The Uneven Score (9 page)

“I see,” Daniel said tightly. “Do any of you know Miss McCallie?”

“Oh, sure,” Yoshifumi said, adding another nail to her coffin. “She’s a great horn player—not a Harry Stagliatti, you understand, or Paddie would have gotten her in the first place. But a few more years with Harry and she’ll be right up there with him. Even he says so, and he doesn’t have much good to say about any of his students. It’s her tone.”

“Any of his students?” Daniel asked sharply. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t know? I figured Paddie would have told you. Whitney is Harry’s top student. They’ve been together— I don’t know, ten years?”

“I see,” Daniel said again, even more tightly.

“Daniel,” Matthew Walker said, “after consulting with a few representatives of the orchestra about Dr. Paderevsky’s odd behavior, I decided perhaps I should talk to Whitney before she arrived. I called the airline and learned she’s already here in Florida. She arrived yesterday. It seems to me there’s something going on around here that I haven’t been told about. Would you happen to know anything about it?”

Whitney could hear Daniel’s heavy, irritated sigh through the solid door. “I don’t know any reason beyond overwork and Harry’s apparent walkout for any change in Dr. Paderevsky’s behavior. It seems to me we’re all on edge. Give her the weekend to relax and see what happens. As for Miss McCallie, she did arrive unexpectedly yesterday”—to say the least, Whitney thought—”and is staying here as my houseguest. I thought since she was coming on such short notice she might need a place to stay. Other than that, I don’t know what to tell you. I had no idea she and Dr. Paderevsky were friends.”

Whitney winced at the condemnation in his tone. Thanks to her comrades, she had more explaining to do than ever. She didn’t blame Daniel for being angry. He was sitting in there putting all the little pieces together and realizing just how much lying Whitney had done. But what choice had she had?

She uncrooked her back and stretched painfully. And what choice did she have now? This was no time for Whitney to abandon Paddie. Whitney could function without the respect and support of the CFSO; Paddie couldn’t, no matter what she thought.

Someone suggested Daniel fetch Whitney in to talk to them. She didn’t wait to hear his answer, but stole upstairs, knowing what she had to do. Before they dug their hole any deeper—and definitely before Whitney ended up alone and at the mercy of Daniel Graham— Paddie and Whitney had to consult. Whitney would urge Paddie to tell Daniel everything. Then they would go on from there.

But first Whitney had to get to Paddie.

“Before Daniel gets to me,” she muttered as she slipped into his bedroom.

During her search that morning, she had noted the set of keys on his dresser. She seized them now and ran quietly back downstairs, sneaking out through the front door onto the porch. When she finally did explain, she hoped Daniel would understand.

It was a sunny, warm day, and she would have liked nothing better than to sit out on a lounge chair and practice her horn and recuperate from yesterday. But, Whitney thought, duty called.

She cut around back. There were several cars parked on the blacktop, but only one, a dark green Porsche, looked like Daniel Graham. The key fit, and, after stalling out twice and wondering constantly if she was doing the right thing, off she roared.

Now, she thought glumly, Daniel had her for breaking and entering, trespassing, and car stealing. Only, of course, she wasn’t stealing, she was borrowing. She hoped their kisses had meant something after all and he was willing to make such distinctions
...
when she explained.

Orlando Community College was a gleaming, modern campus on the southeast side of the burgeoning city. Signs of new, rapid, and not always sensible growth were everywhere: housing developments, construction, shopping centers, apartment complexes, neon signs, real estate agents. Whitney found herself mysteriously longing for the signs of the old, slowed down, and not always sensible growth of upstate New York. But, she reminded herself as she parked the Porsche in the shade of an oak, there was seventeen inches of snow on the ground in Schenectady. And no Disney World.

The Porsche was a sensitive car. Her four-wheel-drive Subaru back in Schenectady was not. And that, she decided, explained why she had stalled out three times on her way over from Daniel’s place, which she had finally figured out was west of Orlando. She got lost twice, but having weary attendants at service stations explain just exactly where she was helped her find the college. Promising herself she would study the maps each of the attendants had thrust at her, Whitney finally parked the car and headed up a sidewalk flanked with azaleas and dogwoods.

The auditorium—Graham Auditorium, naturally—was connected to the main administration building. Whitney got herself yet another map from an information booth and found her way through the maze of halls. She entered the auditorium on Level B behind the last row of seats. Except for a single light which lit the unoccupied stage below, the auditorium was dark. The door behind her banged shut automatically. Whitney jumped, startled, and chastised herself for her nervousness. She’d been in dark concert halls before.

It was bigger than she had expected, deep, and, although there was no balcony, traditionally designed. The seats were cushioned and covered with a red fabric, and there were three carpeted aisles. The stage seemed to have ample room for a full-scale symphonic orchestra. Paddie’s office would be on Level A, probably somewhere behind the stage. Whitney sucked in a breath and moved silently down the steep far-right aisle.

She felt the movement behind her before she heard it. There was no time to react. Something compact and hard pressed into the small of her back. A muffled voice—eerie and without accent, neither male nor female—told her not to turn around.

“Why are you here?” the neutered voice demanded.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! Why?”

“I’m just the new horn player,” she replied carefully. That this wasn’t Daniel was beyond doubt. He of the kick-ass-and-take-names school of diplomacy would not have been able to restrain himself.

“I know who you are.” The voice was more emphatic, angry, but not louder. The hard object pressed more firmly into Whitney’s back. A gun? The point of a knife? “And I know what you’re doing. It has to stop. Do you hear me? You’ll only get hurt.”

Thank you, Paddie, Whitney thought, for telling your entire orchestra—a member of which could be a maniac— that I’m your one true friend. “Okay,” she said. “Sure. I’ll—”

Then, down below, a side door opened, light angling into the darkened abyss of the concert hall, and Daniel Graham’s voice bellowed, “McCallie? Damn it, woman, enough’s enough!”

She moaned to herself and thought,
I’m dead
.

The pressure on her back withdrew and she started to whirl around to face her attacker, but, without any warning, she was shoved forward, headlong down the aisle. Her arms and legs flailed wildly as she tried to keep her balance, but she had been pushed hard. She fell, rolling like a log, just as the overhead lights came on.

She came to a dead stop in a crumpled-up heap at Daniel’s feet.

“What in the name of hell do you think you’re doing?” he yelled, catching her by the elbows and snapping her to her feet. “Damn it, I knew you’d come here—”

“Did you see him—her—it—” She flew around as best she could in Daniel’s iron embrace. “Don’t just stand here! Let’s go after him!” 

His fingers crushed into her upper arms, and she looked back at his angry, slanted eyes. “It won’t work,” he said.

“Daniel, damn it! Someone had a gun to my back and just knocked me down and—and—” She thought of Paddie and clamped her mouth shut. Maybe Paddie was right and Daniel was the one out to ruin her. Maybe he did have Harry locked up somewhere. Maybe whoever had just attacked Whitney was working with Daniel Graham. Since when had she been any judge of character? She was far too easygoing to trust her instincts about people. “Nothing. Never mind. I just tripped.”

Daniel’s grip softened, but he didn’t release her. Instead he slowly, almost absently, massaged her upper arms. It was very distracting. Whitney forgot her doubts about him. They made less sense, were less real, than what her mind and heart were telling her now—what Daniel was telling her, without words. She began to feel warm and safe and imagined what it would be like just to lay her head on his chest and have his arms go around her back.

“Whitney,” he said quietly, “you’re lying again.”

“I’m not.”

“You get a distant look in those big blue eyes of yours when you’re telling a tale.” He brushed her cheek and gently touched his thumb to her lower lip. “No one pushed you and you didn’t trip. You came here to see your friend Dr. Paderevsky, didn’t you? We all heard you race off in my car, Whitney. Here I’m trying to calm people down and you’re stirring up trouble.”

She shrugged, noble but failed attempt to seem nonchalant. She’d just been attacked—again—and now Daniel Graham was stroking her arms and mouth and cheek and looking at her with such softness and understanding that she almost did lay her head on his chest. What would he do if she did? she wondered. What would she do?

“How did you get here?” she asked.

“Yoshifumi gave me a ride.” He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and grinned. “I’m afraid he no longer thinks I’m the perfect Southern gentleman. I cursed you rather soundly. Whitney, Whitney, who besides me would want to knock you down?”

“Exactly what I was wondering,” she said.

He laughed softly. “Whitney, Whitney.” His mouth lowered and barely touched her lips. Her pulse quickened, but it had nothing to do with fear now. He had a peculiar way of putting the attack and her lingering terror out of her mind. “You do strange things to me, Whitney McCallie,” he said, his breath warm on her mouth. He stood back, dropping his hands to his sides, and smiled. “Relax
...
there’s no one there,” he said with a nod toward the back of the auditorium.

His persistent doubt was thinly disguised. It rankled, especially after their kiss. And most especially because she had enjoyed the feel and promise of that brief contact. “Of course there isn’t now that you’ve come barreling in here!” she said tartly.

“Then you should thank me for saving your life.”

“You did not save my life—at least I don’t think you did. I never thought my life was threatened and—” She sighed, aggravated. “In any case, you didn’t mean to do anything heroic.”

“You’re right,” he admitted, unchastened. “I meant to have your head for stealing my car, but you, as usual, devised a bizarre method to distract me.?”

She wrinkled up her face. “Borrow,” she said. “I don’t steal—and I didn’t come tumbling down the aisle just to play on your sympathies. You yourself said I’m not a convincing femme fatale. Someone
did
accost me.” 

“Why would someone accost you?” he asked languidly, but not quite absently.

“Because—” She saw the trap just in time; Daniel was looking remarkably cool and alert. “How would I know? I’m the new girl in town, remember?”

“Whitney...” He raked his fingers through his hair, making it look even more wild and tousled. “We need to talk,” he added simply.

“You mean I need to talk and you’ll listen.”

“Are you always this belligerent?”

“Only when a man kisses me and accuses me of lying all within two minutes.”

“And theft, don’t forget,” he said with a small smile.

“I haven’t forgotten.”

His face broke into a grin, and she wondered how a man could be so exasperating and appealing at the same time.

“The kiss was the best part, don’t you think?” He chucked her under the chin in a gesture that was at once playful and hopelessly sensual. “You stick in a man’s mind, you know.

Whitney was beginning to feel warm all over again, which, under the circumstances, was totally inappropriate. Being around Daniel Graham was emotionally exhausting—and physically trying. She dipped her hand into her pants pocket, fished out his keys, and handed them over. “I would have left a note, but all that stuff about horn players being a dime a dozen goaded me into insane action.” When he scowled at her, she grinned unabashedly. “Am I getting a distant look in my big blue eyes?”

“Very,” he said dryly. “Do you plan to report your ‘attack’?”

“I just did,” she said lightly. “You’re the chairman of the board. If you think the police ought to be called in, call them. I wouldn’t want the orchestra to get any undue negative publicity.” Her sarcasm was not subtle. She cocked her chin up at Daniel. “Would you?”

“One difficult woman in this orchestra is enough,” he muttered.

“Humph,” Whitney said, sounding like Paddie herself. As if in spite of himself, Daniel laughed—a short, deep, sensual laugh that licked the small of Whitney’s back, erasing all memory of the pressure of that hard, threatening object. He recovered all too quickly, straightening up and looking very corporate in his immaculate suit. He was an intriguing combination of personalities, she thought: virile and utterly masculine, sensitive and thoughtful, teasing and fun. But why was she thinking of such things now?

“I think I’ll forego calling the police for now;” he said formally. “I would think whoever attacked you is long gone and you can’t provide a description. Or can you?”

Her heart skipped. “Do you or don’t you believe me?”

He smiled. “I’m keeping my options open.”

Or did he know something she didn’t know? Was he testing her? Maybe a conniving, skillful kidnapper was another facet of his personality. Oh, don’t be ridiculous! But weren’t psychopaths impossible to tell from normal people? She pushed the thought aside. She liked Daniel. And she had searched his home and office and found nothing damning.

“Whitney?”

“Hmm? Oh. Sorry. I was in a fog. No, I can’t provide a description. I never saw anyone. You don’t think— Could it have been a practical joke? Sort of an initiation or something?”

Daniel looked thoughtful, his mouth drawn straight, then twisting slowly to one side. “It’s possible,” he admitted. “Six months ago I would have said definitely not, but six months ago I didn’t know a great deal about musicians and their sense of humor. What do you think?”