Kiss the Moon (24 page)

“That seems logical, but right now I don’t know if logic holds. I see three possibilities. One, he went out on his own and tripped. Two, he went out on his own and someone hit him on the back of the head, which leads to another series of questions and possibilities. Or, three, he was forced to take someone to the wreckage and was bonked on the head for his trouble.”

“The third scenario would mean he definitely knows who hit him. The second one, he might or might not.” Wyatt paused, welcoming the gusting, cooling breeze. “I still don’t buy the first scenario.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “God. We need to talk to Bubba and get him to tell us what he knows, if anything.”

They made their way to her house and drove to the hospital in Laconia. Jack Dunning met them in the emergency room. He had on his jacket, his jeans, his cowboy boots. No hat. “The old bastard checked himself out. He got a nurse to give him a ride back to town.”

“He’s okay?” Penelope asked.

“He’s got a bitch of a concussion, but he shook it off. He’ll be fine in a day or two.” The flat eyes settled on her. “He says he slipped. No one pushed him.”

“That’s bullshit,” Wyatt said calmly.

“Well, it’s not the first bit of bullshit we’ve heard around here, is it?” Jack kept his gaze on Penelope, but she wasn’t one to squirm. “So, you found the wreckage, after all.”

She shrugged. “Changing my story seemed like a good idea at the time. All things considered, if I had to do it over again I’d just come up with a better story. The turn-of-the-century dump was pretty lame.”

“The wreck’s picked clean, Jack,” Wyatt said. “No remains, no personal effects, nothing. It might have fallen out of the sky by itself without a damned soul in it.”

Dunning’s expression didn’t change. “I’ll take a look myself.”

“I can draw you a map,” Penelope said, adding none too subtly, “unless you don’t need one.”

Jack grinned. “I like how your mind works, Miss Chestnut. It’s almost as devious as my own.”

But she didn’t grin back. She was pale, shaken and very serious. “Did you follow Bubba? Did you force him to take you out to the wreckage? Did you leave him for dead?”

Ignoring her, Jack turned to Wyatt. “This thing’s going to hit the news wires before too long. Do you want me to call your father about the plane?”

“No, I’ll do it. If you have anything to add—”

“If I have anything to add, I’ll call him myself. Don’t worry, Sinclair. I’ll do my job.”

Behind him, Penelope said, “You didn’t answer my questions.”

Jack shifted to her, winked. “Sorry, toots. It’s not my job to answer your questions.”

He walked out of the emergency room, and when Penelope started after him, Wyatt scooped one arm around her middle and stopped her. “It won’t change a thing. He’ll just make you madder.”

Her jaw was set, and even as she glared after Dunning, she said, “Bubba can’t stay out at his place alone.”

“He’s been there alone for more than twenty years.”

“But not in this condition—”

“How do you know he hasn’t had worse concussions? Penelope, let the man live his life the way he sees fit.”

She turned to him, her eyes gleaming with fear and more unspent energy than she had a right to. “What if someone did attack him today and comes back? Wyatt, I couldn’t stand it if something happened to him.”

He nodded. “I’ll go over there this evening and check on him.”

“I’ll go, too.”

“Haven’t you done enough hiking for one day?”

She managed a smile. “I’m just getting started.”

When they arrived at the inn, Lyman was pacing in the parlor, an unlit cigar in his mouth, his wife and cousin nowhere in evidence. He paid Wyatt no attention and pounced on his daughter. “Goddamn it, Penelope, this is just what got you grounded. You’re reckless. You don’t think. What the hell were you doing, going off into the woods with Sinclair? You don’t know his motives!”

She thrust her chin out at him. “I don’t? Money, adventure, thrills. A Sinclair’s motives are easy. It’s everybody else’s motives I don’t get, like whoever would hit an old man on the back of the head and leave him for dead.”

Lyman growled at her. “This has all gone too damned far.”

“No kidding.”

He sighed. “You’re okay?”

She nodded, and Wyatt could see her biting her lower lip, could sense her determination not to fall apart now that the worst was over. “Bubba—”

“Bubba’s a crusty old goat. He’ll be fine.”

Wyatt turned to Lyman, who was visibly calmer now that he’d seen his daughter face-to-face. “Is word out yet about the wreckage?”

“It’s starting to go around town. Won’t be long before it’s on CNN and the damned wires.”

“I need to talk to Harriet,” Penelope said, suddenly white-faced.

Her father nodded. “She’s making scones.”

“Is she mad at me for lying about the plane?”

“You can’t tell with Harriet. One thing, though.” He gave Penelope’s hand a quick squeeze. “Be straight with her, kid. She’s a big girl. You don’t need to take her problems onto your shoulders.”

“I wouldn’t patronize her—”

“No, but you’d go to the ends of the earth for her. Go on. You two talk.”

After Penelope charged off, Wyatt said something about going to call his father, but as he started for the stairs, Lyman said quietly, “My daughter’s only problem before you came to town was distractibility and a touch of recklessness. Now she’s got a half-dead hermit in the woods, she’s getting threats, her place has been ransacked.” He paused and sighed audibly. His taciturn nature made such conversations difficult for him. “I’m thinking you’re bad luck at best, Sinclair. Same as your uncle was for Frannie Beaudine.”

“You could be right.”

“I don’t want to be right. I want my daughter to stay safe.”

“If it’s any consolation, so do I.”

Sixteen

P
enelope found Harriet chopping nuts on a wooden cutting board with a huge butcher knife. She liked the control of a knife, she’d often said, and preferred the texture of the nuts when cut with a knife instead of a machine. She’d heard about the plane, about Bubba. When Penelope pulled up a chair at the kitchen table and started to apologize about lying, Harriet cut her off, her eyes widening, making her look a little crazy. “If there were no bodies, then Colt and Frannie might still be alive.”

Penelope shook her head before things could get out of hand. “I think that’s far-fetched, Harriet. From the condition of the plane, I’d have to say this was no soft landing.”

Harriet hacked at the hazelnuts, her knife gleaming in the waning late afternoon light. “Then where are their bodies?”

“There’s still a lot of snow out on the hill where they crashed. We might find them when the weather warms up. It’s just too early—”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d found their plane? Didn’t you think you could trust me?”

“Harriet…”

“No,” she said moodily, “obviously you didn’t.”

“It was never a question of trust. It was just a question of judgment—
my
judgment. I was in a sticky situation, and I did the best I could.”

“I don’t see what’s sticky about it. It seems straightforward to me. You either found Colt and Frannie’s plane or you didn’t.”

“The reporters—”

She stopped, her knife poised in midair. It was a sharp, eight-inch deal. Harriet kept all the knives scrupulously clean and sharp. “Were you afraid I’d make a fool of myself?”

Penelope sensed this conversation was going nowhere fast. She was tired, more than she’d realized. “No, I was afraid they’d try to make a fool out of you, or they’d just upset you—and Bubba. It wasn’t just you. To be honest, I didn’t see what it would accomplish to have the whole world parade out to the site of a tragic, forty-five-year-old plane crash. Frankly, I still don’t.”

Harriet pursed her lips, going snappish and pissy—her defense, Penelope knew, when she was feeling hurt and frightened. “Well, it seems you’ve only made things worse for everyone.”

“I suppose I have. I’m sorry.”

Harriet’s eyes filled with tears, and she carefully set down her knife and collapsed onto a chair. She stared at the pile of nuts on her cutting board. “I know you were just doing your best, Penelope. Really, I do.”

“But you expected when Colt and Frannie’s plane was discovered, you’d have an answer, one way or another, about whether or not they were involved with leaving you on the church doorstep—if they really were your birth parents. Now…I don’t know.” Penelope heaved out a breath, wanting nothing more than a hot bath, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—and Wyatt, she thought. In spite of everything. The ten million in stolen diamonds, the fact that he was everything she’d told her father he was. A man of action, adventure, thrills, drive. “Well, at least we know their plane went down, and we know it went down here in Cold Spring.”

Harriet nodded dully, staring at her little pile of hazelnuts.

“The Sinclairs will have investigators comb through the wreckage. Maybe they’ll find out how the plane went down. That might lead to clues about what Colt and Frannie’s relationship was really like. It’s too early to jump to any conclusions.”

“I suppose. I’m not sure…” Harriet took a quiet breath, calmer. “I always thought I’d want to know the truth, one way or the other. But I’m not sure I do.” She picked up a tiny hazelnut, placed it carefully on her tongue. “Jack will be here soon. He called after he left the hospital.”

“What’s your take on him?”

She blushed, but her eyes brightened, warmed. “He’s independent and defiant, a rule-breaker.” She smiled at her cousin, some of her moodiness dissipating. “He reminds me of a male version of you in some ways. He’s harder-edged, of course, because of the work he does.”

Penelope frowned. “He doesn’t remind me of me at all.”

“You’re both dedicated, determined, a little stubborn.”

“But you’re not attracted to me—”

She gasped, laughing. “Penelope, you’re awful.”

“And you’re just saying I’m like Dunning so I won’t think he’s such an arrogant bastard. He doesn’t like me, you know.” She grinned, pleased to see the spark in Harriet’s eyes. “I don’t see how you can fall for someone who doesn’t like me.”

“Well, if that’s my criterion, I’m doomed to stay a spinster.”

“Harriet!”

Her cousin waved a hand in dismissal. “I know ‘spinster’ isn’t politically correct, but
I
like it. It conjures up images of Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of wicked stepsisters.”

“We’re getting giddy,” Harriet said. “It feels good, doesn’t it? But I should warn you—your mother’s on her way over from the sugar shack.”

Penelope scooped an apple out of the fruit bowl. “Then I’ll clear out now. I’m sure that’ll be easier on both of us.”

“Are you staying here tonight?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll call, okay?”

She met Wyatt as he was coming down the stairs. He’d changed clothes, washed up. He wasn’t really handsome, she realized. He was memorable, sexy, striking in an edgy, hard way, especially for one born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. “How’d it go with your father?” she asked.

“I didn’t reach him. He’s on the golf course. I talked to my sisters, but they’re too young for tales of old plane wrecks.”

“Ellen and Beatrix. They’re good kids?”

He smiled. “They’re perfect.”

“And I suppose they adore you.”

He came to the bottom step. “Of course. I’m their big brother, and I have a cat.”

“You don’t strike me as the cat type.”

“I’m not. Pill was left by Madge, with whom I had a brief fling—just long enough for her to feng-shui my apartment and decide we were not compatible, which I’d discovered through more ordinary means.”

“Ah.”

He smiled. “Madge and I never were. Not to worry.”

“I’m not worried. I was just thinking—you have a whole life I know very little about. Little sisters, New York, Wall Street, a cat named Pill.”

“His real name’s Sarsaparilla.”

“You’re kidding. Well, my point is—” She sighed, giving herself a mental shake. “I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s not as if you and I ever ‘were,’ either.”

He pushed open the door, held it for her with a mock bow of chivalry. “I’m letting that one go,” he said, “but only for now.”

They drove her truck to her place, grabbed crackers and cheese and made their way to Bubba’s one more time. It was getting close to dusk, the sun low in the sky, the temperature starting to drop. Penelope could hear Bubba’s two dogs barking and picked up her pace, eager to see how the old hermit was doing. Wyatt had no trouble matching her pace, and she tried not to think about how much she appreciated having him along. That was dangerous thinking. Harriet thinking. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Scaramouche, D’Artagnan. Wyatt was a
Sinclair.
He wasn’t Spiderman. But she liked having him walking beside her, solid, capable and just
there.

Instead of finding Bubba, they found Andy McNally, the two dogs circling him and growling. Andy ignored them. “Pete and I stopped up here after we heard Bubba checked himself out. Figured we’d make sure he’s all right and ask him what the hell happened up in the woods—but he’s cleared out. Pete’s looking around.”

“You’re sure?” Penelope asked. “He wouldn’t just up and leave his dogs.”

“What makes you think you know Bubba any better than the rest of us? We don’t know what he’d do and wouldn’t do. Door was open to his shack. You just got the feeling he’d left. No sign of him. Probably figures someone’ll look after the dogs.”

“He must be scared,” Penelope said.

McNally frowned, all cop. “Or hiding something.”

“Come on, Andy, he didn’t beat himself over the head.”

“Could have been a setup. He
wanted
you to think he’d had his head knocked in.”

She groaned. Wyatt, who’d been listening patiently, said, “Do you have evidence or are you just keeping an open mind?”

“We don’t have evidence of jack shit. Which isn’t official police talk, but there you have it. We’ll take a good look at the wreckage tomorrow, see if there’s any sign Bubba’s been through it. If there is, or if he doesn’t show up soon, we’ll get a warrant and search his place here. If he stole anything, he could have panicked and tried to get the heat off him.”

“The heat wasn’t on him,” Penelope interjected.

“All depends how you look at it. You and Wyatt were by here yesterday, weren’t you?”

Her mouth snapped shut. She spun up the trail, but Wyatt didn’t follow. He said to McNally, “I didn’t get the impression when I talked to Bubba yesterday that he was paranoid or worried.”

“A man like that, living out here alone—he likes to stay in control. So, we’ll see. I hope the old guy has a warm place to stay tonight. He’s not in great shape. I’d hate to see this thing escalate if he’s just worried because he stripped a forty-five-year-old plane wreck.”

“Do you think he could have buried Colt and Frannie’s remains?”

“I’d like to ask him.”

Penelope stopped dead and turned to the two men. The dogs had quieted and were at her heels, and she stood still, sensing Andy’s suspicion.

“Sinclair—if there’s anything you need to tell me, do it now. Don’t make me wait. You don’t want me to have to drag it out of you. I’m a small-town cop, but I know my job.”

Wyatt looked him straight in the eye and said, “There’s nothing.”

“Penelope?”

“If I knew anything I thought would help you find Bubba or whoever left him for dead this morning, I’d tell you.” There, that wasn’t an outright lie. “Is it okay if I take these dogs home with me? They seem to have taken a shine to me, and I’d hate to leave them out here without Bubba.”

McNally sighed, nodding. “Ten to one that’s what he figured you’d do.”

Pete came up the hill from the brook and shook his head. “I can’t find a thing. With so many people out in the woods today and the warm temps, there’s not much for tracks.”

“All right, Pete, thanks. Bubba knows these woods better than any of us. I guess if he doesn’t want us to find him, we’re not going to find him. I just hope he’s in his right head.”

McNally and Pete returned by the trail that led to the main road, Penelope and Wyatt by the trail that led to her house. The two mutts trotted amiably at her side. “I have it,” she said. “They can be my protection tonight. I’ve got new locks on the side door, and I can block off the slider with a chair. With Granddad’s Winchester and Bubba’s mutts, I’ll be fine.”

They came to the first of her tapped trees, and she quickly checked the buckets, aware of Wyatt’s dark eyes on her, of her out-of-control reaction to him. “And where do I fit into that scenario?” he asked.

“Well, I figure you’ll be safe and snug in your bed at the inn.”

“Just think of how safe and snug you’ll feel if you have not only your Winchester and Bubba’s dogs, but a Sinclair to—”

“To what?” she broke in. “Protect me?”

He grinned, sliding in behind her, touching her hair, lightly kissing the corner of her mouth. “To make love to you.”

Andy McNally came for his nightly beer a half hour later than usual. Somehow, his scar made his moods seem that much easier to read, although he wasn’t a complicated man. Harriet could see his fatigue, his worry. She was against the wall at the far end of the bar with her glass of wine, and she felt ashamed for her self-absorption.

She smiled at him. “Hard day?”

“It could have been harder. Bubba could have been dead.” He glanced at her. “Or your cousin. She’s got to get herself under control, Harriet.”

“I know. So do her parents. But she’s not a child—”

“That’s the hell of it. She’s a grown woman.”

“She was with Wyatt—”

His gaze bored into her. “You trust him?”

She shrugged, amazed at Andy’s curtness. He was usually so calm and tough to rile. His wife’s death and his work had given him an unusual perspective on life. He wasn’t driven or restless, and he understood life’s hardships and how they could affect people. Even when he groused about Penelope, which he did often, Harriet seldom detected the kind of soul-deep frustration and concern she did now.

“I have no reason not to trust him,” she said.

“Penelope’s fallen for him, you know.”

She nodded, saying nothing.

Andy heaved a sigh and drank some of his beer. “And old Bubba. I don’t know what the hell to make of him. He had to know that wreck was out there. He’s probably known it for years.”

Harriet shifted on the bar stool, her wine barely touched. Her eyes burned. It took so little to turn her thoughts inward.

“What is it, Harriet?” Andy asked, some of the curtness going out of him.

“You’ve been through a lot, Andy. Maybe you’d understand…” She took a gulp of wine, suddenly breathless. She didn’t look at him. “When I have something I don’t want to think about—a memory, something I’ve done that I’m not proud of—it’s like I put it into a little closet in the back of my mind and shut the door. Most of the time I don’t think about it, it doesn’t bother me. But sometimes the door pops open all by itself, or something happens, and it’s as if a tornado comes through and tears open all the doors of all my little closets…”

She stopped herself, her eyes filling with tears. She stared at her wine, and beside her Andy didn’t speak. There was no bartender tonight. She’d sent him home. And no Jack Dunning, no Wyatt Sinclair. Wyatt would be with Penelope. She didn’t know about Jack. She hadn’t seen him all day. Last night’s walk might have been a mirage.

“I’m not making any sense,” she said, her voice croaking.

“No, Harriet. You’re making a lot of sense. You can’t let the bad memories eat away at you forever. You have to find a way to buck up and carry on.”

She turned to him, knew her stupid mascara would be bleeding. “It’s not denial?”

He shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t know, I suppose it could be. Does it matter? I know I can’t be thinking about every bad thing that’s happened to me all the time or I’d never get up in the morning. The stuff’s there, I just don’t let it control me. I guess that’s the acceptance part the grief counselors talk about. I mean, you get to a point where you can deal with it.”