“Somerton? It’s me, Shelby.”
She counted to three while Somerton collected himself, then smiled as he said, “Shelby? Shelby, is that really you? Are you all right? Where are you?”
“You know darn full well where I am, Somerton Taite,” she told him, “and you’ve known all along. That’s why you sent Quinn to watch over me. For which you have my undying thanks. Don’t you want to know why I called? I wanted you to be the first to know that we’re getting married.”
She could hear Jeremy in the background, rhapsodizing over the fact that she was on the other end of the phone, then listened as Somerton, his hand over the receiver, said something that sounded like: “Married. Yes. That is what she said. What? Yes, yes, I’ll do that. I’m sure she’ll value your input on both her gown and the flowers. Now calm down before you strain something.”
Shelby laid back against Quinn’s chest and put a hand over her own receiver. They’d spent a lovely night in his bed, and a lovely morning, until she decided that she really should call Somerton. “Jeremy is rhapsodizing, I believe. Isn’t that sweet? You like him, don’t you? I mean, you aren’t upset about him or anything?”
“Not on your life, sweetheart. And remind me to tell you about something Somerton did last time I was there. You’ll love it.”
“Pardon me?” Shelby said, taking her hand away from the phone as she sat up once more. “Say that again, Somerton, all right? I want Quinn to hear this.”
She held the receiver so that they both could listen, looking at each other as Somerton repeated himself. “I said, there’s a warrant out for Parker’s arrest. He’s—”
Quinn grabbed the phone, no trace of humor in his voice as he barked, “Somerton, it’s me, Delaney. Who told you there’s a warrant out for Westbrook?”
“Who told me? Let me think. Oh, and by the way, you still haven’t asked me for Shelby’s hand in marriage. We’ll see to that later, all right. Now... was it Dex Sandler, yesterday afternoon at the club? Or maybe it was Mimi Brock, at last night’s Celebrate June For Our Dolphin Friends dinner? Well, no matter. Everybody was talking about it.”
“About Westbrook being under arrest,” Quinn prodded, trying not to lose his patience. “He is under arrest, isn’t he? Locked up? Or is he out on bail?”
“No, you must have misunderstood me, Quinn,” Somerton said. “I meant that everyone has been talking about Parker, which is what led to the warrant, I believe. I don’t know quite all the particulars, but someone started asking some rather pointed questions about Parker, about his business, and everyone began saying out loud what they had only been thinking, and then someone, I don’t know who, visited the district attorney’s office.”
“Grady,” Quinn said to himself, then only grinned at Shelby as she looked at his quizzically. “Okay,” he said, raising his voice to interrupt Somerton, who was now saying something to Jeremy—something about garden weddings definitely being “in” this season. “So somebody stumbled onto Westbrook’s con—I meant to say, problems—and someone from the district attorney’s office paid him a visit—and then what? Sounds to me like this investigation went a little fast.”
Somerton sighed into the phone. “You do want all the sordid details, don’t you? Very well. Someone went to see Parker, and someone in Parker’s office became quite agitated and, that same day, paid a visit to that somebody’s office downtown. Asking for immunity from prosecution, I believe the term goes. That same day, Thursday, I believe, the warrant was put out for Parker’s arrest. And, before you ask me, no, nobody has seen him since. What? Oh yes, Jeremy, quite right. Jeremy says Parker’s done a flit.”
“Damn,” Quinn said, picking up Shelby’s hand, squeezing it. “Westbrook is on the lam,” he told her, already mentally packing her bags to get her out of East Wapaneken. “All right, Somerton. We were calling you to say that we were planning to remain here for another week or so—your uncle wants to collect a paycheck before he comes home. But now we’ll be leaving today, even if Al stays.”
“Al? Who is Al? Are you saying Uncle Alfred is there? That he’s working? I don’t believe it.”
“We’ll tell you all about it later. Right now I just want to get us packed and out of here.”
He put down the phone, then picked it up again immediately and punched in some numbers.
“Quinn? What’s wrong? You said he’d be arrested; you told me that last night. I don’t see why you’re so upset now, if you already—”
“Shh,” he said, kissing her cheek, then said, “Grady, it’s me. Yeah. Nine o’clock. On a Saturday morning. No, I’m not drunk. Don’t hang up. Westbrook, remember him? There’s a warrant out for him. Do you know anything about that?” He listened for a moment, grinned in spite of himself. “Yeah, as the driven snow, right. Okay, listen to this. He’s skipped, taken off; they can’t find him. Now, what would you do if you were broke, being chased by the cops, and needed to get out of the country? Needed to, before you left the country, make sure you’d have enough money to keep yourself in the style to which you damn well want to stay accustomed?”
There was another pause at Grady’s end, during which time Shelby almost forcibly ripped the receiver away from Quinn’s ear so that she could listen, too.
“If I almost got away with it when I wasn’t even trying to get away with it...” Grady said, thinking out loud.
“Right. That’s what I thought, too.”
“So you woke me up to ask me what you already know? G’bye, Quinn, I’m going back to sleep. Take care of her.”
Shelby took the receiver from Quinn’s hand, replaced it on the hook. “You and your partner believe Parker might actually try to kidnap me? For real?”
Quinn stroked her cheek and tried to push her back down on the mattress, divert her mind for a while. “Now, sweetheart...”
The next thing he knew he was sprawled on the floor and Shelby was pulling on his white dress shirt from the night before, the shirt that made up part of the trail of clothing from the living room to the bedroom of his small apartment.
“Don’t you ‘now sweetheart’ me, Quinn Delaney!” she exploded, searching through more clothes that lay on the floor. “You’re full of it, both you and your rude partner. We said we’re staying her another few days, and we’re staying here another few days. Besides, I’m meeting with the Memorial committee at Tony’s in fifteen minutes to add up our profits. Where are my damn shoes?”
She was angry, more than angry. She was frightened straight down to her bare toes. To think that she had been engaged to marry a criminal—one with two mistresses, no less—was one thing. To believe that he was now going to kidnap her, hold her for ransom? Oh no. No, no, no. That was just too much!
“Shelby, listen to me,” Quinn said, rummaging among the evidence of last night’s passion in order to find his own shoes. “It’s just a hunch, but it’s sure a hell of a lot less than a thirty million-to-one shot, and you know it. The guy obviously doesn’t think like the rest of us.”
Shelby stopped in the act of pulling on the fairly wrinkled slacks to her Armani suit. “He thinks like you, at least,” she said, her fingers clumsy as she zippered the slacks and closed the single button. “And I don’t appreciate being frightened, Quinn. You’re scaring me.”
“That couldn’t be avoided, sweetheart,” Quinn said, following after her as she headed into the bathroom, picked up his toothbrush, and squirted paste on it. “I just wish you were scared enough to let me take you home. I mean, hey, I’d love to hear that Westbrook turned himself in, or that someone caught him trying to hop a plane to Brazil. But he’s been banking on you for too long, sweetheart, banking on your being his salvation. And, one way or another, I think he still sees you that way.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “As the golden goose.”
A shiver ran down Shelby’s spine, and she put down the toothbrush and walked into Quinn’s arms. She pressed her head against his shoulder. “All right, now I’m really scared. Not angry, scared. And I’m not stupid. I’ve lived with the threat of kidnapping all of my life, and I know the consequences of acting as if security isn’t always necessary. But I really want to say goodbye to everyone, Quinn. Can’t we at least do that?”
“Yeah, babe,” he said, stroking her hair. “We can do that. Now, let me throw on some clothes, walk you home to shower and pack, and then we’ll head to Tony’s in time for the meeting. All right?”
“Oh, thank you, Quinn!” she said, standing on tiptoe and kissing him. “But your Porsche will never hold all my luggage. I’ll just pack a few things and we can come back for the rest, all right?”
Quinn agreed, knowing Shelby needed to feel she would be back in East Wapaneken again. He’d agree to dyeing his hair purple, if it would get Shelby moving. Not that he didn’t think he could handle Parker Westbrook III and his two hired goons if the occasion arose. He just didn’t want Shelby in the way if that happened.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, with a worried Brandy bonded to Shelby’s side as if she’d been smeared with glue and stuck there, the three of them headed off down the street, on the way to Tony’s.
“I’m going to miss this place so much,” Shelby said, squeezing Brandy’s hand. “I’m going to miss everybody, especially you and Gary. It’s difficult to imagine life without you now.”
“You can come visit anytime, sweetcakes,” Brandy said, tossing a concerned look in Quinn’s direction. “And, hey, if you want to send Jim Helfrich and the limo to bring me to you, well, I wouldn’t say no. Oh, damn,” she said, stopping on the pavement just before the alleyway. “I forgot the envelopes Tony gave me to hold. Donations, you know. You two go on ahead, and I’ll be right behind you.”
They walked the second block slowly, with Quinn holding Shelby’s hand, with his gaze sweeping the roadway as he watched the coming and going of several cars. Looking ahead, he could see several more cars in Tony’s lot, which wasn’t unusual. As a matter of fact, nothing seemed the least bit unusual or out of the ordinary.
That made Quinn nervous, more on his guard. Not that he wasn’t always on his guard. But he was never nervous, never unsure of himself. It had taken falling in love to do that to him.
They’d just stepped onto the blacktop of Tony’s parking lot when it happened.
The freestanding sign that listed the day’s specials, a low sign on wheels placed at the edge of the parking lot, had blocked Quinn’s view just enough that he didn’t see the man crouching behind it.
Without a sound, the man stood up and made a run at Quinn.
Shelby screamed.
Quinn recognized the guy as the one who had tried to pull Shelby into a car, and cursed himself for being right the one time in his life he didn’t want to be right.
He shot out an arm, deflecting the man’s fairly well telegraphed punch, then stepped forward, planning to chop the side of his hand against the guy’s neck.
The son of a bitch countered the blow. Great, Quinn thought. Damn all the interest in martial arts these days. Just what he needed. A guy who thought he knew how to fight.
But, then, he probably didn’t know how to fight dirty.
Quinn did. He turned his body to one side, balanced his weight on the balls of his feet, dropped his arms to his sides, and all but begged the guy to come at him again.
Shelby ran into Tony’s yelling for help, completely bypassing the police chief who was nearly invisible in his normal stance at the poker machines. “Someone’s after Quinn! Hurry!”
Then she turned and ran outside.
Tony grabbed a cleaver, breaking into a pretty damn good imitation of a run. Joseph and Francis knocked over two tables on their way out the door. The regulars pushed and shoved their combined bulk out of their booth, bringing up the rear.
By the time Shelby was outside once more, Quinn was standing over his attacker, his chest heaving, his fists still clenched as the man writhed in the street, both hands clutching his most tender parts.
“Quinn, you’re all right!” Shelby yelled, running toward him across the width of blacktop.
“No!” he called to her, still trying to catch his breath. “Go inside, Shelby. For God’s sake, get back inside!”
But it was too late. A dark sedan pulled into the parking lot, brakes screeching, and a man jumped out of the passenger door, grabbing Shelby’s arm.
“Parker?” Shelby couldn’t believe it, even with the man standing in front of her, looking more frightened than she did, if that were possible. His fear gave her courage. His rumpled, custom-made tennis whites, probably the only clothes he had on him when he ran from the police, made her laugh. “Parker, you ass.”
Unfortunately, Westbrook’s fear did not give her physical strength, at least not enough to pull free of his grip. He twisted her arm behind her back and began shoving her toward the open car door as the driver yelled, “Come on, come on, move it!”
That’s when Mayor Brobst and her ’67 Caddy, arriving a tad late because of her usual Saturday-morning appointment at Maude’s Curl, Cut and Color, pulled into the parking lot.
Quinn could see Amelia Brobst glaring at the scene as she peered through the steering wheel from the opposite end of the parking lot, as Bettyann Fink shouted in her ear. Amelia laid on the brake and the horn, and gunned the engine in warning.
Quinn looked at the man on the ground and decided he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. He looked at Shelby, who was wincing as Westbrook tried to make her walk toward the car. She wasn’t making his job easy, bless her, not that she couldn’t do with a little help.
Which she got.
In spades.
Francis, bigger than Joseph by a few pounds—which was like saying that maybe having two tons of bricks fall on your head is less painful than having two tons plus five pounds of bricks fall on your head—grabbed Westbrook from behind, catching him in a bear hug and lifting him straight off the ground.
He then deposited him back on the ground, from rather a great height, and Joseph took over.
Joseph kicked him, right in the Third’s hopes for a Fourth.
Meanwhile, Mayor Brobst gunned her engine again, put the Caddy into gear, and aimed that tank of a car straight at the sedan that was suddenly moving toward her—and escape—in what looked like a serious game of chicken.
Quinn held onto Shelby and watched, knowing deep inside him that Amelia Brobst was a real gamer. She wasn’t going to back down. Not a bit. Not Amelia and her hearing aid and her straw hat with the flowers on it... and her Caddy, which had all the stopping power of a Mack truck.
The sedan kept going.
The Caddy kept coming.
Shelby closed her eyes.
The sedan swerved at the last moment, heading straight into one of the late Mayor Brobst’s shade trees, finally putting at least one of those pavement-tilting bits of bad planning to good use.
The regulars, feeling a bit left out, as Tony and his two helpers were all holding cleavers over the goon still lying in the street, went over to the sedan, ripped the driver’s side door clean off the car, and yanked the driver out onto the ground.
“Shouldn’t somebody rescue them, darling?” Shelby asked, having at last opened her eyes. “Parker and his friends, that is.”
“All taken care of, my dear,” Uncle Alfred said as he joined them on the blacktop. “I phoned the police as soon as you came into the restaurant.” He looked at Parker, who was in the process of being bounced back and forth between the decidedly playful Francis and Joseph, and winced. “There but for the grace of, etc.,” he said, flinching once more.
A siren wailed in the distance, definitely heading closer, as East Wapaneken’s part time officer responded to Uncle Alfred’s call.
Uncle Alfred looked at Quinn and winked. “All’s well that ends satisfyingly, or whatever. Delaney, my boy, do you think I ought to alert the chief, or should we just let him continue with his game? Oh, why not...”