“It’s so much different here than Idaho,” she said as she reached into her purse to retrieve lip balm.
“Do you like it here better?”
“I don’t know. A couple of days ago, all I wanted to do was get away from your ranch. It seemed so full of recent tragedy and intrigue. And then there was Jodie... New Orleans, in comparison, seemed safe, at least to me, but now, I don’t know.”
He glanced at her as she took out Bill Dodge’s gift book. “Have you read that yet?”
“I browsed through it a day or so ago but I haven’t actually read it,” she said, once again opening the cover and reading Bill’s dedication. “Zane, what are you going to do when you get to New Orleans?”
“Check with Woods about my truck, make sure you’re okay with your family, go to a wedding...try to find answers.” He paused for a second, and then snapped, “What the hell is that guy doing?”
She looked up from her book. A big orange truck barreled toward them, straddling the yellow line.
“Is the driver drunk?” Kinsey gasped.
Zane steered the SUV toward the nearest highway edge. Kinsey glanced over the flimsy-looking guardrail to see the muddy water of the slough. The sudden downpour had caused the water to move faster than normal. When she looked back up, the orange truck was closer and still coming on like a speeding train, way over on their side of the road. She realized it was the kind people rent to move their own stuff, ten feet high and half again as long. It looked humongous.
“Hold on,” Zane yelled as he turned the wheel hard to avoid a head-on collision. Their vehicle slid along the guardrail metal against metal. But as the truck loomed over them, the driver must have yanked his wheel. The SUV, with nowhere else to go, burst through the guardrail and sailed over the embankment. Kinsey gasped as they landed ten feet out in the rushing water. The current immediately swept them along even as they began to sink. Muddy water poured through the open windows.
“Get out!” Zane yelled. “Hurry.”
Kinsey tried to undo her seat belt, but her hands were shaking so hard she was clumsy and couldn’t get the mechanism to release. The water continued to rise, soaking the thin blanket she’d wrapped around her legs. The belt finally opened and she jerked her body around to struggle with the door, but half of her was trapped. She turned back around to find Zane. What little she could see of him was disappearing through his window. She gave up on the door as the pressure outside made opening it impossible. The car had settled in the thick layer of mud on the bottom, leaving barely an inch of air at the top of the cabin. Floating pillows and debris obstructed movement in the murky water. She held her breath. What did she have? A minute? Two, maybe?
Strong hands clamped her arm and pulled again and again. Zane, it had to be Zane. She kicked free of the blanket at last and exited the car, breaking to the surface with a sputter, amazed she could take a breath, that she was alive. The current worked against her as she held on to Zane’s shirt, relying on his superior upper-body strength to gradually guide them to shore. Other motorists had stopped. Someone threw a rope that Zane caught. He clasped Kinsey around the waist with his free arm. At last her feet found purchase on the slippery bottom. Together, they climbed the steep bank, Kinsey’s ribs screaming with protest. The crowd reached out to help them over the guardrail.
Zane’s arms had always provided a haven and this time was no different. They stood together as the pouring rain washed muddy water from their hair.
*
ANOTHER SHERIFF. ANOTHER tow truck, another few hours spent answering questions. Other motorists had noticed the orange truck’s erratic path. Someone reported there was no license plate on the truck. One person swore there was a single driver, another swore there was a woman sitting by his side. Everyone agreed that as soon as Zane’s SUV burst through the guardrail, the truck had gunned its engine and taken off.
Zane and Kinsey went through the motions of answering question after question that led nowhere. There wasn’t any doubt to Zane that they had been the target, a fact proven when the tow company found a tracking device affixed to the undercarriage of the SUV.
Kinsey had left a message for her mother mentioning alternate routes and the one they’d taken was the most likely candidate. Still, to find and rent a truck like that and get it to the right place at the right moment seemed an impossible feat. And why would her mother do such a thing?
So, was it the nephew or even the lawyer? Zane didn’t know enough to connect the dots.
Another rental followed their eventual release and they drove it as far as the nearest hotel, where they took hot showers and Zane re-dressed Kinsey’s wounds. He sent all the wet clothing he’d salvaged from the car once it was towed out of the slough to the overnight laundry service and they both changed into the ubiquitous terry-cloth robes provided by the establishment. Zane knew that Kinsey was fading fast, trauma heaped on trauma, wounds affected by the latest situation. He wasn’t doing a grand job of protecting her.
In something of a miracle, the little book Bill Dodge had given Kinsey had not washed out of the car and Zane had been able to save it. He spread it open on the counter in the bathroom to dry, blotting its pages with a hand towel, hoping to salvage something of the sentiment and beauty. He felt terrible that her keepsake was in its current sorry state.
He heard Kinsey on the phone, no doubt calling her mother. He caught only a few words and ducked back into the room to make sure everything was okay.
“That was James,” Kinsey said. “Bill ended up at the hospital again and Mom is with him. James said she must have forgotten her phone in all the confusion. Anyway, he’ll pass along a message that we’re running behind schedule but will be there for the wedding tomorrow.” She set the phone on the nightstand. “This means I’m going to have very little time to talk her into waiting a while before getting married.”
He sat down next to her. “We’ll get a real early start.”
“Okay. Did you lock the door?”
“Yes, don’t worry.”
A few seconds later, she lay her head back on a stack of pillows, and a minute after that, she fell asleep.
After double-checking the locks, Zane settled in the chair by the window, staring at her, thinking. If only he could remember why he’d asked about Kinsey’s mother, why he’d driven to New Orleans in the first place.
As the light faded in the room, he made a decision. Kinsey’s mother must have the missing pieces of the puzzle. She might not know she had them, but his gut was telling him she did. It no longer mattered to him that she didn’t want to talk or that it was her wedding day or anything else.
Tomorrow, he would find out what she knew or die trying.
Chapter Thirteen
“Wake up, sweetheart, we’re almost at your place.”
Kinsey roused herself from a restless nap and opened her eyes to find they had finally made it to New Orleans. She’d drifted off while examining Bill Dodge’s book and it sat open in her lap. Though Zane had done a good job of trying to salvage it, she suspected it was a lost cause. The glue on the paper attached to the inside cover had been damaged and had begun to curl away. She touched it idly as she stared out the window and felt a bulge beneath her fingertips. Carefully, she peeled back the paper and withdrew an envelope with her mother’s name written in water-stained blue ink.
“What’s that?” Zane asked.
“Something for my mother. This is Bill’s handwriting. He must have sealed it inside this book when he rebound it. I don’t know why in the world he didn’t tell me it was there or what it’s all about, but I’m glad I’m seeing her today to give it to her.”
“Maybe you should open it,” Zane said. “After all, it was in a book he gave you.”
“No way,” Kinsey said. “I learned at an early age not to tamper with my mother’s privacy. Hey, I wonder if there’s anything in the back of the book.” She flipped it over and lifted the cover. The paper had begun to peel away here, too, and she helped it a
long.
“Anything?” Zane asked as he slid a glance her way.
“Another piece of paper,” she said as she unfolded it. This one didn’t fade, he must have used a different ink.”
“What is it?”
She was quiet for a second and then almost laughed. “It’s a map of his house. It shows a secret room behind the bookcase in what was once his library. There’s a red X as in X marks the spot. This must be where he hid everything. Good heavens.”
Zane whistled. “Crafty old guy, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said, and placed the unopened letter and the treasure map within the pages of the book. For a second she stared out at the familiar streets. She’d changed more in the past week than she had in the past ten years and nothing looked or felt the same. Especially not the police car parked in her driveway. She and Zane got out of the rental and waited while a uniformed policeman approached them. “Is this your place?” the officer asked Kinsey as his gaze traveled between her wounds and bandages.
“Yes. What happened?”
“One of your neighbors reported hearing a noise last night. When they checked this morning, they found your door open and called us.”
“Has anything been taken, can you tell?” Kinsey asked.
“You’ll know better than we.”
As he spoke, another car arrived and Detective Woods got out. “I heard about this on the police radio,” he said by way of greeting. He shook Zane’s hand and then demanded to hear what had happened to Kinsey, whistling when she and Zane finished their explanation. “Good heavens.”
“Any word of Ryan Jones?” she asked him.
“None. How much do you know about him?”
“Not much. He apparently lied to me about where he worked.”
“Chances are, if he lied about that, he lied about other things. He might be a con artist of some kind.”
Kinsey glanced over at Zane. She knew he was still wondering if he and Ryan had been involved in something dicey—heck, so was she.
Woods addressed Zane. “We found your truck. It was in a parking garage. They waited seven days before calling us. We towed it to the impound yard.”
“I’ll come and retrieve it later today,” Zane said. “Kinsey’s mom is getting married in a few hours.”
“The ceremony won’t take long,” Kinsey said. She couldn’t picture them all sitting around and chatting afterward.
“Come see me after you get your truck,” Woods said. “We have still shots taken from video both on the street and in the hospital. You can’t see a face in either one, but maybe one of you will recognize something familiar that can help us identify the culprit or culprits. The wife and I are having a party this evening, so can you possibly make it before five? After we’re done, you’re welcome to follow me home, if you like. My wife makes a mean gumbo.”
“Sounds great,” Kinsey said.
They all climbed the stairs. Kinsey went inside first, but she didn’t make it more than a few steps. It was obvious the place had been searched, less obvious if the intruder had found what they were after.
“Offhand, it just looks like someone was looking for something hidden in a drawer or under a carpet,” she said.
“That’s how it strikes me, too.” Woods gestured at the paintings on the walls. “Did you do these, Ms. Frost?”
“Yes.”
“I had no idea you were so talented.”
Kinsey murmured her thanks as she glanced at the faces gazing down from the walls. Strangers, most of them, at least their inspirations were. The art itself had become more real than the subjects they depicted. And yet, somehow, those faces weren’t front and center in her life anymore. Now she thought of Charlie’s shy smile, Lily’s haunted eyes, Pike’s bespectacled intelligence and Chance’s grin. And Zane, of course. Always Zane.
Eventually, the police left with admonishments not to stay in the apartment until the locks were fixed, an unnecessary warning. They changed clothes and Kinsey packed a few things to take with her. She had access to the owner’s garage and Zane found boards and nails to secure the door.
He looked sophisticated and sexy in the tan suit he’d had laundered after their dip in the slough. It fit him perfectly, enhancing his broad shoulders, the crisp white collar framing his wonderful face. Kinsey chose a floral dress she hadn’t worn since buying it months before. It fell in soft pleats to her knees, and the corseted midriff helped bind her ribs, making sitting and bending easier. She’d done her best to camouflage her injuries by carefully arranging her hair over her forehead and right ear. Zane’s lingering appreciative glance reminded her of the first time they’d actually met and the way his blue eyes had delved right inside her soul to take up residence.
“I’m not going to try to talk her out of getting married,” Kinsey said. I’m going to give her Bill’s letter and all the other papers and keep my mouth shut.”
He was quiet for a second before he spoke. “Kinsey, think about it. Regardless of the map, Bill writes your mother a letter of some kind and then binds it into a book he made a point of giving to you along with a cryptic inscription that could be interpreted as encouraging you to figure out how to find what he’s hidden. Maybe what’s in that letter is not something he wanted your mother to see while he was still alive. You may be doing her no favor by handing it to her on the brink of her wedding.”
Kinsey opened the party purse into which she’d shoved the bare essentials, including the papers. What Zane said made sense. “You’re right,” she said, and slipped the stiff papers out of the envelope.
“Anything legible after being in the water?”
“Barely. It’s a letter, all right. There are actually two pages—oh my, the second one is a will.”
“Bill’s will, I take it.”
“Yes. It looks as though he’s left everything he owns to my mother. It says something about betraying her trust and hoping she can forgive him. Here’s something about retribution...” She scanned the letter quickly, her heart pounding as she began to make sense of what she read. “He says the house is full of treasures that he hid when his nephew started coming around and he had...doubts about something...no, I can’t read what he had doubts about. There’s something here about Mr. Fenwick... Knowledge, it says. The rest of the words are blurred, but I get the feeling Bill is saying Fenwick knew about his plan to hide things. My God, Zane, if James got wind of this will then he would know my mother is about to be a very wealthy woman. Is that why he’s been pursuing her so intently?”
“It sounds like it,” Zane said as he pulled up in front of the Dodge house.
“Zane, do you think this had anything to do with what happened to you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t see how, but it’s awfully coincidental I was asking about her before someone tried to kill me. I’m not sure why I didn’t pursue this more aggressively a week ago. You might not have been hurt...”
“Finding out who you really are was part of the process of getting to this point,” Kinsey said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
He put a hand over hers. “We have to warn your mother carefully, Kinsey. For lots of reasons.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“Don’t put those papers back in your purse. If Fenwick catches on that you have them, that’s the first place he’ll look. He could very well have searched your apartment, you know. Tuck the papers in your dress somewhere.”
She didn’t take time to think how silly it was to do it. She just rolled the papers and the map and stuck them down in her bra. “How do you like my new curves?” she asked while batting her eyelashes.
He leered at her a moment and smiled. “I think I like the old ones better.”
*
A NEIGHBOR MUST have been having a party, because there was simply no parking close to the house. They found a spot a half block away and walked, holding hands. Loud rap music blared from the party house across the street. Zane thought it would add an interesting twist to the
middle-aged wedding about to take place.
James Fenwick answered their knock. “Come in, come in,” he said. He was dressed in khakis and a knit polo shirt. Zane felt instantly overdressed, but perhaps Fenwick hadn’t changed into his wedding duds yet. “You finally made it,” he added.
“Yes.” Kinsey looked around the foyer. “I’m sorry we’re late. Where is everyone?”
“I have very sad news,” he said, his expression growing somber. “Bill passed away. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”
Kinsey tightened her grip on Zane’s hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “He was a wonderful man. I hope it was peaceful.”
He nodded. “It was.”
“Where’s my mother?”
“That’s the other thing I have to tell you.” He closed the door, clicked the dead bolt and encouraged them to move farther into the house. He spread his hands as he continued. “Your mother and I decided to get married when we saw how quickly Bill was slipping away. Don’t be upset with her, it just seemed like the right thing to do. She’s afraid you’ll be disappointed. Well, you know Frances. When she’s uneasy, she cooks. She’s making a big lunch. Come on back to the kitchen.”
They followed him through the living room, where he pushed open the door leading to the old-fashioned kitchen. He gestured for Kinsey to enter before him. He followed close on her heels. Zane was taller than either of them and could easily see over their heads.
The only other time he’d been in this room it had gleamed and sparkled. Now, dirty dishes littered every horizontal surface. A narrow door across the room stood ajar. There was no sign of Frances.
“Where’s Mom?” Kinsey asked.
“I don’t know,” James said.
“Why is everything so messy?”
James seemed flustered. “It’s been hectic here lately. I could have sworn she was in here cooking.”
“Where’s Bill’s nephew?” Zane asked.
Alice Sharpe Page 17
