“I want to assure you that all the board members here at the French Art Colony understand that you won’t be able to attend the gala tomorrow night,” Miss Snow said with unconvincing sweetness. “It’s a shame, of course, but life has a way of taking unfortunate turns.”
“But I have every intention of attending the gala,” Adrienne said into the phone receiver. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Oh … really.” Miss Snow sounded so dismayed Adrienne almost burst out laughing. “Well, my dear, I don’t listen to gossip but I’m afraid I have heard some of the dreadful things that have happened to you lately. I … we all realize how anxiety-ridden you must be and that attending the gala would just add more strain to an already troubled period in your life.”
And you’re terrified the “dreadful things” will follow me like little ghouls to the Art Colony and turn your gala into a disaster, Adrienne thought. “The last couple of weeks have been rather vexing,” she said, imitating Miss Snow’s archaic manner of speech, “but I’m sure the gala will provide a wonderful diversion for me. And my daughter.”
“Oh!” Miss Snow’s disposition clearly dropped yet another notch. “You are planning to bring her, too?”
“Certainly. She has a new dress. She’s very excited.”
“Yes, well, it will be an exciting event. Not one I’m certain is quite suited to children, but …” Adrienne could almost hear the woman casting around in her stuffy mind for ways to dissuade Adrienne from attending. “There will be a great many people here. Perhaps one of the people who has been giving you so much trouble. God forbid, of course,” she added as an afterthought.
“Oh, I don’t think anyone would try to create trouble for me in such a crowded arena,” Adrienne returned. “Besides, my sister and her husband were planning to come with me. Vicky and Philip Hamilton? Do you know them?”
“Philip Hamilton? The gubernatorial candidate is planning to come to the gala?”
“Yes. If I do. If I don’t come, he might skip it. But perhaps that would be best if you’re afraid my presence might cause an embarrassing scene of some sort. Yes, you definitely might have a point.”
“Well, my dear, let’s not jump to conclusions,” Miss Snow said hastily. “I do tend to worry too much—all of my relatives say so—and perhaps I have been creating problems where none exist. You’re probably quite right—no one would threaten you or draw attention to themselves in an unseemly way in front of so many people. And it would be so disappointing if Mr. Hamilton did not attend. Oh, you too, of course. You do have a painting entered in the contest.”
A painting you don’t give a damn about, Adrienne thought. All you care about is the wealthy and prestigious Philip Hamilton attending your event. But she felt no rancor. Miss Snow couldn’t help being a snob. She’d been reared to be one and had maintained the tradition all of her eighty-plus years of life.
“Who was that?” Skye asked, walking into the room.
“Just Miss Snow making sure we were still coming to the gala.”
“She thought we’d skip it?” Skye looked stunned. “We’ve been looking forward to it for weeks. Your painting is in the contest. Aunt Vicky and Uncle Philip and Rachel are coming!” Rachel’s attendance clinched it for Skye. Wild animals couldn’t have kept her away.
Adrienne smiled at her daughter. “Do you want to try on your dress one more time for me so we’re sure we have the hem just right?”
“Yeah!” Skye said excitedly. “And I’m not sure which necklace to wear. I’ll let you decide which looks the most grown-up.”
Adrienne leaned back in her chair, exhausted from the night, still reeling from the attempt on her life at Lottie’s cabin and the photo of Trey someone had left for her this morning. She hadn’t heard from Lucas since his hurried flight from the hospital, but that had only been a couple of hours ago. He hadn’t had time to find out much. He hadn’t been in condition to do anything, really. He should have been at home, resting. Instead, he was working, trying to protect her.
She only hoped that when she had to tell him soon that as much as she cared for him, she was not in love with him, he wouldn’t hate her and regret all he’d done for her in this situation. She wished her feelings were different. But the heart couldn’t or wouldn’t be deterred, she thought ruefully. And her heart, foolish as it was, belonged to Drew Delaney.
“Do you mind if I sit here beside you for a little while, Mr. Kirkwood?”
Gavin Kirkwood, seated at the dimly lit, cozy elegance of the Iron Gate bar, looked at tall, blond, attractive Bruce Allard. The Allard family had been friends of Ellen’s for ages. The Kirkwoods had frequently dined with them until the death of little Jamie last year, but Gavin had never cared for Bruce. Kit’s latest boyfriend, J.C., had been sitting at the bar as long as Gavin, but J.C. respected someone obviously in the grip of melancholy and only made the occasional comradely comment. Bruce was another matter.
No, Gavin did not feel like being sociable tonight, especially for this bright-eyed kid who struck him as almost quivering with youth and enthusiasm. This evening Gavin felt at least ninety and completely worn out with life, but Gavin always tried to be gracious in public.
“Pull up a stool, Bruce,” he said. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”
“I’ve been very busy, sir. Very busy.”
Gavin hated being called “sir.” It made him feel even older. The bartender meandered down the bar, smiling blandly, and raised his eyebrows at Bruce, waiting for his order.
“I’ll have a strawberry daiquiri,” Bruce announced with bravado.
The bartender stared at him. J.C.’s mouth quirked with ill-concealed mirth. Even Gavin couldn’t help a sideways glance. Brace’s face turned pink. “On second thought, I’ll have what Mr. Kirkwood’s having.”
“Single malt whisky, no rocks?” the bartender asked.
Bruce looked dubious for a moment, then regained his nerve. “Yes. And make it a double.”
J.C. rolled his eyes at Gavin, making him almost smile for the first time that evening. “So, Bruce, has Drew Delaney been working you fairly hard at the newspaper?” Gavin asked.
“Like a dog, sir.”
“You really don’t have to call me ‘sir.’ ‘Gavin’ will do.”
“All right, sir. Gavin. Sorry, but my father is very strict about me being respectful to my elders.”
“Pretend I’m your age tonight. Exactly how old are you? Twenty-five?”
“Twenty-four, sir. Gavin. Twenty-five in September. Got a big party planned. Are you and Mrs. Kirkwood coming?”
“Don’t know. We haven’t been invited.”
“Oh, you will be. My parents will want all the best people there.” The bartender set down his drink. Bruce took a big slug. His throat muscles worked as he tried to stifle a gag, and tears rose in his eyes. In a moment, he managed in a gravelly voice, “Tastes damn good after a hard day.”
The bartender quickly turned his back. J.C. looked down, hiding laughter. Gavin wondered what awful thing he’d done today to deserve the company of this clown. “Are you bringing Rachel as your date to the party?” Gavin deliberately asked before the boy had fully recovered.
Bruce nodded, swallowed, and cleared his throat. “Yes,” he ground out Another swallow. “Yes, sure. She is my girl. I plan on marrying her someday.”
“Really? Does she know that?”
“I haven’t formally proposed. Don’t want to get her hopes up. Actually, truth be known, I don’t want to spend money on some hunk of a diamond before I have to.” Bruce laughed uproariously at this witticism. “But when the time comes, she’ll say yes. She realizes, like I do, that we’re made for each other.”
God I hope not Gavin thought. I always rather liked Rachel. “And when the time comes, you’ll buy her that hunk of a diamond,” he said instead.
“I sure will.”
“With that grand salary you make as a reporter for the Register?”
“Not a chance of that. Thank God for trust funds. I’ll get her something around three carats. Hell, four. I’ll want everyone to know she’s mine.” He gulped more whiskey. “This stuff gets better with every sip.”
“Better take it easy. It slips up on you faster than those strawberry daiquiris.”
“Oh, I was just joking,” Bruce lied. “I don’t drink that crap.”
Gavin pretended to be amused. “I didn’t think so. You’re too much of a man for a girly drink.”
“Darn tootin'.” Bruce looked surprised at the country expression that had just escaped his Princeton-educated mouth. “How’s Mrs. Kirkwood these days?”
“Not so well. Her friend Lottie is missing. But I’m sure you know about that.”
“Sure I do.” Bruce looked meaningfully at the bartender who asked, “Another double?” Bruce nodded yes. He intended to be one hell of a man tonight. “I know about Lottie Brent. I’ve heard about her all my life. She’s sort of a town character, isn’t she? Tell me, Mr., uh … Gavin, has she always been crazy?”
Gavin stiffened at the young man’s snickering tone. “She’s been a friend of my wife’s since childhood. I don’t think Ellen would appreciate hearing Lottie called crazy.”
“Yeah, I get it. But between you and me, Gavin, just how nuts is she?”
Gavin had come into contact with Lottie maybe five times in his life. She’d never said much to him, and what she had said didn’t sound in any way like the conversation of an average person. But she was Julianna’s mother, for God’s sake, and he couldn’t bear to hear this snide little twerp making fun of her. Still, Gavin needed to watch himself. He couldn’t act too incensed about matters concerning Julianna without arousing suspicions.
“I think Lottie Brent is what you’d call eccentric,” he said, forcing himself to sound offhand. “She doesn’t look at the world quite like the rest of us do. And she had some bad experiences when she was young.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Gavin said, although he did. The shed. The bearing. The rape. “Something pretty upsetting a long time ago. And her mother died when she was young and she was left in the hands of an unsuitable father.”
“Did he abuse her? Sexually, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” Gavin returned irritably. What was going on with this jerk, anyhow? “I never heard anything about abuse.” He nodded to the bartender and, to his dismay, so did Bruce. “Are you sure you’re up to another one of those?”
“At least one more. It’s good stuff.”
“Yes, it is.” Gavin tried to sound pleasant, although he wished he hadn’t just ordered another drink. Otherwise, he could leave the bar without appearing rude. Not that he cared what Bruce Allard thought of him, but if Bruce were insulted, he’d tell his daddy who would report to Ellen who would then give Gavin hell for a number of hours. He groaned inwardly and searched his mind for further conversation. “Bruce, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you in here before.”
“I’ve been in the restaurant dozens of times and always had my drinks with my dinner. Along with a bottle of the finest wine they have on the list, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But once in a while, I get an urge to just sit with the guys, do some real drinking, shoot the breeze, you know.”
“Oh yes.”
“And frankly, you’ve always struck me as a really interesting guy, Gavin, but I’ve never gotten a chance to talk to you without our mothers around.” Gavin gave him a hard look and Bruce turned crimson. “I mean my mother and your wife. Whew, this whiskey does a number on your tongue.” He glared at his empty glass as if his faux pas were its fault.
“I told you to take it easy.”
Bruce laughed heartily. Gavin stared. “Anyway, about Julianna. How much do you know about her?”
Gavin became aware that Kit had slid onto a stool beside J.C. She was putting on a good act of devoting her attention to her boyfriend, but Gavin knew she was really listening to him and Bruce.
“I know very little about Julianna,” Gavin said stiffly.
Their drinks arrived and Bruce bolstered himself with a hearty gulp. “C’mon, Gavin, you must have known her since you married Ellen when Julianna was a teenager and friends with Kit.”
“I met her. We didn’t exactly hang out together.” Bruce laughed. “Good one! But I guess she hung out with just about every other guy in town.”
“And what would make you think that?”
“Talk. Just talk around town.”
“I thought journalists were taught not to automatically accept ‘just talk’ as fact. The journalists with integrity, that is.”
“Well, sure. We are. We do. That’s why I’m double-checking here, not just printing gossip. See, Delaney put me in charge of covering Julianna’s murder investigation.”
“Oh.” Apparently, Bruce didn’t think Gavin read the newspaper and saw that every big article about Julianna Brent’s murder had been written by Drew Delaney, not Bruce Allard. Gavin asked, “What do Julianna’s teenage years have to do with anything?”
“Why, they could be the key to her murder!”
“How?”
Bruce looked at Gavin as if he were stupid. “Because someone who had a grudge on her back then is her killer.”
“I see. This person got mad at her when she was a teenager and then waited … what? Fifteen, sixteen years to do her in?”
“Maybe.”
“A very patient person.”
Brace’s eyes narrowed. “A lot of killers are patient, Gavin.”
“Really? I didn’t know that, but I guess in your line of work, you’ve come in contact with many more dangerous people than I have.”
“You betcha. I’ve met some real badasses.” Brace stared into his drink, clearly ruminating on all the badasses he’d known in his spectacularly pampered life. The memories drove him to gulp more whiskey. Gavin decided the kid’s head was probably beginning to spin. He would be leaving soon, thank God.
Then, suddenly, Bruce turned and pinned Gavin with his clear, laser-blue eyes. “So, Gavin my man, why haven’t you come forward with what you know about Julianna’s death?” he asked loudly. “Because I believe you know who killed her.”
Gavin felt as if he were plunging through icy water, unable to breathe, to see, to move. He felt his mouth open slightly, then close again. Was it his imagination, or had the bar gone entirely silent, every ear trained on what words would next come out of his dry mouth? At last, he was able to draw a shallow breath, enough to utter a weak, “What makes you believe I know who killed Julianna?”
“Studying people. Watching people. Knowing people.” Bruce no longer sounded even slightly drunk. “I’m very good at that because I’m also good at playing the fool, so people don’t take me seriously and they let their guard down around me. I’ve been watching you all summer, Gavin. Watching you at those parties at Philip Hamilton’s house. Watching you drool over Julianna. Watching you follow her around town. You had to know exactly what was going on in her life, and that means that you probably also know who killed her. If you didn’t do it yourself out of jealousy, that is.”
Gavin sat blinking at the arrogant, good-looking young man sneering into his face. Bruce Allard couldn’t have been more proud of himself than if he’d just forced Gavin to confess to every murder and act of violence committed during the past few hideous days. And Bruce had done it because he thought he could get away with it, because everyone believed Gavin Kirkwood had no backbone, no spirit, no manhood left in him.
Slowly, a white-hot anger built within Gavin. It started in the pit of his stomach, worked its way into his chest, making him feel as if his lungs were going to explode, and finally it reached his eyes. Bruce still stared at him intently, triumphantly. And then, as the fury began to show in Gavin’s gaze, Brace’s wavered. So did his smile. He pulled back fractionally, unwilling to retreat, but somehow realizing the impossible—that he’d miscalculated, he’d gone too far, he might be in trouble.
A wave of victory surged through Gavin as he saw the kid’s uncertainty. Gavin had not experienced anything like victory for a very long time, and he felt wonderful. Exhilarated. Invincible.
Holding fiercely to his fury, to the sharp-edged look he knew lingered in his eyes, his slid off the barstool and leaned close to Brace.
“If you were as smart as you think you are, young man, you would have kept your mouth shut,” he said in a low, dangerously affable voice. “After all, if you think I’ve murdered once, even twice or three times to protect myself if you count Claude Duncan and Margaret Taylor, then what’s to stop me from doing it a fourth time?”
Gavin couldn’t believe it. His damned car wouldn’t start. He sat in the parking lot of The Iron Gate in his one-year-old $70,000 Jaguar XK, turning the key again and again only to hear click, click, click. The battery was dead. Or maybe the alternator was shot. He opened the hood, but he really didn’t know what he was looking at. He got back in the car and thought. All the local garages were closed at night. He could probably get Ralph from R & R Auto Repair to help him out but he didn’t have his cell phone with him, and he wasn’t about to slink back into the restaurant after his dramatic departure to make a call. Finally, he decided the car would be safe in the parking lot until tomorrow, and he would walk back to the house only four blocks away.
Although Ellen had retreated to her bed at seven o’clock with a migraine, Gavin had intended to be home by nine. Instead, he’d lingered at the bar until quarter to ten. Now he’d be even later because of the car trouble and the walk. He wasn’t sure if Ellen would still be awake and angry that he’d deserted her, although when she had one of her headaches, she claimed just talking made her feel worse, and she banished him to a guest room for the night. Still, she usually wanted to know that he was in the house, fretting over her. Yes, if she were awake, she would be furious with him. But for once, he didn’t care if she was furious, didn’t dread a scene, had no intention of even checking up on her when he got in.
The night had a dark velvety feel, soft and warm and caressing. A light breeze occasionally sent gauzy clouds skittering across the moon and whispered in the leaves of large, old trees lining the sidewalk. Normally, an evening like this would have stirred a romantic nostalgia in Gavin, a memory of his youth when he still hoped that someday the love of a glorious woman would turn him into a glorious man. Julianna had revived that wonderful hope, but it had ended too soon and too horribly for him to even think about without feeling like a blade had pierced his stomach.
But now he wasn’t thinking about the beauty of the night. He wasn’t thinking about when he was young and there’d been a lovely dark-haired girl he’d thought might be the One. He wasn’t even thinking about the hassle of getting his car out of the restaurant parking lot and finding someone to fix it as soon as possible. He was only thinking of that little ferret, Bruce Allard.
Gavin was astonished by how he had let that spoiled nitwit lead him, fool him, bait him. He couldn’t have helped having Bruce sit down beside him, but he could have quickly finished his own drink and left, not sat there allowing himself to be manipulated by an arrogant young jerk who thought he was smart and cagey, but who didn’t know a damned thing.
Except how to adroitly lure me right into that outburst, Gavin thought glumly. By tomorrow, half the town would have heard an exaggerated version of the scene that had
Gavin Kirkwood clearly, undeniably, viciously threatening Bruce Allard’s life! A little groan escaped Gavin. What would be the repercussions of that rumor? What would be the repercussions of there having been an altercation at all? Exactly how sick was he of always worrying about any repercussions?
Around one hundred feet ahead and across the street, Gavin saw with relief the carriage lamps glowing atop brick columns that marked the entrance to his driveway. The four drinks he’d had at the bar had finally kicked in, slowing his walk, causing him to take the overly careful steps of an old man. And he felt dizzy. Only a bit, but enough to be a nuisance like a mosquito buzzing in his ear. He should have eaten dinner. Instead, he’d drunk all that whiskey on an empty stomach. Maybe having a sandwich when he got home would help. A hearty sandwich, two aspirins, and a B complex vitamin. Hadn’t he read that B complex helped with hangovers? And a big glass of water. Water with lots of ice …
He stepped off the curb and began meandering across the quiet residential street, his thoughts consumed with the makeshift meal he’d soon fix for himself, his gaze focused on his feet that he couldn’t seem to stop lifting too high.
Headlights snapped on, sending beams down the street, catching him directly in their glare. Gavin blinked and turned away his face. Dammit, didn’t the driver realize he had on his high beams? Gavin picked up speed to get out of the idiot’s way, then suddenly realized the idiot was picking up speed, too. An engine throbbed louder with growing momentum, and tires spun relentlessly over smooth concrete.
Gavin looked back just in time to see a dark form behind the wheel—almost leaning over the wheel as if in anticipation—before the front bumper hit his lower legs, and the grill crashed into his thighs. For a moment he felt as if he were flying then careening downward, his left hip striking the car’s hood, his shoulder smashing against the windshield. The car never slowed and Gavin lay splayed across the front of it for nearly forty feet before a piece of his shirt that had tangled on a windshield wiper tore loose, allowing him to roll off and have his right ankle snapped by a steel-belted radial tire.
The car sped on, leaving Gavin lying limp in the street as the velvety, romantic night closed around him.