Samantha ran to close the kitchen door. Laura and the Colonel had left it standing open in their haste to come to her rescue. Just as she reached it, the Colonel ducked in. One hand raked raindrops out of his hair. The other he held behind his back. “Got a plastic bag?”
“Certainly. What for?”
“Don’t ask.”
Samantha stopped rummaging for a bag for him. “You don’t mean it’s for that snake?” She already knew what it was for. Where was he going to take it, and why?
“Sure I do. They’re good eating.”
“That’s repulsive!” She quivered with indignation.
Laura came in. Not wanting to further upset her friend, she’d been hiding in the bathroom pretending to freshen up until she could stop shaking. “What are you yelling about, Samantha?”
The Colonel was tying a knot in the top of a heavy plastic bag from Samantha’s favorite shoe store. “Mind if I put this in your refrigerator until I leave.”
Samantha’s mouth dropped open.
Laura, in total ignorance of the bag’s contents, answered for her friend. “Of course she doesn’t mind.”
Samantha just stood trying to catch her breath and get her eyes back behind her eyelids.
Laura, mistaking her friend’s explosive state for delayed shock over her close call with the water moccasin, told her, “You just sit down, dear, I’ll fix the coffee.”
Samantha went to the table, sat as she was told, and closed her eyes.
“Snap out of it, Sam. It won’t hurt anything, and Frank will be forever in your debt. He loves ‘em.”
Laura asked, “Frank is your cook, isn’t he?”
“Cook, valet, butler, chauffeur . . . you name it, that’s Frank.” He peered at Samantha. “Come on, Sam. We have a lot to talk about here.” When she neither replied nor opened her eyes he asked, “You okay, Sam?”
At that, her eyes snapped open and shot daggers at him. “I am fine, thank you, Colonel McLain. I am just fine! I always keep water moccasins in my refrigerator!” Her voice held a note of hysteria.
McLain stepped a little back from her. Hysterical women made him nervous.
Laura left the coffee maker to do its job and joined them at the table. “What a silly thing to say, dear.” She patted Samantha’s hand. “You’re just in shock. And who could blame you,” she soothed. Her dark hair swung forward as she bent to peck Samantha on the cheek.
“Actually . . .” McLain began to confess.
“Not a word!” Samantha commanded, her eyes narrowed and blazing. She wasn’t going to let him upset Laura. “Not one more word!”
“Okay, Sam. Don’t get your knickers in a twis . . .”
“Be silent!” Both of the others could hear Samantha’s teeth click together on the ‘t’ at the end of the word. The Colonel was instantly silent, both eyebrows approaching his hairline. Gingerly, he sat down across from Samantha.
Laura looked from one to the other, her gaze bewildered.
Samantha sat breathing deeply and rhythmically. After a long moment, she said, “I’m all right, now. I’m all right. We can talk.”
McLain appraised the calm voice and decided to accept her rigid control as normal behavior. Sheeesh. So he put a little snake meat in her fridge. What did she want him to do, waste it? Women!
Outwardly, McLain curbed his disapproval of her peculiar attitude. Perhaps it was better that she was on her high horse anyway. There were far more important things to be concerned about, and the most important was the fact that somebody had obviously just tried to kill Samantha Masters.
“Listen, Sam . . . antha.”
Samantha’s head swiveled toward him. Had he really said her full name? Either she was more in shock than Laura thought or she was hallucinating. Eyes wide she asked, “Did you just call me ‘Samantha’?” Her voice showed she was incredulous.
“Don’t get used to it, lady.”
“I didn’t even hope it would last.” She cocked her head, considering him a moment. “You must really be worried about me.”
“Damn straight.”
Samantha didn’t even flinch at the profanity.
McLain shot a glance full of concern at Laura. “Laura?”
“Yes, John?”
“Would you take Samantha home with you tonight? I’d like to do a sweep of the house with Frank before I let her stay here again.”
Samantha didn’t even challenge the absurdity of his thinking that he had anything to say about where she stayed. It hadn’t previously occurred to her there might be more than one water moccasin in the house.
One thing was certain, the mere suggestion that there might be another snake made her extremely amenable to his suggestion that she spend the night elsewhere. She hadn’t the foggiest intention of objecting to him bossing her around at this particular time. The idea that he, not she, would be the one to find any residual reptiles appealed to her too strongly.
Laura didn’t notice. She just drew her sandaled feet up away from the floor and clasped her arms around her legs, her feet in the chair. Obviously, she hated even the idea that there might be more snakes.
“Not to worry,” McLain told her. “The mutt’s under the table.”
Samantha shot him a poisonous look.
“Okay. The hero mutt’s under the table.”
Laura put her feet back on the floor. It was an extremely tentative movement.
“Look, you two. What we need to discuss is that this was an obvious attack on Sam.”
There it was again—Sam. Samantha’d known it wouldn’t last.
McLain watched her closely. “Can you think of any reason the vandal would want to harm you, now?”
Samantha shook her head. “No. No I can’t.”
Laura kept looking down at the floor under the table. “I’ve talked to Lieutenant Nichols, and he said they haven’t made a connection between the first murder and Mrs. Charles’s murder. Maybe there isn’t one, but I can’t help feeling that there’s got to be one between Olivia’s murder, Jasmine’s accident, and this attempt on your life.”
“I might not have died.”
“Lady, if you’d put your head on one of those pillows, you’d have died. Hit in the neck, the venom would have gone straight to your brain and you’d have shut down in a matter of minutes.”
Laura gulped and turned pale.
“Oh, Rags.” Samantha had only thought of how brave her little friend had been. Now the full realization hit her that without his intervention, she’d be dead. She bent to scoop him up.
Laura spoke sharply. “Just leave him on the floor right now, please. I’ll buy him a big sirloin steak tomorrow. I promise. Just please don’t move him from guarding my feet.”
“Yeah, Sam. Leave him in case there’s anything else here.”
Laura burst out, “That’s done it! Get your raincoat, Samantha. Any intelligent conversation you expect from me you’re going to have to come to my house for. I’ll lend you a nightgown and a toothbrush.”
“Geeee, thanks.” The Colonel couldn’t resist.
“Not you!” Laura glared at him. “I was offering Samantha.”
Samantha looked at her friend from under frowning eyebrows. “I’m not leaving Rags.”
“Of course, you’re not. Rags must come, too.” Samantha was speechless. Laura must really be upset. She’d never let Rags, whom she always referred to as a destructive little monster, into her perfectly appointed home if she weren’t desperately concerned for his mistress’s welfare. And maybe her own sandaled feet.
“Right! Sounds like a plan.” McLain was approving. “Now let’s get it in gear. We need to talk, then you two need to get a good night’s sleep. It’s time to stop playing with this damned vandal and get down to business.” He opened the door and waved his hand. “Out!”
Samantha and Laura didn’t need another invitation. Huddled together under Samantha’s raincoat, they ran across the lawn to the gates of Laura’s estate like Olympic sprinters. McLain loped along after them with t
he protesting Yorkshire terrier under one arm, his hand clamped around the dog’s muzzle.
“Wow! That’s really coming down.” On Laura’s side porch he shook his head and raindrops flew. “You girls all right?”
“Fine,” they said in unison, stumbling together into Laura’s brightly lit kitchen through the door Alison held open.
“Okay.” He took Samantha’s raincoat from them and snapped it vigorously outside the door to get most of the wet off.
“I’ll take that.” Alison, her eyes huge in a pale face, took it and went to hang it up.
“Quick thinking of you to ring me, Al,” McLain called after her.
“I couldn’t think of anything but calling you.” The girl raised her voice as she moved toward the closet. “Every other thought flew right out of my head when Aunt Laura dashed out of the house with a poker in her hand shrieking ‘I’m coming, Samantha!’ I didn’t know what the trouble was, but I knew you’d be able to fix it.”
“Wasn’t much. Just these two annoying the hell out of a water moccasin.”
Alison reappeared as if by magic. “What!”
“Yeah,” McLain was watching her carefully. “Somebody had put it in Mrs. Masters’s bed.”
Alison cried, “Oh, how awful! I should have gone!”
“Why?” He asked. “They were making it mad enough without your help.”
Alison looked stricken. “That’s not funny!”
“No,” he admitted after a moment. “I don’t guess there is much funny about this damned vandal. I apologize.”
Alison looked close to tears. She went to Samantha. “I’m so sorry I didn’t come, Aunt Samantha. I thought Aunt Laura was just being hysterical, and I pushed it off on the Colonel because I had an important telephone call to make.”
“Well, thank you, Alison!” Laura was offended.
Samantha put an arm around the girl. “It’s all right, darling. Really, the only one of us who did any good was Colonel McLain. If you hadn’t called him the whole thing would have gotten out of hand.” She hugged her hard. “You did just the right thing. I’m grateful that you were here and that you thought of him. He took over and saved the day.”
She began to smile. “Someday, when it is not so fresh in our minds that we can’t get around our terror, remind me to tell you just what your aunt and I were doing when the Marines . . . Marine, singular . . . landed. A slapstick comedy has nothing on us!”
“I’ll say.” McLain tried to put the tense girl at ease. “If you ever need any bedclothes annihilated, call these two.”
A giggle escaped her first, then Alison burst into tears and buried her head on her aunt’s shoulder. “I’m just so g-glad you’re both safe. It must have been h-horrible!”
Samantha, frowning slightly, left Alison crying it out with Laura to comfort her and went to pull out Laura’s coffee maker. Lost in thought, she started making coffee. After a moment, she shook her head and put her mind back on her present chore. There was already a pot of coffee made, she knew, fresh-brewed and sitting on her kitchen counter. So this one was an extravagance. Too bad. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged her back across the street to get the coffee Laura had just made in her kitchen!
***
McLain left to go tell Lieutenant Nichols about what he called ‘this latest development,’ and the three women went to bed. Samantha was more somber than she had ever been in her life as she tucked herself into one of the twin beds in her friend’s elegant guest room.
An attempt had been made on her life. Try as she might, she could hardly believe it. The proofs Colonel McLain had offered had been unarguable, however. She’d finally had to admit he was right. There was no way the snake could have gotten into her house without the help of a human being. Even the most talented reptile could hardly open a locked door.
There was nothing else to conclude. Colonel McLain had pointed out that someone in her Bridge group must have unlocked the outside French doors in her bedroom. They’d have done it when they went to one of her bathrooms, he’d said.
That man could be so indelicate!
Most of ‘the girls’ had gone to use one or the other of her bathrooms, of course. How could they not have with all the coffee they habitually drank as they played?
It was impossible to guess who might have unlocked the French doors to the bedroom patio, though. It was equally impossible to imagine any of them having done it. They were all her friends. Surely none of them wanted to harm her, much less kill her?
None-the-less, John Francis McLain had convinced her that the water moccasin could have gotten into her bed only if someone had re-entered her house and put it there. The odds against a snake placing itself under the bedspread in just the right location to strike at her unguarded throat were past astronomical.
Oh, Lord. That kind of evil transcended even a reptile’s instincts.
She sighed, the sound oddly strangled by the tightness of her throat. She was tense all over. Horror gibbered at the edges of her mind.
More than anything, right now, she wanted to be able to refuse to face the fact that there had been someone in her house—her home—this very day who meant her harm. Someone who helped arrange things so that they, or maybe even someone else who had the intention of killing her, could gain access to her bedroom. Striving to deny it, she turned over and stared at the drapery- covered window.
Lightning flashed behind the damask covering the panes; thunder rumbled shortly after the flash. The storm was nearby and lingering.
Samantha’s unsettling thoughts were lingering, too. Suppose it wasn’t merely that someone who was present had unlocked the door? Someone who’d thought the person who’d asked her to do it had meant no harm? Or suppose, instead, that the very person who wished her ill had sat in her living room all afternoon smiling and playing Bridge? Samantha couldn’t stop the shudder that went through her. And suppose that that person was a cold-blooded killer bent on her destruction.
Samantha turned again to face the door of Laura’s guest room. Hugging her sleeping terrier, she shivered. She didn’t want to think about any of this, but unfortunately, McLain was right. Even though the four of them had sat up half this night trying to figure out a reason for the attack on her and been unable to do it, her life was, most definitely, in danger.
Her flesh crept at the thought. The back of her neck prickled as if there were danger behind her in this very room.
Resolutely, she turned her mind away from it. She thought instead about Alison. The girl had seemed so on edge. Her face had been truly pale, as if she were ill . . . or desperately afraid. What could possibly be the matter with her? She was usually such a happy girl. She . . .
Outside in the hall, a soft step sounded.
Samantha shot bolt upright. Then she sagged back into her pillows. Oh, really. How foolish! She was perfectly safe here. This was Laura’s home, and she knew how carefully Laura locked up at night. Whoever it was passed her door, of course.
Her every sense was stretched to the breaking point now, however. The slightest noise was amplified by her fear, and she heard Alison enter her Aunt Laura’s room. Shortly thereafter, she heard the sound of someone beginning to weep.
Moments later, Alison Fulton was sobbing as if her heart would break.
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning broke sunny and clear, the landscape washed clean by the storm. Samantha refused breakfast at Laura’s, and came home. Here she didn’t have to worry that Rags might commit a doggy faux pas. Nor, thank heavens, did she have to eat the odd, grain-based things that Laura considered a healthy breakfast. Eggs, bacon and toast were a proper breakfast to Samantha, and devil take the cholesterol!
Now that the Colonel had assured her that he and Frank had gone over her house carefully and that there were absolutely no more snakes—or, for that matter, any kind of danger—Samantha wanted to be in her own home. Not that she wasn’t grateful for the good night’s sleep that she’d gotten at her friend’s, for she was.
Very grateful.
The idea of sleeping in her own familiar bed after finding that water moccasin in it had been unthinkable. Even with the bed stripped and remade, she knew that tonight it was going to take an act of courage to lie down on it.
When, just a little while ago, she’d looked into her bedroom and seen that some kind soul—obviously Frank Takamoto—had changed her sheets and her blanket, she’d been very much relieved.
By tonight, she imagined, she’d be able to go to sleep there without too much trouble, in spite of last night’s ghastly experience. Once she’d forced herself to get into the bed it would be all right. She took a deep, steadying breath. And she’d do that only after she’d picked up her pillows—probably with a yardstick, or her faithful favorite umbrella—and inspected under them.
She got up to get a second cup of coffee and had just reached for the pot when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“You must come right away, Samantha!” It was Laura, and she sounded more upset and insistent than Samantha had ever heard her. “I’ve already called Colonel McLain, and he’s on his way over. Please hurry, I don’t know how much more of this she can stand!” Laura hung up on a sob.
Samantha left her coffee sitting on the counter beside her coffee maker. She all but sailed her breakfast dishes into the sink full of soapy water in which the frying pan was soaking free of her scrambled eggs. Then she grabbed her door key and ran. Whatever the matter was, it must be pretty serious for Laura to have lost her habitual poise.
Samantha was in such a rush to get to her distressed friend that she didn’t even notice what flowers were blooming along Laura’s drive! Running all the way, she arrived completely out of breath.
“What . . . is it? What’s . . . wrong?” she panted as she burst into the house. She stopped in mid-stride. “Art Chamberlain! What are you doing here?”
“Sit down before you fall down, Sam.” McLain took her by the arm and started to lead her toward a chair. “I told you you needed to take me up on my offer to start you on a fitness program.”
Samantha shook free, blew the hair out of her eyes and glared at him.
Murder Makes it Mine (Masters & McLain Mystery Book 1) Page 13