Dangerous Ladies (67 page)

But when he accessed the room, the security panel was black.

He stared in horror.

Had Meadow turned off the whole system to look for her painting?

Because with the hotel full of guests, including the Godfather of Amelia Shores, Bradley Benjamin, the chances for undetected sabotage, for theft and disaster, had radically increased.

Devlin tore down the hall and toward his office on the main floor. He hit the landing at the top.

Someone was going into his office.

He shouted.

Gabriel shouted back, “I’m on it!” and disappeared inside.

Devlin took the steps two at a time.

As he neared the first floor, he realized someone had dropped a bundle of towels at the bottom of the stairs.

But as he got closer, he realized that it wasn’t towels or rags or someone’s clothes. It had a head of copper hair that shone dully, limbs arranged at an awkward angle, and it lay unmoving. Unconscious.

He knelt beside her. His hands trembled as he touched her face. Still warm. He pressed his fingers to the artery in her neck. Her heart beat. He called her name. “Meadow?”

But she didn’t respond.

She’d fallen down the stairs.

A small trickle of blood stained the carpet beneath her head.

But he didn’t dare move her, because this time . . . this time she might have broken her neck. This time . . . she was really hurt.

He leaned down close. “Meadow. For the love of God. Don’t die. Please, don’t die. I love you.”

And he stayed there until the ambulance took her away.

But she never moved. She never answered him at all.

D
awn was lightening the sky when Devlin quietly let himself in the front door of the Secret Garden.

“How is she?” Grace stood silhouetted in the entrance to the library, her hands tucked into the wide sleeves of her robe, her eyes worried.

“She has a hell of a gash on the back of her head and a lot of bruises on her arms and legs. They say she’s fine, but they kept her overnight for observation. Dr. Apps says Meadow’s been hit on the head too many times in the last month.” He tried to grin. “So why do
I
feel punchy?”

“I knew it. That girl wouldn’t let a fall down the stairs faze her. She could probably fall out of an airplane and bounce.”

He only wished Meadow had looked a little less pale, and been a little less confused by where she was now and how she’d gotten there. “Yes. She is indomitable, isn’t she?”

“Rather like me.”

He was very tired, and it took him a minute to process her observation. Grace had paid Meadow the ultimate compliment. He almost staggered from the shock. “My God, Mother. You like her!”

“I don’t like her. I think she’s lying about half the things she says.
She dresses horribly. She’s impertinent. She doesn’t comprehend the most basic of proprieties. Neither of you has given me the slightest clue about her background, by which I must assume both parents are serial killers. And she’s a Yankee.” Grace’s voice got sharper with each complaint. Then her face softened. “But she makes you happy, so that impertinent, unsuitable child of Yankee convicts . . . is fine.”

“Thank you, Mother. That’s very . . .” He started to say
sweet.

She shot him a glare.

“. . . open-minded of you.” He laughed a little and rubbed his head. When he’d gotten out of bed and gone after Meadow, he’d been irked as hell that she hadn’t confided in him, yet prepared to make the grandiose gesture of paying for her mother’s cancer treatment.

What a great guy he was.

Yet Meadow seemed to think he was wonderful, and, even more amazing, so did his mother.

“Meadow told you she’s an artist,” he said. “I believe you know her. She made that glass bowl you placed on the mantelpiece in the dining room.”

“No, she didn’t. That bowl was created by River Szar—” Grace stopped in midsentence. She looked at him. She walked to the dining room. She looked toward the fireplace. She turned back. “Meadow is Natalie Szarvas?”

“Natalie Meadow Szarvas.”

“She told me she was an artist, but I thought . . . Well! That explains everything. No wonder she’s so eccentric. This will be so much easier to explain to my friends.” Grace’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

“And we all know how important that is.” His mockery hid his real pleasure in her approval.

“I am friends with important people!”

“They’re only important because they’re your friends.”

“As Meadow is important because she’s your wife.” In her peculiarly inept way of comfort, Grace came to him and hugged him. “It’s late. You’re tired. You’ve had a shock. Go to bed.”

“Yeah.” He was well aware that his confession of love to Meadow had been unheard—and unanswered.

Worse, he was relieved. He was a stinking coward—he didn’t want to be the one who took the chance and offered his love, only to have the new, fresh, never-before-experienced emotion rejected.

He wasn’t the kind of man who imagined Meadow had never danced naked in the moonlight, or that her open affection for him might just be . . . Meadow’s affection for all of mankind. He was certainly one of her only lovers, but when it came to love . . . he might be one of the crowd.

Grace walked with him toward the stairs. “What does Meadow say happened tonight?”

“She says she doesn’t remember.” He grimaced.
Yeah, right.
More amnesia. But this time . . . he believed her.

After he’d gotten Meadow settled in a room, Dr. Apps had called him aside. “I see this kind of injury far more than I like to. A blunt object inflicted the wound on Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s head.”

He had stared at the doctor, his worst fears confirmed. “You’re saying someone hit Meadow and pushed her down the stairs?”

“Actually, Mr. Fitzwilliam, in cases like this, that someone is almost always the husband.” Maybe Dr. Apps didn’t flirt with other women’s husbands. Maybe she didn’t flirt with wife beaters. But at that moment, she sure as hell hadn’t been flirting with him. She had stared at him, arms crossed, eyes hostile.

“In this case, it isn’t. But I will find out who it was.” He had walked away, knowing full well that Dr. Apps believed in his innocence about as much as she believed O. J. Simpson’s.

But the fact remained that someone had struck Meadow and pushed her down the stairs, and he intended to discover who—and make that person suffer.

It was because of that person that Devlin had had to face a horrible fact: He loved Meadow, and that love had the power to make him suffer.

He didn’t want to suffer.

He didn’t want someone else to hold power over him.

He had, in the space of only a few hours, been proven a coward and a weakling.

How had he come to such a pass?

But his mother stared at him as she always had, as if she didn’t know what to do with him, so he knew his vulnerabilities remained hidden. At the foot of the stairs, he patted her on the back. “It’s late. You need to get some sleep.”

“I’m fine. I’m putting off the first day of filming for the new season. I must see Meadow with my own eyes, and really know she’s well.” Grace stood there, waiting for . . . what?

Oh.
“That’s great, Mother. I appreciate it, especially since I know how important the show is to your fans.”

“Anything for my son and his wife.” She presented her cheek.

He kissed it and watched her make her way upstairs.

Then he headed for his office.

There he found Sam and Gabriel reviewing the security tapes.

He seated himself behind his desk. He placed his hands flat on the cool surface, and coolly considered them both. “Well?”

Gabriel began. “The security system was off five minutes before my personal alarm sounded.”

“Why so long?” Devlin asked.

“Because it was shut off by someone who knew what he was doing, and it was done remotely. The only reason he didn’t circumvent my alarm was because I installed it right before the party. New technology. And I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t had the break-in three weeks ago. Stuff like that makes me twitchy.” Actually, Gabriel didn’t look twitchy. He looked furious.

Devlin switched his attention to Sam.

“I reviewed the tapes at the time the cameras went off, and again right after they came on. The only people in the corridors or on the perimeter were security personnel, Mia from the kitchen, who had
finished cleaning up and was heading home, Miss Weezy Woodward, who was leaving Judge Gregory Madison’s room, and near the top of the staircase . . . Mr. Bradley Benjamin the fourth.”

Devlin found himself on his feet, and in a voice hoarse with rage he said, “Four? Four did this?”

“Sir, Four does not have the technical skill to shut off the security system,” Sam said.

“Who else could it be? Do you have another suspect?” Devlin demanded.

“Perhaps one of my security people.” Gabriel made his suggestion steadily. “They all have good references. Some have worked for me for years. I pay them well. But security guards are always a prime target for corruption.”

Devlin paced out from behind his desk. “Have any of
them
been sneaking around my hotel after a painting?”

Sam shook his head. “But sir, Four isn’t violent. I can’t imagine he would strike Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

“Let’s find out.” At a deliberate pace, with Sam and Gabriel on his heels, Devlin walked up the stairs and down the corridor to Four’s room. Just as deliberately, he slid his master key card into the lock. And even more deliberately, with all his force, he slammed the door open against the wall.

“Shit,” Gabriel muttered.

Devlin flipped on the overhead light.

Four catapulted out of the bed.

“Four, you son of a bitch, is there something you want to tell me?” Devlin used to be a football player. He knew how to make himself look bulky and menacing.

He did it now.

His technique worked, because Four gave a sob and cringed back against the bed. “Please, Devlin, don’t kill me.”

Guilty. Devlin could scarcely stand it. That feeble little asshole was guilty.

He took a step inside. One step only. If he took any more, he’d
go and wring Four’s skinny little neck. “Give me one reason why not.”

“It’s not my fault! He’s making me do it. It’s Mr. Hopkins.”

“Mr. . . . Hopkins?” Gabriel asked.

Four’s attention switched to Gabriel. “He’s this silver-haired devil with a smooth voice. So smooth. He calls me and he says . . . he says . . .” The pansy-ass wore a pair of silk pajama bottoms, and the knocking of his knees made the fine material shiver. “He says he’s going to geld me! Or worse.”

“Have you seen him?” Sam asked.

“Yes. I didn’t see him well—he sat there in shadow—but he did this.” Four pinched his ear.

Gabe turned to Devlin. “Remember, I told you about Mr. Hopkins. If he’s got his finger in this pie, we’re in deep trouble.”

“We are. We are!” Four said.

“I’ve hired a couple of his people. My security’s been compromised.” Gabriel looked at Sam. “Can you handle this?”

Sam nodded.

Gabriel walked back down the corridor.

Four watched the interplay with feverish eyes. “He knows everything that’s going on here. He’s watching me. He’s watching the house. You do understand, Devlin?”

“I understand. You’re working for him.” Devlin waited for Four to deny it.

But he didn’t. All he did was confirm his own cowardice. “I had to! He’s going to hurt me if I don’t get that painting. He’s going to kill me!”

So Four had pushed Meadow down the stairs. He’d tried to break her neck to save his own. The lying little weasel. “You should stop worrying about
Mr. Hopkins
killing you.”

“Man. Please. You’re going to help me, aren’t you?” Four had the guts to look hopeful.

“You hurt my wife.” Remembering how Meadow had appeared, crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, made Devlin want to sob, too.
Instead, he promised, “Now I’m going to kill you myself.” He started after Four.

Four tried to back up. Fell on the bed. Scrambled backward.

Sam grabbed Devlin and planted his feet.

“Kill your wife? Kill Meadow? When? What are you talking about? I never hurt her. I never hurt anybody!” Four’s blond, gelled hair stood up like an exclamation point.

Devlin strained against the restraint. “What a pile of crap. You charmed her. You made her like you. Then when you figured out she was looking for the same painting as you, you cut that steering fluid line.”

“I didn’t do that. He did. He did!”

“And when you saw her on the stairs, you smacked her on the head.”

“I never touched her. Devlin, I swear to God”—like a goddamn Boy Scout, Four held up one trembling hand—“I would rather go up against Mr. Hopkins by myself than hurt Meadow.”