“I was watching you a few minutes ago when Logan told you I was here, and why I’m here.”
Despite the man’s unsavory background, he was a guest in her home, and Leigh was a little mortified that she’d let her negative feelings about him show so openly. Relying on the old adage that the best defense is a good offense, she said very firmly and politely, “You’re a guest in my home, and I’m an actress, Mr. Valente. If I had any negative feelings about any guest, including you, you would never know it because I would never let them show.”
“That’s very reassuring,” he said mildly.
“Yes, you were completely mistaken,” Leigh added, pleased with her strategy.
“Does that mean you don’t disapprove of my business involvement with your husband?”
“I didn’t say that.”
To her shock, he smiled at her evasive reply, a slow, strangely seductive, secretive smile that made his eyes gleam beneath their heavy lids. Others might not have noticed the nuances of it, but Leigh’s career was based on subtleties of expression, and she instantly sensed peril lurking behind that come-hither smile of his. It was the dangerously beguiling smile of a ruthless predator, a predator who wanted her to sense his power, his defiance of the social order, and to be seduced by what he represented. Instead, Leigh was repelled. She jerked her gaze from his, and gestured to the painting on the wall, a painting that Logan wouldn’t have let hang even in a closet under ordinary circumstances. “I noticed that you were admiring this painting earlier.”
“Actually, I was admiring the frame, not the painting.”
“It’s early seventeenth century. It used to hang in Logan’s grandfather’s study.”
“You can’t be referring to that painting,” he said scornfully.
“I was referring to the frame. The painting,” she advised him with a twinge of amused vengeance, “was actually done by my husband’s grandmother.”
His gaze shifted sideways, from the painting to her face. “You could have spared me that knowledge.”
He was right, but Sybil’s arrival saved Leigh from having to reply. “Here’s someone I’d like you to meet,” she said a little too eagerly, and introduced the couple. “Sybil is a famous astrologer,” Leigh added, and immediately resented his look of derision.
Undaunted by his reaction, Sybil smiled and held out her right hand, but he couldn’t shake it because she was holding a drink in it. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” she said.
“Really, why?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Sybil replied, extending her hand farther toward him. “This drink is for you. Scotch. No ice. No water. It’s what you drink.”
Eyeing her with cynical suspicion, he reluctantly took the drink. “Am I supposed to believe you know what I drink because you’re an astrologer?”
“Would you believe that if I said it was true?”
“No.”
“In that case, the truth is that I know what you drink because our hostess told me what you drink and asked me to get this for you.”
His gaze lost some of its chill as it transferred to Leigh. “That was very thoughtful of you.”
“Not at all,” Leigh said, glancing over her shoulder, wishing she could leave. Sybil gave her the excuse she needed. “Logan asked me to tell you he needs you to settle some sort of debate about the play tonight.”
“In that case, I’d better go and see about it.” She smiled at Sybil, avoided shaking Valente’s hand, and gave him a polite nod instead. “I’m glad to have met you,” she lied. As she walked away, she heard Sybil say, “Let’s find somewhere to sit down, Mr. Valente. You can tell me all about yourself. Or, if you prefer, I can tell you all about yourself.”
IT WAS AFTER 4 A.M. when the last guest departed. Leigh turned out the lights, and they walked across the darkened living room together, Logan’s arm around her waist. “How does it feel to be called ‘the most gifted, multitalented actress to grace a Broadway stage in the last fifty years’?” he asked softly.
“Wonderful.” Leigh had been running on excitement until they walked into their bedroom, but at the sight of the big four-poster bed with its fluffy duvet, her body seemed to lose all its strength. She started yawning before she made it into her dressing room, and she was in bed before Logan was out of the shower.
She felt the mattress shift slightly as he got into bed, and all she managed to muster was a smile when he kissed her cheek and jokingly whispered, “Is this how you thank a man for a fabulous ruby-and-diamond pendant?”
Leigh snuggled closer and smiled, already half asleep. “Yes,” she whispered.
He chuckled. “I guess I’ll have to wait until tonight in the mountains for you to properly express your gratitude.”
It seemed like only five minutes later when Leigh awoke to find Logan already dressed and eager to leave for the mountains.
That had been Sunday morning.
This was Tuesday night.
Logan was lost somewhere out in the snow . . . probably waiting for Leigh to do something to rescue him.
Chapter 5
* * *
By ten-thirty Wednesday morning, Leigh’s anxiety was almost beyond bearing. Detective Littleton had phoned three hours earlier to say that although the map Leigh had drawn hadn’t been of much help the night before, she and Detective Shrader were already on the road again, following it through the mountains. She promised to call again as soon as they had anything to report.
All other incoming telephone calls were obviously being held by the hospital switchboard, because sometime during the night, someone had put a pile of phone messages on her nightstand. With nothing else to do to occupy her time, Leigh reread the phone messages that she’d only scanned earlier.
Jason had phoned six times; his next-to-last message had been frantic and curt: “The hospital switchboard is holding your damned calls, and you can’t have visitors. Tell your doctors to let me up to see you and I can be there in three hours. Call me, Leigh. Call me first. Call me. Call me.” He’d evidently called again, immediately after he’d hung up, because the time on the next message was only two minutes later. This time he wanted to reassure her about the play: “Jane is holding her own in your role, but she’s not you. Try not to worry too much about the play.” Leigh hadn’t given a thought to the play or to her understudy, and her only reaction to Jason’s message was a sense of amazement that he could imagine she’d care what happened to the damned play right now.
In addition to Jason’s messages, there were dozens of telegrams and phone calls from business and personal acquaintances of Logan’s and hers. Hilda had called, but the housekeeper had left no message except “Get well.” Leigh’s publicist and her secretary had both called, asking for instructions as soon as Leigh felt up to calling them.
Leigh continued leafing through the messages, finding a little bit of comfort in everyone’s genuine concern—until she came to the message from Michael Valente. It read, “My thoughts are with you. Call me at this number if I can be of help in any way.” His message instantly struck her as being too personal, very presumptuous, and completely inappropriate, but she realized her reaction was based more on her negative reaction to the man himself, than on what he’d said.
Unable to endure inactivity any longer, Leigh put the messages down, shoved the table with her untouched breakfast tray aside, and reached for the telephone. The hospital switchboard operator seemed startled and awed when she identified herself. “I’m sorry if you’ve been overloaded with phone calls,” Leigh began.
“We don’t mind, Mrs. Manning. That’s what we’re here for.”
“Thank you. The reason I was calling,” Leigh explained, “is that I wanted to be certain you aren’t holding any calls that might come from the police department or from my husband.”
“No, no, of course not. We would let the police through at once, and we all know your husband is missing. We’d never hold his call. Your doctor and the two police detectives from New York
City gave us complete instructions about handling your calls. We’re to put through any caller who says they have any information whatsoever about your husband, but we’re to take messages from all other callers, except reporters. Calls from reporters are to be transferred to our administrator’s office, so he can handle them.”
“Thank you,” Leigh said, weak with disappointment. “I’m sorry to cause you so much trouble.”
“I’ve been praying for you and your husband,” the operator said.
The sincerity and simplicity of that almost made Leigh cry. “Don’t stop,” she said, her voice strangled with fear and gratitude.
“I won’t, I promise.”
“I need to make some long distance calls,” Leigh said shakily. “How can I do it from this phone?”
“Do you have a telephone credit card?”
Leigh’s credit cards, wallet, and electronic phone book had all been in her purse in her car, but she knew her telephone credit card number by heart because she used it often. “Yes, I have one.”
“Then all you have to do is dial nine for an outside line and use your card in the usual way.” Despite what the detectives had said, Leigh tried to call Logan on his cell phone. When he didn’t answer, she called Hilda to see if she’d heard anything, but the worried housekeeper could only repeat what she’d told the detectives.
Leigh was in the process of calling Jason when a hospital staff nurse bustled into her room and interrupted her. “How are you feeling this morning, Mrs. Manning?”
“Fine,” Leigh lied as the nurse checked the tubes and containers attached to Leigh’s body.
“Haven’t you been using your morphine drip?” she asked, her expression puzzled and accusing.
“I don’t need it. I feel fine.” In truth, every inch of her body, from her toes to her hair, either ached or throbbed, and the nurse undoubtedly knew that. She stared at Leigh in frowning disbelief until Leigh finally relented and added, “I don’t want the morphine because I need to be alert and sensible this morning.”
“You need to be free of pain and resting comfortably so that your body can heal,” the nurse argued.
“I’ll use it later,” Leigh promised.
“You also need to eat,” she commanded, pushing the table with Leigh’s breakfast tray up close to the bed.
As soon as she left, Leigh moved the breakfast tray out of the way and reached for the telephone. She woke Jason up.
“Leigh?” he mumbled sleepily. “Leigh! Jesus Christ!” he sputtered coming awake. “What the hell is going on? How are you? Have you heard from Logan? Is he all right?”
“There’s been no word from Logan,” Leigh said. “I’m okay. A little sore and banged up, that’s all.” She could feel Jason’s conscience warring with his self-interest as he fought against his urge to demand to know when she could return to the play. “I need a favor,” she said.
“Anything.”
“I may want to hire my own people to help search for Logan. Who should I call to arrange it? Private detectives? Do you know anyone like that?”
“Darling, I can’t believe you have the slightest doubt. How do you think I caught Jeremy cheating on me? How do you think I avoided paying off that charlatan who claimed—”
“Could you give me the name of the firm and the phone number?” Leigh interrupted.
By the time Leigh got a pen out of the drawer beside her bed and wrote down the phone number on the back of a telegram, she was hurting so badly she could scarcely think. She hung up and lay back against the pillows, concentrating on breathing without intensifying the pain in her ribs. She was still doing that when the nurse who’d been in the last time returned to her bedside and saw the untouched breakfast tray. “You really must eat, Mrs. Manning. You haven’t eaten anything in days.”
Leigh’s private duty nurse had been much easier to ignore, but she’d gone home to sleep and wasn’t due to return until evening. “I will, but not now—”
“I insist,” the nurse countered as she moved the portable table over Leigh’s lap. She whisked the plastic covers off the dishes. “What would you like first?” she inquired pleasantly. “The applesauce, the wheat germ with skim milk, or the poached egg?”
“I don’t think I could swallow any of those things.”
Frowning, the nurse glanced at the little list beside the tray. “This is what you ordered last night.”
“I must have been delirious.”
Evidently the nurse agreed, but she would not be deterred from achieving her goal. “I can send someone down to the cafeteria. What do you normally like to eat for breakfast?”
The simple question filled Leigh with such longing for her old life, her safe, lovely routine, that she felt the sting of tears. “I usually have fruit. A pear—and coffee.”
“I can handle that,” the nurse said cheerfully, “and I won’t have to send someone down to the cafeteria, either.”
She’d barely left the room when Detectives Shrader and Littleton walked into it. Leigh shoved herself upright. “Did you find the cabin?”
“No, ma’am. I’m sorry. We have no news to report, just some more questions to ask you.” He nodded toward the breakfast tray. “If you were about to eat, go ahead. We can wait.”
“The nurse is getting me something else,” Leigh said.
As if on cue, the nurse arrived, pushing a cart that bore a gigantic basket of pears nestled in gold satin and entwined with gold ribbon. “This basket was out at the nurses’ station. A volunteer brought it up and said it was for you. These aren’t just pears, they’re works of art!” she enthused, removing a huge, glossy pear from its golden nest and holding it up to admire. She peered at the basket from all sides. “There doesn’t seem to be a card. It must have fallen off. I’ll look around for it,” she said as she gave the pear to Leigh. “I’ll leave you alone with your visitors now.”
The pear in her hand reminded Leigh of her last conversation about breakfast with Logan, and her eyes filled with sentimental tears. She cupped it in her hands, brushing her fingertips over its smooth skin while she thought of Logan’s skin, his smile; then she held it to her heart, where all her other memories of Logan were stored, safe and alive. Two tears slipped between her lashes.
“Mrs. Manning?”
Embarrassed, Leigh brushed the tears away. “I’m sorry—It’s just that my husband always teases me about being addicted to pears. I’ve had one for breakfast almost every day for years.”
“I imagine a lot of people know about that?” Detective Littleton asked casually.
“It’s not a secret,” Leigh said, laying the pear aside. “He’s joked about it from time to time in front of people. These pears were probably sent by my housekeeper, or my secretary, or even more likely, by the market that gets them for me when I’m home.” She nodded toward two brown vinyl chairs. “Please—sit down.”
Littleton pulled the chairs over to Leigh’s bed while Shrader explained the situation. “Your map wasn’t as helpful as we’d hoped it would be. The directions were a little contradictory, the landmarks missing or obscured by snowbanks. We’re checking with all the realtors in the area, but so far, none of them know anything about the house and property you’ve described.”
A thought suddenly occurred to Leigh—a solution so obvious that she was dumbfounded they hadn’t thought of it themselves. “I know I was close to the cabin when I had the accident. Whoever found me on the road will know exactly where that was! Have you spoken to him?”
“No, we haven’t spoken to him yet—” Shrader admitted.
“Why not?” Leigh burst out. “Why are you wandering all over the mountains, trying to follow my map, when all you have to do is talk to whoever rescued me?”
“We can’t talk to him, because we don’t know who he is.”
Leigh’s head was beginning to pound with angry frustration. “He can’t be very hard to locate. Please ask the ambulance drivers who brought me here. They must have seen him and talked to him.”
“Try to be calm,” Shrader said. “I understand why you’re upset. Just let me bring you up to date on the situation with your rescuer.”
Sensing that the situation was more complex than she’d thought a few moments before, Leigh tried to do as he asked. “All right, I’m calm. Please bring me up to date.”
“The man who found you Sunday night brought you down the mountain to a little motel on the outskirts of Hapsburg called the Venture Inn. He woke up the motel’s night manager and told him to call nine-one-one. Then he convinced the manager that you’d be better off in a room with a heater and blankets until help arrived. After the two men carried you into a room, your rescuer told the manager that he was going back to his vehicle for your belongings. He never returned. When the night manager went looking for him a few minutes later, his vehicle was gone.”
Leigh’s anger drained out of her body, leaving her limp and despondent. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the pillows. “That’s crazy. Why would anyone do something like that?”
“There are several possible explanations. The most likely one is that he was the same guy who ran you off the road. Afterward, he felt guilty, so he went back to see if he could find you. Once he found you, he started worrying about being blamed for the accident, so he made sure you were in good hands at the motel, then split before the police and ambulance arrived. Whether he was actually the guy who ran you off the road or not, he definitely had some reason for not wanting to talk to the police.
“The motel manager told us the guy was driving a black or dark brown four-door sedan—a Lincoln, he thought—an old one, and pretty battered up. The manager is in his seventies, and he didn’t notice much else, because he had his hands full trying to help get you out of the vehicle. His recollection of the driver is a little better, and he’s agreed to work with one of our sketch artists in the city tomorrow. Hopefully, they’ll come up with a decent likeness that we can use if your husband still hasn’t turned up.”
“I see,” Leigh whispered, turning her face away. But all she could really see was Logan’s happy expression as he kissed her good-bye Sunday morning. He was out there somewhere—hurt or snowbound, or both. Those were the only alternatives Leigh was willing to consider. The possibility that Logan might already be beyond help or rescue was too shattering to contemplate.
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