Incredibly, that was even more unnerving than the look his daughter had just given him. What the hell was with this family, anyway?
“She’s always been rather . . . assertive. I’m afraid she gets that trait from her dear old father. Unfortunately, she also has her mother’s impulsiveness.” He let out a short half laugh and lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “What’s a father to do? She’s my only and I find I can never bring myself to deny her anything. It’s my one failing, I’m afraid.”
Calder knew he must have looked alarmed, at least momentarily, because Winstock let out a sharp, almost delighted laugh.
“Don’t worry, my boy. I won’t feed you to that particular lion. Or should I say, lioness. I’ll need you to stay sharp and focused for our little project. Although she might have something to say about that, so be forewarned.” He stepped past a gaping Calder and walked through the double doors Cami had left open upon her exit. “Just this way.”
Calder stayed right where he was a moment longer, trying to process what had just happened, and what in the hell he planned to do about it. Good damn thing I have no intention of working “our little project,” he thought. Jesus. And here he’d thought there wasn’t anyone who could make fatherhood look less palatable than his own father. How wrong he’d been about that.
He shook his head, straightened his shoulders, and followed Winstock into the hallway, which was more like a grand foyer, complete with twin arching staircases that led to a second-floor balcony, and two separate wings of the house. He knew this, as his room the night before had been located in the one that angled off to the left. He had another thought that if Cami had indeed been under this same roof the night before, he was damn lucky she hadn’t known he was also in residence. A shiver of what could only be described as revulsion rippled through him as he thought once again about there being eyes in the wall. Cami . . . and her Daddy dearest. Dear God, don’t even go there.
Winstock crossed the beautifully restored and polished cypress plank foyer and the blue stonework that had been inlaid in the shape of a star in the center of it, the soles of his leather golf shoes making not a single sound. Lion raised by a panther, Calder thought.
Winstock had just opened the matching double doors leading into a room that looked as if it might rival the Library of Congress for the sheer volume of leather-bound books from the floor to rotunda-like ceiling of the room, when a commotion at the massive front door caught his attention instead. Both he and Winstock turned as Hannah pushed her way past, well, Calder didn’t know what to call him. The butler? Majordomo? Whatever his job description, he hadn’t been able to stop the determined woman presently striding toward them.
Calder grinned. She was in uber-attorney mode, at least her expression was. What she was wearing was anything but classic D.C. lawyer garb. She had on wrinkled tan khaki capri pants, thin, no-heeled flats, and a peach-colored pullover. Her hair was down and reminded him of their walk on the shoreline the day before. His body responded instantly, to all of it.
“Brooks Winstock. Just the man I need to see.” She spared a glance at Calder. “I’m glad you’re still here. You haven’t signed anything, have you?”
“Hannah?” Brooks asked, stepping forward, looking mildly concerned. “What is the emergency, Ms. McCrae? I’m assuming, given your brazen entrance into my home, there must be one.”
She looked at Calder a moment longer and he gave a quick shake of his head, which she seemed to understand was in response to her question. So she turned to Winstock and drew herself up to her full, defense counselor magnitude, which was striking no matter what she wore. “I know you’ve been questioned in regard to the arson that took place Thursday night on Jonah Blue’s pier.”
Winstock’s agitated expression remained, but his stance relaxed somewhat. “Ms. McCrae, I’m well aware of your brother’s—or, I should say, Chief McCrae’s interest in Calder. No need to come barging in here in some misguided attempt to save me from myself. I can assure you, I’ve been in business longer than you’ve been alive, and am quite capable—”
“Don’t be disingenuous. I didn’t come here to warn you about Calder. I’m his attorney, for God’s sake. But you knew that.”
Winstock’s expression smoothed even as his gaze sharpened, and Calder thought, Maybe more shark than panther.
“Indeed,” Brooks said. “Well, if you’re here to wrangle some kind of confession out of me, or to warn your client—”
“I’m not here—” She broke off, and Calder was pretty sure he heard her swear under her breath.
His smile grew to a grin. His prim and proper little lawyer was turning out to be anything but. Proving you could take the lawyer out of D.C., but you couldn’t take the hometown girl out of the lawyer. He liked it. He liked it a lot.
“I’m here to warn you both,” she said, and his grin instantly fled.
“What’s wrong?” Calder stepped forward, all amusement gone. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” she told him. “Yet.” She looked at Brooks. “Mr. Winstock, do you know where your son-in-law is?”
For once, Brooks’s expression went completely blank. “What?”
Calder had no time to enjoy the older man’s uncustomary lack of words, because there was a gasp from the stairs behind them and they all turned to see Cami, stopped about halfway down, clutching the bannister.
“Oh God,” she said, looking truly stricken. In fact, she was sheet white.
“What is it?” Brooks went immediately to the stairs.
“I just got a call from Chief McCrae.” She sucked in a gulp of air, and still looked as if someone had just gut punched her. “Teddy is at the docks.” She turned her stark gaze toward Hannah. “He’s holding Jonah and his great-granddaughter hostage in the big boathouse.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hannah drove so she could fill Calder in on the way to the docks. “I put it together when Owen was talking about Winstock’s disappointment with Ted, and I realized we’d been looking at it all wrong. Brooks is wily and borderline underhanded—or maybe not so borderline—but he’s never done anything illegal, and for all he seems hell-bent on recreating Blueberry Cove in his own image, I couldn’t see him risking the rest of the empire he’s built on an arson charge that, by itself, didn’t even get him what he wanted.”
The sprawling Winstock property was on the outskirts of town, on a high promontory overlooking the town and the bay beyond. Calder gripped the dash as she took the turn heading toward the town proper and the docks below. She glanced over at him. “Don’t worry, I’m not thinking about lupines.” At his very funny look, she turned her attention back to the road with a partial smile, even though her heart was pounding in her chest at the thought of what could be happening on those docks right that very second. “All those years driving in D.C., not a single accident. You’re safe.” She smiled as she braked a little harder than necessary at the same stop sign she’d run the day she met him. “Ish,” she added, glancing at him again before continuing.
She purposefully didn’t look at the remains of Beanie’s sign, however, knowing that would distract her. It was enough she had Calder sitting mere inches away from her. She’d already spoken to Beanie personally and worked out the details of getting the sign replaced, and any other restitution Beanie felt she was owed, given that in some ways, the sign was irreplaceable. The older woman had been remarkably understanding about the whole thing, but Hannah would feel better when the reparations had actually been made.
She put all that out of her mind as she sped past. “I started to think about who would be desperate enough to burn down that building,” she went on, refocusing her thoughts. “Brooks might want what he wants, but he’s got enough on his hands trying to get the damn yacht club started. Why would he be rushing ahead to the next thing? Then Owen mentioned Ted and I realized that of all the people in this town, Ted is the one who has faced the biggest setbacks. He lost his bid at mayor, and his seat as head of the council was
gone because he got cocky and gave it up when he put his bid in for mayor. I did some checking before heading to Winstock’s place, called a few people who would know what was what, and as far as anyone I talked to knows, since then, he hasn’t been employed anywhere doing anything. Not by Brooks, not by anyone else, at least not in the Cove. Not even consulting, nothing. So I thought, there’s a guy desperate enough to do something, to prove to his rich father-in-law, maybe his demanding wife, that he is still valuable, still worth something. And Teddy is a big enough weasel that he’d consider arson. Well, honestly, I didn’t think he was that stupid, but desperate men taking desperate measures, and all that. Even so, I didn’t see him doing something like this.” She swore under her breath, finding it hard to even picture Ted waving a gun around in some kind of hostage situation. “He must be in far worse shape than anyone has guessed. Like, off-the-deep-end bad. I heard he hadn’t been seen much the past few weeks, but what would motivate him to do something like this?”
“Yeah, well, I think I can shed a little light on that. Seems you would be right about his demanding wife.” He broke off and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. This had gotten so far out of control so very fast.
Hannah flicked a look at him as she slowed, coming into the town proper, then looked at him again. “She made a move on you, didn’t she?” She laughed and reached over to pat his thigh. “Did the big bad she-monster come prowling around your room last night?”
“No, she prowled me directly at the breakfast table, in front of her father. And if I hadn’t already known I wasn’t building anything for Brooks Winstock, the little interplay between the two of them would have killed any deal completely dead.” He visibly shuddered and rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t want to speak ill of folks you grew up with, but there is something decidedly off in that relationship. And I don’t want to know what it is, either.”
“It’s pretty well known that Cami and Ted aren’t exactly a love match. And whereas Ted is more the cliché of a sleazy used car salesman in his handsy approach to his extracurricular activities, Cami is quite the effective prowler. I can’t say I ever understood how anyone would fall for Ted’s line of bull, but no one doubts Cami’s ability to take what she wants. As to her father—”
“Do I really have to know?” Calder asked, sounding pained and more than a little disgusted.
“Let’s just say he can’t say no to his daughter, so if she wants something, he either doesn’t stand in her way, or he does what he can to see that his baby girl gets her wish.”
“That’s just . . . I don’t even want to find the word for what that is.” He glanced at her now. “So, it didn’t bother you to think that Cami might come prowling around my door last night?”
She slid him a look, one eyebrow raised. “Should I be bothered?”
He lifted a shoulder and actually had the confidence to look a little put out, which made her already dangerously wobbling heart tilt a bit further in his direction.
“I wouldn’t expect a full-on catfight or anything, but a modest display of jealousy would have fed my manly ego at least a little bit.”
She smiled as she looked back at the road. “Well, since we’re being all honest and vulnerable here, I will reveal that when I saw her on the staircase behind you in the Winstock foyer, I might have felt my claws extend, just a wee bit.” She glanced at him. “Better?”
“A little,” he said, pretending he had to consider it.
She sighed, relenting, and said, “And, okay, when you did that little disgusted thing just now, rubbing your hand over your face at the very thought of her anywhere near you?” She slowed to make the turn down toward the docks, rolling to a stop long enough to look at him and hold his gaze directly. “I might have wanted to do a little victory dance.” She held her hand up and put her finger and thumb close together. “Little bit.”
He grinned then, and she thought it was a damn good thing they had a half-crazed man in a boathouse to deal with, because otherwise she’d have turned that car around and headed for the nearest desolate inlet and let him have his way with her, all over again.
Their smiles faded as they made the turn toward the docks, and spied the flashing lights of the law enforcement and fire department response to the situation on the pier. She swore. “I grew up here and I didn’t know we had that many vehicles with lights on top. Wow. This really is not good.”
“What did Logan say when you called in?” She’d called the station as they’d raced out to her car.
“I didn’t talk to him directly. He was already on his way down here. I talked to Barb.” She slowed as she got closer, trying to figure out the best place to park. Ironically, she ended up pulling into the plowed-over lot that used to be Delia’s Diner. “I called Logan before I left the house, to tell him what I thought about Ted. He agreed with me and said he’d go track him down and have a talk with him. But I don’t know if that happened before—” She nodded at the cluster of police cruisers and fire trucks that completely blocked off street access to any of Blue’s docks.
“Did Barb—Sergeant Benson—say what exactly happened down here?”
“All she knew was that Jonah had called and told them to . . .” She glanced at Calder, well aware that Jonah was his great-uncle. “Uh, come down and pick up Ted.”
Calder smiled, though it was more of a grimace. “I imagine he used somewhat more colorful language than that. But you said Bit was in there with him.”
Hannah took off her seat belt, and wrapped her arms around her waist for a moment as her heart clutched. She’d been trying to stay all prosecutor about this, as she’d long since trained herself to do. Even on the most heart-wrenching cases—though it was rare that things like corporate fraud and insider trading tugged at the heartstrings—she kept her cool. But these were people she knew, people she loved, and maintaining that professional, objective distance was proving impossible. “Yeah,” she said, roughly. “And even Teddy at his most disgusting should know better than to do something like that. Jonah’s a hard-ass old coot—” She looked at him. “Sorry, no offense, intended.”
“None taken. I’d have to agree with you. I like it when you get mad enough to swear out loud.”
She flashed him a confused half frown, then said, “I imagine he’s holding his own in there, and given the size difference, my money would be on Jonah snatching the gun away and beating Teddy senseless with it.”
“Maybe that’s why he took Bit. Leverage.”
She nodded, her throat closing over. “I still can’t believe he’s doing it, no matter how desperate he may be to prove himself to Brooks.”
“I didn’t get to finish earlier. Cami told him she’s filing for divorce.”
Hannah’s head swung around so fast, she winced at the residual ache in her shoulder and face. “When?”
“Earlier this week.”
“So he was about to lose everything.”
Calder nodded.
She opened the door and he put a hand on her arm. “Don’t rush in there. I’m sure your brother has it all under control.”
“My brother,” she said. Then, “Shit!” And she was out of the car like a shot. What the hell had she been doing, sitting there in the car, mulling over the ins and outs of the situation, when it was very likely, knowing Logan, that he’d gone in there guns blazing, at least metaphorically speaking. Or maybe not so metaphorically. He was getting married tomorrow, dammit. He couldn’t go putting himself between crazy Ted Weathersby and—she broke off that mental train. There was a tiny girl at risk, likely scared out of her mind. Of course he was going to put himself between her and a bullet. “Dammit, I’m going to kill that sleazy weasel with my own bare hands.”
She ducked under the yellow tape. A few local firemen and the men on Logan’s force turned instinctively to block her, but all they had to do was take one look at her face, and they stood back and let her through. They closed ranks, however, on Calder.
“I’m with her,” he
said, nodding at Hannah’s quickly retreating back. “And if you don’t want her rushing in there and putting herself in danger, you’ll let me through. I’m Jonah’s—”
“We know who you are,” said one of the police officers. “I’m sorry, but—”
Hannah had doubled back and grabbed his arm. “It’s okay, Joe. He’s with me. We might need him to talk to Jonah, keep him from doing anything stupid.” She all but dragged him away.
Calder leaned his head closer as they bobbed and weaved their way through the crowd. “I’d be happy to, but I’m pretty sure the only thing I’d do is piss Jonah off enough to distract him and give Ted an opening.”
They stopped behind two squad cars, parallel parked bumper to bumper at the end of the main pier leading to the boathouse. Officer Dan had a marksman rifle resting on the roof of the squad car, trained at the boathouse. And that’s when it very abruptly became real for Hannah.
“Dan, do you really need to do that?”
She didn’t even know he knew how to do that.
He didn’t so much as blink, much less look her way. “Logan’s behind the emergency truck,” he said, looking and sounding far older and more mature than she’d have thought possible. Yet another reason to want to kill Ted with her bare hands.
“Thanks,” she said. “Don’t—uh—don’t do anything rash.”
“Ten-four to that,” was all he said, keeping his eye on the target. “I’m having to pass up my mother’s meat loaf for this.”
That sounded more like the Dan she knew. “Come on,” Hannah said to Calder, feeling a little better. She was still clutching his arm. “He’s down here.”
“So I heard,” Calder said, mildly, but he didn’t slow her down or try to stop her. Instead, he moved up next to her, removed his arm from her grip, and placed a steadying hand on her back as they wove their way through another throng of uniformed people. Some of whom she didn’t recognize at all, which was when she realized that it wasn’t just Blueberry Cove’s finest clogging the waterfront with emergency vehicles. Logan had brought in reinforcements. Her heart rate jumped up another tick, until that was all she could hear, pounding in her ears. She all but skidded around the back of the emergency truck, and clapped her hand over her racing heart the moment she spied her brother, looking very severe, but mercifully very alive and not inside the boathouse with a crazy man. He was speaking to two other officers, both of whom were carrying the same kind of scoped rifle that Dan had been handling.
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