I let that go. “What happened between you and Jack on the Point this morning, Adelaide?”
“He confronted me! He remembered seeing Rupert make his way downstairs after their meeting in Cornelius’s office, right at the time the murder would have been committed. It got him thinking . . . and that’s when he remembered me telling him about playing at The Breakers when we were little, how we used to hide our little treasures under the floor in the playhouse. Damn him, Emma! I’d told him that months ago. Why on earth did he have to go and remember about it today?”
I ignored her vehemence, thinking instead about how Jack’s carriage had raced down the The Breakers’ drive this morning. My father’s old friend redeemed himself today, if only fractionally. “What you did horrified him, didn’t it?”
She grimaced. “He said the money was one thing, but he never signed on for murder. He blamed me for—”
“Why shouldn’t he have blamed you?” A ball of rage that had been steadily growing inside me suddenly burst free. “Don’t you understand what havoc you’ve created? Don’t you care how many lives you’ve destroyed? You’re a monster, Adelaide. You’ve become exactly what you accused Uncle Cornelius of being, only a hundred thousand times worse. And for what? For—”
“Shut up!” She jabbed the pistol in the air toward me. My heart seized, but I stood tall, shut my eyes, and waited. A prayer raced through my mind.
A second passed. Two. I braved opening my eyes and saw, shining in her eyes—what? Indecision? Regret? Fear? Or simply the murky abyss of insanity? Suddenly, I’d had enough.
“Well, Adelaide?” I said. “Are you going to shoot me or beat me to a pulp with your cricket bat?”
Looking the prim society lady once more, Adelaide swung the bat still clutched in her left hand, pointing it toward the back lawns that sloped gently down to the ocean-facing cliffs. Ignoring my question, she said, “Start walking, Emma.”
She stood aside to let me pass, then fell into step behind me. “Yes, that’s right, around the kitchen garden,” she ordered.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
The chuckle that accompanied those words did little to reassure me. As we left first the vegetable garden and then the formal flowerbeds behind, my stomach twisted into tighter and tighter knots. The ocean, heretofore a distant murmur, rose to a hiss and then a downright mocking jeer, or so it seemed to me. Good-bye, Emma, the waves seemed to intone as they crashed around the boulders below. Partway across the lawn, Adelaide tossed the bat down into the grass.
“So then you’re going to shoot me and throw me off the cliff?”
“Oh, dearest Emma, I’m not going to shoot you. That would be far too messy. Not to mention loud.” I’d slowed my steps, and now she poked the barrel of the pistol between my shoulder blades to encourage me to pick up my pace. “Unless, of course, you force my hand. Keep moving.”
“Adelaide, you can’t hope to get away with this. But . . . maybe I can help you. Uncle Cornelius is a powerful man, and he likes me—very much. I could talk to him, persuade him—”
“Do shut up, Emma. I won’t need Cornelius’s help. All I’ll need are a few bruises, which I’ll inflict on myself with my trusty bat, and enough crocodile tears to persuade the police my husband shot Jack, beat his valet to death, and then turned his rage on me. Luckily, however, I was able to wrench the bat away and knock him unconscious. The gun and the bat both belong to Rupert. It’ll my word against his, so who do you think they’ll believe?”
What she didn’t say weighed heavily in the air between us. It was that I, the only other person who knew the truth, would not be around to contest her story. When the police arrived, they’d find things exactly as Adelaide described, and since they now already suspected Rupert had murdered Jack in a fit of jealousy, she wouldn’t need to do a lot of persuading.
Soon the grass grew thin and gravely. A few yards ahead of us, a line of low hedges separated the lawn from the Cliff Walk. Adelaide nudged me toward a break in the foliage. The sea was a constant roar below us; the wind plastered our skirts against our legs, strained the ribbons that secured our hats on our heads, and plucked strands of hair from beneath the brims to whip our shoulders and the backs of our necks.
We reached the gap and were about to step through. I was seconds away from being pushed to my death. Frantically I searched about me for a weapon, something I could grab without Adelaide realizing until it was too late. But there was nothing. I couldn’t very well tear branches from the shrubbery and . . . do what with it? My heart pounded, my pulse points throbbed. I felt dizzy, sick, horribly afraid. I felt hope torn from my grasp like leaves born on that relentless wind. I dragged my feet, my mind scrambling to find a way to forestall death.
If I tried reaching down for a rock, Adelaide would shoot me or send me tumbling with a good shove. Besides, there were no rocks in sight large enough to serve as a weapon.
No, maybe not one large enough, but there were small ones aplenty. Not to mention the loose, sandy soil. My heels were sinking into it.
“Move to your right, Emma.”
I’d stepped out onto the Cliff Walk, and I realized why Adelaide had given me this last direction. Squinting from where she stood between the hedges, she gazed out over the water, searching, no doubt, for any boats that might be sailing by. She couldn’t afford witnesses. The seas were empty—just my luck. Where were the amateur sailors when you needed them?
Yet it was the moment I’d waited and prayed for. With the sparkling water momentarily dazzling Adelaide, I dug my boot tip into the soil, raised my hems, and for all I was worth kicked up a rocky cloud—straight into her face.
I didn’t hesitate long enough to gauge the damage I’d done. At the sound of her yelp, I lunged with both hands outstretched. If her gun went off—well, with nothing to lose, I shoved her back through the hedge and onto the lawn. Together we toppled to the ground, rolled this way and that, our skirts tangling. The ribbon beneath my chin tore and my hat flew off. Hers was somewhere beneath us, smashed against the ground. Her solid weight crushed me at intervals, knocking the wind out of me. We rolled again and I sucked in a dusty breath. A thud told me she had likely dropped the pistol, but her fists rained down on me, on my shoulders and chest, and though I squirmed and wriggled to avoid her, the edges of her knuckles grazed my cheek.
The blows stopped, bringing all too temporary relief, for in the next instant her hands clamped my throat and squeezed. Gasping, I clawed at her wrists, a futile effort as Adelaide was far stronger than me. Her golden curls fell wildly into my face and her weight pinned me to the ground, immobilizing me . . . though not quite all of me.
Instinctively I thrust my arms outward and groped through the grass, hoping against hope to find the fallen pistol. Adelaide’s shrieks reverberated in my ears. My breath rattled and scraped in my throat. My senses swarmed dizzily; a dull blackness began to envelop my vision. My body growing numb and my mind fading into oblivion, I used the last of my strength to stretch my hands out farther still. . . .
The fingers of my right hand closed around smooth, cylindrical metal, warmed slightly by the sun. I tightened my fist, raised my hand high, and brought the butt of the weapon crashing down on the back of her head.
“Emma!”
The cry drifted across the lawn, so faint surely I’d imagined it. Adelaide’s body crumpled and she slumped heavily on top of me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see past the tangles of her hair. My throat seized against my efforts to drag air into my lungs. I tried pushing Adelaide off me, frantic to be free, feeling as though I was entombed in a fragrant, silken grave.
“Emma!” the shout came again, this time closer, convincing me it wasn’t wishful thinking. I tried to call out, but I couldn’t seem to open my throat. Instead, I lay gasping, wheezing, my throat searing with ragged pain.
I heard them before I saw them, a rumbling procession barreling across the lawn. Then all at once Adelaide’s weight came off
me as she was hauled away by two officers in dark blue uniforms. The next thing I knew, I was sitting up, still gasping for breath, but little by little the air reached my lungs. Someone I couldn’t see supported me from behind.
As I coughed and sputtered, Adelaide groaned, then seemed to spring back to life with startling speed. Bolting upright from her prone position on the grass, she first looked about her. The two policemen each gripped an upper arm, one on either side of her. She tugged and kicked and screamed, and I vaguely wondered how she found the energy. I certainly couldn’t form a word around the arduous task of drawing breaths in and out, and trying to gain control over my trembling limbs.
She fought on, though, even tried to come to her feet. She almost made it, but stumbled and sank back to the grass. The officers didn’t relax their hold on her until a third policeman snapped a handcuff on one of her wrists. She tugged for freedom even as they wrestled her hands behind her and secured the other wrist.
They eased their hold slightly, and only then did the furor drain from her limbs and torso. As I looked on she seemed to sag into the ground, the furious sparks fading from her eyes.
“It was her,” she said weakly. She raised her chin in my direction. Tears streamed from the eyes I’d once admired. “It was Emma. She did it. She did it all. . . .”
Her accusation made no impact on me other than to rouse a wave of pity. Nor did it faze the officers, except to make them roll their eyes at her ridiculous claim. With a hand at each elbow they raised her to her feet. I attempted to stand up, too, but my knees refused to cooperate.
Those hands that had been supporting me, that I’d all but forgotten about, moved away from my shoulders and then strong arms encircled me from behind. A familiar voice rumbled quietly in my ear. He’d been speaking all along, but I only now became aware of the words. “Emma, Emma, my God . . . did she hurt you? Are you injured, sweetheart? Can you speak?”
I turned my face until warm lips met my cheek. “I’m all right . . . I think.”
“You were so brave.” Something between a laugh and a sob caught in Derrick’s throat. “And here I was thinking I needed to come rescue you.”
My stomach flipped pleasantly at those words. “How did you know I’d be here?”
I shuddered against his chest and his arms tightened around me. “I’m not even sure why I decided to check in on you from town, but when I called your house, Mrs. O’Neal told me where you’d gone. And I thought . . .” Releasing me, he scrambled around to face me, his hands once more gripping my shoulders, no longer quite so gently. “What were you thinking? Have you learned nothing in all of this?” His voice boomed in my ears, making me flinch. “How could you be so reckless?”
On any other day I’d have scowled and told him he wasn’t my keeper, that he had no right to speak to me like that and I could take care of myself. And I had taken care of myself, hadn’t I? But I’d stumbled over two dead bodies that day, had almost been thrown from a cliff, shot, and strangled, not to mention learning I’d been betrayed by not one, but two old friends. I’d more than reached the limits of my fortitude. Tears filled my eyes. Derrick’s face blurred.
Before I could get out a word, his hands left my shoulders, this time to cup my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Emma. Please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to sound so angry. It’s just . . . you’re so damned headstrong.”
His fingers grazed the swelling left by Adelaide’s knuckles. His brows drawn in a scowl, he pressed my good cheek to his shoulder. I sighed and leaned a moment against him as I gathered what I could of my composure. Finally, I lifted my head, frowning. “How did you know Adelaide would be a danger to me?”
“The coroner found a clue the police had overlooked earlier.” He rocked back on his heels a little and reached into his pocket. In his palm lay a shiny brass button. “See the A embossed on the surface? What the police suspect is that after Adelaide shot Jack at close range, he stumbled into her. They must have struggled before the wound overcame him, and he managed to tear it from her carriage jacket and hide it away in his coat pocket before he died. We brought it to compare with the buttons on the jacket she’s wearing now.”
“You mean Jack deliberately left a clue behind?”
“Looks like it.” The officers had begun half walking, half dragging Adelaide toward the house. Derrick called to them. “Did you check her jacket?”
They came to a halt, one of the examining the front of her fashionable, peplum jacket, now stained, dusty, and hanging askew from her shoulders. He nodded back at us with a grim expression. “Missing,” he confirmed.
They continued toward the house as another dark-clad figure rushed past them in Derrick’s and my direction. In another moment I recognized Jesse. When he reached us he practically skidded to a halt on the grass and fell into a crouch. “Emma. Why on earth are you here?”
“Jesse, please,” I began.
Derrick spoke over me. “Don’t. You’ll just feel like a cad for scolding her. Take my word for it.”
Jesse’s hand came up to gently touch my cheek. “That’s going to hurt. Are you all right otherwise?”
“As right as I can be at the moment.” I shook my head and tugged at my collar. “I don’t think she did any permanent damage. Oh, but what about Mr. Halstock?”
“Alive, conscious now, but dazed.” Jesse shielded his eyes from the sun as he glanced back up at the house. “My men have him resting inside now. I sent one of them for a doctor.”
“Jesse, Adelaide admitted she’s been poisoning him,” I said. “Trying to kill him so she could inherit his millions.”
Neither Jesse nor Derrick looked at all surprised. “He doesn’t have quite so many millions these days, apparently,” Derrick said. “That’s the only reason he’s still alive. He’d have been dead weeks ago, except that Cornelius initiated the buyout of the New Haven-Hartford Providence line. She was trying to halt the sale and salvage what was left of her husband’s fortune by selling off the stock while it was still worth something. Only then would she have killed him.”
“How do you know all that?” My question came out sounding like an accusation.
“Halstock’s sister, Suzanne Rockport, suspected Adelaide was mixed up in her husband’s finances and in this railroad deal in particular. She didn’t realize Adelaide was poisoning the man, but she feared Adelaide would take advantage of Rupert’s illness to either manipulate him or have him declared incompetent. That’s why she asked me to investigate.”
Something about his explanation niggled, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that didn’t sit quite right. My thoughts tossed in logic-blurring chaos. I shook out my skirts and began to shift my feet underneath me. “Help me up.”
Both men made a grab for the hand I extended; Derrick clasped it first. Jesse moved out of the way as he rose, but not without a little slant of his eyebrow aimed at Derrick.
I swayed and Derrick’s arm slid around my waist.
“I’m all right,” I insisted. “Just give me a minute.”
“I could carry you,” he offered.
“Don’t you dare,” I retorted, but with a smile to soften the admonishment.
Jesse smirked and flanked my other side. “Emma, I guess it’s high time to head back to the station and set Brady free.”
My heart did a little dance. “Goodness, in all this turmoil I’d nearly forgotten the reason I became involved in the first place. Can we go right now? Derrick, will you come, too? Brady will want to thank you once I tell him everything you did to help.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude. Besides, in all honesty, my help was for you, Emma.” He averted his face in a rare show of modesty. “Although I’m glad everything worked out for your brother.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said with a laugh in my voice. “Brady will want to meet you. Once he hears all you’ve done, he’ll be your friend for life. And while that prospect does have its hazards, as Jesse and I can both attest, Brady’s a good soul and I do so w
ant you both to meet.”
“Well . . .” His arm retreated from around my waist as we reached the rear gardens and the view of the half-dozen or so policemen milling about, taking notes and examining the crime scene. Any attention they might have paid us, however, was diverted by the arrival of the coroner’s wagon, which just now jostled over the lawn around the corner of the house. One of the officers climbed the steps to the kitchen door, and I looked away, realizing they were about to remove the body of Rupert’s valet from the mudroom. Of Adelaide I saw no sign.
I reached for Derrick’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Oh, just say you’ll come and let’s be off. I can’t wait to see Brady’s face when he learns this nightmare is over.”
Chapter 19
I waited alone for Brady in the police chief’s office; the man was kind enough to once again vacate as he had done the day of Aunt Alice’s unprecedented visit. This time his eye twinkled as he congratulated me on the turn of events. In fact, quite a few smiles had greeted me as I’d entered the building. Only Officer Dobbs sported his usual surly expression, now mixed with obvious disappointment that my brother wouldn’t be hanged after all.
Humph. Knowing well enough this probably wouldn’t be Brady’s last run-in with the law, I resisted shooting his nemesis any triumphant looks.
I could barely keep from bouncing up and down in my excitement to see Brady. Jesse had agreed to tell him only that I was here to see him; I would get to break the news of his release to him myself. Still, I wished Derrick hadn’t insisted on waiting in the lobby. He repeated his reluctance to intrude on the reunion of our little family, but he was as responsible for Brady’s being exonerated as I was, not to mention having saved my life on more than one occasion. He certainly deserved to share in this happy moment.
The door opened quietly and Brady stepped into the room. “Em? What’s going on?” Furrows gathered on his brow as his gaze swept the office. “Is Aunt Alice here?”
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