Tempting Fate (15 page)

B
reakfast at the track was an August Saratoga tradition that Zeke might have found quaint if he'd been more awake. For a modest amount of money, one could enjoy a champagne breakfast in the clubhouse and watch expensive thoroughbreds work out on the picturesque track, said to be the most beautiful in the country. Up and at it before he was ready to be up and at it, Zeke had walked down from the Pembroke. He'd avoided the front desk, lest Dani had spoken to her staff about having given him the boot.

Sara Chandler Stone was on the upper level, at a white-covered table overlooking the track. The atmosphere was relaxed and cordial, with a touch of elegance that was part of the upstate resort's appeal. Zeke was underdressed as usual. Most everyone seemed finished with their breakfast.

“Am I late?” Zeke asked, sitting across from Sara.

“It's no problem.” She was as poised and still as a mannequin, her porcelain face hidden under the wide brim of her straw hat. She wore an attractive, feminine dress, silky and expensive, an easy way to remind people who was a Chandler here and who wasn't. “I try to come to breakfast at the track once a season. My family has benefited a great deal from our connection with Saratoga racing. I enjoy giving something back.”

“It's a dirty job,” Zeke said, “but somebody's got to do it.”

Her smile didn't falter. “I wouldn't expect you to understand.”

He smiled back. “Touché, Mrs. Stone.”

“Would you care for a glass of champagne?”

She already had a glass, and she didn't appear to have drunk anything else or eaten anything at all. Zeke shook his head and flagged a waiter, who promptly filled his coffee cup and took his order for eggs.

Sara stared down at onlookers gathered along the white fence to watch the horses warm up on the track. “Will you be at the Chandler Stakes this afternoon?”

“Probably.”

“It's a large field of horses this year. The weather's beautiful. It'll be a grand day.” Her smile was gone now, her porcelain skin without color. “Father's looking forward to today.”

“Well, it's the hundredth running of the Chandler.”

“And if it's as thrilling as everyone seems to think it will be, it could help put the seventy-fifth out of his mind.” She sipped her champagne; it couldn't have been her first glass, Zeke thought. “None of us attended. We were all out looking for Lilli.”

Zeke willed away his fatigue, the old, dead dreams that had haunted him through his few hours of sleep. “It must have been horrible. I'm sorry, Sara.”

She waved a hand. “Oh, it was a long time ago. Wounds heal.”

“Not all wounds. Not knowing what happened to your sister has to be hard.”

“Yes.” Her voice had dropped to a near whisper. “To be honest, Zeke, I've come to hate the entire Chandler Stakes weekend. I only keep up with the traditions because of Father and Roger. If it were up to me, I doubt I'd ever come back to Saratoga. But Roger loves racing season, and it seems to be a solace for Father.” She swallowed more champagne, her eyes turned back down to the track. “When I'm here, all I can do is think of Lilli.”

Downing his coffee, Zeke hoped Sara hadn't asked to see him just to cry on his sleeve. That occasionally happened in his business. He hated to be hard-hearted, but he had to maintain objectivity. Professionalism. Strict neutrality. But this, he reminded himself, wasn't business.

His breakfast arrived, and Sara motioned for the waiter—it was a slight, delicate gesture—to bring her more champagne. Then she turned back to Zeke, and he saw the fear slip into her eyes as she asked in a quiet, slightly hoarse voice, “Why are you here?”

“I'm on vacation.”

Her reaction—her sudden, sweet, angry smile—caught him off guard. “You're a closemouthed son of a bitch, Zeke Cutler, just like your brother was.”

“Even worse.”

The anger and sweetness vanished, and so did her smile. She tilted her head back so that the shadows moved onto her face and he no longer could see her eyes under the brim of her hat. “Did he hate me?”

“No.”

“But he wanted to,” she said.

Zeke didn't answer. It wasn't his place—now, no one's—to speak for his brother.

“I'm sorry.” But she didn't sound sorry, only wrapped in self-pity. “It can't be easy for you to talk about him. Zeke, I know this is probably hard for you to believe, but I really did care about your brother. Joe and I together…” She licked her lips. “It never would have worked. You must know that.”

Maybe he did. But he wasn't sure Joe had. He'd been eighteen and still believed love could conquer anything, even the differences between Sara Chandler and himself.

She worked at a sapphire ring on her left hand, hesitant, way out of her rich woman's league. “You're staying at the Pembroke?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think of our Danielle?”

“That she'd hate to be called your or anyone else's Danielle.”

Sara smiled, smug and cool. “Oh, yes, you're right about that. This August is especially difficult, I think, for all of us. We're all in the limelight even more than usual—with the Chandler centennial. Danielle's little projects, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Lilli's having left.” She caught herself, biting down on her lower lip; Zeke lost her eyes again under the brim of her hat. “I almost always say she left. It's just a habit with me. Not knowing what happened to her is a terrible burden—I'm not sure anyone really understands. I like to think my sister made a deliberate choice about her life. I used to think it would be easier if she'd died rather than abandoned all of us, but now…” She lifted her shoulders and tucked a stray strand of hair somewhere up under her hat. Her nails were pale pink, short, perfectly manicured. “It seems to me just up and leaving would have been an act of tremendous courage for a woman like her.”

“How so?” Zeke asked as he sat forward, wanting to get Sara's perspective on her older sister's state of mind before she disappeared. It was so easy to discount Sara as having much perspective on anything. But even if she was wrong about Lilli, hearing what she had to say could be instructive. Twenty-five years ago, she seemed to have nothing in common with her older sister. Now Sara had become everything people had always thought Lilli had always been.

“Lilli felt more trapped by her circumstances than I ever did. She married fairly young. By the time Nick cast her in
Casino,
she had a husband, a child, unbelievable expectations placed on her. Perhaps she decided the only way she could change her life was to chuck it all and leave. Become someone else.”

“Is that what you believe happened?”

Sara's shoulders sagged. She'd changed more than Zeke had anticipated. At twenty-two, she'd been dynamic and restless, grieving for a mother she'd lost too young and anxious to set the world on fire. Only she hadn't. That wasn't necessarily a failure in Zeke's view, unless she thought it was. Either way, he'd left behind enough plans and dreams of his own not to judge.

“I only wish I knew,” she whispered, then blushed. “I'm sorry, Zeke—I realize I keep saying that, but I didn't mean for you to have to listen to me whine. I just wanted to say hello. I don't know, I thought you might have come to Saratoga because of Lilli, Joe, me, its being twenty-five years.” But when he didn't respond, irritation flashed in her very blue eyes, undermining her gracious, sweet heiress act. She pulled a napkin from her lap and set it neatly beside her champagne glass. “You're not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“Sara, there's nothing to tell you.”

That wasn't true, of course.

She gave him a cool smile. “Well, then. I hope you have a wonderful stay in Saratoga. It's been good seeing you, Zeke. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a great deal to do before the Chandler this afternoon.”

She was on her feet. Zeke watched as she quickly—automatically—took stock of who was around her, who was paying attention.

“Wait,” he said calmly.

She looked at him, expectant.

“There's something I've always wondered. Did you just use Joe to get Roger to notice you?”

It wasn't what she'd wanted Zeke to ask. She hesitated, then said quietly, “I hope you go straight to hell when you die, Zeke Cutler.”

Then she was gone, stiffing him with the bill.

Zeke flagged the waiter for more coffee, noticing he didn't jump as fast as when Sara had been there, but he did come, and the coffee was hot, the weather was nice. Zeke sat back, watching the horses and thinking.

After about thirty seconds he realized he didn't have a whole hell of a lot to think about besides Dani's black eyes. He'd been in town almost two days and so far didn't know anything. Time to throw a stick of dynamite into the mix and stir things up.

But first, another cup of coffee.

The telephone woke her.

Fumbling for the receiver, Dani almost fell on the floor before she realized she wasn't upstairs in her bedroom. She'd crashed on the couch in the living room after her kite flying. She stumbled to her feet. Her eyelids felt swollen, and her bruises and scrapes hurt, but the damn phone was still ringing. She headed to the kitchen, shuddering when she remembered she hadn't locked the back door when she'd come in. But there were no robbers in the kitchen, no dark-eyed men on white horses. Just a bucket of peach skins and peach pits for the compost pile.

She grabbed the wall phone, but before she could grunt a hello, Ira Bernstein said, “You'd better get up here.”

His words—his serious tone—instantly woke her up. “What's wrong?”

“One of the guest rooms has been ransacked. Totally tossed to hell and back.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Have you called the police?”

“Not yet. I, um, thought we should talk first.”

Cutler,
she thought. He had to be involved somehow. “I'll be there in ten minutes.”

She ran into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face and brushed her teeth, raked her fingers through her hair, grimaced at her reflection in the mirror. What a mess. She hadn't gotten off all of Magda's makeup; mascara was smudged under her eyes. And she looked as though she'd spent the night peeling peaches and flying kites.

She decided against fresh clothes and instead put on her sneakers and headed out in her jeans. She tore through her garden and out the back gate, moving fast over the familiar ground.

Ira was waiting for her in room 304. It was one of her favorites. She'd found the crazy quilt in a dusty antique shop in Vermont and had repaired it herself.

“Housekeeping came in to make up the bed,” Ira said, “and found it like this. Efficient bastard.”

Indeed. A duffel had been dumped out, its contents scattered. Dani noticed jeans, canvas pants, dark shirts. White-knight clothes. “This is Zeke Cutler's room, isn't it?”

Ira nodded. “Dani—” He sighed, running one hand through his corkscrew curls. “Look, I didn't call the police because I don't know what's going on around here. This guy shows up. Your cottage is broken into. He drives you to the Chandler party last night. He comes in this morning at the crack of dawn. Leaves. Now we find his room tossed.”

“That about sums it up.” Dani balled her hands into fists, trying to maintain some semblance of calm even as she fought to get a decent breath. The small room suddenly seemed oppressive and airless. “I don't know what's going on, either, Ira.”

“If you want me to, I can handle this. I'll leave you out altogether. But if this is personal—if I'm going to tread somewhere you don't want me to tread…” He paused, his cockiness and irreverence nowhere in evidence. “You just tell me what you want me to do.”

Any residual sleepiness or fatigue vanished as Dani straightened, looking around the ransacked room. The mattress was off the bed, drawers dumped, linens heaped, bath crystals and salts and powders emptied. What had Zeke brought down on her head?

“You've called our own security people?”

“On their way.”

“Good. Let them deal with the police. I'll deal with Zeke myself.”

Ira looked dubious. “You're sure?”

“No.” She forced herself to meet Ira's eye, to smile. “But it'll be okay. Thanks, Ira.”

Before he could stop her, she left, heading back across the grounds to her cottage, where she showered and changed. Fifteen minutes later, she was on her way into Saratoga. She found a parking space in a public lot and walked over to the library, where, after some digging, she checked out a copy of
Joe Cutler: One Soldier's Rise and Fall.

Then she walked to Kate Murtagh's small yellow Victorian house, on a pretty street off—well off—Union Avenue. Dani went around back and knocked on the door, because it was August in Saratoga and if Kate wasn't catering some event, she was in her kitchen. She yelled that the door was open, and Dani went in.