“There’s another plot line that I’m fooling around with, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t laugh. I can’t help feeling that there’s some connection between the untimely deaths of the previous mistresses of the hacienda and the attacks on Cameron and me.”
“Why would you think that?” Sloan asked as he stripped off his shirt.
“Because if I were plotting this as a story line there would have to be a connection. Plus, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the mistresses of this house have all…I…”
It gave Sloan a great deal of satisfaction to note the way her sentence trailed off when he stepped out of his jeans.
“You’re stripping.”
“James is right. You are a bright gal.” He kept his eyes on hers as he hooked his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his briefs and eased them slowly down over his hips. When they dropped to the floor, he stepped out of them. Her eyes had lowered to his erection, and though he hadn’t thought it possible, he grew even harder.
“I want you, Brooke.”
Not raising her eyes, she lifted a hand out of the water and beckoned him to join her. “Come in. The water’s fine.”
He lowered himself into the frothy bubbles so that he was sitting opposite her, his legs tangled with hers. “Close quarters.”
“Very observant.”
Sloan scooped up bubbles and tossed them at her. She grinned as she brushed them off her cheek, and he had the satisfaction of seeing that worry line fade from her forehead.
“Would you like some soap?” Without waiting for his answer, she blew a wad of bubbles into his face.
In retaliation, he lifted one of her feet and began to massage the instep.
He heard her breath shudder out. “I’m thinking of a plot line myself.” He continued to massage her foot. “But I’m not sure of the technical terms. This is what you might call an opening encounter.” He slipped one finger in and out between each of her toes. “Right?”
“Right.” Her voice had become breathy, the way it always did when she was aroused. And her eyes—those fascinating green eyes—had darkened.
Slowly, he ran his hand up her calf and traced a pattern on the back of her knee.
She trembled.
“A complication,” he said and watched her tremble again. Leaning forward, his gaze never leaving her face, he danced his fingers up her inner thigh. “The tension builds.” He could feel it building within himself.
“Sloan, I—” Her voice was a whisper.
“What comes next, Brooke? Tell me.” But he didn’t wait for her answer before he traced one finger down the slick softness of her fold. “This?”
“Mmmmm.” She arched toward where his finger lingered at the entrance to her heat.
“And then?”
“Crisis,” she murmured.
He pushed his finger into her, just a little.
“More,” she whispered.
“Tell me what comes next?”
“Climax.”
He pushed two fingers into her. She arched upward. “Yes.”
Water sloshed over the edges of the tub and two candles sputtered as Sloan moved to cover her body with his. He urged her legs apart and entered her.
“We’re going to drown,” she said as she wrapped her arms around him.
“Practice holding your breath,” he said and took her.
In the darkness of the gardens, a shadow paced—forward and back, forward and back. She should be dead. She should be dead. She should be dead.
The chant grew louder and louder as the pacing picked up speed. Three times she’d escaped. Three times. It couldn’t be tolerated. It wouldn’t be tolerated.
Fury boiled up with such force that it seemed to become a separate entity in the surrounding air. The shadow stopped pacing abruptly and turned to face the hacienda.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Control. It had to be regained. It was all-important. Nothing could be accomplished without it.
She should be dead. And she would be dead. Tomorrow. Moonlight fell in a silvery blanket over the sleeping ranch and the shadow’s gaze swept the gardens, the land and the hills beyond, gathering in the strength that came from knowing this would never belong to Cameron McKenzie.
When the pacing began again it was slower, more purposeful. Gradually, a plan took root and began to grow.
Chapter 20
The sky was still the color of pewter when something—a ringing sound—pulled me out of sleep. I managed to get one of my eyes open and discovered I was lying with my head on Sloan’s shoulder. He stirred, removing one of the arms he’d wrapped around me, and groped on the bedside table until he located his cell. The ringing stopped.
“Yeah.” There was silence for a while. A phone call at this hour couldn’t be good. I opened my other eye, but when I tried to pull away, Sloan’s other arm, which was still around me, tightened.
“Thanks.” He ended the call and turned to me. I didn’t like the frown on his face. “That was the state police. They found a vehicle whose tires match the tracks at the cliff.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“Doc Carter.”
I stared at him trying to process the information. Doc Carter was the last person I would have suspected of shooting down Sloan’s plane. I was about to say so when Sloan continued. “The caliber of the bullet they recovered from the plane matches the Winchester rifle they found in the trunk of his car.”
“But why? You don’t suppose my Snow Queen– Santa Claus theory is for real?”
“They’ve taken him in for questioning. As soon as they get some answers, we’ll know.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“He had the opportunity to cut the saddle girth,” Sloan pointed out.
“And he didn’t have a solid alibi for the day that Cameron disappeared,” I recalled. “He thought maybe playing golf.”
“The state police may be able to refresh his memory,” Sloan said.
But it still didn’t make sense to me. Why would Doc Carter want to kill Cameron?
Reading my mind again, Sloan drew me closer and kissed my forehead. “I can’t think of a reason why he’d want to harm Cameron, either, but we should have some answers soon.”
Sloan’s phone rang again. “It’s the stables,” he said as he took the call.
I could tell from the expression on his face that the news wasn’t good. It just never is when someone calls you in the middle of the night. I glanced out the balcony window to see pink streaks in the lightening sky. Or at the crack of dawn.
Sloan got out of bed and walked into the bathroom to gather up his clothes. “That was Gus. He was making his morning rounds and he says there’s something wrong with Saturn. He can’t wake him up.”
I threw back the covers. “I’ll come with you.”
“No.” He’d already dragged on jeans when he came back to the bed. “The threat to you may be over, but we’re not taking any chances. You’ll stay here. Give me your cell phone.”
When he handed it to me, he picked up my cell and started pressing in numbers. “I’m going to put my cell number on speed dial. If you need me, if anything at all happens, just press one.”
He passed me back the phone and then met my eyes directly. “You’re not to leave this room. Give me your word.”
“Okay.”
By the time he’d finished dressing, I’d pulled on my own jeans and a T-shirt and fastened my cell to my belt. My masquerade was about to end, and when it did, I wanted to be in my own clothes.
I followed Sloan to the door. As he stepped outside, he said, “Lock it and don’t leave here until I come back.”
“I gave you my word.”
He leaned down to kiss me once—hard. I closed the door, locked it and then went to the window. In less than a minute, I saw him going down the path to the stable at a run. If Doc Carter confessed, this might be the last time I stood here lo
oking out at the ranch from Cameron’s point of view.
But it wasn’t going to be the last night I spent with Sloan. The one thing that we hadn’t done during the night was talk about what was going to happen once we figured out who was trying to kill Cameron and she was able to return. Lots of things were still up in the air. But I was not going to let Sloan Campbell walk out of my life. Walking around in my sister’s clothes and living her life for a few days had at least done that much for me. I was going to fight for what I wanted.
I frowned. Right now, I needed to think. I just wasn’t convinced that Doc Carter was the villain of this particular scenario. Turning around, I began to pace the length of the room. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that the attempts on Cameron’s life and mine were somehow connected to the deaths or disappearances of the other mistresses of the Montega Hacienda. But if I couldn’t come up with a reason for Doc Carter wanting Cameron dead, how was I going to come up with one for him wanting my mother dead?
Even if he had a partner, who would it be? What was the motive? With a sigh, I sank down on the foot of the bed. I wasn’t accomplishing anything except making my headache come back. Maybe the problem was that I was a writer. If this were a story line on Secrets, of course I’d want to connect my sister’s disappearance to the other mysteries of the hacienda. But real life was never as neat as fiction.
What I needed was coffee. I frowned, realizing that I wasn’t going to get any until Sloan came back. It was then that I heard Hannibal’s meow. I glanced around the room, then remembered that Sloan had put him out last night.
Hannibal meowed again in a very annoyed tone and I crossed to the door and opened it.
Hannibal was there all right. So was Beatrice and she had a gun in her hand.
“I’ll shoot you,” she said in a voice she might use to discuss the weather.
The look in her eyes told me that she would.
She gestured with the gun to the right. “Come.”
With Hannibal walking beside me, I moved down the hall.
“Where are we going?” I asked. But I knew. My body knew, too. Fear was already a hard, icy ball in my stomach. I couldn’t let it spread. I needed a clear head.
“If you’re hoping to be rescued, you won’t be,” Beatrice continued in a mild tone. “The drug I gave Saturn will keep Sloan’s mind occupied for a while. I doubt he’ll give you even a thought until the vet arrives and figures out what’s wrong.”
She’d drugged the horse. I felt a flare of anger, welcomed it. Think, I told myself. You just need a plan. What would Mallory Carstairs do in a scene like this? What would Cameron do?
“Don’t think of running,” Beatrice said just as that scenario flashed into my mind.
So much for Plan A, and Plan B hadn’t come to me by the time we reached the door to the bell tower. I walked on past, but Beatrice said, “Stop.”
Behind me, I heard her unlock the door and push it open.
“After you.”
Hannibal followed me into the tower. The moment I looked at the stairs spiraling upward, a wave of dizziness hit me. The cat had no such problem. He’d already disappeared around the first curve. Feeling nauseated, I slumped against the wall for support. When I felt my cell phone press into my hip, I remembered that Sloan had programmed his number into it.
“Take a deep breath,” Beatrice said.
“Give me a minute.” I didn’t have to fake the fear in my voice, and I prayed she wouldn’t see my hand go to my cell. In my mind, I pictured the buttons and prayed again that I was pressing number one and then Send.
The gun poked into my spine.
“I really can’t do this. You know what happened the last time we were in the tower.”
“Yes. You nearly fell. I was so tempted to just give you that little push that you needed. But there would have been too many witnesses.”
I sagged farther against the wall. “Beatrice, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” Her voice was soft and soothing just as it had been the other time, and it made my skin crawl. She didn’t take my hand this time. Instead, she pressed the gun harder against my spine. “A bullet will hurt. That’s what I told your mother. If you hadn’t come back, we could have avoided this. Now, you’ll have to go up there just like Elizabeth did.”
At the mention of Elizabeth’s name, my mind cleared and become suddenly calm. But I kept my steps tentative and leaned heavily against the wall as I climbed. “You killed my mother, didn’t you?”
“It was so easy,” Beatrice said. “She was doing so well, and then her depression came back. The doctors couldn’t explain it. But I could. I’d replaced her medication with simple vitamins, and no one suspected a thing. When they tried a new drug, I just replaced that one, too. No one was the wiser. Men are such fools. Everyone accepted the fact that she climbed up here one night and followed in the footsteps of the first mistress of the hacienda.”
“What actually happened?” I asked.
“She was having trouble sleeping and she would go down to the kitchen to warm milk for herself. One night I joined her and slipped a drug into the drink. Then all I had to do was to help her up the stairs just as I’m helping you.”
We’d rounded the first curve of the stairs, and I could see the opening to the bell tower above me. Another wave of dizziness struck and I shoved it down. I wasn’t going to think about how my mother had fallen out of the tower. Instead, I was going to keep Beatrice talking so that Sloan would know where we were.
Saturn lay on his side, his eyes open but glazed. Sloan dropped to his knees next to Gus and ran a hand down the horse’s neck.
“He looks drugged.”
“That would be my guess. Vet should be here at any minute. Called him before I called you.”
“Good,” Sloan said as he continued to frown at the horse. “Good.”
For a moment they sat in silence, both trying to comfort Saturn as best they could.
“Who?” Sloan asked the question out loud, but Gus didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer himself. But he was going to find out.
When his cell rang, he lifted it automatically and put it to his ear. “Yeah?”
The voice that he heard coming through the line turned his blood to ice.
“…know what happened the last time we were in the tower.”
“Yes. You nearly fell. I was so tempted to just give you that little push that you needed. But there would have been too many witnesses.”
Sloan was already out of the stall and running when he yelled back to Gus. “Beatrice has got Brooke. She’s going to push her out of the tower.”
I drew in a deep breath as I stepped into the small space of the tower. Now that we were here, I was trapped. Any step I took brought me to the edge of the low wall. I pushed the thought out of my mind, and gazed at the landscapes my mother had painted. In the east, the sun had risen halfway on the horizon. I recalled the painting in the dining room of just this scene.
“It won’t be long now.” Beatrice’s voice held a note of promise.
Even as a chill moved up my spine, I turned to the left and looked at the stables and the flat range beyond—another scene my mother had painted. I recalled seeing it in the main parlor.
I was not going to follow in the footsteps of the mistresses of the hacienda, I promised myself as I turned to face her. “How did you get away from the flower show on the day I disappeared?”
“I drove there early and made sure that I was seen setting up my display. Then I told the women in the booths next to mine that I had to slip away for a bit to practice my luncheon speech. It didn’t take long to drive out to the cliffs, and you were there waiting for me.”
“What about yesterday?”
“I went out the back of the greenhouse, walked over to Doc Carter’s and borrowed his car and his rifle. He’s a creature of habit just as I am, and he spends all his mornings practicing his tee shots on that green he’s had landscaped into his backyard. Just as he did on the day
you disappeared. I borrowed his car that day, too.” She gestured with the gun. “It’s time now, Cameron. Turn around.”
I held up a hand. “One more question.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Hannibal walking back and forth like a sentinel on the wall. “What happened to James’s first wife?” The merest hint of surprise moved into those cold eyes.
“You know about her?” Beatrice asked.
“You killed her, too, didn’t you?”
“She was weak and not worthy of being a mistress here. None of them were. Only the strong survive,” Beatrice said. “Sarah was unhappy, restless, and she used to get up in the middle of the night and take walks in the gardens. So predictable. I met her there one night, offered her some sleeping pills, and then all I had to do was wait until she was drowsy. Then I was going to bring her here. She should have died here.”
For the first time I heard rage in her voice, and I saw her knuckles whiten on the hand that held the gun. My throat went dry. “Where did she die?”
“In the garden. Sloan’s father came along. He saw me, saw the gun. I had to shoot him. Then I shot her and buried them both near the greenhouse.”
“And you let everyone believe that they’d run away together?”
“I made them believe it. I packed some clothes for each of them. Then I wrote the note. I’d practiced her handwriting for months. Of course, it was supposed to be for a suicide note. No matter. It was so easy to kill them both. It always is.”
Easy to kill people? The horror of what she was saying washed over me, but I couldn’t let it affect me. Not yet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sloan running up the path toward the hacienda. I had to keep her talking and focused on me. “Why, Beatrice? Why did you kill them?”
The look she gave me held the first hint of madness that I’d seen—and the second hint of rage that I’d glimpsed beneath that cold facade. “Because I’m the mistress here. This place should have been at least half mine. James inherited only because he was a man. Our father never believed that a woman could run the place. But I can. I have. I will always be the mistress here.”
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Page 31
