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“Stay right where you are and keep your phone line open,” Cam said. “We’re only minutes away.”
Adair gripped the armrest with all of her might as Cam careened the car onto the dirt road that wound its way through the hills to the castle.
“Aunt Vi?” Pushing down hard on fear, she turned to Cam. “She’s not answering. I think I’ve lost her.”
“Almost there,” Cam said.
In the rearview mirror she could see Daryl Garnett’s car through a cloud of dust. Both men could drive like the devil, but she wished they could go even faster.
“We never should have left her there alone,” she said, finally giving voice to the guilt that was plaguing her.
“She isn’t alone. Pinter is there. Plus, your aunt’s a smart woman.”
Adair hung on to all those thoughts as Cam shot his car over the crest of the hill that ended in the castle driveway. Wes Pinter’s truck was parked close to the castle. Cam pulled in behind it, and the instant the tires screeched to a halt she jumped out of the car and circled the hood. She could just see the stone arch, nearly a football field away. Pines grew thick and tall on the hill that rose sharply behind it. She started toward them. “Aunt Vi?”
Cam grabbed her arm. “Wait.” Then he turned to Daryl, who’d parked behind them and was already approaching. Quickly he filled him in on their conversation with Vi.
By the time he finished, Vi had appeared from the back of the arch and was running toward them. Adair raced to meet her.
“They make a pretty picture,” Daryl murmured to Cam as the two women embraced. Then he strode forward, his hand extended to Vi. “I’m Daryl Garnett, ma’am. I work at the CIA with Cam.”
“Viola MacPherson,” Vi said as she took his hand.
“Where was the dog the last time you saw her?” Daryl asked.
“She was running into the woods behind the stone arch. That was ten minutes ago. I haven’t heard anything since.” Vi’s hand was still clasped in Daryl’s when she turned to Cam and Adair. “I’m worried about Wes Pinter, too. Right after I talked to Adair, I tried to reach him on his cell phone again. I thought he could help me look for Alba. But he didn’t answer.”
“Why don’t we split up?” Daryl suggested. “Ms. MacPherson and I will look for Alba and you two can check on your gardener.”
“Sure.” Then Cam watched his boss and Vi start back toward the stone arch.
“He sure works fast,” Cam murmured.
Adair stared at him. Then she shifted her gaze to Daryl and Vi. “You think he likes Aunt Vi? They just met.”
Cam met her eyes. “Sometimes it happens just that fast.” That was how it had happened to him. One long look beneath that stone arch and he hadn’t recovered since. He couldn’t quite get his footing even now. He caught one of her hands and raised it to his lips. “Some of us are just slower realizing it.”
The quick flash of understanding and panic he saw in her eyes was such a perfect match to what he was feeling that it steadied him. He grinned at her. “We have some time to make up for. But first, we have to find Wes Pinter.”
Keeping her hand in his, he strode through the garden toward the terrace at the back of the castle. The place was silent except for the noise of their footsteps on the path. But there was no sign of Pinter, nor was there any sound except for the lap of water against the shore below them and the hum of bees. The terrace was empty too and the sinking sun slanted long shadows across the pavers. Nothing looked out of place.
“It’s too quiet,” Adair said, echoing his thoughts.
The sliders to the kitchen stood open, but the door that led to the rest of the castle was closed. Cam moved toward it.
“Aunt Vi said whoever Alba was barking at was outside,” Adair said.
“I just want to check the library.” The door was only a short distance down the hall. He still believed that somehow the library held the key they needed. Once he opened the door he said, “Stay close, and see if you notice anything that’s been disturbed since we were here earlier.”
They walked together down the narrow room, stopping to check the chair near the fireplace where Vi had been sure someone had been sitting quite recently.
“It all looks the same,” Adair said.
“Yeah.” But he drew her with him all the way to the sliding glass doors that opened onto another terrace. They were locked.
Outside a hummingbird hovered at a bright red feeder, but it shot away like a bullet as soon as Cam opened the door. There was no view of the lake on this side of the castle; instead, paving stones bordered with green moss separated the castle from a well-tended lawn before the treed hillside sloped sharply upward.
Tucked into one corner of the space was a gardening shed, its door slightly ajar. Adair’s sharp intake of breath told him that she spotted the boots through the open door just as he did. They broke into a run and found Wes Pinter seated on the floor and rubbing the side of his head.
Cam squatted down. “You all right?”
“Headache. Came back here to put away the hedge trimmers and he sneaked up on me. He slammed the door into me and I must have hit my head pretty good when I fell.”
The hazel eyes that met Cam’s were undilated and clear.
“I got a look at him,” Pinter said. “Shorter than me. Had a mustache and a beard. Longish hair.”
Cam glanced at Adair.
“Sounds like MacDonald,” she said.
“Is Vi all right?” Pinter asked.
“She’s fine.” Cam’s cell phone rang. After a few seconds, he turned to Adair. “Alba’s fine, too. They found her halfway up the hill. Daryl says she was knocked out, as well.”
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Cam leaned his hip against a counter while the others sat at the table sipping tea. Wes had fully recovered. And Alba, who sat on Daryl’s lap being fed scones, looked as if she was also back to normal.
Not only that, she’d gotten a piece of the bastard who’d hit her. Daryl and Vi had found a good-sized piece of khaki cloth clamped in her jaw, and it had a trace of blood on it.
Wes’s description matched with MacDonald, but what had the man been after? Whatever it had been, he hadn’t bothered to look in the library for it.
“There are a couple of ways to upgrade the security system here,” Daryl was saying to Vi and Adair. “I’ve no doubt that Cam has several suggestions in mind.”
“I do, but I don’t think this guy wanted to break into the house today,” Cam said.
Adair turned first to look at him. “Why not?”
“He took the time to take out Wes.” He turned to Vi. “And you were in the kitchen from the time we left until you let Alba loose, right?”
She nodded.
“He could have seen that. You and the dog were safely inside. Wes wasn’t. That’s why he knocked him out.”
“And Alba found him in the stone arch,” Adair said, rising from the table. “That’s what he was interested in.”
“And he didn’t want to be interrupted,” Cam said. “I’ll check it out. The rest of you stay here with Daryl.”
“Not so fast. I’m coming with you,” Adair said. “You’re the one who made the rule that nobody goes anywhere alone.”
“You need any backup, you’ve got my number on your speed dial,” Daryl called after them.
Cam was silent as they walked through the garden to the stone arch. Annoyed, Adair guessed. She’d sensed it in the kitchen while they’d been talking. His jaw was set, his body tense. More than annoyance. He was worried, too.
“Whoever whacked Wes and Alba is long gone,” she said.
He glanced up at the hills that rose around them on all sides. Clouds were rolling in fast over the lake, darkening the sky. “He’s watching right now. I’d put good money on it. And my instinct tells me that he’s getting desperate. He or she didn’t foresee that the earring would be discovered in the stone arch.”
“I’ve been wondering about that, too. And why just the one earring? Why split up the pair?”
They’d reached the arch, and Cam glanced up at it. “Maybe the rest of the jewels are here, too. That’s what I’d be thinking. I should have taken more precautions with you and your aunt.”
“You can’t seriously be blaming yourself.”
He faced her then. “I was supposed to come up here and keep you and Vi safe. Instead I talked you into chasing after Banes, and that allowed MacDonald or whoever he is to attack an old man and a dog. If we hadn’t gotten back here when we did…”
Not just annoyance and worry. There was anger in his eyes and even in the hushed tone of his voice.
Anger at himself.
Her first impulse was to argue with him that she and Vi were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. But she had a hunch that little lecture would fall on deaf ears. So she tried another approach.
