Blood Ties (32 page)

"Just what I thought," Buck said. "Did you get to talk
to Abbie's father last night?"

Daniel shrugged. "A little. Nothing beyond polite
conversation. Why? Do you suspect him?"

"Should I?"

"I'll admit it was odd, his showing up at the site last
night. What do you know about Vernon Night Horse?"

"Not a lot," Buck admitted. "I gather he's rich. Oil
wells. And I found out that he and Karen Knight
weren't divorced."

Daniel's mouth tightened.

"And he claims to have hired a private detective to
investigate his wife's murder."

"That doesn't make him guilty of anything."

"No, it doesn't. And Abbie would take it hard if she
knew I was even wondering about him."

"He could be just what he said, a man worried about
his daughter's safety."

"True enough," Buck admitted, "or he could be a
wealthy man who believes a dead wife is a lot less expensive than a divorced one."

Will crouched in the bushes, resting his weight on one
knee, and looked at Matthew Catlin. The minister's
body hung suspended by one ankle from a rope tied
to a tree limb and swung slightly to and fro in the stiff
breeze.

Matthew was dead. There could be no doubt.
Matthew's staring eyes were fixed and dilated; his mouth
gaped wide in a silent scream of pain and horror, and his
shirt and face were soaked deep scarlet with his own
blood. Three feathered shafts protruded from the center of his chest. The pastor's left hand clutched one of
the arrows in a death grip, as though seeking the
strength to pull it loose. His right hand stretched, frozen
fingers extended, as though clawing the air above the
mossy ground. His free leg dangled at a grotesque angle.

The sight would have been comical if a man had a
sick sense of humor, Will thought. Or it might have
been funny if Matthew hadn't voided his bowels and
bladder in the agony of his death throes so that the
grove stank worse than the midden heap outside a crab-picking house. Other creatures had been there
ahead of Will, but not the crows. Matthew's eyes
hadn't made a meal for the birds. That much the man
had been spared. His body, such as it was, would go
relatively whole into his casket.

Will listened, and when he heard a fox squirrel chattering to its mate and the indignant scolding of a Carolina wren, he knew that there were no other humans
nearby. Will stood and moved cautiously away. He
whistled to the dogs, and his own three came bounding to his side, but the Newfoundland didn't return.
Will retreated down the far side of the rise and circled
the outcrop of old oaks and cedars. He saw the big dog
on the beach side of the grove, pawing at something
on the slope where Dr. Knight's daughter had been
digging on Saturday.

Will whistled again, and the Newf raised its head,
and then turned back to the hole he was digging. Will
listened, looked around, and approached the dog.
"Come on, boy." He glanced into the hole to see what
had attracted the dog and noticed something gleaming
in the loose soil. He pushed the dog aside and reached
down to tug a twisted circle of metal from the earth.

Dirt clung to the band, but beneath the grime, Will
recognized the rich color of gold. Tucking the bracelet
into his pants pocket, he used a stick to probe the hole.
Several stone beads rolled out of the hollow, but Will
could find nothing else, so he snapped a leash onto the
Newfoundland and led the dog across the camp area to
the marsh path. Blue and the pair of Chesapeakes followed hard on his heels.

No more than a hundred yards down the narrow
track, he turned and backed off onto a nearly invisible
game trail, overgrown with reeds and briers. It was an
old Indian trick he'd learned from his grandfather. If
anyone passed that way, they'd think he had come out of the marsh, not gone into it. Fifty feet from the main
path, where water closed over his boots, Will turned
again, and hurried on. Within two minutes, the swamp
grass closed in behind him, leaving no trace that he
and the dogs had passed that way.

The message was waiting on Daniel's fax when he and
Bailey reached his cabin. It was simple.

Send your lady to the center court
at the Annapolis Mall to collect the
boy. Tonight. Six p.m. You go to the
Maritime Museum in St. Michaels. Take
your wireless laptop and come unarmed.
Wait at the public phone outside the
visitors' center at 5:45 for my instructions. You can pick up a Wi-Fi
signal there without a password. If
you contact the police or the agency
again, if you deviate from my instructions, both the boy and Bailey Tawes
become troublesome loose ends.

Daniel scanned the fax sheet. "I won't do it."

Bailey took it from his hands and read it. "We have
to. We may not get another chance to save the boy."

Daniel shook his head. "It's not worth it. You
shouldn't be a part of this."

"But I am." She gripped the paper so tightly that it
crumpled in her hand. "We're a partnership, remember? That's what Matthew said in church."

"I don't care what Matthew said. I won't risk your
life ... our baby's."

"Lucas isn't going to hurt me. He wants the money.
If he wanted to harm me, he could have done it a long
time ago."

"I'll call the agency. Get them to form a-"

"You didn't do it before," she reminded him. "Why
not? Why didn't you contact them before this?"

"Because I thought it was too dangerous. Dangerous for us, for the boy-"

"Then it still is. How do you know they'd even believe you? And if you go to them, ask for their help,
they'd want something in return. They'd force you to
come back, Daniel. You know they would."

He embraced her, holding her so tightly that he could
feel the beating of her heart. She was trembling. He was
overwhelmed by the need to protect her ... to protect
her unborn child. His child that she carried under her
heart. But part of him yearned for that other child ...
the one Lucas held prisoner. He didn't think Lucas
would kill him. Hadn't he said that the boy was much
too valuable? He'd sell him to the highest bidder, and
Daniel wondered if the child would be better off dead
than used as a sexual slave for some twisted pervert.

Bitter memories seeped up to chip away at the core
of his sanity. He forced them back. Not that. He
wouldn't think of that. Not ever again. But he wouldn't
risk this unknown boy's future either. If he got the
child, he'd never do the DNA testing. He'd accept him
as Mallalai's gift, and in saving him, maybe he'd save a
part of himself too.

He wanted to speak to Lucas, to argue with him.
There was no reason for him to be so far away from
Bailey. They could easily make the trade from the mall
parking lot. But Lucas hadn't wanted further conversation. Daniel decided he'd have to content himself
with sending Buck to watch over her while he went to
take Lucas's call in St. Michaels.

"Just give him the money, Daniel. Give him the
money, and he'll go away and leave us alone."

"I guess that makes sense," he allowed. He'd bested
Lucas before. He hoped he could do it again. He needed to think clearly, and to do that, he had to be
certain Buck was protecting Bailey. If luck was with
them, maybe the nightmare would end. Lucas would
have what he wanted. The man could disappear in
some far corner of the world, and he and Bailey could
concentrate on finding happiness here on Tawes.

If luck was with them ...

Daniel was in St. Michaels by 4:33. He moored his skiff
at a public dock and set out on foot. The town wasn't
very big, but the amount of traffic surprised him.
Flocks of tourists wandered in and out of the shops and
up the shaded streets. He hoped Tawes would never be
discovered. He had no quarrel with people who made
their living selling knickknacks, antiques, reproduction pewter mugs, and endless paintings of ducks and
snowy egrets, but he preferred the Eastern Shore communities the way they'd been when he was young.

He hadn't eaten since breakfast, but he wasn't hungry. He didn't know when he'd be hungry again. He
found a restaurant and drank three cups of Earl Grey
with honey at a table outside. He wanted to call Buck,
to make certain Bailey was safe, but he thought it best
not to use his cell in case Lucas tried to reach him on it.

Lucas had no reason to come to St. Michaels. It
would be the last place Daniel would expect him to
show up. The town lay on a narrow strip of land between the broad waters of the Miles and Choptank
rivers. There was only one road out of St. Michaels
leading to the Eastern Shore and Route 50. If Daniel
had called in the agency, Lucas could easily be
trapped with no escape route. No, Lucas wouldn't
come here. He'd be in Annapolis-or Havana or
Buenos Aires, or even Bangkok. A man with half a million dollars could do worse than to change his identity
and live out his life in Thailand or Burma.

At 5:15, Daniel walked the few blocks to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, paid his entrance fee,
and went in. For the next twenty minutes, he strolled
through the waterfowl exhibits and the collection of
old sailboats. He was surprised at how many families
were here on a Monday and at how many more new
displays there were since he'd visited last. Maybe he
could bring Bailey and the kids here some day. The
kids ... funny how he was thinking plural, as though
Lucas was telling the truth ... as though he really
meant to hand Mallalai's child over.

He looked at his watch for the third time in the last
twenty minutes and wondered if he dared call Bailey.
She and Buck must be outside the Annapolis Mall by
now, waiting as he was waiting.

His cell vibrated and he snatched it out of his
pocket. "Yes."

"Daniel?"

Not Lucas-Will. Sweat beaded on Daniel's forehead. His heart hammered against his ribs. "I can't
talk now," he said.

"Where are you?"

"I'll get back to you, Will."

"Something's happened. Something bad."

"Bailey?" He felt as though he'd plunged through
the ice into a pond in the dead of winter. "What's happened to Bailey?" He hadn't left Tawes until he'd seen
her and Abbie take off in the helicopter for Annapolis.
She shouldn't even be on the island. Unless they'd
crashed. "Will-"

"Not Bailey. Bailey's fine, so far as I know. She's not
here."

"No," Daniel said. "She wouldn't be. Not now.
What-"

"It's your brother Matthew. He's dead."

"Matt?" The ice that had gripped his limbs solidified
in his chest. "Matthew's dead?"

"Out at the burial ground. He must have gone out
there alone yesterday to dig."

"Yesterday."

"Yep. Been dead fifteen, maybe twenty hours by my
way of thinking. He was alive yesterday afternoon at
your reception."

Matthew. His only brother. Daniel took a deep
breath. "Who found him?"

"Me. I went out there to have a look around before
Bailey and Karen Knight's girl went back there."

Daniel waited for the blow to hit, but he felt oddly
empty, almost as if he were hollow. Sweat trickled
down his neck, but he felt chilled. Matthew was dead,
but Bailey was safe. He wondered if it was some weird
kind of trade.

"You all right?" Will asked.

"Yeah." Realizing that he'd been holding his breath,
Daniel exhaled and drew in another gulp of air.

It didn't seem possible. Matthew was always whining
about his health, but Daniel hadn't seen any difference in his appearance. "Was it his heart?"

"Nope. Afraid not. I thought you'd best hear it from
me. He was murdered in cold blood. Somebody
caught him in a deer snare and used him for target
practice."

"What? Repeat that." Daniel leaned back against a
display case. "Murdered?"

"Killed with a bow and arrows. I found moccasin
tracks, but I doubt if we're looking for an Indian
ghost. Like Abbie Night Horse has been saying,
there's something out there that the murderer doesn't
want found."

Daniel swore softly. Matthew killed. It didn't seem possible. He wondered for a minute if it had been Lucas's idea of a joke. But a bow and arrow? He didn't
think so.

"Daniel? You there? What do you want me to do? I
called Buck, but there was no answer at the office or
on that confounded cell phone of his."

"He's not on the island. Neither of us is."

"Where the hell are you? And where's Bailey?"

"Abbie took her to Annapolis."

"The longer we wait, the fainter those tracks are going to get."

"Do whatever you have to, Will. I'll be back as soon
as I can."

"You're not going to tell me where you're at, are you?"

"St. Michaels. I'm waiting for Lucas to contact me.
We're making the trade today."

"For the boy?"

"Yes."

"You're on a fool's errand, Daniel. That son of a bitch
won't give him to you. There may not even be a kid."

"I have to chance it, Will. Don't do anything until
Buck and I get there."