Charleston with a Clever Cougar: A Dance with Danger Mystery #6 (8 page)

It was hard to sleep. I lay in bed in my
sweats, my comforter on top of me, but my body just wouldn’t relax.
The muscles ached and my mind raced. Why would Doug hire thugs to
hurt his own daughter, Daisy? Something didn’t make sense. And yet,
I couldn’t deny what had happened to the teenager. First came the
hit-and-run, and then came the assault in the parking lot. Why? It
wasn’t like Daisy was particularly sullen or uncooperative. I knew
that, despite the trouble her parents had with staying married, she
did still want her father in her life, even now, even after his
remarriage. Was Doug that cruel a man? I didn’t think so.

What if Daisy was a target for another
reason? Almost grown up, she would soon be making the rounds of
colleges and universities before starting the admissions process.
In another few years, Daisy would be off on her own. Would that
have been a problem for someone?

I thought I could rule out a teenage stalker.
After all, those men were adults. But I still didn’t understand
what they wanted with a teenage girl.

The divorce itself had fraught with tension.
Carole and Doug both wanted custody of the kids, and Doug pressed
hard on the cancer card. But in the end, her oncologist provided
her with the winning chip. The stress of the divorce and custody
battle was taking a toll on Carole, and it was critical that she be
relieved of this burden as quickly as possible. When the court
mediator heard this, he called both parties to the table and set
down the rules. Carole’s medical needs came first and losing her
children would put too great a strain on her compromised health. As
long as Carole could show that she had a support team that would
help her meet the needs of Daisy and Dylan, the children would
remain with their mother. Doug agreed about Dylan, by that time
feeling guilty about having left his wife in the lurch in favor of
his mistress. Mimi was down in Maryland, setting up her new
political life, and away from her, Doug seemed more like his old
pre-Mimi self. He suggested that Daisy be given a choice of where
she wanted to live. When the teenager arrived at the custody
session, she told the mediator she wanted to stay with her mother,
not only because Carole needed the help, but also because Daisy had
no desire to change schools so close to her graduation. She didn’t
want to leave her friends. At last, said the mediator, a voice of
reason. The rest of the settlement was fairly standard, and Doug
was soon able to return to his new life, albeit without his kids.
As I recalled, he seemed to accept the custody arrangement
willingly once the mediation was over. But Daisy had said he called
recently to tell her he wanted to get custody of Dylan. Something
had happened. Did he have a change of heart?

As an assistant school superintendent, Doug
was supposed to be an educator. Shouldn’t he of all people
understand that the protracted tug-of-war between parents was
harmful to the kids? I just couldn’t buy that Doug planned to go
back on his word to let Daisy stay in Old Saybrook. He was never a
mean man, in my experience, even though I still hated him for what
he did to my friend. And I couldn’t see him hiring a couple of
goons to menace his daughter in some wacky plot to get her to move
down to Maryland.

So far, it didn’t look like Dylan was a
target, any more than it looked like Carole was. Maybe we were
missing the whole point of the terrifying events. If Daisy was the
target, there was something about her that was making someone
angry. If it wasn’t something she did, could there be another
reason why those men tried to harm her? And if it wasn’t Doug, who
else had a motive?

Chapter Eight --

I thought about Mimi, the former member of
the Board of Ed. She had been forced to resign after the affair
became fodder for local gossip. The public backlash over the shabby
treatment Carole received from her husband and his mistress didn’t
die down as quickly as Mimi hoped. When she left for her new job as
a corporate lawyer and town solicitor, it was clear she expected to
re-launch her political career. Those triplets were almost ready to
walk and talk. Maybe Mimi felt this was the time to put herself
back into the public spotlight. What if this was her effort to
somehow make Carole look like an unfit mother?

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said into
the darkness, hearing my own voice break the stillness. “It has to
be something else.”

Between the constant, dull ache of my
shoulder and the nagging worry that Daisy was in grave danger, I
tossed and turned until three, when I got up, thinking I would
watch something on TV downstairs. As I padded into the living room,
I found myself wondering if Doc was still awake. Pulling the drapes
apart a scant six inches or so, I peered out. Doc’s van was gone,
and in its place was a dark pickup truck, not unlike the one that
carted away Daisy’s fleeing assailant. For a moment, my heart
stopped. I saw a slight movement in the front seat, and then a man
got out. I clung to the shadows, glad that I hadn’t turned on the
lamp. I watched as he headed towards the Walchuk unit.

The rush up to the bedroom to retrieve my
cell phone took a lot out of me. I was moaning and groaning by the
time I finally wrapped my trembling fingers around the case and
went through my contacts list to find Doc’s number. I hit “call”
and waited. Seconds later, it went to voicemail. When it beeped, I
left a breathy message.

“Doc, there’s a guy heading for Carole’s
condo. He got out of a dark pickup truck. I think it might be the
guy from the other night.” As soon as I hung up, I dialed Carole’s
cell. She answered on the third ring. “There’s a man heading to
your house and Doc’s gone!”

“It’s okay, Cady,” she told me, her voice
calm. “Doc took us to a safe place. He and his friends are waiting
inside the house.”

“Oh.” Relief flooded over me, knowing that
Carole and the kids were elsewhere. I was glad Doc was careful
enough to remove them, but I wished he had shared that with me. I
wondered what would happen next. When I asked, Carole told me Doc
had been rather vague about the plan.

“Call me when it’s over,” I told her, before
I terminated the call and stumbled back to the window. The truck
was still parked in its spot, but its driver was nowhere to be
seen. I pulled the ottoman over to the window and sat down,
wondering, waiting. Listening. The minutes ticked on. A glance at
the living room clock told me it was quarter past three. Another
fifteen minutes crawled by before I saw a giant black spider sprint
across the sidewalk, like something out of a horror film. As I
looked closer, I saw it was really four men, all dressed in black,
restraining a fifth man. The man from the pickup truck. The man who
assaulted Daisy. He was tossed in the bed of the truck, accompanied
by two of his guards, while a third got behind the wheel. The
fourth man passed in front of my living room window before
disappearing. It was Doc. A minute later, Doc’s van pulled beside
the pickup truck. In the faint light, I observed the pickup truck
driver sliding over on the front seat. Suddenly his head was out
the window. There seemed to be a conversation going on between Doc
and the driver. It ended quickly. Doc backed his van out of the
space and rolled about fifty feet forward. The lights on the truck
went on, the engine started up, and the truck slowly backed out of
the parking spot. Taking its place behind Doc’s van, the pickup
truck followed dutifully, and the two vehicles left the parking lot
of the Soundings. The tail lights glowed deep red as they wound
their way out to Sandy Point Road.

Ten minutes later, I was back in bed, propped
up on a pile of pillows in the hope of getting comfortable. No
longer worried about Daisy’s fate, I drifted off to a dreamless
sleep.

Just after seven, I awoke to a banging on my
front door. Hurrying down the stairs, I wrapped my robe around my
sore shoulder, peeked out the sidelight, and recognized the medic
on my doorstep.

“Doc!”

“Cady,” he nodded noncommittally.

“Come on in,” I urged him, throwing open the
door. Doc seemed secretive, almost guarded. “How did it go last
night?”

“Fine.” No explanation.

“So, you got the guy?” I had to know.

“Yup.”

“What did you do with him?” Doc’s eyes seemed
guarded, unwilling to meet mine. He brushed past me as I stood in
the doorway, his overnight bag in hand.

“We took care of the problem. He won’t be
bothering Daisy or anyone else anymore.”

“Was he arrested?” Persistent, I couldn’t let
it go.

“Hey, if we don’t get a move on, we’re going
to be late, and you’ve got to get that cake to the wedding on
time,” he reminded me. “I’ll take a quick shower and then make some
breakfast for us.”

With that, Doc disappeared up the stairs, and
a few moments later, I heard the shower running. I hauled my aching
body back up the stairs, made my bed using my good arm, and laid
out my clothes for the day. I picked a big shirt with buttons, a
colorful scarf to use as a belt, and another pair of leggings that
were easy to put on, easy to take off. I would look like a hippie
who escaped from a seventies love-in, but at least I would be
comfortable.

Doc paused at my bedroom door on his way
downstairs.

“One egg or two?” he asked.

“One, please.”

“One piece of toast or two?”

“One, please.”

“Juice?”

“Please. Doc, what did you do with the
guy?”

“Nothing you have to worry about, Cady.”

“But I do. I saw you and your friends last
night.”

“Did you?” Doc’s eyes got narrow. I nodded.
“And now you want to know where we buried the body?”

I gasped as Doc uttered those words and they
made their way into my brain. It hadn’t occurred to me that they
murdered the man who assaulted Daisy.

“You killed him?” My heart was pounding as I
stood in my bedroom, feeling very vulnerable. I was facing a
dangerous man. Would I be his next victim now that he had confessed
his crime to me? Those green eyes bore a hole right through my
forehead.

“Well, isn’t that what you’re afraid of,
Cady? That we offed the guy, all because we didn’t haul his bad ass
self to the police department?”

I stood there, stunned, not really sure how
to answer. All I knew was that there was a stranger in my bedroom.
Glancing around, I wondered where I would go to escape him. Had he
wormed his way into my life because he was a cold-blooded killer or
because he’d had some kind of psychological breakdown? What had I
let myself in for when I let down my guard?

“Relax, Cady. The guy’s alive and well and
kicking up his heels far, far away by now. Yes, we snatched him.
Yes, we took him to what we in the Army like to call an undisclosed
location. We questioned him, scared the hell out of him, and then a
couple of the guys drove his lowlife ass up to the Canadian border,
warned him not to come back to Old Saybrook anytime soon, and then
left him there. He was alive and well.”

“Really?” I hadn’t realized I was holding my
breath until I heard those words and the air escaped from my lips
in a
whoosh
. Doc was shaking his head, but his lips curled
up into a slight smile.

“You sure do have trust issues, don’t you?”
he chuckled. “It’s a wonder you ever had a boyfriend.”

“I’m not that bad,” I responded
defensively.

“Not that bad? Good God, woman! Every time I
do something, you assume the worst. It’s like you can’t help
yourself.” Doc paused on his way out of the bedroom. “Shake a leg.
That wedding cake isn’t going to bake itself, Fanny Farmer.”

When I came down, dressed and ready for work,
Doc was at the fry pan.

“Over easy or sunny side up?”

“Put a little sunshine in my life, Doc,” I
found myself saying. He glanced at me with a look of surprise
before giving me a grin.

“You’ve got it.” As he set down the plate in
front of me, I realized that something had changed between us. I
had never realized how much I mistrusted men. Not just some men.
All men. Doc was the only man who ever called me on it. And he
wasn’t afraid to poke at the scab.

We got to the shop a little before nine.
Carole was sitting at the cash register, talking to Karl Schindler
about the upcoming book talk at the library, featuring Mona Dubiel,
author of
Thunder in the Valley
. If I didn’t know better,
I’d think he had the hots for my friend. And judging from the rosy
cheeks on Carole, it might be mutual. Darlene was icing pastries at
the counter behind her and she gave me a little smirk as she nodded
at the pair of them. I hid my own mirth as I passed by on my way to
my tiny cubicle of an office. Tossing down my pocketbook, I slipped
my coat off my shoulders and went through the mail. Walter was busy
in the kitchen and Doc went to help him. I could hear them talking
as they worked. I noticed that Doc treated Walter with respect,
asking questions about why he did certain things that way. The
experienced baker explained the processes to the novice, and even
as I listened, I found myself learning a thing or two. There was
more to Walter than just a reliable employee who always showed up
for his shift.

“What branch?” I heard Doc ask.

“Air Force. I was stationed at Phan Rang for
a while, later Korat in Thailand. Air traffic controller.” They
chatted about how stressful the job was of monitoring the comings
and goings of the larger aircraft on the base, and how there were
many close calls back during the Vietnam War. “You?”

“Iraq, Afghanistan. Medic.”

“Brutal,” Walter responded. “Those IED’s are
bitch. We didn’t have to deal with that crap in my day.”

“You’ve got that right, buddy. You had other
stuff thrown at you, though.”

“Yeah, we did.”

The men worked side by side as the morning
went on. I paid the bills, put in supply orders, and by noon, I was
ready to roast coffee to replace our dwindling supply of beans.