She slapped at a mosquito on her leg. She had folded Zeke’s copied blackmail letter into a small square and shoved it in her shorts pocket. Its words were seared into her memory.
She went around the hemlock at the top of the cliffs and down the steep incline to the boulder above the narrow ledge where she’d found the gold key her mother had been wearing the night she disappeared. Her heart raced. She felt light-headed. She’d come here straight from the hospital. She needed to eat, rest, think.
A woodpecker drummed nearby.
Did her mother drop the key off the ledge that night? Or was it put there or dropped there sometime between that night and when Dani found it a few weeks ago?
Did it have anything to do with the blackmail note?
Was it here—on the spot where she was standing now—that her mother had met and paid off her blackmailer?
Dani smelled the pungent odor of evergreen needles and heard the faint hum of traffic on the interstate in the distance.
There was a movement behind her, above her, in the woods. A rustling wind in the trees or a crunching of dried leaves. She went absolutely still and listened.
Nothing.
Ordinarily she wouldn’t have noticed such a sound. Now, however, following her visit to her father in the hospital, seeing his battered head, feeling her own fading bruises, she was on heightened alert. Her senses picked up every nuance of sight, sound, smell.
“Damn mosquitoes,” Ira Bernstein grumbled.
In her immediate, overwhelming relief, Dani almost lost her balance on the rock. She could hear Ira thrashing along the narrow path that spidered out from the old logging road that led through the woods to the Pembroke’s main grounds.
“Over here, Ira.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. You know, I’ve about decided I’m a city person. Think I’ll look up your grandpa and see if he doesn’t have a new job for me in some decent city in—Hey, who are you?”
Dani tensed at the change in Ira’s voice. The sudden fear mixed with indignation. She looked around for a stick or a loose rock, anything she could use as a weapon.
“Dani, run!”
Without thinking, she scrambled up the steep incline, pausing just to uproot a rock about the size of a football and twice as heavy, scraping her fingertips as she dug it free. She ducked under the low branches of the hemlock.
She heard sounds of grunting and choking.
“Ira! Ira—what’s happening? Talk to me!”
He didn’t answer. Stemming a surge of panic, Dani plunged through the undergrowth of ferns and brush onto the narrow path.
She swallowed a scream and almost dropped her rock.
A tall, muscular, red-faced man had Ira pinned by his throat to the thick trunk of an oak tree. Ira’s face had turned purple. He wasn’t making a sound.
Dani raised her rock shoulder-high and quickly debated heaving it down on the side of the attacker’s head. But she said, “Let him go.”
The man had his back to her and couldn’t see whether she had a gun or a pitchfork or just a stupid rock. But he released Ira, who immediately sagged to the ground, clutching his throat and gasping for air.
His attacker turned to Dani.
“Get off my property,” she said, surprising herself with her quiet determination.
He grinned. “Who’s going to make me?”
He sounded like a fourth-grader, only deadlier. The bastard had just tried to kill Ira or at least put him out of commission for a long time. Dani made a quick assessment. The attacker was bigger, stronger and obviously more accustomed to beating up on people in the woods than she was. But if he had a weapon, at least it wasn’t pointed at her.
If she was lucky, she’d have one good chance with her rock. Then that would be that.
Not very promising.
“If you leave now,” she said, “you’ll be long gone by the time I tend to Ira and have a chance to call the police.”
He laughed. “Do I look worried?”
That he didn’t.
But he added, by way of explanation, “I don’t react well to people sneaking up on me.”
He blew her a kiss—insultingly, cockily—and trotted off into the woods, not making a sound.
Dani ran to Ira, on his hands and knees, vomiting. “Ira, are you all right? Should I get an ambulance?”
He turned his pale, purplish face toward her. “I’m moving back to Istanbul.”
Sinking back against the tree, he coughed and rubbed his neck where there were red fingerprints and broken blood vessels. He winced in pain, growing even paler.
“Ira, I’m getting help.”
He held up a hand. “Wait.”
“You’re hurt—”
“I’ll be okay.” His voice was raspy, and he was clearly hurting, but he was dead serious. “The Pembroke doesn’t need any more bad PR right now.”
“I don’t care. We can ride this out and—”
“Dani, listen to me. A reporter found out Zeke’s been staying at the Pembroke. Figures something’s afoot and wants to talk to you.”
Dani knelt beside him as his words sank in. Everything was coming apart so fast. She was falling in love with the wrong man, her father was in the hospital, she’d been abrupt with Mattie and Nick, rumors were flying about her and her companies and Ira had just been attacked on his way to find her.
“Did you recognize that thug?” she asked.
Ira shook his head. “You?”
“No. Ira, we can talk about this later. You need to take it easy.”
“Dani, one more thing. Mattie called. She and Nick are on their way—they want you to pick them up at the train station.”
Just what she needed. Her famous grandparents wouldn’t exactly slip into town unnoticed. First, it wasn’t in their natures. Second, it was impossible. Somebody would recognize them. “I’ll take care of it. Right now I just want to get you out of here.”
There was a crunching sound behind them in the woods. Dani whirled around with her rock, which Zeke quickly snatched from her hand, ever the professional. “Good thing your pal didn’t test your arm,” he said mildly.
Dani felt relief at his presence even as she digested his words. “You saw him?”
“Watched from behind that pine back there. I got here too late to keep him from nailing Ira. You already had the situation in hand.” Despite his sardonic tone, his eyes were flat and dark, without humor. He squatted and quickly examined Ira’s bruised neck. “Ribs okay?”
“Sore, but I don’t think he broke any.”
“Throat, neck?”
“They hurt.”
His eyes narrowed, Zeke lightly touched the red fingerprints and nodded, as if reassured Ira’s injuries weren’t more serious. “If it’s any consolation, he wasn’t trying to kill you. You’d have been dead before Dani or I could have done a thing.”
Ira licked his lips. “I suppose I had to know that.”
“More to the point,” Zeke said, rising, “Dani had to know.”
She felt her stomach twist.
“You don’t go after a man like that with a rock.”
Zeke spoke without apology or arrogance. They were on his turf now, and he knew it.
“Well, if I’d had a gun, I’d have gone after him with that, but I didn’t and I wasn’t going to run while Ira—” She stopped midsentence, seeing the gun tucked into a small holster on Zeke’s waist.
He followed her gaze. “Just a precaution.”
For the first time she thought she really understood what he did for a living. How little she knew about this man who just hours ago had been so gentle and loving and passionate in bed with her.
“Why didn’t you follow him?” she asked hollowly.
“I tried. Got as far as the pavilion. A few of your people were out there on break. I decided not to push it and came back here.”
And she hadn’t heard a thing. Not a breaking of a twig—until he’d wanted her to hear him. His tone was mild and objective, but D
ani felt a chill go through her. Was her situation putting Ira and her people at Pembroke Springs in danger?
Ira, his color returning, pulled himself to his feet. “I’d never make it in the cloak-and-dagger business. Excuse my saying so, Dani dear, but you and our friend Cutler deserve each other. A pity you didn’t meet under normal circumstances.”
But despite his wry humor, Dani could see he’d had a bad scare. She started toward him but felt Zeke’s gaze on her. He hadn’t moved. “Zeke?”
“I know who he is, Dani,” he said in a low voice. “And I know where to find him.”
Ira groaned. “That’s enough for me. I’m out of here.”
“I’ll help you get back to the inn,” Dani offered.
“Thanks, but I believe I’m safer on my own, less likely to stumble on big mean guys spying on my boss. I’ll have someone at the bottling plant run me back.”
Threatening again to return to Istanbul, he staggered off toward the path.
Zeke touched Dani’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure he gets there safely.”
But she insisted on going with them. It wasn’t far to the pine-shaded grounds of the bottling plant, where one of the office workers was on break at the pavilion and volunteered to drive Ira back. He assured Dani and Zeke he’d be fine. “I’ll get a full explanation another time.”
When he’d gone, Dani sank onto a stone bench inside the pavilion, leaving the gate open. Across the shaded lawn she could see the evergreen-colored clapboards of the Pembroke Springs bottling plant, its old-fashioned look belying the state-of-the-art equipment inside.
“Better crank yourself down a few notches, Dani,” Zeke said, sitting beside her. He looked hot and unbearably masculine, as if he came upon people being attacked in the woods all the time. Maybe he did. “If you don’t, soon you won’t need a balloon to get you off the ground.”
She could feel the rising level of oxygen in her blood. All she needed now was to hyperventilate. She’d collapse, and Zeke would scoop her up and carry her off to safety. With his arms secure around her, she’d just give up. She’d let him find the answers to all her questions, she’d let him solve all her problems. She’d just snuggle up under a soft, warm quilt and lose herself, her independence, her defiant nature.
“I’m not going to turn my problems over to you to solve for me,” she told him quietly.
“Didn’t ask you to.”
“And I want to know where you got that blackmail note.”
“Naomi gave it to me,” he said simply. “Joe sent it to her in a separate, sealed envelope. She didn’t open it until she saw you wearing the gold key in the paper.”
“So you only just saw it yourself?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t look at him but could sense his presence beside her. She couldn’t deny the current of excitement running through her. He was, at the very least, a difficult man with whom to remain neutral.
“And that man who attacked Ira?” she asked.
“Quint Skinner.”
She swung around on the cool marble bench even as the shock sliced through her. “What?”
“Quint’s been in Saratoga at least as long as I have. I don’t know what he’s after, if anything.”
“But why would he attack—”
“I don’t know.”
Zeke’s gaze was unrelenting, but he seemed pensive, even remote. Dani concentrated for a moment on the scent of the roses and morning glories that were tangled together on the wrought-iron fence, on the chipped, worn Spanish tiles of the old fountain. Their familiarity and charm helped soothe her taut nerves.
“Tell me about Pembroke Springs,” he said, conversational.
“Zeke…”
He plucked a tiny, wilted pink rose blossom and held it delicately between his thumb and forefinger. Again the incongruities of the man struck her. “Is there much to bottling water?” he asked.
She reined in her frustration and impatience. Perhaps to know more about him—to earn his trust—she needed to let him know more about her. So she said, “It all depends.”
“On what?”
“First of all, we’re not as precise in this country as we could be about the distinction between mineral water and springwater. Whether a bottled water is called ‘mineral water’ or ‘springwater’ is often just a marketing decision as to which would sell better. Still, there are generally recognized criteria that distinguish mineral water. They have to do with what we call TDS—total dissolved solvents per liter.”
“Sounds like something you’d use to wash a car.” Zeke rested one foot on the opposite knee; he looked relaxed and at least marginally interested.
“TDS are what’s left after a liter of water has evaporated. What solvents are present is determined by the rock strata where the springs are located. The water picks up minerals from the rocks it’s filtered through. It’s really quite logical.”
“Examples?”
Dani eyed him, and she could easily imagine him off to slay dragons and rescue fair damsels. He was an intense and capable man. Before he acted, he would want to know everything. And people would tell him, just as she was. Her one consolation was that she wasn’t really telling him about herself. And yet she wanted to. That scared her.
“Limestone adds calcium,” she told him, “dolomite adds magnesium, igneous rocks add sodium. All kinds of dissolved minerals can be present in any particular water. It’s the combination and level of these various minerals that determine the taste, quality and possible therapeutic benefits of any given water. Saratoga’s lucky in that regard. I’m not a geologist, but it’s believed that this entire region—from Lake George south to Albany—was once under an ocean. Salt water was trapped in limestone, dolomite and sandstone and then sealed underground by shale, which is critical because shale’s impervious to water. So any surface water couldn’t contaminate the water trapped by the shale.”
“Aha,” Zeke said.
She smiled. “Am I getting carried away?”
“No. I’m beginning to get a picture of why you can charge what you charge for a glass of water. So if this fancy water’s trapped underground, how did anybody find out about it?”
“Fault lines in the shale. They allowed water to escape in aboveground springs and geysers. The Mohawk knew about the springs around here for centuries—they considered them sacred for their curative powers. The properties of the different springs vary widely. Some are alkaline, some saline, some mild, some strong. Different springs were used to treat different ailments, everything from gout and constipation to heart disease.”
Zeke pulled his foot off his knee and stretched out both legs, his feet on the brick walk. “And I always thought water was water.”
“It is and it isn’t.”
He tossed his rose blossom into the fountain, where it floated in the clear water. He pointed to it. “Is that springwater?”
“No, it’s just water we use for the fountain. There used to be a fountain that tapped Pembroke Springs directly, but we capped it and dug a borehole directly into the aquifer.”
“That’s not as romantic.”
“It’s more hygienic—there’s less opportunity for surface contaminants to get into the water.”
“What’s your water good for?”
“The soul,” she said and saw Zeke’s eyes narrow for a moment, as if he couldn’t tell whether or not she was serious—a nice switch. “Actually we just guarantee that our water will do no harm. That’s one of the differences between springwater and mineral water. We can’t make any therapeutic claims for springwater. But we rarely do for mineral water, either.”
Zeke leaned back, looking relaxed yet alert. An intriguing combination.
“End of lecture,” she said, figuring he’d had enough.
But he asked, “What about carbonation?”
“What about how your brother got that blackmail note and why you’re here?” she snapped back.
“You can’t stop a lecture midstream.” His lips tw
itched, and he almost smiled. “No pun intended.”
So she explained about carbonation. “Water—whether spring or mineral—can be still or carbonated. Still water is just that—flat. Most of the bottled water sold in Europe is still. I didn’t know that until I got into this business. Naturally carbonated water, which Pembroke Springs is, means that as the water comes from the ground it has enough carbon dioxide already in it to make it bubbly—or effervescent or sparkling, which all mean the same thing. We draw off the carbonic gas and reinject it during the bottling process to maintain quality control. If the bottle doesn’t say ‘naturally carbonated,’ that means ordinary carbon dioxide has been added. Frankly, I think it’s the quality of the water that matters most.”
“Must be a tough business,” Zeke said.
“It’s intensely competitive. Pembroke Springs is tiny in comparison to the big guns. Brand awareness, marketing costs, distribution costs—they all mount up and make it difficult for the little guy to compete. In New York State, water’s the most highly regulated beverage product. We try to use those regulations to our advantage by not just meeting them, but exceeding them. We do microbiological and radiological testing, we test color, turbidity, odor. We test for inorganics—lead, mercury, cyanide and such—and organics, like pesticides and herbicides. Any contaminant or unacceptable level of anything can kill a water’s reputation. We’re well aware people can just turn on the faucet.”
Zeke looked around at the pretty Victorian pavilion and the pine-shaded grounds. “This place is so different from when Joe and I camped here.” A curious softness, a melancholy tone, had crept into his voice, and Dani wondered if he didn’t have his own dreams of what might have been. “Everything was so overgrown and shabby then—the bottling plant was just a collapsing, empty building. You care about this place, don’t you?”
Her mouth had gone dry, and her heartbeat had quickened. “Yes, I do. As far as I’m concerned, making a profit and caring for the land go hand in hand in this business. If I don’t make money, no one gets to drink what I consider one of the best mineral waters in the world. If I’m too greedy, I squander a natural resource, the springs dry up and there’s nothing left for future generations. That’s what happened to a lot of springs around here in the late nineteenth century, until the state finally stepped in.”
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