Blood Ties (33 page)

"Don't know if I can wait. Matthew had his faults,
but he was one of us."

"He was my brother."

"A weak vessel, all the same. But blood kin. I think
I'd best round up Emma and a few good ole boys and
have a look-see around."

Daniel felt lightheaded. "Don't do it, Will. You don't
know who you're hunting for."

"Reckon I'll know him when I find him."

"Will-"

"Watch your back, Daniel. It would hit Bailey hard if
you didn't come home."

Will hung up. Daniel tried Buck's cell but got only
his voice nail. He left a message warning Buck not to return the call. He looked at his watch again. 5:35. He
retraced his steps to the visitors' center.

It pained him to throw the bow and remaining arrows
into the muddy creek. How many hours had he toiled
to fashion them, and how many blisters had he suffered on his hands? Weeks. It had taken weeks to trim
the seasoned lengths of pine, to smooth each arrow
and glue on the duck feathers and use animal gut and
glue to fasten the stone points. He'd worked all one
winter on the bow, carefully crafting it and wrapping
the grip with leather strips.

Slowly the quiver filled with water and sank out of
sight. Tears welled in his eyes as he watched the bow
bob and tumble in the tide until finally the black current took it under. It wasn't fair. The bow and arrows
were his. He'd made them, and no one had the right
to take them from him.

Nothing had gone right for him since the women
had come to the island to dig in the old graves. He'd
meant the snare for Dr. Knight's girl. That fool
Matthew had stumbled into it instead. Maybe it was for
the best. Matthew would have had to die, because he
never would have learned. The preacher was stupid.
He never learned from his mistakes, and he didn't believe in the curse. But he'd stumbled into the snare,
and once he was caught, there was nothing to do but
finish him.

Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe
he had to give up his bow and arrow, and Matthew
Catlin had to die. Maybe the woman would leave the
island and never come back, and he could live in
peace again. He didn't like to cause anybody pain and
he didn't like killing people. Their screams made him
sick. Once they started screaming, he had to shut
them up. In his heart, he was a good man, a gentle man. Was it his fault that he'd been born different,
that he had to hide the way the Lord made him?

He looked down at his moccasins. He'd made them,
too. Not of calf hide, which would have been easier to
get, but genuine buckskin. He'd shot the deer himself,
tanned the hide in the old way using the animal's
brains, and cut and sewn each stitch the way his
mother had taught him. Folks on Tawes had it easy,
but in the old days, there wasn't money for storebought shoes. And moccasins, made Indian style, were
free for those not too lazy to make them.

He'd made moccasins for each of his special
friends, measuring their small feet and sewing them
strong and sturdy. The boys had loved them. Not like
these city boys. All they wanted was brand-name sneakers from the mall, high-priced shoes. He'd made one
pair for a city boy once, but he'd just laughed and said
the moccasins were trash. It had made him mad, mad
enough to ... He wouldn't think about that boy anymore. He deserved what he'd gotten.

Sadly, one by one, he pulled off his moccasins and
threw them into the creek after his bow and arrow. He
could always make more, once the fuss about
Matthew's death quieted down. It paid to be safe.
Tawes was his home, and it wouldn't do to cause trouble too close to home.

Six o'clock came and went. Bailey and Abbie circled
the sunken court again. Mothers walked by, some
pushing strollers, others carriages. She saw a darkhaired toddler chasing a ball down the stairs. She
rushed toward him, only to discover that the child was
a girl and to earn a dirty look from the mother.

She jumped as her cell vibrated. She pulled it from
her jeans pocket, dropped it onto the tile floor, and it
clattered away. A teenage boy wearing black eyeliner, lipstick, and skin-tight leather pants retrieved it and
handed it back to her. "Hello?" she said into the
phone.

"Bailey."

"Where is he? Where's Daniel's child?"

"Last chance, Bailey. Three hundred thousand and
Daniel never sees him."

"Give him to us, you bastard!"

Two passing Catholic nuns in full gray habit and
white starched veils glared at her.

"No reason to be rude. This isn't personal."

"I won't pay you a cent. I-"

"Your choice. Good-bye, Bailey."

The line went dead. Bailey choked back tears. Had
she harmed the little boy by refusing? Or had she
saved him? She closed her eyes and prayed.

Minutes passed. Still no sign of the child.

Bailey looked at her watch. Quarter past six. She
glanced at a woman standing outside a jewelry store
drinking a soda. The pretty brunette, with bags on her
arm-one bearing a bookstore logo and another a
specialty shop-gave no hint that she was an off-duty
Maryland state trooper, and neither did the businessman sitting on the steps with his leather attache case
and reading his newspaper. But both of themcousins of Buck or Forest or Emma, she wasn't sure
which-were police officers entrusted with the task of
protecting her.

Bailey glanced around nervously. No Lucas, no little
boy. Had Lucas lied to them, or had he detected the
police and fled before handing over the child?

How long should she wait? She closed her eyes and
whispered another prayer for Daniel's safety. Was Lucas watching, taunting her out of spite because of what
she'd done to him when he'd broken into her house?

How long should she wait?

The pay phone rang at 6:18. Daniel seized it and was
rewarded by Lucas's voice.

"Good boy."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Wire the five hundred thousand dollars. I'll give
you the account number as soon as you're ready."

A red-haired couple with their two redheaded boys
walked by and stared at Daniel. He turned his back
and opened his laptop. Using his code, he transferred
the money from his bank in the Caymans to Lucas's
Swiss account. "Done," he said into the phone.

"Very good. It's been a pleasure."

"Is Bailey all right? Did you give her the boy?"

"No questions. But since our business has gone so
well, I will give you a bit of advice."

"Yes?"

"Does the name Robert Mellmore mean anything
to you?"

Daniel gritted his teeth. The man who didn't exist.
The man who'd nearly pulled off a very large land
swindle. "Yes, I know the name."

Lucas chuckled. "Don't trust the agency. And don't
trust them to provide an airtight identity. If I'd troubled to create Robert myself, instead of leaving it to
some G11, no one would have discovered the game."

"You're telling me that the agency was part of that?"

"You're not listening, Daniel. There's no need for
this conversation to continue if you're not listening."

"I am."

Lucas laughed again. "You're growing soft on your
little island. You've lost your edge."

"Maybe."

"My plan, Daniel. My personal operation. Doubtless
you have a drawer full of aliases. Toss them. Trust no
one-you'll live longer that way."

He waited.

"Enough of camaraderie. Do you see the trash container?"

"Yes."

"Do exactly as I say."

Daniel forced down his anger. "You're calling the
shots."

"Drop your laptop and your cell phone in there and
walk away. Leave the museum and return to your
boat."

An uneasy feeling stirred the hairs on the nape of
Daniel's neck. He looked around, wondering if Lucas
was here, or if he had an accomplice. When he was
certain none of the tourists were watching, Daniel followed Lucas's instructions. He couldn't help wondering if he'd just handed over $500,000 for nothing ...
wondering why and how Lucas had conceived the
scheme to seize the Thomas Sherwood inheritance.
Somehow, he felt it had to be more than avarice.
Maybe it was simply a twisted game that Lucas had
played out of spite.

Daniel turned left as he exited the museum area
and walked quickly down a residential street toward
the dock where he'd left his boat. He'd have to find a
phone to call Bailey. It was after 6:30. Surely she had
to have the boy by now. He needed to hear her voiceto know she was all right. He'd go crazy if he didn't
reach her.

A two-story house stood vacant next to an empty lot.
The grass around the neglected Victorian was high,
and a For Sale sign stood next to the brick walk leading
to the front step. Beside it stood a white, single-car
garage with a window. Daniel noticed that the garage
needed paint as much as the peeling house.

"Daniel!" a familiar voice shouted. "Get down!"

Daniel hit the ground rolling as gunfire erupted from the garage window. Bullets plowed furrows into
the street around him. Bits of macadam bloodied his
face and arms as he scrambled for cover behind a
parked SUV, all the while digging for the compact
Glock 17 he carried clipped to the inside of his belt.

Glass shattered. Someone screamed.

Then the street was quiet. The silence seemed
louder than the gunshots.

"Daniel? Are you all right?"

Buck stepped out from the corner of a house across
the way, his Smith and Wesson semiautomatic held at
an odd angle.

"Buck?" Daniel rose cautiously from behind the vehicle.

"Get the hell out of the street."

Daniel stared at his cousin. "Buck, are you-"

Buck stopped, staggered, and dropped to his knees,
clutching the neat hole in the center of his chest.

Will knelt by the fireplace and stirred the ashes. The
scorched corner of one snapshot remained intact. He
picked it out of the hearth, lit a match, and set fire to
the picture. The image curled and blackened before
becoming indistinguishable as a photograph.

"You owed me one, Matt," Will murmured. He
brushed the ashes into a dustpan, carried them outside to the end of his dock, and scattered them on the
surface of the water.

Raven nudged Will's knee with his wet nose. Will's
other two dogs stood on the lawn sniffing the Newfoundland.

"Feel kind of bad," Will said to Raven. "First thing in
my life I ever stole." A crooked smile tilted one corner
of his lips. "Well, old boy, I'm bound for hell anyways.
Might as well be hanged for the whole hog as for just a
slab of bacon."

He went back to the house for his shotgun, whistled
up the rest of the pack, and set off for the dig site
again. He thought about leaving Buck and Abbie's dog locked in the house, but he'd begun to think of
the big animal as a lucky charm. If the animal hadn't
disobeyed him and kept digging, he never would have
found the gold bracelet. It would have lain there waiting for the next rain to wash it clean of dirt and expose
it to whoever came along.

Will had placed calls to Emma and to Daniel before
he'd stowed the bracelet under the floor in the cellar
hole and before he'd burned the photos of the Irish
stuff he'd taken from the church office. It would have
been better to start the search right away, but he
didn't carry a cell phone, so he'd had to make the calls
from his house.

He hated cell phones. Damned things constantly
going off and disturbing a man's thoughts. Maybe the
Amish had it right. The more a man's home was connected to the outside world, the worse it got.

He'd thought it best that Daniel should hear the
news about his brother from him rather than a
stranger. And now that he'd told Emma and Daniel
about finding Matt's body, he was sure that word was
already spreading over the island.

Men would be gathering at the burial ground, and
watermen would be searching the shores of Tawes. No
need to yell for help from outsiders. The mainland
state police would be here soon enough. The way he
saw it, the longer it took the uniforms to arrive, the
better chances his friends and neighbors would have
of settling this the island way.