by Karen Harper
“Sure, good,” Jace said, seeming suddenly uneasy as Brit took his arm and they moved away.
“Let’s circulate, get something to eat, then cut the cake,” Claire said, turning away to look at it again.
“You’re a poet and don’t know it,” Nick said with a groan at his own words. “But most importantly, above all else, you are my beloved wife and Lexi and Trey’s mother.”
“I love you, Nick,” she said, turning back to face him and reaching out to touch his arm. “You are so strong and supportive—and—and understanding.”
“Not always.”
“I mean we’ve had some tough times, but things are different now.”
“Good,” said the man of many, well-chosen words. “Good.”
As they started away from the cake table, Claire heard a boom and a strange crackling sound. Her ears popped. Trey started to cry. Oh, where was Lexi?
The long, high window behind the cake and buffet table seemed to explode, not shatter, but blast into a thousand ugly glass cobweb pieces which rained down onto the floor in thumb-sized shards.
The bottles behind the small bar shook. Shelves holding them broke, dropped in a second round of shrieking noise. The bartender ducked, then fled crunching glass.
The noise, the impact, several screams—people hit the floor. Nick grabbed Claire, still holding Trey and rolled them under the white folds of the skirt of the cake table. They huddled there, shaking, waiting for what came next. But nothing but people’s screams, cries and questions.
A golf ball against the glass? Was someone shooting? A bomb blast somewhere outside or sonic boom? She realized just a minute or so had passed.
“Stay here with Trey!” Nick told Claire. “I’ll get Lexi.” Keeping low, he rolled out and scrambled away, crunching glass.
Claire cuddled Trey close as his cries went to sucking sobs, his little voice blending with other shrieks. She was tempted to crawl out and find Lexi herself. Where were Darcy and her family?
She peered out to see fleeing feet and bodies on the floor. Was that blood in front of her? It glittered in the sunlight pouring through without the safety glass.
She gasped. She was looking at globs of white icing stained by red punch that had exploded onto the floor with bits of broken glass in it.
Claire opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
15
Nick’s fear fast became fury. The place looked like a small war zone, with those who hadn’t fled huddled—hurt?—on the floor. He saw Jace and Gina had protected Lexi with their bodies. Kris, Bronco and Nita, all sprawled on the floor amidst glittering glass, were looking around, stunned. The hot, humid outside air slammed into him. The safety glass had crackled into circular, fine-line pieces, and some parts had shattered into a storm of shards.
He saw Jace’s cheek was cut and bleeding. Lexi was wailing. Gina, God bless her, was pressing a napkin against Jace’s cheek, then Kris took over.
“Who else is hurt?” Gina cried.
Nick echoed her in a louder voice, “Anybody else hurt or cut? We have someone to help here!”
Jace held the napkin to his cheek and, one-armed, handed Lexi to Nick who took a quick look at her, then tugged her toward the ruined cake table.
“Dad, my ears hurt! Too loud a bad noise! Why did the window break?”
No time for all that, and who had answers? “You’ll be all right, sweetie. I’ll put you with Mommy and Trey out in the hall.”
The hell with Never Too Late to Celebrate Love, Nick thought when he saw the shattered cake. Some damn idiot must have lobbed a huge rock against the window. Surely a golf ball didn’t do all this. Hadn’t the hostess told them this window was unbreakable?
Still on her knees under the cake table, rocking their son in her arms, Claire reached out for Lexi, but Nick hauled the child past them into the hall. “Stay right here!” he ordered. “I’ll bring Mommy and Trey, and you can keep them from crying.”
Lexi immediately stopped sobbing and nodded. The kid had some of her gutsy mother in her. Shaking, her cheeks wet with tears and her pretty dress a mess with some sort of food, Lexi sat up straight in an armchair. Nick darted back in for Claire, lifting her to her feet.
“I hope there’s no follow-up to that,” he muttered.
Cheryl appeared. “Nick, how can I help?”
“I think the bartender ran for help, but be sure they called 9-1-1 and the police. Detective Ken Jensen if he’s available.”
“Oh, and I think Dale’s left arm might have broken when he hit the floor,” she told him. “Heck’s girlfriend is tying it up for him.”
She darted off. Poor Dale. Poor all of them. Claire looked both stricken and angry. Nick led her out to the chair where Lexi perched and sat her down next to her.
“Darcy and her family?” Claire asked, cuddling Trey tight as she pulled Lexi against her.
“Huddled in a corner. I’ll get them.”
Several others came out, looking dazed, covered with food and drinks and those tiny shards of glass, though no one else looked bloodied. Jace must have been hit by flying broken glass from the bar, not this window stuff. Nick turned to go back in when their hostess, Mary Ann, came running down the hall toward him.
“A drone!” she cried, out of breath. “I would have come in earlier, but we thought we could spot who was flying it. A drone with an explosive on it, but it didn’t detonate, we think—fell below to the patio after it hit the window. Damn that Lavell bunch who own the grove! I’ve called the squad and the police. Is anyone in there hurt?”
“At least one broken arm, one cut.”
She tore inside with Nick. She started to make her rounds of the people who were getting up to brush off glass and food, and she was soon joined by two other club workers, both men who likely worked in the office. They were asking everyone if they were okay and explaining, commiserating.
Though it must not have even been ten minutes since the attack, Nick could hear the screech of a siren—more than one—coming closer. His eyes filled with tears as he surveyed the ruin of the verandah, now an open-air room. At least Steve and Darcy looked all right and were comforting their kids. Their boy Drew looked more shook than Jilly. Nick gestured for them to come out into the hall.
“A drone!” Nick told them as they hurried toward him. “The club hostess said the family that owned the grove has harassed golfers with a drone before and this one went on attack, probably not aimed at us.”
Once everyone cleared the room and were checked out by the paramedics, Nick went to the verandah entry again and looked in. The room had been roped off by the staff and stood vacant now except for a worker getting ready to board up the long, open space with plywood sheets. Hot, humid air still swept in, smothering the air-conditioning. He realized he was wet with sweat, and his heart was still thundering in his chest.
But what he was really seeing in his head were the drones that his arch enemy had sent to spy on him and Claire when they first knew each other. The bastard was dead now, but this seemed a nightmare from the past. And what if, despite what he had just told Steve and Darcy, this drone was not sent by the grove owner, but had targeted him or those he loved? Had the explosive been meant to go off and not just threaten?
* * *
To Claire’s disappointment, Ken Jensen was not back from his business trip, and a Sergeant O’Brien was in charge of the chaotic scene and questioning the many witnesses—or targets. The afternoon and evening she had so hoped would go well was a catastrophe. At least people were not seriously hurt but for Dale’s broken arm the medics had tended to, though he needed to go to the hospital to have it set and get a cast. The first responders had also tended some cuts—Jace’s was the worst. Everyone had ruined clothing from exploding food at the buffet table or bottles at the bar that made them look as if they’d been in a food fight. People kept picking litt
le pieces of glass out of their hair and clothes.
When Claire finally went to use the bathroom, she saw her red hair had reddish icing in it, like coagulated blood. She took wet paper towels and tried to pick and wash it out even though that plastered her hair to her scalp. Her head hurt, her eyes ached from crying. This was agony on many levels, but it was fast turning to fury.
At least Nita and Bronco had taken Trey and Lexi home. Claire went back out into the office Sergeant O’Brien was using to talk to witnesses before he let them leave. Nick and Claire had said goodbye to each guest, apologizing, though no one blamed them.
“So counselor,” Sergeant O’Brien, thin and tall with a shaved head, said to Nick, “hated to save you till last but was hoping what I learned from the others might turn up a motive we could discuss.”
“And did it?”
“Some things have come up, but I don’t want to go into specifics until I hand this information over to Detective Jensen when he returns.”
Claire said, “It will be easier to put that window and the room back together than to salvage our special day.”
She sniffed hard to hold back more tears. Hadn’t she cried enough? This wasn’t like her. She had to regain control. Nick reached for her hand and held it.
“I’m sorry for your—the loss of your celebration,” O’Brien said. “But the thing is, there was an explosive head on that drone.”
Nick squeezed her hand so hard she winced. “Which obviously did not detonate,” Nick said.
“Luckily for all of you, it didn’t. Our forensic team disarmed it and took it to the lab to see if it was a dud or malfunctioned. We already have a search warrant for the grove owners’ house and property. The, ah, Lavell family,” he said, glancing down at his notebook, “the original property owners who’ve been harassing the club over the price of extra land. If it was Lavell, stupid of him to use a drone, since he’s used them before around here, and it can probably be traced to him.”
“If it was him,” Nick muttered. “I’d like to think so. Then he could be locked up, and we won’t have to look for worse, more personal motives.”
Claire recalled Nick saying the same about why Dale could not have killed Cyndi. Who would do something as obvious—especially a trained, bright lawyer—as putting his former fiancée he’d just strangled in his mother’s freezer, then let the new owners in to clean the house? Could the grove owners be that stupid, take that risk? And eons ago, would Hunter have stabbed Reaching Woman with a hunting knife that looked just like his own? She had to ask Andrea to see those artifacts they guarded so closely.
She and Nick answered the sergeant’s questions and went over the guest list with him. “No, I don’t have a pending case where I’ve received threats,” Nick told him in answer to the next question. “Of course, there can always be disgruntled former clients or, usually, those our firm beat in court.”
“Mrs. Markwood,” the sergeant said, turning to her, “any possible suspects who could be trying to warn or hurt you?”
“There have been times I would have said so, but nothing I know of that’s current.”
“Then my report is complete for Detective Jensen,” he said, snapping his small notebook closed. “I can tell you this much to ease your minds. There are two possible targets besides the country club itself, just my observation, but this will all immediately be handed over to him.”
Two possible targets besides the club? Those words echoed through the wall of Claire’s anger and exhaustion. That made three total possibilities? Well, thank the Lord, as this man had said, for once it wasn’t them. But who then?
* * *
“Sad to think that everything got ruined,” Claire said to Nick over, of all things, the comfort of hot chocolate on that warm evening. Their kitchen clock said ten, and they’d finally gotten Lexi to sleep. Trey had gone back to his crib with hardly a peep. Ah, to sleep like a baby. She prayed neither of her children would inherit her narcolepsy.
“At least no one was killed or maimed, if that was the intent,” she went on, sounding so weary to herself. “Or maybe that was meant as a warning—that the explosive was a dud this time, but look out next.”
“Not a dud, I’ll bet, but didn’t detonate. That grove owner must be a nutcase.”
“Nick, I’m angry. Everything seemed so perfect, but I guess we’ve never had that. Oh, forgot to tell you, Bronco said he’s going to stay up all night, sleep on the couch in the Florida room, prowl around. Poor Nita with that body in the freezer at her home—then we get ashes on a car, and someone explodes our party...”
“Two other possible targets in the group besides the poor country club that idiot keeps harassing. Let’s check on our dynamic duo of kids again, then go to bed. In the morning, things will seem more—well, better, if the aftermath of this publicity and your working with ancient bodies can be called normal.”
Before they could get up, Nick’s cell phone sounded—the hard-driving music from the original but now defunct TV series Law and Order.
“Nick Markwood here.” He listened for a moment, then mouthed to her, “Ken Jensen.”
“Yes, okay,” Nick said. “Tomorrow morning we’ll wait for you here. Seven a.m., then. Drive carefully, detective, and keep your eyes out for drones, especially when you get into Naples. You probably know more than we do about who that damned thing was aiming at, because we sure can’t figure it out.”
16
Nick kept pacing while Claire fixed more coffee and set out bagels for Ken Jensen.
“I’d forgotten today’s Memorial Day,” she told him, “and you won’t have to go in to work. Nothing seems real right now—a big blur. I ignored my herbal stimulants and took my hard-hitting meds to get through this interview and handle the bad memories of yesterday.”
“I know, sweetheart. Hard-hitting stamina is what we both need. At least Jensen’s been straight with us before. I trust him, and I think he trusts us. Hey, there he is, pulling into the driveway in an unmarked car, right on time. I wonder if he even went home last night after driving back from Georgia.”
Nick greeted him and brought him into the kitchen. He was grateful to be able to trust this man, though he had no doubt that his job would take precedence over any friendship the three of them had built.
“Thanks, Claire,” Jensen said as he sat down with them at their kitchen table, and she put a steaming mug of coffee in front of him. “Could smell the coffee when I hit the door. Wish I could mainline caffeine into my veins right now.”
“I know what you mean,” she said. “We’re running on adrenaline and anger.”
“So how was Zebulon, Georgia?” Nick asked. He knew they’d soon move on to the country club mess, but he hoped Jensen had found out something to incriminate Cyndi’s brother or first fiancé to take the heat off Dale.
“Scenic, if you like to see the Stars and Bars still flying over the old courthouse and statues of Confederate generals. Let’s just say the two Southern gentlemen of interest were gone with the wind and haven’t been back home for a while, and no one knows where they’ve gone to grieve for Cyndi’s death. Yeah, they’re in the mix of suspects for ashes on cars and even drone attacks—and maybe murder one—so I hope we can find them hanging out around here.
“But to business, because I need your help,” Jensen went on. “Once again, welcome to the law enforcement club. I got the info on the interviews from O’Brien about the incident,” he said as he paused to down some coffee. Nick leaned forward, his chin in his hand; Claire clasped her hands in her lap. Jensen did not have a notebook as O’Brien had. How could he look so awake and seem so sharp after driving back from Georgia?
“Okay,” he said, looking from one of them to the other, “here’s the nitty-gritty. There was an explosive on that drone, and not one damned fingerprint. The lab guys think either the explosive was not set to go off, or the pin was jostled in fligh
t or when it hit the window.”
“If their assumption’s right,” Nick said, “maybe the drone was a threat rather than attempted murder—so far.”
“Maybe.”
Claire said, “Sergeant O’Brien admitted that there were two people in the room who might have been targets, and, for once, we think, it wasn’t us. Can you share what you know with us—to help us—to let us help?”
“Forewarned is forearmed, right?” he said, looking from one of them to the other. “I agree. But first—sorry, you two—but looking at your track record for attracting trouble, I need to ask you both again. Has anything other than Dale Braun’s fiancée’s murder come up in your lives lately—anyone who could be out to get you? Anything at all suspicious, unusual, out of order?”
Nick shook his head. “Not even volatile legal cases, though I’ll have a look back at the files we’ve always kept on possible explosive situations—sorry to use the word explosive—that we’ve kept at the firm for years for that very reason.”
“Good. Let me know. Claire? Any new dangerous assignments or kooks you’re working with lately with your Clear Path online site or in general?”
“I am on a part-time assignment but nothing unusual there,” she told him, feeling like a total liar the way she’d worded that. Then it hit her. That person who had seemed to be watching her and Kris...in the rush and chaos, she hadn’t even told Nick, and if she blurted that out now he’d have a fit. But she had to share it.
“There was something minor I haven’t even had time to mention to Nick yet—didn’t think it was much, but it was strange. It happened when I was shopping late last week with my old friend Kris Kane—who was at the party.”
“Right. The archaeologist. She insisted there was nothing strange going on in her life.”
