Free Nantucket Nights by Elin Hilderbrand Page B

partner had his hand on his gun. Kayla didn’t even know Nantucket policemen carried guns, but this guy carried surgical gloves and a gun.
    “Stand back, ladies,” he said. He peered inside the open door. “Oh, baby.”
    Paul Henry looked in over his shoulder. “Uh-oh. Whoa.” He knocked on the door frame. “Ms. Riley? Ms. Riley, it’s Paul Henry with the Nantucket Police Department. Are you in there?”
    “What’s going on?” Val said. Her bottom half was still swathed in just a beach towel, and Kayla had an urge to tell her to put on her pants.
    Raoul stayed in the driveway, studying the outside of the house. At first Kayla thought he was admiring his handiwork in the moonlight The house had only four rooms, but it was one of his favorite designs. Huge living area, huge kitchen, huge bathroom, huge bedroom. High ceilings, big windows, lots of custom touches. He once told her he could stare at his houses for hours, the same way she had watched enthralled as the children slept when they were babies.
    “She’s not in there,” he said.
    “Raoul?”
    He shook his head. “She’s not in there, Kayla. What does Paul say?”
    Paul and his partner had just taken their first steps through the front door into the living room. Val was close behind them, and Kayla was a few steps behind Val. When Val poked her head in the door, she screamed.
    Antoinette, hanging from the exposed beams?
    Antoinette, lying in a pool of blood?
    “What is it?” Kayla asked, afraid to move.
    “Ms. Riley?” Paul Henry called out.
    Kayla looked through the front door.
    The place had been torn apart. Antoinette’s things were everywhere. The floppy beige cushions of her sofa were strewn about, her books had been swept off her built-in shelves, the hand-dipped candles that she ordered from Woodstock, New York, had been snapped in half. Her Norfolk pine lay on its side. Bottles of Stag’s Leap chardonnay were scattered across the floor like bowling pins.
    “Oh, dear God.” Kayla took a step inside, but Paul Henry raised his hand.
    “Don’t move,” he said. “This really is police business now, Kayla. Is it safe to assume this place didn’t look this way when Ms. Riley left this evening?”
    “We didn’t come inside,” Kayla said. She turned to Val, who was back to wearing her wide-eyed, doped-up expression. “Did we, Val?”
    Val shook her head.
    “So it could have looked like this,” Paul Henry’s partner said. He put his surgical gloves on before he started picking things up. “For all we know, Ms. Riley could have made this mess herself. Meaning she was in a certain frame of mind when she headed to the beach.” Every light in the house was on—the in-ceiling track lighting, the Tiffany lamps, the lights in the kitchen and the bathroom. Antoinette hated lightbulbs. She preferred sunlight, candlelight
    “These lights weren’t on when we picked Antoinette up,” Kayla said. “Someone else has been here.”
    “Is anything missing?” Val said. “Was she robbed? You might as well let us look around because we’re the only ones who will be able to tell you.”
    “The TV is missing,” Paul Henry said. He nodded at the big square blank spot in Antoinette’s built-in shelves.
    “Antoinette doesn’t own a TV,” Kayla said. “Val’s right. You should let us in.”
    The partner glowered at them. “Don’t touch anything,” he said. “And you,” he nodded at Val. “Put on shoes.”
    “They’re in the back of my car,” Kayla said. “Along with your pants.”
    Val disappeared to dress. Raoul remained in the driveway, but now he was drawing patterns in the dirt with his feet. He kicked up clouds of dust.
    “Antoinette is still missing,” Kayla said.
    “Yes,” he said.
    Kayla and Val moved through the house behind Paul Henry and his partner, whose name Kayla learned was Detective Dean Simpson—an actual detective here on Nantucket!—ogling the mess. They found Antoinette’s checkbook and wallet hidden deep in