“Hey! Don’t do that!” Brianna made a grab for me as I darted past her. Her fingernails caught at my dress but not good enough to hold me. Velvet, thank God, is a sturdy fabric. High heels, though, are not designed for speed. I made it into the upstairs hall before I stumbled.
Just as I felt myself going down, I saw him. Layton Rathbone was slowly ascending the stairs.
My forward momentum was too great to halt. I plowed into him with all of my weight and heard the whoosh of air being forced from his lungs. Together we tumbled backward down the stairs, landing in a heap, with me on top.
He was an old man and I was glad to see him. If anyone could control Brianna, it was her daddy. I scrambled to my feet. “Mr. Rathbone,” I whispered urgently, glancing up at the top of the stairs where I knew Brianna would appear at any moment. “Mr. Rathbone.” I shook his shoulder and felt relief as his eyes opened.
“Sarah Booth,” he said. “Why couldn’t you mind your own affairs?”
“Sir?” I thought the fall had scrambled his brain. In the kitchen I could hear Sweetie Pie pounding against the door. She was going to damage herself after all that surgery.
Layton pushed himself up to a sitting position and reached inside his coat, feeling his ribs.
“Are they broken? Do you need an ambulance?”
“Hardly.” His hand came out with a gun. The barrel swung to point directly at my heart. “You’re going to learn that meddling sometimes carries a very high price.”
I wanted to believe that he was protecting his daughter, but deep in my gut, I knew it wasn’t true. A lot of things suddenly became very clear, and I didn’t like a single picture.
“Daddy,” Brianna called down to us from the top of the stairs. “What are you doing?”
“Stay out of this, Brianna.”
“Daddy, we need to go.” She came down two steps. “Harold has the manuscript. I can get it from him. Sarah Booth doesn’t have anything.” She twisted her hands in front of her. “Daddy, she’s lying and saying someone deliberately cut Lawrence.”
“Don’t pay her any attention, baby. We’ll go in a minute. But not until we get that book. If Lawrence wrote about Moon Lake, we have to find it.” Layton spoke softly to his daughter, but his eyes were trained, along with the gun barrel, on me. “There’s more at stake here than you realize, Brianna. Just let me handle it.”
I was afraid if I drew a breath he might pull the trigger, so I did my best impersonation of a tree, rooted and still.
“Daddy?” Brianna’s voice was lost and childlike. “We should leave now. She said Lawrence was murdered, that someone cut his hand deliberately. Everyone thinks it’s me. We have to go.”
“We can’t just leave her, Brianna. She knows. She knows about Moon Lake.”
“No I don’t! There’s nothing in the book about it, I’m telling you. Lawrence had no intention of writing about Moon Lake,” I said. “I saw the manuscript. His book is about his years in Paris. It’s called The Romantic—My Life as a Writer, Artist, and Spy. There’s nothing in there—nothing about Lenore.” If I had one ace, it might be that he wanted to protect Brianna from the truth of her heritage.
“Lawrence has been a thorn in my side for years.” Layton held the gun on me as he got slowly to his feet. “He should have kept his mind on writing, but he was always sneaking around, eavesdropping, snooping, prying into things that didn’t concern him. He hoped that if he caught me, Lenore would stop loving me. But he was wrong. She didn’t believe him. Instead of killing her love for me, the things he told her only made her more determined to love me. So determined that she thought a baby would force me to marry her.”
The anger in his voice stung me like a whip, and I dared a look at Brianna. She was looking at him as if he spoke a foreign language. “What are you saying? What baby?”
Uh-oh. I held my breath. He was going to tell her!
“It’s time you knew this, Brianna. You’re my girl, my only child. More mine than anyone else’s.” His smile was tender and loving. “All mine. My beautiful, perfect daughter.”
“Layton, maybe this isn’t the time.” They were both unbalanced. There was no telling what Brianna might do.
He continued as if I’d never spoken, as if he didn’t see the pain blooming in his daughter’s eyes. “Pamela couldn’t carry a child to term.” His tone grew more conversational. “Lenore figured it out. She thought she’d finally come up with a way to trap me. She arranged to meet me, seduced me again, and a few months later presented me with the knowledge of my heir, the baby she carried inside her. She had the one thing I wanted more than anything else. My beautiful daughter.” His voice was now almost a caress. “She gave me you, Brianna, but then she wouldn’t let us go. So I had to kill her.”
I listened to him, but it was Brianna I was watching. She sank down on the top step and put her face in her hands. She hadn’t known.
“Daddy,” Brianna said softly through her hands. She finally lowered her fingers revealing confusion and fear. “My mother is—”
“She was a selfish, conniving—”
“She was Lenore Erkwell,” I interjected as gently as I could. Brianna hadn’t grasped the fact that her father had killed her mother, making it appear to be a suicide. I chose not to belabor that point, since he had a gun.
Sweetie hit the kitchen door again, this time with a howl. I was afraid she’d torn her stitches out, but there wasn’t a thing I could do, except keep talking.
“Brianna’s right, Layton. You should make an escape while you can. Whatever went on at Moon Lake, Lawrence took those secrets to the grave with him. There is nothing in the manuscript about what happened at the lake.”
“Yes, those secrets are buried with Lawrence. And Joseph. Except for what you know.” Layton pulled back the hammer on the gun. “I’m sorry, Sarah Booth. I just can’t trust you.”
My entire life didn’t pass before my eyes as they say it does when confronting death. I had the most irrational thought—that I didn’t want Fel Harper touching my dead body and that I hoped Coleman would see to it that he didn’t.
I closed my eyes and waited for the bullet.
“Daddy!” Brianna rose to her feet. “You can’t just shoot her. Let’s get out of here.”
I thought of pointing out that he’d already killed Lenore, Lawrence, and Joseph Grace, but it wasn’t in my best interest to play scorekeeper. “If you leave now, you have a chance of getting away. You can go out of the country. With your money, you can buy a country. But I’m not kidding, Coleman will be here any minute.”
“Daddy?” Brianna descended a step or two. Confusion had been replaced by the first hint of anger. “Why did you want me to help Lawrence with his book? You encouraged me to do this, and all along you knew I’d find out about … Mother. This book could have ruined me. I’d be a laughingstock, a bastard.”
“You’re my daughter. You’re a Rathbone. I loved you enough to steal you, enough to kill anyone who threatened you. Threatened us. Lawrence knew too much. As long as you were working with him, I could control what he wrote. But when he broke the contract … well, I didn’t have a choice. It’s one thing for us to know, but not the world. You’re famous, Brianna. My beautiful daughter, the model. Everyone would forget that and remember only that I wasn’t married to your mother. I didn’t want Lawrence to write about you in that way. I couldn’t allow him to write about Moon Lake.”
Sweetie Pie slammed into the door again. Hard. She gave a cry of pain that tore at my heart. I started instinctively toward the kitchen.
“Hey! Get back over here.”
Layton’s shout stopped me cold, just in time to see Sweetie Pie, her white bandage soaked with blood, flying through the air in a direct trajectory toward Layton. She hit him with all seventy pounds of hound.
The sound of the shot echoed in the foyer, a reverberation that was punctuated by Brianna’s scream and Sweetie Pie’s howl.
The gun flew out of Layton’s hand and skittered on the bl
ack and white foyer tile. Though Brianna leapt to her feet, she didn’t have a chance. I scooped up the weapon and turned it on them both.
In the distance was the sound of a wailing siren. At my feet, Sweetie Pie lay in a bloody heap.
28
Coleman wrapped me in a comforter as I sat on the floor holding Sweetie Pie’s head in my lap. Layton and Brianna, cuffed and Miranda-ized, sat on the sofa.
“She’s torn her stitches open, Sarah Booth, but she wasn’t shot,” Coleman reassured me. “Dr. Matthews is on the way, sutures in hand.”
“She saved my life. Again.” I was pretty certain Sweetie had been the hound who knocked Pasco Walters over in my last case. I’d begun to recognize her MO—the Baskervillish leap out of the darkness. This time, though, she might pay with her life. Her white bandage was saturated with blood.
Coleman knelt down beside me. “She just popped a couple of stitches. I’ve never heard of a dog more determined to protect her mistress. She may be ugly, but she’s loyal.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed her silky ears and got a warm tongue.
“Here’s Dr. Matthews,” Tinkie called from the doorway. She was all dressed for the ball, her white gown glittering in the lights of the foyer candelabra.
As soon as Dr. Matthews arrived, Coleman lifted me to my feet and pointedly handed me over to Tinkie. “Make some coffee,” he suggested.
Tinkie led me into the kitchen. Instead of coffee, she pulled the bottle of champagne from the refrigerator and popped the cork. “It’s still forty minutes until midnight, but I think we need a head start.”
I accepted the champagne and got out a stainless steel pot. I’d forgotten to put my black-eyed peas on to soak. I didn’t need any more bad luck—I’d eat them tomorrow if they were hard as rocks.
“How did you know to call Coleman?” I asked her.
“I called to check on Sweetie, and Dr. Matthews asked me if I knew of anyone who might want to hurt either you or Sweetie. He said he thought the dog had been stabbed, but he didn’t want to upset you until he was certain. I just put two and two together. And then Oscar, who has been absolutely spilling his guts to me ever since we had our little, uh, midday rendezvous, made the comment that Layton was about to lose Rathbone House and how appropriate it was since it had been bought with blood money. I put it together about what you told me about Moon Lake and the past. I wasn’t certain how Layton fit into it, but I knew his hands were dirty.”
I gave her a tired smile. “You saved my life.”
“Not really. Coleman and I just effected the mopping up. You already had them both at gunpoint.” She topped off my glass. “If Daddy and Oscar had just told me the whole truth …”
I didn’t have the energy to point out that such disclosures were seldom freely given outside the circle of men. “So Layton was in cahoots with Hosea up at Moon Lake.” Finally, everything made sense. “Layton’s affair with Lenore was just an excuse to keep going back to Moon Lake. He used her. From beginning to end.” I sat down at the kitchen table and finished off my champagne in one gulp.
Tinkie refilled my glass.
“I don’t understand why Jebediah didn’t kill Layton when he killed Hosea,” Tinkie said.
“I doubt we’ll ever know that. Hosea was a bully, but he didn’t have what it took to kill, and Layton did. It’s clear he killed Lawrence and Joseph Grace.” I shuddered. Coleman had told me that the photographs that had been cut from the albums at Moon Lake had been found on Grace’s body. Apparently the dean had been trying to set up a blackmail scheme against Layton. Not very smart, since it had cost him his life. “Maybe Jebediah was ultimately afraid of Layton.”
“What will happen to Brianna and her father?” Tinkie put the bottle in front of me.
“Brianna poisoned Lawrence with the warfarin. She confessed to me. But it was Layton who went over there and cut his hand. He’s the murderer.”
“Layton knew Brianna was poisoning him?”
“He was the one who got the warfarin for her. I thought it was the rat poison she was using, but it wasn’t. She was crushing up pills and dumping them in the Jim Beam. When she found the rat poison in Harold’s briefcase, it was the perfect opportunity to frame Harold.” Once arrested, Brianna had spilled her guts in an effort to save her own hide.
“What will happen to Willem?” Tinkie asked.
“I don’t know. He was trying to replace the paintings. And Harold said Lawrence knew about it. I suppose it depends to a large extent on whether Harold wants to press charges or not.”
There was a tap on the kitchen door. Dr. Matthews came in and put a hand on my shoulder. “Sweetie Pie’s going to be just fine, Sarah Booth. I sedated her and resutured. She’ll sleep until morning, and I suggest that you do the same.”
It sounded like heavenly advice. “Thanks. For everything.”
I walked him to the front door and watched as Coleman led Brianna and Layton out to the patrol car. A couple of deputies had arrived to work backup, and Tinkie and I stood in the freezing cold on the porch as they all left.
“It’s finally over,” Tinkie said, putting an arm around my shoulders. “You solved your second case, Sarah Booth!”
The shrill of the telephone almost made me jump out of my skin. “I’ll get it.” Tinkie rushed back inside, and I followed. I felt as if I’d been run over by a bulldozer and buried in a ditch.
“She’ll be there,” I heard Tinkie promise.
“Be where?” I asked.
“That was Cece. She’s about to have a duck. She’s at The Club with the camera, and she’s waiting for you.”
“The dance.” There was no possible way I could go to the New Year’s Eve dance. Not even for Cece. I groaned and headed toward the sofa. Sweetie was sleeping peacefully beside it, the last flickering blaze of the fire Coleman had built highlighting the russet spots of her hide.
Tinkie’s hand grabbed mine and she pulled me toward the door. “You have to go.”
“I can’t,” I whined. “I really can’t.”
“You have to.” There was determination in Tinkie’s voice. “Trust me, Sarah Booth. You want to go.”
“I do not.”
“You do. And you’re going.” She went to the closet and pulled out a coat. “Put it on.”
“Why?” I couldn’t believe she was going to force me.
“You gave your word. Sarah Booth Delaney, private investigator, never reneges on her word.”
I was beginning to regret hiring Tinkie. Sure, she’d saved my life by calling Coleman. And she’d saved Sweetie’s life. I looked down at my sleeping hound and slipped into the coat. There were some things worth payback.
“I’ll drive.” She hustled me out to the car and in a matter of moments we were flying through the Delta night. The full moon had risen high and assumed the lead role in the sparkling night.
“We’ll make it just before midnight,” she declared as she burned rubber in the parking lot. “It’s a new year, Sarah Booth, you can’t celebrate alone.”
I’d intended to sleep, but it was a moot issue anyway. I got out of the car and walked into The Club. Cece waved to me from across the room.
Someone had hired a hot band, and when the lead guitar hit a chilling slide, the skin on my bare back danced. I hadn’t recognized him at first, but there was no mistaking Percy Sledge as he belted out his signature song, “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
Even as tired and bruised as I was, the song moved me. A firm hand settled on my bare shoulder, the fingers tightening with just enough pressure to make me draw a sudden breath. I turned to face Hamilton Garrett V.
It wasn’t possible, but in his tuxedo, he was even more handsome than I remembered. His dark hair was pulled back, revealing the chiseled jaw that I recalled so well in the morning light of my bedroom window. His green eyes burned with devilment.
“Happy New Year, Sarah Booth. May I have this dance?”
My entire blood supply shot to my head and then rushed to my skin. I wen
t from cold to hot in a nanosecond. “Hamilton?” Surely I was dreaming.
“I couldn’t possibly welcome in the new year alone,” he said, easing me into his arms.
I found my face resting against his starched shirt and my body moving in tandem with his. It was a good thing because I was incapable of speech. Perhaps Layton had actually shot me and this was some kind of heavenly limbo where I could merely rest in Hamilton’s imagined arms until I was called up for judgment.
“Sarah Booth!” I heard Tinkie whispering my name and I lifted my head long enough to find her. She was dancing beside me in Oscar’s arms. “I told you I had a surprise,” she said, giggling. “And Oscar said I couldn’t keep a secret.” She looked up at her husband with open flirtation. “There are lots of things I don’t tell. Since I’m Sarah Booth’s partner, I have to be very discreet.”
They danced away and I was left with the problem of saying something to Hamilton. When I looked up at him, I found he was watching me with amused expectation.
“What, no questions? I was certain you’d have at least fifty things to ask me, most of them personal and none of them any of your business.”
“And what makes you think I’d be interested enough in your business to ask a single question?” I asked, but then I couldn’t help myself. “Why did you come home?”
Hamilton chuckled, dipping me down at the end of the song. “To see you, Sarah Booth. I found that Paris was dull without you.”
Whether it was his words or the dip, I couldn’t be certain, but a wave of dizziness swept over me. Luckily he had strong arms, and he pulled me upright against him. His lips whispered over my forehead. “I’ve missed you.”
The band swung into the opening strain of “Auld Lang Syne,” and everyone began the countdown.
“Why didn’t you call, or at least send a card?”
“We can play sixty questions, or you can kiss me,” Hamilton suggested.
I closed my eyes and offered my lips as the parters hit five-four-three-two-one. The clapping, cheering, horn-blowing crowd dimmed. There was only Hamilton.
Buried Bones Page 30
