Kiss the Moon (26 page)

With one finger, Wyatt turned Penelope’s cheek and examined it. “You should see a doctor.”

“For what?”

“You might have a concussion.”

“I don’t have a concussion. My shoulder took the brunt of the hit, and I cut my cheek. It’ll be fine.”

But Wyatt wasn’t finished. “You need to get Andy McNally up here.”

As if two Sinclairs weren’t enough, she needed the chief of police, too. Andy had thought she was reckless and out of control since she was twelve. She waved a hand at Wyatt and his father. “Don’t let me keep you two from doing whatever you planned to do.”

“We planned to see you,” Brandon said simply.

Despite their very different mannerisms, father and son seemed to be more alike than either would want to admit. They were both used to getting their own way. Penelope’s head was throbbing, the scrapes on her cheek and back stung, and she needed food. She tore open the fridge, grabbed a piece of cheese and tried to ignore the two sets of Sinclair eyes on her.

“The phone,” Wyatt said.

“Okay, okay.”

She dialed McNally’s private number. His assistant told her he was out. “I can radio him. Do you need an ambulance?”

“No, just a couple of aspirin. Be sure to tell him that, okay? I don’t need the cavalry swooping up my road.”

Just in case the Cold Spring police department couldn’t resist flashing lights and sirens racing in her direction, she called the inn to have Harriet warn her mother. But Harriet wasn’t around. Apparently she’d left not long after their conversation, without saying where she was going or when she’d be back. It wasn’t like her, and Penelope immediately blamed herself for tossing her cousin’s life into a boiling cauldron.

She called Aunt Mary at the airport and gave her the rundown of her morning activities. Her aunt was uncharacteristically calm. “Your father’s not here. He left a little while after you did—I think he knew you were up to no good.”

“Gee, maybe he’s the one who knocked me on my behind.”

“No one would blame him if he was. You okay?”

“Fine. Just a few scratches and bruises.”

She grunted. “I hope the bastard at least knocked some sense into you. You’ve got those two Sinclairs there?”

“At my kitchen table. You’ll call Mother?”

“I always get the dirty work, but I suppose it’s better she should hear this from me than in the streets.”

Duty done, Penelope staggered to the couch with her second piece of cheese. The Sinclairs were watching her as if she were an exotic specimen in the collection they’d donated to the Museum of Natural History. She leaned against the musty, lumpy couch and glanced at Willard. A moose shot by their two grandfathers was about all she and Wyatt had in common. It was an unsettling thought, but true. She’d always prided herself on looking reality square in the eye.

“She needs some tea,” Brandon said. “I’ll put on a kettle.”

Wyatt nodded. “Good idea. You know, Penelope, if whoever smacked you in the face meant for you to be dead, you’d be dead.”

“Could have fooled me.”

Brandon didn’t wait for the water to come to a full boil. He tossed a tea bag into one of her grandfather’s vintage mugs, splashed in hot water and thrust it at her. “Use both hands.”

She eyed the older Sinclair, an interesting mix of charm and arrogance. Yet she sensed he was out of his element, and he knew it. “I’m thinking someone’s decided Bubba Johns must have looted the wreckage and made off with the diamonds Frannie Beaudine stole.”

Brandon Sinclair didn’t even flinch. His self-control was impeccable. “That’s possible. I never knew of a hermit living on my family’s land. I also just learned your cousin was found on a church doorstep soon after Colt and Frannie disappeared.”

“Everyone thinks that’s just a coincidence—at best someone taking advantage of the uproar.”

“Your cousin doesn’t think so.”

Penelope shot Wyatt a look, but he shook his head. It wasn’t him. That meant Jack Dunning must have filled his boss in on Harriet’s fantasy. Before Penelope could rise to her cousin’s defense, Andy McNally arrived, without fanfare. He couldn’t get two words out before Lyman Chestnut clomped up her side steps and filled her little house with his fury and the noxious smoke of his cigar.

“Andy, what’re you doing here? Penelope—Jesus Christ, what happened to you?”

“Didn’t Aunt Mary get in touch with you?” Penelope asked.

“She was attacked at Bubba’s,” Andy told him. “She went out there alone.”

“I’m fine, Pop, and I don’t know if I was really
attacked.
I was just sort of pushed out of the way—and there’s no smoking inside.”

Her father glared at her and tossed his cigar into the sink. Andy took her statement, her father paced, Bubba’s dogs paced, the Sinclairs stayed out of it, and when Penelope finished, her mother arrived.

“I hope you’re all satisfied,” Robby Chestnut said, beside herself with worry and irritation. “Now Harriet’s missing.”

Eighteen

H
arriet didn’t stop running until she tripped over a fallen tree and the branch of a pine whipped her in the face. Her cheek stung, and she stayed on all fours, the snow melting into her knees, her hands and wrists aching from the cold. It wasn’t soft, fluffy snow, it was sugar snow, and it bit into her skin. She could smell pine pitch and the rich, acidic smell of wet, dead leaves. She wondered if this was what death would be like, if somehow she’d smell the earth as she was lowered into her grave.

“Oh, God, you’re pathetic,” she breathed, and she got upright and sat on a tree trunk. It was another pine. Split down the middle. It must have happened during one of the brutal storms over the winter.

She needed spring. Tiny new leaves on the trees, green grass, daffodils, her early rhodies. She wanted to dig in her garden and feel the dirt in her cuticles, have an earthworm wriggle over her hand. She planned to plant more perennials. Foxglove, bleeding heart, evening primrose, lots and lots of hosta. She liked her life. She was happy. It wasn’t as if she wanted to do anything else. Run away. Buy a mansion. Anything like that. She had no intention of picking up and whisking herself off to Texas or New York with Jack—not that he’d want her to, would ever ask.

Jack wasn’t an innkeeper, and the lakes region wouldn’t keep him in the kind of work he did. And it wasn’t Texas. Texas was home for him—not New York where he’d grown up, not New Hampshire where she’d grown up. She could see his eyes soften when he spoke of the ranch he wanted to buy. Brandon Sinclair paid him well, and one day he would have his ranch.

Her cheeks burned at the thought of Brandon Sinclair. Could he be her uncle? Her father’s brother? She was embarrassed by her thinking, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. He’d looked so patrician, such a gentleman. But he was the head of the Sinclair family, perhaps not one to tolerate false claims against his family. He wouldn’t indulge her fantasies. He would insist she prove her claim, could even bring legal action against her if she said anything about Colt being her biological father. He hadn’t said so, but it was clear to her. She was a threat. A
ridiculous
threat, but one nonetheless.

Andy had warned her to be more circumspect about being a Sinclair. For years, it had never occurred to her that anyone would think her odd. Even the police had looked for a connection between her arrival on the church doorstep and Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine’s disappearance.

But they hadn’t found one, of course, and reporters were crowding into Cold Spring, wanting to know more about the quaint intrigues of the spinster innkeeper and her fantasies of being an heiress. Harriet felt claustrophobic, overwhelmed.

The sounds of a woodpecker tapping on a nearby tree dragged her into the moment, out of her obsessing. She’d had to get away from the inn, away from anything to do with Sinclairs and reporters. At first she thought she’d drive into the mountains, but she’d found herself at Robby and Lyman’s place outside town, on one of the smaller lakes, and she’d parked her car and launched into the woods.

She’d never been much of a hiker. When she hit a stream, instead of stepping stones across it, she plunged in and ran right through it. The water was frigid, numbing her toes, making her socks all squishy. She kept running until she fell. She didn’t quite know where she was. She wondered if this was how Penelope felt last Sunday when she realized she was lost. Harriet wasn’t dressed properly, she had no food or water, and her feet were cold and wet.

Well, she didn’t care. She could sit out here a while longer and let matters take care of themselves. Her fantasy had hit the hard wall of reality. She wasn’t a Sinclair. She wasn’t anyone.

“You’re a Chestnut,” she whispered. “They’re your family.”

And they
were.
She loved her parents, Lyman and Robby, Mary and her brood, Penelope. That wasn’t the point.

The point was that she was a fool. A laughingstock.

She got stiffly to her feet, a breeze stirring, chilling her. She shivered, her teeth chattering, her feet aching from their dunking in the cold stream. Even with the warm temperature, when the sun darted behind a cloud, the air felt cool—a reminder it wasn’t spring. She wondered what would happen if she didn’t find her way before dark.

Robby would be beside herself by now. The inn was almost at capacity. So many reporters to feed, as well as Brandon Sinclair, Wyatt, Jack. There was dinner to prepare, work to do with so many guests. She had a responsibility to them, and to Robby and their small off-season staff. This was no time for her to be absent.

“You’re being self-indulgent.”

She kept her voice to a whisper, although there was no one to hear her. She thrashed her way down a gentle slope, stumbled on a lane flanked by stone walls. It would have to lead somewhere.

Ahead, she could hear people talking, and she picked up her pace. “Hello? Hello—is anyone there?”

“Harriet?”

Penelope rounded a bend, Wyatt right behind her. The sun struck her hair, and Harriet suddenly realized how pretty her cousin was with her blond curls, her creamy skin, her green eyes. She’d always focused on Penelope’s skills as a pilot, her penchant for action and adventure—not on how attractive she was, how kind. Harriet’s eyes filled with tears, and she felt stupid.

“Hey, Harriet,” Penelope said, “I hope you weren’t running away, because you’re easy to find. Mr. Wilderness here was able to pick out your tracks every few yards or so. We found your car and figured you had to be out here somewhere.”

Harriet sniffled. “I was just out walking—”

“It’s okay, Harriet. I’ve run away a few times myself this week.”

“Your cheek—I didn’t notice. What happened? Penelope—”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. We should get going. Mother’s down at the inn changing all the dinner specials around to the way she likes them.”

Harriet attempted a smile. Penelope’s energy was so addictive. It was strange how perfect she and Wyatt looked together. Did they realize it? But Harriet knew Penelope wouldn’t easily let herself fall for a man who was just as strong, driven and smart as she was. And a Sinclair, no less.

They headed out of the woods, and Harriet saw she hadn’t gone that far or been that lost. Penelope insisted on riding with her to the inn, while Wyatt took his car.

Several reporters had gathered before the fireplace at the front desk. As Harriet had feared, they’d learned she was found on the church doorstep by the local minister forty-eight hours after Colt and Frannie had disappeared. It was a fresh angle, it would add texture—a current human-interest element—to their stories. A small-town spinster who thought she was the long-lost daughter of two missing adventurers. It was improbable, of course. The timing, the plausibility. Harriet had done the math herself. Even if by some miracle Frannie Beaudine was her mother, Harriet was at least six weeks old when George Chestnut found her. Someone must have known about her, cared for her when she was a newborn.

“The police still haven’t recovered any bodies at the crash site,” one reporter said. “What do you think, Harriet?”

“I think I want to have a cup of tea before starting dinner.” Her stomach ached. She wasn’t as brazen as Penelope. “Are you joining us this evening?”

“Sure. Wouldn’t miss it.”

She ran upstairs and washed her face. If she were Colt and Frannie’s daughter, she would be beautiful and adventurous. She was neither. She was a plain, forty-five-year-old woman with a lovely inn, a wonderful family she’d hurt with her questioning and fantasizing. Yet they’d never said anything—they were stoic, taciturn, loving in their own quiet way.

She looked at herself in the mirror, and she hated herself for wanting to be anything but Harriet Chestnut.

Penelope got a ride home with Andy McNally, who remained unconvinced that whatever had happened to her at Bubba’s wasn’t an attack. He lectured her on personal safety before he dropped her off. “It was probably just a reporter out there who got spooked and ran off, but watch yourself. I don’t like not knowing where Bubba is.”

“I’ve got new locks and Bubba’s dogs.”

“And Wyatt Sinclair, from what I hear,” he said without enthusiasm.

“He’s powwowing at the inn with his father and Jack Dunning. I expect they’ll be consulting various lawyers and advisers about what to do next, how to handle the investigation of the crash site, the media.”

Andy eyed her from across his car. “Might not be a bad idea for you to think about some of those things.”

“Already have. I plan on unplugging my phone.”

He shook his head. “Christ, you’re a pain in the ass.”

She grinned at him. “Deep down, Andy, I know you’re on my side.”

“It’s chief to you. Why don’t you have dinner with your parents?”

“Because they think I’m having dinner with the Sinclairs. The Sinclairs think I’m having dinner with my parents, so it’s working out. What I need,” she added as he turned into her driveway, “is a little time alone so I can think.”

Andy didn’t like that idea. “You want me to sit out in your driveway until you’re done thinking?”

“That would defeat the purpose, Andy. I need to be alone as in
a-l-o-n-e.
”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“If you need me, you’ve got my number.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

He gripped the wheel, suddenly looking awkward. “Penelope…” He grimaced, out of his element. “I’m worried about Harriet.”

“We all are.” She swallowed, remembering how terrible her cousin had looked when they’d found her in the woods. Her hair a wreck, her clothes soaked and muddy, her hands red and scraped. If they hadn’t found her, if she’d stumbled around in the woods for much longer, she’d have gone into hypothermia. “If I could undo what I’ve done, Andy, I would. I’d leave that plane out there. I’d pretend I never saw a thing. It’s just not worth what it’s doing to her. And Bubba.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Penelope. Hell, even I don’t blame you for this one. Harriet was going to have to deal with this Sinclair thing one of these days.”

Inside, Penelope fashioned a couple of makeshift leashes out of rope for the two mutts and walked them up and down her driveway a few times. What they needed was one of their treks with Bubba Johns. They were already going soft on her. All they wanted was food. She tossed Dog Chow into their pans and watched them go at it, growling and snapping at each other until every morsel was gone.

Her message machine was full, all messages from reporters. Her fax machine was empty. She had no unread e-mail. At least her anonymous nut had stopped pestering her.

While frozen bean soup heated on the stove, Penelope ducked into her bedroom to change. Her various treks into the woods had left her muddy, wet, sweaty and bruised. A hot bath was definitely in order. She’d had enough of the wilds for a while. She couldn’t wait to get in the air.

She returned to the kitchen and got down a bowl, her soup bubbling on the front burner. For no reason her eyes filled with tears, and it was all she could do to keep from crying. Maybe solitude wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

The dogs suddenly jumped up, howling and carrying on, racing to the sliding glass door. Penelope forgot all about her Winchester and grabbed a butcher knife. One of the dogs, the scroungy black one, bared his teeth.

The dogs flopped and started whining.

Penelope lowered her butcher knife. “What is it, guys?”

But she knew. It had to be their master, Bubba Johns. She set the knife on the counter, pulled the chair from in front of the slider and peered onto the deck. It was right after sunset, not yet really dark. Eerie shadows shifted with the wind. There was nothing there. Maybe the dogs only thought they’d heard Bubba.

He materialized in front of the sliding glass door, startling her. She screamed and got the dogs going again. Bubba held one finger to his lips, and they quieted. Steve had done what he could to fix the door temporarily, but it needed to be replaced. Penelope managed to open it about six inches. “That’s the best I can do, Bubba. If you want to come in, you’ll have to go around—”

He shook his head. “Reporters.”

“I understand.” She squinted at him, taking in his scraggly beard and hair, his grayish, ghostly skin. “Jeez, Bubba, you look like Jacob Marley. All you need is the ball and chain. You okay? Your dogs have missed you.”

“They’re good dogs.”

His voice had a rasping, Marley quality to it, too. Penelope used both hands to try to open the door wider. “You should come on in. I’ve got hot soup.”

“No soup. Penelope, you need to know. The diamonds—”

She stared at him. “You know about the diamonds?”

He nodded. “They were in the plane wreckage. They’ve been gone for more than twenty years.”

She was so stunned she couldn’t answer.

“If someone’s after them, it’s too late. They’re gone.”

“You didn’t take them?”

“I didn’t want them. The woods are already filled with beautiful stones. I don’t need more.”

“Yeah, but New Hampshire granite isn’t worth ten million.”

The frosty eyes bored into her. “What is ten million worth to me?”

Penelope remembered she was dealing with hermit logic. “You don’t know who took them?”

He shook his head.

“Bubba, you didn’t attack me out at your place today, did you? I didn’t startle you in the garden shed—”

“No.”

“Did you see who did?”

“No.”

Straightforward enough, not that Bubba would elaborate without a lot of prodding. “Where are you staying? The police want to talk to you. I never meant for any of this to disrupt your life—”

“It disrupted my life long before you came along.”

Penelope went still. Blood rushed to her ears. “Bubba—are you Colt Sinclair?”

The eyes, the ghostly skin, the wild beard and hair. She had to be crazy. Bubba didn’t answer her. A car sounded in her driveway. The dogs jumped up, barking. Bubba took a step toward the edge of the deck. Penelope tried to squeeze through the opening in the slider to go after him, but she didn’t fit. “What about the bodies?” she asked him. “Did you bury Colt and Frannie? Bubba, if you tell me what you know, maybe I can explain to the police—”