“I’ll look him up and let you know. Where are you?”
Zeke told him.
Naturally Sam had heard of the place. He chuckled. “Going to sign up for croquet?”
After he hung up, Zeke headed into the bathroom, which was small but cozy. The fluffy white towels were monogrammed with the same ornate P that was engraved on his soda bottle. On the back of the john was a basket of glycerin soaps, bath gels, bath salts, lotions, shampoos. He turned the water on in the tub, which was up on legs. Homey. Feeling reckless, he dumped an envelope of bath salts into the hot water and watched them dissolve.
Croquet and jam making, he thought.
He just couldn’t wait to meet Dani Pembroke.
Five
Tucking her box of brand-new red shoes under one arm, Dani headed up to her bedroom, exhausted. She swore she’d rather scale Pikes Peak than go shopping for shoes. She’d tried downtown Saratoga first, where one could find handmade jewelry, fine wines, expensive antiques, art supplies, adorable children’s outfits, fancy toys, homemade pastries and chocolates, fresh pasta, health food, Victoriana, nice clothes. Everything, it seemed, but a pair of size-six shoes that matched Mattie Witt’s red ostrich plume. She’d finally had to drive south of town to a shoe outlet. The red was an exact match, but the heels were three inches high. Fortunately she’d only have to wear them a few hours.
Presumably it would have been simpler just to buy a new dress. Or to wear her all-purpose black pumps. But, in for a penny, in for a pound.
A long, relaxing bath, however, was in order.
Her only bathroom was downstairs, which meant fetching her robe from upstairs. In renovating the main house, she and her architects had become quite clever at finding places for bathrooms where there were no obvious places. Space wasn’t the problem at the cottage; the problem was getting around to the job. An upstairs bath just wasn’t a pressing need.
She stopped hard at her bedroom door, clutching the shoe box.
Holding her breath, she stared, frozen, at the mess.
Someone had removed all the drawers from her bureau, dumped them out on the floor and tossed them aside. Her underwear, her nightgowns, her socks, her T-shirts-the entire contents of her bureau were scattered and thrown everywhere. Her mattress was torn halfway off the bed frame, blankets and sheets in a heap under the window. The curtains billowed in a strong afternoon breeze. She could hear birds twittering in her garden.
Her heart pounded. Mattie’s dress…
It was there, in a ball beside Dani’s bed.
Clothes and shoes spilled from her ransacked closet. The antique shaker box she used for jewelry was turned over, empty, on top of her bureau.
Slowly and carefully, intensely aware of what she was doing, she withdrew one of her red high heels from its shoe box and held it by the toe, its lethal three-inch heel pointed out.
“Hello?”
Despite her constricted throat, her voice sounded eerily calm in the silent house. She could hear the faint laugh of Pembroke guests in the distance.
Naturally there was no answer.
What a stupid thing to say, she thought. She’d been mugged once in New York. A decidedly unpleasant experience. But it had happened outside, on a street far from her own familiar neighborhood, and it had been quick. Give me your money. Okay, here you go. The mugger leaves, you call the police. Nothing they can do. You go home, open a bottle of wine, call some friends, complain about New York’s crime rate. Scary and nothing you’d want to repeat, but different-very different-from having someone walk into your home and go through your personal belongings.
Very different, she thought, from having to guess, heart thumping, whether or not the thief was still around.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble.” She sounded controlled but not belligerent, at least to her own ears. “If you’re still here, wait just a second and I’ll go down into the kitchen and you can leave. Okay?”
Still no response.
But she did as she said. She set the shoe box on the floor, took her one high heel with her and made sure her footsteps were loud on the stairs. She started to run when she hit the living room, but made herself stop in the kitchen. Should she keep running? But what if the thief was lurking in the garden? What if he followed her?
She turned on the radio so the burglar would know she’d kept her word. She was in the kitchen. She’d give him a chance to get out the front door.
Should I call Ira? The police?
So they could come and scrape her off the floor after the thief had figured out she’d tried to trick him?
Most likely the burglar had taken off already. Or was outside waiting to make his escape. Surely if he were inside, he’d have made his presence known by now.
Dani switched off the radio and listened past the sound of blood pounding in her ears and the blue jays chasing off the sparrows in her garden.
“Okay.” She tried to project her voice without yelling. “I’m coming back upstairs.”
If he was in the garden, he’d hear her and make good his escape. Which was just fine with her. If he was hiding in the living room, he could sneak out while she was upstairs. If he was in the kitchen-
Swallowing hard, she resisted the urge to look around. If he was stuffed in the broom closet, best to give him a chance to leave quietly.
What if the bastard was upstairs?
He wasn’t. Of all her choices, going back up to her bedroom scared her the least. She’d just come from there, and nothing had happened.
She debated taking one of the knives she’d ordered from a company that advertised during a late-night television show she watched when she was suffering through a bout of insomnia. Kate hated the knives. “You get what you pay for,” she’d said.
Never mind, she thought. She had her shoe.
She repeated her words in the living room, again on the stairs, again on the landing, and one last time as she approached her bedroom door. Whoever had trashed the bedroom had to have gone by now. She was just being dramatic.
But she heard a sound behind her. A movement.
“No, wait-”
She started to turn around-to plead, yell, jab with her high heel-but before she could do anything, she felt a hard push against her back, propelling her up and across the room like a missile. Her shoe went flying, and she was hurtling so fast her feet barely touched the floor; she couldn’t control them or where she was going. Arms outstretched to brace her fall, she tripped on the edge of her mattress and fell over a pulled-out drawer, landed atop another, banged her shins and elbows and wrenched her hand. She hurt so much she didn’t think to do anything but utter a loud, vicious curse.
Behind her she heard heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs. Now her intruder was taking off. Obviously he hadn’t believed she’d keep her promise.
Groaning, aching, Dani sat a moment amidst her scattered underwear, trying to calm her wild breathing and assure herself she’d live. She wasn’t hurt that badly.
Clearly the garden would have been a better choice.
The front door slammed shut, startling her. A fresh wave of adrenaline flowed through her system. Okay. At least he was gone.
She raced into Mattie’s room and looked out the window but saw no one. How could her intruder disappear that fast?
Unless he hadn’t.
Trying to ignore her bruises and scrapes and the throbbing in her left knee, Dani grabbed the poker from the fireplace in Mattie’s room and checked everywhere, starting with the two bedrooms and the closets upstairs. She climbed up to the attic and checked it. She went downstairs and checked under the couch and in the closets and in every nook and cranny in the kitchen and pantry. She even went down to the basement and checked behind the furnace.
Nothing.
Back upstairs, her palms sweaty, her body aching, she sorted through the mess in her bedroom for what was missing. Twenty dollars in odd bills. Her canning jar of emergency change. Her sterling-silver earrings, her turquoise bracelet, a jade pin, the fetish necklace her father had sent from Arizona saying it was handmade, but for all she knew had been mass-produced in Taiwan.