No Way to Kill a Lady (15 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

W
e passed a few ramshackle houses that faced the Delaware River, then took a right turn at the overgrown pillars and headed up into the woods. Wet branches swiped the sides of the truck as we jounced up the narrow road. Emma's high beams blazed against the glistening dark trees. Abruptly, her lights hit the locked gate, and she braked. A long swath of yellow crime scene tape had been wound around the gate, clearly warning against trespassing.

I unfastened my seat belt. “You'll have to wait here. I'll walk up to the house alone.”

“In those clothes? Don't be ridiculous. Hang on. I've got some wire cutters in the back of the truck. I'll cut the lock while you change. I've got some breeches under the seat. And there's probably an extra pair of boots in the back. They'll fit you.”

My capable little sister shut off the headlights and swung out of the truck. I wriggled out of my skirt and into a less than pristine pair of riding breeches. As I exchanged my Chanel boots for her rubber Wellingtons that smelled dubious but were certainly warm and dry, Emma took it upon herself to ignore the yellow police tape and cut the lock on the gate.

She looked at me. “Does that coat have feathers on it?”

“Yes.”

“Trade me, Tweety Bird.” She started to pull her sweatshirt over her head. “You can't go up there wearing that.”

I stopped her hands. “Yes, I can.”

We squabbled, and I won for once, keeping my fancy jacket. In a few more minutes, we were heading up the narrow lane toward the house.

“Don't drive off the edge,” I warned, “or we'll end up in the moat.”

Emma cursed and swerved as a small animal scuttled out of the overgrowth. “What was that?”

“Raccoon, maybe?”

As we rattled over the decorative bridge, I saw Quintain differently than before. It was a fantasy castle—­maybe one woman's idea of a princess's dream come true. But tonight it looked forbidding and very dark.

“Here's a flashlight. I hope the battery lasts. And take your cell phone,” Emma said. “If I see trouble coming, I'll call you.”

“If you see any sign of trouble whatsoever, you should run,” I told her. “Don't worry about me.”

I let myself out of the truck and headed across the matted weeds toward the house.

Perhaps a swarm of intrepid warriors might have stormed just such a castle. Crossing the moat, dodging boiling oil. Me, I slogged through the mud in the dark, skirted the front entrance—­plastered with more yellow police tape—­and pushed through the overgrowth around the side of the house. I prayed no creepy crawlies made their home where Emma's boots sank into the cold muck beneath my feet.

Around back, I climbed over the low stone wall of the kitchen garden and made my way to the terrace. From there, I could see the many dark windows that faced the rear of the property. Some of the second-­floor bedrooms had balconies. But Michael always said the most obvious choice is the easiest route, so I felt my way along the downstairs windows. With the flashlight and my bare hands, I checked each one for an unlocked sash—­the kitchen, the pantry and on down the line.

The glass of one of the breakfast room windows was cracked. I wiggled it gingerly, and a shard slipped out of the frame with ease. I reached my arm inside and groped around until I found the window lock. It was stiff, and I panted, my face pressed against the cold, dirty glass, while trying to jiggle it open.

The mechanism cracked off in my hand. I said a word I normally didn't.

I tossed the broken metal down onto the terrace, and it clanged at my feet. I held my breath, half expecting to be caught red-­handed.

But only the wind in the trees sounded around me.

I reached back inside the broken window and shoved at the sash. It moved! Then got stuck again. I shoved and muttered and shoved some more until the window slowly budged open far enough for me to get a good grip on it from the outside. I pushed it upward.

A moment later, I climbed into the breakfast room.

The inside of the house was deathly quiet. Underfoot, dust and debris crackled—­sounding loud in the empty building. I tried to steady my heart, but the more I flashed the light around the weird shapes of the furniture, the more panicky I felt. I rushed across the breakfast room, bumped into a chair and knocked it over. The crash sent me skittering into the hallway.

Suddenly, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I gave an involuntary squeak of fright. Emma calling to warn me? I grabbed the phone and answered.

In my ear, Michael said, “What the hell are you doing?”

“It's you! Oh, uh, nothing out of the ordinary.” I hoped my voice sounded convincing.

“Cut the act,” he said. “Reed called. He tells me you and Emma went off together, looking anything but innocent. What are you doing?”

“Getting a milk shake.”

“Nora.”

“Okay, okay. I'm just—­I let myself into Aunt Madeleine's house.”

A short silence, and then he said, “Isn't that place a crime scene?”

“Well, technically . . . yes.”

He said, “I hate it when you do your Jessica Fletcher routine.”

“How do you know who Jessica Fletcher is?”

“Cabot Cove, Angela Lansbury. You'd be amazed what people watch in prison. You okay?”

“I'm fine. Better than fine. Exhilarated, in fact. I'm starting to understand what you see in the underworld.”

He laughed. “Don't get arrested. I'll have to find a new girlfriend, and that's a hassle.”

I told him I loved him and signed off. As we talked, I'd been edging my way through the house with more confidence. It had been encouraging to hear his voice.

I remembered my way around pretty well. Only once did I make a wrong turn in the dark. In a few minutes, I found Aunt Madeleine's study. Her writing table looked just as it had when I was in the house before. Groatley hadn't ransacked the room as badly as Sutherland had claimed.

But the filing cabinets were unlocked and open—­a sign that somebody had been in the room since I left it. Holding the flashlight clumsily in one hand, I searched the drawers for the black book. No luck.

I cast the light around the room, trying to imagine a good hiding place and hoping someone else hadn't beaten me to finding it. I shut off the flashlight to save the battery.

As my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I stewed. Where might Madeleine keep her ledger book? Or had Groatley whisked it out of Quintain after all? And what had he hoped to accomplish? To conceal evidence of her murder? Or protect himself somehow?

With a sigh of frustration, I sank down in Madeleine's tufted chair to look at the desk.

My phone buzzed again, triggering another moment of panic. I answered, expecting to hear Emma warning me of imminent discovery.

But it was Libby who said, “I feel a little guilty about being so pushy with Emma earlier. Do you think she went on a bender?”

“She's on an eating binge, not a drinking binge.”

“You never know what might set her off, though.” Libby sighed with dismay. “Oh, Nora! What a mess! You do realize Emma needs help making a decision. Otherwise, you're going to have to make it for her.”

“Me!”

In the background, I could hear the buzz of Libby's kitchen blender. I pictured my sister whipping up a frothy drink for herself. She said, “You're the only one of us who can make the tough decisions, Nora. I want you to sit down with Rawlins, too, about his college choices. But first help me decide what to do about Em. I should make a gesture of apology, I think. Do you have time to talk?”

“Right this minute?”

“I was thinking of sending her to a spa for a day—­you know, get her a gift certificate—­but then I wondered if maybe she might insult those nice girls down at the Pink Windowbox. That's my favorite spa, and I don't want to spoil my relationship with them. They help me take photos for my PitterPat followers.” She shut off the blender, and I could hear pouring. “And don't you think they do wonders with candles? So peaceful, and yet seductive.”

“Your followers?”

“No, the girls at the Pink Windowbox!” She sipped her drink and hummed with pleasure.

I said, “Libby, this isn't a good time.”

“Why? Are you seducing That Man of Yours?” She blew another gusty sigh. “I'm so desperate for sex I'm thinking of—­”

“Don't tell me,” I said. “I don't want to hear the lengths you'd go to.”

“Oh, all right. What are you doing? If not slipping into your best lingerie?”

“Actually,” I said, “I'm sitting in Aunt Madeleine's desk chair.”

“You're
what ?”

“I broke into Quintain.”

“Why didn't you
call me ?
I'd love to break into something!”

“Sorry. It was spur of the moment.”

“I can be there in twenty minutes!”

“No, wait—­I'll be gone by then. Look, Libby, I'm a little busy.”

“What are you looking for?”

“A kind of notebook. She kept it in her study. It was a black—­”

“Yes, yes. I used to think it was her diary, so I peeked, but it was mostly numbers—­nothing very interesting.”

“Well, I'd like to find it, so if you'll excuse me—­”

“Check under her chair.”

“What?”

“I bet it's under the seat cushion of her desk chair. At least, that's where she used to keep it.”

I stood up and lifted the chair cushion. Sure enough, there lay the black ledger.

“Libby,” I said, “you're a genius.”

“Just snoopy,” she said. “And I have a good memory. Call me later.
Dancing with the Stars
just came on. I love the men when they have all that lotion on their muscles.”

She hung up on me.

The leather-­bound book in my hand looked exactly as I remembered it. Automatically, I flipped it open to look inside, but all I could see was columns of names and numbers. I took a chance on the flashlight's battery long enough to take a closer look. The handwriting was neat and ladylike. But all the numbers meant I needed more time to study the meaning of Madeleine's notations. I'd have to take it home.

I sat down in the chair again and paused a moment to absorb the details of Madeleine's study, her private sanctum, trying to understand the woman who'd selected everything in the room. I felt as if I was teetering on the brink of a big discovery about her. Maybe about myself.

But instead, I said aloud to Libby, “What do you mean, I'm the one who has to make the tough decisions?”

My phone suddenly vibrated in my pocket again.

I answered, prepared to demand that Libby explain herself, but this time it was Emma, low-­voiced and urgent. “Hurry up. Somebody's coming.”

Her words acted like an electric cattle prod on my heart. Adrenaline zinged through my bloodstream until my fingertips tingled.

“Go,” I commanded. “Leave now, Em. Call me back when you can—­”

“Too late,” Emma said. “It's the cops. I'm screwed.”

She hung up.

I switched off the flashlight, tucked Madeleine's book under my arm and ran. I groped my way to a window. From that vantage point, I could see down the long driveway. Sure enough, a police cruiser had arrived, red light flashing as it pulled close behind Emma's truck.

I had only a few minutes to get out of the house.

I found my way back to the breakfast room and scrabbled out the window with Madeleine's book. Once outside again, I blundered across the kitchen garden, vaulted over the stone wall and struggled through the overgrowth to the woods. Mud sucked at the boots on my feet. Branches swatted my face. In the open field that had been the tilting green, I started to run.

Emma? Normally, she could bluff her way out of just about any situation. Or she'd seduce her arresting officer and get off scot-­free. But those options worked better when she wasn't hugely pregnant.

Somewhere to my left lay the van Vincent house—­and probably a safer route to the main road than Quintain's drive, where the police might be looking for me. I caught another glimpse of the red flashing light—­no doubt the police with Emma—­and my decision was made. I hugged the book tight and struck out across the dark landscape to the sound of my wet footsteps and the chattering of my teeth.

I saw the lights of the van Vincent house over the next rolling hill. I edged closer, climbed through a split rail fence and found myself leaning a hand against the side of the horse barn to catch my breath. I could hear Shirley's horses inside, stamping and snorting in their stalls. They could sense me, and I made them restless.

I waited until my heart stopped pounding. The low, modern lines of the house cut smoothly into the landscape. By moonlight I could see that preparations for the international horse show had begun on the lower part of the property. Two large tents stood on the sides of a wide, mowed field. Stacks of orange cones sat next to piles of lumber that would eventually be arranged into obstacles on the driving course. Someone had already begun to string colored flags in the trees, too.

A dog barked in the house. A second later, another dog took up the alarm. Probably Shirley's Dalmatians.

I pushed off from the barn and started to run. If Shirley turned her dogs loose, they'd find me in minutes. I hurtled down the slope of the lawn, heading for the woods again.

Eventually I found myself stumbling over the old furrows of a cultivated field. Emma's boots were soon heavy with caked mud. I slogged onward and finally reached a ridge piled with stones—­perhaps the work of the first farmer who had cleared the property for cultivation. I clambered over the heap and headed for the trees.

But as I stepped over a tangle of brush, something snagged my foot and I fell into a washed-­out gully.

I landed on a rock, and the force blew all the air from my lungs. I lay stunned for a second, my chest locked, the breath driven out of me so hard that a constellation of stars burst in front of my eyes. Seconds or hours ticked by, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't cry out for help. I felt my consciousness start to fade. A loamy blackness whispered up around me like fallen leaves as I sank into the earth.