He could have left us to freeze to death on that ledge if he meant to harm us.
I can tell you like him, Trish. But the man’s trouble.
You found reasons to be suspicious of him?
I found nothing about him. It’s as if he doesn’t exist.
“You should sleep now,” Trish said, wondering what Deb’s lack of background information on O’Neill meant.
But Deb had already closed her eyes.
Trish spent most of the day curled in the bedroom window seat, dividing her attention between the dwindling storm and her sister. O’Neill brought her lunch—a sandwich, cookies and hot tea—and returned to the kitchen and his phone calls. In the late afternoon, the clouds parted and brilliant sunlight glistened off the snow that covered the clearing around the house.
“The medevac chopper will be here soon.” O’Neill came into the bedroom, carrying the robe Trish had worn the previous night, now freshly washed. He handed it to Deb. “Something to wear for your trip.”
O’Neill left and Trish helped Debra into the robe. The thwack-thwack of helicopter rotors broke the silence. Outside, voices sounded and feet stamped on the terrace. Within seconds, two paramedics, a male and female, entered the room with a stretcher. They checked Deb’s vital signs, stabilized her ankle with an inflatable cast and strapped her onto the gurney. Trish followed as they carried Deb toward the waiting chopper.
“I’ll stay in touch by phone,” Trish shouted above the noise of the waiting aircraft, “and I’ll come to the hospital as soon as I can.”
Don’t worry about me. I’m in good hands. Take care of yourself.
Trish fought back tears. She’d come close to losing her sister forever, yet Deb’s smile was brave, in spite of all that had happened. Trish hugged her sister, then stood aside as the paramedics loaded the stretcher into the chopper.
With O’Neill at her side, Trish waited on the snow-covered lawn and watched the helicopter ascend into the darkening sky, streaked with rose and coral from the rapidly setting sun. The chopper disappeared behind a ridge.
“Now it’s our turn,” Trish said.
O’Neill shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“But we have to get back to Endless Sky.”
“It’ll be dark in a few minutes,” he said with exasperating reason. “And snow still covers the trails. We’ll leave at first light in the morning.”
Trish glanced around at the emptiness of the surrounding wilderness and at the huge house that loomed at her back. In her concern for Debra, she hadn’t given a thought until now that she would have to spend another night with O’Neill.
Alone.
Chapter Nine
The last sounds of the helicopter, Trish’s only contact with civilization, faded in the distance. Her sister was in good hands, and Trish had no fear for her own physical safety. But what about her heart? Deb hadn’t trusted O’Neill. With Trish’s finely honed instincts warning of too many secrets beneath his handsome but mysterious exterior, she wasn’t ready to trust him completely, either, despite his help in rescuing her sister. The man and his motives were a puzzle she had yet to solve.
She also feared the feelings he engendered in her, turbulent emotions that could lead to heartache with a man she barely knew and, once she left Endless Sky, would never see again. Usually pragmatic and unflappable, she couldn’t think straight where O’Neill was concerned. If she believed in super stitious nonsense, she’d wonder if he’d cast some sort of spell on her.
Unaware of her inner turmoil, O’Neill placed his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the house. “You’ll freeze if you stay out here much longer.”
With the seductive heat of his touch flowing through the heavy fabric of her jacket, she yielded to his guidance. She was a big girl, she reminded herself, and could resist temptation. And she was suffering from stress, not O’Neill-spun magic. A sigh escaped her. She needed her head examined for having given in to his kiss. But what a kiss. If Deb hadn’t been lying hurt in the next room, no telling where that encounter would have led.
Maybe where O’Neill was leading her now.
She applied the brakes to her crazy, runaway thoughts. Her own situation seemed inconsequential compared to Deb’s problems. Trish tried to block the picture of her sister—pale, injured, strapped to a stretcher and flying high above the darkening mountain peaks—but she couldn’t stop shivering at the image.
“Don’t worry,” O’Neill, seeming to read her mind, reassured her as they stomped snow from their feet and stepped inside. “The doctor promised to call as soon as he’s examined Deb. She’s going to be fine.”
Trish nodded, but she couldn’t stop worrying until she’d heard that optimistic diagnosis from the doctor himself. In the meantime, the best way to avoid a repeat of yesterday’s dangerous kiss was to keep herself and O’Neill occupied with other things. She stripped off her jacket and hung it on a peg by the rear door.
O’Neill closed and locked the door against the cold and encroaching darkness. As he stood between her and the exit, pulling off his jacket, she felt a moment of panic. The man was enticingly masculine, mysterious and unpredictable. Her heart raced, and she felt suddenly afraid of what she was feeling. Operating solely on emotion would lead her into surefire trouble.
“Are there a pad and pencil somewhere that I can use?” she asked.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Why do you need paper and a pencil?”
She tore her gaze from the strong lines of his face, the intense dark blue of his eyes, and struggled to breathe. “I’m an inveterate list maker.”
He went into the kitchen and began searching the drawers of the island. “I assume you’re not talking grocery list, unless you know a store that makes impossible deliveries.”
She followed, every nerve ending tingling with awareness of her isolation and the enigmatic man who shared it. “To find out who pushed Deb, we need a list of suspects and possible motives.”
He stopped digging in a drawer long enough to fix her with a stare whose effect made her nervous. “You read too many mysteries.”
She shrugged, unable to stop wondering what secrets O’Neill was hiding, and broke away from his gaze. “Books are all the training I have for a situation like this.”
“Here we go.” He pulled a legal pad and a ballpoint pen from the back of the drawer. “Will these do?”
“Perfect.” She took them and perched on the stool beside the island.
“So who’s at the top of your list?”
Trish didn’t hesitate. “Quinn Stevens.”
“Stevens isn’t here.”
“A man with that much money has a long reach.” She wrote Stevens’s name in block letters at the top of the page. “He owns the resort and he is, after all, the reason Deb came to Endless Sky.”
O’Neill flicked on a set of pendant lights above the island and Trish noted that darkness had fallen and, according to the digital clock on the microwave, it was after seven.
“While you play Agatha Christie,” O’Neill said, “I’ll fix dinner.”
“How come there’s so much food here, if Stevens isn’t?”
“Because part of my job is to keep this place well stocked, in case the boss decides to drop in at a moment’s notice.” He pulled a plate from the refrigerator. “Hope you like chicken. I took some out of the freezer to thaw earlier today.”
“Chicken’s fine.” She wasn’t hungry, but if cooking kept O’Neill occupied, the less likely he was to concentrate his attentions on her. “Does Stevens drop in often?”
“At least once a season, sometimes more.” With the casual ease of someone accustomed to cooking, he washed the chicken breasts, placed them in a shallow dish and covered them with marinade from a bottle.
As much as she tried to concentrate on her list, Trish couldn’t keep her eyes off the efficient movements of his well-shaped hands, the enticing angle of his strong jaw or the depth of blue in his eyes.
She forced
herself back to the task at hand. “Where is Stevens when he isn’t here?”
“Sometimes at his Saint Thomas resort. It’s called Endless Sea. Then there’s his house in Monterey, a condo in Miami, a ski lodge in Vail, a villa in the south of France…you get the picture.”
“Does he have a family?”
O’Neill shook his head. “He’s not married, if that’s what you’re asking. And none of his relatives, if he has them, has ever accompanied him here.”
She shook her head. “That’s sad.”
He pulled his head from the lower cabinet he’d been searching and looked up in surprise. “Why sad? Most people would envy a man with so much real estate.”
“All those homes and no one to share them with. He must be a very lonely man.”
“He likes his solitude,” O’Neill said. “That’s why he built this house, away from everything.”
“And everyone.” She stared at the name on the page. “How well do you know your boss?”
O’Neill removed two large baking potatoes from a bin in the island and carried them to the sink. She couldn’t tell whether his actions or his thoughts caused his brief hesitation. “As well as anyone else, I guess. Why?”
“Would he kill to guard his privacy?”
“That’s a scary prospect.” He scrubbed the potatoes beneath the kitchen faucet, pierced them with a fork, and placed them on the rack of the wall oven to bake.
“What happened to Deb is about as scary as it gets,” Trish said, noting that he’d sidestepped her question.
O’Neill leaned his hips against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “Agreed. But I don’t see Stevens as a murderer.”
Every nerve ending in her body tingled at the memory of being wrapped in those arms, but her brain still managed to function enough to carry on the conversation. “Why not?”
“He may be a loner, but basically he’s a good guy. He treats his employees well and funds several large charitable foundations.” O’Neill shrugged. “And with the power his money gives him, why would he resort to violence?”
“Because he’s human? Mark Twain once said that, like the moon, we all have a dark side.”
A smile softened the harsh angles of his face. “And you, Miss Schoolmarm, what’s your dark side?”
She thought for a moment and remembered Deb, lying unconscious just inches from a fall to her death, and her own overwhelming rage when she’d learned her sister had been pushed. “I’m not sure, but whoever messed with my sister is going to feel the brunt of it, I swear.”
Heat flared in his eyes, mesmerizing her. “Debra is lucky to have a sister like you.”
The warmth from his gaze was drawing her into dangerous territory again. She focused instead on the name at the top of the pad that had her sixth sense on red alert. “My instincts tell me that somehow, even if only indirectly, Stevens is the key to what happened to Deb. If he’s not the type to resort to violence, as you insist, does he have enemies who are less constrained?”
O’Neill closed his eyes for a moment, as if in thought, then opened them. “Chad Englewood had blood in his eye the other night when he complained about Stevens’s cheating him in a real estate deal.”
Trish added Chad’s name to the list. “Who else?”
O’Neill went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer and surveyed its contents. “You like green beans?”
She couldn’t help noticing that his shoulders were as broad and sturdy as the appliance. “Any vegetable is fine. Does Stevens have other enemies?”
O’Neill removed a bag from the freezer and placed it on the counter. He took a pot from the wrought-iron rack above the island, ran water into it and set it on the stove. “Stevens doesn’t discuss his personal life with me.”
“But you must have heard gossip? The man’s a legend. He didn’t become the Last Man Standing without leaving a few bodies in his wake.”
“You can’t convict a man on gossip,” O’Neill replied quickly and with irritating reason.
Trish wished she could explain to O’Neill about her instincts and her telepathic abilities, but past bad experiences with the reactions of others had made her closemouthed about her gifts. “Gossip might give us a clue to what’s going on. I wish I’d paid more attention to business news.”
“There’s always Stevens’s ex-partner, Blaine Carter.” O’Neill’s words came grudgingly. He dumped green beans into the boiling water in the saucepan, covered it and turned down the heat. “The press gives a lot of ink to that relationship, ‘the dynamic duo of the computer world.’”
“If they made millions together, why would Carter have it in for Stevens?”
O’Neill straddled the stool across the island and clasped his hands on the granite countertop. “It’s a long story.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” And the more she could keep O’Neill talking, the less she’d think about kissing him again, about being touched by those hands.
“Stevens and Carter were best buddies in high school,” O’Neill said, “and still in their late teens when they started their dot-com company. The economy boomed and they became millionaires almost overnight. Stevens had a canny business sense and, several years later, foresaw the coming debacle among the dot-coms. He tried to convince Carter to sell the company, but Carter was greedy. He refused to believe the bubble was about to burst and wouldn’t sell.”
“So Carter lost everything?”
O’Neill nodded. “And he blamed Stevens.”
“Why? Stevens warned him.”
“Carter refused to sell his shares, but Stevens was adamant about dumping his half of the company. Carter, still thinking the dot-com would be his limitless cash cow, demanded to buy Stevens’s interest and keep the entire company for himself.”
“If you know so little about Stevens,” she asked with suspicion, “how do you know this?”
“Unlike you, I do read the business news.” He flashed a smile, but its warmth did nothing to chase the grim look from his eyes. Her instincts cued her that O’Neill knew more than he was telling.
“Did Stevens sell Carter his half?”
“Their contract gave each partner the right of first refusal in a buyout, so Stevens had no choice,” O’Neill explained. “And this happened before the decline in dot-coms, so the company was still worth millions. It took almost every dollar Carter had to buy Stevens’s half. Carter became sole owner, and Stevens walked away.”
“And when the bubble burst, Carter went under?”
O’Neill nodded. “Lost everything. Stevens, on the other hand, was shrewd enough to catch the wave of the real estate boom. He invested his profit from the buyout in property and turned his millions into billions.”
Trish doodled on her pad, drawing a box and a series of question marks around Stevens’s name. “But if Stevens warned Carter, why would Carter blame his ex-partner for his loss?”
“It takes a big man to admit his own mistakes,” O’Neill said with a shake of his head. “Maybe it’s easier for Carter to fault Stevens than to face his own greed and stupidity.”
Trish tapped her pen against her chin. “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say Carter does have it in for Stevens. How would harming Deb satisfy his revenge?”
O’Neill frowned. “I don’t see how it would. The worst that would have happened to Stevens if Deb had died would have been some bad publicity for Endless Sky. Maybe a few guests would have canceled as a result, but, ultimately, Stevens would have emerged unscathed. I don’t think Carter’s our man.”
“Which brings us back to Stevens.”
“But why would he want to harm your sister?” O’Neill rose from the stool to place the chicken on the indoor grill. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Trish wasn’t convinced of Stevens’s innocence, not with her gut sounding alarm bells at the mere thought of him. “Deb’s job is digging up facts. Maybe she dug up something about Stevens he didn’t want revealed.”
“She said sh
e’d interviewed all the guests. She could have uncovered anyone’s dirty secrets.”
A glance at the clock revealed that not enough time had passed for Deb to have reached the hospital and undergone tests. As much as Trish wanted the phone to ring with the doctor’s report, she resigned herself to waiting.
“So who goes on the list next?” she asked.
“Might as well start with the other guests in alphabetical order. That would be the Averys.”
Trish shook her head. “They’re too feeble to have hiked that trail and pushed Deb. And, from what Victoria told me, too poor to hire a hit man.”
“Victoria Westbrook, Chad, Tiffany Slocum—”
“She’s another reporter,” Trish said. “Maybe she was afraid Deb was going to scoop her on a story.”
O’Neill frowned. “It would have to be a hell of a story to resort to murder in order to break it first. I don’t think any of our guests, or Stevens, for that matter, are big enough news to kill for.”
Trish counted on her fingers. “We’ve accounted for five of the eight suites. That leaves at least three guests I haven’t met yet.”
“There’s Michael Redlin.”
She hurriedly scribbled the name. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s from Nashville, a record producer. Made his fortune in country music.”
“Is he here alone?”
O’Neill shook his head. “As manager, I’m supposed to be discreet.”
“And also to protect your guests from harm,” Trish reminded. “Who’s here with him?”
“Tonya Devon.”
“Wife of Dale Devon, the Grammy winner?”
O’Neill nodded. “But no one knows. She’s registered under an assumed name. Maybe Deb found out and—”
“Deb’s a business reporter, not a gossip columnist,” Trish said. “Besides, infidelity’s one thing. Murder’s another.”
“Point taken.” O’Neill turned the chicken on the grill and the succulent aroma filled the room. “That leaves only two other guests, Dan Beard and Austin Werner.”
Trish added the names to her growing list. “What do you know about them?”
Mystique Page 11
