by Amanda Quick
“Big society wedding?”
“Yes. It’s amazing how much work is involved. So many decisions to be made. Between you and me, I’m hoping she calls the whole thing off.”
Nick shot her a sharp glance. “Why?”
“She thinks Hamilton Merrick is Mr. Perfect but I’ve got my doubts.”
“Why?”
“On the surface Hamilton does appear to be Mr. Perfect but he is not ready to settle down. Frankly, I don’t think he’ll ever be ready to make a commitment and keep it. I’m pretty sure he’s being pressured by his family, just as I was pressured by mine. Just as Lyra is now feeling pressured.”
Nick was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his tone was oddly neutral.
“Got a Mr. Perfect of your own I should know about?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Maybe someone who might wonder why you suddenly disappeared from Adelina Beach?”
“Just some clients. But when they find out that my studio was destroyed in a fire I think most of them will understand and reschedule. Forget my personal life. Do you really think we’ve got a shot at identifying the arsonist in the photos I took last night?”
“It’s a possibility,” Nick said. “In addition to watching the fire that he set he would have wanted to see if you died in the blaze.”
“If he was hanging around he knows we both escaped.”
“Yes. He must have been unnerved by the loss of his little black book of poems. And now he’s bungled his last commission. Got a feeling that will rattle him.”
“Now we wait to see if he gets desperate and reckless?”
“Right.” Nick flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “It’s Pell’s job to identify the guy and catch him. My job is to keep you safe.”
“You saved my life tonight. I’d say you’re doing your job just fine.”
“The job isn’t finished yet.”
“It strikes me that a bodyguard ought to cultivate a more positive, optimistic outlook. You know, so that the client doesn’t get too scared.”
“In my experience, scared clients tend to follow orders better than the carefree, never-take-anything-seriously kind.”
Vivian glanced down at the hem of her nightgown peeking out from beneath her trench coat. Then she looked at Nick. His hard profile was shadowed with the stubble of a morning beard. His hair was tousled and his shirt was wrinkled and smudged with soot. They both smelled of smoke.
“The front desk staff at the Burning Cove Hotel is going to get a shock when we check in,” she said. “We look like we spent the night in a sleazy nightclub and then wandered into a very bad alley. We don’t even have any luggage.”
“I think we can assume that the front desk staff at the Burning Cove is very well trained. Given the nature of their clientele, they’ve probably seen it all. I’ll bet they won’t even blink at the sight of us.”
“But we’re supposed to be posing as newlyweds, right?”
“So? We decided we couldn’t wait to get to the honeymoon suite at the Burning Cove. We spent our wedding night at a convenient beach.”
She wondered how he had spent his first wedding night. Depressed and mortified because he had been unable to consummate the marriage? Or was his bride the one who had been unable to deal with the physical side of things? Maybe he had discovered too late she was mentally unbalanced? There were not a lot of reasons for granting annulments. They ranged from humiliating to horrifying.
“Before you ask,” Nick said in the same too-even tone he had used when he had asked her if there was a man in her life. “Technically speaking, my marriage that wasn’t a marriage lasted about three weeks. The reality is that it ended on the wedding night.”
“I see,” she said gently. “I’m sure it was complicated.”
“You have no idea.”
Chapter 16
The failure was devastating. Inconceivable. First the loss of the journal and now a fumbled commission. A man could only take so much stress.
Jonathan Treyherne’s fingers trembled so badly he could barely get the key into the lock of his front door. When he finally made it over the threshold he whirled around and slammed the door shut. He took several deep breaths, trying to come to grips with what had happened.
The gas bomb should have worked. If the hastily concocted plan had gone well it would have appeared as if Brazier and her lover had died in a house fire. An accident. People died in house fires all the time. In addition Brazier was a photographer. That meant there were bound to have been a lot of chemicals and film lying around. The chemicals were not highly combustible but most people, including most cops, didn’t know that. As for the film, it was notoriously unstable and flammable.
Yes, the strategy had been put together without a lot of forethought. Nevertheless, it should have worked. But Brazier and the man had made it safely out of the house and now they were gone. Vanished. There was no way to know where they were at that moment; a hotel or an auto court most likely. He would find them eventually. He had to find them. There were only five days left to complete the commission. He had never missed his own, self-imposed deadlines.
He had been distracted by the theft of the journal. That was the problem.
He turned on the light and studied his reflection in the hall mirror. Nothing had changed. Good breeding, an elite education, and a handsome inheritance had endowed him with the perfect camouflage. He was every inch a member of the upper class, descended from an old, established East Coast family. No one suspected the hunter beneath the surface.
Under that charming façade, however, the hunter was howling. His book of encrypted poems had disappeared from the safe less than forty-eight hours after he had undertaken his most recent commission.
He was finding it increasingly difficult to suppress the rising panic. In his frantic effort to identify the thief he had wasted time spying on his elderly housekeeper and gardener. He had broken into their little cottage and torn the place apart. He had found nothing to indicate that they were anything but what they appeared to be—hardworking, respectable, and utterly oblivious to the true nature of their employer. In his frustration he had fired both of them.
He was equally certain that none of his former clients knew who or what he was.
It had dawned on him that since the police had not come knocking on his door he could probably assume that whoever had stolen the journal moved in the criminal underworld. He had a few connections there himself. In desperation he had placed a call to an anonymous telephone number. He had left a message. Within hours the unknown individual who called himself simply the Broker had returned his call. The Broker had said that, for a fee, he would put out the word that someone was willing to pay any amount of money for a certain book of poems. So far no one had signaled a willingness to sell.
Maybe the thief had been killed by a fellow criminal, one who had no interest in a notebook filled with poems. Maybe the volume had wound up in a city dump.
But he was afraid to let himself believe that the journal had been discarded or destroyed by someone who did not comprehend its value. He had to know exactly what had happened to it.
Again and again he told himself that the precautions he had taken by encrypting the commissions were sufficient to protect him. He had tried to convince himself that there was nothing in the journal that could be used to identify him. But he knew that was not entirely true. There was a great deal of information in the poems. Names, dates, addresses, methods. A smart cop or a savvy special agent at the Bureau might be able to put it all together in a way that pointed at him.
The man gazing out from the mirror realized that his sanity if not his life depended on balancing two equally critical tasks. He had to recover the poems before someone realized what they really were.
But he also had to complete the commission. This one was too important. It could not be ignored, set aside, or
postponed.
Jonathan turned away from the looking glass and went into his study. He poured a stiff shot of brandy with a shaking hand and gulped down half the glass before he was satisfied that his nerves had begun to steady.
He lit a cigarette and went to stand at the window, looking out into the endless night. After a moment he began to think clearly once again. The Broker was his best hope for tracking down the journal. For now there was nothing more that could be done on that front.
It was time to get back to the business of completing the commission. The first step was to find Vivian Brazier.
Chapter 17
Burning Cove
The next day . . .
You’re taking a vacation in Burning Cove?” Lyra asked, voice rising in astonishment. “After losing everything in that dreadful fire last night?”
“I didn’t lose everything,” Vivian said. “I’ve got one of my cameras and my handbag. Thankfully I was also able to save my art negatives and my portfolio. I went shopping as soon as the stores opened here in Burning Cove this morning. I picked up some clothes and other essentials. Trust me, I’ve got everything I need.”
Including a very luxurious hideout, she thought. She was currently standing in the living room of one of the small guest villas scattered across the grounds of the Burning Cove Hotel. The French doors were open to the private patio and walled garden. Through the wrought iron gate at the far end of the patio she could see the sun-splashed Pacific.
Nick was lounging in the shade, reading a newspaper. Rex was stretched out beside him. It all looked serene and luxurious. You’d never know there’s a killer after me.
Nick had been right about the impeccable discretion of the hotel staff. No one at the front desk had so much as blinked when the bedraggled, disreputable-looking honeymoon couple had checked in without luggage or wedding rings.
“You shouldn’t be alone, not after what you went through last night,” Lyra said. “I’ll drive down to Burning Cove and keep you company.”
Vivian tightened her grip on the receiver. The last thing she wanted to do was put Lyra in danger.
“We’ve already been over this,” she said. “I’m fine, really. You have a big engagement party to plan, remember?”
Lyra was silent for a long moment. “All right, I can certainly see why you might need some time to recover. But you’re okay, right? You weren’t injured?”
“I’m fine.”
“Thank goodness you were not asleep last night when the fire started,” Lyra said.
“Mm.”
“The press is reporting that the authorities think your chemicals and film may have been the cause of the fire,” Lyra said.
“Yes, I know. But that was not the source, believe me.”
“Maybe an electrical problem? It was an old house, after all.”
“The authorities are conducting a thorough investigation,” Vivian said. “I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”
That was a bit of a stretch. The police and the fire department in Adelina Beach were no doubt doing their best but their resources were limited.
“Doesn’t it seem very strange that not long after you were attacked by the Dagger Killer your cottage is destroyed?” Lyra asked. “Talk about odd coincidences.”
Vivian winced. Lyra was smart. She might be preoccupied with engagement party plans at the moment but that didn’t mean she wasn’t paying attention.
“It is weird,” Vivian said.
“I don’t like this. I still think I should be there with you.”
“Trust me, if I were in danger, I couldn’t be anyplace safer than the Burning Cove Hotel. There is a lot of security here. I promise I’ll let you know if anything changes, Lyra. Meanwhile, don’t worry about me. And whatever you do, don’t wire Mother and Father. They would both be frantic.”
Lyra sighed. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell them everything.”
“I know. I’m choosing later. I just don’t want to deal with Father telling me he warned me that I wouldn’t like living on my own.”
“I understand, believe me.”
“Your turn. How is the planning going for the engagement party?”
“Fine.”
The sudden cool note in Lyra’s voice aroused all of Vivian’s sisterly intuition.
“What’s wrong, Lyra?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that. This is Vivian you’re talking to. Your sister.”
“I’m fine, Viv, really. It’s just that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by all the details. Speaking of which, I’d better get off the phone. Got a meeting with the dressmaker today. Call me tomorrow even if you don’t have any news, all right?”
“Lyra, do you want to talk?”
“Not just now. Bye, Viv. I love you.”
“Love you, too. You know if you need to tell me something, anything—”
There was a click. Lyra was gone.
Vivian set the receiver down in the cradle. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of iced tea. Nick looked up when she walked outside and sat down in a wicker chair.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You mean aside from the fact that my house was burned down last night and my name popped up in the private journal of a paid assassin?”
He raised his brows. “Aside from those issues, yes.”
“It’s my sister. I can’t be certain because she’s a pretty good actress, but I think she’s upset and hiding something from me.”
Nick folded the paper and set it aside. He picked up his tea. “Why would she hide anything from you?”
“For the same reason that I’m hiding things from her. Because she doesn’t want me to worry. Her tone of voice changed when we talked about the engagement party coming up next month.”
“So, something to do with the party?”
Vivian considered that. “More likely something to do with the fact that she’s going to be married to the man of her dreams.”
“Bridal jitters?”
“Maybe. Yes, I think so.”
“She wouldn’t be the first person to have second thoughts,” Nick said.
Vivian raised her brows. “You sound like you’ve had personal experience.”
Nick reached out and rested his hand on Rex’s back. The dog immediately raised his head in response. Alert but not alarmed, not yet at any rate.
“Unfortunately,” Nick said, “the bride did not pay attention to what her intuition was trying to tell her until it was too late.”
“Too late?”
“Patricia had a nervous breakdown on what was supposed to be our wedding night. The marriage was never consummated.”
The atmosphere on the patio suddenly became very still. Vivian held her breath, waiting for secrets to be revealed. She watched Nick with the same kind of focus that she used when she took photos. The energy around him was as strong and vital as ever but the shadows that she had sensed just beneath the surface grew more intense.
“What happened?” she asked, mesmerized.
“I told you, the marriage was annulled.” Nick smiled a bleak smile. “According to the law it never existed.”
“Were the grounds failure to consummate the relationship or mental instability?”
“No,” Nick said. “The grounds were bigamy. The woman I married was already legally wed to another man. Patricia had done her best to assume another identity, but on our wedding night she lost her nerve because she felt guilty. We arranged for a quiet annulment.”
“Did she go back to her real husband?”
“No. She was afraid of him. With good reason. He tracked her down and tried to kill her.”
And suddenly Vivian could see the rest of the story as clearly as if she were looking at Nick through the lens of a camera.
<
br /> “Patricia’s husband is dead, isn’t he?” she said.
She stopped there because she could not bring herself to probe any deeper. Nick had a right to his secrets. But he picked up where she had left off, answering the obvious follow-up question in a way that made her realize he was carefully choosing each word.
“His name was Fulton Gage,” Nick said. “He fell from the rooftop of a hotel in San Francisco. Broke his neck.”
She caught her breath. “Suicide?”
“Yes, according to the authorities.”
“Hang on, did this happen about a year ago? I was still living in San Francisco at the time. I remember something in the papers. Two men were supposedly fighting over a woman. One of the men—the husband—jumped. The authorities said he was evidently distraught because his wife had run off with another man.”
“There was a little more to the story,” Nick said. “His plan was to shoot me first, but in the fog he ran out of ammunition. He couldn’t see more than two or three feet. Unfortunately, he had Patricia. She was supposed to be hiding in a safe location but she knew that Gage would probably try to kill me. She felt guilty because she had put me in harm’s way. She went to him. Pleaded with him not to hurt me. Offered to go back to him. He grabbed her and then he used her to draw me out onto the roof.”
“So the press got it right. The fight was over a woman. One man wanted to murder her. The other saved her life.”
“It sounds simple when you put it like that.”
“I’m sure it was anything but simple,” Vivian said. “How did you manage to save Patricia?”
“He was obsessed with the need to control her. I used that obsession to make him lose what little self-control he possessed. I pointed out that he was obviously so weak willed any woman could manipulate him. He had a gun. I figured he would either make a run for it when he ran out of ammunition or try to charge me. He came at me, following my voice in the fog. He had the knife that he had planned to use on Patricia. When he finally saw me, I’m sure that all he could make out was my silhouette. He didn’t realize I was standing right at the edge of the roof. He lunged forward . . .”