Tempting Fate (7 page)

But Kate's expression suddenly turned serious. “Dani, are you sure you know what you're doing?”

She smiled. “No.”

“Look—”

“It's okay, Kate. I don't know exactly why I'm going this year. It's true my grandfather and I have maintained an undeclared cease-fire in the last few years—mainly by each pretending the other doesn't exist. But it's August in Saratoga, and I'm here. I can't ignore that I'm half Chandler.” She paused. “Neither can my grandfather.”

Kate stared at her for a few seconds, then threw up her hands. “Go for a little dress. You'll look great.”

Not long after Kate left, Dani headed to her attic and pulled the string attached to the naked seventy-five-watt bulb at the top of the steep stairs. The air was hot and musty, the rough wood floors crowded with old kites and abandoned projects, college textbooks on subjects she barely remembered taking and a thousand-piece puzzle of a castle in Germany she and Mattie had put together one rainy July weekend. There was a vase she'd made in the first grade from an old liquid-detergent bottle for Mother's Day; she had no idea how it had landed in Saratoga.

It was an attic of memories, but most attics were.

Pushing past overflowing cardboard boxes, she knelt on the dusty floor in front of a huge old Saratoga trunk. It had belonged to her great-great-grandmother, the intrepid Louisa Caldwell Pembroke. She'd been a survivor. Just twenty when she'd married Ulysses, she'd never been a real part of the extravagance—the notorious capitalistic excesses—of Saratoga in the last decade of the nineteenth century. But she'd fallen in love with a gambler, had known Diamond Jim Brady, the onetime bellhop who'd become a millionaire, and Lillian Russell, the voluptuous singer whose cocker spaniel Mooksie had a collar made of diamonds and gold. Louisa had been in Saratoga when Joseph Pulitzer sent Elizabeth Cochrane—“Nellie Bly”—to the upstate spa to write her famous exposés for his New York newspaper. One had been on Ulysses Pembroke's oddball, money-eating estate.

The Saratoga trunk was now a valuable antique. Train conductors had despised their curved lids because they made stacking them difficult.

Dani threw open the trunk. On top was the frayed, moth-eaten fox stole Mattie Witt had worn in
The Gamblers
. It'd probably sell for a fortune. Gently pushing it aside, Dani dug through layers of dresses, scarves, old shoes, gloves, crushed hats. Things from Mattie, things from her mother. She felt the tears on her cheeks and angrily brushed them away. She had no business crying. The past was the past. She'd carved out a niche for herself separate from the self-destructive Pembrokes, the celebrated Mattie Witt, the lost Lilli Chandler Pembroke. She'd moved forward with her life and had learned to live in the present.

She'd learned to stay out of attics.

Refusing to knuckle under to self-pity, she got on with her task.

Deep in the trunk, she found the dress.

It was red and sleek and perfect. Mattie had worn it in
Tiger's Eye,
the movie that had transformed her from an overnight sensation into a star.

Dani dug even deeper and produced the ostrich plume.

Rolling back on her heels, she held it up to the dim light. I must be out of my mind. Dyed red to match the dress, it was an integral part of Mattie's glamorous look. Dani had never in her life worn a feather in her hair.

It's my Pembroke genes. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

And she couldn't stop herself.

The plume was squashed from having been stuffed in the trunk, but otherwise in good shape.

Would anyone at the Chandler lawn party recognize it?

Oh, yes.

In her unforgettable scene in
Casino,
Lilli Chandler Pembroke had worn Mattie's ostrich plume. Nick had said she'd meant it as a tribute to her mother-in-law, a symbol of independence and freedom to Lilli and to millions of women.

Maybe Kate was right, Dani thought, and she ought to dust off her checkbook and go to town and buy a dress.

If no one else recognized the dress Mattie Witt had worn in one of her most famous roles, the feather she and Lilli both had worn, the Chandlers certainly would. And they'd know—as perhaps Dani meant them to know—that it was yet another of her attempts to force them to confront their image of who she was. To remind them she'd always fight that image. To show them she was determined, and would remain determined, to be herself.

She closed the lid of the trunk and rose stiffly, then pulled the string on the lightbulb and carried the dress and ostrich plume downstairs. She got a hanger from her closet, shook the dress out and hung it on a curtain rod in the bedroom window. Perhaps the clear light of day would make her change her mind.

It'd have to be cleaned. And she'd have to buy shoes. Preferably red. No. Definitely red.

She could wear her gold key with it. Maybe the scarred old brass one, too.

Eyeing it, she debated. Had the clear light of day helped her change her mind?

Nah. It was a great dress.

As far as Zeke could tell, the Pembroke “experience” could be anything from quiet, healthy luxury with a nutty twist to something approaching marine boot camp.

He didn't care. He just wanted his experience to be brief.

He'd been put in a small room on the third floor with twelve-foot ceilings, a window seat, rose-flowered wallpaper and a jewel-colored crazy quilt on a brass queen-size bed. There was a marble-topped dresser and a needlepoint-cushioned chair he didn't think he was supposed to sit on.

There was no beer in the tiny refrigerator, just a six-pack of Pembroke Springs Natural Orange Soda. He opened up a bottle. It was clear glass with a pale green label featuring a kite floating above a stand of birches. What kites and birches had to do with natural soda Zeke didn't even want to speculate. He took a sip. It wasn't as syrupy as regular orange soda, but it was still soda.

He examined a brochure. If he wanted to, he could take hang gliding lessons, climb rocks or show up on the front lawn at the crack of dawn for a hot-air balloon ride. There were quilting bees on the “north porch.” Nature walks. Kite-making and kite-flying lessons. Tubing expeditions on the Batten Kill. “Handson workshops” in the many flower, herb and vegetable gardens. Zeke took them to be weeding sessions. He could soak in mud if he wanted to. Get scrubbed, clipped, polished, deep cleaned and massaged. He could jog. Ride a bike. Climb a mountain. Tour Saratoga. Go to the races. Shop. Take in a concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, a lecture at Skidmore College.

He could, if he chose, pick wild blueberries and make his own jam.

Only a Pembroke could get people to pay good money to do something they could do for free. Did Dani Pembroke have her guests do their own sheets as well? Beat them against rocks like in the old days?

Quite a place, the Pembroke.

He called Sam Lincoln Jones in San Diego. “Sam, if you've got some time on your hands, mind doing me a favor?”

“Been figuring you'd call.”

“Always a step ahead. Could you check out what Nick Pembroke's up to these days? I think he's still alive.”

“I'll look him up and let you know. Where are you?”

Zeke told him.

Naturally Sam had heard of the place. He chuckled. “Going to sign up for croquet?”

After he hung up, Zeke headed into the bathroom, which was small but cozy. The fluffy white towels were monogrammed with the same ornate P that was engraved on his soda bottle. On the back of the john was a basket of glycerin soaps, bath gels, bath salts, lotions, shampoos. He turned the water on in the tub, which was up on legs. Homey. Feeling reckless, he dumped an envelope of bath salts into the hot water and watched them dissolve.

Croquet and jam making, he thought.

He just couldn't wait to meet Dani Pembroke.

T
ucking her box of brand-new red shoes under one arm, Dani headed up to her bedroom, exhausted. She swore she'd rather scale Pikes Peak than go shopping for shoes. She'd tried downtown Saratoga first, where one could find handmade jewelry, fine wines, expensive antiques, art supplies, adorable children's outfits, fancy toys, homemade pastries and chocolates, fresh pasta, health food, Victoriana, nice clothes. Everything, it seemed, but a pair of size-six shoes that matched Mattie Witt's red ostrich plume. She'd finally had to drive south of town to a shoe outlet. The red was an exact match, but the heels were three inches high. Fortunately she'd only have to wear them a few hours.

Presumably it would have been simpler just to buy a new dress. Or to wear her all-purpose black pumps. But, in for a penny, in for a pound.

A long, relaxing bath, however, was in order.

Her only bathroom was downstairs, which meant fetching her robe from upstairs. In renovating the main house, she and her architects had become quite clever at finding places for bathrooms where there were no obvious places. Space wasn't the problem at the cottage; the problem was getting around to the job. An upstairs bath just wasn't a pressing need.

She stopped hard at her bedroom door, clutching the shoe box.

Holding her breath, she stared, frozen, at the mess.

Someone had removed all the drawers from her bureau, dumped them out on the floor and tossed them aside. Her underwear, her nightgowns, her socks, her T-shirts—the entire contents of her bureau were scattered and thrown everywhere. Her mattress was torn halfway off the bed frame, blankets and sheets in a heap under the window. The curtains billowed in a strong afternoon breeze. She could hear birds twittering in her garden.

Her heart pounded.
Mattie's dress…

It was there, in a ball beside Dani's bed.

Clothes and shoes spilled from her ransacked closet. The antique shaker box she used for jewelry was turned over, empty, on top of her bureau.

Slowly and carefully, intensely aware of what she was doing, she withdrew one of her red high heels from its shoe box and held it by the toe, its lethal three-inch heel pointed out.

“Hello?”

Despite her constricted throat, her voice sounded eerily calm in the silent house. She could hear the faint laugh of Pembroke guests in the distance.

Naturally there was no answer.

What a stupid thing to say, she thought. She'd been mugged once in New York. A decidedly unpleasant experience. But it had happened outside, on a street far from her own familiar neighborhood, and it had been quick. Give me your money. Okay, here you go. The mugger leaves, you call the police. Nothing they can do. You go home, open a bottle of wine, call some friends, complain about New York's crime rate. Scary and nothing you'd want to repeat, but different—very different—from having someone walk into your home and go through your personal belongings.

Very different, she thought, from having to guess, heart thumping, whether or not the thief was still around.

“Look, I don't want any trouble.” She sounded controlled but not belligerent, at least to her own ears. “If you're still here, wait just a second and I'll go down into the kitchen and you can leave. Okay?”

Still no response.

But she did as she said. She set the shoe box on the floor, took her one high heel with her and made sure her footsteps were loud on the stairs. She started to run when she hit the living room, but made herself stop in the kitchen. Should she keep running? But what if the thief was lurking in the garden? What if he followed her?

She turned on the radio so the burglar would know she'd kept her word. She was in the kitchen. She'd give him a chance to get out the front door.

Should I call Ira? The police?

So they could come and scrape her off the floor after the thief had figured out she'd tried to trick him?

Most likely the burglar had taken off already. Or was outside waiting to make his escape. Surely if he were inside, he'd have made his presence known by now.

Dani switched off the radio and listened past the sound of blood pounding in her ears and the blue jays chasing off the sparrows in her garden.

“Okay.” She tried to project her voice without yelling. “I'm coming back upstairs.”

If he was in the garden, he'd hear her and make good his escape. Which was just fine with her. If he was hiding in the living room, he could sneak out while she was upstairs. If he was in the kitchen—

Swallowing hard, she resisted the urge to look around. If he was stuffed in the broom closet, best to give him a chance to leave quietly.

What if the bastard was upstairs?

He wasn't. Of all her choices, going back up to her bedroom scared her the least. She'd just come from there, and nothing had happened.

She debated taking one of the knives she'd ordered from a company that advertised during a late-night television show she watched when she was suffering through a bout of insomnia. Kate hated the knives. “You get what you pay for,” she'd said.

Never mind, she thought. She had her shoe.

She repeated her words in the living room, again on the stairs, again on the landing, and one last time as she approached her bedroom door. Whoever had trashed the bedroom had to have gone by now. She was just being dramatic.

But she heard a sound behind her. A movement.

“No, wait—”

She started to turn around—to plead, yell, jab with her high heel—but before she could do anything, she felt a hard push against her back, propelling her up and across the room like a missile. Her shoe went flying, and she was hurtling so fast her feet barely touched the floor; she couldn't control them or where she was going. Arms outstretched to brace her fall, she tripped on the edge of her mattress and fell over a pulled-out drawer, landed atop another, banged her shins and elbows and wrenched her hand. She hurt so much she didn't think to do anything but utter a loud, vicious curse.

Behind her she heard heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs.
Now
her intruder was taking off. Obviously he hadn't believed she'd keep her promise.

Groaning, aching, Dani sat a moment amidst her scattered underwear, trying to calm her wild breathing and assure herself she'd live. She wasn't hurt that badly.

Clearly the garden would have been a better choice.

The front door slammed shut, startling her. A fresh wave of adrenaline flowed through her system. Okay. At least he was gone.

She raced into Mattie's room and looked out the window but saw no one. How could her intruder disappear that fast?

Unless he hadn't.

Trying to ignore her bruises and scrapes and the throbbing in her left knee, Dani grabbed the poker from the fireplace in Mattie's room and checked everywhere, starting with the two bedrooms and the closets upstairs. She climbed up to the attic and checked it. She went downstairs and checked under the couch and in the closets and in every nook and cranny in the kitchen and pantry. She even went down to the basement and checked behind the furnace.

Nothing.

Back upstairs, her palms sweaty, her body aching, she sorted through the mess in her bedroom for what was missing. Twenty dollars in odd bills. Her canning jar of emergency change. Her sterling-silver earrings, her turquoise bracelet, a jade pin, the fetish necklace her father had sent from Arizona saying it was handmade, but for all she knew had been mass-produced in Taiwan.

Then she remembered the one piece of jewelry that she really did care about: the gold key she'd found on the cliffs.

“The bastard!”

The matching brass key was gone, too. Any relief she'd felt at not having been killed quickly transformed itself into anger. She started to pick up a drawer and throw it, but remembered her chestnut bureau was an antique and set the drawer back down.

She was furious.

This felt better than being scared.

Her thief must have seen the article on her in the paper or any of the recent publicity on the hundredth running of the Chandler Stakes. Like too many before him, he must have figured someone with a name and a family history like hers would have tons of valuables and disposable cash. That he'd been wrong was at least a small consolation.

But her keys—she'd definitely miss them.

She headed painfully back downstairs and started to call Ira, but hung up before she finished dialing. What good would calling the police or even Pembroke security do at this point? Unfortunately Saratoga in August was a stomping ground for petty thieves. Hers hadn't gotten away with much that anyone else would care about. And, in retrospect, he hadn't really tried to hurt her. He'd just been too stupid to make his getaway when he'd had the chance. Besides which, he was probably long gone by now. He had only to cut through the woods to the bottling plant or mingle with the crowds in the rose gardens and he'd be home free. She couldn't even provide a decent description of the son of a bitch.

She also didn't need that kind of publicity.

But she'd have to tell Ira a thief was skulking about the premises. As Pembroke manager, he needed to know such things. She'd tell him…later.

First she doctored the worst scrape on her shin with a dab of antibacterial goo, then put two 7.7-ounce bottles of Pembroke Springs Mineral Water into an ice bucket, filled it with ice, got out a tall glass and went out to the terrace.

Her garden was bathed in cool afternoon shade, a hummingbird darting among the hollyhocks. Dani opened a bottle of mineral water, took a sip and poured the rest in her glass. Her wrist ached. So did her elbows. Her shin plain hurt.

Setting her bottle on the umbrella table, she pulled out a chair so she could sit and think and regain her composure before she did anything.

Something moved in the garden to her left.

Adrenaline pumped through her bloodstream with such velocity that she ached even more. She flew around, hoping she was overreacting, that it was just a bird or a squirrel.

It wasn't.

A man materialized from behind the dogwood. Dani reached for her empty Pembroke Springs bottle. He was strongly built, around six feet, striking but not exactly handsome. He had very alert dark eyes and a small scar under his left eye.

He looked capable of coming at a woman half his size from behind and giving her a good shove.

“Afternoon,” he said. “I didn't think the cottage was occupied.”

Nice try. Her fingers curled around the cool neck of her green bottle. “Who are you?”

“I'd be happy to tell you if you'll think twice about throwing that bottle at me.”

But Dani had grown up in New York City and knew better than to think twice or give anyone a chance to explain something like pitching her across her own bedroom.

She whipped the bottle as hard as she could, aiming for the man's head. Before it could strike its mark, she spun around and bolted for her kitchen.

Behind her, she heard a distinct curse as the bottle hit its target or came close.

She grabbed her car keys off their hook in the kitchen and, while she was at it, the eight-inch cast-iron frying pan soaking in the sink. Water spilled out over her legs, stinging her scraped shins. She raced through the dining room and into the living room, surprised at how clearly she was thinking. She'd get to her car, head for the main house, alert security. Ira would say she should have called him or the police in the first place….

She scooted out the front door, bounded down the brick walk with her frying pan and came to the gravel driveway where she kept her very used car parked.

The man from the garden was leaning against the door on the driver's side, looking unhurt and in amazingly good humor.

Dani raised the frying pan.

“Throw that thing at me,” he said amiably, “and I'll duck. You'll break a window. Won't accomplish much. Besides, I'm harmless.”

She kept the frying pan raised high. “You don't look harmless.”

He smiled. “I consider that a gift.”

What kind of man was he? She lowered the frying pan a fraction of an inch. She thought he noticed. But it was heavy, and her wrist hurt. “Who are you, and what were you doing in my garden?”

“I didn't mean to startle you.” He hadn't moved off her car and didn't seem particularly worried that she might decide to bonk him on the head after all. It didn't appear her bottle had struck home. “My name's Zeke Cutler. I would have taken more care if I'd realized the cottage was occupied and you'd just been robbed.”

She almost dropped the frying pan. “How do you know I was just robbed?”

“A woman throwing bottles and arming herself with an iron skillet is usually a dead giveaway.” But his smile and the touch of humor in his dark, dark eyes gave way to a frown and a squint, a serious expression of determination and self-assurance. He seemed to know of what he spoke. “So are bruised wrists, skinned elbows, scraped shins.”