An Unfortunate Demise (An Anna Fairweather Murder Mystery Book 2) Read online

  As I turned away to leave them to their devices, a chill raced down my spine. Something was wrong. Something was missing.

  If these were children, there would have been more…sound. Laughter. Shouting. Something to indicate things were normal.

  The splashing continued, insistent.

  I leaned over the railing and stared down at the waves.

  A man’s head bobbed up in the water, and a moment later, another head followed, pressed up against the man’s.

  Icy fear washed through me as their heads disappeared beneath the waves once more.

  What in the world? What is happening?

  I stared in shock, willing my eyes to be wrong, feeling my heart pick up pace as I stared at the inky depths. Where were they? What was happening?

  The man’s head resurfaced, but still a shuddering fear passed through me. It was as if a spear of clarity pierced through my mind.

  A river. Darkness. The only light from a lone streetlamp. The sounds of the city. The lap of water against the bank. Gurgling. Gasping for breath. Hands clasped around the throat of my father—

  “Help!”

  The cry drew me back to my senses. I grasped the railing with both hands, my body trembling in horror. Cold sweat coated my skin and the blood rushed through my ears.

  “Please! Help!”

  I looked wildly around, back toward the vendors some distance away. Surely, surely someone would have heard. Someone who could help. Someone not paralyzed as I was by my fear of the water.

  The sound of splashing set my nerves on edge and my jaw clenched tightly.

  No one is responding…

  No one else was there.

  I had heard. I could help.

  Could I? Can I?

  If I did not act, these people could die. This situation was not like my memories. It was real.

  The longer you delay, the worse their chances become! a small voice within me urged.

  The horrid thought was enough to set my feet in motion, racing down the nearest set of stairs, taking them two at a time.

  2

  Now that the decision had been made, it was as if the act alone was enough to calm my nerves. I nearly slipped on a wet step nearer the bottom of the stairs, but I landed in the sand, and after a moment of uncertain footing, I pushed forward. I gathered my skirts in my hands, moving as quickly as I could toward the shore.

  “Help!” came the man’s voice.

  I braced myself for the shock of cold as I ran out into the surf. The waves rushed up to greet me, wrapping around my legs like a greedy embrace. I hesitated, my heart thundering, but I pushed on. I could not delay any longer.

  The man’s head was just visible above the waves, giving me a direction to reach toward.

  “I’m here!” I shouted. “I’m here!”

  His head whipped around. “Quick! Help!”

  I waded in up to my waist, to my ribs. A wave came rushing up, nearly knocking my feet out from underneath me.

  The man stretched out his arm, and I grabbed onto it and gave him a tug.

  A strong undertow wrapped itself around my legs and took me with it. A wave came up, crashed over my head, and I fell beneath the water.

  My feet splayed out in all directions, flailing desperately until they found solid ground once more. I shoved myself upward, my face bursting through the surface of the water.

  I gasped, trembling, but was on firm footing again.

  The man still struggled. I could hear his grunting, and as a wave waned in front of me, I saw him still there, trying to reach the shore.

  He saw I had reemerged and reached out to me once again.

  I latched onto his upper arm, and he onto mine with a grip like iron.

  It was like dragging a wall through the water, a solid piece of metal, but slowly, ever so slowly, he came. I realized his arm was wrapped tightly around a woman who was very much unconscious.

  My heart nearly stopped at the sight of her still form.

  “Quickly,” he cried. “My wife isn’t breathing.”

  His statement stirred a further urgency within me, and I gave him another hard pull against the current.

  His feet finally found the rocky bottom and he was able to take a step toward the shore.

  Without thought, I reached out and wrapped one of my arms around the woman as well, her head lolling against his shoulder. Together, we dragged her through the water, her weight significant, between her wet clothes and our own.

  He laid her down on the sand, panting and sopping.

  “Dinah, please, wake up,” he mumbled, his lips blue, his body wracked with shivers. “P-please, Dinah—”

  As I stared at them, I realized they were the couple that had been arguing behind us earlier that day, the ones who had been hoping for a room change. I remembered their conversation about wanting to come down to the shore for a walk. She had been insistent on doing so, confident the storm would have passed.

  She was right, and it seemed to have been the worst possible outcome for the both of them.

  “What happened?” I asked, staggering to my feet. My clothes felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds now and my feet slipped inside my sodden shoes.

  “We were out walking,” he gasped. “She—she wanted to go out on those rocks up ahead, the outcropping—”

  With a shaking hand, he pointed off into the distance. In the rapidly fading light of the day, I could just barely make out the enormous boulders pressed up against the shore and stretching out into the sea. “Did she slip?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, rubbing his hand over his face, “Well, yes—I don’t know! She stopped suddenly and then she fell off the rocks into the…”

  He laid his hands on the sand and bent over her, trying to listen to her chest.

  “She’s still not breathing,” he panted, looking up. “We need help!”

  I followed his gaze, brushing some of the wet hair from my forehead. A family with older children had walked past and peered down toward us.

  “Help!” the man beside me called.

  I watched as the person I could only assume was the father said something quickly to his son, who nodded and took off running. With haste, the father pulled his jacket from his shoulders, and left it in his wife’s arms as he hurried toward us.

  “What’s happened?” he called, as he approached. Broad shouldered and tall, he knelt beside me.

  “She fell in, near the rocks,” the husband murmured, his eyes bulging as he stared down at the woman in the sand. “We were walking along and—”

  “Is everything… Oh, heavens, what in the world?”

  We were quickly joined by another three men who pressed in on us from all sides. Questions began to fly over our heads.

  One of the men bent forward and began trying to resuscitate the motionless woman.

  “I’m a physician,” he explained quickly in between his efforts. “Everyone stay back.”

  A few terrible, anxious moments passed. I counted my own heartbeats, willing the woman’s breath to stabilize.

  The physician lifted his head, and the stillness in his face made my heart sink.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gravely. “But she is dead.”

  “No…” the husband breathed, the last bits of color draining from his face. “That’s not—that’s not possible. She—she was just here, just with me, moments ago! How could she—”

  He grabbed his wife by the shoulders and gave her a shake.

  “Dinah, please! Wake up!” he cried. “She just… She just needs to breathe, right? Come now, Dinah, let’s help you breathe.”

  He lifted her up, holding her against himself, and forcefully struck her back with his palm, over and over again.

  “Breathe, Dinah, breathe!”

  “Sir, please,” the doctor said, laying a hand on his arm. “She is gone. Her heart has stopped. She has no pulse… I’m sorry.”

  The husband looked up at the physician, his wife held tightly in his arms, the ends o
f her wet hair beginning to dry and catch in the wind.

  He released a lamenting cry as he clutched her to him. I looked away, feeling that I was intruding upon a private and personal moment.

  I noticed that a rather sizable crowd had gathered up along the pier. Families huddled together, staring down at the horrific scene unfolding before them. Mothers moved their children behind them to shield their gaze, and their husbands had started to come down to see what exactly was unfolding.

  I stood, taking a step back from the grieving man.

  “Miss, are you all right?”

  I jumped and turned to see one of the men that had come down with the physician step aside to come speak with me.

  As I looked at him, I realized it was the seller from the cinnamon almond stall. He brushed sand from his hands, his eyes concerned as he stared at me.

  “Oh, I—yes, I’m fine,” I said, tucking some of my now damp hair behind my ears.

  “You are not injured?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Wait one moment…did I not just see you at my stall? Not even half an hour ago?”

  I nodded. “Yes, that was me,” I said.

  “What are you doing down here?” he asked.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the grieving man, still holding his wife.

  “I saw them struggling in the water,” I said. “He called out for help, and no one else was around.”

  The vendor nodded in understanding and introduced himself. “My name is Adam Wallard.”

  “Anna Fairweather,” I said. “I’m staying up at the Main Street Hotel.”

  He turned and looked up toward the pier. “Well, Anna Fairweather, you do not need to stand out here in your wet clothes. You’ll catch your death if you are not careful. May I walk you back to the hotel?”

  “I should stay,” I said, turning to watch the husband. The other men seemed to be standing there in quiet solidarity or trying to offer comfort. I noticed that some bystanders had left, likely to go and find help. “When the authorities arrive, there may be questions about what I saw.”

  “I am certain there will be,” he said. “But the authorities will be able to locate you. I will be returning here to await their arrival and can tell them where to find you. Meanwhile, you cannot stand out here in the wind.”

  Shivers had begun to wrack my body and I knew they would only get worse as the wind increased and the sky continued to darken. “Very well,” I said. “Thank you for the offer, sir. I appreciate it.”

  With a gesture toward the stairs, he started up the beach. I paused for just a moment to chance a glance at the husband of the now deceased woman. Had she been dead when I had first reached them?

  He did not look up to see me, but I imagined he would not even if I were to stand there for another hour. His whole focus was on her, and rightly so. He would surely be stuck in disbelief, longing and wishing for the reality in which he lived to end, hoping he might wake from the terrible, terrible dream he found himself in.

  “Here, please,” Mr. Wallard said, pulling his coat from his shoulders and swiftly draping it over me. “You will surely freeze otherwise.”

  I knew it would be terribly rude to refuse him. “Thank you,” I said, pulling the coat more tightly around myself. My shivers began to subside as we reached the top of the stairs.

  “What happened, Mother?” asked a staring little boy, clinging to the skirts of his mother’s dress. “Why is that man down on the beach crying?”

  The mother took a quick glance at me and ushered her son away from the stairs. “Come along, dear. We really should not be here.”

  “But, why—”

  “That’s enough, Patrick.”

  I felt many eyes like the mother’s upon me as we passed.

  Mr. Wallard gave a few bystanders nods of acknowledgement. I imagined he knew many of these people, if they lived in Brighton as he surely must.

  “I am sorry about your friend,” he said as we drew away from the crowd that had gathered, getting closer to the hotel with each step. “Or perhaps she was family?”

  “I did not know her at all,” I said. “She was a perfect stranger.”

  “Yet you risked drowning in order to go to her aid?”

  “I did what anyone would,” I said. “I saw the two down in the water. At first, I thought they were children playing, but something seemed…wrong. Soon, I realized what was happening, and the man was calling for help.”

  Mr. Wallard’s brow furrowed. “It is certainly a terrible tragedy. I heard shouting and saw people rushing down to the beach, which is why I came along. Everyone feared that someone had been drawn out to sea. Those waves are always rough after a storm and the current strong.” He shook his head. “The poor woman never had a chance.”

  I frowned, thinking aloud. “I think she was dead before we tried to pull her from the water. He was caught in the current, and I had to help get them both back to shore. I never saw her move.”

  “Do not blame yourself,” my companion said. “It sounds as if you did all you could. You may very well have saved her husband’s life.”

  Knots began to form inside me, wriggling, snaking aches that ate away at the inside of my stomach. All too familiar feelings of dread crept up in my heart, and somehow, I knew that this matter was far from over.

  “Adam, what has happened?”

  I looked up to see a dark-haired woman with lips as red as the apple colored coat she wore rushing toward us.

  We had almost reached the hotel now. We were just about to come up on Mr. Wallard’s stall, many families still walking by as if nothing strange had occurred in the distance.

  We came to a stop, and the red-coated woman looked me up and down. She gasped. “So the rumors are true! Was she pulled out to sea?” Before Mr. Wallard could answer, she addressed me, soaking wet, wrapped in the borrowed coat. “And you were rescued?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, darling…” Mr. Wallard said. “It was someone else. And she did not survive.”

  “How dreadful! But how did it happen?” the woman, who I could only assume was Mrs. Wallard, asked. “Who did not have better sense than to go swimming after such a terrible storm? And so late in the year?”

  “Darling, we do not know any more than you about that,” Mr. Wallard said. “How did you already hear of it?”

  She shook her head. “Men came running past here, looking for help. One of them stopped to say that a couple was in need of urgent assistance.”

  “Yes, well, this young woman bravely tried to help rescue the drowning woman,” Mr. Wallard said. “But by the time she reached them, it was already too late.”

  He appeared to take note of my shivering. “Now, let’s get you indoors before you freeze, Miss.”

  We left his wife behind and continued on up to the hotel’s back entrance.

  “Where are you staying?” he asked.

  “Second—second floor,” I said. My teeth had begun to chatter, despite being swept through the back doors of the hotel.

  The warmth within wrapped around me, but the clothes clinging to me seemed even heavier, as if filled with ice. My skirts pressed against my thighs and my feet sloshed within my sodden shoes. My hat had been lost somewhere back in the surf, or perhaps on the beach, leaving my wet hair clinging to my bare head. The coat Mr. Wallard had draped over my shoulders did little to keep the heat in but at least it had kept the winds outside from biting into my skin any further.

  “Allow me to help you upstairs, then,” Mr. Wallard said.

  “Oh, no, it is perfect—perfectly all right, I can manage on my own from here,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” he said. “I want to ensure that you are reunited with your family. The last thing you need is to be alone right now.”

  I allowed him to accompany me up the stairs and gave him directions. Soon we found ourselves before the door to the suite I shared with Mrs. Montford.

  It occurred to me that this man still did not know I
was merely Mrs. Montford’s maid. How would he take the news when it became evident?

  He knocked on the door, and it was not more than a moment before it was opened by Mrs. Baird. Her eyes narrowed upon first sight of Mr. Wallard, as damp as he was, but then as her gaze shifted to me, she drew in a gasp. “Bea!” she cried. “She’s here!”

  Mrs. Montford appeared at Mrs. Baird’s shoulder a heartbeat later. “Anna…” she breathed, her eyes sweeping over me. “Good heavens, what on earth happened to you?”

  “My apologies, ma’am,” Mr. Wallard said. “I do not mean to disturb you but I could not leave her to walk back up here to your room all alone. Not after what she’s been through.”

  “Did you fall into the water?” Mrs. Baird asked.

  “No,” Mr. Wallard said, speaking for me, which I was all too happy to allow him to do. “You see, there was an accident. Might we continue this inside, so the poor girl can start to dry out?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mrs. Montford said. “Come sit by the fire, Anna. Mrs. Baird, could you fetch us a towel from the washroom?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Baird said and disappeared.

  Mr. Wallard allowed Mrs. Montford to take his place at my side, and he dragged one of the handsome, floral chairs toward the fire, which looked as if it had been recently stoked. I sank into the seat and withdrew Mr. Wallard’s coat from around my shoulders.

  Mrs. Baird returned a moment later with a thick towel, which I accepted from her and wrapped around myself.

  Mr. Wallard stood slightly off to the side, grabbing some logs from the stack along the wall.

  “There now, can you tell us what happened?” Mrs. Montford asked.

  I looked up at her. I wanted nothing more than to dismiss the affair altogether, to keep it from her, but I knew that it was not only a burden too large for me to bear on my own, but it would surely make its way around the inn. Every guest would know of Dinah’s death by nightfall.

  “I—” I began. “I saw a man down in the surf as I walked along the pier. It seemed he was struggling. Then, I heard him shouting, and I was the only one around. He needed help, and so I rushed down to see if there was anything I could do.”