Tainted Gold (10 page)

“Why?” Quillen asked, rising and following him to the door.

“Let’s don’t jinx
it.” He stepped into the hall and winked. “Twelve o’clock, Quill. Don’t be late.”

“But, Jason, I have to paint—”

“No buts—be there.” He pointed a finger at her, then bounded lightly up the stairs.

“Your beer!” she called after him.

“Keep it!” His voice drifted down from the landing. “You may need it yet!”

“Lord, I hope not.” Quillen sighed as she shut the door, then went into the kitchen and put the remaining five cans of Coors into the refrigerator.

Back on her stool again, she bit the end of her paintbrush, leaned her elbows on her board and her chin in her hands, and stared at the empty, oval face of the prince. She’d been looking forward to sketching and painting Tucker’s likeness—now she wasn’t sure if she should use his face or Jason’s.

Once upon a time, when she’d been a college sophomore car-pooling with an upperclassman, Quillen had thought Jason just might be her prince. They’d dated a few times; she’d been serious, but his attitude toward her had never been anything but platonically affectionate. Since then, she’d often wondered if her height was the reason. She could look him straight in the eye, and in anything but flats she was a good two inches taller.

Sighing, she put down her brush and picked up a sketchbook and pencil. She crossed her legs, leaned the pad on her raised right knee, and drew the faces of both men on separate sheets. She tore them out, taped them on her board, one on each side of the painting, and frowned.

Nope, Jason’s face just wouldn’t work. His features, except his nose, were too small. She could taper that down, enlarge his eyes—she did so with her pencil—then frowned again. Nope, no go. She was stuck with Tucker, whose face was the stuff of erotic dreams.

While she moved the painting off her board and took a fresh sheet of paper to do a finished sketch, she wondered if she wasn’t stuck
on
him as well as
with
him. Most probably, she concluded, but asked herself what woman with twenty-twenty vision wouldn’t be? He was criminally good-looking, charming, funny—just plain old perfect.

No doubt, Quillen reasoned, that’s why on the one hand she kept trying to find flaws and faults, while on the other her brain worked overtime to compensate. His reasons for obtaining the assay reports were perfectly sensible, yet why,
why
hadn’t he suggested using the environmental impact study to stop Cassil? There had to be a logical reason, there just had to be.

Her mind kept searching for one, wandering up and down the same path until it was a rut and she was gritty-eyed with fatigue. She switched off the Luxo then, saw that it was nearly two-thirty, and fell into bed in her aqua terry shift.

She awoke with a start, warm bright sunlight streaming across her face. Rolling over and pushing herself up on her hands, she gasped at the time on the clock radio—eleven-ten. Late again—as usual!

It took her five minutes to shake off the mental weariness that still plagued her, another ten to shower, and twenty minutes to fix her hair and her makeup and pull on kelly green slacks and a yellow blouse. After tying the sleeves of a yellow and green sweater around her shoulders, Quillen grabbed her purse and her keys and dashed out the back door toward the truck.

The clock mounted on the red brick city hall facade struck the second stroke of twelve as she squealed the Blazer into a parking place on the town square. On the fourth, she hit the sidewalk at a dead run, and on the ninth, pelted into Reuben’s, a lark-paneled, stained-glassed deli a block and a half from Cassil Construction. As the last chime of the clock died away, Quillen slid into a mahogany leather booth opposite Jason, who had already drunk half a beer.

“Have you been crying?” he asked. “Your eyes look awful.”

“No, I painted until two-thirty. So what’s your idea?”

“I haven’t been able to pull it off yet. D.C.’s been in the office all morning.”

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked what it is.”

Jason took a healthy swig from his stein, then set it down and leaned toward her. “If I can, I’m going to lift a copy of the theme park plans and give them to you.”

“What am I supposed to do with them?”

“Give them to your geologist friend. That man’s
plenty
sharp—he’ll know what to do with them.”

“What do you mean
plenty
sharp?” Quillen asked, parroting the emphasis he gave the adjective. “I thought you didn’t know him.”

“I don’t, not really.” Jason caught a drop of condensation sliding down the mug on his curled index finger. “He was in the office this morning.”

“He—
What
?”
Quillen felt the blood drain out of her face. “Why?”

“I don’t know, Quill. All I know is that he and D.C. shut themselves in the old man’s office and yelled at each other for about twenty minutes. ’Course, as I understand it, that’s nothing out of the ordinary.” He caught his tongue between his teeth, ducked his head, and picked up his beer stein.

“What do you mean, Jason?” she asked quietly, her hands icy cold in her lap. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Oh, no, Quill, no.” He reached across the table and squeezed her wrist. “Cal told me they hollered at each other on Friday, too.”

“Uh-huh,” she answered slowly. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“’Cause you’ve got a suspicious mind.” He smiled at her and drained his mug. “C’mon, let’s order. I’ve got to be back by one.”

Though Quillen tried, she couldn’t get Jason to say one more word about Tucker. He stuck to his claim that all he’d heard was shouting—nothing more. Quillen still didn’t believe him and realized that she was becoming awfully good at recognizing a guilty look when she saw one. The thought struck her halfway through a roast beef on onion bun sandwich—and suddenly she lost her appetite. That’s what the funny, shadowy look had been on Tucker’s face. Guilty. Guilty as hell.

“Are you sure you haven’t been crying?” Jason asked as they left Reuben’s and paused on the sidewalk under the green and red striped awning.

Not yet, she thought glumly, but did her best to smile. “Positive. I’m just pooped. I haven’t been out of bed that long, either.”

“Take care, Quill.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I’ll see you when I’ve got the plans.”

Hearsay, she told herself as she unlocked the Blazer and got in behind the wheel, you’re trying to convict Taker on hearsay evidence—and you don’t even know what you’re trying to convict him
of.
So he
looks
guilty. Guilty of
what
? There could be lots of perfectly good reasons why he was in Cassil’s office this morning.

Slowly, Quillen drove home, her right hand on the wheel, her left elbow braced on the door and her fingertips pressed against her temple where the first faint throb of a headache pulsed. With any luck, she thought, sighing as she eased the Blazer up the drive and parked it in the carport, Miss Smythe will move out this afternoon. That’ll cheer me up.

Definitely looking for things to lift her spirits, she walked up the drive to the front door and looked in her mailbox. There was, as she’d hoped, a check inside for the last cover she’d painted. It wasn’t quite enough to save the farm, but it was a step in the right direction.

Sliding her key in the lock, Quillen turned it and pushed the door open. With one foot she stepped over the threshold, then fell back onto the porch, gasping and gagging. Her lungs heaved to draw a breath and she tasted—
gas!

Whirling down the steps, she raced toward the house next door to call the fire department, then spun around in the middle of the yard. Tucker was gone, Jason and Paula worked, Miss Smythe volunteered at Cassil Springs Hospital—Mrs. Sipp! Unknotting the sweater from her shoulders, Quillen rolled it with shaking hands and tied it around her mouth and nose by the sleeves as she took the porch steps two at a time. She paused, made sure she had a firm grip on her keys, drew and held a deep breath, and dove into the house.

On the landing, her hand closed on air instead of the banister and she lurched drunkenly to the left. She groped, found the rail, and, with her head spinning dizzily, hauled herself up the stairs and fell against Mrs. Sipp’s apartment door. Her vision blurred and it took her four tries to hit the lock with her key, two attempts to turn it and the knob and shoulder the door out of her way.

Veering wildly across the white-carpeted, knickknack-scattered living room toward the windows, Quillen overturned the delicate, French provincial coffee table. Glass and china clashed, broke, and she caught herself on the dotted-swiss priscillas draped over the windows. The rod broke loose from the wall and Quillen fell in a swirl of pink and white organdy. Clawing her way out of it, she pulled herself up on the windowsill, fumbled for the lock, turned it, and shoved with all her strength. The window shot up smoothly on its well-oiled track, and Quillen shoved the screen out of her way as she thrust her head and upper body past it.

Gagging and nearly vomiting her lunch, she hung there, half-in and half-out the window, until the worst of the nausea making her head spin passed. She dragged the sweater free of her mouth, hoarsely called Mrs. Sipp’s name at least a dozen times, but got no answer. Drawing another lungful of air and clapping the sweater over her mouth again, she backed into the house.

The kitchen was empty; so were the bedroom and bathroom. Misjudging the doorway as she wheeled out of the bathroom, Quillen smacked face-first into the hallway wall and reeled backward into the doorjamb. The corner of the molding bit into her spine and shot icy-hot slivers of pain through her body. She gasped, her sweater slipped out of her limp fingers, and she fell, a crescendo of noise roaring inside her head.

The floor rolled underneath her, so did her stomach, and she retched as she dragged herself toward the door. Clawing her way across the carpet, she blinked nonstop to clear the gray splotches swimming in front of her, then cried out as she heaved herself forward, clutched nothing but air, and tumbled down the stairs.

There was no landing, only blackness that sucked at her and groped for a hold on her arms with warm, sticky hands. She fought it, blind with nausea and panic, kicking and flailing until the blackness won and lifted her in strong arms.

“It’s all right, Quillen,” it whispered to her in a breathless, echoing voice that sounded uncannily like Tucker’s, “you’re going to be all right.”

Gee, this isn’t so bad, she thought as her mind swirled away into oblivion. At least I’ll die happy.

Chapter Five

Quillen didn’t die, but she almost wished she had when consciousness returned accompanied by a slicing pain in her head. Her eyes fluttered open and she winced at the glare of fluorescent panels in a flat beige ceiling, then blinked at the clear plastic oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth. Both images wavered and she swallowed hard, tasting the foul, dry ache in her throat, as her mind recalled flashes of searing sunlight, wailing sirens, and warm grass.

Rolling her head to one side, she half-closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness swept over her. Three blurred shapes swam through her lashes and she fought her way past the splitting pain in her temples to open her eyes again.

Tucker.

He sat beside her, his hair dusty and disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed with fatigue. The brown flannel shirt that he’d hastily pulled on in her hall Sunday night was caked with dust. Rumpled, unshaven, and dirty as he was, he was still breathtakingly handsome, and Quillen felt tears swell behind her eyelids. I didn’t dream it, she thought as she raised shaky fingers to touch him; he was really there.

Catching her hand in his, Tucker closed his eyes and pressed his cheek to her palm. She felt the tremor in his fingers and his whiskers scraped her skin; then she jumped and looked away from him as something cold and hard touched her sternum.

It was a stethoscope, and Carl Ross—Red, they’d called him in high school, because of his carrot red hair—was on the other end of it. Behind him stood Sheriff Blackburn, the brass buttons on his khaki and green serge uniform glistening in the bright light. He winked at her, and she shivered as Carl slid the stethoscope beneath her left breast and then beneath her right.

“Well, your heart and lungs sound great,” he pronounced cheerfully as he pulled the stethoscope free of his ears, draped it around his neck, and gently took her right hand out of Tucker’s.

Beneath Carl’s first and second fingers pressed firmly to the inside of her wrist, Quillen felt her pulse beat. Swallowing again, she tried to speak, but nothing came out except a hoarse croak that only made her throat hurt worse. Carefully, so the elastic strap securing the mask over her nose and mouth wouldn’t pinch, Carl peeled it off her face.

“I’ll bet your head feels like a split cantaloupe and your stomach like it’s turned inside out, right?” He paused and Quillen nodded. “I’ll send the nurse with some ice chips for your throat, and if you keep those down, we’ll give you a glass of water. Then I want to take a chest X ray, and if that’s clear, I’ll give you something for the nausea and the headache and send you home. Deal?” She nodded again and he patted her wrist. “Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He turned away, parted the colorless curtain hung around the gurney, then smiled back at her. “You know, you’re very lucky Mr. Ferris carries oxygen in his Jeep.”