Читать книгу Secret Assignment - Paula Graves - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Gathering clouds hastened twilight, plunging the island into shadows soon after 5:00 p.m. Lydia had insisted Shannon rest before dinner, so she’d gladly taken the chance to shower off the heat of the day and change into fresh clothes.

“No need for formality around here, dear,” Lydia had said with a smile. “We live on an island. Who’s to care if we look a bit shabby?”

When Shannon ventured downstairs at six, she found Gideon alone in the kitchen, slicing onions. He glanced at her as she perched on one of the breakfast bar stools. “Settled in?”

“Yes, thank you.” She tried to discern what he was preparing from the ingredients—sliced onions, red bell peppers and pieces of corn. “Stir fry?”

“Crab boil,” he corrected.

“Where are the crabs?”

He slanted another look at her. “That’s your job. There’s a bucket outside and you can see the beach from here—”

“Don’t let him tease you, Shannon.” Lydia entered through the nearest French door, carrying a handful of zinnia cuttings. She arranged the colorful flowers in a clear vase and filled the bottom with water. “The crabs and shrimp are in the cooler. A nice man delivered them to us this morning.” She set the flowers in the middle of the small dining table just beyond the kitchen. “Aren’t these lovely?”

“Beautiful,” Shannon agreed. “I caught a glimpse of the garden from my window. It’s amazing.”

Lydia smiled with pleasure as she washed her hands. “My husband loved to garden, so we made a habit of bringing in soil to fill the raised beds every spring.” She looked with sad fondness at Gideon. “Dear Gideon helped me this year. It makes me a little weepy, I confess, to think that I won’t be tending the garden next year.”

“You’ll be able to have a garden where you’re moving, won’t you?” Shannon asked.

Lydia retrieved a large pot from one of the lower cabinets and set it on the counter next to Gideon. “Yes. My sister-in-law tells me the backyard of my bungalow is perfect for gardening.” She sighed. “It won’t be the same, but I imagine it will be lovely anyway.” She went back into the garden again.

“I made her sad,” Shannon said with regret.

“Everything makes her sad these days,” Gideon said shortly.

“Can I help you with anything?”

“Well,” he said quietly, “how about we start with what you’re really doing here?”

His question caught her off guard. “What?”

“I did some checking into Cooper Security. You’re not the kind of outfit that hires out to help a rich widow pack up her house.”

“What I’m here to do is a little more complicated than that.”

He shot her a skeptical look. “Three months ago, Cooper Security helped put a high-ranking State Department official back in jail. And now I’m supposed to believe you’re just here to archive General Ross’s papers and collections? Really?”

“We do a lot of different kinds of jobs at Cooper Security,” she protested.

Lydia returned to the kitchen, carrying a large bucket of blue crabs and jumbo Gulf shrimp. “Hope you’re not allergic, Shannon. I suppose I should have asked before I planned the dinner tonight.”

“Not allergic,” she assured her hostess. “And my stomach is growling already!”

Within an hour, the pile of vegetables and seafood on the counter had transformed into a rustic dinner for three. It was messy and delicious, and by the time she helped clear the remains of their meal from the table, Shannon was stuffed and getting sleepy.

“I believe I’m going to call it a night, my dears,” Lydia announced a little later, as the clock crept toward eight-thirty. “I have a Dick Francis novel waiting for me. He’s left the hero in quite a pickle, and we must get him safely out.” She waved her hand as Shannon showed signs of following her up the steps. “No need to retire at such an ungodly early hour. Stay and enjoy yourself. Poor Gideon must make do with just my company so much of the time. I’m sure he’d enjoy having someone new to talk to.”

Lydia disappeared upstairs, apparently oblivious to the two wary, suspicious people she left staring at each other across the kitchen table.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“You want me to leave?”

His scrutiny set her nerves on edge, but she wasn’t about to admit her unease to him. “Not if you don’t want to.”

He walked over to the counter. “Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” Her earlier sleepiness had fled once Lydia left her alone with Gideon. The last thing her jangling nerves needed was more stimulation.

He returned from the kitchen empty-handed and waved toward the sofa in the front room. “Shall we?”

She wished he would smile. She’d liked the way he looked when he smiled, liked the surprising dimples and the humorous gleam in his blue eyes. Much more tempting, yes, but much easier on her nervous system.

But when he sat across from her perch on the sofa, pulling the large armchair closer, she felt as if she’d just taken a seat in the witness box.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard about Lydia Ross or the general. Or me,” he added with a quirk of his eyebrows. “But Mrs. Ross and I aren’t looking to get in the middle of anything your outfit may be investigating. So if there’s some hidden agenda here, pack your things and I’ll take you back to the mainland first thing in the morning.”

She bristled at his tone. “I am here to help Mrs. Ross. Period. I don’t have any agenda other than that.” She cocked her head. “Considering it was your boat that was sabotaged and your island that was breached by intruders, I’d say you’re the one with an issue, not me.”

Irritation lined his eyes. “Fair enough.”

“I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” She stood. “Good night.”

He stood, unfolding himself to his full height, forcing her to look up. “Good night, Ms. Cooper.”

She climbed the stairs to her second-floor bedroom. Shutting herself in the happy blue room, she sat on the springy mattress and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed with annoyance and her dark eyes snapped with anger.

But at whom was she really angry?

She’d told Gideon she had no hidden agenda, but the truth was, she’d been wondering ever since Jesse gave her the assignment what his interest in Lydia Ross could be. Gideon was right; Cooper Security didn’t handle personal archive security cases as a rule. Big companies with art or other collections that needed high security, maybe. But Jesse normally assigned his best-trained operatives to such cases, well aware that the valuables might be of interest to people willing to break dozens of laws to get their hands on them. General Ross’s collection didn’t seem to be anywhere near so valuable.

In fact, as Lydia Ross had explained during dinner, what most needed to be readied for safe transport were the general’s private papers. Because of his high position in the U.S. Army at the time of his retirement, West Point and other institutions had expressed interest in housing some of the collection. Lydia had hired Cooper Security to help her sort through the papers to see if any needed extra preservation steps taken.

In that sense, Jesse had made a good choice in sending Shannon. She’d had special training in archival preservation, plus a master’s degree in library science. She’d ended up primarily using her computer science degree in her work at Cooper Security, but she was capable of giving Lydia Ross good advice about preserving and cataloging her husband’s work.

The last of daylight seeped away, shadows swallowing her room. And still she didn’t move, either to dress for bed or turn on her light.

If there’s some hidden agenda here...

She opened her cell phone, relieved to find a decent signal, and placed a call home.

Jesse answered on the first ring. “You’re just now getting to the island?”

“No,” she said, kicking herself. Jesse had told her to call when she reached the island, but in the confusion of the boat trouble and the island intruders, she hadn’t given her brother a second thought. “We just had a crazy afternoon.”

“Something happen?”

Normally, she’d be tempted to keep the drama of the afternoon to herself, knowing her brother’s tendency to worry too much about her safety. But Gideon’s suspicion had sparked a few questions of her own. “Actually, we had a little excitement today,” she said aloud, telling him about the fuel tank sabotage and the arrival of unwelcome visitors to the island.

“Really.” Jesse sounded more interested than surprised.

“You knew there would be trouble,” she accused.

“I didn’t know it. Not for certain.”

“What am I really doing here, Jesse?”

“Exactly the job I gave you,” he said sternly. “You help Mrs. Ross with the papers and her husband’s collections. You keep your nose to the grindstone and stay out of trouble.”

“That’s it? You really think that’s going to appease me?”

“Call me if anything else happens out of the ordinary. And get some sleep. You’ve had a long day.” Jesse hung up before she could protest his paternal condescension.

She growled as she hung up the phone. Jesse wasn’t the only one of her brothers and sisters who treated her as if she were still a child, but he was definitely the worst.

It wasn’t her fault she was born last of the six. It wasn’t her fault their mother had decided her career had to come before motherhood or marriage. She hadn’t asked her siblings to make her their pampered, protected little pet.

She pushed herself off the bed and crossed to the window. It had rained a little during dinner, enough that the window sparkled with tiny diamonds of raindrops clinging to the glass. Moonlight peeked from behind thinning clouds, casting a cool blue glow across the night scene.

Through the blur of water, the thick stands of trees east of the house looked like a dark watercolor painting, all soft edges and mysterious shadows, punctuated here and there by the glow of lightning bugs flitting between the trees. It took a few seconds to realize that the light came not from flying bugs but from someone moving through the trees about two hundred yards away from the house.

Curious, she went out onto the balcony for a closer look. It was definitely a light, moving slowly through the trees. Was it Gideon doing another tour of the island for the night?

One way to find out, she thought, heading for the stairs.

When she reached the main floor, it was dark. Gideon was no longer inside Stafford House, so the light in the woods must have been him.

She started to turn back toward the stairs when a niggling sensation at the back of her neck made her reverse course. She went instead to the side veranda that looked out across the trees to the east, hoping for a better view of the light she’d seen from her bedroom window. She had to unlock the dead bolt to step out onto the veranda. The door creaked as she opened it, the loud sound setting her nerves on edge.

Wincing, she eased out onto the wooden porch, wondering if the sounds she was making were loud enough to wake Lydia in her upstairs suite. She stepped gingerly toward the railing, trying to make as little noise as possible from here on.

A damp breeze blew in from the Gulf of Mexico, lifting her hair away from her face. Wishing she’d put her hair in a ponytail before she came downstairs, she finger-combed her hair out of her eyes to keep the swirling strands from blocking her view of the trees.

She stared for a long time, straining for any sign of the lights she’d seen earlier, but the woods were dark and quiet. She released a soft breath and started to turn back to the house when she spotted it.

A light, swinging back and forth with a rocking rhythm, as if held by someone moving slowly, steadily through the woods.

Was it Gideon?

She wasn’t so sure anymore.

She moved around the veranda slowly until she was facing the back garden, where just beyond, a single-story house on stilts rose over the garden, perched on the highest point of land on the island. Like the Rosses’ house, Gideon’s residence also had a widow’s walk around the top gable, though when Shannon had first spotted the house earlier during Lydia’s guided tour of the house and gardens, she’d noticed the widow’s walk on the caretaker’s house looked new, as if it were a recent addition.

There were no lights on in the caretaker’s house. No sign of movement inside. Maybe her first guess had been right. Maybe Gideon was taking a quick tour around the island to make sure everything was safe and secure for the night.

She returned to the door she’d left open, stopping just long enough to take another quick look at the woods.

Her heart skipped a beat. For there wasn’t just one light flitting around through the woods anymore.

There were three.

If Gideon was out there somewhere in the dark, he wasn’t alone. But was he in danger himself? Or was he collaborating with someone to do harm to Lydia Ross?

Shannon slipped back into the house, her heart racing, and tried to figure out what to do next. Gideon Stone might be surly and unpleasant, but he seemed to aim his bad attitude primarily at her. To Lydia, he seemed genuinely affectionate, and clearly Lydia returned the feelings. In lieu of evidence to the contrary, she decided to give Gideon the benefit of the doubt.

The question was, did he know there were people out there? And if not, what should she do, go bang on his door until he answered?

It was as good a plan as any, she decided, heading back around the house to the garden. A gravel path wound through the garden, past brightly colored coleus and merry daisies, beyond a small stone basin of water where, Lydia had told her earlier, birds regularly gathered for communal baths during the oppressive heat of summer afternoons.

At the end of the garden, the path to the caretaker’s house went from neat gravel to an uneven walkway crowded on either side by scrubby grass that grew halfheartedly in the sandy soil. She stumbled a few times before she made it to the front porch. Seeing no sign of a doorbell, she rapped loudly on the door, grimacing as the sound echoed in the night.

There was no answer. Shannon knocked again, with no better result.

“Come on, Gideon!” she growled softly at the unyielding door.

But he didn’t come.

Her pulse thundering in her ears, she hurried back along the crooked path, retracing her steps through the garden and ending up back on the veranda again. She circled the house once more to the place she started.

How much time had she just wasted trying to fetch Gideon? How much farther had the lights in the trees encroached?

She stayed in the shadows of the eaves, peering through the darkness until she spotted the lights again. They were stationary for the moment, glowing through the trees, flickering only when the breeze made the low-lying palmetto bushes and high-growing sea grasses dance back and forth.

Whoever was out there had stopped moving toward the house.

She wished she had a pair of binoculars like the ones Gideon had used earlier in the day. She should have packed a pair for herself, but she hadn’t been planning on trying to spot intruders at night when she packed for the trip.

Slowly, she eased backward until her spine flattened against the French doors. Like it or not, she had to rouse Lydia and let her know something was happening outside. She would, at the very least, know how to sound the horn on the lighthouse, and maybe the noise would drive their intruders away again.

She eased open the doors and slipped inside, turning for one last look at the woods. Only the faintest creak of the floor beneath her feet gave her any warning at all.

A hand clapped over her mouth. A hard-muscled arm snaked around her stomach, pulling her flush with a hard, hot body.

She raised her foot to stamp on her captor’s instep, Cooper Security training kicking in before she had time to think.

Her captor sidestepped quickly, and her foot slammed on the ground, making her ankle tingle with pain.

“Don’t do it again,” warned a voice like steel in her ear.

The arms loosened, and she jerked away, turning around to face her captor. “You scared the hell out of me,” she whispered.

Gideon Stone’s eyes glittered like blue diamonds in the low lights, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was gazing past her, toward the woods in the east, his expression hard.

“You see the lights?” she asked softly.

“I do.”

“Do you think the intruders are back?”

He nodded.

“Pretty brazen,” she murmured.

“How many lights did you see?”

“Just three.”

“Can’t be sure that’s all that’s out there, though,” he said thoughtfully, turning his gaze away from the door long enough to look down at her. “What were you going to do if I hadn’t grabbed you?”

“Get Lydia up and see if we could sound the foghorn again.”

“Let’s not do that yet,” he said softly, curling his palm over her arm and easing her away from the doorway. His hand was big and warm, sending unexpected sensations rippling through her flesh. “You stay here. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, sound the horn. The switch is located in the kitchen pantry, second shelf, at the back.”

She nodded, too breathless to speak.

He locked the French doors again, then pulled his Walther from a hip holster and checked the clip with practiced ease. He chambered a round and looked down at her. “Fifteen minutes.”

He disappeared into the shadows, heading toward the back of the house. She heard the faint snick of the back door dead bolt turning and felt her way through the dark until she reached the French doors. She tried the locks until she found the one he’d left open. She locked it behind him and leaned against the door, her heart racing.

Pushing the stem of her watch, she lit up the face so she could see the hands. Nine thirty-eight. At nine fifty, if Gideon didn’t come back, she would sound the lighthouse horn.

And meanwhile, she had a GLOCK and knew how to use it. She hurried up the steps to the top floor, feeling her way rather than risk turning on the lights and possibly alerting the intruders.

Retrieving her GLOCK from her duffel bag, she headed back into the hallway and collided with another warm body.

She leaped back, flattening to the wall, already tugging the GLOCK from the holster.

“Shannon?”

She sagged against the wall. “Mrs. Ross.”

Shannon heard a soft click and a flashlight flickered to life, illuminating Lydia’s kind face and revealing the lethal gleam of a rifle gripped in her free hand. “What’s going on, dear?” The older woman’s tone was as gentle as ever, but the thread of steel beneath her words made Shannon smile despite her own nervous tension.

She brought Lydia up to speed and checked her watch. “In six minutes, if Gideon’s not back here, we’re supposed to sound the horn.”

Lydia nodded. “If the horn continues sounding for more than five minutes, Terrebonne Fire and Rescue knows to send a boat to check on us.”

“Can they hear the sound from that far away?” Shannon had heard the horn well enough from the boat earlier that day, but the Lorelei had been a long way from the shore by that time.

“It can be heard all the way to Bayou La Batre on a clear day.” Lydia nodded at the GLOCK. “Do you know how to use that?”

Shannon cocked her eyebrow at Lydia and nodded at the Remington. “Do you know how to use that?”

Lydia smiled. “Touché.” She turned off the flashlight.

They went downstairs together, easing through the dim shadows to the French doors on the eastern side of the house. Shannon peered through the clear glass. “I don’t see the lights anymore.”

“How much longer?” Lydia asked.

Shannon checked her watch. “Two minutes.”

“Do you see any sign of Gideon?”

“No. He went out through the garden door.”

“Perhaps we should make our way to the foghorn switch.” Lydia hooked her free hand in Shannon’s elbow, guiding her toward the kitchen. Shannon heard a pantry door creak open and a soft tapping sound. A light mounted inside the pantry snapped on, illuminating cans, bottles, boxes and, at the back of the second shelf, as Gideon had promised, a simple electrical toggle switch.

Shannon checked her watch. The second hand passed twelve. “Now,” she said, her stomach aching with tension.

Lydia flipped the switch. Shannon braced for the moan of the foghorn.

But nothing happened.