Danger in a Red Dress

by Christina Dodd

  The searchers inside wouldn’t easily follow her.

  She stood in the extension of the cave. In the distance, she could see a faint lightening of the night. The entrance. And beyond that entrance, she could hear the roar of the ocean.

  No wonder the metal hardware on the door was rusting. Day and night, night and day, the wind blew salt spray up the fifty-foot-long passage toward the door.

  Briefly, she turned on her flashlight and shone it around. The walls were narrowing. Here and there the rock ceiling had collapsed. She turned off the light—and walked. The scent of the sea grew greater, the rocks slippery with spray. The closer she got, the stronger the wind, the more she was sure she was in deep trouble. Mrs. Manly had promised her the beach.

  She was walking into the waves.

  She placed her hand against one wall, and she didn’t stop. She didn’t stop when the icy water filled her shoes. She didn’t stop when the brutally cold waves rose to her thighs. She caught her breath in agony as a wave broke against her stomach. Her teeth chattered, and tears of frozen pain trickled down her cheeks. She plowed steadily forward, hoping the water didn’t lift the cash out of her pockets, realizing it didn’t matter because she wasn’t going to live through this.

  Just as she was ready to die of hypothermia, the wall beneath her hand took an abrupt left turn. The cave opened and she walked along the base of the cliff, where the waves had undercut the granite. With a sigh of relief, she realized she was hidden from searchers above. Slowly, slowly, the ground beneath her feet sloped up out of the ocean.

  Clouds covered the full moon, muting its pure light, but she could see enough to know she was on a path, a narrow path that wound and turned ever upward, taking her to the top. Still the wind blasted her, and she shuddered in frozen agony as the sand and water squished in her shoes.

  She was afraid. So afraid. Afraid her numb feet would slip and she’d drop onto the rocks and into the waves below. Afraid that somewhere above, the mob waited. . . .

  Carrick waited. . . .

  Trent waited. . . .

  But although light glowed from the still not visible house, she saw no trace of any human figure on the top of the cliff.

  Did they think she was still inside Balfour House?

  Probably. They probably didn’t believe she would do what she’d done to escape. By God, she didn’t believe she’d done what she’d done to escape.

  She reached the top of the cliff and crouched there, assessing her location. The house was far to the left and down. She’d managed to come out near the spot where Mrs. Manly had first told her about the fortune and charged her to distribute it on her death.

  With gritty hands, Hannah wiped tears off her cheeks. Yeah, like that was going to ever happen.

  Through the increasing howl of the wind, she could hear sirens shrieking. At the house, emergency vehicles and police cars, blue and red lights flashing, lined up at the front door. A throng of people milled out on the lawn and trampled the flower beds. With a savage smile, Hannah realized that Mrs. Manly had got her wish—her party had become the most talked-about event of the year.

  Standing, she cut across the rise and looked over the other side—and realized she’d found the promised land.

  Cars. A hundred cars were parked on the flat below. Limos. Mercedes. BMWs. A couple of luxury SUVs.

  Somewhere, somehow, surely one of them had the keys still in the ignition.

  She stumbled down the slope, shivering in the cold, telling herself if she just hurried, she’d warm up, and knowing that was crap, with the temperature dropping and the wind chill at freezing or below.

  Still she walked. She couldn’t give up now, not when she could see lines and lines of cars, unguarded by anything but their isolation in a field on the rocky edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Unguarded because . . . because the drivers and the valets had raced to the house to be part of the excitement?

  Yes. Probably.

  Undoubtedly.

  She reached the first car and looked inside. Keys glinted in the seat.

  Her heart leaped at this first turn of good luck.

  But that car was blocked. She couldn’t get it out. She had to find a car on the outer edge. Encouraged, she stumbled forward, occasionally glancing inside a vehicle, and always seeing keys. Keys in the seats, keys in the ignitions. With the security on the estate, no one was supposed to steal these cars.

  She got to the outer ring of cars and stood, undecided.

  What should she steal? A limo would be too obvious, but this Mercedes SL 600 Roadster seemed out of her class. . . . The door opened under her hand, and a heady, new-car, expensive-leather smell filled her head. Drawn by the warmth in the car, she slipped into the driver’s seat and looked around for the keys.

  They weren’t visible.

  But a fur coat was.

  A fur coat tossed carelessly across the passenger seat.

  Hannah grabbed it and pulled it around her shoulders. The cool silk lining quickly warmed around her body. She wriggled her arms into the sleeves. She pulled the luxurious fur under her rear and around her thighs.

  She shut the door and untied her shoes. She threw them into the back, wiggled her frozen toes and thought about how remorseful she should feel, ruining some woman’s mink with her wet, salty body.

  A laugh sputtered out of her.

  The coat was the least of it. She was about to steal a car.

  This car, if she could just figure out where the keys were hidden. She checked the glove compartment and the console, scanned the back. She sat, discouraged and desperate, and stuck her frozen hands into the coat’s pockets.

  And there were the keys. She pulled them out and stared at them. Stared at them and realized this was a keyless ignition. They were here, and she could have started the car at any time.

  So she did.

  She pulled out of the line of cars, holding her breath, fearing a shout of discovery. But the engine was expensive and quiet. No one realized the car was leaving, and if they did, they thought the owner, or the owner’s chauffeur, or a valet was driving.

  With the lights off, she painstakingly steered around the ruins of the old carriage house and down the narrow winding road. . . .

  Eventually, the car warmed up and she turned on the heater. Eventually, the tiny road met the main highway, and she turned north, away from Balfour House. Eventually, she drove west. And eventually, she intended to leave Maine altogether.

  She hoped never to return.

  Although . . . She smiled a smile that looked more like a snarl. She would never, as long as she lived, forget the sound Carrick made when she slammed him with the lamp and knocked the breath out of him. It was the best thing that had happened that day.

  She refused to think of Trent.

  He was best forgotten.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Gabriel walked into B’wiched in New York City and headed right for the table where, almost a year ago, Carrick had first shown him Hannah’s photo. Gabriel didn’t sit there because he had any sentimental attachment to Hannah. Quite the opposite. He sat there because he preferred to sit with his back against the wall. That way, no one could sneak up behind him and blindside him.

  Once was enough.

  The waitress hustled over. “I’m Asta.” She was new, young, with hair dyed black-hole black, and she was looking him over.

  He didn’t care. He’d been burned. He wasn’t about to step back into that fire. “I want iced tea—black, not sweet, not flavored. Please.” He added the please because when he’d lived with the Prescotts, he’d learned good manners, although lately, even the starkest civility had seemed too much trouble.

  “Right away.” Asta leaned over to put a menu on the table, giving him a clear shot right down the front of her black blouse to a pair of smooth, perky boobs. “If you need anything else, anything at all . . .”

  “There’ll be two of us for lunch.” He took another menu, and waved her away.

  That was what civility
got him. A waitress who wanted to chat when Gabriel wanted to get this business with Carrick over with at last.

  Carrick stepped through the door. It was the first time Gabriel had seen him since that god-awful night last year. Carrick hadn’t changed; his appearance was as polished as ever . . . although perhaps he was a little thinner. Certainly, a haunted expression had etched a few lines around his mouth.

  But then, his mother had been killed last year in circumstances that had sent Gabriel into a fury of anguish and pain. Gabriel had spent four months tracking Hannah Grey through twelve states. In Becket, Massachusetts, he’d located the fat head who, based on his belief that anyone who wore a fur coat and drove a Mercedes couldn’t lie, had reissued her a money card for her account, even though she had no ID. In Philadelphia, Gabriel had located that very fur coat on a homeless woman. In Chicago, he’d located the stripped remnants of the Mercedes. Then, in Minneapolis, he’d lost Hannah’s scent. All trace of her had disappeared.

  He hadn’t given up. He would never give up. He would find her and bring her to justice for what she’d done to Mrs. Manly, to Carrick . . . and to him.

  Because for a few brief, glorious moments, he’d forgotten she was a suspect, and trusted her. Loved her. Loved the illusion of who she was. She’d made him a failure, she’d made him a fool, and she’d broken his heart.

  No, not his heart—his dreams.

  He would never forgive her.

  Now he sat in this chair, in this restaurant, again, to say what he could no longer put off.

  I’m your brother.

  I’m your half brother.

  I’m one of your father’s bastards.

  “Hello, Gabriel.” Carrick offered his hand, and in a somber voice, said, “I’m glad you called. I hope this means you’ve finally gotten over what happened last autumn. No one could have suspected the depths of Hannah Grey’s infamy, and no one blames you for—”

  Gabriel couldn’t stand the sympathy and the earnestness anymore. He came to his feet. “Carrick, I’m your half brother, one of your father’s bastards.”

  Carrick’s hand jerked back against his side. For a split second, his face was blank with shock and an ugly dismay. Then a smile split his face. “By God, you played me!”

  “I did.” Gabriel sat. Better to give Carrick the dominant position here. It cost Gabriel nothing, and it would put Carrick at ease.

  “So it wasn’t an accident that you showed up when I needed someone to find my brothers.” Carrick looked as if he had control of himself, but his voice shook a little.

  Gabriel spread his hands in deprecating dismissal. “At first I had nothing more than suspicion, so when the case against your mother hit and you needed help—”

  “You moved into position. Very clever.” Carrick pulled up a chair, and his eyes gleamed with honest admiration. “I never saw that one coming.”

  Gabriel leaned back, relieved.

  He had to admit, he’d been worried. No man liked being set up, no matter how good the reason. But maybe it was the blood connection, maybe it was Carrick’s “Life is a game” attitude, but the guy seemed to honestly admire Gabriel’s deception.

  The waitress popped up again. “Hi, I’m Asta, and I’m here to wait on you. What can I get for you two gentlemen?”

  Gabriel shoved a menu toward Carrick, ordered a pork sandwich with sweet potato chips, and by the time he was done, Carrick was ready to order his caprese salad and chardonnay.

  “I’ll bring that food right out,” Asta trilled.

  As she bounced away, Carrick said, “Whoa.”

  “Yeah. It’s not just her boobs that are perky.” No matter what had happened in his life, Gabriel had never been such a cynic. Now his sister Pepper told him he had passed cynic and had gone right into bitter asshole.

  Gabriel looked up from the menu to find Carrick examining him. Carrick’s gaze lingered on the harsh lines of Gabriel’s bone structure, the tanned skin, the straight black hair, the blade of a nose. “I should have recognized the eyes. Your mother had to be . . . what? Hispanic? Native American? Aztec? Mayan?”

  Gabriel shut the menu. “All of those, maybe. When I was four, she abandoned me, so I don’t have the details.” The details were lost in the screams of a terrified child and the rusty stain of old dried blood.

  “Didn’t Father support you? I mean, until he left? He was always good about that, I thought.”

  “I apparently slipped through the cracks. So to speak.” Gabriel could joke about it. He simply didn’t think it was funny. “It took DNA to turn my suspicion into certainty, and all the results are in. We’re one big happy family. Five brothers. Five women Nathan Manly seduced and impregnated.” Whoops. Gabriel had forgotten about that tact thing again. “Except for your mother. We can’t say he seduced her. He married her.”

  “He married her for her money, so I’m going to guess that, yes, there was a seduction involved.”

  Gabriel wondered at Carrick’s lack of concern. Most guys were a little sensitive when they talked about their mothers’ sex lives.

  But Carrick was talking about his in-wedlock father, so maybe that made a difference.

  Or maybe he had spent so many years being knocked around about his father’s corruption, he’d lost the ability to be sensitive.

  Or maybe he just hid his feelings well.

  All interesting theories, and important when it came to understanding this complex man who was his brother.

  “Did he father more sons?” Carrick asked. “Am I going to have more . . . surprises popping up every damn time I turn around?”

  So Gabriel wasn’t the only one whose tact failed him. “There’s a mystery we’ll never completely solve. I’ve done the research. I’ve examined your father’s—our father’s—travel logs, and his personal financial records. Perhaps there are other sons like me—sons he conceived in his travels, sons he lost track of—but I don’t think so. He seemed very conscientious about his little habit.”

  “You have to wonder what he was thinking.”

  “I’ve seen it before. Guys who spread their sperm throughout the land.”

  “He wasn’t a salmon,” Carrick said with irritation.

  “I guess not. I never met him.”

  Asta put their plates in front of them, giving them another good flash of the boobies, and when they paid no attention, she flounced off to a more appreciative table.

  “My father was a good father. Generous, kind, lots of fun when he was around.” Carrick’s mouth turned down. “But there was never a time when I didn’t know he had other sons.”

  “Your mother told you?” Seemed out of character.

  “No. Until he was gone and the scandal broke, she never admitted she knew. The servants told me about my father and his . . . predilections. And my class-mates jeered about it. When Father was gone away on ‘business’ ”—Carrick used air quotes—“I used to imagine him talking to the other boys, playing ball with them, helping with their homework, the way he did when he was home, with me. I felt cheated. In some ways, my childhood was as difficult as yours.”

  Gabriel snorted. “No.”

  With a lofty disregard for the facts, Carrick said, “Father taught me one thing for sure. When you’re headed into the brush, always put on a raincoat.”

  “Oh, me, too.” Although since the moment Carrick had shown him Hannah’s picture, Gabriel hadn’t cared about other women. Hannah . . . well, he wanted Hannah, simply Hannah, and she was a whore, a thief, and a murderer. One dance, and she’d done a pretty good job of ruining sex for him.

  He sure as hell hoped it wasn’t forever. But he wasn’t taking any bets.

  “So. You’re my brother.” Carrick tapped his fork on the table. “Do you still work for me?”

  “No. I’m working this case for myself now.”

  “You’re pretty intense about this one.” That seemed to make Carrick uneasy.

  “Yeah.” Gabriel tried to joke. “Besides, I don’t offer a family discount.�
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  “Such business acumen. Daddy would be impressed.” Carrick’s mouth quirked, slamming his dimple into position.

  From a table nearby, Gabriel heard a woman softly moan. Yeah, Carrick still had the lady-killer effect.

  “I don’t appreciate being compared to Daddy.” Now Gabriel was not joking.

  “It’s inevitable, man. There’s no escaping heredity. Heredity is the bitch queen of fate.”

  But Gabriel had spent time with his other half brothers, Roberto Bertolini, Devlin FitzWilliam, and Mac MacNaught. The brothers were more than merely their father’s children. Their mothers had left their marks on their sons, and the men, each one, had used their own minds, their own hearts, their own spirits to fashion their lives. Gabriel admired them. They were good men, and Carrick, if he would drop the tendency toward melodrama, would be a good man, too. “Heredity is not a trap, and to believe otherwise is an excuse for weakness.”

  As if the whole subject gave him a headache, Carrick put his fist to his forehead. “It’s a trap for me,” he muttered.

  Carrick was feeling sorry for himself. Poor little rich boy.

  Although he had few funds now. Right?

  Without warning, Gabriel pounced. “Has Hannah accessed your father’s fortune?”

  “No. The account is still intact.”

  “So you know where the account is now.”

  Carrick hesitated. “It’s so much money, and people have begun to take an interest.”

  “People.” Gabriel didn’t like the sound of that. “As in people besides the government?”

  Carrick looked from side to side and said softly, “Just . . . keep it down, huh?”

  Gabriel leaned forward. “Are you in trouble?”

  “Nothing you can help with.”

  “Do you need money?” Gabriel had always wondered how Carrick had maintained such a lavish lifestyle. Maybe by living beyond his means?

  “No.” Carrick lifted his chin. “I made a bundle selling interviews about Mother’s death.”

  “I saw.” Gabriel hadn’t approved. In his experience, talking to the sensationalist media was always trouble, and in this case, sleazy and heartless.