Blood Ties (14 page)

"They suspected that I'd killed him."

Will folded his arms over his chest and listened.

"On my way out of the compound, someone
stopped me in the parking lot and suggested meeting
later in a bar." He'd worked with Sue some time before, but Will didn't need to know her name. It was
dangerous to reveal as much as he had, but he needed
Will's perspective. He was an old fox that had survived
more than one attempt on his life.

"I reckon it wasn't just to talk over old times." Raven
nosed against Will's shirt pocket, and Will dug out a
biscuit, broke it in pieces, and dispersed it to the
three dogs.

"I went to the bar, waited, but no one showed. When
I went back to my car, I found a matchbook on my
seat."

"And you don't smoke."

Daniel nodded. "Inside was a phone number. I
drove to a pay phone and called it." Actually, the first
time he'd tried the number, he'd gotten a stranger in
the Baltimore-Washington Airport. He'd waited twenty
minutes before making a second attempt. That time
Sue answered. "The message was that the agency had
severely reprimanded Lucas late August. My name was
prominent in his file."

Will waited.

"Lucas blamed me. Made threats."

"You always did have more nerve than common
sense." Will scratched absently at the graying stubble
on his chin. "You tangle your anchor line with a killer,
and then you come here wanting advice after you've
taken advantage of my girl."

Daniel stared out over the water. "Sounds bad when
you put it that way."

"Damn right, boy. Sounds bad because it is. Lucky
for you, I've mellowed in my old age. Time was, I'd
have filled you full of buckshot, tied a weight to your feet, and dropped your body in the deepest hole in
the marsh."

Daniel grimaced. "It's not me holding up the wedding. Besides, if you put a bullet in me, you'll orphan
your great-great-nephew before he sees the light of day."

"Better for you if you'd told Bailey the truth from
the start."

"I promised her she didn't have to worry about Lucas stalking either one of us."

"Maybe you promised more than you could deliver."

"That's what I'm afraid of. She said she wanted to be
a carpenter's wife, not a secret agent's."

"But you think this polecat might have murdered
Bailey's friend?"

Daniel swallowed. "I don't know. It sounds far-fetched
that Lucas would come back here to kill Karen Knight."

"Unless he had unfinished business on Tawes."

"Exactly. He only worked for the agency because
they paid more than the opposition. I was hoping
maybe he might be dead-until he contacted me the
day before Dr. Knight's murder."

"Takes one kind of man to shoot someone in the back,
another to beat a woman's face in with a tomahawk."

"Lucas could do either one and not break a sweat."

"Real coincidence," Will said. "Lucas showing up in
the middle of this fuss over the marina. Nobody hates
Onicox more than I do, but that don't mean they'd
hire scum like Lucas to do their dirty work."

Daniel leaned forward in his rocking chair. "It's
hard to know what's real and what's conjecture. But
what if Lucas approached Onicox? He wouldn't list assassin on his resume. Maybe they weren't too particular what he did if he could make certain that the sale
would go through."

"Seems as though paying off a few politicians would
be easier."

"Not if Dr. Knight had turned up something of historical importance in the marsh."

A skiff motored past, and the sole occupant waved.
Will returned the greeting. "Looks like George
Williams," he said. "Must be on his way to Tawes to do
his dealing. Wrong tide for fishing."

Daniel's gut knotted.

"You don't care much for old George, do you?"
Will said.

"It's Lucas I'm concerned about. Not George
Williams."

"And you say this Lucas contacted you about a baby
he claimed was your son when exactly?" Will asked.

"The day before Karen Knight was killed."

"And that's the first inkling you had that the boy
existed?"

Daniel exhaled softly. "Yes."

"It all could be a lie. A trick on Lucas's part."

Daniel nodded. "He says if I don't want the boy,
he'll recoup his expenses somewhere else. He claims
the child is light-skinned. There's always a market in
third-world countries for pretty boys."

"That kind of evil has been with us since time began.
Too much of it in this country as well."

"True. But children aren't Lucas's weakness. This
scheme of his is just business. Or spite."

"Sick bastard, ain't he? Might make good crab bait."

"Sometimes, Will, I wonder if the old island ways of
dealing with vermin weren't best."

Will scratched the soft hair under Raven's chin. "It
might not have been according to Hoyle, but it
worked." Will's blue eyes were hard as they met
Daniel's. "Did you agree to pay him what he asked?"

"Lucas? No, I said I wanted more proof than a photograph." His hands knotted into fists so tight that half-healed scabs on his knuckles cracked and trickles
of blood oozed down his hand. "It's not the money."

"Didn't suppose it was." Will was quiet for several
minutes, then said, "Pay once, you'll keep paying."

"Thought you'd want to know what was happening."

"What's this Lucas look like? In case I should stumble over him."

"Nothing to make him stand out. Forty, maybe.
Olive-skinned. Not too tall. His eyes are what give him
away. Flat. Small eyes. No emotion. Like the glass ones
you set in your carvings."

"I'll ask around. You mentioned this to Emma?"

"No."

"I'll take care of it."

"I don't want Emma involved. Not in-"

"Don't take me for an old fool, Daniel. I may have
lost some of my speed, but not my bite. I can handle
Emma. Not much happens on this island she don't
know about. Nosy as a blue jay. Always was."

"I'm concerned about Bailey," Daniel admitted.
"Lucas would have no reason to threaten her, but ..."

"Other than to get even with you."

"Watch over her for me."

"No need to ask. No harm will come to her if I can
help it. Or to that babe she's carrying." Will climbed to
his feet. "I'll be seeing Emma in an hour or so.
Meeting-about the marina project."

"I hadn't heard anything about-"

Will smiled. "There's meetings and there's meetings. You're welcome to come along if you want."

"No, I'm going to walk over to Bailey's. See if she'll
talk to me."

"Be best to come clean. Tell her everything ... my
way of thinking."He folded lean arms over his chest
again. Will might be in his sixties, but he was in better shape than most forty-year-olds Daniel knew.
"'Course, you couldn't pick a worse one to ask about
dealing with women. God knows I've made my share
of mistakes."

"Haven't we all?" Daniel stepped down off the
porch and turned toward the path that led along the
shoreline from Will's to Bailey's farmhouse.

"Keep your powder dry," Will called after him. "And
if you have to shoot the son of a bitch, don't go soft.
Shoot to kill."

Will watched until Daniel disappeared though the
trees before reentering his studio. He shot the bolt on
the door and rolled back a rug near the fireplace on
the far wall. The floorboards here looked no different
from the others, but Will knew where to ease his fingers under one plank and raise the hidden trap-door.

A crude ladder led down into a low, brick-walled
room. Light streamed through the hatch illuminating
an area near the entrance, but the corners of the space
were in shadow. Will retrieved a flashlight from the
space behind the steps and used it to locate a wooden
chest bound with leather straps. An oversized key
turned the lock. The chest had been in his family a
long time, close to two hundred years, but what lay inside was even older. Carefully Will lifted the lid and
shone the light inside.

Tiny hairs prickled on Will's arms as he gazed down
at the fourteen-inch-long bronze horn etched with a
random spiral pattern. No one could rightly say how
long it had lain in the earth, untouched by sun or rain,
unseen by men. It was Will's guess that whoever had
buried the horn wanted it to remain there, but nothing lasts forever-not even the peace of a grave.

Matthew believed that the other pieces, the ones
he'd given to Karen Knight to take to the university
would help to save Tawes, but Will knew better. Any whiff of buried treasure would bring the outlanders
here as thick as fleas on a dog's back.

He couldn't let that happen. His own years were
numbered, but there was Bailey's child to think of. It
might be up to him to see that there was still a Tawes
here for that babe to grow up on.

The trail that led between the two properties was heavily wooded so that it made a leafy green tunnel around
him. To Daniel's left lay the bay; to his right, thick forest. It wasn't likely that Lucas or anyone else would
come through here to reach Bailey. Will and his dogs
roamed every inch of this ground at all hours of the
day and night.

Daniel tried to think of what he'd say to Bailey, how
much to say. Finding out that she was carrying his
child had blown him away. He loved Bailey wanted
to make her his wife-but the pregnancy couldn't
have come at a worse time. Karen Knight's death ...
Lucas's attempts at blackmail ... How could he tell
Bailey what he'd been hiding from her? She might be
new to the island, but she was pure Tawes when it came
to stubbornness. She wouldn't hesitate to raise their
child alone if she felt she could no longer trust him.

He'd hoped that Will would come up with a solution, but mostly, the older man had just listened. That
was what he'd always done. Will was sparse with words
and long on wisdom. He thought that it was best to
level with Bailey. Yet it might never be the same between them if he did. And there were things in his past
that he couldn't share even with Will-let alone the
woman he wanted to make his wife. Bad memories
haunted his dreams ... nightmares he'd take to his
grave.

If there was any possibility that Lucas was telling the
truth, he had to do something. He couldn't abandon his own child. Lucas had promised him that the boy
was healthy, that he could produce him in three days,
once Daniel withdrew the cash from his offshore account. If Daniel didn't want him, Lucas had another
eager buyer. All Daniel had to do was wait for his
phone call and say yes or no.

A viselike pain settled into the back of his head as he
reached the edge of Bailey's property line and her
brick farmhouse loomed up ahead. What would he do
if she slammed the door in his face? Refused to talk to
him? Bailey was the best thing that had ever happened
to him. At least, he thought she was. He'd never been
lucky with women.

Now, here on the island where he'd been born and
grown up, his years of intrigue with the C.I.A. in the
Mid-East seemed far away, almost another lifetime.
Even the face of the beautiful Afghani resistance
fighter with whom he'd shared a brief but heated passion had faded. After Mallalai had betrayed him and
died so tragically, he'd thought there would never be a
woman he could love and trust.

He'd been wrong.

Daniel didn't see Bailey at the dock or working in
her flower beds, so he went to the back porch and let
himself into the house. "Bailey?" When she didn't answer, he passed through the large kitchen and into the
dining room. She'd polished the Queen Anne table
and chairs until they gleamed. An arrangement of
black-eyed Susans filled an antique pitcher on the
Irish hunt sideboard, and he pulled a flower out and
held it behind his back. "Bailey?"

"Daniel?" she called from the head of the staircase.

He stopped at the bottom and grinned up at her.
"Don't shoot. I come bearing gifts."

She didn't smile-a bad sign.

He held out the daisy.

Ignoring the flower, she descended the steps, the
expression in her Tawes blue eyes as stubborn as
Will's. "I'm nauseous and not in the mood to be
charmed. If you have an explanation for what's been
going on, I'll listen. Otherwise, we have nothing to say
to each other."

"Bailey..

She folded her arms over her apple-green shirt. Her
face was a little pale, but she didn't look sick to him.
God, how he ached to hold her in his arms.

"All right. There is something. I didn't want you to
worry."

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm waiting."

"Marry me, Bailey. Now. As soon as we can get the license." He rested his hand on the banister. "Honey, I
love you. I want to take care of you and our baby."

"What exactly is the something?"

His throat constricted, and he knew how her students must feel when they were caught doing something they shouldn't. She might be a little bit of a
woman, but she was tough.

"You remember when I was in Afghanistan with the
agency?"

Her lips pursed.

"I told you about Mallalai."

"Yes, Daniel, I remember Mallalai."

He drew in a deep breath. Why was this so damned
hard to say? "There may be a problem."

Her eyes widened. "What do you mean? What problem? She's not dead? You already have a wife?"

"No! Hell, no. You know better than that. And we
were never married. That was the-"

"Tell me." She came down another two steps. Her
eyes were huge and she looked as if she were about to
burst into tears.

"There might be a child. My child."

"What? How ... What do you mean?"

"That's all I know. You asked why I hadn't shown up
on time-for dinner that night."

"And you didn't know about this before? How could
you be a father and not know-"

"Damn it, Bailey, you wanted to know what was
wrong. You wanted me to level with you, so I have."

"How old? Boy or girl?"