got the better of you. I don’t think you were suffering from bad nerves. Are we clear on that?”
She relaxed. “Yes. Thank you.”
She stepped back into the kitchen, closed the door, and crossed to the stove. She picked up the cast-iron pan and put it on a burner.
The telephone on the wall rang just as she started cracking eggs into a bowl. Startled, she dropped one of the eggs. It broke on the green tile countertop.
It’s just the telephone. Get hold of yourself, woman.
But she could not think of a single person who would call her at such an early hour.
Paranoia is a sign of mental instability.
She reminded herself that she had just spent a sleepless night after discovering evidence that someone had invaded her home. She had a right to be jumpy.
She wiped her hands on her apron and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” she asked, trying not to reveal her anxiety.
There was a short, startled pause, as if the caller had not expected the phone to be answered.
“Miss Brockton? Is that you?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Thelma Leggett, Madam Zolanda’s assistant. I realize I probably woke you. Please forgive me but I am absolutely desperate.”
Thelma did, indeed, sound frantic.
“What’s wrong?” Adelaide said.
“It’s Madam Zolanda. She’s in a terrible state. I think she’s having a nervous breakdown. She won’t come out of her room. She’s begging for some of the special tea that you blended for her—Enlightenment—but we’re out. Refresh doesn’t open until nine. I don’t dare wait that long. In any event, I’m afraid to leave her alone. In her present mood she might do herself some harm.”
“If she’s in such a bad way, you should call the doctor.”
“No, Madam Zolanda would be furious if I did that. She’d likely fire me. If you wouldn’t mind bringing me a fresh batch of her special blend, I would be very grateful. I assure you, I’ll make it worth your while. We’re staying in the villa at the end of Ocean View Lane. Do you know it?”
“Yes, but I really think you should call the doctor.”
“I just can’t risk it,” Thelma whispered. “It would mean my job. I really do think Madam Zolanda will be fine once she’s had a chance to calm down. Your tea works wonders for her. Please say you’ll bring some to the villa right away.”
Adelaide glanced at the wall clock. It was very early in the morning. She did the blending of the teas and tisanes in her own kitchen so she had everything she needed on hand. There was time to serve breakfast to Jake, prepare a packet of Enlightenment, and drop it off before she had to get dressed for work.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll be there within the hour.”
“Can’t you make it sooner?” Thelma pleaded. “This is an emergency.”
The phone went dead before Adelaide could say anything else. She replaced the receiver and stood very still, trying to decide how to handle the situation.
The kitchen door opened. Startled yet again, she swung around a little too quickly. The edge of her hand caught a spoon on the counter and sent it clattering onto the brick-red linoleum floor. The lack of sleep was taking a toll. She was on edge today.
Jake walked into the room, looking grim. He was holding something in his right hand.
“What is it?” she asked a little too sharply. “Did you find something?”
He opened his hand to display two cigarette butts and a nearly empty matchbook. “I found these behind the garage. Looks like the bastard smoked at least a couple of cigarettes while he waited last night.”
It took a few beats before she grasped the full meaning of his words. “While he waited?” she finally managed. “You think there was someone out here all night?”
“There’s no way to know how long he watched this cottage. We didn’t hear a car coming or going during the night, but that isn’t surprising, not if he parked some distance away on a side road. The sound of the surf would have covered the noise of an engine. But here’s how I read the scene.”
She stared at him. “The scene? As in, the scene of a crime?”
He ignored that. “I think he got into the house and had a good look around while you were gone. Then he went outside to wait until you returned. He knew you were with me. He was stuck until I left. I think the plan was to wait until you turned off the lights and went to bed before he went back into the house. But you didn’t go to bed. Instead, you turned on all the lights.”
“And you came running to see what was wrong and stayed with me the rest of the night,” she concluded. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he enter the house while I was gone and then go back outside to wait for me to go to bed?”
“Got a feeling,” Jake said, “that he went into the house to familiarize himself with the layout so that when he went back inside in the dark, he would know exactly where he was going and how he would get out in a hurry. It’s a small place so there was nowhere for him to hide inside until you went to bed.”
“How can you possibly know that?” she asked.
“Just seems logical.”
It was the truth, she thought, but not the whole truth. She was very sure that what Jake had left unsaid was, It’s what I would have done. Probably best not to press the matter, she decided.
She looked at the damning cigarette butts and the matchbook. “It wasn’t some transient who was after food.”
“No,” Jake said. “I don’t think it was a burglar, either. If I’m right—and for now, at least, we had better assume that I am—whoever left these cigarette butts is stalking you the way a predator stalks prey.”
Chapter 16
The villa on Ocean View Lane was an extravagant, Hollywood fantasy version of a mansion done in the Spanish colonial revival style. The residence, with its high ceilings and decorative parapets, rose three stories above the walled grounds.
Jake drove through the open wrought iron gates and along a drive that cut through a garden filled with well-kept flowering plants. Orange and grapefruit trees were scattered about the grounds. A decorative grape arbor marched along one wall.
He brought the speedster to a halt at the front of the villa.
“This is some house,” he remarked, shutting down the engine.
“Florence told me that it was built by a tycoon just before the crash,” Adelaide explained. “The tycoon lost everything when the market plunged. This mansion was neglected for years and then another very wealthy man from L.A. picked it up. He poured a lot of money into it and now rents it out to celebrities who want more privacy than they can get at the Burning Cove Hotel.”
Jake opened his door, climbed out from behind the wheel, and walked around to her side of the car to open the door. She got out, bag of tea in hand. Together they went up the front steps. She pressed the doorbell.
“It really wasn’t necessary for you to accompany me today,” she said, not for the first time.
“I told you, I’ve got a personal interest in Madam Zolanda.”
“Yes,” she said. “You did tell me that.”