Carla Neggers - Tempting Fate

Zeke shook his arm where Quint had had it in his iron grip. He walked out to the sidewalk and headed up the street to where he’d parked his car. The air was cool; he could smell freshly cut grass. Some kid had left his bike in the middle of the sidewalk. He climbed into his car and sat a minute behind the wheel, not moving. He’d underestimated Quint. Not physically. He’d have held his own on that score. But he’d let himself forget Quint’s incisiveness.

“You can’t make up for Joe.”

He stuck the key in the ignition, turned it and pulled out into the neighborhood street, trying not to notice that his hands were shaking.

John Pembroke pushed his way through brush and low-hanging branches on the narrow path from the Pembroke Springs bottling plant through the woods to the steep rock outcropping where Dani had found the gold key.

It was almost dawn, and he’d had to get out of that cottage.

The memories.

The questions.

Lilli.

The estate his great-grandfather had built had changed and yet stayed the same. His daughter obviously had a peculiar talent, a knack for embracing the past without letting it dominate the present or determine her future. But John had half hoped-had told Dani himself-that everything would be so different, so changed, that being there would be easy.

Such was not the case.

“Oh, Lilli,” he whispered. “Lilli, Lilli.”

He didn’t know if Dani had been asleep or not. Didn’t stop in her room to tell her where he was going or leave a note. He just went. His sneakers were soaked with dew and mud, and his face was scratched where switches and branches had slapped him. As a boy, he’d known every inch of these woods.

The path ended. He saw clouds rolling in from the west, encircling the moon. His breath came in ragged gasps. He was too damn old for this nonsense. Pounding through the woods at the crack of dawn. What did he think he was doing?

He hung his toes over the edge of a massive boulder and stared twenty, thirty, fifty hundred feet-whatever it was-down to the trees and rocks below.

His throat caught. Lilli…

Compared to Tucson, it was cold out, and damp.

He didn’t know how long he stood there. When he finally turned back, he was shivering and crying and the sky had lightened, a light drizzle falling.

Walking along the path, he could feel the wind of forty years ago in his face as he’d played Zorro in these same woods. He loved to check out Ulysses’s long-abandoned bottling plant. The old goat had sold mineral water throughout the country, then had tried to capitalize on the new soda market by drawing off and selling the carbonic acid that gave the water its natural sparkling quality. But he’d tired of the enterprise, and the plant fell into bankruptcy, which, given his tendency to overdo everything, had probably saved his springs from extinction. Had saved them for Dani.

John could feel his strength and exuberance, and all the optimism of being a kid and having his life ahead of him, believing still that he could make his dreams come true.

He’d been so confident. A true Pembroke.

He stumbled through a muddy spot and then realized he’d veered off the path. Up ahead, he recognized one of the lamps on the bottling-plant grounds. Keeping his eyes on it, he pushed forward through ferns and undergrowth, never minding the path. If he was right, he’d come out near the pavilion in the clearing just beyond the plant. He could easily pick up the main path back to Dani’s cottage from there.

Feeling foolish, he brushed away his tears with the backs of his hands.

He heard a rustling sound behind him. A squirrel? He doubted his daughter would tolerate bears in her woods.

There it was again.

Pressing ahead, he could see the Doric columns of the pavilion. They anchored a Victorian wrought-iron fence, crawling with morning glories and roses that enclosed stone benches and an old marble fountain. Lilli’s gold key, John remembered, had been a copy of the key to its gate. He wished he could have seen both keys before they were stolen.

He pictured his wife’s exuberant smile as she stood next to his nutty mother in the basket of her balloon. He’d call Mattie in a few hours. Talk to his mother as he’d never talked to her before.

The rustling was right behind him now.

He started to turn and felt himself falling, and then felt the slicing pain.

Someone knocked on Zeke’s door just after seven, waking him. He’d collapsed atop the crazy quilt around one. Pembroke housekeeping had unransacked his room. He wished they hadn’t. He might have been able to tell what Quint had been after. Did he know about the blackmail note as well?

“Hang on,” he called, rolling off the bed. He pulled on his jeans and shook off the last vestiges of sleep. “Who is it?”

“Ira Bernstein.”

So Dani wasn’t bluffing about kicking him out. Zeke opened up. “Look-” He stopped instantly, taking in the Pembroke manager’s pale face and shaken look. “What’s wrong?”

“Dani’s father has been found unconscious out near the bottling plant. He’s being transported to the hospital by ambulance now.”

“Does she know?”

Ira shook his head. “I thought you…”

He thought Zeke could tell her. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“He appears to have stumbled and fallen. He wasn’t on the path.”

“What’s his condition?”

“I don’t know.”

“Give me three minutes.”

“I’ll wait out here.”

Zeke nodded and shut the door. Outside his window the clouds and dawn drizzle had vanished, leaving in their wake a beautiful blue sky. Guests were already up and at it. He could see a half-dozen doing stretches on the lawn.

He dialed Sam in San Diego. “This thing’s getting even uglier.”

It was still night on the West Coast, but Sam was clearheaded. “One thing I’ve learned, the past is never past.”

“Find out anything about our boy Quint?”

“He’s broke and out of work.”

Zeke appreciated Sam’s matter-of-fact tone. Sam had never met Quint or Joe and wasn’t one to judge people. “I need your help,” Zeke said.

“I’ll tuck a toothbrush in my backpack and be on my way.”

“Thanks.”

“What for?”

“He’s asleep,” Zeke said, as he and Dani stood next to her father’s hospital bed.

Dani shook her head, her small, trim body rigid with tension and fear, neither of which, Zeke knew, she would acknowledge. He and Ira had found her throwing things around her kitchen and holding back tears even as she’d cursed her father to the rafters for sneaking out on her. She took the news about her father-Zeke told her the basics, and Ira supplied the details, what few there were-without a word. Ira had stayed at the Pembroke. Zeke had driven her to the hospital. She’d wanted to drive herself, but he’d prevailed.

“He’s faking it,” she said. She leaned over her father. “Pop, I know you’re not asleep.”

He didn’t answer. He’d just come from the emergency room. His eyes were shut, and there was a grayish cast to his skin, except for the purple and red spots that seemed to seep from the edges of his bandaged head. He’d needed stitches on his forehead and had a bloodied nose where he’d hit a tree when he’d fallen. But Zeke was more interested in the lump at the back of his head. How had it gotten there if he’d pitched forward face-first? If the rain had continued, if he’d tripped before getting to the edge of the woods, if the night watchman hadn’t checked the grounds before going off shift…John Pembroke could have been in worse shape than he was now.

“He shouldn’t have been out there.” Dani stared down at him, managing to look both irritated and terrified. “Pop, you should have gotten some sleep. People do need to sleep, you know.”