Tempting Fate (31 page)

“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.”

He collapsed back onto the grass, even whiter now. “He's got your father.”

She couldn't move. “Skinner?”

“I don't know his name. Big guy.” Russ winced in agony. “Said your father's in the car with him. I don't think your father knew he coldcocked me.”

“I'll call the police—”

“Get me my gun,” Russ said. “Dani—I can't let your father…”

She found the gun under the juniper. “Tell me how to use it,” she said, kneeling back down next to him. “I'll go. You wait for the police.”

Russ took the gun from her, released the safety and handed it back to her. “Point and pull the trigger. Keep your elbows bent.” He coughed, his eyes squinted against the pain. “Be ready for the kick. Small as you are, you'll feel it.”

She thrust her cell phone at him. “You're sure—”

“Go,” he said.

She was off, keeping the gun pointed at the ground. She concentrated on where her feet touched the brick path, the rhythm of her movements, the weight of the gun in her hand, her breathing.

Pop…

She cut off the thought before it could blossom and overwhelm her. Her father had to be all right. She wasn't ready to lose him.

If she could simply distract Skinner until the police go there…

Listening hard, she heard nothing but birds and the sough of the wind in the trees. She ran through a small grove of pines, feeling the soft grass underfoot, slowing as she came up behind the pavilion where she suspected Quint had taken her father.

Suddenly she heard her father's voice, and the rush of adrenaline was so enormous she thought her chest would burst.

He's alive.

“You should see your face,” he was saying to Skinner. “It's about the color of a good roasted red pepper. Keep this up, you're going to have a stroke.”

Peering from behind thick branches of a pine tree, Dani saw Quint rising, a crowbar in one hand. “I ought to hit you over the head just for driving me crazy. You're worse than the mosquitoes.”

No one, Dani thought, could be more maddening than her father.

She edged forward to the wrought-iron fence. The gate was on the opposite side, which helped give her the advantage of surprise. Skinner would be unlikely to expect an approach from that direction. But it didn't permit her to cut off his exit. The gate had been left wide open.

Ducking under one more branch, she came out within a foot of the gate. She raised Russ's gun. Elbows bent…be ready for the kick…point and pull the trigger…

Her father spotted her. She knew because he looked as if he was going to throw up.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” she said.

Skinner looked around at her, then laid his crowbar onto a massive shoulder like a fishing pole and laughed at her.

“I wouldn't annoy her if I were you,” John said. He didn't sound particularly terrified, but that was her father. Bravado in the face of any problem, no matter how serious.

“I don't care what you're doing here,” Dani said to Skinner. “Just let my father go.”

“You're welcome to him.” He slung the crowbar off his shoulder and held it easily in one hand at his side. The amusement left his expression. He nodded to the fountain. “I found what I came to find.”

He turned his back to her and her gun and sauntered off toward the gate.

“Hey,” she said. “I have a gun pointed at you.”

He glanced back at her, his face red and dirty. “So?”

“So you nearly killed my hotel manager and then my security guard. And I'll bet you landed my father here in the hospital.”

“Nope,” he said. “I didn't do that one. The others—what can I say? Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

“I'm not going to let you just walk out of here.”

“Dani,” her father said.

“Stay out of this, Pop.”

“Sweetheart,” Quint said, “you fire that thing, the only one who's going to get hurt is you. It's a forty-four. It'll knock you on your pretty little ass.”

He continued through the gate.

Her father jumped between her and Skinner. “Dani, just let the bastard go.”

“Relax, Pop. I'm not going to do anything crazy.”

“You're damn right you're not,” Zeke said from behind her.

She swung around, and he snatched her gun before she could accidentally—or on purpose—shoot him, then caught her by the shoulder, steadying her. She didn't protest. “Where did you come from?” she asked.

“The inn. Mattie and Nick heard from the hospital that John was gone—they're frantic. Ira's got someone with them. He's ready to call out the National Guard.”

“What happened to your friend?” John asked, still on the bench on the other side of the fence. “I kept expecting him to swoop to my rescue at any moment. Unlike other members of my family, I'd happily turn my safety over to either one of you.”

“Sam was shot,” Zeke said, grim-faced.

Dani grabbed his wrist. “Will he be okay? What happened?”

“He's fine, but later,” he said. “The police are on the way. Since this isn't my show, I'd prefer not to stick around.” He pulled his wrist free and started around the pavilion. “By the way, Quint was bluffing. Your gun's a thirty-eight. It has a kick, but it wouldn't have knocked you on your pretty little ass. I would have. You don't take on killers when you don't have to.”

“I did have to.”

“Do you ever not argue back?”

She managed a smile. “Never.”

He grinned. “Good.”

Then he was gone.

“My, my,” her father said, eyeing her.

She frowned at him. “It's not what you think.”

“Oh, I'm afraid it is.”

She would stand for no more of this. “What was Skinner after?”

“I haven't the foggiest. He made a damn mess of your fountain, though.” He climbed unsteadily to his feet and walked to the edge of the circular brick path inside the pavilion and examined the area where Quint had been digging. “Oh, hell.”

“Pop?”