What she couldn’t quite get out of her mind was what the whole thing was going to do to Rexie. The young woman didn’t deserve this. Adair had some idea of what it was like to be dumped unceremoniously by a man. But she was finding it hard to get her mind around what it might be like to discover your second husband was a world-class criminal.
And she couldn’t seem to come up with a plan that would give Rexie a second chance at happiness. Formulating solutions, solving problems—those were supposed to be her strong points.
Stepping closer to the bed, Adair studied the man lying there. His eyes were closed and he looked older to her than he had before. She reached out and took his hand. “Mr. Banes?”
His eyes fluttered open, but they looked glazed.
“It’s Adair MacPherson.”
“Mac…Pherson?” He struggled to focus. “Nurse took my cell. Have to call Bunny. Explain.”
When his lids fluttered shut, Adair’s stomach knotted. Call Bunny? Why did he want to call Bunny? Why didn’t he want to call Rexie?
His eyes opened again and he gripped her hand almost as hard as he had in the car. “You call Bunny. The…wedding. Still on.”
“I’ll call.”
Two technicians in lab coats appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Banes has to have his MRI now,” Dr. Barnhill said.
When she tried to disengage her hand, his eyes opened, and this time they were clear. “Let Bunny know.”
She waited as the two young men loaded him onto a gurney.
Bunny? And not one mention of Rexie. Well, Rexie was the person she was going to call. And then she was going to make the phone call that she’d had on her To Do list that morning.
Instead of turning right toward the waiting room, Adair detoured into the ladies’ room. She found Rexie’s number on her cell and made the call.
The fourth ring transferred to voice mail. “Sorry, I’m unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone.”
Adair disconnected, then frowned. She didn’t want to leave this message on voice mail. And it wasn’t Rexie whose voice she’d just heard. She could have sworn it was Bunny’s voice. Did she have the wrong number?
After checking, she dialed again. Once more it was Bunny’s voice apologizing on the voice mail message. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Had she ever called Rexie directly before or had it always been Rexie calling her?
With a shrug, she checked Bunny’s number and tried it.
Rexie’s mother answered immediately. “Ms. MacPherson, don’t tell me there’s a problem.”
Good afternoon to you, too. “I’m calling for Mr. Banes.”
“Lawrence? Then he’s talked to you about not upsetting our Rexie again.”
“Yes, but he asked me to call on a different matter. He’s been in a little fender bender with his car. He has a broken leg, but he’s going to be fine. And he wanted me to tell you that the wedding will definitely happen on schedule.”
“He’s broken his leg?” Bunny’s voce was laced with panic and concern. “I want to talk to him.”
“I think the doctor has confiscated his cell until he’s a bit more coherent. I just saw him and he asked me to call you specifically. But I’d really like to get in touch with Rexie. Since I’ve actually seen Lawrence and talked to him—”
“I’ll tell Rexie. I can handle her, Ms. MacPherson. Talking to her about her first husband just reopened old wounds. I don’t want my daughter hurt again. So you need to devote your full attention to making sure this wedding takes place on schedule, and I’ll take care of my daughter.” Bunny disconnected.
Adair stared down at her phone. Why were both Lawrence and Bunny so concerned that she’d talked to Rexie about Barry Carlson?
A knock sounded on the ladies’ room door. “You all right, Adair?”
Cam. “Fine. I’ll be right out.” She waited until his footsteps faded before she got the number of the Carlson Horse Farm from Information and punched in the number.
After four rings, a female voice came on. “Dr. Carlson is busy with the animals. Please leave a message and he’ll get back to you.”
“This is Adair MacPherson. It’s really important that Dr. Carlson call me. It’s about his former wife, Rexie Maitland. The matter is urgent.” Then she left her cell number.
It certainly couldn’t hurt to find out why in the world Bunny and Lawrence Banes were so upset that she’d talked to Rexie about Barry. Turning, she faced herself in the bathroom mirror.
“In the meantime, there has to be something you can do about the wedding fiasco tomorrow. Think.”
* * *
WHEN ADAIR JOINED the three men in the small waiting room Cam could feel the change in her energy level. He’d been worried about her ever since Daryl had revealed Banes’s real identity to her. She had to be feeling that the sky was falling on her head, and the hell of it was, he hadn’t been able to cushion the blow. Nor had he been able to come up with a better scenario than Daryl’s.
But she had. He could sense it even before she spoke. “Mr. Banes wants nothing to stand in the way of the wedding. But I’ve decided that I do.”
Daryl stared at her. “I thought you agreed that we need to catch this guy.”
“I do. But he doesn’t even want to talk to his bride-to-be. He just wants to talk to his mother-in-law-to-be. To make sure she gets her daughter to the wedding. And I don’t want Rexie to have two failed marriages on her hands.”
“Ms. MacPherson, the man you know as Banes—”
Daryl broke off when Cam put a hand on his arm. “She’s got a plan, Daryl. Wait for it. Go ahead, Adair.”
“There’s no reason why the wedding has to be real, right? All we have to do is convince Banes it’s real. We’re going to run our own scam.”
“I think I’m going to like this,” Cam said.
She beamed him a smile before turning to the sheriff. “You can handle it with Reverend Foley, can’t you? He can get sick, send in a sub at the last minute?”
“Someone who has no legal authority to marry them.” Skinner’s eyes sparkled. “I think I might be able to arrange that.” Then the sheriff shifted his gaze to Daryl. “With that one modification, I’ll agree to go along with your plan.”
Daryl raised his two hands in a mock surrender. “I’ve got no problem with running a scam on a scam artist.”
Skinner nodded. “After I interview Banes about his accident I’ll post a discreet guard on him here at the clinic. My deputy Timmy can pass for a college student. He also has some technological skills. I’ll see if he can plant a bug in the room. In the meantime, I think the three of you might want to get back up to the castle. If I wanted to have some uninterrupted time to search the place, I might figure staging a little accident like this would be a good way to focus everyone’s attention elsewhere.”
“I’ll follow you back,” Daryl said to Cam as they left the clinic.
Once they were pulling out of the parking lot, Adair pulled her cell out of her pocket. After the fifth ring she said, “Aunt Vi?”
Turning to Cam she said, “Aunt Vi’s fine, but Alba has disappeared.”
13
HEARING THE REAL worry in her aunt’s voice, Adair turned her speakerphone on. “Aunt Vi, we’re on our way back right now.” She glanced at her watch. Nearly four-thirty. She quickly calculated. “We’ll be there in five minutes. Cam is listening, too. Tell us what happened.”
“Alba started acting strangely shortly after you and Cam left. I was working in the kitchen and she began growling at the terrace doors. I had them locked just as we all agreed. Wes Pinter was working on the hedges that run along the back of the garden and I assumed he was disturbing her. Though he never has before.”
“What else, Aunt Vi?”
“I settled her down, but she wouldn’t move away from the terrace. About half an hour ago she started barking again and scratching at the glass. So I let her out and she tore off through the garden. I didn’t catch sight of her again until I got to the edge of the clearing by the stone arch. She ran right through and then she disappeared into the woods beyond. I chased after her, but I slipped and fell on some loose stones on the floor of the arch.”
“Are you hurt?” Adair asked.
“No. But stumbling slowed me down. By the time I reached the trees there was no sign of her. She’d started growling again and I heard a yelp. But I can’t even hear her bell now.”
“Where are you now, Vi?” Cam asked.
“I’m at the stone arch. There’s no one here now. I think Alba chased them away and they may have hurt her.”
“Where’s Wes Pinter?” Cam asked.
“I can’t see him anywhere. I tried him on his cell before Adair called. He didn’t pick up.”