“Okay,” Jack said. “Let me put it another way. Who took the lead? Who was the first to let the other know the interest was there? Frannie or Colt?”
“It could have been mutual, one of those moments where you just don’t know…”
Jack shook his head, holding back a laugh that somehow wasn’t patronizing. “For a Yankee innkeeper, Harriet, you’re a hell of a romantic.”
She glanced at him. “Has your work made you cynical?”
He shrugged. “I think of myself as a realist.”
“That’s what all cynics say.”
“All right, in my work I’ve found that to unravel a crime, you have to unravel the relationships of the people involved. Sometimes it’s easy—sometimes it’s dicey.”
“But there was no crime. Frannie and Colt took off, presumably to elope or at least be together, and their plane went down. That’s a tragedy. It’s not criminal.”
Jack paused at a corner. Across the street, partially lit, was the First Congregational Church of Cold Spring, a pristine, traditional, white New England church built in the early nineteenth century. His face was lost in the dark shadows. “We don’t know why their plane went down. We don’t know why they picked that particular night. Until we have the plane and the bodies, it’s an open investigation as far as I’m concerned.”
Harriet felt a chill. “You can’t believe—you can’t think their plane was sabotaged or anything of the sort!”
“I don’t believe or disbelieve anything. I could tick off an easy dozen possibilities for what happened that night. Until I know what did happen, I don’t rule anything in or out.”
“I suppose that’s sensible, from your point of view. After all, you’re a detective. You’re not a participant.”
“That’s right.” His voice had softened, its deep tone like warm liquid down her spine. He touched her arm. “This is the church where you were found? Come on, show me that doorstep.”
They crossed the street, and Harriet brought him to the side entrance. The main entrance was reserved for Sundays and major church functions. “I was found right here,” she said, pointing to the welcome mat. “I was in an apple basket, sleeping.”
“What were you wearing?”
“A warm sleeper. It was red. And I was wrapped in a white blanket.”
“Store-bought?”
She nodded. “My parents still have it. The police took everything as potential evidence—but none of it helped. They never had any credible leads.”
“Incredible ones?”
“Just that I turned up the night after Colt and Frannie disappeared.”
“Hell of a thing, leaving a baby on a doorstep. You still a member of the church?”
His question caught her by surprise. She nodded. “Yes, although I’m not very active.”
“Is it tough, being the daughter of the retired minister?”
“It could be awkward—my father cast a long shadow. But I try to stay out of the way. I think by now people realize that anything I say isn’t necessarily the voice of my father.”
“He’s a good man?”
She smiled. “The best.”
“You’re a good woman yourself, Harriet. Come on, let’s head back before I freeze my ass off. Damned northern springs. In Texas, the bluebonnets are blooming.”
She smiled. He was a Texan at heart, but with a New York upbringing.
“They must be beautiful.”
He shot her a quick look, the streetlight catching his face, and she saw the spark in his eyes, the sudden warmth. “You’re right. They are. You should see them sometime.”
“Maybe I will,” she said, and they walked to the inn.
Wyatt was almost finished with his second martini, which, under the circumstances, was two martinis too many. His head was spinning, his ability to function impaired. He didn’t need alcohol. But he wasn’t going anywhere, not tonight. He was the sole patron at the Victorian bar at the Sunrise Inn. The only other occupant was the bartender, who made a hell of a martini.
For the past hour, Wyatt had replayed the conversation he’d had with his father after dinner. It had been difficult and revealing, and Wyatt had been unrelenting, brutal in his determination to get to the truth.
He was not proud of himself. He was not proud of his father. Tonight, not for the first time in his life, he didn’t much like being a Sinclair.
“Tell me what Jack Dunning knows that I don’t know. Goddamn it, tell me what you’ve been holding back all these years.”
His father had taken in a short breath, said quietly, “You don’t trust me.”
“This isn’t a question of trust. You dispatched Jack up here, not me. He’s paid, I’m not. He’s not family, I am. Therefore, I presume you’ve told him things you haven’t told me.”
Brandon Sinclair’s enviable reserve had snapped. “You think you’re such a smart son of a bitch, Wyatt. You throw my money in my face and go out and make your own. You throw my sensibility in my face and go off and have your goddamned adventures, get this family’s name in the papers again for their recklessness.”
“And that I did on purpose. I killed Hal and almost killed myself just to embarrass you.”
Even with two martinis swimming inside him, Wyatt regretted that comment. The pettiness of it. Letting his father get to him. Playing out the father-son battles all over again when they were both adults now. It was time to let go of their past failings and transgressions.
“Whether you like it or not, Wyatt,” his father had said, tight, clipped, “you’re a part of this family.”
“Father, I need to know the truth. Even before I came up here, I sensed you were holding back. Now I’m convinced of it.”
They’d gone back and forth like that, his father not budging. He didn’t persist in making denials, but simply, in effect, told Wyatt to mind his own business, pointing out that nobody had asked him to go to New Hampshire. But it was too late for him to pull back. He was here, and he was in deep.
Finally, he gave up. He couldn’t compel his father to talk. He could only do what he thought was right. And what was right, he knew, was to tell Brandon Sinclair that Penelope Chestnut had found a plane on Sunday, not an old dump.
“There’s no guarantee it’s Colt and Frannie’s plane,” Wyatt said, “but I don’t know what else it would be. She’s taking me out there tomorrow.”
“Have you told Jack?” His father’s voice was calm. The only indication Wyatt’s news had any impact was a slightly strangled quality to it. “I’d like you to take him with you. I don’t trust that girl.”
“I’d rather wait until I see what’s out there before I tell anyone. And Jack’s not my employee or my partner. Whatever you want him to know, you can tell him yourself.”
“Goddamn it, Wyatt.”
He’d hung up. On his own father. It wasn’t done in his family. He thought of Penelope going toe-to-toe with her father, sticking her tongue out, arguing openly and vigorously. But there was affection there, respect, trust. Wyatt had never known what there was between him and his father beyond tension and mutual suspicion. If his parents hadn’t divorced, if they’d spent more time together when he was growing up, maybe they’d have worked things out. But Wyatt didn’t think so.
Two minutes after his son hung up on him, Brandon Sinclair called back. Without preamble, he said, “Colt and Frannie left that night with a fortune in cut diamonds. Frannie found them in the warehouse when she was putting together the collection your grandfather donated to the Met. In today’s market, they’d be worth in the neighborhood of ten million dollars.”
“Jesus,” Wyatt had breathed. “A hell of a nest egg.”
“The family decided—my father decided—to keep the theft a secret. It wasn’t pride. He blamed Frannie entirely and assumed Colt was an unwitting participant. He and Colt…” He hesitated, reluctant to speak of a beloved, long mourned older brother. To Brandon Sinclair, it was unseemly to speak of personal matters. “They had a difficult rela
tionship. The public perception of Colt aside, my father didn’t consider him capable of engineering anything that happened that night. In any case, he kept quiet about the diamonds in an effort to discourage treasure seekers. He didn’t want someone to find the plane, loot it and then not report it as a way of covering their tracks.”
“They’d be the prime suspect.”
“Precisely. Also, if Frannie and Colt were still by some miracle alive—” He took a breath, almost as if he were eleven again, praying his brother was still alive.
“Revealing the missing diamonds could have put them at risk. My father was a tough, unemotional man, but Colt’s death shook him to his core. He never got over it.”
“You?” Wyatt asked quietly.
“I worshiped my older brother, but I’m not sure I ever really knew him. Losing him has left a hole in me, an emptiness that I’ve learned to live with.” He stopped abruptly, and Wyatt could feel his embarrassment. “Well, that’s not important at the moment.”
Wyatt didn’t push him. “How did you find out about the diamonds? Did your father tell you?”
“No, oh, no,” Brandon said, as if that were unimaginable. “I was a boy in a repressed household that was nonetheless filled with high emotion and drama. I was adept at listening at keyholes. When he was dying, I confronted my father, and he admitted everything—he seemed relieved to tell me. But he asked me not to speak of the diamonds, and I promised I wouldn’t.”
“And Jack? What does he know?”
“I told him it’s probable something of tremendous monetary value is in the wreckage. I couldn’t—” He sighed, sounding tired. “I suppose it’s splitting hairs, but I didn’t want to break that promise to my father prematurely. Well, then. You have your information, Wyatt. If this girl found the plane, she could have helped herself to the diamonds. I’d keep up my guard if I were you.”
“I will.” Then he added, “Thanks.”
“I only want to know what happened to Colt. I don’t give a damn about the diamonds. If Penelope Chestnut or anyone else stole them, so be it. Just let me bury my brother.”
Wyatt drank the last of his martini. Stolen diamonds. Ten million dollars. Definitely not on his list of what his father had been keeping from him. He had no idea what he’d have done in his father’s place. Maybe the whole damned mess was none of his business, and he should just go home.
Ten million. That was a hell of a lot of money.
Penelope materialized at his table and dropped onto the chair opposite him. “Do I smell like maple syrup?”
“You smell…steamy.”
“That sounds suggestive. I helped at the sugar shack. We all had biscuits and maple syrup for supper. I’m going to have to reform after the way I’ve been eating the past few days.” She peered at him, frowning. “Are you all right?”
He smiled. “It’s been a long day, and the dark New Hampshire nights are getting to me.”
She took him seriously. “No city lights. But this is nothing—you should be here in January. Zero degrees out, darker than the pits of hell at four-thirty. Eek. I have friends who swear by Saint-John’s-wort for SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. I think my flying keeps me from getting too squirrelly.”
“You’re in a good mood for someone who had her house broken into today.”
“Well, I’ve had a pleasant couple of hours. There’s something about a sugar shack. Mother doesn’t have a huge operation, but it’s way bigger than my fire by the driveway. I love sugaring. You know winter’s ending, and while I love snowshoeing and cross-country skiing and reading by the fire, by March I’m ready for buds on the trees and crocuses popping up.”
She sighed, smug and pleased. Wyatt was just perverse enough to wonder if this morning’s festivities in bed had anything to do with her mood. She ordered a Kahlúa and cream—she needed the protein, she said—and stifled a satisfied yawn. Wyatt decided he wasn’t going to throw her into a funk by telling her about the ten million in diamonds sitting in Frannie and Colt’s plane. Or not. He thought of the forty-five years it had been missing, the old hermit, the locals, the nasty messages Penelope had received—those diamonds could be long gone.
“Any leads on who broke into my house?” she asked after her drink had arrived.
“Not that anyone’s shared with me.”
“McNally usually comes around for a beer by now. Did you tell your father about the wreckage?”
He nodded. “He’s still absorbing it.”
“He’ll tell Dunning,” she said.
“That’s possible. He wants us to take Jack with us tomorrow. He doesn’t trust you.”
“Me? Why not, because I tried to protect the privacy of a hermit and an eccentric cousin?”
Wyatt suspected that was part of his father’s reasoning. But mainly his father thought Penelope Chestnut might have helped herself to a fortune in diamonds. “My father doesn’t know you. Are you going to tell McNally you fibbed about the dump?”
She sipped her rich drink, and after what she’d eaten that day, Wyatt half expected her to keel over. “He never believed me, anyway. I’ll wait until we check out the wreckage tomorrow. Maybe it’s a different plane—a less famous missing plane, one we didn’t even realize had gone down here. No point creating another tempest.”
“Whatever’s out there, I think you should tell the world about it tomorrow after we get back. It could discourage whoever’s harassing you.”
“That would be nice, but I don’t want him discouraged, I want him caught. Heck of a week.” She worked on an ice cube, as relaxed as he’d seen her. Her cheeks were still rosy from the heat of the sugar shack. “Grounded, a Sinclair in town, followed, weird anonymous messages, house ransacked. No wonder I slept with you. I’m addled.”
Wyatt grinned. “Now you’re sleeping one floor up from me.”
“With Harriet down the hall,” she reminded him, and cut him a quick smile. “She’s a light sleeper.”
“A pity.”
Andy McNally arrived later than usual, and he didn’t look pleased to see Penelope and Wyatt having a drink together. She leaned over and whispered, “I think we’re a poor substitute for Harriet.”
“She and Jack went for a walk.”
“I know. I saw them on my way back.”
“Jack’s not—” Wyatt hesitated, then said, “He’s here on a job. Harriet would be wise to keep that in mind. I could ask my father to rein him in, but I don’t know that it would do any good. He doesn’t control how Jack conducts his business.”
“Harriet’s a lot stronger than people give her credit for,” Penelope said, as if convincing herself, too. “Just because she’s single doesn’t mean she’s naive about men. In fact, quite the contrary. She probably knows more about men than a lot of women who’ve been married a million years. Besides, she’s kissed her share of frogs.”
Wyatt didn’t relax. “I hope to hell she doesn’t think Jack’s going to turn into Prince Charming.”
Penelope’s cheerful expression clouded, and she nodded. “I talk a good game, don’t I? She and Dunning—well, right now I’m having enough trouble living my own life, never mind hers. I suppose I should talk to Andy, tell him about the fax and the instant message. Get it over with. You sticking around?”
“No, I think I’d only complicate your discussion with McNally. I’ll head on up.”
“Stagger up, from the looks of you. How many martinis?”
“Just two.”
Her happy, irreverent mood reasserted itself. She grinned at him as she got to her feet. “There’s hope for you yet, Sinclair. If it took six martinis to get to you, I’d want more than one floor between us.”
She went to the bar, and Wyatt slid unsteadily to his feet, his stomach, his head, everything swooshing and spinning. He didn’t exactly stagger, but he wasn’t in top form. At least he wouldn’t have to contend with Penelope’s lumpy couch, her moose head, the thought of her in the very next room. A good night’s sleep was what he needed, one fl
oor down from her or not. He glanced at her, saw her smiling at McNally as if that would soften the blow of withholding the messages from him, and he had his doubts about getting any sleep at all.
Fifteen
P enelope awoke to the sun streaming through translucent curtains, the sounds of birds outside the window and the scent of the unlit lemon candle on the bed stand. Life could be good, she thought, then rolled over and called Steve, a guy she knew from high school who worked at the local hardware store. He liked to come to her cabin to go fishing. “I need new locks for my doors,” she told him.
“Penelope, you need new doors. That slider belongs in a museum.”
“I could use a new house to go with the new doors, too, but today I’ll have to make do with locks. Can you stop by and see what you can do?”
“Yeah, yeah. No promises.”
“Today?”
He sighed. “I’ll try.”
“Good. I probably won’t be around. If anyone asks, just say I sent you.”
“No, I’ll tell them I’m breaking in. I’ve always wanted Andy McNally and the Sinclair family on my case. You owe me, Chestnut.”
The thought of fresh locks made her feel more in control of her life. She showered, put on her hiking clothes—trail pants, expedition shirt, good socks—and slipped downstairs and out the main door without being seen. Wyatt might manage on the inn’s continental breakfast, but after yesterday’s carbo load, she needed eggs and bacon. Listening to the birds and exulting in the springlike temperature, she scooted up Main Street to Jeannie’s Diner.
Wyatt was at one of the booths, digging into a ham and cheese omelette and Jeannie’s incomparable, decadent home fries. He had on his hikers, jeans and a canvas shirt. No leather jacket to be seen. He must be acclimating, Penelope thought with amusement.
She slid onto the bench opposite him. “I’m surprised Jeannie let you sit here by yourself. Usually it’s a minimum of two people to a booth.”
“There’s not exactly a crowd.”
“This is Jeannie’s empire. You live by her rules.”
Kiss the Moon Page 21
