You Can Run... (28 page)

Diana shook her head as she crossed the threshold. “I want to sit down in the library for a while, first. I’d like a glass of cognac, Simon.”

“Well now, I guess you would but it’s not recommended for people who’ve just gotten a concussion and are taking medication. And I know you aren’t yourself yet, my dear, because you have
never
asked me for a glass of cognac.” He looked up at Tyler, beaming. “Who did you bring home instead of Diana?”

Simon lowered Diana on a couch as if she was an invalid, while Clarice appeared with a heavy afghan that she tucked tightly around Diana. Simon disappeared and almost immediately returned with a glass of beer for Tyler and ice water for Diana, along with one of her anti-inflammatory pills and a painkiller.

“Where’s Willow?” Diana asked after obediently swallowing her medication.

“You tucked her in before you left to get
ice cream,
” Simon said with a hint of sarcasm. “Don’t you remember?”

“Sir, she has short-term memory loss,” Tyler said quickly. “I told you—”

“Yes, you did, and I sound like
I’m
the one with short-term memory loss.”

“Diana, would you like a glass of milk or more ice water?” Clarice asked.

“No. If Simon is going to be stingy with the cognac, I’d like to go to bed.” Diana suddenly felt ill-tempered with everyone fussing over her, and the pain in her head and hip abruptly rising a few notches. She slowly stood up.

“Oh, dear, you must let Tyler and Simon help you up the stairs to bed,” Clarice cried. “You don’t want to fall
again!
”

“I don’t remember falling down stairs the first time,” Diana returned, angry with herself for sounding so cross. Everyone was simply trying to help her. She forced the semblance of a gracious smile. “I’ll take the elevator. Good night, Uncle Simon, Clarice. And Tyler, thanks for a lovely evening. We’ll have to do it again sometime when I remember what it is we did.”

“I made a complete fool of myself today.” Jeffrey Cavanaugh sat in his dimly lit hotel room, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and rubbing the other through his rumpled hair. His complexion was ashen and his eyelids puffy. “Now you’re supposed to tell me I wasn’t all that bad.”

Blake Wentworth, seated across from Jeffrey, looked at his brother-in-law with clear, ebony eyes and said, “I can’t tell you that you weren’t all that bad. You were, Jeff. You almost hit Diana Sheridan, which was bad enough, but to make things worse, your daughter was watching.”

Jeffrey winced and closed his eyes. “God, how could I? I barely even remember what I was doing. All I felt was rage and a sense of betrayal. Betrayal! It’s ludicrous. Penny betrayed me a long time ago. Why did I find her pregnancy such a shock?”

“Maybe because you always said she ran away because of another man, but I don’t think you really believed it.”

“I did. I think there were always other men, just like with Yvette.”

“Well, today, you had proof. Before, you just
thought
there was another man. Today, you had no choice but to accept the truth.”

“Maybe that was part of it,” Jeffrey said miserably, taking a sip of bourbon. “But I saw her, my beautiful Penny, so grotesquely burned. And when she woke up, she was in such agony.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “When the doctor said she was pregnant, I knew for certain there was a man. If she hadn’t run off to be with him, she wouldn’t be dying a horrible death.”

Blake frowned. “Why do you think Penny is dying because of another man?”

“Because if she’d stayed home with me where she belonged . . .” Jeffrey shook his head as if confused. “If, if, if . . . So many things could have been different
if
.”

“For instance, if Yvette hadn’t died, you never would have been with Penny.”

Jeffrey looked at him sharply. “If Yvette hadn’t died, we would have divorced. The marriage was wrong from the first month. People tried to tell me about her—that she was wild, unstable, incapable of love. But all I saw was her beauty.” He took another sip of bourbon. “She was beautiful, wasn’t she, Blake?”

“Yes, I’ll have to say that for her.”

“She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Still. Even Penny wasn’t as beautiful as Yvette.

“Yvette’s physical beauty just hid the ugliness underneath.”

“Ugliness is too harsh a word!” Jeffrey flared. “She could be charming, lighthearted, and so much fun. She wasn’t some exquisite doll meant to be dressed up and shown off like her parents seemed to think. And what her father did to her as a child! I get nauseated even thinking about it.” Jeffrey hung his head. “Blake, she was sick and no one did anything for her. Not even me. The psychiatrists
said she was schizophrenic. They said she should be put in an asylum—but I couldn’t do that to her. There had to be another answer, but I didn’t find it in time.”

Blake leaned forward. “Jeff, she
needed
to be hospitalized. Medicine wasn’t enough for her—she wouldn’t take it regularly and she needed a controlled environment with no late hours at parties, no alcohol, and no chance to act like a complete hellcat the way she did the last few months of your marriage.”

Jeffrey closed his eyes. “I can still see her that last night before the trouble began. Yvette with her blond hair pulled up, that flowing blue cocktail dress, the necklace—She loved that necklace.”

“No wonder. What woman wouldn’t love a five-carat canary diamond surrounded by countless blue diamonds?”

“I designed it for her, you know, because she was so intrigued by that Egyptian myth about a blue lotus with the golden center.”

“I do know, Jeff. Can we please not talk about this
again
?”

“Yvette never took off the necklace,” Jeffrey said as if he hadn’t heard Blake. “Not when she slept, not even when she bathed or showered. When she was lying dead on that sidewalk in San Francisco, though, she wasn’t wearing it.” Jeffrey’s voice turned angry. “People said I tore the necklace off her before I threw her out the hotel window, Blake, but I
didn’t
.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“After she jumped, people were swarming all around her. Someone in that crowd
stole
it. That’s what happened to the necklace. I didn’t take it from her and I certainly didn’t
murder
her!”

Blake closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. Then he looked piercingly at his brother-in-law. “Jeff, whenever you drink too much, you start talking about Yvette and that damned necklace,” he said in a steely voice. “We have
been over this a thousand times since Yvette died. Who are you trying to convince? Surely not
me.
I’ve never doubted you for an instant. You know I haven’t, so stop declaring your innocence, and for God’s sake, pour out the rest of your bourbon. Then you can try thinking about Penny.
She’s
still alive!”

After a tense moment, Jeffrey said quietly, “I have not forgotten Penny—not since she left me and certainly not today. But thinking about Penny makes me also think about Yvette. Mother thought Dad was the devil incarnate and she believes I’m just like him. Maybe she’s right. I’ve brought tragedy to both of my wives.”

“Jeff, you’re not only being morbid, you’re also talking like a lunatic. You didn’t hurt Yvette
or
Penny. The only thing you’re guilty of is marrying two women who weren’t right for you. End of story.”

“Well, don’t mince words, Blake,” Jeffrey said without rancor.

“I never do when I’m talking to you or Lenore.” Blake tried to stifle a yawn but couldn’t. “It’s nearly midnight and I’d be dead on my feet if I were on my feet. Think you can sleep now?”

“When I finish my glass of bourbon, I’ll go to bed. I promise. Sorry I took up so much of your time. I forgot you have a lovely lady waiting for you.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Blake said leadenly. “Your sister is still furious with me for throwing that chokehold on you in the park. She took another room for the night.”

“Another room?” Jeffrey looked flabbergasted. “Doesn’t she realize you kept me from assaulting that woman? That you did me a
favor
?”

“Apparently she doesn’t see it that way. She only knows I was mean to her big brother.” Blake smiled grimly. “She even got a room on a different floor.”

“I’ll call her.” Jeffrey rose quickly and headed for the phone. “What’s her room number?”

“Forget it, Jeff. She gets like this sometimes. Nobody
is perfect, but she’s as close as you can come and I’m lucky to be married to her. That’s why I simply give her time to herself when she’s angry with me. She’ll get over it.” He sighed. “I hope.”

Raindrops hitting the window . . .

Barry White leaned in close to Diana, his deeper than deep sensuous voice singing “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up” in her ear. Red. Red dripping down her face. Red pooling on the floor and a face . . . lifeless eyes . . . empty eyes . . .

Raindrops hitting the window . . .

Diana’s nose tickled. She rubbed it and turned her head slightly. More tickling. Fumblingly, she reached up and shut her hand around Christabel’s fluffy tail. “Wha’ are you doing?” she mumbled. “Go sleep.”

The cat maneuvered her small body next to Diana’s ear and trilled. Then she trilled louder. Louder. Then the trill turned into a demanding “Quack.” “Romeo?” Diana muttered. “Go ’way. Both of you.” Another trill. Then “Quack. Quack!
Quack
!”

Abruptly, Diana reached full awareness. She looked at the window. Darkness. No raindrops. She looked at the clock: 2:10. Christabel now stood on her chest, looking balefully into her eyes, and Romeo scooted in a circle on the floor, quacking.

“What’s wrong with you two?” Diana asked as if they could answer her. “Why aren’t you asleep in your beds? Why aren’t you with . . .” Her gaze flew to the open bathroom door. “Willow. Where’s Willow?”

Christabel jumped off the bed as Diana threw back the sheet and light summer blanket. She turned on her bedside lamp and flew through the adjoining bathroom into Willow’s bedroom. The night light glowed enough to show
her Willow’s empty bed. She flipped on the overhead light, wincing at the glare. As soon as her eyes adjusted, Diana looked around the bedroom and even in the closet. Then she noticed a window opened about six inches. Willow never wanted a window open at night.

A shiver of apprehension rushed through Diana as she opened Willow’s door and started out. The cats tried to come with her, but she shut them in the room. She didn’t have time to carry Romeo downstairs, and she didn’t want him tumbling down as he tried to keep up with Christabel. On the first floor, Diana padded barefoot through the library, the room officially known as the drawing room, the dining room, a little-used room that had been her great-grandmother’s “office,” and every inch of the kitchen, including the pantry. She looked at Clarice’s shut bedroom door and thought about waking her, but the woman had looked exhausted when Tyler brought Diana home from the hospital.

As she walked back toward the kitchen, she noticed the back door open about an inch.
Simon checks all the doors before going to bed,
Diana thought.
He would have never forgotten this one.
She opened the door wider and looked into the night. Two acres of the Van Etton property stretched to a large wooded area—much larger than the woods behind Willow’s house. Would she have gone back there at night?

Immediately answering her question, Diana saw a flash of light-colored cloth at the edge of the woods. It was there, and then it vanished. Was she seeing the new light-blue pajamas that she’d bought for Willow? Had Willow worn them tonight? Diana cursed her faulty memory. Then she caught another glimpse of something light, something darting among the trees at the edge of the woods.

Willow.

Diana grabbed an old raincoat hanging on a coat tree near the door. She wrapped it around herself, ignored her bare feet, and ran out the door. The night felt warm and somehow luxurious. Diana’s head ached. She tried to run
but her hip hurt. That was because of her fall, she told herself, and it didn’t matter now. She needed to forget the pain and concentrate on Willow.

She crossed the concrete terrace and stepped onto the lawn. The grass felt cool and damp with dew. Diana tried again to run, but the jabbing pain in her hip wouldn’t let her. She managed a trot, which was painful but bearable. She passed by the concrete pedestal holding an old and valuable sundial and automatically looked up at a crook between a limb and the trunk of an oak tree where a robin kept watch over her four newborns.

While looking upward, Diana stepped hard on a rock that sent a red-hot blade of pain up her leg, almost causing her to fall.
If I’d only grabbed my shoes before I left my bedroom,
she thought. But the shock of having the two cats waking her in the middle of the night with a “trouble alert” seemed to have wiped all good sense out of her injured head. If the situation were not so dire, she would be marveling with Simon over the cats’ perceptiveness. Diana was certain Christabel had snapped awake either when Willow raised her window or left the room. The little cat had sensed something was wrong, and had managed an incredible feat—dragging Romeo from his nightly coma in order to awaken Diana. Standard procedure for most dogs but quite an accomplishment for two cats.

Diana had trotted, limped, and staggered two-thirds of the way to the woods, when she caught a glimpse of light blue and heard Willow’s sweet, high voice. “Where are you?” she called. “Where did you go? You said you’d take me to see Mommy.”

Take her to see Mommy? Diana felt the cold breath of fear blow over her. Someone had lured Willow out here with the promise of taking her to see Penny. The thought of seeing her mother was the only thing that could have made Willow overcome her fear of the Bad Man and caused her to come running alone into the night.

“Willow!” Diana yelled. “Willow, come here!” The child did not answer. Diana stepped on something long and
narrow and wriggling—a snake—and let out a shrill scream of surprise. She wasn’t afraid of nonpoisonous snakes. Still, she didn’t like stepping on one barefooted. The sound of her scream must have reached Willow, though, because the child called, “Diana? Is that you?”