Page 143 of Our Little Secret

Not today, she told herself.Definitely not today.

Something darted across her feet.

Brooke screamed. Dropped her flashlight. Scrabbled backward.

A mouse, disturbed and squeaking its surprise, scurried across the floor to duck into a knothole where the floorboards didn’t quite meet.

“Crap!” Brooke’s heart was beating wildly as she followed the little rodent with the beam from her small flashlight. She didn’t see anything. Not even a pair of beady eyes reflecting in the harsh glow. Good. Nerves tight, she went back to work, crawling around the perimeter of the attic, searching for wires or cameras or microphones or transmitters or anything suspicious.

Nothing.

At least nothing that caught her eye in a first, quick appraisal.

Unless Neal already found the bugs when he was up here looking for the Christmas tree and lights.

Was that possible?

Would he?

“Don’t even go there,” she said, trying to tamp down her paranoia as time ticked by. Why would Gideon set up surveillance here, when he knew they rarely came to the island? It would have been a lot of work for very little if any reward.

She was jumping at shadows.

“Stop it!” she hissed so loudly that Shep, in the hallway below the open trapdoor, let out a worried “Woof.”

“It’s okay, boy,” she called down to him, though of course it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay at all.

Yes, Gideon had been here. The bracelet was evidence enough of that. But most likely it was a one-time shot, a last-gasp effort to one-up her if and when she ever returned. She tried to force herself to relax.

It’s over, she reminded herself as she gave another quick look at the belongings left and forgotten up here. She climbed down the ladder and pushed it back into the ceiling, the old springs groaning as the trapdoor snapped into place. She couldn’t let Gideon’s last desperate play get to her now. She refused to let his actions scrape her emotions raw. It was his final mind game and she wasn’t going to play.

Still, she went outside, letting Shep explore the backyard while she hurried down the exterior stairwell to the basement, where a key was hidden in a rusting flowerpot. The door was heavy and swollen, but she shouldered it open and stepped into a space that was dank and musty. The light switch worked, though only one of two single bulbs gave off any illumination. She ran her flashlight’s beam over shelves of gardening equipment, canning jars, old newspapers, and fishing gear. All the old possessions in the basement seemed as if they had been undisturbed for years. When she shone the light over the exposed beams of the ceiling and cracked cement of the walls, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just a lot of junk that needed to be cleared out.

Satisfied that nothing was out of place, she locked the basement door behind her again.

She’d been on a fool’s errand.

Finding the bracelet had unnerved her, made her a little crazy.

Brushing the cobwebs from her hair and clothes, she decided to shower before Neal and Marilee returned. Quickly, she stripped off her dusty sweater and smudged jeans, her sweat-soaked bra and panties. The old pipes groaned in protest as she stepped under the spray that was little more than a fine mist but at least washed the perspiration, grit, and fear from her body.Pull it together, she told herself and suddenly craved a cigarette, though she had completely given up the habit.

Ignoring her sudden need for a shot of nicotine, she lathered and shampooed, closing her eyes as she rinsed the suds from her body and hair. Her tense muscles finally relaxed and as she twisted off the taps, she let out a long breath, then reached for a towel.

Just as she spied a little dark spot above the showerhead. Barely visible from her height. It was nothing of course, she told herself as she toweled off, but she didn’t remember seeing it in years past.Don’t go there, she told herself firmly.Do not!But she couldn’t help her heightened sense of worry. After slipping on a clean bra and panties, she found the old stool they’d used years before when Marilee needed a step up to use the sink or toilet. She positioned the stool inside the tub and stepped up, balancing herself against the shower curtain rail. Then she reached up and poked a finger in the hole. Was there a bit of glass there? The eye of a minuscule camera?

“No,” she whispered, her skin prickling. Maybe it was an old wasp’s nest or a hole made by some kind of burrowing insect or . . . She stepped off the stool suddenly, hurried back to her bedroom to retrieve the flashlight, and was back on the stool in an instant. Under the flashlight’s beam there was a reflection, some minute lens, smaller than a pea. “Shit!” she said, her pulse jumping as she realized whoever had set the little camera in place could watch her naked and wet, as he could watch Neal or Marilee if they used this shower.

Gideon.

It had to be Gideon.

“You son of a—ooh!” So furious she nearly lost her balance and fell off the stool. She grabbed the hook where she’d hung her towel just as she heard the sound of an engine.

Neal and Marilee were returning.

And she couldn’t tell them about the camera, wouldn’t be able to explain it. Not that they would think she would have an explanation, but there would be questions—lots of questions—and possibly the police called in if Neal thought it necessary. No, no, no. Better they didn’t know. At least not yet. But she couldn’t leave it the way it was. Frantic, she found a bar of soap and shaved off bits of it with her fingernail. The shavings were soft and malleable and she pressed the opaque bits into the tiny cavity until the lens was completely covered.

A temporary solution, but it would have to do for now.