Don't Look Down (29 page)

“Now that I think about it, there’s no Giacometti statue listed in the insurance paperwork. That must have belonged to someone else.”

“That’s lame,” Sam replied, warming to the conversation. She loved puzzles, especially right before they were solved. “How many people were at the wake? I’d guess at least fifty of them went into your dad’s old office and saw the statue sitting there. Want to try again?”

“I—”

“Oh, wait, now it’s my turn.” Samantha sat back in her chair, hoping she looked the picture of cool confidence—
which wasn’t easy considering how many assumptions and leaps of faith she was about to make. Still, she knew thieves, and she knew their mentality. She doubted this one was all that different. “
You
killed Charles because he wouldn’t bail out Paradise Realty. How many months in a row were you late paying your office rent? No wonder you jumped so fast when Rick called. Good thing you didn’t have any other appointments to cancel—oh, no, that’s a bad thing, isn’t it? Your dad knew you were getting desperate for money. That’s why he called me in, to make sure you couldn’t do anything to him before he got all the wills and trusts amended. He didn’t get it though, did he? How bad it would look for the daughter of one of the country’s most successful businessmen to fail at her own business, especially with the price of property around here?”

“You can’t prove any of that,” Laurie said, the color in her cheeks deepening.

She was getting angry, which was what Sam was aiming for. “Sure I can. I have the rubies.”

Laurie shifted, her hand drifting into the basket. “Give me that apple back,” she murmured.

“Nope. I like apples.”

Both hands went into the basket, followed by the distinctive sound of a pistol being cocked. “Give me back the apple.”

Fuck
. Rick had been right. It
had
been Laurie all along. “If you use that, nobody’s gonna believe you didn’t murder your dad. Daniel’s your last scapegoat, Laurie. Don’t blow it. If you turn yourself in now, you can claim you panicked and you were trying to get rid of the rubies to help your brother. He’s the only family you have.”

“Nice story.”

“I think so. You might have gotten away with it all, if Daniel hadn’t decided he couldn’t wait for the insurance settlement and needed cash for his little nasal problem,” she
continued. “That must have pissed you off, doing this great robbery and still having to take the one Gugenthal item not reported stolen and have Aubrey Pendleton sell it to that antique shop. All those goods, and no one to help you turn them into cash.”

Laurie smoothly stood, shifting the basket over one elbow and keeping her opposite hand buried in its depths. “Ooh, hurray, you’re so smart. Pick up your apple and let’s go for a walk.”

“Fine with me.” Fewer people to help her out, but she didn’t expect much of that. At least bystanders were less likely to get shot if they moved the arena somewhere else. Sam got to her feet, snagging the apple and her purse as she did. “Let’s go.”

“Samantha?” They both turned as Patty approached, white purse over her arm and distaste all over her face.

“I’m a little busy now, Patty.”

“I need a word with you.” Patricia sent a glance at Laurie. “Right now.”

“Then come with us,” Laurie interrupted.

“Oh, that’s not—”

The muzzle of the pistol emerged from the basket, just long enough for Patty to see it. “We’re going for a walk,” Laurie continued, smiling.

Patricia turned white, but she headed in the direction Laurie indicated, toward the stables. Of course. There would be plenty of places to hide—or slip away after committing a murder.

Across the tent, Frank ambled to his feet, but Sam shook her head. If there was one thing they couldn’t afford right now it was a gun battle. She could see Rick at the far side of the field, his attention on the game at hand. Good. She didn’t want him hurt.

The three of them made their way down the line of tables
and out from under the canopy. Laurie stayed a little behind, while Patty crowded close to Sam. The Ex was probably planning on throwing her in the way of any bullets.

“I knew having anything to do with you was a mistake,” Patty whispered fiercely, her cheeks gray.

“You’re the one who got chummy with the Kunz kids. Don’t complain to me.”

They rounded the first of the stables, out of sight of the polo players and their audience. “I’m glad you’re here, Patricia,” Laurie commented. “Now I can make it look as though you two killed one another.”

Great. It was even pretty clever. Samantha could picture the scenario: Patricia dated Daniel to get an in with the family, then brought in the thief for a robbery-murder, and then they got greedy over the proceeds and maybe even over Rick and shot one another. “You really think we could kill each other with the same gun?” she asked. Anything to delay, to throw a wrench into Laurie’s plans.

“Anything could happen in a struggle.”

Sam inched away from Patricia, giving herself room to move. “No way. I’d kick her ass in a fight.” Without warning she whipped around, letting gravity slide her purse from her elbow to her hand. Carrying through with the motion, she slammed Laurie in the side of the head.

Laurie stumbled, the basket falling to the muddy ground. She kept her grip, though, on the gun. “Duck!” Sam yelled, shoving Patricia sideways.

Propelled mostly by instinct, Samantha slammed herself against Laurie, grabbing the gun hand in hers and shoving upward. The pistol fired, the bullet burning along her arm as it shot skyward. Overbalanced, the two of them hit the soft ground. Laurie yanked backward, trying to free the gun, but Sam refused to let go.

They rolled. For a sickening second Laurie shoved Sam’s face full into the mud.
Christ
. Fighting panic, she shoved with her free hand, turning Laurie onto her back again. Shaking mud from her eyes, she kicked, freeing one of her pumps. It thunked onto the ground beside her, and she grabbed it, holding Laurie down with her shoulder and her knees grinding into Laurie’s hips.

“Hey!” she yelled, angling the heel of her pump toward Laurie’s face. “You want this in the eye? Let go of the gun!”

“Bitch!”

Sam slammed Laurie in the shoulder with the heel, knowing that it hurt. “Let go of the gun or the next time I take out an eye!”

Another weight landed across their tangled arms, and through the mud she glimpsed Castillo and a herd of suddenly armed and capable-looking audience members. The cavalry. Thank God.

“Okay, Sam, we’ve got the gun,” Castillo grunted, lifting her bodily around the waist.

“Get the apples!” she panted, staggering away and trying to find her balance with one shoe missing. All she needed was for a herd of stray polo ponies to eat the evidence.

Laurie shot to her feet, only to be grabbed by a pair of cops. “I didn’t do anything,” she snapped. “She attacked me!”

“She killed her dad,” Sam managed, swiping a thick layer of mud off her face and arms. “It’s on the—”

Charging straight at her full speed, his mallet raised over his head, was Daniel Kunz.

Monday, 2:57 p.m.

R
ichard was one stroke away from making a goal when he heard the gunshot. Wrenching around, he looked at Samantha’s table. It was empty. His heart jolted. Tapping Tim’s ribs, he angled for the edge of the field.

“Look out, Rick!” one of his opponents, Bob Neggers, yelled.

He jerked his head around just in time to take a mallet across the shoulder rather than the back of his head. It knocked him off balance, and he grabbed the low pommel to keep from falling to the ground. By the time he straightened, swearing, Daniel was at the far edge of the field and headed for the stables.

Richard sent Tim charging after them. Running spectators and paparazzi scattered as Daniel galloped through them, Rick on his heels.

“Sam!”

Even as Richard yelled to warn her, Samantha dove sideways and rolled beneath the swinging mallet. Rick had a fleeting, surreal moment to note that she made it look grace
ful even in a mud-covered dress. Daniel yanked his horse around and went after her again. Police yelled, aiming pistols at Kunz, but with the press everywhere filming, they weren’t likely to shoot.

Which meant it was up to him. “I don’t think so,” Richard growled as Daniel and his mount rounded after Samantha. He sent Tim crowding into the other horse and rider. The mallet swung at his head again, but this time he saw it coming and ducked.

Richard urged Tim forward again, cutting Daniel off from pursuing Samantha. Clearly, though, pushing and blocking wasn’t going to suffice.

He swung his own mallet, catching Daniel in the thigh. The wood handle cracked and split. Annoyed, he flung it to the ground and leapt. He hit Daniel in the ribs, and they both went crashing to the ground. As Daniel climbed to his feet, Richard charged and hit him full in the chest, throwing them both down again.

Richard yanked the mallet out of Daniel’s hand, then found himself grabbed around the arms and shoulders and pulled backward. He fought against the grip, furious.

“Rick!”

Castillo’s face came into focus in front of him. With another curse Richard subsided, shrugging what felt like half the Palm Beach police force off him. “All right! All right.”

“We’ll take it from here,” Frank continued, still eyeing him warily.

Richard didn’t have any more time for him. Instead he whipped around, and nearly crashed into Samantha as she approached. Thank God.

“Are you all right?” he asked, gripping her arms and pulling her closer.

“I’m fine. That was some nice riding, Tex.” She reached
up and brushed a finger across his cheek. “You’re cut, though.”

“I nearly caught a rock in the eye,” he said, still unable to take his gaze off her, to make sure she hadn’t been clubbed or trampled. “You’re cut, too.”

She glanced at her arm. “Just a graze.”

Jesus
. “You got what you needed?”

“We got the rubies,” Castillo said, joining them again. “And an attempted murder by Laurie Kunz, plus an assault by Daniel Kunz. That’ll do for starters. Where’s the tape?”

One of his officers brought up Sam’s purse, which looked as though one of the horses had trampled it. No matter what kind of evidence the recorder might have held, Tim was getting an extra ration of oats tonight.

“That’s just great,” Castillo grumbled, pouring the remains of his wire into a bag. “Did you plan this?”

“Just lucky,” Samantha returned, clearly relieved. “And hey, if that’s not the gun used to kill Charles, there’s another one behind the bottom drawer of Daniel’s desk at Coronado House. There’s some cocaine there, too.”

“And you know this because?”

“Oh. It was on the tape. Sorry.”

“I bet.” The detective handed off the bag. “Do you know how expensive those things are?”

“Bill me,” Samantha returned. “After you get my friend out of jail.”

“It’ll take a day or two, but I think we’ll manage that.” He glanced around. “I’d better get the Kunzes out of here before the press ruins my case.”

Paparazzi surrounded them. “I’m not much in the mood for this, either,” Richard said, taking Samantha’s hand. “What say we go give Tim some of those apples?”

“No!” Castillo bellowed.

“He was kidding, Frank. Lighten up,” Samantha said, and turned back to Rick. “And yes, let’s get the hell out of here.”

His brusque “No comment,” together with the glares he was handing out, seemed to cow the press for the second time that day, and as soon as Richard handed Tim off to a groom, he and Sam hurried toward the parking lot and the waiting limousine. They were followed, of course, but he was more concerned with not being overheard than with not being seen.

“You’re certain you’re all right?” he repeated.

“I’m fine. Really. I mean, sheesh, the first time we did something like this I ended up with a fractured skull, and the second time a pickup truck tried to run me over. Some mud and a stampeding horse is nothing.”

“And the bullet graze?”

“Well, it stung, but—”

Her head was yanked backward out of his sight, followed by the rest of her.

“
How dare you
?” Patricia shrieked, still hauling Samantha by the hair.

Sam twisted, grabbing her hair to pull it free from Patricia’s grip. She’d lost hair three months ago fighting with Patty’s soon to be ex-husband, and it had hurt like hell. She wasn’t doing it again. “Back off,” she ordered.

From her red face, Patricia wasn’t having any. “You pushed me into the mud! And you just left me there and took credit for everything!”

“And where were you when Laurie tried to shoot us? Oh, that’s right, you were safe behind the stable. And you’re welcome.”

“You—”

Sam slapped Patricia’s pointing finger down. “Touch me again and nobody in Palm Beach is going to want you
around for anything but cleaning their toilets.” She took a breath. “You’ll still get credit for figuring out that Daniel had something to do with the theft and murder. A promise is a promise.”

“I—I’d better. And I want that videotape.”

“No fucking way, Patty. I’m not an idiot.” Sam moved around her, rejoining Rick. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You’re really going to give her credit?”

She shrugged. “A little. The less testifying I have to do, the better.”

“Right,” he returned, then uncharacteristically cleared his throat. “I seem to have lost my realtor.”

Sam sent a glance over her shoulder at Laurie, protesting everything as Castillo set her into the back of a police car. This conversation wasn’t about Laurie Kunz, though; she could tell that just from Rick’s hesitation. “And?” she prompted.

“And so I thought I might look for another one. In New York, say.”

“New York’s nice.” She swiped mud off her arm and slung it to the ground. “We don’t spend much time there, do we?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Even better, studmuffin.”

Rick smiled, sending his gaze down the muddy length of her and lingering for a moment at her chest. “You look hot, by the way.”

Great. She obviously had a wet T-shirt thing going. “If you’re going to stay in that uniform, I’ll stay in this outfit.”

“Do I get to hose you down?”

Sam pressed against his side, making sure he was getting good and muddy. “We’ll take turns. So you finally got to play the knight in shining armor thing for real,” she noted. “Horse and all.”

Rick laughed. “Ain’t I cool?”