Partners in Crime (27 page)

“I don’t think you could take care of a housefly by yourself, much less a scorpion like Stephen Tremaine,” Sandy snapped.

“Where did you get this young man, Jane? Are you certain he’s a lawyer? He seems more like a thug to me.”

“Richard,” Hazel said reproving, stirring a large pot of some divine-smelling concoction on the back of the cook stove. “Watch your manners.”

And to both Sandy’s and Jane’s amazement, Richard nodded sheepishly. “Yes, dear.”

“What are we going to do about Stephen? Someone was lurking around the cottage before we got there. He’s had his own cadre of hired thugs that make Sandy seem like a lamb in comparison. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“Neither would I,” Richard said. “I guess I’ve been sentimental. That’s what country living and a sensible life-style will do for you. Makes you forget what a dog-eat-dog world it is out there. If I were you, Jane, I’d leave Michigan and move up here to Vermont, where the air is clean and men are men.”

“Wisconsin,” Jane corrected absently. “And I’m not about to live anyplace where it snows in October. And I’m not looking for a man.”

“I do think you should trade in your current model,” Richard said, ignoring Sandy’s presence. “And you get used to a little snow.”

“No thanks.”

“At least keep out of New York. It’s a cesspool of danger, toxic wastes and perversion.”

“I live in New York,” Sandy announced in a dangerous voice.

“I rest my case.” Richard gave Jane his most angelic smile, and Sandy wondered whether she was gullible enough to be won over by it.

“I appreciate your concern,” was all she said, looking at neither of the two quarreling men in her life. “What are you working on in your laboratory? Is it something Uncle Tremaine will want to get his hands on? You’re still under contract to him, aren’t you?”

“I’m dead. The contract is null and void.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Sandy volunteered.

Richard ignored him. “Anyway, I’ve changed my area of interest. I don’t think Stephen Tremaine will have the slightest use for my latest research, even though it has the potential to change the free world as we know it.”

Jane stared at him, her eyes round behind the wire-rimmed glasses. “What is it?” she breathed, suitably impressed.

“Carrots,” Richard said triumphantly.

“Carrots?” His sister’s reaction wasn’t quite what he would have hoped, but Richard charged on.

“A new strain of organic carrots,” he announced, beaming. “Resistant to carrot weevils, crown rot, scab...”

“Yuck,” Jane said. “I’m never going to eat carrots again.”

“You certainly are. Tonight, as a matter of fact. Hazel’s making carrot chowder, aren’t you, my dear? Along with carrot bread, carrot salad and carrot cake for dessert. And it will all taste wonderful. Besides, the new strain of carrots is a miraculous source of protein, calcium, and vitamin A. Not to mention they’re a natural laxative.”

Hazel was still placidly stirring her pot on the stove, the delicious odor now taking on a definitely carroty scent. “Did your kids start out with that color hair,” Sandy drawled, “or is Richard’s research responsible?”

“Their father was a redhead,” Hazel said. “And the boys hate carrots.”

“They’ll learn,” Richard said firmly. “Anyway, they can’t grow carrots in Salambia, even my carrots, and I don’t think the profit will be enough to excite old Stephen. He’s just going to have to sit and watch Technocracies go under. Serve him right, running a death factory under our very noses.”

“He won’t give up without a fight,” Sandy pointed out.

Richard nodded, clearly reluctant to agree with him on anything. “I’ve known him long enough to realize he can be completely ruthless. I’ve been much too remiss. I should have destroyed the formula weeks ago.” He rose, dropping the magazine on the scrubbed wooden table. “I’ll do it now.”

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Hazel said in a slow, tranquil voice. “You two are staying.” It was a statement, not a question, and Jane nodded.

“It won’t take long, dear,” Richard said meekly. “Just back at the lab.”

She nodded. “Don’t take the boys. We’ll never get them out of there before Thanksgiving, and that’s a fact.”

“We’ll come with you,” Sandy announced.

Richard stared at him, deeply affronted. “Don’t you trust me? It doesn’t matter whether I destroyed it or not, I still have the formula in my brain.”

“Great,” Sandy muttered. “That means Tremaine will have to kill you.”

“Nice of you to be so concerned,” Richard said, glaring.

“I’m not concerned. If it were up to me Stephen Tremaine could sell
you
as a secret weapon to Salambia. I’m merely looking after Jane.”

“Jane’s never needed looking after before.” Dexter bristled.

“Everyone needs looking after now and then,” he snapped back. “If you could see farther than the tip of your nose...”

“Let’s go back to the lab and watch Richard burn the formula,” Jane interrupted hastily. “Unless you need some help, Hazel?”

“Everything’s just fine. I just have to feed the boys their hot dogs and potato chips. You two go ahead and keep Richard from falling into a snowbank or getting involved in some project. He has a habit of forgetting what he was doing in the first place.”

“I can believe that,” Sandy muttered.

“And I’ll get some fresh sheets for your bed. You’ll be spending the night. It’s going to get down into the single numbers tonight, and that old summer cottage is too cold.”

“Sheets for their beds,” Richard corrected. “Separate rooms. I won’t have my sister cohabiting under my roof.”

“It’s under my roof,” Hazel said, “and you and I cohabited before we were married.”

“That’s different.”

“No,” said Hazel firmly, “it’s not. Go burn your formula. When you come back supper will be on the table.”

“Yes, dear.”

The night had grown colder when the three of them stepped back out on the porch. The twin demons of the night had disappeared, and from deep within the house Sandy could hear the echo of a violent television show. A light snow had begun to fall again, and Jane shivered.

“Lovely climate,” he said, taking her arm and heading down the sagging steps.

She looked up at him. He could read everything in her eyes, her irritation, relief, and concern for her brother, her fear of the unknown. Her love for him. “Lovely,” she said, huddling up against his body for warmth and maybe something else. “I think I prefer Baraboo.”

“What about that cesspool of danger, toxic wastes and perversion?” he countered softly, wrapping his arms around her slender body.

She held herself very still. “What about it?”

“It’s where I live.”

“I know that, Jimmy.”

He winced at the deliberate taunt. “I like living there. The Upper East Side is beautiful, I inherited the apartment, and I like the energy in New York.”

“So do I.”

“It’s not a good place for children, I suppose,” he continued in a musing voice. “Maybe we should move out to some sort of yuppie suburb in a few years. Buy a place with lots of land and maybe some apple trees. Would you like that?”

She didn’t move, she didn’t say a word. He could no longer read the expression on her face, it was one of blank incomprehension. “I’m not doing this very well,” he said. “But then I haven’t had a whole lot of practice. I’m asking if you could find happiness with a sneaking, lying sleaze of a lawyer?” He threw her own words back at her, gently.

“No,” she said. “But I could find happiness with you.”

He smiled, a wide, mouth-splitting grin of sheer joy and relief. ‘‘You’ll marry me? I don’t know if that gun-toting brother of yours will let us sleep together unless we’re at least engaged.”

“Sandy, great sex is not a good enough reason for marriage,” she warned, putting her hands against his shoulders to keep him from kissing her.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “And maybe being desperately in love with you isn’t enough, and maybe sharing the same ridiculous interests isn’t enough, and maybe just having a good time together isn’t enough. But if you put them all together they make a pretty good case.”

“Yes, counselor.” She wasn’t pushing quite as hard. “But aren’t you taking something for granted? What if I’m not in love with you?”

He laughed softly. “Jane, my precious, do you have any idea how transparent you are? Of course you’re in love with me.”

The hands started pushing again. “In that case,” she said sweetly, “there’s no need for me to say it, is there? Let’s catch up with Richard.”

Sandy suddenly knew he’d made a very grave error. He was so happy, so sure of her and him, that he’d been a little too hasty. “Jane...”

“Let’s go.” She gave him a shove, sharp enough so that he stumbled backward, landing in a pile of snow. “I’ll meet you at the lab.”

She was moving after her brother’s ungainly figure at a swift pace, and Sandy sat in the wet snow for a moment, watching her with mingled admiration and dismay. “Does this mean you won’t marry me?” he called after her.

“Not at all,” she answered from a distance. “I’ll marry you. But I’ll make your life holy hell for a while.”

He watched her go, then pulled himself out of the wet slush, brushing at the soaked seat of his jeans. “I just bet you will,” he muttered. And he started after her.

Jane caught up with her brother when he reached the edge of the woods. The huddled shape of the old icehouse was partially obscured by darkness and the lightly falling snow.

“Lover’s quarrel?” Richard asked in a cheerful tone of voice.

“Don’t get your hopes up. We just got engaged,” Jane snapped.

“You don’t look like a woman who just got engaged.”

“How would you know? Maybe engagements don’t agree with me.” Sandy was catching up with them, his long legs eating the distance between them. Jane watched his approach with absent longing. Sooner or later the man was going to have to learn tact in his declarations of love.

They could smell the kerosene from halfway across the field, and Richard wrinkled his aristocratic nose. “I really wish I’d come across you two arsonists before you had a chance to make such a mess. It’ll be weeks before I can get rid of the smell, not to mention...” His words trailed off in sudden horror, and some distinctly un-Richard-like cursing tumbled from his mouth.

Jane felt her stomach cramp in sudden dread. “What is it?”

“Someone’s broken into the lab.” Richard’s voice was bitter as he took off in a dead run across the stubbled field. “Damn, damn, damn.”

The heavy metal door was hanging open. Without hesitation Richard dashed into the darkened interior, with Jane and Sandy close at his heel.

Even in the inky darkness Jane could tell that the place had been trashed. She stumbled over piles of paper on the floor, peering through the blackness, Sandy close behind her, as Richard fumbled for the light switch.

“Do you think he found it?” she questioned anxiously.

The room was flooded with light, illuminating the three of them, illuminating Stephen Tremaine blocking the doorway, impeccably dressed in Abercrombie and Fitch country wear, a nasty-looking black gun in his hand.

“Oh, most definitely,” he said in a smooth voice. “Most definitely, indeed.”

“I
do regret doing this,” Stephen continued, backing toward the door. “Normally I like to keep things a bit more civilized. But my dear Richard, you have always been the consummate pain in the rear. You even had the lack of consideration to die when I only meant for you to be injured, and then the audacity not to be dead after all. I doubt I would have gone so far down this particular road of illegality if I hadn’t thought I was already guilty of murder.”

“But you’re not,” Jane pointed out, staring at the gun as if mesmerized.

“Not yet,” said Tremaine. “But there’s really no turning back at this point. The Sultan of Salambia has ready cash, and I am in dire need of that cash. And the three of you are quite expendable. Even you...I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” he said to Sandy.

“Alexander Caldicott,” Jane supplied politely. “You wouldn’t want to shoot a stranger.”

“My dear Jane, you’re almost as big a pain as your brother,” Stephen announced with mild distaste. “As a matter of fact, I’m not going to shoot anyone. The police can trace bullets, you know. I’m afraid the three of you are going to burn to death in this old firetrap. I imagine they’ll remember who bought the kerosene this morning, if anyone bothers to investigate. They might think it a bizarre ménage a trois. Or they might blame the two little monsters, who kept throwing rocks at me every time I tried spying, for the fire. I really don’t care.”

“They’ll blame Derek and Erik, all right,” Richard announced gloomily. “They already set fire to the old Grange hall last April.”

“Richard!” Jane warned.

Tremaine merely smiled. “You see how tidy everything will be? And trust an old veteran of the divorce wars, Jane. You wouldn’t want to marry the man. This way you’ll never have to be disillusioned.” He stepped out into the darkness.

“You can’t do this,” Jane cried.

“Yes, my dear, I can.” The door shut in their faces, and without hesitation Sandy flung himself at it. It was already tightly locked, and the smell of kerosene was thick in the air.

With great aplomb Jane began screaming and beating on the door. They could smell smoke, and the first evil tendrils of it began snaking under the doorway.

“We stand a pretty good chance,” Richard announced calmly. He’d taken a seat on a stool by his workbench and was sorting through his papers at a leisurely rate. “Kerosene isn’t that efficient for burning places—gasoline would have done a faster job. And it’s been a very wet autumn. The wood in this place is old, but snow’s been sitting on it for several days. Someone may see the smoke before it really catches.” He picked up a pencil, made a little note, and then continued reading.

Jane looked at Sandy as the first wave of smoke hit her lungs. She started coughing, tears coming to her eyes, and she took the handkerchief he offered with gratitude, covering her mouth with it.

“Normally we should get down on the floor to get away from the smoke,” Sandy said, his own voice similarly muffled, “but that’s where the smoke is coming from, and this place isn’t big enough to get away from it.” He was coughing now, too, tears pouring down his face from the smoke.