By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs (26 page)

"What about Legs?"

"I can't do anything more here. The vet will
call when he knows anything."

Quinta ended up with the same cabbie who'd
taken her out; he'd turned around immediately when the call came
through. They rode back in thoughtful silence, and Quinta had time
to begin to sort things out. That there was one perpetrator, and
that the perpetrator was Cindy Seton, she had no doubt. Her father
had an uncanny, almost phenomenal recall of faces. She'd never
known him to make a mistake. No one else might believe him, but
Quinta did.

Why was Cindy Seton pursuing them? Why had
she come out of hiding now, why come to Newport, why flaunt herself
to one of the few people who could identify her? Crazy? For sure.
Self-destructive? Everyone had thought so three years ago, when
they'd found the drugs in her car on the bridge and assumed that
she'd taken her life. But they were wrong. From where Quinta stood,
Cindy Seton seemed hell-bent on destroying everyone else first.
Going after Leggy, dressed in a ball gown! It was as if the woman
were reliving the night of the ball three years earlier, the night
she ran down Quinta's father and Leggy's mother, paralyzing one and
killing the other.

Was Cindy Seton going to get it right this
time around?

Quinta resisted the urge to scream "Faster,
faster" to the driver. She hated melodrama—a reaction, no doubt, to
her father's tendency toward it. Things were under control. For the
moment, nothing more could be done. In two minutes more the cab
pulled up in front of her house, still lit up like the Fourth of
July. She paid and thanked the driver again, then went inside.

"Where's the policeman?" she demanded, upset
when she saw that he was gone.

Her father had backed his wheelchair into a
kind of gunfighter's position, where he could see all the doors and
windows simultaneously. Other than that he seemed quite calm. "I
didn't want to seem like an overly doting pet owner," he said
dryly.

"That's not the issue—"

"How is he?" he cut in, and she could tell
that he was afraid of the answer.

"They said he was very bad, but that they'd
seen even worse."

"Worse who survived?"

"I didn't ask," she admitted. "What did the
policeman say when you told him it was Cindy Seton?"

Neil gave her an incredulous look. "I didn't
tell him it was Cindy Seton. Do you want me laughed out of
town?"

"But wearing a ball gown—it wouldn't take
long for them to trace her movements ...."

"It's high season; there were half a dozen
balls tonight. She could have been anywhere or nowhere. You think
they're going to believe the word of a shut-in that a dead woman
has come back to haunt him? Get serious, girl. It's up to us. I
think it's time to call in a private eye. You and I are no good
between us. I'm a cripple and you're a girl."

He didn't mean it the way it sounded. Or
maybe he did; she was too tired to care anymore.
Quinta:
"Fifth." The fifth in a line of useless non-male offspring. The
name, so offhandedly given, would sting forever. "We can talk about
it tomorrow, Dad. I'm going to bed."

The father surveyed his drooping, bedraggled
daughter and said, "Your dress is shot."

"I know."

He hesitated, then murmured, "I'm sorry,
Quint."

Whether he was sorry about the dress or
sorry about the put-down, she couldn't say. "It'll all work out; I
know it," she said more softly. "'Night, Dad."

She dragged herself up the stairs, confident
that they wouldn't be bothered any more that night. In the upstairs
bathroom she peeled off the torn and fouled skirt and threw it in
the wastebasket. She didn't know what to do about the top. Maybe it
could be saved. But why would she want it? In the splattered beads
and sequins she could see the wrath of God: she had ventured from
the home fires to a place where she didn't belong, with death the
possible result. Poor Leggy.

Quinta washed up thoroughly, realizing with
a kind of dark humor that a single human being was causing an awful
lot of wear and tear not only on her emotions but on her dwindling
wardrobe. Her father was right; it was time to take drastic action.
In the morning she would tell Alan Seton that his wife was not in
the least bit dead. After a quick shower, she drew a nightgown over
her sun-darkened, athletic body. Since her father's accident, she'd
had spasms of guilt about her robustness. Not anymore. She was glad
now of her strength. Cindy Seton, she recalled from society
photographs after her disappearance, was model-thin, a frail excuse
of a female. Quinta was glad of that, too.

Strong or not, she practically staggered to
bed. It amazed her to think that guests would be dancing at the
send-off ball until dawn; simply amazed her. She flipped off the
ceiling light in her bedroom, went over to the bed, and peeled back
the bedspread. Something landed in the dark on her bare foot and
she jumped, then turned on the bed stand lamp. It was her
grandmother's diary, sprawled like a dried-out butterfly on the rag
rug next to the bed.

Quinta lifted the diary gently and laid it
back on the bed, then, despite her weariness, propped the pillows
up against the headboard and slipped between the sheets. Her
grandmother's diary. Given the night's events, she'd forgotten all
about it. She fingered the leatherette cover, then opened the diary
and read her grandmother's name, Laura Andersson Powers, written in
an independent, up-and-down hand. It was wholesome, straightforward
handwriting, without affectation, just like her grandmother.

But when it came down to it, Quinta
hesitated to turn to the first page. Her father had implied only
that she ought to read the last page. When and if she read the rest
of it, she wanted all her senses about her. But the last page—well,
the last page was not to be resisted.

She turned to it and read: "I cannot believe
it. In the cement, in a small marble globe that twists open, gems
worth I am certain a vast fortune. Colin seems as surprised as I
am, but who can say? He feels entitled to them. The storm—"

And that was all. There was no date, but it
must have been written on the day of the wreck: the handwriting in
no way resembled the confident script on the title page or even on
the page that preceded it. Of course, that could have been because
of the weather; writing during a storm would be like writing in a
Jeep going up a mountain road. There was no mention of what kind of
gems, and who was to say her impoverished grandmother could
recognize a vast fortune if she did see one? Quinta reread the
entry, disappointed. There were no answers here, only more
mysteries.

She turned to the preceding page and learned
nothing more about the gems. But she learned much about her family,
more than her father could ever bring himself to tell her:
"September 24, 1934. I love him to distraction, and I know Neil
sees it .... Neil seems quieter and more withdrawn .... Colin
thinks it's better for Neil to find out sooner rather than later
.... Colin can't possibly understand ...."

Her grandmother loved Colin then! But Quinta
had always assumed that Colin was merely the crew on that ill-fated
voyage, and that he and her grandmother had fallen in love sometime
after Quinta's Grandpa Sam died.

She had been married to someone else, but
Laura Powers loved Colin. She loved him still. She would love him
until her dying breath. If you saw them together, then you knew:
they were meant to be.

Quinta read on, flipping backward and
forward in the diary until, completely exhausted, she fell asleep.
She did not wake again until her father's phone rang. She was out
of bed and down the stairs in a shot, but her father beat her to
it. She picked up an extension in the kitchen.

"You got him here in time," Dr. Kenney said
at the other end. "It looks like he's going to make it. He's young
and strong and well cared for. It was good thinking, bringing in
the rest of the poisoned food. I'm going to have it analyzed if
it's all right with you; this is no ordinary rat-type poison. As
for Leggy, you can probably pick him up in a day or two. Go back to
bed now," he said kindly.

He hung up and Quinta and her father
exchanged tired smiles of relief. "Maybe we should get Legs a
litter box and keep him inside," she said across the room.

"Maybe we should feed what's left of exhibit
A to the lady," her father answered grimly.

At daybreak Quinta was seriously considering
whether it was a decent hour to call Alan Seton. At seven she had
her hand on the phone but managed to take it off again. At eight
she punched in the unlisted Newport number she'd got hold of. A
woman answered; Quinta resisted the urge to lower the receiver
quietly into its cradle. "I'd like to speak with Alan Seton,
please," she said, pretending not to recognize Mavis Moran's
voice.

Great timing
, she told
herself
.

She heard muffled voices and then Alan came
on.

"Alan, I have something important to talk
about with you," she said, coming straight to the point. "Last
night when I was at the ball, someone poisoned Leggy, my father's
dog. You probably don't remember; he was the little puppy—well,
anyway, my father caught the person in the act. He saw her face
clearly in the porch light. You have to understand that my father
never, ever forgets a face. And he insists—and I believe him—that
it was Cindy Seton who did it." She waited for his reaction.

The pause was so prolonged that finally she
said, "Hello?"

"I understand," he answered in a low voice.
"Will you be home this afternoon?"

Quinta said yes and he said, "One-thirty,
then," and hung up.

Well,
she told herself,
that went
pretty well.
Everything except for the part about Mavis Moran
being in his bed with him. Or was he in
her
bed? Or was
neither of them in bed, but they were merely planning strategy? The
morning after a ball? Probably not. Why the hell didn't they just
marry and get it over with?

Too late, Alan. Looks like you've missed
your chance.

The thought came and went in a second. She
was getting mean. It seemed to be in the air.

She showered and dressed and went downstairs
to find her father deep in research. News clippings covered the
huge oak library table at which he liked to work; a thick journal
lay opened in his lap. It was a familiar scene, and it signaled
that her father, at least, had recovered from the shock of the
night before.

"I called the vet," he said. "Leggy's doing
all right; weak but responsive. I suppose," he added defensively,
"you think I'm being stupid. He's only a dog."

"He isn't, either. He's family," Quinta
replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"Dammit, he
is
family," he agreed.
"Who else have I got? Four daughters scattered to the four winds,
and once
you
move on—"

"I'm not going anywhere, Dad," she said
automatically. "What are you working on?"

"You'll laugh."

"I won't laugh."

He placed a bookmark carefully in the opened
journal, closed it, and laid it on the table. Then he turned to his
daughter and with an air of courage said, "I'm writing away for a
copy of the proceedings of a meeting in Oslo of the International
Paraplegia Association."

Quinta waited for more. "Apparently there's
an experimental procedure," he continued, "where surgeons are
taking part of the omentum, snaking it under the skin to the spinal
cord, and using it to restore blood flow and, hopefully, lost
movement."

He turned away from her and fiddled with the
bookmark. "Okay, so it's experimental. So I'm sixty years old.
There's no law against being curious, is there? Half the test
patients have recovered at least some mobility. I said you'd
laugh," he added, coloring.

"Oh, Dad," she said, sitting at the table
beside his wheelchair. She took his hand in hers. "I'm not laughing
at all," she said softly. "I'm thinking of the possibilities." Her
eyes glazed over.

"Cut it out," her father warned. "I wouldn't
have told you if I thought you'd start bawling on me. Not a word to
your sisters. I don't want them feeling sorrier for me than they
do. I only told you because—well, because you're you and not them.
Knock it off, Quint, I said. Stop it." He looked away,
embarrassed.

"Okay, okay," she said. She wiped her eyes
quickly. "I just … feel good about it, that's all."

"Look, who knows how many years it'll take
before there's any real breakthrough? Probably I'll be an old dog,"
he said. "But I'm not going to sit around in this chair and wait
for her to come after me. I can tell you that," he added more
vigorously.

Quinta sat up straight. "Oh glory, that's
right—Cindy Seton. I almost forgot. I called Alan Seton and told
him she's alive. He's coming by at one-thirty."

"
Holy shit! With a straitjacket?" he
said angrily. "How could you tell him that?"

"It doesn't sound as crazy as you think,
Dad. Originally Alan did wonder whether his wife might have faked
the suicide." Was she betraying a confidence? Quinta thought of
Mavis Moran with him that morning and added, "Of course, it doesn't
seem to have cramped his style any."

"When did he tell you his suspicions? During
the interview? What else are you holding back?" Neil demanded,
suspicious.

"That was pretty much it," Quinta said with
a deliberately vague look.

"What did he say when you told him?" asked
her father, rubbing his stubbly, unshaved chin. He too was trying
to anticipate the next step.

"He didn't say a thing, but I don't suppose
he's too happy about it," she said dryly.

Neil grunted. "You know the man better than
I do. Well, well."