Murder at the Breakers (15 page)

My wager had paid off. I had known that Neily had moved back into The Breakers and attempted to make peace with his parents; I also knew that it was his habit to go out most nights, and that not even his parents would interfere in that. He was a young heir on holiday, a Newport summer dandy, and it was considered his right to sow some wild oats.

I kept well to the side of the road in the shadows cast by the overhanging branches. But even if Neily had looked back, he would only see a smallish young man in denims, corduroy jacket, and a plaid cap, all of which had once belonged to Aunt Sadie. That venerable lady had deemed it ridiculous that women should perform outdoor work—planting, weeding, mucking the barn—in petticoats, dresses, and flowered bonnets. Tonight I thanked goodness for her rebellious spirit.

Neily turned onto Narragansett and proceeded toward town. I tried to anticipate his destination, but he stopped at none of his usual haunts and kept going. The sidewalks grew quieter, the road less congested with evening traffic. A new likelihood occurred to me: a clandestine meeting with Grace Wilson.

Finally, he turned into the Point, the oldest section of town and the neighborhood where Brady and I had grown up. The houses here dated back to the seventeenth century; a few were even older than that. Though most held a colonial charm, these were modest homes and often cramped inside, with small rooms, narrow staircases, and bedrooms whose ceilings sloped beneath the eaves of the roof. In short, not the sort of places one would expect to find a man like Cornelius Vanderbilt III.

The briny scents of the harbor assaulted my nostrils. A buoy bell tolled mournfully, a lonely sound muffled somewhat by the evening mist that swathed the cobbled lanes. The air was warm, heavy with humidity, yet I shivered. A carriage drew up close behind me and the hairs on my nape stood on end. Had I been followed—the hunter now hunted, as I’d been the other night? But, no, the driver turned left and headed down toward Washington Street, which ran along the harbor front. I sighed in relief and returned my full attention to Neily.

On Third and Poplar he pulled his curricle to the side of the road in front of a blue clapboard saltbox. After setting the brake, he jumped down and looked quickly around before bounding to the front steps of the house. With another glance over his shoulder, his eyes lighting on me briefly but obviously dismissing me as inconsequential, he opened the door and slipped inside.

He’d neither knocked nor called out before crossing the threshold. I wondered who owned the house, and who waited for Neily inside. As I passed the structure, I noticed a single glow of lamplight in one of the downstairs rooms. All else lay dark. I kept going all the way to quiet Walnut Street, where I had grown up. Turning onto it, I pulled past the house my parents now rented out, except for the top floor where Brady lived. I didn’t spare a glance at the house; I especially didn’t want to look up and see the third-floor windows gazing back dark and empty. Instead, I continued to where the road ended at the railroad tracks, set the brake, and hopped down, my feet swallowed by the low-crawling mist.

By the time I returned to the blue saltbox, the downstairs lamp had been extinguished. Neily’s curricle still sat outside, his horse dozing lightly. Careful not to wake him and set him snorting, I crossed to the far side of the street, stepped into the shadows between two houses, and waited. . . .

The upstairs windows were open. Suddenly, sounds drifted down—voices, laughter, a high-pitched squeal that was quickly stifled. That last was definitely feminine, counterbalanced by a man’s deeper tones. My cheeks began to heat. I couldn’t make out the words, but something in the general timbre of the voices suggested intimacy . . . sensuality. A glow filled one of the upper rooms and I glimpsed a pair of entwined shadows against the sloping ceiling, and then a bright flash of Grace’s vivid auburn hair being pulled from its pins. A pair of masculine hands shoved the window closed and pulled the curtains together.

I felt like a voyeur standing there, for what had I learned but that Neily and Grace yearned to be together but must always do so on the sly. Though Neily was still a year from his majority, he was a man who obviously knew what he wanted, and Grace, a few years older, was an adult with the right to choose her destiny.

But did that also give them a reason to have murdered Alvin Goddard, who would have interfered in their happiness? I couldn’t discount the possibility, yet the voices I’d just heard echoed in my mind. They hadn’t sounded like the voices of co-conspirators. They’d sounded simply like the voices of lovers, joyful at finding a stolen moment together.

Feeling ashamed for spying, I started to move out of my shadow when the sound of another carriage held me in place. My disguise was a good one, but why take chances?

An enclosed brougham, its curtains drawn, pulled up behind Neily’s curricle. The driver sat stiffly in the box, facing straight ahead. I waited, watching to see who would descend from inside, but the vehicle’s doors remained closed.

With a start I spotted the outlines of stenciled numbers on the rear bumper, indistinct in the mist. I squinted to make them out, but smears of mud further obscured the identification numbers. I inched out from my hiding place, craning my neck and straining my eyes. Was that a three or an eight? A nine or a seven? Had the carriage been leased from Stevenson’s Livery?

Suddenly the front door of the house opened and a figure in sweeping skirts, cape, and a concealing bonnet came down the steps and moved toward the carriage. The feminine figure was almost to the vehicle when she paused, gazing over her shoulder at the front door that stood open still. She blew a kiss to someone I couldn’t see from my angle. The coachman made no move to come down and assist the woman, nor did she seem to expect him to as she reached her hand for the door latch. A gust of salt-tinged wind thrust back her bonnet back from her face. A few blond curls spilled forward and the moonlight caught her features.

I gasped. “Adelaide?”

I whisked a hand to my mouth. My surprise at seeing her there was so great, her name had tumbled out before I could stop it. Had she heard me? Would she attribute the sound to the breeze or the lapping of the water against the nearby docks?

Righting her bonnet, she stared in my direction, and for a fleeting instant I could have sworn she looked right in my eyes, that a trace of recognition flared her nostrils. But her gaze swept quickly past me; then she disappeared into the carriage.

I waited for the sounds of hooves and grinding wheels to fade before stepping out from my hiding place. The front door of the house now stood closed. Pulling my cap low over my brow, I hugged my sides and began making my way back toward Walnut Street. Exactly what sort of house was this unassuming blue saltbox? Even I, in my naiveté, recognized a tryst when I saw one. But Neily and Adelaide? Could it be?

I shook my head. I’d distinctly seen Grace Wilson’s vibrant red hair in the lamplight. And anyway, it wouldn’t have made sense. Neily risked his entire future by courting Grace; why on earth would he compound his difficulties by being untrue to her . . . and with Adelaide, no less?

No, Adelaide and Neily could not have stolen to the Point tonight to see each other. But they obviously knew of each other’s activities and were in collusion together, sharing this modest house for their illicit affairs. Who owned the place, I wondered, and who had Adelaide come to see?

My throat tightened around a lump. I don’t know why it should make me sad that my old friend might be having an affair, but I kept thinking of the girl she’d once been, and all the dreams she’d had. And I thought of her husband, alone in that big house of theirs, ailing and confused. . . .

A noise behind me drew me to a halt. I turned and scanned the dimly lit street. I saw nothing but low swirls of fog. A dog began to bark, a high-pitched, erratic sound that grated on my nerves. I continued walking. I’d no sooner taken three steps when I heard it again, what sounded like a crunching footfall. I whirled about, arms ready at my sides, fists curled.

“Who’s there?”

Only a sharp breeze, the barking dog, and another clang of the buoy answered. That last reminded me that the sound I’d heard could be a line slapping against a mast or the creaking of a hull. Sounds carried strangely along the harbor, seemingly close by when they might be a quarter mile out on the bay.

Hurrying my pace, I made it to Walnut Street and turned the corner. My buggy loomed not far away, a black hulk amid the surrounding darkness. I wanted only to be up on the seat and heading for home.

From behind me a hand clamped my shoulder in a grip that sent instant pain speeding down my arm and across my chest. A solid weight slammed my back and sent me face-first onto the walkway. I might have cried out; I don’t know. I landed half on the bricks and half on a bed of grass and flowers. My shoulder struck a rock, fresh pain zigzagging through me with nauseating sharpness.

I tried to rise, tried to pry myself from beneath the weight pinning me down. And then something cool slid across my throat . . . and pressed. An icy edge cut against my flesh until I couldn’t breathe.

Didn’t dare breath.

“You can’t save your brother,” a voice rasped in my ear. “So save yourself and leave well enough alone.”

F
rom somewhere behind me, running footsteps echoed off the houses, and a shout pierced the muffling fog.

“What’s going on here?”

The dagger yanked away from my throat. My attacker pushed off me and scrambled onto his feet. A corner of heavy fabric slapped my cheek, and I managed to raise my face off the ground in time to see nothing more than a billowing black shadow racing away, the misty darkness swallowing him as he disappeared between the houses across the street.

A distant clatter of overturned trash cans accompanied the urgency of a new voice in my ear.

“Miss Cross! Emma! Are you hurt?”

Hands gripped my shoulders, trying to turn me, but the past several seconds of being thrown to the ground with my face in the dirt and a knife threatening my very life’s breath came crashing down on me. I fought the hands, tried to claw my way to my feet, to my carriage, to freedom.

“Emma, I’m not going to hurt you. It’s me, Derrick Anderson. You remember me, don’t you?” The reporter from the Providence
Sun
rolled me over and pinned me down, his hands clamping my shoulders almost painfully. “Please calm yourself!”

As I continued to struggle, he knelt over me, straddling my legs. His face hovered over mine, his features shadowed, eyes fiercely catching glints from the streetlamps. My heart pounded as if to escape my chest, and my breath came in ragged gasps. But as I stared up at him without blinking, I detected a softening of his expression, a relaxing of his features, and somehow this set me at ease.

His hands came away and he sat up on his haunches. “Are you all right?” Before I could form an answer, he turned his head to stare in the direction the attacker had gone. “I should have gone after him. Might have been able to catch him, too, but . . .” His jaws clenched. He stared a few moments longer, ears obviously pricked. I listened as well, but the cloaked assailant gave no further hints to his whereabouts. He could be anywhere by now, either hiding in a dark yard or walking calmly down a street back in town.

Mr. Anderson looked down at me again, his face determined and set, but his mouth once more softening. “I couldn’t just leave you here, not without seeing if you’d been hurt.”

I nodded, spitting bits of grass and dirt out from between my lips. He offered me a hand. I hesitated as the half-cloudy, half-starry sky above me slowly spun in my vision. I shut my eyes and laid my hand in his. His palm was warm and smooth, his fingers strong and lengthy as they enveloped my own. I felt immediately safe, yet suddenly shaky again. I opened my eyes and clamped my teeth over my bottom lip.

As he helped me sit up, my hair fell around my shoulders and down my back. My cap sat some few feet away, in the gutter. After helping me to my feet, Mr. Anderson held on to my hand until I assured him I wouldn’t fall over. Then he bent to retrieve the plaid fabric hat that had held my hair in place.

“Did you see who it was?” he asked me.

“No, he came up behind me. I never saw anything until he ran away, and then only his cloak. What about you?”

“Pretty much the same.” He let out a sigh. “Damn, but I wish I’d gotten here sooner.”

“Sooner or not, I owe you a great debt, Mr. Anderson. Thank you. If not for you happening along when you did . . .” A shudder traveled my shoulders as I considered the alternative. “But . . . you called me Miss Cross even before you saw my face. How did you know it was me?” Stiffening, I backed up a step. “You were following me again, weren’t you?”

“Actually, no. Not you. But when I saw you drive your carriage by and then return on foot . . . well, Miss Cross, it didn’t take much observation to see that you’re no boy.”

Something in his voice, some slapdash note of . . . appreciation . . . made me cross my arms and hug my cap against my bosom. I narrowed my eyes at him and gritted my teeth. “If not me, then who were you following?”

“Who were
you
following, in your elaborate disguise?”

“That’s none of your business—”

“Let’s not argue here.” He cupped my elbow in his hand and turned me toward the railroad tracks. “Is that your carriage up ahead?”

When I nodded, he wasted no time in herding me toward it. He helped me onto the seat, climbed up beside me, and took up the reins. We drove in silence for some minutes, leaving the Point taking Thames Street along the waterfront.

“Where are we going?”

“Home, Miss Cross.”

As before, I stiffened my back. “I will not go home with you, Mr. Anderson, wherever that may be.”

“Not my home. Yours.”

“Oh.” Silence descended again as the horse trotted a few more paces. “Don’t you want directions?”

He merely shook his head. Was that a slight smile curling his lips?

“You know where I live?”

“More or less.”

Yes, that was definitely a smile. My insides began to boil. “Stop the carriage. Stop right here and not an inch further.”

We were at King Park, just after the turn where Thames Street turned onto Wellington Avenue. Mr. Anderson directed the carriage off the road and onto the grassy verge that marked the edge of the small, waterside park. “Yes, Miss Cross?”

“I want to know why you always seem to turn up in odd places. And why you seem to know so much about me. And I want to know whom you were following tonight. And why.”

He shifted to face me and slung an arm across the top of the seat, which brought his large hand unsettlingly close to my cheek. I tried to create more distance between us, but as I was already on the end of the seat there was little room to maneuver.

“As far as turning up in odd places, Miss Cross, one could say the same for you.”

I huffed in denial, but he kept talking.

“I was at the jailhouse that first day because upon arriving in town I’d heard there’d been a death the night before. Any reporter worth his ink would inquire about that.”

“But you followed me out of the jailhouse and around town, until I spotted you on Spring Street.”

“I confess I did. But it had nothing to do with your brother.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Miss Cross, I’m not here to investigate your brother or you, or the death of Alvin Goddard.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “And you’re not here to research an article about America’s wealthy industrialists either, are you, Mr. Anderson?”

“No, I’m not.” He drew a breath, looked out over the silver-tipped waves, then back at me. “Since we literally keep running into each other, maybe you and I can find a way to work together.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, “assuming you can find a way to tell me one thing that’s true.”

“Touché.” He laughed softly, his eyes crinkling pleasantly at the corners. “All right, then. I’m not here on behalf of the
Sun.
I took on this assignment privately.”

“And what assignment would that be?” I couldn’t help smiling. I wasn’t sure why, but I was suddenly enjoying the little game we seemed to be playing. That is, until Derrick Anderson spoke his next words.

“I’m investigating Adelaide Halstock.”

“Adelaide?” I sat up straighter, all amusement gone from my thoughts. “Why on earth?”

But even as I asked the question, Adelaide’s mysterious errand on the Point formed images in my mind. I sank back against the squabs.

“There is someone, whose identity I can’t divulge, who mistrusts your old friend’s intentions when it comes to her husband. That’s why I followed her to the Point tonight. It isn’t the first time she’s slipped out of that mausoleum she shares with Rupert Halstock, only to return home in the wee hours of the morning.”

“You think she’s having an affair?” The question came out more like a statement and I immediately regretted my words. I believed exactly that, but who was I to judge Adelaide? It certainly wasn’t my business to see her punished for what might be the desperate actions of a young woman who found herself trapped in a loveless marriage to an aged, ailing husband.

“It goes beyond questions of fidelity, Miss Cross, and involves more than wounded family pride. I can’t tell you much else, but your old friend might be in the middle of something that promises to barrel out of her control.”

“My old friend . . .” My mouth dropped open. “That’s why you’ve followed me, because I’m Adelaide’s friend. But how did you know that?”

He smiled that enigmatic, infuriating smile of his. “I’m an investigative reporter, Miss Cross.”

I remembered the kiss Adelaide had blown over her shoulder after leaving the saltbox, prompting me to ask a bit too eagerly, “So did you see who it was Adelaide came to visit?”

“Unfortunately, no. The individual was obviously already inside before she or I arrived. I’d hoped he might exit after her, but then I heard your shout.”

“Yes . . . I’m sorry about that.”

“Sorry I was there to ward off your attacker? I’m not.” His voice deepened with quiet conviction, melding like a caress with the breeze and raising goose bumps across my back. A nervous sensation fluttered in my stomach.

Needing to escape his scrutiny, I stared out over the water. I cleared my throat. Shoved my hands in the pockets of my corduroy jacket. When I glanced back at him it was to catch the ghost of his smile just before it vanished.

“What can you tell me about Mrs. Halstock?” he asked.

The sudden shift back to Adelaide came as a welcome distraction. “Not much.” At his skeptical expression, my chin came up defensively. “It’s true we’ve known each other all our lives, but we were never particularly close. We’re only now just reacquainting ourselves, perhaps as better friends; but if she’s having an affair, she hasn’t told me anything about it. I was surprised to see her tonight. You can believe it or not, Mr. Anderson, but that is the truth.”

“Oh, I’ll take you at your word, Miss Cross. Something tells me nothing but the truth ever leaves those pretty lips of yours.” He paused and a blush climbed up my neck—partly from unexpected pleasure that he should mention my lips, partly with shock that he should do so . . . and partly with a smidgeon of guilt because, truthfully, I wasn’t above a little white lie if I deemed one necessary.

His hand moved, the forefinger lightly tapping the brim of my boyish cap. The backs of his knuckles grazed my cheek. My lower lip trembled in response, but other than that I held myself immobile. What would he do next? My pulse raced as I waited.

“It’s your turn.” He returned his hand to the back of the seat, and the smudge of dirt across his knuckles made me realize the point of his gesture—to remove said dirt from my cheek, a reminder of my attack. “What brought you to the Point tonight?” he asked.

I worked through a sense of schoolgirl-like disappointment. “I was following my cousin.”

“Cornelius the third?”

“Yes . . . we call him Neily.”

“I thought that’s who arrived right before Mrs. Halstock left the house.” He studied me a moment. “This has to do with your half brother, Stuart Gale?”

“Brady,” I corrected him, but didn’t answer the question. After all, I didn’t know what he might do with the information.

“Who else is on your list of suspects for the murder of Alvin Goddard?”

The question startled me. “How do you know I have a list—”

“Miss Cross, there is always more than one suspect. Besides, from what I’ve heard around town, you have a good relationship with your Vanderbilt cousins, especially Neily. You can’t want him to be Alvin Goddard’s murderer any more than you want your brother to be guilty.”

“That may be so,” I conceded, “but I’m not about to shed guilt on anyone until I have proof.”

“Until,” he repeated, smiling again, “not
if.
I like your spirit, Miss Cross.”

The heat of another blush surged into my cheeks. I diverted his attention from it with a suggestion. “I suppose we could try asking Neily who else was there tonight . . .” I trailed off, already realizing the flaw in that plan.

“But then he’d know you were following him.” Mr. Anderson frowned. “Then again, maybe he was on to you.”

I shook my head vigorously. “It can’t have been Neily who attacked me, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“You sure about that?”

No. I wasn’t sure about anything—not even about the possibility that as I’d followed Neily to the Point, someone else had followed me. Nor was I sure about how much I should be trusting Derrick Anderson.

“All right, we’ll leave that for now,” he said when I didn’t reply. “I have a proposition for you, Miss Cross.”

I studied him through narrowed eyes. “What sort of proposition?”

“You don’t have to look so cynical.” His hand moved toward my face again, then stopped suddenly as if he thought twice about touching me. “What I propose is that we work together from now on. Pool our resources. Share information.”

I sat back and studied the play of moonlight on his even, yet somehow rugged features. “Why would you want to do that? You yourself said I was Adelaide’s friend. How do you know I’m not involved in whatever it is you’re investigating?”

“Because I saw your reaction when Mrs. Halstock exited the house, and I believe you were utterly taken aback. I realized then you were no confidante of hers.”

My mouth fell open. “Where were you?”

“A few feet away, just on the other side of the garden wall of the house to your right. I could see over well enough, while the lilac bushes provided ample camouflage.”

“And you watched me . . .”

“Watching them—your cousin, his sweetheart, and Mrs. Halstock. Yes.” He shrugged, a careless gesture that should have infuriated me, yet somehow didn’t. “Sorry,” he added.

I blew out a breath, trying to sound exasperated, but the truth was I realized his proposition might turn out to be a godsend—if I could trust him. “All right. What do you have in mind?”

He hesitated just long enough for the silence to become heavy with unspoken innuendoes, and for my cheeks to blaze again; thank goodness the breeze had blown a cloud across the moon. “First we need to find out who owns that house on the Point,” he said. “We’ll proceed from there.”

He stuck out his hand. “Partners . . . Emma?”