Alan turned to Neil and smiled. "To be honest, I thought that showed real ingenuity. But we plan to keep our keel under wraps until we've won the Cup, just the way the Aussies did in 1983."
Quinta, too, seemed anxious to avoid the real point of Alan Seton's visit. "I was wondering," she began hesitantly. "Normally in the early trial races, some of the boats hold back their best performances. They don't want to show their hand or peak too soon. But if you take the chance of not looking good, won't you scare off the funds you need in corporate sponsorship? Nobody wants to back a slow horse."
Her voice was quavering a little; she refused to meet Alan's gaze. It was very odd; Neil had always thought of his youngest daughter as exceptionally poised. And yet here she was, staring at the lamp behind Alan's head. Was she worried about his reaction to the photograph in Cup Quotes? She damn well should be, but somehow Neil thought not.
Alan, meanwhile, seemed impressed by the sharpness of Quinta's observation. More than impressed; he was downright pleased, as if she were a star pupil of his. What the hell right did he have to be pleased?
"You've just hit on our biggest dilemma," Alan said. "It's maddening. We've got to look impressive and still not give away the store to the competition. We'll all be sailing a fine line and hoping the sponsors can recognize sandbagging when they see it. The trouble is, some of them don't know a mainsheet from a bed sheet."
Who cared about fundraising? Cindy Seton was still alive! And yet the man who was her husband hadn't even brought up her name.
"This is all very well," Neil interrupted, conscious that he was bludgeoning his way into their exchange, "but maybe we should get to the point. You have better things to do with your time," he said, turning to Alan, "so here it is: the woman who poisoned my dog in my yard was the same woman who ran me down." He wondered why he chose to put it so brutally. "I'm sorry I can't make this more palatable to you. I know she's your wife—"
"That's not an issue," Alan said quickly.
"—and I know this is a hell of a distraction—"
"Now there you have a point," he agreed, his look grim.
"My father didn't want me to tell you," Quinta cut in. "But something has to be done, and soon. If it was just a question of an occasional rock through our living room window, we could put up with it—"
"Hold it. Back up," Alan demanded, "and start from the beginning."
Quinta did, with help from her father. From the original poison pen note to the gruesome episode of the night before, she laid out the campaign of terror before Alan. She tried not to sound lurid; she didn't need to. It was obvious, at least to Neil, that Alan was profoundly affected by her story: not once did his gaze leave Quinta's face, and when she was through, he whispered only, "My God."
"I'm accustomed to thinking that Cindy Seton ruined my father's life," Quinta added, with a quick look at Neil. "But now I think that she must feel my father ruined hers. You do believe us, don't you?"
"Oh yes," Alan answered grimly. "It's her style, all right. Now that I think about it, she has to be behind the pizzas, too." Quinta nodded, and Neil looked on in confusion. "I've never accepted her suicide," Alan went on. "For one thing, there was that damn shoe that she left behind in the Mercedes. One blue high-heeled shoe, never worn—and I think there might have been some pearls missing, though I can't be sure of that."
"Wouldn't the insurance company have a record?" asked Neil.
Alan shook his head. "None of her jewelry was insured. She'd been robbed before, and yet she insisted on wearing the originals everywhere. They wouldn't touch her after the first claim. Besides, Cindy bought new things all the time. She didn't keep track."
"It wasn't the perfect crime, in other words. Just close enough?" Quinta was sitting in the loveseat with her legs folded under her, chin on her fists, blond hair falling over her shoulders, eyes fixed in rapt attention on Alan's thoughtful face.
"Exactly," answered Alan, returning the intensity of her gaze. "Nothing could be proved."
For a moment no one said anything, and Neil felt eerily invisible: something was happening in the room, and he wasn't a part of it. It threw him back in time; he could almost feel the floor moving underneath him, the way the Virginia had on the high seas. Colin Durant and Laura Powers. Déjà vu; it frightened him. He didn't know what to do to break the spell, so he said roughly. "Now what?"
Alan seemed to shake himself loose, and the visible effort he made caused Neil's heart to pause. I can't believe it. He's in love with her, or on the way to it.
"Have you called the police?" Alan asked.
"How could we?" exclaimed Quinta. "The publicity would destroy your campaign, just like it did in 1983."
"My daughter convinced me it would be un-American," added Neil with a wry look at the pretty woman who used to be his pretty little girl.
"It's un-American to distract you at all," said Quinta in a voice filled with understanding. "But honestly, Alan, we don't know what to do."
"It's obvious what to do. We'll go to the police," he said.
"No! Can't you think of anything else?"
Alan began pacing the floor, walking off pent-up energy. "I can post a bodyguard inside your house. But I'm leaving for Australia in two weeks; they're packing up the Pegasus right now. I won't be back until February, after the races are over. You can't live under lock and key until then. No. We've got to go to the police. There's no other way."
Neil was inclined to agree with Alan and was about to say so when his daughter got in ahead of him. "We could try flushing her out," she said. "We could take out an ad."
"An ad?"
"An ad?"
"I know it sounds hokey, but what the heck: it worked for Holmes and Watson, didn't it? Cindy sounds unhinged enough to go for something like that. Psychotics read the personals, don't they? We could say, 'C. S.: We know you're out there,' and give our phone number."
"Quinta!" said Neil sharply. "Don't be frivolous."
"I'm not joking, Dad. We don't have that many options." She turned to Alan, lifted her chin, and said, "Well?"
Neil Powers had never seen that look in his daughter before, but he recognized it. It was a combination of defiance, allurement, enticement; a care-for-me-if-you-dare look. His mother had it down pat.
Neil stole a glance at Alan, half expecting to see Colin Durant. But no, the eyes were too blue, the hair nearer to brown, than the Frenchman's. And Alan, English to the core, was quicker to flush; it seemed harder for him to hide his emotions than Neil's French stepfather. But the electricity between Quinta and Alan—that, Neil had seen half a century before, in the cabin of the Virginia as she sailed hell-bent toward ruination.
"All right," Alan said at last. I think it's goofy, but … run the ad. I'll have a security guard stay inside—if that's all right with you, Neil—for the next few days. They can be very discreet; we can't have a tip-off. I'll be here when I can. If I know Cindy, that'll precipitate some further gesture on her part. If nothing happens by the time I'm scheduled to leave, we go to the police with this. I can't say how far over the edge she's gone—but I doubt that she cares any more for people than she does for dogs."
Quinta—still, after all, an innocent—looked shocked. But Neil was absorbing every word, and wishing he had a gun.
Chapter 16
It was true: bodyguards really did wear brown suits. The one they had did not smile and wasn't much for chit-chat. He toured the house, swept the phones for bugs, looked out every window, sighted down halls and staircases. Then he placed a chair at a good vantage point and took out a brown bag and a thermos jug from his valise, and an issue of Soldier of Fortune. The magazine made Quinta lose a little faith in him: presumably he was the kind whose services could be bought by the highest bidder. On the other hand, there was a reassuring coldness in his eyes; he would not hesitate to gun down a psychotic, female or not.
So Quinta set out for work, lightened not only by the thought that her father was in more capable hands than hers, b
ut by the thought that Alan had promised to bring in Chinese food when his day at the docks was done. And by the thought that Mavis Moran was in New York.
Quinta stepped onto the porch, glanced casually up and down the street, and saw nothing. She walked briskly toward Thames, resisting the urge to turn around and yell, "Gotcha!" every few feet.
When she arrived at her office she found Peter Gallager, the tall, shambly, feisty editor of Cup Quotes, waiting for her. "I've been getting my ear blistered all morning by various and sundry members of the Pegasus syndicate. They don't seem to like your shot of the tomato pitching the tomato," he said, lighting a cigarette.
"Alan Seton too?" she asked. There goes the pu-pu platter.
"Nah. He's the only one who hasn't beat me up; that's not his job. Anyway, they're threatening to take the Cup somewhere else when they win. They think we're being inhospitable."
"Should we back off the story a little?" Quinta asked.
"The hell we will. It's good copy. It's legitimate copy."
"I guess so," she said, not at all sure it was anymore. "But I keep thinking how the media always take heat for giving terrorists face time."
"The moral issues are not exactly comparable," he said dryly. "There are no lives at stake here. These guys are throwing fruit, not bombs. I want you to go down to the docks and see if you can get a follow-up on the girl. I doubt she's anywhere near, but see what you can find. Maybe you'll get lucky."
Quinta did as she was instructed, dropping down to the waterfront. She was disappointed to see that not much was going on. The Pegasus was through practicing in Newport's waters. The boat was hauled out and in the shed, where it was being broken down for shipping to Australia. There was nothing very glamorous about a boat out of the water, so, not surprisingly, there wasn't a Beautiful Person in sight.
No demonstrators, either. Not at the gate, not in the yard. Quinta found that very curious. Either they felt their work was done on this side of the world, or they sensed that they'd lost their audience. Maybe there was a story in that. Feeling reckless, Quinta went up to the rented trailer that served as the waterfront office for the Pegasus syndicate and poked her head in.
A frazzled, middle-aged admin looked up from her telephone. "What can I do for you?"
Quinta whispered, "Alan Seton?" and the woman pointed through the window to another trailer nearby, a small silver Airstream. Alan was inside, also on the telephone. Quinta tapped at the door and waited on the step. After a minute or two Alan hung up, then came outside.
"What's up?" he asked, and immediately she realized that she'd presumed. He was flat-out busy, and she was entertaining fantasies that he'd suggest a walk in the park. What idiocy.
"I came by to check things out for a wind-up piece," she quickly lied. "At my editor's behest."
"Everything okay at home?"
She liked the way he said "at home."
"The last I heard, my dad was trying to talk Mr. Locklear into a game of Trivial Pursuit. I guess you've been taking some heat over my photo," she added, determined to get that behind her as well.
"You were just doing a job. But I wish you wouldn't do it so damned well," he admitted. "Those people don't need any encouragement. Still, between you and me and the masthead—I think they've got a case. I'm uncomfortable with the DeVrisch sponsorship, now that they've said they're shutting down their U.S. factories and shipping the jobs overseas—and I'm putting all the pressure I can on the executive committee to have them withdraw their support. It wasn't that much, anyway. That is off the record, Quinta, and I'll thank you not to come up with a creative interpretation of my remarks."
Deep Throat he wasn't, she thought ruefully. How maddening to have access to behind the scenes and not be able to use it. "Where have the protesters all gone, anyway?"
"Damned if we can figure it out. Everyone's sitting around waiting for a shoe to fall. On the other hand, summer's winding down. You know as well as I do that college kids begin to leave in droves this time of year; you can see the help-wanted signs all over town. The kids want time for a last fling before they start picking ivy from their teeth. It could be the protesters have all split."
"Somehow I don't think so. They seemed more committed than that to me."
Alan put his hands on her shoulders and said quietly, "You're young, Quinta. For you, a commitment is keeping a date on Saturday night. But to really follow something through, to be really committed, there's a surprising amount of pain and—"
He seemed to be distancing himself from her, and it hurt. "So who're you?" she said, annoyed. "Mr. Chips? You may not realize it, but I know something about devotion." She shrugged out of his grip, glowering at him, aware that she didn't care about being called uncommitted nearly so much as being called young.
"Ah. Your father. Of course. I'm sorry, Quinta. While the rest of us are wandering through the woods after the lost grail, you're—" He stopped, sighed, laughed at himself. "What an ass I am."
"Your word, not mine."
He favored her with a heart-melting, crooked smile. "Thank you, ma'am, for your restraint."
"And why do you keep calling me young? It really is annoying. I have a degree, a job, another lined up. You already know about the caregiving part."
He looked out at the harbor for a moment at a sloop that was raising sail, then turned back to her. "I wish you were like others your age," he said quietly. "You're so damn—" Then he checked himself. "Hey," he said in another, cheerier tone. "I'll see you and your father later. You like hot and sour soup?"
"That'll be fine," she answered, confused and annoyed by the contradictory signals he was sending her. "It'll match my mood perfectly."
****
Quinta left the office early. She wanted to be home once the afternoon paper came out; she wanted to be ready and waiting for Cindy Seton. The answering machine that her father had bought but never used was hooked up and ready to record phone conversations. If only Cindy would call; if only she'd speak half a dozen words. Then they could play it back for Alan and convince him once and for all.
Because Quinta wasn't really sure that Alan believed them. He was taking precautions as though he did, but she couldn't shake the feeling that he was doing her father and her a kindness, buying off a three-year-old guilt trip. Alan didn't care if it was the man in the moon who was harassing them; he was just determined to protect them both. That was the way she read his motive.
When Quinta got home she found Mr. Locklear just where she'd left him.
"I bought a newspaper from the machine," she called to her father. "Couldn't stand the suspense." She threw herself into the loveseat and started paging through the classifieds.
Neil looked up from his magazine. "Don't ask me how my day was or anything," he said testily.
"How was it, Dad?" she asked without looking up. "Finish editing your book?"
"Against all possible odds," her father answered in a growl.
"Good. I may need to use your computer for a couple of hours before Alan—before supper. Here it is! My first personal: 'C.S., we know you're out there.' Cheap ad," she said, laughing.
"Why are you treating this as a joke?" Neil demanded. "There's nothing funny about it. We have this ... gentleman sitting in the middle of our privacy to prove it," he added dryly.
Quinta stared at her father, surprised. His face looked haggard; he was worrying, and it was wearing him down. She put aside the paper. "I don't know why I'm so up lately," she confessed. "Maybe I'm just tense. I'm not sure I'd know the difference."
"I know happiness when I see it. We're about to get our throats cut and the thought gives you great joy."
She handed him the paper. "That's an exaggeration. Besides, we have a Catherine de Medici on our hands, not a Jack the Ripper—incidentally, does Mr. Locklear test food as part of his duties?" she said in a stage whisper, with a wink at the bodyguard. All right, she couldn't help it: she was happy. So sue me, she thought. "Tea?"
"No."
She brewed a cup and sat down at her father's bigger, faster computer, determined to bang out at least a rough sketch of her next column: about the courage it took to get back in the ring after a loss. Dennis Conner had it. Alan Seton had it. It was turning out that her father had it. Youth could not possibly have it, because youth saw life as limitless. Where was the courage in that?
When the telephone rang half an hour later, it split a pensive silence inside the house. Startled, Quinta ran to the record button on the answering machine and pressed it; Neil picked up the receiver as if it were wired for explosives. After his hello, a pleasant, cultivated voice on the other end said, "Oh! Who is this?"
"Neil Powers," he said sternly.
"Oh dear, do I have a wrong number?" She gave it, and Neil said, "You do have it wrong." He hung up, relieved.
"That was her! I'm sure it was her! That's just how she should sound," cried Quinta.
He grimaced. "As if you could tell. We won't know a damn thing until Alan gets here."
By the time Alan did arrive, both arms laden with Chinese booty, Quinta was beside herself with suspense. She grabbed him by his arm and dragged him over to the recording machine.
"Listen!" she demanded triumphantly. She pressed the play button, lip-synching the conversation, which she knew by heart, while Alan smiled in bemusement.
"Not her. Not even close," he said when the brief recording had played through.
Quinta's high spirits flipped sideways and sank. "Are you sure? Listen again—"
"The shrimp get soggy when they get cold," Alan said in a voice so gentle he might have been telling her she had less than a month to live.
"Don't humor her," snapped Neil. "It only makes her worse."
He joined them at the table, where cartons of take-out food were multiplying like little white rabbits. Quinta was opening everything up haphazardly and sampling the contents, and Alan was closing up the cartons after her and demanding utensils and other tokens of civilization. The mood was relaxed, familiar, completely at odds with the circumstances. Even Neil's growling took on a bemused and rather shy softness.
By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs Page 20