Night Scents (37 page)

"Figured it couldn't be new. Well, it'll do for my purposes."

He threw off their blanket and managed to pull on his jeans without making a great deal of noise. Skills learned in his youth, Piper thought. There was so much she still needed to learn about him,
wanted to
learn.

She heard his fly zip, then came the flash of his grin as he kissed her. "Wait here. I'll be back."

He crawled to the end of the tent, unzipped the screen flap, and was out.

Piper pulled on Liddy's jeans and sweatshirt, grabbed the flashlight—a serviceable weapon in a pinch—and slipped out after him. The order for her to wait was just a reflex on his part, she rationalized; if he thought about it, he'd assume she'd pay no attention.

The stars and nearly full moon cast the landscape in a silvery light that produced long, eerie shadows across gardens, lawn, and marsh. She could see well enough to make out Clate's glare when she caught up with him after a few steps.

But she saw the dark silhouette down toward the hedgerow and pointed.

The moonlight, their shifting shadows, must have given them away. The figure went still for a breath, said nothing, then bolted.

Clate Jackson's was not a subtle temperament. He shouted, "Hey! Hold on!"

He didn't wait for an answer. Using his sprinter's body to advantage, he shot down across her meadow with his antique whalebone knitting needle tight in his fist. Piper didn't dare turn on her flashlight in case it blinded him or startled him and threw him off his stride, tripped him up in any way.

She followed at a half run, her mind reeling. Who were they chasing? A man. Definitely. She hadn't made out his face, couldn't put a name to the thick body she'd seen silhouetted against the night sky. It was someone, obviously, who didn't want to deal with Clate Jackson.

A stitch in her side slowed her down. Too much stress, not enough sleep and proper food. Should she run up to Clate's house and call the police? She didn't know if her own phones were working. What if whoever was out there managed to elude Clate and came after her instead? Suddenly her flashlight seemed less like a suitable weapon. She wished she had the knitting needle. But cowering in her tent would have been worse. At least out here she had room to run, if necessary.

The dark figure slipped through the break in the hedgerow. Clate streaked after him. Piper hesitated for a beat, debating her options. She spotted a shovel cast off on the path, picked it up along with the flashlight, then followed the two men through the hedges.

Two yards ahead, Clate already had the man on the ground and the knitting needle up against his captive's eyeball. "Don't move. Got it?"

Piper jerked to a dead stop, gulped in air as she stared down in shock. "Tuck!"

Tuck O'Rourke remained focused on Clate and his knitting needle. "I didn't do anything." His voice was near panic. "I swear."

Clate rose, his knitting needle at the ready. "Up on your feet, O'Rourke. One wrong move, and I'm cutting loose."

"All right, all right. Jesus." Tuck climbed unsteadily to his feet. His breathing was ragged, and he wiped a big hand across his mouth and beard as he kept a wary eye on Clate. "You're one crazy bastard, you know?"

"My chief asset in business. Now, turn around and walk— slowly—up to the house. We'll call the police, and you can explain to them."

Piper laid Tuck's shovel on her shoulder and followed the two men up the sloping lawn. Some pieces started fitting into place, others didn't. "Why was he digging in my yard? Why not over here?"

Clate answered. "Hell if I know."

Tuck snorted ahead of them. "Because I listened to your lunatic aunt, that's why."

"Hannah?" Piper asked, mystified.

"Yes, Hannah," Tuck growled in disgust. "Hell. I should have known never to listen to anything that crazy bitch says. She told me on my way out last night that you'd found an old map in the wall of your house after the fire—"

"I didn't find any map."

"No shit. If I'd been thinking straight, I'd have realized she was telling me a lie, setting me up. She said the treasure had been moved into your yard, that it was buried down at the end of the hedges."

Piper held her shock in check. That explained Hannah's troubled look as she'd left last night. Something had made her suspect Tuck—something he'd said, something she'd dreamed up —and she'd made up the map to manipulate him into coming out here tonight.

"Crazy bitch," Tuck repeated under his breath.

"We can't all be crazy," Clate said in that easy southern drawl, but he glanced at Piper and shook his head as if to reconsider his statement. "It would have been nice if she'd warned us."

"She tried, but she didn't have a chance," Piper said. "Too many people around who'd have argued with her and blown the setup, alerted Tuck that she was on to him. There's not much room to maneuver in my family. You either tell all, or you keep your mouth shut. If she tried to call after everyone was gone, well, we were in the tent."

Clate didn't look particularly satisfied. "Just keep moving, O'Rourke."

"You're lucky I'm cooperating. I outweigh you by fifty pounds. I could take you down."

"Maybe," Clate said calmly, "but I have my knitting needle, and Piper, here, she has your shovel. I'm sure she wouldn't need much of a reason to hit you over the head with it. You almost got her killed yesterday."

Tuck's step faltered. "That wasn't me." His voice was strangled, less cocky, but he talked fast, panicked. "I didn't do anything but try to get to the treasure before you did. My daddy told me about it. He'd heard talk from back after the shipwreck, only he didn't believe it. When I started working here, I put two and two together, figured Piper was after the treasure, and—"

"And you decided to get to it first."

"Yeah. But I just snuck over and dug that one time, when you thought it might have been her or animals. Then now."

"In the meantime, you terrorized her to keep her from digging on her own."

He stopped, turned. His big, amiable face was pale under his beard. "No. I didn't. Look, I don't see eye to eye with the Macintosh bunch. Andrew and Benjamin didn't think I was good enough to date their little sister. Well, screw them. Screw her. If I could get my hands on the Macintosh treasure, I'd hock it and bank the money. I'm not saying I wouldn't. But I didn't make those phone calls, and I didn't try to burn down her house."

Clate was unmoved. "Tell it to the police."

Twenty minutes later, he did. Ernie himself turned up at the police station and listened to what happened from Tuck's point of view, Clatc's, and Piper's. Tuck, waiving his right to an attorney, maintained he'd done nothing more nefarious than trespass.

Ernie sent him home. "Hell, he could just say he was out digging clams," he told Piper and Clate. "Look, go home. Get some rest. We'll sort this out in the morning."

One the way home, Clate had such a tight grip on the steering wheel of his expensive leased car that his knuckles turned white. Piper settled back in the comfortable seat, wishing away her fatigue and confusion and yet determined to look with clear eyes at what was in front of her. "Ernie's right. Tuck's not our guy."

"Agreed."

"At least he's not
the
guy." She breathed out, suddenly feeling exhausted. "I think he's telling the truth. I wonder if Hannah— what tipped her off. He must have said something and she just took the bull by the horns, told him that phony story about the map, and prodded him into coming out here."

Clate glanced at her. "No question, Piper. You and your aunt are related."

When they got back to his house, they discovered that Hannah had indeed called while they were off pitching their tent. In Hannah's crisp, confident voice on Clate's answering machine was her warning: "I think you'd better expect company in Piper's yard tonight."

Clate stared at the machine. "Has she always been like this?"

"Pretty much. She's just less likely to second-guess herself these days."

"Why didn't she try calling again if she got the machine?"

"I expect she figured we were...indisposed."

He grinned then, some of the intensity and anger easing. "So we were. Tired?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep now. Maybe I'll just make coffee and do some work in my studio. I'd bake bread if I had a kitchen. I think I'll—I don't know, maybe I'll make potpourri."

He glanced over at her. It wasn't yet dawn. But he seemed to understand. "Go to your studio, Piper. I'll bring the coffee."

Chapter 17

Piper's day filled up with her insurance adjuster, a quick trip out of town to a real store for basics, and explanations to her father and brothers about what had happened the night before. They were furious Hannah had set a trap for Tuck without mentioning it to anyone. If she'd waited, they might have caught Tuck at more than carrying a shovel across Piper's yard. As it was, the police had released him. Tuck was making noises about pressing charges against Clate for threatening him with a knitting needle, and he wanted his shovel back.

Hannah, however, was unrepentant. She'd told Ernie as much as she intended to tell him, and the rest she told Piper when she finally was able to get over to see her aunt late in the afternoon. Hannah served her lemonade—ordinary, fresh-squeezed lemonade —on her deck. "Frankly," she said, "I was afraid Tuck would end up getting himself hurt if he wasn't stopped."

Piper tried her lemonade; it wasn't very sweet. "Then you don't think he's responsible for the calls?"

"Nor did he poison my springwater, steal the herbs from my— Clate's garden, put the tincture on Stan Carlucci's doorstep, or set your house on fire. That," she said emphatically as she settled back in her chair on her deck, "was someone else." She inhaled deeply, shutting her eyes as she settled back in her deck chair, fatigue visibly washing over her. "Ernie put me through the wringer, you know."

"I'm sorry, Hannah. If you were just a regular old lady, nobody'd never dream of suspecting you."

Her eyes popped open. "I
am
a regular old lady."

This from a woman in a nineteenth-century yellow calico dress.

"Piper Macintosh, I'll have you know that I am what eighty-seven looks like. I'm no different now than I was at forty-seven. I'm just more focused in my energies, and I know more about the things I take pleasure in doing, and about myself, and I don't bother trying to hide who I am in case someone might not like me. And,"she added emphatically, "I'm more aware of how many time I have left." She gave a small smile. "And how much. When you're eighty-seven, eternity stretches before you."

Piper didn't want to think about eternity right now; she was more concerned with the here and now. "Were the police satisfied?"

"That I'm not terrorizing you and setting houses on fire, I think so. They're not convinced I didn't poison myself accidentally, and Ernie—I remember when his mother was born, the nerve of him— had the audacity to suggest that I'm using your troubles to cover my tracks with Stan Carlucci." She sniffed. "Just how devious do they think I am?"

"Pretty devious, Hannah."

Her deep, beautiful, old green eyes sparkled. "I don't know. I think I like being considered devious."