The Bogus Biker (11 page)

Shana pulled the hood over her head. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s a very bad idea, but I want what’s in that safe.”
I especially want to see if Travis’s ring is there. That’ll tell me something. If it is, I’ll have to figure out how to let Bradley know…unless he already knows…and if he does…what does that mean?
Penelope switched off the kitchen light and unlocked the back door. “Go,” she said. “Hurry.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Penelope removed the gun from her purse and laid it on the console. “I know a back way,” she said.
“The one through the woods by the cabin?”

“How did you know about it?”

“Whenever I got bored, I went exploring.”

“That’s the road. It’s not in good shape, but it’ll get us there. Keep your eyes open, and make sure we’re not being followed.”

“Sam?”

“Anybody.”

Pembroke Point lay dark, silent, and apparently deserted at the end of the unpaved road snaking through the trees, past the ruined cabin, then into the clearing where the summer house stood. “We’ll go on foot from here,” Penelope said.

“Can’t we get any closer? If we have to make a run for it…”

“It’s not that far. Now listen, when we get inside, you go straight upstairs and get the combination for me. Then get your things together and take them to the door that opens to the porte-cochere. I’ll bring the stuff from the safe, then go get the car and drive up here. Throw everything in, and we’re dust.”

“We may be mincemeat, as my Granny used to say.”

“Well, that’s a possibility, too. Come on, Shana. Let’s go.” Penelope stuffed the gun into the waistband of her jeans.

“What if Brad’s been out here and locked up?”

“I know how to break in.”

Shana giggled. “That figures.”

The whir of the cicadas followed them up the path to the house. “It’s quiet enough,” Penelope observed.

“It’s dark enough.” Shana’s voice trembled.

“Is there still a flashlight in the kitchen junk drawer?”

“Last time I looked. Listen, Mrs. Pembroke, safe-cracking is a crime, isn’t it?”

“I’m not stealing anything, just taking it for safe-keeping. Besides, I’m not cracking the safe. You have the combination.”

The little-used glass double doors from the back gallery into the dining room opened easily. Feeling their way around the rosewood dining table offering seating for twelve, the two women slipped through the swinging door into the kitchen, found the flashlight, and started up the back stairs.

The door of Shana’s room stood open. “Oh, no,” she said. “Look.”

Penelope shined the flashlight around the ransacked room. “We know the police searched the house, but they wouldn’t have left a mess like this. Just find the combination for me.”

Shana pointed to the jewelry box turned upside down in the middle of the bed, its contents scattered. “Maybe somebody else found it first.”

“Just look, Shana.
Hurry.”

The hidden compartment had kept its secret. Penelope seized the piece of paper Shana held out. “A pro would’ve found this,” Penelope said. “Or somebody was in too much of a hurry to look.” She turned toward the door. “
Listen, make sure all your drapes are drawn before you turn on a light. And just a lamp. Just enough light for you to see.”

“You’re not going downstairs alone, are you?”

“You’ve got things to do up here. I’ll meet you at the side door in fifteen minutes. Twenty tops.”

Penelope reflected she still knew the house like the back of her hand, even though she hadn’t been inside in almost twenty years. The broad, winding staircase always reminded her of Twelve Oaks in
Gone with the Wind.
She paused to listen before she started down, thankful the thick carpet muffled her footsteps.

Like Shana’s bedroom, the study had been trashed. Every drawer in the roll top desk belonging to Travis’s grandfather hung open. Books pulled from the shelves on two walls littered the floor. The mess confirmed the police weren’t the culprits. Even if they’d been in a hurry, Chief Harley Malone would’ve had the scalps of his entire force of five if they’d left the place like this. So who?
The Feds? Her heart skipped a beat. Sam?

She felt for the catch on the panel below six shelves of books. It was one of those things you had to know was there, or you’d look forever. She slid it back and began to twirl the dial on the steel safe. “Open, darn you,” she muttered as she tugged at the handle. The door didn’t budge, so she started over. This time the door swung open. “That’s blessed better.”

I’m surprised Bradley didn’t tell the Feds—if they’re involved—that the safe was here. Or maybe he doesn’t know. He was only twelve when we moved back home with Mum and Daddy. He spent time over here though. Surely Travis would’ve told him…would’ve given him some idea of his business. But then again, maybe not.
Penelope reflected that when her son settled on a career in law enforcement instead of becoming the next Pembroke to grow cotton, the rift between father and son seemed to widen even more. She’d always assumed Bradley would get everything someday, but now she wondered.

The meticulous arrangement of the safe’s contents came as no surprise. Travis tended to business. She removed the velvet boxes containing the Pembroke jewelry and looked around for something to put them in, settling on the overturned wicker wastebasket just within reach. In a small drawer she found a chamois drawstring bag. Even without opening it, she could feel the shape of a large ring…hopefully, Travis’s college ring. She tossed that into the wastebasket and opened the larger drawer, scooping out bundles of bills in brown paper wrappers.
Travis never kept money in this safe, at least not that I ever knew. But maybe there’s a lot I never knew about him.
Her hand paused over the money almost as if it was a poisonous thing. Then, taking a deep breath, she shoveled all of it into the wastebasket.

She took a stack of folders and manila envelopes from the shelf, then felt around inside the safe to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. Her mother-in-law told her that the second Pembroke to take charge after the house was built had designed the hiding place for his cotton money when he didn’t want to make the trip to Little Rock to a bank he didn’t trust anyway. Several old-style safes followed, and Travis had installed the latest in fireproof security the first year of their marriage. She remembered the day she’d helped him shove it into place and could still see him standing there surveying it with a sort of arrogant satisfaction.

She closed and locked the safe, careful to replace the panel exactly as it was meant to fit. A soft click told her it was secure. She struggled to pick up the wastebasket, now weighed down with its bounty, and half-carried, half-dragged it through the house to the side door. Depositing it behind a potted fern, she returned to the main hall and the stairs. They seemed darker and more foreboding going up. She’d reached the first curve when she heard the floor above her giving way under the weight of footsteps.

She froze. Shana? She took two more stairs and heard it again. Fear twisted her stomach.
Come on, Penelope, you’re too old to be afraid of things that go bump in the night, and you know nobody’s up there but Shana…you hope there’s nobody else anyway.
She listened again, then took another step.
Get up there, get Shana, and get the hell out of Dodge.
She crossed herself hastily and murmured a quick, silent apology to God and whatever saints might be listening.

Reaching the landing, she stopped to listen again. By the time she heard the heavy breathing, almost on top of her, it was too late to run. She braced herself for the worst.
If Bradley has to come out here and identify my cold dead body, he’ll kill me all over again.
In the pitch black, it seemed there was a soft stirring of air as someone rushed past her on the opposite side of the broad staircase. Then she heard a shot, followed by the sound of what could only be a body falling on the planks of the main hall.

With no other thought than to put miles between herself and Pembroke Point, she dashed toward Shana’s bedroom and hurtled through the door. Shana’s scream, Penelope felt sure, could be heard as far up the river as Little Rock.

“We’re getting out of here now,” Penelope hissed. She picked up a carry-all at the foot of the bed, while Shana swung a duffle bag over her shoulder.

“Did you shoot somebody?”

“No, I blessed did not, but somebody did, and I’m guessing the body is in the front hall, so we’re going down the back stairs and around.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Shana moaned.

“No time.” Penelope grabbed her arm. “Come on.”

They stayed close to the wall, avoiding the carved spindles and railing overlooking the first floor. At the end of the hall, Penelope focused the flashlight on wooden steps as narrow as the front stairs were wide. “I’ll go first.”

“Are you sure nobody’s down there?”

“We’ll have to take our chances.
Down to the kitchen, out to the back veranda, then around to the porte-cochere. I left the stuff from the safe there and made sure the doors were still unlocked. I’ll go get the car, and as soon as I pull up, you start throwing stuff in.”

“You mean I have to wait by myself?”

“I mean the car’s not going to drive itself. Yes, you blessed have to wait by yourself!”

Shana moaned again. “What if…”

“Then it’s been nice knowing you. Now come on.”

Halfway down the stairs, the flashlight died without warning. Shana muttered something that would have gotten Penelope’s mouth washed out with soap. She ticked off the signs of panic as she leaned against the wall and tried to get her bearings: dry mouth, weak knees, pounding heart. “Feel for the next step,” she said over her shoulder.”

“I can’t.”

“Do it!”

Somehow, they made it down.

The swinging door from the kitchen to the dining room protested their assault as it hadn’t earlier. They bumped their way around the dining room table again and out the doors to the veranda. Outside, the heavy smell of smoke Penelope hadn’t noticed before threatened to overwhelm her. Thankful she couldn’t see the gin—or what was left of it—she made herself cross the bricked gallery and step away from its protection onto the path.

“Please hurry,” Shana begged.

“I’m going already. Just keep out of sight.”

Penelope didn’t turn on the lights as she edged the car toward the house and under the porte-cochere. She popped the trunk, shifted to ‘park’, and went inside to retrieve the wastebasket while Shana tossed bags like ping-pong balls. Back in the car, she eased forward, turned the car back toward the way they’d come, and gunned the motor. Once in the safety of the woods, she turned on the lights and heard Shana let out her breath.

“Somebody had been in the study, too, but they didn’t find the safe. I got everything.”

“I didn’t get all my things.”

“They’ll still be there when we get back.”
If we get back.

“You’re not going to try to take everything with us, are you?”

“No, I’ll hide most of it at the house, but I want to read Travis’s will.”

“Brad will get everything, won’t he?”

“He should. There isn’t anybody else…” Her voice trailed off as she allowed herself to think of the possibility that one or more of Travis’s numerous dalliances might have produced another child.

Shana seemed to read her mind. “Brad was his only child, the only legitimate one anyway.”

“Did you know about the money in the safe?”

“Money?
How much?”

“I don’t blessed know, but we’re going to count it when we get back to the B&B.”

“Travis didn’t keep money in the safe, not that I knew of anyway.”

“I didn’t think so, but there’s a lot.”

“Drug money?” Shana whispered.

“I hope not, but I’m guessing that’s what somebody was after. It makes sense.”

“I don’t believe Travis was dealing drugs,” Shana said, her voice a little stronger. “Whatever his faults, he was honest.”

“I always thought so, but now I’m not so sure.” Penelope turned back onto the county road. “We’re going to make it.”

Shana glanced over her shoulder. “I think someone’s following us.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s a car behind us.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know anything about cars, but it’s a car, not a truck or an SUV.”

“Keep watching.” Penelope made a quick turn on the road that ran by the old school. “Is it still there?”

“Yes…oh, Lord, Mrs. Pembroke, maybe that’s whoever shot someone in the house!”

Penelope swerved onto Cherry Blossom instead of going on to Rosewood,
then turned left onto Main on two wheels.

“You’re going to get us picked up by the police!” Shana protested.

“Is the car still there?”

“No…yes…but it’s slowing down.”

“Well, we’re not slowing down.” From Main, Penelope turned onto Honeysuckle and drove east toward the older residential section of town. “Is it gone?”

“I think so.”

“Then it either wasn’t after us, or it’s backing off. When we get to the B&B, jump out and get inside. I’ll bring the stuff from the safe and decide where to put it. We’ll get your bags later. What time is it, by the way?”