Carla Neggers - Tempting Fate

“To harangue you, my dear.”

Dani had had enough. Grabbing a handful of wild blueberries from a basket Mattie had brought down from the main house, she jumped up and started inside.

“Off somewhere?” Mattie asked.

“The springs. I won’t be gone long.”

Concern darkened her grandmother’s face. “But if you were attacked there-”

“I wasn’t. Ira was.”

“Still, don’t you think you should wait for Zeke?”

The suggestion made her raise her eyebrows, and she grinned at Mattie. “What for?”

“He’s a trained professional. If someone out there wants to hurt you-”

“Given her gene pool, Mattie,” Nick said, “Dani’s not likely to appreciate anyone swooping in to her rescue.” His black eyes focused on Dani with a measure of amusement. “Are you, urchin?”

What he was saying, she knew, was that she had a tendency to be defiant and independent to a fault. That she was reluctant to trust anyone, including Zeke Cutler.

“I’ll be back,” she said.

“Is there any particular reason you’re going out there?” Mattie asked. She had her mug to her lips and was blowing on the hot coffee.

“Just checking on a couple of things.”

One thing in particular. According to Zeke, his brother had found the gold key at the pavilion at Pembroke Springs, no doubt right where Louisa Caldwell Pembroke and Beatrix Chandler had buried it. In Beatrix’s diary, she stated that she and Louisa had carefully replaced the tiles they’d dislodged. Decades later, however, again according to Zeke, the fountain had been a mess, with broken and missing tiles, the area overgrown and dug up in places. Fountains and pavilions throughout the old estate had been vandalized over the years. But when Dani had begun her restoration of the grounds after Pembroke Springs was on solid financial footing, she’d been surprised at what good shape the pavilion near the bottling plant was in.

Who, in the years between her mother’s disappearance and then, had cleaned up the place? And why?

She asked Mattie, “Did you have any work done out at the springs before I took over?”

“No-why?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s not important right now. I’ll be back in a little while.” She smiled. “You two, behave yourselves.”

Zeke headed to Quint’s rented house to check with Sam once more before making his way back to the Pembroke. He’d lay out all his theories for Dani, Nick, Mattie, John if he was out of the hospital. They’d put their heads together. See what they came up with.

Sam had moved across the street, down from the cute yellow house. Zeke pulled up behind Sam’s car. There was no sign of his friend, but Zeke wasn’t concerned. For all he knew, Sam was perched on Quint’s rooftop, peering down his chimney.

As Zeke approached Sam’s car, the driver’s-side door swung open, and Sam fell out onto the street.

Zeke took out his gun and ran to him.

Sam reached for the door handle, grunting with pain and effort as he tried to pull himself up. Zeke got to him. He took Sam’s weight and saw the grayish cast to his skin and the blood soaked into his tangerine polo shirt and the leg of his sand-colored jeans. Around them, kids skidded by on bicycles. A mother yelled.

“Looks worse than it is,” Sam said, sweating.

“What happened?”

“Shot.”

“Quint?”

They were already moving toward Zeke’s car. Sam was not a light man. He shook his head, shuddering. Zeke could almost see his friend’s pain. “I didn’t see who did it. Came up from behind.” He grimaced as Zeke held him against his car, opening the back door. “Thought I was dead this time.”

“Did you see Quint?”

“No.”

“I’ll check on him after I get you to the hospital.”

As always, Sam’s professionalism was in full gear. “I can wait.”

But Zeke got him into the backseat and checked his wound. A clean shot to the shoulder and one to the thigh. Blood everywhere. Sam couldn’t wait. Slamming the door, Zeke climbed into the front seat. The hospital wasn’t far.

In the backseat Sam didn’t make a sound.

“Just keep your mouth shut,” Quint ordered.

Stretched out on the stone bench inside the pavilion, John watched his kidnapper loosen another section of Spanish tile with his crowbar. He’d decided Quint was mostly a lot of hot air. Oh, he could kill John. Just like he could have killed Dani when he’d had the chance. One whack with the crowbar would do the job. But John didn’t think he’d do it. Whatever Skinner was up to, it wasn’t about profit and murder. At least not entirely.

“Louisa Pembroke sold off all the other gold keys,” John pointed out. He was uncomfortable-his head throbbed-but the scent of roses and morning glories, of the hemlocks and pines, helped. “She probably hung on to the one that matched the key to this gate because she met Ulysses here. Buried it in a fit of pique. From what I hear, she was something of a hothead herself-a lot like my daughter.”

Quint smashed two chunks of no-doubt pricey antique tiles into bits, an act of frustration more than purpose. “I don’t care about finding more gold keys.”

Precisely what John had expected he’d say. “And what do you care about?”

Quint looked around at him, sweat pouring down his unhandsome face. “Justice.”

Spoken like a Pulitzer Prize winner, John thought, wondering if he was delirious. Quint had kidnapped him. Why wasn’t he more terrified? Because being only slightly terrified is all I can manage right now.

And because he thought Quint Skinner just might be telling the truth.

“What’re you going to do with me when you’re finished here?” he asked.

“Don’t know yet.”

John wasn’t encouraged. “My daughter has security guards on the property. Aren’t you worried someone’s going to come out here and ask what you’re doing?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m armed,” Quint said, then paused a half beat. “And I have you.”

There was that, John thought. He cleared his throat and decided to keep quiet. He had never been a terribly good judge of character, and Skinner might yet prove to be a killer.

But what was he after?

Dani ducked into the bottling plant through the rear entrance. The walk through the woods had helped clear her head, and she wanted to let the security guard know she was on the grounds. She debated having him go over to the springs with her, just in case Quint Skinner was lurking about, ready to pin someone against a tree.

She heard a moan a few feet away, under a wild-looking juniper near the entrance to the shipping office in the old part of the building.

The security guard was slumped under the tree, gagged and bleeding from an ugly gash on the right side of his head. His hands and feet were bound with an extension cord. One extension cord. That, Dani thought, must have required a certain proficiency.

“Russ, are you all right? Here-hold on.” Her hands shaking, she pulled out the gag, a simple bandanna. Russ was a skinny guy, about her father’s age. No match for the likes of Quint Skinner. “I’ll call the police.”

“No time,” he choked out.

Dani worked on freeing his hands and feet. The cord was hard to work with. “Just take it easy.”

She got the cord off, freeing him, and staved off a surge of panic as she dabbed at his gash with the bandanna. He went completely white and swore. The gash looked horrible: bloody, purple, swollen. Dani got out her cell phone. Her entire body was shaking.

Russ was trying to struggle to his feet. “I screwed up, Miss Pembroke.”

“No, you didn’t. Guarding a mineral-water plant wasn’t supposed to be your dangerous sort of security job.”