Carla Neggers - Tempting Fate

He sipped his second beer. Since the average race lasted less than two minutes, most of the afternoon, technically, was between races. In his next life, Zeke thought, he’d run a racetrack concession stand.

Then he spotted Dani threading her way up the aisle, and the afternoon suddenly got a lot more interesting.

She had on a simple short white dress and no hat, and a pair of binoculars hung from her neck.

She looked even sexier than she had last night in Mattie’s sleek dress.

As she moved closer, Zeke saw that she was also on a tear, hanging by her fingernails. Irritated about something and getting more irritated the more she thought about it.

She dropped into the seat beside him, a jumble of nerves, determination and energy. He could smell the clean fresh scent of the same soap in his room at the Pembroke. The bruise on her wrist had turned to a splotch of red, purple, blue and yellow. Her shins still looked sore. She sat for a few seconds without saying a word.

Finally Zeke said, “Afternoon, Ms. Pembroke.”

She cut her black eyes at him. “Mr. Cutler.”

Her tone was frigid, and she inhaled through her nose, one angry woman. Zeke took another sip of beer. “I’m just one among tens of thousands here. How’d you find me?”

“I looked for your shining armor.”

For a no-nonsense entrepreneur, she was good at sarcasm. “Well, it couldn’t have been that difficult-the guy I borrowed this little box from is fairly high profile.”

“Someone you rescued from the jaws of death.”

“You don’t sound impressed.”

Those eyes were on him again, telling him she’d just as soon go for his throat as sit there and talk. But there was fear there, too. She’d had her world turned upside down before, and now it must have seemed to her it was happening again. And maybe it was. He suddenly wished he’d told Sam to take the first eastbound plane he could get. With his ability to zero in on a person’s insecurities, fears, strengths, the sources of his or her anger and frustrations, Sam would know what to say to a scared, angry, hotheaded ex-heiress. Zeke sure as hell didn’t. Likely enough, whatever he said would only irritate her more, or, worse, suck her deeper into whatever was going on.

She stared down at the empty track. It was, of course, between races. “Who’s your pick for the Chandler?”

“Dani,” Zeke said carefully, “you didn’t come here to talk horses.”

“I’d stay away from the favorite. The Chandler’s done its fair share over the past hundred years in helping Saratoga earn its reputation as the ‘graveyard of favorites.’”

But underneath her rigidity and distance, Zeke sensed just how upset and vulnerable Dani was. He could see her twenty-five years ago, a nine-year-old waiting for her mother to come home, trying to make sense of what was going on around her.

Zeke became very still, blotting out the sounds and commotion of the milling crowd. He didn’t take his eyes off her. “Tell me why you’re here,” he said.

“The Chandler and the Kentucky Derby are both one-and-a-quarter-mile races for three-year-olds. Since the Chandler’s run in the summer instead of the spring, the horses are a few months older, more experienced. Many experts think that added maturity makes the Chandler a better race.”

Zeke decided to go along with her, play her game, for now. “What do you think?”

“I don’t care about the Chandler.” She turned to him, her face white and her eyes huge and aching. It wasn’t easy for her to be there. “I never have.”

“I’m not much on racing myself. The horses are just names and numbers to me. I haven’t placed a single bet. Still, it makes for a pleasant afternoon.”

“You’re just the opposite of Nick-my grandfather. He’d come to the track and not watch a single race, just sit in front of the monitors as close to the betting window as he could get.” Her tone was neither affectionate nor bitter, simply matter-of-fact. But her skin was still pale, and Zeke could feel her emotion like a hot, dangerous breeze. “I want you off my property by six o’clock.”

But something had changed since last night. There was more at stake now. She hadn’t just found his car in the Pembroke lot and decided to hunt him up and personally give him the boot. “That’s all?” he asked, dubious.

She said tightly, “Yes.”

“Dani, you’re not telling me everything.”

She shot him a look. “And you’ve told me everything?”

Among her very high standards, Zeke suspected, was a profound distaste for people who neglected to tell her everything she thought she had a right to know. And he hadn’t even begun.

She looked down at the track, still quiet. With her angular Pembroke features, she cut a handsome profile, but Zeke could see the fatigue, the shadows under her beautiful, dark eyes, the straight, uncompromising line of her mouth. He thought of the woman with tears on her cheeks as she cut her kite loose at dawn. How to figure Dani Pembroke?

“Your lifestyle’s caught up with you,” she said without looking at him.

Zeke felt himself tense. “What do you mean?”

“I mean-” and now she threw the full force of her black eyes on him “-that your room at the Pembroke has been turned upside down.”

Falling back on his training and experience, Zeke let his muscles relax, kept his face impassive. “Was anyone hurt?”

“Not that I know of.” In the bright sun, her eyes had narrowed to two black slits. “None of the other rooms were touched. It wasn’t a random act of violence. It was deliberate. Whoever got into room 304 was specifically looking for your room-or for you.”

“And you think that someone was maybe the same person who knocked you three ways from Sunday-”

“I think there’s a high probability of a connection.”

No doubt she was right, not that Zeke had any intention of telling her so. This wasn’t her territory. She bottled water and made people feel good for a living. She didn’t deal with the likes of Quint Skinner, who, Zeke had no doubts whatsoever, had tossed his room. It was a message. You’re not the big shot you think you are. I can reach you. Or just Skinner’s way of trying to find out what Zeke was really doing in Saratoga.

“So you think this break-in was aimed at me personally and not at you or your company?” he asked calmly.

“You’re the expert.” She gave him a look that made him realize how she’d succeeded in the competitive beverage and hotel businesses, how she’d gone on with her life after her mother’s disappearance, her father’s embezzlement, her war with the Chandler half of her family. Dani Pembroke was a survivor. She added smoothly, “After you’re off my property.”

He’d tackle that one later.

She jumped up, turned to him, her black eyes challenging. “I’m going to find out what you’re doing in Saratoga.”

Before he could decide whether or not to grab her and level with her, she was off, her small size helping her speed through the crowd. If he was to have a prayer of catching up with her, he’d have had to leap over seats and generally make a scene. He’d done that sort of thing before, gun in hand, even. But right now he wasn’t sure what good it would do.

He made himself settle back in his seat. He sipped his warm beer and listened to the people around him, the idle chatter, the laughter.

And he reminded himself of his mission in Saratoga.

He was to find out if the gold key Lilli Chandler Pembroke had worn the night she disappeared was the same gold key in the recent photograph of her daughter twenty-five years later. He was to find out if the blackmail letter Joe had given to Naomi had anything to do with Lilli’s disappearance.