I picked up my phone again and this time I called Bobby.
“I just hung up from talking to Kit,” he said. “She says her mom isn’t feeling too good. I think she—”
“Bobby, there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, cutting him off. “I think Uma Lawrence and Will Baron knew each other before she came to Middleburg. I also don’t think her name is really Uma Lawrence. I think she’s an imposter and that Will Baron helped her fake Uma’s identity so she could collect Roxy’s inheritance.”
His silence went on for a long time. Then he asked, “Why do you think that?”
I told him, explaining how Will could have passed along information to the fake Uma so she’d know enough about her “relatives” to seem authentic. A bottle of hair color to turn her into a redhead, if she wasn’t one already, and she could pass as Roxy’s long-lost granddaughter. Though everyone in town said Uma was the spitting image of Roxy, we were also expecting her to look like her grandmother sixty years ago, so we’d made it that much easier for her to pull off the con.
When I had finished talking, Bobby said in a grim voice, “I think I’ll go have a talk with her. In the meantime, we’re looking for Will Baron. We just found out someone cut the brakes to the car Vivienne was driving.”
“Will always drove that car,” I said. “So you would think maybe someone had it in for him. Unless he cut them himself because he knew Vivienne would be driving.”
Bobby let out a sound like an explosion and said, “I’d better get going.”
“I’ll drive over to Foxhall Manor to check on Faith,” I said. “I’m only ten minutes away. I’ll find out what’s going on.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m texting Kit right now to let her know.… Hang on a sec.… She wants to know if you’ll call when you get there. She can’t raise anybody at the front desk, so she’s starting to panic.”
“Tell her not to worry,” I said. “I’ll call her in about fifteen minutes.”
* * *
I FOUND WILL BARON before Bobby did.
He was leaving Faith’s apartment as I stepped out of the elevator ten minutes later. The door closed behind me and he looked up, pausing in mid-step. Our eyes met, and in that heart-stopping moment I knew I had guessed right, that Will had planned his wife’s death so he and the woman pretending to be Uma Lawrence could disappear with the money she’d inherited from Roxy.
I knew why he was here, too. Faith thought someone had poisoned Roxy and that she was next in line because of something she had overheard. Neither Kit nor I had believed her.
I believed her now. Roxy was dead. Was Faith …
“What were you doing in Faith Eastman’s apartment? Is she all right?” My voice cracked with fear.
“You again.” Will’s face contorted, and now he looked mean and dangerous. He ran toward me.
I spun around and smashed the elevator call button with the palm of my hand. The car hadn’t left the floor, thank God. With a quiet whoosh, the door slid open and I got in, pulling my phone out of my pocket. He was right behind me, slipping in as it closed, trapping me with him. I reached for the button to open the door, but he shoved me against the wall so hard, my head rattled, then grabbed my phone and put it in his jacket. He wrenched my purse off my shoulder and kicked my cane, which clattered to the ground. Finally, he twisted my arms behind my back in a way that was painfully familiar.
He’d been my intruder the other night, smart enough to fake a Hispanic accent and send everyone in the wrong direction, looking for a disgruntled former employee or even someone sent by Gino Tomassi. That night, I had pleaded with my attacker to take what he wanted as long as he didn’t hurt Hope. This time, I gritted my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing it hurt. He held my wrists with one hand while he punched the button for the fourth floor, the top floor, with the other.
“If you make any noise,” he said in my ear, “scream or do anything stupid, I’ll kill you. I’ve got a knife.”
I felt something hard and long—like a knife blade—against my back. “Behave,” he said.
“What have you done to Faith?” I said. “If you’ve hurt her—”
“You’ll do what? A cripple like you going to take me on? Just try it.”
“The police know about you,” I said, and now I didn’t care what he did to me as long as he got what was coming to him. “I talked to Faith’s son-in-law before I drove over here. He’s a detective with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department and he’s looking for you and your girlfriend. Whoever Uma Lawrence really is. You just made it personal for him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Next time, don’t pick such a dumb partner. She made too many mistakes. My three-and-a-half-year-old niece could have figured out she was an imposter.”
“Shut up.”
The elevator reached the fourth floor and the door slid open. Where was anybody in this place when you needed them—a maid, a nurse, even one of the residents? Instead, the floor was quiet and deserted.
Will Baron marched me down the hall to the emergency exit. He opened the door and said, “Let’s go. Up the stairs.”
“I can’t climb stairs without my cane unless I hold on to a railing. Either let go of my hands or carry me,” I said, and hoped he didn’t know that wasn’t entirely true.
He took a moment to consider his options and then released his grip on me.
“Get moving,” he said. “And don’t try anything. We’re going to the roof.”
“Where’s the real Uma Lawrence?” I asked as I started up the steps. “And what happened to Roxy? Was her death timed conveniently for you, or did you do something to her?”
“Shut up,” he said again. “I should have made sure you were dead the first time I had the chance.”
“The night you broke into my house.”
“You left the damn door unlocked. I didn’t need to break in.”
We reached the landing at the top of the stairs. The sign on the battleship gray security door said ROOFTOP TERRACE. Another sign on the wall said CLOSED UNTIL APRIL 1.
“Open the door,” he said.
I pretended to push on the handle. “It’s locked. Or it’s stuck.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He leaned around me and reached for it.
I drove my elbow into his stomach and then brought it up hard, so it caught him on the chin. He doubled over with a painful ouf and staggered, losing his balance on the concrete staircase. I didn’t turn around to see what happened, but I think he fell back against the railing, because I heard a dull thud, followed by the sound of something clattering down the stairs. His knife. Once he found his footing, he would have to retrieve it.
I pushed the door open and fled outside. The long, narrow rooftop garden was surrounded by a wall that had been part of the facade of the original manor house. On either side of the security door, patio tables and chairs that were normally set out for the residents in warmer weather were stacked and covered with protective tarps next to a row of heavy umbrella bases lined up like soldiers. I yanked an umbrella pole from one of the bases and shoved it under the door handle, hoping it might slow Will Baron down temporarily. Then I took another pole as a makeshift cane.
I’d been there before to have tea with Faith. This part of the roof was at the back of the main building and was connected to what had been a large open-air pavilion that was now covered by an enormous glass-and-steel-framed skylight.
I can’t run anymore. It still terrifies me to realize this, but I can’t. So I walked as fast as I could toward the pavilion while the security door handle rattled ominously. The melting snow had turned the roof into an ice rink, and I slipped once, catching myself in time with the umbrella pole.
The drop from the roof garden to the skylight looked like it was about six or seven feet. I had no idea how much weight tempered glass could handle before it cracked, but I was about to find out, unless I slipped and rolled off when I landed. Or else fell through to the courtyard below. Then I’d know for sure. But Will Baron probably weighed at least twice what I did, and I was betting he wouldn’t dare follow me. I hiked myself up on the wall and swung my good leg over. My foot caught on a small ledge on the other side that was about as wide as a windowsill. I’d barely had time to hoist myself completely over the wall when he started yelling that he would find me wherever I was hiding and make me sorry. I clung to the ledge like a limpet and dug my fingernails into the old mortar.
On the ground below, vehicles sped up the drive to Foxhall Manor, stopping in front of the building. Officers from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t have used their lights and sirens, since it would terrify the elderly residents, but I knew the cavalry had arrived and help was on the way by the sound of doors slamming and urgent voices shouting. I closed my eyes and prayed. How long until they figured out we were on the roof?
“You. Get up here.” I looked up and saw the hatred and fury on Will Baron’s face.
“No.”
He put his foot on the ledge and brought his heavy boot down on my fingers. It hurt like hell, but I clung to my perch. “Two choices. Either I’ll throw you off and you won’t survive that drop to the ground or you can come up here as my hostage. You’ll be my ticket out of here.”
“All right,” I said, through gritted teeth. “You win. Help me up.”
He removed his foot. As soon as my hand was free, I pushed myself off the ledge and fell, landing with a teeth-jarring thud on the skylight. The glass cracked under me and I was sure I’d gambled wrong and it was over.
But it didn’t shatter, so I grabbed the nearest steel support and hung on to keep myself from sliding off. Then I looked up at Will.
“If it won’t take my weight without cracking,” I said to him, “it sure as hell won’t take yours without breaking.”
Then I yelled down to the officers mobilized on the ground below, and told them that I was on the roof with Will Baron and he had a knife.
* * *
THE AMBULANCE FOR FAITH had come and gone by the time they got me back on the ground and took me into Foxhall Manor’s small library, just off the main lobby. One of the officers who had rescued me told me Faith was unconscious but still breathing.
“She’s Detective Noland’s mother-in-law,” I said.
“We know,” he said, “and so does Detective Noland. His wife is going to meet the ambulance at the hospital. In the meantime, he wants you to wait here until he arrives. He’s got some questions he wants to ask you.”
I didn’t see Will Baron being escorted out of the building in handcuffs and put into a police cruiser, but Bobby had just arrived and was sitting down with me when another officer showed up and said, “Detective, we found Uma Lawrence. She was in her grandmother’s apartment and she says she’s done nothing wrong. She wants to leave.”
“Stop her.” Bobby got up and walked into the lobby. I followed him.
Uma Lawrence’s sulky mood from a few hours ago when she’d been at the winery was gone, replaced by the desperation of a cornered animal. When she saw me, her eyes blazed.
“You.” She erupted with anger. “You’re responsible for this. I haven’t done anything wrong. You’re trying to sabotage me because my grandmother left me money that you wanted to go to your friends.”
“All I did was figure out why you didn’t want the DNA test,” I said, “because you’re not related to either Johnny or Zara Tomassi. And Mac never asked Will Baron to deliver furniture to the house like you said he had. You two already knew each other and you’d planned this scam together.”
“You’re lying. None of that’s true.”
“We’ve been in touch with Scotland Yard,” Bobby said. “Apparently, the real Uma Lawrence has been missing for two weeks. When she didn’t turn up at work, her boss notified the authorities. And for the record, she’s a brunette, about five two. It’s only a matter of time before we find out who you really are.”
“I want a lawyer,” she said. “I’m done talking.”
“It would go easier on you if you cooperated.”
“Lawyer. Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer.”
Bobby shrugged. “Read her her rights and book her,” he said to the officer. “The charges are grand larceny, impersonation, and possibly the attempted murder of Faith Eastman. Once the British police find Uma Lawrence, they’ll probably have her on kidnapping.” He paused and looked hard at Uma. “Or another charge of murder.”
“You’re making a mistake,” she said. “I didn’t do anything. It was all Will’s idea.”
Bobby looked at her in disgust. “Get her out of my sight,” he said.