No Risk Refused

They’d reached the bottom of the hill. Ahead of them the road threaded this way and that before climbing again. Adair spotted a car, a sleek, dark sedan, nearly at the top of the next crest. She pointed a finger. “Looks like an ego car to me.”

“Hold on,” Cam warned as he floored the gas pedal again.

“The only thing that I’m absolutely sure about is that Lawrence Banes definitely wants to marry Rexie tomorrow. And he doesn’t want me to contact the first husband. I had calling Barry Carlson as a possibility on my To Do list, and I couldn’t find it when I sorted through the papers I stuffed in that drawer.”

“You think Banes might have been in your office before his trip to the pond and saw it?” Cam tapped the brake as he eased into a tricky hairpin curve.

“I’m thinking he took it. And he was worried enough about the possibility of my calling Montana to come back to caution me against it.”

“His visit with you didn’t go down well with whoever he was talking to on his cell. I couldn’t hear everything but Banes did mention that the wedding was on, and the guy on the other end didn’t seem pleased. And he and MacDonald were definitely arguing at the falls.”

Cam had decreased the speed in order to maneuver through the twists and turns as they climbed the next hill.

“I wish I had a pad and paper so I could draw a timeline,” Adair mused aloud.

“Just picture it in your mind as you talk it through,” Cam said. “That’s what I do.”

“Banes says he stayed overnight in Glen Loch to be on call if Bunny needed him. But she didn’t. Then this morning he claims he went to Albany for a business meeting and doubled back when she called and told him that Rexie had spoken to me about her first husband. Nathan MacDonald also says he was passing through Glen Loch and heard about Castle MacPherson from the locals.”

“We can ask Sheriff Skinner to check it out,” Cam said. “Be nice if someone saw them together. Be even nicer if Banes is on his way to meet MacDonald right now.” Easing the car around the last of the curves Cam pressed his foot harder on the gas.

“Is it too big a leap to think that one of them might have stirred Alba up when Aunt Vi and I unwrapped the earring yesterday?”

Cam grinned at her. “Theorizing possibilities is a key part of an agent’s job. Go with it.”

“I’m favoring MacDonald. He had that camera with him and it has a telephoto lens. Maybe he was just hiking along the trail that winds through the hills above the castle gardens and he happened to see Alba dig up the earring. Next morning he calls for an appointment and arrives in time to see me racing up to the house with that metal box clutched in my hands.”

“He sees it on your desk, then leaves and waits for you to take off for a walk,” Cam said. “It’s not long after that I follow you and he can walk right into your office and into the main parlor.”

“Maybe he calls Banes to join him. Maybe Banes shows up on his own. But they don’t find the earring or the rest of the jewels, so they follow us into the woods,” Adair said.

“And they have an argument. They leave, but Banes comes back. And whoever contacted him on his cell was not happy about that.”

“Then we’ve got the interesting fact that Banes didn’t park his ego car at the castle. Who was he hiding from?” Adair asked.

“Good question. You’ve got the mind of a good operative.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it will be my fallback career if the Banes/Maitland wedding suddenly crashes and burns.”

Cam took one hand off the wheel to give hers a quick squeeze. “One thing my CIA trainer always told me—it’s not over until the fat lady sings.’”

They were nearly at the top of the hill when the noise erupted, a squeal of tires, then the crash of metal and glass, once, twice, then a final time. The silence afterward was almost louder than the sounds that preceded it.

They crested the hill, and at first they saw nothing. Cam floored the gas pedal and they were halfway down before he spotted the first signs of the skid. Easing his foot onto the brake, he followed the marks around a sharp curve. To their right a fender lay against the trunk of a thick pine.

“Over there,” Adair pointed.

Cam braked and pulled to a stop. To the left the land dipped into a gully. Another fender lay close to the road but the sedan had left a trail of crushed saplings in its wake before plowing nearly head-on into a third pine tree.

“Stay here and call for help,” Cam ordered as he climbed out and ran toward the sedan.

Adair had already punched in 911 and was talking to an operator when she reached the side of the road. Cam was pulling the driver’s door open.

“He’s alive,” he shouted up to her. “Unconscious.”

As she relayed the information to the 911 operator, Cam dropped to his knees and leaned into the car. She reached him just as he got to his feet.

“I told you to stay put.” He gripped her arm to steer her away from the car. But she caught a good glimpse of Lawrence Banes’s face. Its pallor had her stomach lurching.

“You’re sure he’s alive?”

Cam slid his hand down to hers and linked their fingers. “His pulse is steady. He’ll be fine. But tell the operator one of his legs may be broken. I don’t want to move him. Ask them how long before they can get someone here.”

The simple list of orders helped her to breathe again and to focus. When she’d passed along the information, she said, “The EMTs who are on call at Huntleigh College are on their way. Their ETA is less than ten minutes.”

“Hey, Sutherland, is this your work?”

Adair whirled around to see a man move away from a large black SUV and start down the hill toward them. He was tall with tanned skin and liberal hints of silver threaded through his jet-black hair. Dark glasses hid his eyes and added a hint of danger to his sharply sculpted features.

Any apprehension she might have been feeling was completely erased when Cam met him halfway up the hill and hugged him warmly. “I got your text earlier but I have to say, your timing is excellent. There’s someone I want you to take a look at.”

Cam led the way down the incline. “I want you to meet Adair. This is my boss, Daryl Garnett,” Cam said.

Adair studied the two men as they reached her. Though she guessed Garnett was old enough to be Cam’s father, they looked more like brothers.

Daryl caught her hand between both of his. “Cam has spoken enough about you that I would have been able to pick a beauty like you out of a crowd.”

Adair found herself returning the smile. It seemed to be her day for running into male charm, and Daryl Garnett had a very potent brand.

Daryl glanced over at the car. “Did Sutherland here run this unfortunate man off the road?”

“No,” Adair said. “We were just following him.”

Daryl glanced at Cam. “Why?”

“We think he might have been involved in a little break-in at the castle, and we were interested in who he might be meeting,” Adair said. “He didn’t even know we were following him. And we were still quite a ways behind. So Cam isn’t to blame for this. Banes must have lost control on that hairpin curve.”

“Banes?” Daryl asked.

Cam gestured toward the open car door. “Meet Lawrence Banes. He’s supposed to get married at the castle tomorrow.”

“Is he dead or alive?” Daryl moved to the open car door.

“Alive,” Cam said. “Ambulance is on the way.”

Adair began to get a bad feeling as she watched Daryl check for a pulse and then continue to study the man.

“You recognize him,” Cam said.

Daryl gestured them to follow him away from the vehicle before he answered Cam’s question. “Yeah. It’s Scalzo all right.”

“Scalzo?” Adair asked.

Daryl glanced back at the car. “And if you didn’t facilitate his accident, I’m wondering if someone else did. Wait here.”

Adair might have followed Daryl back to the car if Cam hadn’t put a hand on her arm. “Who is Scalzo?” she asked again as they watched Daryl drop to the ground and wiggle his way beneath the back end of the car.

“What’s he doing?” Adair asked.

“Checking to see what may have caused the skid,” Cam said.

“Got an answer there,” Daryl grunted as he eased himself out from beneath the car and got to his feet. A second later he joined them. “Someone cut your Mr. Banes’s brake lines.”

As Adair shifted her gaze from Daryl to Lawrence Banes, her stomach plummeted. “Someone tried to kill my bridegroom?”

“That would be my guess,” Daryl said as he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped grease and dirt off his hands.

“Why?” Adair asked.

“It could be that someone recognized him as Gianni Scalzo or one of the other names he’s used, or they figured out the investment scam he’s currently running and got to him before I did.”