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Her lips parted in disbelief. “My God, you’ve had a detective on us, haven’t you? Snooping in our credit cards. And you got somebody at Killian’s to talk about us. You bastard.”
“Six years ago your grandfather had sinus problems. He needed a prescription nasal spray. He also had a recurrent rash. He used a prescription salve. He was prone to backaches. He had a prescription painkiller for when it got bad. Has he been miraculously cured of all that?”
She made no answer. She glared at him so contemptuously that he was impressed.
He raised an eyebrow. “Or do you just make sure that you buy his prescriptions someplace else? And pay cash, so that you don’t leave a paper trail, the way Claire did?”
Her lip curled in disdain, and she made a sound deep in her throat like a small, warning growl. Turning from him, she stalked toward the path that led back to the house. He stayed by her side, and he didn’t let up. “You drive to Marathon at least once a month. You go grocery shopping there. Why? Why drive forty miles to Marathon instead of fifteen to Key West? Because the Winn-Dixie store there has a pharmacy? I think so. But the pharmacists there are a tight-lipped bunch. Not like a certain person at Killian’s. It’s amazing the information you can buy for a hundred bucks.”
She stopped in her tracks again, and this time he thought she was going to take a swing at him. “You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being. Low, rancid and disgusting.”
“And you’re beautiful when you’re angry.” He smirked.
“A cliché. Sorry, but it’s true.”
“You had somebody follow me to Marathon?”
“No. The detective had somebody follow you.”
“Don’t play word games with me, you odious toad.”
“Then don’t lie. Why go to so much trouble to cover up what drugs your grandfather takes?”
“Go to hell,” she said. “This interview’s over. And don’t come back tomorrow. I’m not talking to a low-down sneak.”
“Ah,” he said with satisfaction. “But we have an agreement. You signed it with Mondragon.”
“Take your agreement,” she snapped at him, “fold it five ways and shove it where the sun won’t shine.”
She stamped toward her sandals, snatched them up and jammed them onto her feet. And she was off, walking up the path so fast she almost loped.
He didn’t have time to put on his own sandals; he went right after her. This was a mistake. The path was rough, and littered with burrs that cut his feet.
But he kept up with her anyway. “You have a contract, and you have to honor it,” he said, all teasing gone from his voice. “Besides that, you need to talk to me.”
“When we get to the house, you get in your car and get off our property. Or I’ll throw rocks at you. I swear it.”
He had no doubt she meant it. “You need to talk to me, because you need to know what else I know. If I can find these things out, so can other people. And I know some interesting things. You can discuss them frankly. Or I can publish them and say you refuse to explain. That would be damaging to you. And to your grandfather. To your whole family.”
She speared him with another of her killer glares. “I said don’t come back. I meant it.”
She lifted her skirt to avoid a short, burr-laden bush. He couldn’t stop himself. He grasped her by one forearm and forced her to halt.
She jerked as if he’d seared her with live wires. This time she was going to hit him. In a flash, she raised her open hand and drew it back to slap his face.
He caught her wrist. “Stop,” he warned, getting angry himself. “And listen. I’ll be back, and you’ll talk to me, and you’ll talk straight.”
She narrowed her eyes in pure malevolence. “And if I won’t talk?”
He brought his face close to hers. “In that case, I’m going to have to implicate you and your family in a million-dollar scam. So you need to talk to me if you want to prove that you aren’t in the middle of the biggest fraud in the art world.”
MERRIMAN FASCINATED Claire. He’d put Bunbury down so he could take notes on the flowers and shoot more pictures, but he’d patted and rubbed and caressed the cat so thoroughly that Bunbury was clearly in love.
He stayed next to Merriman, rubbing against the man’s leg and purring. Claire hadn’t thought the cat would take to strangers, for he hardly ever saw any.
But she saw few herself, and she, too, took to Merriman. He seemed shy and friendly at once, a mysterious combination. And he acted so interested in everything she said that she found it easy, even pleasant, to answer his questions.
“It’s a coral vine,” she told him as he knelt to shoot a vine covered with dark-pink blossoms. “The flowers look like a string of hearts. Some people call it the Chain of Love.”
He snapped three shots, then wrote the name in his notebook. He looked up and gave her a bashful smile. “Chain of Love. That’s a pretty name.”
His smile was intriguing. It was straight, not curved like the grin of the Cheshire cat. And when he smiled, for some reason, his forehead wrinkled, so that his smile looked…thoughtful.
He had thick dark-blond hair that wouldn’t stay put; it stirred constantly in the breeze. He was handsome in a way that was both boyish and rugged.
He pointed at a white-flowered vine, strung with similarly shaped blooms. “Is this another kind of Chain of Love?”
He looked so earnest that she almost smiled herself. “That’s a bleeding heart. In some places they use the flower to cast spells.”
The wind rippled his hair so it fell over his forehead. “What kind of spells?”
Maybe she shouldn’t have brought that up; a blush heated her face. “Spells to…attract something…that you, uh, desire.”
“Could I take a sprig?”
She tilted her head in puzzlement. “What for?”
“A souvenir. Something real. Not just pictures.”
She licked her lips nervously. He watched the movement as if it hypnotized him. “I guess,” she breathed.
“I’ll take the pictures first.” He moved nearer the vine, Bunbury pressing against his knee. He clicked the shutter three times and jotted a note in his tablet. Carefully, he picked a section of vine hung with delicate flowers. He tucked it in the buttonhole of his blue shirt.
Then he gave her such a long look that she felt more embarrassed than before. He said, “I don’t suppose you’d let me take your photo.”
“Oh, no,” she said, alarmed. “I couldn’t do that. We don’t want our pictures in any magazine.”
“Not for the magazine. For me. To remember you. Nobody else would see it. I promise.”
She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t do that.”
“I’d really like to,” he said. “On my word of honor, it wouldn’t be for publication.”
“No,” she repeated. “I can’t. I don’t even know why you’re taking pictures of the flowers. They could be anybody’s flowers.”
“They’re your flowers,” he said.
“Not really. I just help take care of them. They belong to my grandparents.”
“Maybe they inspire your grandfather’s paintings. His paintings are colorful. Strong colors.”
She turned and stared at the banyan tree. “I can’t talk about him. Or the paintings.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. He put his tablet aside and rubbed Bunbury’s back. His expression went solemn, as if he was thinking hard. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
Confusion filled her. “No. Probably not.” But she had wanted to say yes. She had wanted to say it very much.
“The next day?” he persisted.
“No. I shouldn’t be here now. I should go back inside.”
She got to her feet and went to pick up Bunbury, but the cat was pressed so affectionately against Merriman’s thigh that her hand brushed the man’s leg.
She’d knelt so that her eyes were now on the same level as Merriman’s. “Would you go out with me?” he asked.
She froze, her hands on the cat’s bulging middle. The question was extraordinary. “What?”
“Would you go out with me?” he repeated. “I wouldn’t pry into your family’s business, I swear. I’d just like to be with you. I know it—”
The gate clanged as Emerson burst through it. She stopped and stared in anger at Claire and Merriman kneeling so closely together. Beyond her, standing outside the gate, Claire could see Eli Garner, his expression fierce.
“What’s this?” Emerson demanded. “Claire, you were supposed to stay inside.”
Claire, usually mild-mannered, was offended by her sister’s tone. “I came out to get Bunbury.”
“Have you been talking to this person?” Emerson glared at Merriman.
“I told him the names of some plants,” Claire said.
“You—” Emerson pointed at Merriman. “Your hour here’s up. Leave now.”
“Emerson,” Claire objected, “there’s no need to be rude. He hasn’t done anything.”
Emerson ignored her. She shook her finger at the photographer. “I said time’s up. Leave. You and your sleazy friend.”
“Emerson!” Claire was shocked. She’d never seen her sister so imperious.
Merriman stood, picking up his tablet. “I’ll leave,” he said calmly. “And your sister’s right. I asked her about the banyan and the flowers. That’s all we talked about.”
Claire, too, rose, clutching Bunbury. Merriman turned to her. “Goodbye. And thank you. I hope I’ll see you again.”
“I—I hope so, too,” Claire stammered, amazing herself.
Then Merriman was leaving, and Claire felt a sense of something almost like bereavement. He nodded to Emerson. “Good day, Miss Roth. I’m sorry to have upset you.”
As soon as he was out of the gate, Emerson slammed it behind him.
“Em! Why were you so hateful?” Claire protested.
“He’s a nice man. He really is.”
“Nice?” Emerson fumed. “Those men are treacherous. They want to ruin us.”
Claire shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t believe that about him. I won’t.”
“You will when you know the truth. Come inside. Nana’s got to hear this. We need to have a council of war.”
“War?” Claire echoed, horrified.
“Yes.” Emerson said it with ferocious conviction. “War.”
“GOOD GOD,” Merriman complained, “what did you do to that woman? What did you say to her?”
As the car passed through the gates to the estate, rain began to fall in fat, cold drops. Eli glowered at the sky as if even the heavens had decided to punish him. “I told her the truth.”
“What truth?” Merriman asked, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Hey, put the top up, will you?”
“I told her that Mondragon had a detective investigating them. And he found out some strange things.”
He punched the button that brought the convertible’s top up. He punched it savagely because it suited his mood. The top rose with a smooth whir.
Merriman stared at him with an expression of disgust. “A detective? You never told me that. I’m surprised she didn’t knock your block off.”
“She tried,” Eli said from between his teeth. He still remembered how swiftly she’d drawn her hand back to slap him. And his feet hurt from walking on burrs. He was still barefoot, his feet scratched and bleeding.
“I don’t blame her,” Merriman said. “Why’d you tell her? It was sure to rile her.”
“I had to tell her so she’d stop trying to stonewall me,” Eli said. The car clattered over the rusted metal bridge.
“She doesn’t like it, but I’ve got her where I want her, and she knows it. That’s why she’s mad.”
“Great. I was just starting to get somewhere with the sister, and you make me seem like a…spy or something.” Merriman swore and stared glumly out at the rain.
Eli frowned at him. “Get somewhere with her? You mean you were actually getting information out of her?”
Merriman shot him a dirty look. “I don’t want information. I like her. I’ve never met anybody like her. And now you’ve queered it. She’ll think I’m a weasel.”
Eli grimaced in disbelief. “You like her? You’re supposed to be a professional. We’re here on a story. She’s part of it. If she talked to you, what in hell did she say?”
“We talked about flowers. I patted her cat. She seemed to trust me, but now—”
“You petted her cat? You talked about flowers? Does the word journalism have no meaning for you?”
“I’m just the guy who takes pictures. You’re the investigator.”
“Before you saw the broad, you were singing a different song,” Eli accused.
“She’s not a broad,” Merriman retorted. “She’s a lady. Now I’ll probably never see her again—thanks to you.”
