Tressed to Kill (20 page)

What I really wanted, I discovered, was to dance with him to the strains of the dreamy waltz just starting. I imagined his strong arm around my waist, my right hand clasped firmly in his. Startled by the direction of my thoughts, I mumbled, “Sure. I could use some air.”
Holding my wineglass high, I followed him to the open doors and out onto the terrace. It ran the length of the house and had a stone balustrade. Shallow staircases led down into the garden from both ends and the middle. Beyond the twinkle of the fairy lights strung over the topiary, dark fields stretched into the distance. An almost full moon cast shadows in the garden and glanced whitely off the grave stones and statuary in the cemetery. A wisp of night breeze cooled my sweating forehead, and I drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know how women put up with these clothes,” I said, fluffing the skirt to encourage air flow around my legs. “They’re stifling.”
He studied me for a moment. “You look nice,” he said. “There’s something different.”
His compliment pleased me, but I hid it, saying prosaically, “Highlights.”
“Um.” His mouth crooked in a half smile. “The upstairs maid attire doesn’t fit your personality, though.”
“Oh?”
“Well, you’re not exactly the meek, obedient type, are you? I’d think any plantation owner giving you an order would get nothing but back talk.”
“I don’t know why you say that, sir,” I said demurely, eyes downcast.
Dillon laughed. “Maybe because you’ve ignored everything I’ve ever said to you.”
“My mom and I are leaving tomorrow,” I said, proving him wrong. “We’re going to stay with my Aunt Flora in Alabama.”
“Good. Maybe then I can concentrate on finding Mrs. DuBois’s killer.”
Was he saying I disturbed his concentration? I felt a little tingle at the thought. It’s more likely, my sensible side said, that he’s saying you get in the way. Another couple appeared on the terrace and strolled toward the far end. The music was upbeat again and I found myself tapping my foot to the beat.
Dillon caught my eye and stepped closer, hand outstretched. “Would you—” His cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the screen. “I have to take this,” he said. “Excuse me.” He descended the middle stairs to the garden, his finger plugging one ear, saying “Dillon,” as he went.
I leaned against the stone railing, feeling the hard edge of it against my stomach and the rough stone under my palms. Five minutes passed. I could no longer hear Dillon—had he been called away on a police emergency?—but voices behind me told me others were seeking the relief of the night air on the terrace. As I was debating whether to return to the ballroom or wait longer for Dillon, a man’s voice floated up from beneath me and to my left.
“We can’t talk here . . . meddling beautician . . . Meet . . . five minutes.”
Del Richardson! Who was he talking to? And why did he mention me? I leaned as far over the balustrade as I could, but I couldn’t see anyone in the darkness below. Without stopping to think, I lifted my skirts and ran down the stairs at the left end of the terrace. A dark figure slipped behind a topiary stag as I reached the grass. I didn’t see whoever he’d been talking to. The man emerged from behind the stag and headed for the bottom of the garden and the cemetery beyond. His stride and height told me it was probably Del Richardson. I had to see who he was meeting. My black dress gave me an edge in remaining unseen, but my cap and apron had to go. Snatching the cap from my head and untying the apron, I balled them up and stuffed them into a huge ceramic urn planted with what smelled like mint and rosemary. As I walked, I folded the lace cuffs up inside my sleeves.
For a moment, I thought I’d lost Richardson, but a man’s silhouette broke away from the shadow of a huge magnolia fifty yards in front of me, and I ran toward it. The thick grass underfoot was dense and muffled the sound of my footsteps. I was grateful not to be wearing a hoop skirt as I trailed the man. Within minutes it became clear he was headed for the cemetery. A good place for a secret meeting. None of the donors laughing and dancing at the ball would go farther than the terrace, or maybe the garden if they were looking for a private place to snatch a kiss. The squeak of an unoiled hinge told me Richardson had opened the cemetery gate.
An old live oak grew twenty feet from the cemetery entrance, and I paused in its shadow to get my bearings. Something tickled my neck, and I swatted at it, turning so fast I almost fell. Ghostly tendrils of Spanish moss trailed from the branch above and fingered my cheek. I let my breath go. Peering around the trunk, I saw nothing unusual, just a few rows of gravestones and the gentle sweep of a marble angel’s wing. The smell of freshly turned loam was strong in my nostrils, and I remembered watching the backhoe dig a grave on Wednesday. Leaving the safety of the gnarled tree, I crept toward the gate, tripping and almost falling on an exposed root. Maybe I’d do better without the pumps. I kicked them off, and the cool grass tickled my feet. I scrunched my toes in it for a moment, getting used to the feel, and then tiptoed the remaining steps to the fence. Twigs and acorns pressed into my soles, but the grass provided enough cushion to keep them from being too painful. I felt along the cold iron until I came to the gate. Richardson had left it ajar, and I sucked in my stomach and plastered my skirts to my legs to avoid bumping it as I sidled through. I didn’t need its rusty complaint alerting Richardson and his cohort.
A cloud shrouded the moon, and I paused, trying to get my bearings in the near total dark. The murmur of voices came from in front of me and to my right, so I crept that way, arms extended in front of me. Banging my knee against a granite headstone, I bit my lip hard to keep from crying out. I waited a second for the pain to ebb, then edged forward again. My dress rustled slightly, but I hoped the sound blended with the sighing of the breeze through the tree leaves. A break in the clouds allowed the moon to emerge again, and a gaping hole appeared at my feet. Ye gods. One more step and I would have tumbled into the grave I’d watched the backhoe dig. Some kind of hitch must have prevented the burial.
I stepped back carefully and drew in a deep breath. The voices were louder now. Inching around the empty rectangle, I started forward again until I saw the silhouettes of two men. Dropping to a crouch, I duckwalked as close as I dared, stepping on my long skirt and almost pitching onto my nose. I stopped when I reached an ornately carved tombstone about twenty feet from the men. Still in a crouch, I put one hand on the ground for balance, feeling the crisp grass against my palm, and the other on the smooth surface of the marble marker. I leaned forward until I could just see around the edge of the gravestone.
Del Richardson was facing me, easily recognizable in his riverboat gambler vest and hat. The other man was shorter and slighter and wore a Confederate uniform. With his back to me, I couldn’t tell who it was.
“. . . Lansky’s on board,” the unidentified man said.
Was it Philip DuBois? I couldn’t tell for sure because his voice was little more than a whisper.
“. . . usual terms, I guess?” Del Richardson said. He said something else the wind snatched away and ended with “. . . take care of that reporter and the Terhune gal.”
My eyes widened, and I put a hand to my mouth. He knew about Marty. And he had plans for “taking care” of us, whatever that meant. I was afraid it meant poisonous reptiles in my bedroom . . . or worse.
A twig snapped behind me, and both men froze, looking in my direction. I dropped down, flattening myself against the grave. My black dress merged with the shadows, but I knew the white glimmer of my face would give me away. The chemical smell of fertilizer assailed me as I plastered my face to the ground.
“What was that?” Richardson asked.
“A possum or a ’coon, maybe,” the other man said. I was almost positive it was Philip. Except . . . had I caught a glimpse of a mustache when he turned to look my way?
I lay still for a long two minutes before daring to peep around the tombstone again. Both men were gone. I backed away from my hiding place on my hands and knees, not sure which direction Richardson and Philip—if it was Philip—had gone. They were probably back in the ballroom by now, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I had reached the brink of the empty grave when my knees started complaining. I couldn’t hear anything, so I stood cautiously. My dress was probably a muddy mess. I could only hope my apron would cover the worst of it. I didn’t need Mom asking suspicious questions about what I’d been up to.
Another twig cracked, this one closer, and I started to turn. Something hard and metallic thwacked the back of my head and knocked me off balance. Pain sang through my head and reverberated down my spine as my toes scrunched, trying to grip the grass. I windmilled my arms to keep from falling, but a second blow across my shoulders knocked me forward. I plunged into the grave.

Chapter Twenty

MY HEAD THROBBED LIKE A WOODPECKER WAS TRYING to drill through my skull. An unpleasant coppery taste filled my mouth. I brought a hand to my face to brush away dirt. Dirt? I lay still for a moment, trying to think where I could be. I opened my eyes to darkness broken only by a thin glimmer of starlight overhead, beyond the walls of the tunnel. I frowned. I couldn’t be in a tunnel. After another second of confusion, memory returned. The grave! I was in the grave at the Rothmere cemetery. Someone had hit me. I sat up and dirt cascaded from my chest and shoulders. An inch or so covered my legs. Ye gods, my attacker had tried to bury me! Maybe he was still up there.
I peered fearfully up at the rim of the grave, but no sinister silhouette blocked the view. I had to get out of here. He might be coming back. Trying to ignore the pounding in my head, I struggled to my feet. Nausea overwhelmed me, and I braced myself with outstretched hands against the solid-packed walls of the grave. When the dizziness passed, I stood against the right wall and reached both arms up. My fingers just gripped the lip. I scrabbled for purchase with my bare feet.
A hand grabbed my wrist.
“Help!” I screamed, throwing my weight backward.
“Grace! Grace, it’s me.” Special Agent Dillon’s head appeared above me. “Give me your other hand.”
Almost sobbing with relief, I grasped his hands. With a grunt of effort, he hoisted me up until my elbows reached the top. I used them to brace myself as I scrambled the rest of the way out of the grave and fell onto my back. Dillon knelt beside me and smoothed a lock of hair off my face. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice gruffer than usual.
I rolled my head back and forth a scant half inch. “No. My head hurts.”
“Where?”
“All over.”
His hands gently worked through my hair, fingers examining my scalp.
“Ow,” I said, wincing away as his fingers pressed against a tender spot behind my left ear.
“You’ve got a big lump,” he said. “And probably a concussion. Anything else hurt?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Just bruised,” I said.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
I explained about overhearing Richardson and the mystery man talking. “I was headed back to the house when someone hit me. I don’t know how long I was in there.”
“Not long, I don’t think,” Dillon said grimly. “I scared away your assailant. I heard running footsteps after I came through the gate. Whoever it was dropped that.” He pointed to a shovel lying at the foot of the grave.
“He was trying to bury me, wasn’t he?” I asked. “I was covered with dirt—” I broke off on a sob. Dillon put his arm around my shoulders and coaxed me to my feet.
“I imagine your attacker was hoping they’d plant a coffin on top of you and fill in the hole with no one the wiser,” Dillon said in a carefully controlled voice. “When I couldn’t find you in the ballroom, I came looking for you. One of the guests on the veranda said she thought she saw you in the garden. When I didn’t find you there, I wandered down here. Did you see who hit you?”
I started to shake my head, then thought better of it. “No. Not even a glimpse.”
“Could it have been Richardson or DuBois?”
“I guess so. I thought they’d gone back to the ball, but if they spotted me, one of them could have doubled back.”
“Can you walk?”
I took a tentative step. It jarred my head, but I could do it.
“We’ll take it slowly,” Dillon said, sliding a hand around my waist.
His arm was strong and warm, and I leaned against him gratefully as we climbed up the slight rise to the mansion. We skirted the garden, staying outside the pool of light from the mansion’s windows, and worked our way to the parking lot. Dillon looked down at me. “You need a doctor,” he proclaimed. “I’ll drive you.”
“I don’t need—”
“It wasn’t a question,” Dillon said.
“My mom—”
“I’ll give her a call so she won’t worry about you. And I’ll call and get someone out here to pick up that shovel and dust it for prints. There might be useful footprints, too, although we probably trampled them.”
My head hurt too much to argue further, so I let him lead me to his car. At the ER in Brunswick, they x-rayed my head and proclaimed that it was intact, although I had a slight concussion. “You’ll have a doozy of a headache,” the doctor warned, scribbling on a prescription pad.
Like I didn’t know that. I took the pain pills the doctor handed me and swallowed them with water from a paper cup.
“You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” the doctor said, looking from me to Special Agent Dillon.
“I’ll sleep at my mom’s,” I said hastily.
“Fine. She’ll need to wake you a couple of times to make sure you’re lucid. Make sure she talks to the nurse before you leave.”
“Your mom should be here soon,” Dillon said as the doctor strode out of the examining room. “She said she’d meet us here. Why don’t you lie down and rest until she comes?”
I glimpsed my pale face, mussed hair, and muddied black dress in the mirror over the sink and didn’t feel inclined to argue. I slumped back on the examining table, feeling pleasantly woozy as the pills took the edge off my headache. Special Agent Dillon looked down at me, the fluorescent lights bouncing off his marshal’s star. A faint stubble hazed his jaw line, and the crow’s feet around his navy eyes seemed more prominent than usual. I blinked, sleep pulling at my eyelids. “What’s your first name, anyway, Marshal Dillon?” I asked.
A half smile crooked his mouth. “John,” he said. “My name is John.”