Kasey Michaels: High Heels and Homicide

Maggie surfaced, took another deep breath, and went down again, this time with more of a plan. Locating the glow of the miner's light, she judged where Nikki's arms were and grabbed one on the second try, pulling hard on the end of the sleeve of the slicker.

Luckily, the slicker had been fashioned for a much larger person. Even luckier, Nikki actually helped her, if blind panic can be called help.

Her arms and legs thrashing, Nikki grabbed onto Maggie, attacking her rescuer. Typical. So Maggie, not really feeling all that sorry about it, brought up her knee and popped the actress one square under the chin.

All in the name of rescue , she told herself as she grabbed onto Nikki's hair and headed for the surface.

«I've got her!»

Maggie sank a little as she felt Nikki being pulled up and out of the pond, then resurfaced in time to see Nikki's legs being dragged out of the water. «Yo. A little help here?»

Alex left Nikki where she lay on her stomach, coughing and retching, and reached for Maggie's hand. «You are the most feather-witted, headstrong, unbelievably selfish woman I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, do you know that? You could have drowned.»

«Yeah, I'm crazy about you, too,» Maggie gasped out, holding onto his hand as she gripped the edge of the raised path. «I'm betting the jewelry's still down there. She had it in a bag around her neck like an anchor, the jerk. Keep the flashlight on the water. I'm going to go back down and get it.»

«Maggie.»

«Don't try to stop me, Alex. I've had it up to here with these people, and I'm going to get those damn jewels and get out of England.»

«I agree. But perhaps you'd like to use this?» he suggested, retrieving Nikki's lighted headband and handing it down to her.

«Good thought,» Maggie said, trying to smile, but her teeth were chattering, so she gave up that particular effort as a bad job.

One last dive did the trick, as the handle of the bag actually seemed to be waving to her as she searched for it, and she was back on the surface and then on the slippery, bumpy path a moment later, lying face-to-face with Nikki Campion as the gray light of dawn became a little brighter. «Come here often?» she asked the drenched Nikki.

It was morning, and the case was solved. Sort of solved. Most of it solved. She hoped Alex was happy. She was. Rapidly freezing to death, maybe nearing a slight case of fatigue-induced delirium, but happy.

«I believe you two have been introduced,» Alex said, assisting Maggie to her feet. «Here,» he added, draping a wet slicker over her shoulders. «This won't help much, but it's better than nothing. Can you navigate the path back to the house while I assist Miss Campion?»

«Don't… don't let her get away,» Maggie told him, heading for the still-open back door to Medwine Manor. «I'm so cold!»

She wasn't quite halfway to the house before Sterling, looking really adorable in his own yellow slicker, came running toward her, gathered her close under his arm, and led her into the kitchens, where Perry was waiting with a large red-and-green-plaid wool blanket.

«I love you guys,» Maggie told them, shaking all over. «Fireplace. Get me to a fireplace. I'm so cold.»

And that's when the lights went on…

«I thought it was the generators, but they're probably ruined,» Sir Rudy said, handing Maggie a cup of hot tea as she entered the main saloon. «Our local electrical council has certainly outdone themselves. I don't remember power being restored this quickly before.» He held up the silver sugar bowl. «Sugar?»

«Yes, three, please. Or four, if that doesn't insult you,» Maggie said, trying with all her might not to spill the tea because her hands were still shaking. She glanced at the mantel clock. It was after six. Gee, it was true: Time flies when you're having fun.

Tabby and Bernie had grabbed her almost the moment she'd climbed the stairs to the first floor, pushing her into the study, to sit and drip and shiver while Tabby raced upstairs for towels and dry clothing, and Bernie told her she was an idiot—and Maggie had agreed with her.

But now she was back in the main saloon, and the power was on, which meant the central heating had kicked in, and the fire was still blazing in the fireplace, and Maggie actually had a moment to wonder how she was supposed to get all her wet clothes into a suitcase, then explain them to an airline security guard.

Because she was leaving England today if she had to swim. Okay, maybe not if she had to swim.

«Where's Alex?»

«Here, my dear,» he said, and she turned to see him standing to the far left of the large room, looking the epitome of the Gentleman At Home, as he had crossed one ankle over the other and was leaning, so nonchalantly, on the knob of his sword cane. «And, before you ask, here, too, are all our new friends, including Miss Campion and the robin. Although I don't believe either of them is pleased to be here.»

«I was leaving,» Nikki explained through chattering teeth. «A person can't leave a house before she's murdered? So I picked up someone else's bag by mistake. So what? A person can leave a place when a person wants to.»

«This is ridiculous,» Byrd Stockwell said, glaring at Evan Pottinger, who was standing over the seated Byrd, holding the fireplace poker. «She ran, which proves she's guilty. All I did was diddle the slut.»

«So very charming. Always the gentleman, Robin, aren't you?»

«Really?» Byrd said with a sneer. (Maggie all of a sudden didn't think he looked half so handsome.) «At least I'm not trying to act like some stuffed-shirt English lord.»

Alex put a hand to his chest and recited a line from Aeschylus. «'Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.' Pardon me, Robin, as I toddle to my chair, a broken man.»

And then he did just that, propping his sword cane against one arm of the chair as he sat facing Byrd Stockwell. «Now, if we could dispense with the histrionics and be on with this?»

Maggie walked over to stand beside Alex. «What have I missed? Have I missed anything?»

«A phone call from Mary Louise, as a matter of fact. A very interesting phone call from Mary Louise. But we'll allow that information to fall into our conversation as we get on with this, if that's all right with you.»

«Do I have a choice?»

«Not really, no.»

«Didn't think so,» Maggie said, sipping her tea as she looked more closely at Nikki, who was shivering in a blanket on another chair dragged to this side of the room. And surprise, surprise, someone had tied one of her ankles to a leg of the chair. Good thinking. «Okay, go for it. I'm kind of tired anyway.»

«I hate you,» Nikki said, glaring at Maggie. «You tried to drown me. I'm going to sue you, you know. You won't have a pot to piss in when I'm done with you.»

«Gee, I'm scared.» Maggie looked at Alex. «You have the bag?»

«It's safe, yes,» Alex told her, then got to his feet and turned to speak to everyone. «I am happy to announce, ladies and gentlemen, that we have both our miscreants safely in hand now, and there should be no further impositions on your time or constraints on your movements. In other words, you may go.»

«Not until we know what the hell happened here,» Bernie said, looking at Tabby. «You want to know, right?»

«Only if my name doesn't come up again,» Tabby said, pouting.

«I think you've had your fifteen minutes with this one, Tabby,» Maggie told her, grinning. «Come on, Alex, fill in the blanks here. I can fill in one of them—how Nikki here knew about the path. She knew because she spends all her time running around, up and down the halls, the stairs. She had to have looked out a window at some point and seen the path. Her getaway path. Once she'd found the jewels in Byrd's bedroom, all she needed was to figure out when to make her escape. I mean, it's not like acting was really going to work out for her anyway. But remember her running around with her hair all wet with sweat? That wasn't sweat; that was rain . And she was asking us where Byrd was because she wanted to give him the slip. She was just biding her time, her luggage and the jewels already stashed in the kitchen, and when we said we were going to search all the bedrooms, she knew it was time to make a break for it. It's all so logical now.»