The Good Die Twice (8 page)

“Well, maybe you should, Dear.”

Sara stared at the pool of blood surrounding
the filets. Her stomach did a flop. She swallowed hard and passed
the platter to Nicholas. She passed the next platter of venison and
added more salad to her plate.

“Please,” Leyton bellowed, “let’s not talk
about Native Americans. I have enough problems fighting your people
for fishing rights in Wisconsin.”

Sara felt the hair at the nape of her neck
rise. She saw Anna place her hand on Leyton’s plump arm but one
scowl from him had her removing it immediately. His eyes,
surrounded by folds of skin, appeared cold and unfriendly.

“We get limited on the number of fish we can
catch,” Leyton continued, “but YOUR people have no limits. They
even hunt with bow and arrow.” He reached across the table and
stabbed a filet off the platter before Nick had a chance to pass
the platter to Edie. He dropped it on his plate splattering red
juice on his shirt. Anna promptly dipped her linen napkin in her
water glass and tried to dab the blood off Leyton’s shirt. “I don’t
know who’s draining the government coffers more—you people or the
blacks. My tax dollars at work,” he muttered. “We should have wiped
all Indians off the face of the earth.”

“LEYTON,” Anna yelled, her scorn falling on
deaf ears.

Sara scooped mashed potatoes onto her plate
and in a quiet voice countered, “I believe YOUR people already
tried that.” She heard a chuckle from Robert and Nick. And out of
the corner of her eye, she saw Dagger smiling approvingly.

Leyton raised his hand to one of the waiters
and ordered a scotch and water.

“Leyton, put a sock in it,” Edie blurted.
“This is Nick’s birthday. If anyone is allowed to make a fool of
himself, it should be Nicholas.”

“Here, here.” Robert raised his wine glass.
“To Nicholas. May he someday stop trying to find himself and settle
in at Tyler International.”

CHAPTER 13

“Your little secretary eats like a bird. I
take it she’s a vegetarian since she turned green when she saw the
filets.” Sheila leaned against the bar between Dagger and Eric.
Nick was opening gifts at the far end of the dining room table.
Edie and Anna sat nearby sampling the desserts. Sara sat across
from Nick drinking a cup of tea.

The staff had cleared the table and reset it
with fresh linen. The credenza near the French doors had been set
up with desserts, coffee, and hot water. The opposite side of the
room looked like a library with a wall of bookshelves and a number
of upholstered chairs surrounding an octagon-shaped coffee
table.

Dagger sighed heavily. “She has a name,
Sheila. And, no, she’s not a vegetarian. She eats chicken and fish.
It’s red meat she doesn’t like.”

“There are a lot of people who don’t like red
meat.” Eric set his empty beer bottle on the bar. Eric had two of
his mother’s patented traits—a one-inch white streak of hair at his
temple and eyes which were a little too small and close together.
Although he was taller, Eric wasn’t as muscular as his father and
brother. He turned to Sheila. “Have you and Dagger set another
wedding date yet?”

“You’ll have to ask Dagger.” Sheila ran her
hand down the lapel of Dagger’s jacket.

Dagger set his beer bottle on the bar and
excused himself. He located Robert by the credenza pouring a cup of
coffee. Dagger did the same. Edie and Anna howled with laughter at
something Nick said. Just a small family gathering, the way Robert
Tyler insisted.

Dagger studied the pictures on the wall. More
family portraits and another close-up portrait of Rachel. Pulling
out a computer composite picture of Rachel, the detective said,
“She was beautiful.”

“Yes, she was,” Robert replied.

“I saw Rachel’s picture upstairs in the
hallway yesterday.”

Robert took a sip of coffee and eyed Dagger
curiously, then looked at the printout. “Yes?”

“It’s a pretty good likeness, don’t you
think?”

Robert studied the printout. “Where did you
get it?”

“I have a new client who told me she saw this
woman Thursday night at the Dunes Resort.”

Robert’s hand trembled and he set the cup and
saucer down quickly, spilling coffee on the credenza.
“Rachel...ALIVE?”

Talking dulled to a low hum, then ceased.
Eric and Sheila joined the group at the table.

Stepping from the balcony, Leyton demanded,
“What do you mean Rachel is alive?”

Robert swiped a hand through his hair and
staggered to the table where he slowly lowered himself into a
chair.

Dagger took a seat next to him. “I was hoping
to discuss this privately with you.”

“I should have known you would be the one
bringing these tall tales.” Leyton pulled back his shoulders and
fixed a twisted smile on Dagger.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Anna
flitted over as fast as her short legs could carry her. She plopped
down into the chair next to Robert and patted his arm
sympathetically.

“Can we go to your study and discuss this?”
Dagger actually had no problem discussing it publicly. Sara’s job
was to watch everyone’s reaction.

“A little late for that,” Leyton blurted,
walking off in a huff to fix another drink. But he returned
quickly.

“She can’t be alive. After all this time.”
Robert gladly accepted the drink Leyton brought him.

“I didn’t say she was alive. I said I had a
client who saw someone who looked like her.” Dagger placed the
printout on the table. “My client says she witnessed the woman’s
murder.”

Leyton paced the marble floor as if it were
his own relative he were hearing about. “Preposterous!”

“I, I don’t understand,” Robert
stammered.

“It can’t be Rachel,” Anna said. “If she were
alive, she would have contacted Robert. Where would she have been
all this time?”

“Who is this client?” Edie demanded. “We have
a right to know.”

Eric chimed in. “The police have a right to
know.”

“Preposterous!” Leyton mumbled again. “Don’t
listen to him, Robert. Dagger has a habit of working the most
outrageous cases, the weirder, the better.”

Sheila slid close to Dagger, saying, “Honey,
is this witness reliable?”

Dagger half turned and leveled an icy stare.
Sheila backed off and found refuge next to her father.

“The witness is reliable in spite of the fact
that we never found a body. The only proof I have that the victim
might have been your wife is an earring I found at the murder
scene.”

CHAPTER 14

“Your boss certainly knows how to bring a
quick close to a party.” Nick led Sara into a room in the East
Wing.

“I’m sorry if it ruined your birthday.” Sara
stopped when she saw the king-sized bed. Nick had led her to his
bedroom. Strange-looking artifacts hung from the walls alongside
colorful maps. The room wasn’t as large as Sara’s bedroom. She was
surprised. And his taste in decor leaned toward safari with animal
print draperies and bedspread. It was vintage Nick, seeing how much
traveling he had done in his young life.

“No problem. Old folks are kinda boring
anyway.” He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it over the horn of a
rhino jutting out from the wall behind the door. “Don’t worry,”
Nick said tossing a nod toward the rhino. “It was a road kill.” A
crater-sized dimple formed in Nick’s cheek as he smiled and winked.
He made no move to put on another shirt.

Alarms rang in Sara’s head. She looked back
at the closed door, feeling imprisoned without escape. Her eyes
darted nervously around the room. “Would it surprise you any if
Rachel had been alive all this time?”

Nick appeared to space out, staring at
nothing in particular, his thoughts occupied. Just as quickly, he
jerked his head up, smiled, and moved slowly toward her, lifting
her hair and moving it behind her shoulder. “I find it highly
unlikely,” Nick finally replied. “She loved playing queen of the
castle, and I don’t think she would have wasted one minute settling
back into her role.” His gaze moved down to Sara’s chest, his smile
broadened.

Sara looked down to see her nipples hard and
protruding. No wonder Dagger always lectured her to wear underwear.
The air conditioning had been pumping full force, even downstairs
in the dining room. Now she wondered if her lack of underwear had
been apparent in front of the Tylers and Leytons. She felt the
color rush to her cheeks. She turned away, walked toward the patio
doors. But Nick settled a tight grip around her waist.

She wasn’t sure what Nick had on his mind but
his hold on her was anything but friendly. Sara panicked. Her elbow
found the spot just below his rib cage. While he was temporarily
stunned, she hiked up her dress, turned, and high kicked him in the
chest before throwing him over her shoulder.

Nick landed with a thud, his head thumping
against the leg of a rattan throne chair. He lay still for several
seconds, staring up at the ceiling, as if mentally checking that
all his bones were intact. Then he broke out in a high-pitched
giggle.

“Goddamn.” Nick giggled again, propping
himself up on one elbow. “Hey, I didn’t know you liked it
rough.”

Sara fled, opening the door and tearing down
the hallway. She could hear Nick yelling after her, “Hey, I was
only kidding.”

Sara turned down another hall and found
refuge in a vestibule. Overhead track lighting shone down on a
painting of three nude women taking a bath. Voices echoed down the
hall, growing louder, approaching but then turning away. Sara
peered around the corner and saw the two men from the Dunes Resort,
the men who had killed Rachel Tyler. They were with another man who
was built like a refrigerator, rock hard. She could almost feel the
floor shake as they walked.

She pulled back against the wall, then just
before the door near the end of the hall closed, she glanced at it
again. And from the direction she had fled, she heard Nick calling
out her name.

“Sara, I’m sorry. Please, let me make it up
to you.”

His voice was getting closer. With her
shoulders pressed against the wall, she held her breath, hoping
Nick wasn’t looking for her down this hall. Dagger’s words came
back to her. “Have you ever been on a date?” Maybe she shouldn’t
have remained silent. Maybe she should have told him the only thing
she knew about romance was what she had seen in the movie
theatres.

It was her grandmother who had insisted Sara
go to the movies. She thought it would be good for her. Sometimes
she would sit through three movies. She didn’t know any of the
actors and hadn’t read any movie reviews. Once, she found herself
in a movie with the words flashing across the bottom of the screen.
What the actors were doing on screen was shocking but she would
have been more embarrassed to run out of the show. So she stayed
and listened to the people panting in the audience. She had been
too embarrassed to tell her grandmother. But her grandmother must
have suspected because soon after she had a woman-to-woman talk
with her about the birds and the bees.

Sara would watch people on dates at the show,
at the beach, or walking in the park. The only thing that seemed to
have prepared her for this was Dagger’s self-defense lessons. She
didn’t think romance was supposed to necessitate self-defense.

She heard Nick call her name again, but his
voice was fading. He was moving away. Sara made her way to the end
of the hall. Leaning against a door, she heard voices. The door to
the adjacent room was open. It was a bedroom, immense, with a
fireplace, dressing table, and a lounge chair that looked like
something out of a Cleopatra movie. Two carpeted stairs led up to a
four-poster bed covered in a floral bedspread. Floral pillows had
been generously tossed against the headboard.

Sara closed the bedroom door and stared at a
huge portrait of Rachel hanging over the fireplace. Moving closer,
Sara could see why men were enamored with the woman. Her beauty was
flawless.

The sun was setting in the distance, casting
a strange orange glow to the landscape. Hoping the balconies
connected the rooms, Sara stepped outside only to discover the
balcony to the adjacent room was more than forty feet away. She
tried to listen for voices but too many conflicting noises were
coming from the animals and birds in the nearby trees.

Sara had no choice but to kick off her shoes.
Now she understood the downside to wearing nylons.

The change was quick. Sara rarely had to
think long about it. Just a slight focus and the dress fell away,
discarded, as much a nuisance as the nylons. The gray hawk took
flight, landing on the railing of the adjacent balcony, its sturdy
talons clinging tightly. Its feathers ruffled in the mild breeze
and the setting sun wrapped the hawk in warmth. Its eyesight and
hearing were keen, just as they had been the night Rachel was
murdered.

Sara Morningsky was a shape-shifter. Once
thought only to be the subject of tall tales told by the elders
about men who would shift into wolves and prey upon livestock or
unsuspecting men, Sara knew firsthand that a shape-shifter was
anything but a myth. Nor was it a curse. Sara’s grandmother had
always called it a gift. Sara could shift into a gray hawk or gray
wolf. And even in her human form she possessed the keen senses of
the hawk and wolf.

Cautiously, the hawk turned its head and
peered into the room. One of the men, the shorter one with the
cratered face, had fired the gun that killed Rachel. He was seated
in a barrel chair by the patio door. The other two men stood in the
shadows. But the draperies blocked the hawk’s view of the person
seated behind the desk. Whoever was seated there just set a lit
cigar in an ashtray. The hawk lifted off, spread its forty-inch
wingspan and flew to a tree branch where it might have a better
angle of sight.

“Use your head, Sheila. I thought you wanted
to be known as a hard-hitting reporter, not some dame who rode her
Dad’s coattails up the ladder.”