A soft rapping on the door startled Annie. Shuddering, she gasped silently, then sucked in a deep, calming breath. “Yes?”
“Annie, dear, it’s Mother.”
Oh, great. She’d thought her family had left for dinner by now. “What is it, Mother?”
“May I come in?” Jennifer asked. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Please, come on in.” She really didn’t want to talk to her mother. Didn’t want to be lectured. Didn’t want to have to listen to the family’s opinion of her situation.
After entering the room, Jennifer quietly closed the door and approached the bed where Annie sat on the edge. “Feeling better?”
“I’m fine, Mother.”
“This whole affair has been terribly upsetting for you, and for us. We’re very fortunate that Mr. Carmichael happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but if you’re going to dinner with Uncle Royce and Aunt Vera, perhaps you should get to the point.”
“Certainly.” Jennifer sat beside Annie. “I’ve hired Dane.”
Annie stared at her mother, a sense of dread dropping like a lead weight into her stomach. “What do you mean, you’ve hired Dane?”
“We—Uncle Royce, Aunt Vera and I—decided that Dane is the best man for the job.” Jennifer cleared her throat. “We want him to take this case and remain your bodyguard until there is no longer any danger to you.”
“I do not want Dane Carmichael as my bodyguard on a permanent basis.” Annie shot up off the bed, her eyes darkening, her mouth set in a grim line. “I refuse to allow you to do this to me!”
“I’m paying the man’s salary, so I think it’s my prerogative to choose whom I think the best qualified man is.” Jennifer folded her hands in her lap.
Annie turned on her mother, her face contorted in rage, “How many times in the past have I been forced to endure the dictates of my family because they thought they knew what was best for me? I married the man Daddy handpicked for me. I tried to be the dutiful daughter. Even after I found out about Preston’s first affair, I stayed with him because you and Daddy thought that was what was best for me.”
“Annie, child, you’re only hurting yourself to remain so bitter.”
“First of all, I’m not a child! I’m a woman! I’ll be thirty-five soon.” Annie clenched her jaw tightly. Why was she having this conversation with her mother? Why did she feel as if she were pleading for her freedom? She had fought and won that battle years ago. “I’d rather do without a bodyguard than keep Dane Carmichael on the job indefinitely. And I can find a way to pay for an investigator.”
Jennifer reached up and took Annie’s hand in hers. “My sweet, Annie Sophia. Always so stubborn and independent. Always fussing and fuming and fighting to have your own way. Just like your daddy.”
“Good God, Mother, I’m nothing like Daddy!” Annie jerked free of her mother’s hold.
Jennifer smiled, the look in her eyes sympathetic and understanding. “Be that as it may, I have hired Dane. And unless you really are desperately afraid you’ll succumb to your attraction to him, then I can’t imagine why you’d prefer to risk your life without a bodyguard and to hire a less qualified investigator.”
“I am not afraid I’ll succumb to Dane. I shouldn’t have told you that I find him very attractive or that he reminds me of Preston. The only reason y’all want him on this case is because he’s one of you. He belongs to the same good ole boys club that Daddy and Preston were a part of.”
Jennifer stood and faced her daughter’s wrath. “Oh, my poor Annie. You must think you’ll fall in love with Dane to be so afraid of him.”
“I would never fall in love with—”
“If you’re not worried about falling in love with Dane, then what possible reason could you have to object to my hiring him?”
Annie knew when she’d been outmaneuvered. There was no reasonable explanation for why she didn’t want Dane to stay on as her bodyguard—none, other than the one her mother had mentioned. And she was not going to admit to her mother that she was afraid of falling in love with Dane. If she did, her mother would be planning a wedding and having invitations printed. Nothing would please her family more than if she wound up with a man who had been born into their world of wealth and privilege.
“Dammit,” Annie mumbled under her breath. “All right, Mother, you win.”
Jennifer’s lips curved into a wide, triumphant smile.
“I have no feelings whatsoever for Dane Carmichael and I’ll prove to you that I don’t.”
“Yes, dear, you do that.” Jennifer hugged Annie, kissed her cheek and sauntered toward the door. After opening the bedroom door, she paused for a moment and said, “Thank you for being so reasonable about this.”
Annie glowered at her mother, who only smiled at her as she turned and headed toward the staircase. Annie hurried into her bathroom, brushed her teeth, freshened her makeup, ran a comb through her hair and threw the straps of her bag over her shoulder.
She waited at the top of the stairs until she heard the front door open and close, then she walked downstairs and waited in the foyer until she heard Uncle Royce’s Mercedes pull out of the driveway. She rushed into the den, where she found Dane sitting on the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked right at home, as if he actually lived here. Annie cringed. He will be living here for God only knows how long, she reminded herself.
“Well, am I staying or leaving?” Dane asked, his gaze locking with hers the minute she entered the room.
“You’re staying, courtesy of my mother’s generosity,” she said reluctantly. “Until the mystery is solved and my life is no longer in danger.”
Dane frowned, furrowing his brow and widening his eyes. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight. Your mother must have amazing powers of persuasion.”
“Let’s just say that Mother challenged me and she knew I’d never be able to resist a challenge.”
“So this is my case,” he said. “You won’t be replacing me in a week or two?”
“I think we’ve established the fact that my mother has hired you for the duration of my problems.” Annie tapped her foot on the wood floor. “Are you ready to go now?”
“Go where?” he asked.
“To the Robinsons’s lake house.”
“It’s rather late, isn’t it? Don’t you think this can wait until morning?”
“Maybe, but I can’t wait,” she told him. “I want to go now, and even if my mother is paying your salary, I’m your boss. Got it?”
“All right, boss lady.” Dane rose from the sofa, his long, leanly muscular body towering over her as she approached him. “We’ve still got the rental car.” He jangled the keys in his pocket.
“We’ll take my Navigator.” She gave him a look that dared him to disagree. “And I’ll drive. I know where we’re going. The Robinsons’s cottage isn’t far from Uncle Royce and Aunt Vera’s place on the lake.”
Annie headed toward the back door. Catching up with her, Dane grasped her shoulder. She glanced up at him.
“Did you tell your mother that we wouldn’t be here when she returned from dinner?”
“No-oo.” The word dragged out slowly, laced with sheer aggravation. “Oh, you’re right. I’ll leave her a note.”
After disengaging herself from Dane’s grip, she stomped across the kitchen. Finding a notepad and pen by the telephone, she jotted down a quick message and stuck it to the refrigerator with a magnet.
Dane read the note aloud. “‘Dane and I have gone to the Robinsons’s lake house. We’ll pick up burgers on the way there. Don’t wait up for us. Love, Annie.”’
“She’ll worry if she thinks we didn’t have dinner,” Annie explained.
“You’re a good daughter.”
“I’m not what she wanted or expected.” Annie shrugged. “And she’s not the kind of mother I needed. But we both make the best of it.”
Annie had protested v
ehemently when Dane actually did ask her to go through the drive-up window at a local fast-food restaurant. He’d pointed out that they could eat on the way and not lose any time. Begrudgingly, she had agreed. Besides, she was hungry.
The Robinsons’s cottage, located directly on the lake, sprawled out in three directions to form a T with open porches on two sides and a long, wide deck at the back.
No streetlights dispelled the darkness, but a quarter moon shone brightly enough to guide them from the car to the front door. Annie fumbled with the key for several seconds before Dane aimed one of his two flashlights toward the keyhole. Annie inserted the key into the lock. Dane hovered directly behind her, his breath warm on her neck. She opened the door and waited, anticipation shooting an adrenaline rush through her body. Dane reached around her and felt for a light switch. Finding a triple plate conveniently located just inside the door, he flipped all three switches and lights came on in the living room, the adjoining dining room and kitchen.
The cottage was neat—not even a throw rug out of place. Annie sighed. Dane nudged her into the room.
“Doesn’t look as if anyone’s searched this place,” she said.
“There are three possibilities,” Dane told her. “One—they don’t know about this place. Two—they just haven’t had a chance to check it out yet. Or three—they don’t think Halley would have left anything here.”
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Annie said. “Let’s get started. Where do you think we should begin our search?”
“Since we really have no idea what we’re looking for, then I suppose we need to give the whole place the once-over. But we should begin with Halley’s room.”
“I have no idea which room she used when she came here.”
“Then we’ll search all of them.”
“All of them” turned out to be three regular-size bedrooms and one small room off the screened-in back porch, which held a cot and a nightstand. Being careful not to make a mess as they searched, they checked closets and cedar chests, and under the beds. They took each book from the bookshelves that covered the back wall of one bedroom and rummaged through an old oak desk in another.
“Nothing!” Annie fumed. “I thought for sure we’d find something.”
Dane entered the final bedroom, a dejected Annie following closely behind him. “I’ll check the closet. You try under the bed and the nightstands.”
Annie shone the flashlight under the bed and, as in the other rooms, found nothing but dust. After placing the flashlight on top of the left nightstand, she flopped onto the edge of the bed and pulled out the only drawer. She lifted out a telephone directory and found an odd assortment of pens, pencils and rubber bands. She brushed them aside. There, at the bottom of the drawer, was a small spiral-bound notebook.
Her hand trembled as she reached for the notebook. Please, dear God, let this be something that can give us a clue. No matter how insignificant. We desperately need something to go on.
She lifted the notebook out of the drawer and sat on the bed for several minutes, just staring at the object in her hand.
“What have you got there?” Dane asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Open it and find out.”
Excitement burst inside her like bottle rockets on the Fourth of July. Please, please, please, she silently prayed. After opening the notebook to the first few pages, she groaned. Empty. She flipped through the pages, all of them blank, before suddenly noticing handwriting about halfway through. She spread open the book and scanned the notes.
Dane sat beside her and looked over her shoulder. “Is that Halley’s handwriting?”
“Yes, I’m almost certain it is.”
“So read it and see if it means anything to you.”
Feeling as if she were invading Halley’s privacy, Annie hesitated. “What if this is some sort of diary she was keeping?”
“Read the damn thing,” Dane said. “Even if it is a personal diary, I don’t think the lady would mind if she knew it meant our discovering who kidnapped her.”
“You’re right.”
She read the page, then turned and read quickly through several pages. “These are notes on the stories I assigned her. See—” Annie pointed to the open page “—these are background notes on Judge Weaver’s indictment for misuse of state funds. It says here that he’s all but admitted his guilt and is trying to work out a deal where he can simply retire and not be prosecuted. Oh, yeah, sure,” Annie said. “Why is it that some people think they’re above the law?”
“So, why would a man who has pretty much admitted his guilt have anything to hide?”
“Not the Judge Weaver story, huh?”
Dane shook his head. “See what else she’s got in there.”
Annie continued reading for several minutes before she said, “The story on food poisoning doesn’t appear suspicious. All the cases are documented and all the facts seem to already be out in the open.”
“What was the third story she was working on, the gubernatorial race?”
“Yes, but I can’t see how interviewing the candidates and their families could have possibly put Halley’s life in danger.”
“Maybe one of the candidates or a family member has something to hide,” Dane said.
“You mean, a skeleton in the closet?” She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “It would have to be a really terrible secret for someone to kidnap Halley and try to kill me. What could possibly be that bad?”
“Check out the rest of her notes.”
Annie hated having Dane read over her shoulder, but she didn’t possess the energy to argue with him over something that was, at this point, trivial.
She read hurriedly, skimming through page after page of handwritten notes on all four candidates for governor. Democrat. Republican. And two Independents. Boring details. Facts and figures that were already public knowledge. Just as her vision began to blur and the words jumbled in her mind, Annie turned the page and there it was—written in large, bold print, and in red ink.
Richard Hughes. Underlined twice. And directly below it, another name. Martin Edwards. Underlined three times. Beside the second name was a word that had been scribbled in blue ink and an arrow that linked the word to the name Martin Edwards.
“What does that look like to you?” Annie asked Dane, pointing to the illegible word. “Daphne? Dauphin?”
“Digital? Or maybe dough.”
“No, look the way it ends there. I think that’s an e and an r.”
“You’re right.”
“Daughter!” Annie exclaimed. “I think it’s daughter.”
“Yeah, looks like it could be daughter.” Dane’s gaze kept returning to his former father-in-law’s name. The word isn’t attached to Richard’s name, he told himself. Besides, the facts about Lorna’s death weren’t a secret. They were a matter of public record. And his guess was that if Richard were to broadcast the story of Lorna’s tragic death, it would probably gain him the sympathy of every parent in the state. No, if the word was daughter, it wasn’t referring to Richard’s daughter. It had to be the other man’s daughter.
“I’ve never heard of Martin Edwards,” Annie said. She flipped through the rest of the notebook and found nothing. “This has to be it, Dane. It has to be!”
“Why does it have to be?”
Annie’s shoulders slumped. She huffed out a long, disgusted breath. “You’re right. It could be meaningless. After all, Martin Edwards could be anybody and he might not even have a connection to Richard Hughes. I guess I’m just grasping at straws.”
“Let me assure you that Richard Hughes isn’t the kind of person who has anything terrible to hide. I know the man. He was my friend as well as my father-in-law. I admire him. I’d stake my life on his being above reproach.”
“Would you stake my life on it?” she asked.
Dane stared into her eyes and realized that she truly was questioning his father-in-law’s integrity. “Richard Hughes i
sn’t the bad guy here, so there’s no point in wasting time arguing about this. You have no idea if Richard’s name beside this other man’s and the scribbled word we think is daughter has any connection to Halley’s disappearance.”
“I know. I know. It’s just, so far, it’s all we’ve got.”
“Then I suggest we search the rest of the house to see what we can find.”
An hour later, after inspecting the other rooms, they came up empty-handed, except for Halley’s notebook, which Annie had slipped into her purse. They separated and went from room to room, straightening and rearranging, trying to make sure everything looked exactly the way it had before they’d rummaged through cabinets, closets and drawers.
“Ready?” Dane asked when Annie returned to the living room.
“Yes. I just wish we’d found something besides this notebook.” She patted her purse.
Dane checked his watch. “It’s nearly midnight. Let’s go. We’ll take another look at the notebook in the morning, after we’ve both had a good night’s sleep.”
“Is that a subtle way of saying things will look better tomorrow?”
“We’re both too tired to think rationally right now,” he said. “We might catch something that we missed on a second reading.” Dane opened the door and waited until Annie walked out onto the porch, then closed the door behind her. “Give me the key.”
He took the key she gave him, locked the door, turned, and together they moved toward the rock steps that lead down to the driveway.
Dane knew the instant he heard the sound that someone had just fired a rifle. The bullet whizzed past Annie’s right shoulder and hit the wooden porch column.
“Oh, God!” She reached out for Dane.
He grabbed her, threw her to the deck and covered her body with his. Another shot rang out and then another.
Annie screamed.
Chapter 9
“Are you hit?” Dane asked.
“No.” Her voice quivered. “Are you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
The gunman fired again, splintering wood off the shingles on the house. Dane felt Annie shivering beneath him. He heard the boom-boom-boom of his own heart. Adrenaline pumped through his body like water through an open floodgate.
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