by Jenna Ryan
Shoved roughly into the belt of his ragged jeans was a very large, very lethal-looking gun.
AIDAN CONSIDERED lunging but retracted the thought as Sam shifted closer. Teeth grinding more from her proximity than Alistair’s presence, he considered his options. The cabinet was not a good hiding place. Alistair could spot them anytime. And that 45 he carried was no toy store trophy.
“Hell,” he swore under his breath, then tensed as Sam leaned into him.
Ahead of them, Alistair, who’d been shoving boxes around with his sneakered foot, suddenly spun to face the door. Aidan saw his hand go to the gun. He started to pull it free, hesitated, then changed his mind and bolted like a jackrabbit for cover. He was crawling through a gap in the cabinets when he came nose to nose with Aidan.
Either he’d expected them to be there, or he was too agitated to care. Jerking his head backward, he rasped, “Someone’s out there,” and scrambled past to the shelter of the next shadow.
Less than five seconds later, the door was thrust open. “Just put him here for ten minutes,” a nasally voice ordered. The speaker tugged fretfully on the foot of a gurney. “Is it my fault they’re dropping like flies, today? I’ll clear a slab as soon as I can.”
Even half obscured, Alistair looked decidedly green. Sam hadn’t moved a muscle since she’d spotted the gurney being wheeled in, and even Aidan’s stomach tightened at the thought of a corpse languishing less than ten feet away. Not that he hadn’t seen dead bodies before, but he’d seldom done so at close range and he’d never viewed them tidily arranged on a stretcher. There was something particularly gruesome about the blank—some people called it peaceful—expression that settled on the human face in death.
The doctor and attendants left, still bickering. Aidan waited until the door clicked shut, then, setting Sam aside, made straight for their companion. His movement was so swift and agile that the younger man had no chance to dodge him.
On his knees, Aidan took a handful of rumpled cotton sweatshirt and shoved Alistair into the wall hard enough to rattle the taut muscles in his neck.
“Talk,” he ordered, and although at first he seemed reluctant, Alistair finally nodded. One thing Aidan had never done was bluff when roused to anger. Alistair would either confess or lose a number of teeth. Aidan was in no mood at this point to be kind.
“I heard Mary’d been confined here once,” the younger man said in a petulant voice. His fingers worked futilely to pry Aidan’s hand away. “I wanted to see her records.”
“Bull,” Aidan said, and shook him. “The truth, Blue. Who sent you here? Who do you work for?”
“Thurman Wells…”
“Has never heard of you. I called him from Oakhaven earlier.”
“You did?” Sam had crawled over to watch. Now she turned resentful eyes on Aidan. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Aidan kept his level gaze focused on Alistair’s unmoving face. “I didn’t want to worry you.” Another shake. Alistair grimaced but wouldn’t relent.
“I can’t tell you,” he said, his tone that of a child being scolded.
Aidan refused to slacken his grip. “Is it Mary?”
“No!”
The denial was vehement and oddly startled.
“Who then?” Sam wanted to know.
“I promised not to tell.”
“So it could be Mary, and you’re just lying to us,” she retorted.
Alistair’s head came up in defiance. Chin jutting, he challenged, “I could ask you the same question, you know—what you’re doing here.”
“You know why we’re here,” Aidan said coldly. “And who sent us.”
“Sent you, yes.” He nodded awkwardly at Sam. “We don’t know sh—anything about her reasons.”
Aidan half expected Sam to slug him. But only half. She was far too refined for such a vulgar display.
“Creep,” he heard her mutter. Eyes darkening, she demanded, “Did you cut Aidan’s brake line?”
“No.”
Aidan’s instincts, not his ears, caught the lie.
“Did you hire two men to attack him?”
“No.”
“Was that you chasing us after Leo Rockland’s reception?”
“No.”
“You’re lying, Alistair Blue,” she declared, disgusted. “And you’re a coward to boot. All this time Aidan’s been holding you, and you haven’t reached for your gun once.”
Alistair’s already blotchy cheeks burned deep red, though whether with rage or embarrassment Aidan couldn’t tell. His fingers began to fumble for his belt.
“Don’t bother.” Sam produced the .45. “I’ve got it now.”
Outrage brought a surge of energy to Alistair’s muscles. He strained against Aidan’s hold. “You give it to me!” he shouted.
Aidan shook him for a third time. “Shut up or we’ll have the whole hospital on us. We’re getting out of here, now. If you want information on Mary, Blue, you’ll have to sneak in again some other time.”
Alistair called him a crude name, certain, apparently, that Sam was not volatile enough to use the gun. He smoldered for the few seconds that Aidan allowed him, then finally nodded and said, “Yeah, all right, let’s blow this joint.”
The worst part lay in getting past the corpse without touching it. Once that task had been accomplished it was a simple matter of locating the nearest exit and the comparatively fresh canyon air beyond.
Not surprisingly, Alistair bolted the instant he saw the threshold. He took a desperate moment to try to snatch the gun from Sam’s hand, but she was faster and sidestepped him.
Giving the wall a frustrated thump, he took off, plunging through the tall shrubbery like a fleeing deer.
Aidan stared after him, running a hand through his long hair. He automatically reached for and found Sam to his right. “Weird guy” was all he said.
Whether she would have added to that or not, he wasn’t sure for a man’s ingenuous, “What’s that?” at close range had both their heads swiveling in surprise.
“Morris,” Sam breathed, then did a double take and demanded, “how did you get here from Oakhaven?”
He grinned toothily. “Came with Little Boy Blue.”
“Alistair,” Aidan grunted.
“He came looking for you. Dr. John told him where you went.”
Aidan’s eyes glinted. “I’ll have to have a chat with Dr. John.”
“He has a nice car,” Morris went on in his childlike way. “Better’n my grandpa’s Model T.” He blinked at the object in Sam’s hand. Before either of them could stop him, he reached out and grabbed it from her.
“Pretty,” he said, stroking the metal. His formerly soft eyes shone with malicious glee. “Makes a good bang.” Lifting the barrel, he took aim—and squeezed the trigger.
MARY LIKENED HERSELF to the crone her character in The Three Fates would have become if she’d been alive. Her name was Esme and she’d have wanted her turncoat sister, played by Margaret, dead just as surely as Mary wanted her old rival gone forever.
She hobbled around her rented house and told herself all was fine with her plan, splendid in fact No need to concern herself with minor problems, like—well, no, best not to start that again. She’d already worked herself into one frenzy today. Two, and her sorely strained ticker might give out.
She scuttled like a naughty child from bedroom to kitchen to living room, checking each one thoroughly before moving on. No sign of Tobias anywhere. Good. She could get back to work.
Clearing her throat, she reached for the phone and dialed. Nurses at Oakhaven were easily circumvented. Mary knew the procedures upside down and backward. “Mrs. Hilda Payne,” she repeated in one of her best stage voices. “This is Mrs. Crocker.” The nurse sounded rushed. All the better, thought Mary smugly as she tapped the lid of her cigarette box with knobby fingers.
Mrs. Payne’s exuberant, “Yes, what is it, Betty?” greeted her.
“Mabel,” Mary corrected, taut-lipped.
“Sorry. Don’t worry, no one’s listening. There’s big trouble here. I think someone else got out. No bombers though, thank heaven.”
Mary endured her comments then drove straight to the point. “Has she—have they been to see you yet?”
“Came and went donkey’s ages ago,” Mrs. Payne informed her.
Stupid lout, Mary thought contemptuously. “How long is that in hours?” she demanded.
“Three, maybe. I don’t remember. We can’t find Morris, you see, and Dr. John’s going crazy.”
Her loud guffaw made Mary’s stomach tighten. Between that and her annoyance at having missed her quarry’s helpers, she felt testy enough to snap, “Did you see them?”
“See? Hell, I talked to them. That’s okay, isn’t it? You told me if they ever came by—”
“It’s fine,” Mary interrupted. “Now listen to me, Hilda, I need you to do me a favor. The next time you see them, and there will be a next time, I promise you, I want you to mention the name Frank Durwald. Say it back to me—Frank Durwald. Tell them I said that name all the time when we played cards.”
“You said it. while you cheated at cards,” Mrs. Payne re-torted.
Mary snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. I never cheat. I just don’t always let everyone see what I’m doing.”
“You cheat,” Mrs. Payne maintained.
Although it galled her to give in, Mary needed a strong ally, and as mental patients went, Mrs. Payne’s allegiance was unswerving.
“All right, I cheat” she said in a clipped voice. “Just tell them the name Frank Durwald for me. Did the girl—Sam—leave you her card?”
“Yeah. She’s a knockout, Mary.”
Mary’s frayed temper snapped. She heard the front door open and close. Dammit, Tobias was back. “She’s a knockout, all right, just like her snooty grandmother.” She lowered her voice, cupping the mouthpiece with a gnarly hand. “Remember what I said, Hilda. Frank Durwald. It’s important. Phone her if you have to.”
She hung up abruptly, shoved the phone away and flopped back in time to see Tobias pass by the entrance. He didn’t say a word, simply went about his servant’s duties. But he had one ear open all the same. One ear and both eyes. Oh, well, at least he’d never turn her in.
Her eyes began to glitter with vicious anticipation. She’d have to make sure he was miles away when she went for Margaret’s jugular. She wanted everyone to be miles away when that happened. The moment would be hers to savor and Margaret’s to despair. And any and all who dared to interfere would die right alongside her nemesis—just as surely and every bit as painfully.
Chapter Eight
It was one of those long, hideous days that Sam wanted to end, but circumstances refused to cooperate.
“If Mary doesn’t get us, I swear my heart’ll give out,” she mumbled to Aidan as people in pink, white and blue uniforms rushed out of the hospital to see what the gunfire was all about. Thank heaven and his conscience that at the last second Morris had shot the grass instead of them. And thank God he’d dropped the gun afterward, shaken by the kickback of exploding bullets.
He’d looked lost and bewildered as the hospital staff led him away. He couldn’t even recall how he’d gotten to West Valley from Oakhaven. Naturally Sam was obliged to explain that situation since Aidan seemed more fascinated by the vegetation than by their near-death experience moments before.
Forty minutes later, she discovered him seated beneath a sprawling oak tree, contemplating the hazy afternoon sky.
He didn’t notice her approach at first, muffled as it was by the thick carpet of lawn. If only he’d had a big white rabbit for a friend the way Jimmy Stewart had in Harvey, then she could dismiss him as a nut and be done with it. But there he sat like—she didn’t know what. His namesake perhaps, minus the kilt but every bit as sexy as the movie version of Rob Roy MacGregor.
The afternoon breeze stirred his long hair, lifting several strands and blowing them across the angled plane of his cheek. He looked contemplative, unmoving, with his head averted, his forearms resting on his raised knees and his hands dangling loosely between them. Sam felt a pang of suppressed desire and had to take a deep breath before she could shove it back into the shadowy recesses of her mind.
“Find any four-leaf clovers?” she asked with only a trace of a sigh.
He moved just enough to look up at her. His expression was inscrutable, but she sensed something troublesome lurking beneath the surface.
“What?” she said cautiously when he didn’t answer. “Morris is being taken care of, if that’s what you’re wondering. Alistair Blue drives a souped-up Chevy with a big trunk and a faulty lock. Morris had no trouble climbing in. Apparently he hasn’t set foot outside Oakhaven for seven years. I guess he got curious. Anyway, John’s been contacted, and lucky for us no real harm’s been done.”
The compelling weight of his stare caused her to ramble on longer than necessary. She would have continued to ramble if he hadn’t interrupted her, saying solemnly, “They were blanks, Sam.”
She halted a full six feet away. The wind ruffling her hair from behind carried with it the threat of a storm. “What are you talking about?” She had a feeling she knew, but the answer made no sense and therefore couldn’t be correct.
“Alistair’s gun. I looked at the grass all around where Morris was shooting. There was nothing. Alistair’s gun was loaded with blank bullets.”
SAM TOPPLED into bed that night, exhausted, confused and unutterably sick of the whole mess. If she’d become an accountant as her father had suggested, maybe none of this would have happened. But then what child ever did what their parents suggested?
The phone gave a purring ring in the living room. She ignored it and thumped her pillow with her fist. It wouldn’t be Aidan at 1:00 a.m., and anyone else could leave a message.
Damn you, Margaret, she thought in rising vexation. You’ve handed me a problem I don’t need, and now I’m mixed up with a man I don’t want to care about. I’ll be the one in an institution before this is over.
The answering machine picked up on the fourth ring. Even through the bedroom wall, there was no mistaking the squawk that passed for a woman’s voice.
“You there, Sam? It’s me, Hilda Payne. You came to see me today. There’s something I forgot—”
“Hello? Mrs. Payne?” Sam rubbed the bare toe she’d stubbed en route and pressed her lips tightly together. “Isn’t it a little late for you to be calling?”
A hoarse cackle reached her. “First chance I’ve had all night. They’re all running around like chickens with their heads cut off around here. Morris jumped the fence today, you know.”
“Yes, I do. You, uh, said there was something you forgot?”
“Right. She—I mean, I—that is, you were asking about Mary when you were here, and I forgot to tell you about this person. I don’t know who he was, just that she used to say his name a lot. Frank Dur…Something”
“…Wald,” Sam finished. “Frank Durwald.”
“Yeah, that’s right” She sounded relieved. Sam considered that for a moment then set her doubts firmly aside.
“Did she say anything in particular about him?”
“Nope, only the name. Don’t know if it’ll help at all, but I figured you’d want to know.”
“Yes, I do. Thanks, Mrs. Payne.” Sam gnawed on her lip. “Er, Mrs. Payne, did you say that you and Mary were close friends?”
“Close as sisters,” Mrs. Payne said proudly, then quickly back-pedalled. “Well, maybe not that close, but friendly. Chit-chat friendly if you know what I mean.”
“I might,” Sam said slowly. “Thanks again, Mrs. Payne. Good night”
She hung up with thoughtful deliberation. Something about that telephone call struck a nerve. It hadn’t felt right. It seemed in keeping with the woman’s character, and she really hadn’t said much except a name Sam already knew. Still…
“Oh, hell,” she muttered. Standing, she crossed barefoot in her red football jersey
nightshirt to the computer. This was definitely not her favorite tool; however, if it would help…
She sat with a thump and a sigh, switched on, dialed and typed in the name she strongly suspected Mary Lamont wanted her to pursue, that of onetime Parlor Shoppe Ice Cream owner, Frank Durwald.
AIDAN SAT in slouchy comfort in a deck chair on the roof of Guido’s apartment and listened as the older man prattled on about the good old days in Hollywood. Guido had invited him over for coffee and conversation before they headed to the Break.
“Over there used to be the Brown Derby,” he said, his dark eyes soulful. “And Graumann’s’ Chinese, what a showplace that was in its heyday. Do you know, my uncle Ricky saw John Wayne sign his block? It was quite the glamorous time.”
Ricky and John Wayne? Aidan checked a smile at the picture his mind flashed of Lucy and Ethel prying up John Wayne’s footprints—the ultimate Hollywood souvenir.
If there’d been a storm in the offing, it had veered away, leaving sunshine and a pale blue sky in its wake. Sometimes Aidan missed the vivid blues and greens of Ireland, but less now than he had five years ago and not once since he’d laid eyes on Sam.
Guido turned, his fond smile fading. “I did more digging with regard to Anthea Pennant. Can’t find a blessed thing on her after nineteen fifty-three. Alive, dead, in California or the Casbah—I have no idea and no thought at this moment where to look next What about you and Minx? I hear you had a little trouble at West Valley Hospital yesterday. Found Mary’s medical file, too, I gather. It’s hard to imagine her with a child.”
Aidan rubbed his forehead, willing away the headache that lurked behind it. He’d drunk too much Irish whiskey last night in the company of too many Irish sots whose solution to everything was to tip back another one.
“Drown the bad,” Paddy McGillvrey had advised. “Bed the woman. And tell old friends you don’t do favors that involve getting your head blown off.”
Sage advice, Aidan reflected, except for the part about bedding Sam. One, it wouldn’t be that simple on any level or from any perspective, and two, he wasn’t now nor was he ever likely to be prepared to deal with the consequences of such an action.
