“He’s right, Cade,” Gerr said quietly.
Cade nodded, telling himself to take it easy. Roger was right, which meant he couldn’t be their shooter. “Sorry, Roger,” he muttered. “I wasn’t thinking straight. Of course it wasn’t you.”
“But who was it?” Talia murmured.
Cade turned to her. Her eyes were luminous, and she looked so frightened that he desperately wished he could come up with an answer to her question. Before it was too late.
JUST AS THE FOUR OF THEM started the trek back to the resort, the beam of headlights appeared on the road behind them. Seconds later, one of the hotel minivans caught up with them.
When the driver pulled alongside and leaned across to the open passenger window, it took Talia a second to realize the person at the wheel was Liz Jermain.
Normally the hotel manager was the picture of composure. Even when she’d been confronted with a dead body Liz hadn’t entirely lost her equanimity. But at the moment her hair was mussed, her face flushed, and she looked decidedly flustered.
“Are any of you tired of walking?” she asked. “I can give you a lift the rest of the way back if you’d like.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Cade said. He slid the back door open and gestured Talia inside. “There’s been some trouble,” he added, climbing in after her.
“Oh, no,” Liz said, smoothing her hair. “Please tell me it was nothing as serious as Mrs. Wertman’s murder.”
“It could have been,” Gerr muttered, climbing into the front with her. “Talia and I were walking along the beach and somebody opened fire on us.”
“Oh, my God. You’re sure it was you that—”
“Positive. If his aim had been any better we’d be dead meat.”
“Oh, my God,” she said again. “And nobody from security’s shown up?”
“With the direction of the wind,” Roger said, “nobody at the hotel would’ve heard the shots.”
“No,” Liz said. “No, I guess you’re right. But, Lord, I thought we had that problem sorted out for good.”
“What problem?” Cade asked.
Liz shifted into drive and started off before she answered. “This has happened a couple of times before,” she finally told them. “I don’t mean he’s ever actually shot at people before—just coons—but if he thought you were out there looking for eggs…”
“Looking for what?” Roger said.
“I think,” Liz said, “I’d better back up and explain from the beginning.”
Cade reached for Talia’s hand in the darkness and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “At least there is an explanation,” he whispered, his lips so close to her ear that the warmth of his breath ignited a tiny flame deep within her.
“It’s one of the estate owners,” Liz said as Talia tried to ignore the way that flame began to lick at her belly.
“All of them are wealthy,” Liz continued, “and they’ve gone through life doing pretty well whatever they pleased. I guess that’s one of the things they like about the island. There’s an attitude of ‘live and let live’ here, so nobody bothers them about their eccentricities. But…well, one fellow we call the Colonel has developed Alzheimer’s. And he’s always had a thing about the island’s raccoons because—”
“Liz,” Talia interrupted quietly, “whoever was shooting wasn’t aiming at any raccoon. Gerr wasn’t exaggerating about how close the shots came. I could see them hitting the sand by our feet.”
Liz shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. The Judge will have to talk to the Colonel’s wife again. She’s already hired a live-in nurse, but I guess even the two of them can’t watch him twenty-four hours a day.”
“So he sometimes just wanders around the island with a gun?” Cade said.
“No…no, it hasn’t happened in ages. But you see, like a lot of the Sea Islands, Jermain Island is a nesting place for loggerhead turtles. And for as long as I can remember…” Liz paused to negotiate the turn off the main road.
“For as long as I can remember,” she began again, “the Colonel’s been concerned about their preservation. Every year, he’d organize patrols on the beach when the eggs were hatching to keep the birds from getting the hatchlings before they could make it into the water.”
She pulled the minivan to a stop in front of the hotel, then turned to finish her story. “But about ten years ago the island’s raccoon population had gotten so large they were eating most of the eggs. That made the Colonel declare his own personal war on them. And now that he’s so confused…”
“You’re trying to tell us,” Gerr said, “he’s so senile that he mistook Talia and me for giant raccoons out after turtle eggs?”
Liz gave an unhappy shrug. “The turtles don’t even lay their eggs until summer. And I’m sure he knew you were people. But he must have assumed you were after eggs and…well, as I said, the Judge will talk to the man’s wife again. She’s going to have to hire a second nurse or something, because he’s obviously gotten downright dangerous. There’s no other explanation for what happened.”
Talia glanced at Cade, wondering if he could think of any other explanation. She certainly could. And it had nothing to do with a senile Colonel and raccoons and turtle eggs. It had to do with her own personal, and still unidentified, weirdo.
“I’ll speak to the Judge about this immediately,” Liz said as her passengers started to pile out. “I’m just going to put the van away, then I’ll go and talk to him. I’m sure he’ll call the Colonel’s wife tonight.”
“Yes…well,” Talia murmured, stepping down to the driveway, “I’d like to know what she has to say.”
“I’ll make sure you do,” Liz promised.
“Talia?” Gerr said when she turned from the van. “Roger and I are just going to talk about something for a couple of minutes. Do you want to wait for me in the lobby?”
“No, that’s all right. Cade’s room is right next to mine, so I’ll get home safely.”
Cade draped his arm over her shoulders, wordlessly assuring her she would, then quietly said, “Do you think it could be the senile Colonel?”
“Well, I did wonder if Liz was jumping to conclusions.”
“Yeah? Well, I wondered if she was doing a lot more than that. What do you figure she was up to, out there on the road at this time of night?”
Talia drew a complete blank. “I don’t know. It’s too late for her to have been in the village. Nothing would be open. But maybe she was visiting someone in the estates. She’s probably friends with some of the people who live there.”
“Yeah, I guess that could be it. But whatever she was doing, the Judge didn’t know about it. From what he said when he was looking for her, he assumed she was somewhere in the hotel. And did you notice how she looked when she stopped to pick us up?”
Talia nodded, a little wave of anxiety washing over her. “She was awfully flushed and windblown, wasn’t she.”
“I’ll say. As if she might have been running…or maybe shooting.”
TALIA MADE A QUICK TRIP into the washroom off the lobby, and when she came back out Cade was talking to Joanie, the concierge.
Rather than interrupt, she stood waiting for him to finish—and thinking about him. Thinking about the way he’d raced across the beach and taken her in his arms. Thinking how cherished that had made her feel.
She was trying with all her might not to think about it, though, because the feeling of being cherished was gone now, replaced by a sense of total devastation. After she’d worked so hard to convince herself she didn’t care about him, his embrace had forced her to face reality. And this particular reality was awfully tough to face.
She’d fallen in love with Cade. More deeply and completely in love than she’d ever thought possible. But he hadn’t fallen in love with her.
She glanced longingly at the staircase, thinking how much she’d like to go up to her room and have a good therapeutic cry. But under the circumstances, she couldn’t even allow herself the luxury o
f wallowing in self-pity. Not for the moment at least. What she had to do right now—unless she wanted to end up dead, instead of merely a victim of unrequited love—was figure out who’d been shooting at her.
Of course it was always possible Gerald Asimov had been the intended target. But she’d bet her bottom dollar poor Gerr had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the wrong place and time had been with her.
Which brought her back to the question of who’d been shooting at her.
The idea it had been Liz Jermain didn’t seem likely. But on the other hand, a contract killing at the resort hadn’t been a likely happening, either. Nor had her being accosted in the hall. Or Harlan’s appearing on her balcony in his sleep.
All in all, the highly improbable seemed to be the norm at Bride’s Bay, so it made sense to ask a few questions about Liz. And that had to be what Cade was doing right now. She looked at him again, and just as she did he turned away from the concierge and started across the lobby.
“Get anywhere?” she asked when he reached her.
“Uh-uh. Nowhere at all.”
“So what do we do now?”
When Cade suggested trying the bartender, they headed for the bar. There, Desmond Curtis greeted them with a warm smile. “What can I get for you two tonight? A beer and a mint julep?”
“Actually,” Cade told him, “we’d just like to ask you about something. Yesterday you were telling me you’ve spent most of your life on the island.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So you must know everyone.”
“Most everyone. Everyone at Bride’s Bay of course. And the villagers. But a few people don’t have much to do with the resort staff.”
“You mean some of the people who live in the estates?” Talia said.
“That’s right. Some of them keep entirely to themselves.”
“We were just hearing about an old Colonel who lives there,” Cade said.
“Well, him I know fairly well. He used to be concerned about the turtles,” Desmond went on. “So every summer he’d ask us all to help patrol the beach when the eggs were hatching.”
“He used to be concerned?” Cade said.
“Well, for the past year or two he…hasn’t quite been himself.”
Cade nodded. “That’s what Liz Jermain was saying. She’s the one who told us about him—we were just out walking and she gave us a ride back to the hotel. She didn’t mention where she’d been, though.”
“I guess,” Talia tried when Desmond didn’t bite, “Liz must have friends in the estates.”
Her words brought the trace of a smile to the bartender’s face. “Liz knows everyone on the island,” he said. “But she has friends from the mainland, too.”
“Yes, I imagine she would. But she wasn’t visiting any of them tonight. I mean, as Cade said, she was right here—gave us a ride back to the hotel.”
Desmond glanced around the almost empty bar, then looked at Talia again. “Tell me,” he said quietly. “Did you hear a helicopter taking off before Liz picked you up?”
“Ah…” She and Cade had noticed a helicopter pad yesterday, when they’d walked up from the ferry, but what did a helicopter have to do with Liz’s giving them a ride?
“I wasn’t aware of hearing one,” she finally said. “Why?”
“Oh, your question about Liz’s friends just made me wonder. Because she has a friend we’re all very curious about. And he sometimes comes and goes by helicopter.”
“Who is he?” Cade asked.
Desmond chuckled. “If we knew that, Mr. Hailey, we wouldn’t be so curious about him.”
Chapter Eleven
The only thing talking to Desmond Curtis had done, Cade decided as he and Talia left the bar, was raise his frustration level.
Considering the number of detective novels he’d read in his life, he should have some clue about what was going on. But here he was with a real-life mystery unfolding under his nose and no idea how the pieces added up.
All he was sure of was that too many bizarre things had happened to chalk them up to coincidence. Which meant somebody was definitely targeting Talia. And knowing that made him stone cold inside.
“At least,” she said as they reached the lobby, “we can be pretty certain it wasn’t Liz doing the shooting.”
“Yeah. I guess that was a crazy thought in the first place. It’s a lot easier to believe she has a secret lover than that she moonlights as a killer.”
The tiny smile Talia gave him made him want to take her in his arms.
“Cade?” She stopped walking as they reached one of the couches in the lobby. “Could we sit down for a minute? Try to see if we can figure out any of this before we go upstairs?”
He nodded. They had to figure things out, because he just couldn’t let anything more happen to her. Maybe he didn’t know who was out to get her, but he knew how he felt about her. He loved her. And he was going to do everything possible to keep her from harm.
“What about this Colonel?” she asked, sinking onto the couch. “Do you think it’s possible Liz was right? Could it have been him?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sitting down beside her. “If he’s got both a wife and a nurse keeping a close watch on him, it sure doesn’t seem likely.”
She nodded slowly. “And even if he’d gotten out of his house and walked along the road, he’d have to be blind to think Gerr and I were raccoons. And if he was blind,” she added with another wan smile, “he couldn’t have come so close to hitting us.”
Cade managed to laugh, but it took a lot of effort. There was absolutely nothing humorous about all this. “But if we scratch the Colonel as a possibility,” he said, “where does that leave us?”
“Lord only knows. Maybe…”
When she stopped midsentence, Cade followed her gaze across the lobby and saw that Liz and the Judge were heading in their direction. By the time they reached the couch they were both smiling, but the smiles looked strained.
“Here you are,” Liz said. “When there was no answer in either of your rooms, we wondered if we’d be able to find you. But we wanted to let you know the Judge spoke to the Colonel’s wife.”
“Yes,” he said. “We had a lengthy chat.”
“And?” Cade prompted.
“And according to her, it couldn’t have been the Colonel out there. He always sleeps from after dinner until about midnight. After that, he gets up and wanders around the house for hours. But until midnight, he’s out like a light.”
“There’s no chance he broke his pattern tonight?” Talia asked.
“I don’t think so. Apparently either his wife or the nurse look in on him every half hour when he’s sleeping. And they’ve had special locks installed so he can’t slip outside without them knowing.”
“She also said,” Liz put in, “there’s no way he could’ve gotten hold of a gun—short of breaking in somewhere and stealing one. She got rid of his guns long ago.”
“Well,” Talia murmured, “we didn’t really think it could have been him, but…” She paused, slowly shaking her head, and when she finally went on she sounded incredibly weary. “We’re not going to find out who it was, are we? It’s like last night, like the guy in the hall. We’re just not going to find out who it was.”
Cade covered her hand with his, wishing he could do a lot more than that to reassure her.
“Well,” the Judge said, “some of the other islanders have been known to shoot at raccoons, so even if it wasn’t the Colonel…”
“No,” Talia said. “That can’t explain it. I might have believed your senile Colonel thought he saw a coon on the beach, but…” She didn’t have to finish the thought. The others nodded.
“Don’t you think we should inform the sheriff’s people?” Cade asked after a moment.
“Actually,” the Judge said, “I’ve already called them.”
“And?”
When the Judge glanced at Liz, she explained.
“The way they
see it,” she said, “all that happened was somebody shot off a few rounds out in the middle of nowhere. So they said there’s no need for alarm.”
“They implied,” the Judge muttered, “that I was overreacting. That I was spooked because of the murder.”
“And since nobody was hurt,” Liz went on, “there’s no way they’re coming all the way over to the island this late.”
“I couldn’t get hold of the sheriff himself,” the Judge said, “but I should be able to tomorrow. In the meantime, Talia, if it would make you feel better we could post someone from security outside your door.”
“Oh, I…I just don’t know. Let me think about it, all right?”
“Of course.” He dug into his pocket and produced a card. “I’ll write Liz’s number on here, too. And if you decide you’d like someone, just call one of us.”
“I will. And thanks.”
As Liz and the Judge headed away Talia turned to Cade. “You know what I think? I think the guy out there was my weirdo. And maybe this is going to sound pretty crazy, but I don’t want them sending somebody to stand guard outside my door. Because the way things are going, it would turn out to be him. I mean, have you noticed there’s never anyone from security on the scene when there’s trouble?”
Cade hesitated. Thinking the weirdo might be someone on staff did sound pretty crazy. At a place like this, potential employees were probably scrutinized within an inch of their lives before they were hired. But Talia was so upset he sure didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
“I guess,” he said at last, “we can’t be too careful when there aren’t many people we can definitely rule out. I mean, there’s Roger, because there was no smell of cordite.”
“And Gerr,” Talia said, “because he was with me. But beyond that…”
A flash of realization struck Cade. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Talia, I know who our weirdo is—for sure this time.”
“READY TO FACE HIM if he’s in there?” Cade asked as they started down the hall.
Talia nodded, but she didn’t look very certain. Before they’d come upstairs, she’d said that she’d somehow developed a feeling Harlan wasn’t their weirdo. So now that the pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together, it was clear she didn’t like the picture they were forming.
Love And Lies Page 11