“It is my boat. Think Frank and Sidney will notice?”
“Where did you get the name?”
“It was my grandmother’s favorite expression. I can hear her now. ‘Heavenly days, Jordan, did you eat all the applesauce cookies I just baked?’”
“Lawman Jordan Trouble, a cookie thief? Who would have guessed?”
He welcomed her teasing. Lately, she hadn’t had much to smile about. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
Her grin disappeared. “Until my memory returns, there’s a lot I don’t know about everything.”
Her smile had faded too fast, and he tried to coax it back. “Heavenly Days is an appropriate name for a boat for an angel, don’t you think?”
“Some angel.” Her face twisted in an ironic grimace. “Out on bail for murder.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “We’ll dig out the truth about what really happened to David Swinburn, and when we do, I have a feeling you’ll be in the clear.”
She met his gaze without blinking. “Clearing me of murder can wait. First, we have to find Brittany.”
He didn’t know how she stood it, unable to remember, her daughter missing and a murder charge hanging over her head. If he had her problems, he’d need a padded room. The thought brought back memories of too many nights when he’d come close to needing that padded room himself, and out of nowhere, the hunger for a stiff drink ambushed him and the bottle of Absolut with the unbroken seal, stashed in the galley cabinet, beckoned him. Through the sheer force of willpower, he conquered his thirst. He couldn’t protect Angel from killers if he was three sheets to the wind.
“We’ll find Brittany,” he assured her with more confidence than he felt. “This morning Michael’s staff will begin calling the names we found in your apartment. If Brittany is with one of your friends, we’ll know soon.”
“And if she isn’t?” Her bearing remained determined, but her eyes conveyed her fear.
He refused to add to her alarm by voicing his misgivings. “Then someone on Swinburn’s staff might know where she is.”
“Wouldn’t they have told the police already if they knew?”
He shrugged. “Some people don’t trust cops.”
“That’s because they don’t know you.” She had lifted her hand to his cheek. “I don’t know how to thank you for all you’ve done.”
If she’d known about his checkered past, she wouldn’t trust him, either. Shaken by her confidence, he had cupped her hand in his and pressed his lips against the satin smoothness of her palm. “The sooner we get under way, the sooner we’ll find Brittany.”
Three miles west of the barrier island known as Sunset Bay Beach, he turned Heavenly Days parallel to shore and headed north toward the exclusive waterfront community where Swinburn had lived.
Glancing at Angel beside him on the flying bridge, the wind whipping her short brown hair across her face, he remembered her gratitude earlier on the dock, and responsibility dragged at him like an anchor. She was thankful now, but if he let her down, as he had Jenny a year ago, she wouldn’t be grateful.
She’d be dead.
ANGEL GAZED ACROSS the water at the Mediterranean mansion sprawled over several acres of landscaped grounds. Barely visible beneath the towering crowns of banyans, the impressive house brought back no memories, only a curious and uncomfortable indifference, as if all her emotions had been sucked dry.
“You’re certain this is the right place?”
Jordan nodded and steered the boat toward the dock at the foot of three graduated terraces that led to the house. “Michael said you lived here with Swinburn from the time of your marriage three years ago until eighteen months later, when you filed for divorce.”
She wished she could feel something. Even her unbearable longing for Brittany would be an improvement over the strange numbness in her heart. She longed for the incredible excitement she’d experienced last night, first from Jordan’s kiss, and later from the pleasure of his body molded against hers while they’d hidden in the utility closet. Even with their lives in danger, he had roused her senses, making her want him with a fierceness that had frightened her. The unmistakable hardness of his arousal against her had indicated he’d felt the same.
Now she felt nothing but emptiness. The sight of the imposing house had dampened all her responses.
“Michael does his research,” she replied belatedly to Jordan’s brief recital of her marriage history.
“Not research.” His irrepressible grin gleamed beneath the bill of his ball cap, contrasting the white of his teeth with the depth of his tan. “Michael moved in the same social circles as you and your ex-husband.”
“Did Michael also tell you the grounds for my divorce?”
Jordan frowned, but whether in uneasiness over discussing her divorce or in concentration as he approached the dock, she couldn’t tell.
“Florida has a no-fault divorce law, but you charged Swinburn with mental cruelty.”
Instantly her numbness disappeared. Anxiety buzzed in her head and wet her palms, and her heart battered her breastbone. She wiped her hands on her olive-drab chino shorts and surveyed the estate once again.
This time she paid closer attention. In addition to the two-story stuccoed house with its red barrel-tiled roof, cloistered walks and Spanish arches almost hidden by tumbling vines of scarlet bougainvillea, the complex included a four-car garage with an upstairs apartment in the same architecture, and behind it, a commercial-size greenhouse.
As they neared the dock, a free-form swimming pool set in the lush tropical landscaping of the upper terrace came into view. A flagstone path led from the pool area around the north side of the house.
Suddenly, she was running down that pathway, running for her life. Curling tendrils of jasmine from the arbor overhead clutched at her, and she batted them aside. David was dead. Shot. Six bullets from her gun—
“Angel?”
The memory evaporated in the hot morning sun, leaving her sick and shaken. She had killed David Swinburn with her own gun and run away. Michael and Jordan—especially Jordan—had been kind and helpful, but how would they treat her when they discovered she really had murdered her ex-husband?
“Angel, are you okay?”
She forced the taut muscles of her face to smile. “I’m fine.”
Jordan was scrutinizing her with his policeman’s look that missed nothing. “Did you remember something?”
“Not a thing,” she lied, “but maybe meeting the staff will jog my memory.”
If it weren’t for Brittany, she would have refused to disembark, fearful of what the people who had worked for David might reveal about her guilt. But she had to question the staff to find her daughter. She prayed silently that Brittany was safe, that she would find her quickly so she could let her daughter know her mother loved her.
How can I tell Brittany her mother killed her father?
She didn’t have an answer.
Leaping onto the dock, she helped Jordan secure the boat at the pilings on the lower terrace. Together they climbed the quarried stone steps toward the house, then followed the flagstone walkway to the rear of the estate. On the pathway that she’d remembered, she braced herself for more flashes of memory, more jeers from her conscience. None came.
In a large cobbled courtyard between the house and garages, a tall, thin man with graying hair and angular features, including a hooked nose of amazing proportion, was washing a dark blue Lincoln Town Car. At their approach, he dropped his sponge into a bucket of soapy water and dried his hands on a towel.
“This is private property,” he said in clipped British tones. “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Jordan stepped closer and showed his identification. “I’m an investigator for Attorney Michael Winslow’s office. Detective Henderson has given us permission to talk to Mr. Swinburn’s staff.”
The man’s expression remained suspicious. “I’m Henry Erskine, Mr. Swinb
urn’s chauffeur.”
He looked past Jordan and his gray eyes met hers. He did a double take, and his face lifted in a beaming grin. “Bless me! It’s Miz Sara! We thought you were in jail.”
“I almost was, but—”
“Fiona, come down here,” the man bellowed toward an open window in the apartment above the garage. “It’s Miz Sara! She’s come back. Looks different, but it’s her, all right.”
A door slammed, footsteps pattered on a staircase half-hidden on the side of the building, and a short, plump woman emerged around the corner and rushed toward her.
“Miz Sara.” The white-haired woman with peri-winkle-blue eyes and apple-red cheeks grabbed Angel’s hands. “I didna think we’d ever see you again.”
At the Scottish burr in Fiona’s voice and the warmth of her greeting, Angel experienced an inexplicable surge of affection, but whether her fondness for the woman was a memory or a natural response to Fiona’s friendly personality, she couldn’t tell.
“I knew they wouldna keep you in jail,” Fiona gushed. “Anyone who knows you knows you didna kill Mr. Swinburn.”
Angel’s self-loathing resurfaced. What would this sweet, gentle woman think when she learned the truth?
Jordan, unaware of Angel’s inner turmoil, introduced himself to Fiona. “I have some questions for you and your husband.”
“We’ll be happy to answer,” Fiona said. “Won’t we, Henry?”
“Anything to help Miz Sara,” Henry agreed. “Come up. Fiona was just fixing tea.”
“Or coffee, if you like,” the housekeeper offered. “And I’ve baked sweet buns.”
Minutes later, seated on the Erskines’ porch, which overlooked the gulf, Angel balanced a cup of fragrant lemon tea on her lap and declined a rich bun. “I’ve lost my memories, Mrs. Erskine, and I need your help.”
“Oh, my. You canna remember anything?”
Wishing she hadn’t remembered killing David, Angel shook her head and blinked back tears. “I have to find Brittany. Do you have any idea where she is?”
Mr. and Mrs. Erskine exchanged a long, mournful look, and Angel’s stomach tightened with apprehension. They knew something, and, judging by their expressions, it wasn’t good.
“Whatever you can tell us,” Jordan prodded, “would help.”
Fiona looked to Henry again, and he nodded.
“Well,” she said to Angel, “you called me Saturday afternoon, right before we left for our weekend visit with our son. You wanted to know if Brittany was here.”
“Was she?” Angel asked.
Fiona shook her head. “Mr. Swinburn had his daughter at the house Friday afternoon—I helped him keep an eye on her—but Saturday morning after breakfast, he put the wee lass and her baggage in the car—”
“Said he’d drive himself,” Henry added. “Had me secure the child carrier in the back seat of the Lincoln, and they drove out, just the two of them, about ten o’clock.”
Fiona looked close to tears. “Miss Brittany wasna with him when he came back.”
Jordan set aside his tea and leaned forward. “What time did Swinburn return?”
“About two o’clock.”
“That narrows our search down to a radius of only a hundred miles,” Jordan said with a scowl.
Tortured by tearstained images of her daughter, Angel said, “Do you know where he went? Did he give any hint where he might have taken her?”
Henry’s angular features brightened. “Now that you mention it, yes, he did leave a clue to where he’d been.”
“Where?” Angel begged.
“I don’t know where exactly, but I can point you in the right direction. South.”
“South?” Jordan looked skeptical. “How can you be certain he went south?”
“You saw me washing the car?”
Jordan nodded. “But what’s that got to do with—”
“Medflies,” Henry said with an emphatic nod.
“Medflies?” Angel and Jordan asked together.
Henry smiled. “You think I’ve gone ’round the bend, but I’m serious. Citrus groves near Fort Myers have had an outbreak of Mediterranean fruit flies—”
“Which they control by aerial spraying with malathion,” Jordan said, comprehension dawning in his expression.
“That’s right,” Henry said, “and when I took the Lincoln out of the garage for its weekly wash this morning, I found spots in the paint caused by residue from the spray. Mr. Swinburn must have been on the road when the helicopters were spraying.”
“So David took Brittany somewhere near Fort Myers?” Angel looked to Jordan for confirmation.
“Or he could have dropped her off somewhere else before driving to Fort Myers on some other errand.”
Disappointed, Angel turned back to Fiona. “I don’t understand. Why did he take Brittany away?”
Sadness filled Fiona’s eyes. She shook her head and uttered a sorrowful tsking sound. “You really don’t remember, do you, dear?”
Angel bit her bottom lip to keep from weeping.
“It was plain, evil spite,” the housekeeper said.
“Spite?” Jordan said. “Over what?”
Fiona and Henry traded pained looks.
“Tell them,” Henry said to his wife. “Our loyalty to Mr. Swinburn died when he did.”
“He wanted to hurt you, Miz Sara. He was that furious when you divorced him, he wanted to make you pay for standing up to him.”
Angel fought off an attack of dizziness. “You don’t think he hurt her?”
“Oh, you mustn’t fret yourself about that,” Fiona said with a shake of her head.
“Right,” Henry agreed. “Mr. Swinburn was a proper bastard, but he loved his little girl.”
“If he loved her so much, then why exactly did he take the child away?” Jordan apparently shared her confusion.
Fiona’s blue eyes turned bleary. “He wanted to punish Miz Sara for divorcing him. Defying him, he called it.” She turned to Angel. “When you called me Saturday afternoon, you were crying so hard you could barely speak. You said Mr. Swinburn had called, telling you dinna bother to collect Miss Brittany at the end of the weekend, that he had hidden her away so you’d never see her again.”
Jordan lunged forward and caught Angel’s cup and saucer as it slid from her lap.
David Swinburn had not only stolen her daughter. He’d given her a perfect reason to want him dead.
Chapter Seven
Jordan observed Angel’s horrified reaction to the Erskines’ explanation of Brittany’s disappearance and, despite his surge of sympathy, attempted to assess it objectively.
Swinburn’s cruelty provided a strong motive for Angel to kill her ex-husband. If the Erskines had revealed that information to Maggie Henderson and her investigators, the state attorney’s office would have a field day with it, and Michael Winslow’s defense of Angel would be that much tougher.
Judging from her deathly pallor, she had drawn her own inference from the housekeeper’s report and apparently believed she had murdered Swinburn.
Jordan couldn’t blame her for jumping to that conclusion. Swinburn’s attitude toward his ex-wife and daughter had given rise to Jordan’s overpowering dislike of the man. Unfortunately, Swinburn’s capacity for inflicting mental anguish on his wife hadn’t ended with his life. The sooner Jordan could return Brittany safely to Angel, the sooner he could gather proof of her innocence and set her mind at ease.
The possibility existed, of course, that she had killed Swinburn in her desperation to recover her daughter, but the odds on that were slim to none. Despite the display of temper he’d witnessed, Angel didn’t seem the type to lose control and commit murder in a frenzy of rage. If her natural disposition hadn’t been cool and collected, she couldn’t have handled the stresses of amnesia and her arrest and court appearance as well as she had.
Nor did she seem capable of killing in cold blood—unless he had lost completely his ability to assess character. She had never exhibited
the slightest hint of malice or mean-spiritedness. Even now, she voiced no bitterness toward Swinburn.
Placing Angel’s cup and saucer on the wicker tea table, he turned to the Erskines. “Did you tell the police Swinburn had taken the child away?”
Fiona’s ruddy cheeks flushed darker. “They already knew. Miz Sara had reported her missing to Detective Panowski.”
“Did Swinburn have friends or relatives in the area he could have left Brittany with?” Jordan asked.
Fiona shook her head. “We’ve worked for Mr. Swinburn ten years, ever since we came from England, and he never mentioned family other than his parents, who live on Turtle Key. They were the only kin who ever came to visit.”
“We know the girl isn’t there,” Jordan explained. “According to detectives on the case, David’s parents are the ones who told police the child was with Angel. They insisted the report to Panowski was an attempt to defame their son.”
“Who is Angel?” Fiona said.
“I call Sara Angel,” Jordan explained. “When I met her, she didn’t know her name. I had to call her something.”
Fiona regarded him with a knowing look. “I see.”
“Could David have taken Brittany to a friend’s house?” Angel asked.
The suffering etched on her face made Jordan wish she hadn’t regained her memories of her daughter until after they’d found the little girl.
“Mr. Swinburn wasn’t the kind of man to have intimate friends,” Henry explained. “He had some business associates with whom he socialized, but not friends in the best sense of the word. I know, because I served as both his butler and chauffeur.”
His answer seemed to squelch Angel’s hope. Shoulders slumped and eyes glazed with misery, she stared out across the water, preoccupied with her thoughts.
Frustrated at his inability to relieve her unhappiness, Jordan returned his attention to the couple. “Would Swinburn have taken Brittany to any of his business friends?”
Fiona shrugged her plump shoulders. “He might have. He was a mpst unpredictable man.”
“Did he ever mention a man named James?” Jordan asked.
The name roused Angel from her bleak musings. “The men who tried to kidnap me and later searched my apartment are working for someone named James.”
A Woman of Mystery Page 9