Scarlet Nights

by Jude Deveraux

  She stared at him a moment, then picked up her BlackBerry. “I’m going to call Tess and ask her.”

  Looking up, Mike gave a big sigh. “Tess won’t know anything because this is your fault.”

  She cut off the call. “What’s my fault?”

  “I didn’t tell you that Grans used to correspond with Lang. Not often but once or twice a year.”

  “So?”

  “She loved sympathy, so she told him she’d had a baby from the rape.”

  “She didn’t have one, did she?”

  “No. Although now that I’ve heard she had a sister she never mentioned, maybe she did. I’ll get someone to look into that.” He picked up his phone, but at Sara’s look, he put it down and stared at her.

  She had no idea what he was silently telling her, but after a moment she began to understand. This was yet another bit of information that Mike hadn’t told her. “If Mr. Lang was with your grandmother, then he’ll think you are his grandson.”

  Mike went back to his pancakes.

  “That’s rather funny, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Maybe to you but not to me.”

  “My goodness.” She couldn’t repress her laughter. “When you came to this town, your only relative was your sister, and now look at you. You’re a property owner, you have a wife, and you have cousins. So why not add a grandfather?”

  “I’m really not seeing the humor in any of this.”

  In the end, Sara won. Mike suggested that Luke deliver the dogs, but Sara pointed out that it took Mike’s background and knowledge to ask Mr. Lang the correct questions.

  “Questions about what?” Mike growled.

  “About why Greg and Mr. Lang have been at war,” Sara said. “Did you forget that?”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything in spite of my great age that you keep reminding me of.”

  She ignored his remark. “Okay, I’ll go alone.”

  Mike looked at her with almost a smile.

  “But I tried the big collapsible dog crate, and it won’t fit in my car or Joce’s, so I’ll have to use yours. I’ll drive it with the trunk lid up. That’s all right, isn’t it?” She blinked innocently at him.

  “Luke’s truck,” he said with his teeth clenched.

  “In the shop.”

  As he picked up his car keys, he said, “I remember when I used to be in charge of everything.”

  By the time they got to Merlin’s Farm and saw Mr. Lang’s old truck there, Sara was having to work to keep her courage up. When Mike turned off the ignition, she was tempted to say she couldn’t do it—but he didn’t give her a chance.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” he said.

  “No you won’t.” From the backseat, the dogs yipped, but Mike turned and gave them a look that made them sit down in their cage.

  They heard a door slam and Mr. Lang came out with a shotgun in his hands, but when he saw Mike’s car, he put the gun to his side. His round face twisted into an expression that could be taken for a smile.

  “Will you call him Gramps?” Sara asked.

  “Wait until the next time I get you in the gym,” he said under his breath as he got out of the car.

  “You’re Prudie’s grandson,” Mr. Lang rasped out.

  “That I am,” Mike murmured as he opened the back door of the car. He was careful when he removed the big crate; he didn’t want to hurt the leather of his seats.

  Sara had walked around the car to stand behind him, and the look on Mr. Lang’s old face when he saw the dogs almost made her forgive him everything. She tried to forget the fear she’d felt since she was a child—and she wanted to forget about his retaliations on people who crossed him.

  Mike unzipped the cage, clipped on leashes, and let the dogs out. They were young and energetic and wanted to run. “This is Baron and Baroness,” Mike said, “and they’re an unrelated pair, so their breeding will be healthy. They’ve had shots and microchips saying they belong to you put in their necks.”

  Mr. Lang went down on his old knees to put his arms around the dogs. “Thank you,” he said.

  Sara was looking at him with sympathy. Everyone in town always worked to stay away from the vindictive old man, so she’d never considered how lonely he must be.

  “What happened to your other dogs?” she asked before she thought. The moment it was out, she expected Mike to give her a look to be quiet, but he didn’t so much as turn around. He was still holding the leashes of the dogs and his eyes were on Brewster Lang.

  Mr. Lang looked up at Sara, and the happiness on his face was replaced with a sneer.

  Mike put his body between her and the old man. “She’s my wife and you will treat her with respect. Her name is Mrs. Newland.” Mike’s voice was low.

  “Wife? You married a—”

  “I know what you did, so you can drop the fake hatred of the McDowells.”

  Sara peeped around Mike to watch Mr. Lang’s face. It went from confusion to shock to fear, and finally, to delight.

  “You know?” His voice was so low she could hardly hear him. “You know that your grandmother and I were … were sweethearts? And that you are—?”

  It looked as though Mike was right and Mr. Lang remembered what happened that night as a love story.

  Mike interrupted him. “There are things that shouldn’t be said out loud. I’m a policeman and I’d be duty bound to report what I hear.”

  Sara knew that the statute of limitations for rape was about seven years, but from the fear that ran across his face, Mr. Lang didn’t seem to know that. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen a TV in the house, and she doubted if he had Internet service. It looked like he wasn’t much in touch with the outside world.

  Standing up, Mr. Lang nodded. The dogs were at his feet, and they already seemed to knew who their owner was.

  “I have questions to ask you,” Mike said as he handed him the leashes and took the shotgun from where it rested on the gravel.

  Mr. Lang took the dogs’ straps, wrapped them around his hands, and started toward the house. As the leader, he was in the front, not the dogs.

  When they reached the house, Mr. Lang opened the door for Mike, but he stood where he was and glared at Lang. Reluctantly, the old man stepped back and let Sara go in first, then Mike, while he stayed outside to take care of the dogs.

  Sara and Mike went into the living room and sat down on the old couch. “You forgot to tell me what not to talk about,” she whispered.

  “Say anything you want. That old man would die before he gave out any information. He won’t spread the news that we’re married.”

  Minutes later, Mr. Lang came into the room carrying a tray full of matching cups and saucers, a teapot, and cookies on a plate. Sara’s eyes widened as she recognized the china pattern as one she’d seen in a museum. He poured tea into what had to be a hundred-year-old cup, as fragile as a butterfly’s wing, and held it out to Mike.

  He nodded toward Sara and with a grimace—a step up from his sneer—Lang handed her the cup.

  She took a sip. “Jasmine?”

  Mr. Lang just shrugged at her. He looked only at Mike, and his big eyes seemed ready to melt.

  “My wife asked you a question.”

  “Yeah, it’s jasmine. I grow it.”

  “My mother would like to sell this. I’ve never tasted better.”

  “She’d sell me if she could,” Mr. Lang mumbled. “Your mother turns everything into money.”

  When Mike started to speak, Sara gently elbowed him. “Actually, that’s true. I guess, Mr. Lang, that’s why you and I are two of the poorest people in town.”

  He looked at Sara with blank eyes. “You’ll make money on that shop of yours.”

  “Not if Greg gets what he deserves,” Sara said as she picked up a cookie. There were dark flecks in them.

  “If those are full of marijuana,” Mike said, “I’ll—”

  “They’re lavender!” Sara said. “I can taste it and smell it. If my mother knew you mad
e these—”

  “She’d come for my recipes,” he said, glaring at Sara.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t tell her. Did you know that Mike now owns Merlin’s Farm?”

  Mike was looking around the room with a carpenter’s eye. The first thing that needed to be done was to inspect it for dry rot and termites, but maybe Ramsey’d had that done. Any wood that needed replacing would have to come from an architectural salvage company. And where would they put a TV in this room? The fireplace was off center, with a built-in cabinet next to it. Could it be wired for cable and a stereo? “What?” he asked when he felt Sara staring at him.

  “I was telling Mr. Lang that you now own this farm.”

  The old man’s face showed his astonishment. “You will live here? With me?” He looked as though he’d seen heaven on earth.

  “No. I have years before I can retire, so I’ll be in South Florida until then. Tell me everything you know about Greg Anders and don’t leave out a word.”

  “He is a very bad man.” Lang cut his eyes at Sara, then back to Mike. “Anders likes women.”

  “We know all that.” Mike’s voice was harsh and quick, and Sara imagined it was how he usually spoke to criminals. But Mr. Lang didn’t seem to mind. He looked at Mike with admiration—and Sara was sure the old man thought he was looking at his own grandson.

  “Tell us what we don’t know. Why all the traps?”

  Mr. Lang blinked in surprise at Mike. “You know about them?”

  Mike scowled. “I almost got hit by a couple of your darts and that horse harness you tied up in the barn almost fell on my wife.”

  Mr. Lang’s round little mouth dropped open. “You’re like me. I go places and no one knows I’ve been there.”

  “I’m not at all like you. What I want to know is why Greg Anders wants Merlin’s Farm.” There was a flicker in the old man’s eyes. It was for only a microsecond, but Mike saw it. The old man was hiding something. “What did you see in your spying?”

  Lang leaned toward Mike, across the tea tray on the coffee table, and whispered—as though Sara, just a foot away, couldn’t hear him. “When he’s with the women, he steals from them, but they don’t know it.”

  “And how does he manage that?”

  “He goes through their purses and their cars.” Lang gave a sigh. “None of them live in Edilean, so I don’t know what he does in their houses.”

  “But a woman would notice something missing from her handbag and no one said anything to us at the shop,” Sara said.

  “Vandlo wanted information, not goods,” Mike said over his shoulder. “Did he ever see you watching him?”

  Lang frowned. “I’m not as good as I used to be. Can’t move as fast.”

  “So you were spying on him, saw him searching the women’s property, and he caught you. Then what?”

  Lang’s little mouth tightened. “He came here, said he’d kill my dogs if I told. I said I never told anyone anything.”

  “That’s true,” Sara said. “You have an extraordinary ability to keep secrets.”

  Lang looked at her as though trying to decide if she was giving him a compliment or being snide.

  Sara smiled at him. “Do you have any more cookies?”

  Lang looked at her for a long moment, as though trying to figure her out. “I have some with nasties in them.”

  “I don’t like—” Mike began, but Sara put her hand on his arm.

  “Nasturtiums? Flowers or seed pods?”

  “Flowers, of course.” He didn’t seem to think much of her gardening skills. “I pickle the pods.”

  “You wouldn’t have made any of those, would you?”

  Mr. Lang got up and went to the kitchen.

  “You got rid of him,” Mike said, “so what do you want to tell me?”

  “Did you really look at that tea set? It’s eighteenth century if it’s a day. And these are old recipes. We went through this house thoroughly but I didn’t see these dishes, did you?”

  Smiling, Mike kissed her cheek. “You are a good detective. Maybe there’s something here, after all. I’ll tell Vandlo I own the farm. It’s another thing he’ll have to come through me to get.” As he said it, he took Sara’s hand in reassurance.

  “Mike!” Sara said in exasperation. “That wasn’t my point. I thought you and I together could search and—”

  “Shhhh. He’s coming.”

  Lang sat down, a red metal box in his hands, and she recognized it from having seen it in magazines. It was a candy box from the 1920s, in pristine condition and valuable to a collector. Inside were fresh cookies with pretty nasturtium flowers put into them while they were still warm.

  Sara took one but Mike passed. She took a bite. Delicious. “If you sell these at Luke’s booth at the fair I’ll see that you get a hundred percent of the money.”

  “No rent, no commission?”

  “Nothing,” Sara said. “In fact, if you want to use Luke’s wife’s new kitchen to do the baking, Joce will help you.”

  “Don’t you think you should ask her first?” Mike asked.

  Sara shrugged. “She’s so bored she’d work with the devil. Sorry, no offense, Mr. Lang.”

  The old man and Mike were looking at her with identical stares of consternation.

  “So, uh, back to Greg,” Sara said as she leaned back on the old sofa, two cookies in her hands. She’d had an ulterior motive in sending Mr. Lang to Joce’s house. If he was going to be hanging around the fair, then she wanted him bonded to Joce. Mike said there was no danger to Joce even though she was holding the tarot cards as bait, but Sara wasn’t so sure. Besides, Mr. Lang was more experienced in spying than all of Mike’s fancy Federal agents put together.

  She took another bite. “Oh wait! Did you use stevia?”

  “Grow it myself.”

  Sara nodded. “My mother’s erotic dreams have come true. Okay, I’m done.”

  Rolling his eyes, Mike looked back at Lang. “Did you ever see Anders with an older woman, early fifties? She has a prominent nose.”

  Lang smirked like a dirty little boy. “I saw him with two at once. An old one and a young one. Together.” He looked at Sara, but she studiously kept her eyes on the cookie.

  “Look at me,” Mike said, “not my wife. Are you saying that Anders killed your dogs just to keep you from telling what you know?”

  When Mr. Lang said nothing, Sara spoke. “I don’t mean to butt in, but my guess is that the dogs were Greg’s way of punishing you because you told the sheriff, didn’t you?”

  Lang looked down at his hands.

  Mike fell back against the couch, his face a study in exasperation. “Are you saying there’s a sheriff in this one-horse town? And you told him about Anders’s thievery?”

  Lang shrugged, but he didn’t look up.

  Mike turned to Sara. “Why wasn’t I told about a police force in this little town? I figured this place was in Williamsburg’s jurisdiction.”

  “It is, more or less, and there’s the county sheriff,” Sara said, “but we have our own, sort of, caretakers. They don’t get paid, so outsiders don’t consider them real.”

  Mike waited but neither Lang nor Sara said anything else. “Might I be told who handles this ‘sort of’ police force?”

  Sara smiled. “Guess.”

  “Sara, I don’t—” He sighed. “My cousins, the Fraziers.”

  “You are such a clever man!”

  Mike ran his hand over his face, then looked at Lang. “You told the … the honorary sheriff that Anders was sleeping with half the women in the county, mostly married women, and he steals information from them. Was he blackmailing them too?”

  Again, Lang shrugged. “I don’t know. Stealing isn’t right.”

  “Neither is spying on people,” Mike snapped, then calmed. “I guess the sheriff talked to Anders and later your dogs were …”

  “Poisoned,” Mr. Lang said.

  “But that wasn’t the end of it,” Mike said, “because afterward you
put up traps all over this place. If you’d put them up beforehand, your dogs wouldn’t have died.”

  Mr. Lang nodded, then said quietly, “I think he did it on purpose.”

  “What do you mean?” Mike asked.

  “I think Anders wanted me to see him, wanted me to go to a Frazier. He wanted to kill my dogs.” There was a catch in the old man’s throat.

  “That would mean that the real target was you,” Mike said. “You’re well known for greeting guests with a shotgun, so is there anything around here that Anders wants?”

  Again, there was that flicker in the old man’s eyes.

  “What are you hiding?” Mike asked quickly, but Lang said nothing.

  “Any Civil War silver?” Sara asked into the silence. “More of this china?”

  “No,” Lang said. “It’s not mine any way. Belongs to …” He looked at Mike, his eyes full of love. “Prudie’s grandson.”

  “All this makes you even more of a target,” Sara said softly to Mike, with fear in her voice. “If what Greg wants is here, when he finds out you own this place, he’ll … he’ll …”

  “Good!” Mike said. He reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew a photo, and handed it to Lang. It was the picture of Mitzi Vandlo, taken when she was a teenager, but it had been age progressed. “Have you ever seen this woman?”

  Lang barely glanced at it. “No.”

  “Look at it again.”

  Reluctantly, Lang took the picture, studied it, then gave it back to Mike. “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I remember faces. Never seen her before.”

  Mike put the photo away. “This weekend is the fair. I want you to snoop around, spy on people, and tell me everything you see.”

  “Dirty people in this town,” Lang said primly. “Always in bed together.”

  “The things you get up to in private are just as bad,” Mike said as he looked at his watch. “I want you to tear down every trap you’ve set around here. Don’t leave one of them. And burn the Mary Jane.”

  “I think it would be better if you buried it,” Sara said, “or it might be like in that movie Saving Grace. We don’t want Colin dancing around in the nude.”

  Mike looked at her as though she were crazy, but Mr. Lang gave an expression almost like a smile.