“They’re not talking.”
“They’re not getting bail, either.”
They talked about the case for some time, each posing theories on the who and the why, and then Alec said, “Don’t you have things to do? Like giving speeches and getting back to D.C.?”
“Yes, I do, but I can stay one, maybe two more nights. I’ll call you when I need someone to take over. Probably the day after tomorrow.”
“What about Brick taking—”
“Hell no,” Sam said quickly. “I don’t think he’s qualified.”
“Are you kidding me? He was in Special Forces,” he reminded Sam.
“Got to go, Alec. Talk to you soon.”
Alec was still talking when Sam disconnected the call.
He made sure all the doors were locked and went upstairs to get ready for bed.
He was coming out of the bathroom when Lyra opened her bedroom door. “I forgot to tell you where the towels are.”
“I found them.”
“Good night then.”
She stepped back to close the door, but he was walking toward her. His chest was bare, and he wore only his khaki pants, but it didn’t seem to matter whether he was fully clothed or wore nothing at all: he took her breath away. Backing her into her room, he quietly shut the door behind him.
She shook her head. “We can’t sleep together in Gigi’s house.”
“We can be quiet.”
He pulled her into his arms and slid his hand behind her neck, gently twisting her hair in his fist. He forced her chin up as his mouth covered hers. His tongue swept inside and rubbed against hers.
Her resistance was dissolving, but she found enough strength to say, “No, we shouldn’t …”
“Okay, we won’t.”
He was nibbling on her neck, sending shivers all the way to her toes. She put her palms against his chest, but his kisses became more demanding and more arousing. She couldn’t be certain who removed her pajamas. She thought she had done it, but Sam might have helped.
His mouth slanted over hers again and again, and he groaned when her soft br**sts rubbed against him. When his caresses became more intimate, she tugged on his hair and begged him to stop tormenting her.
“Take me to bed,” she demanded.
Twice he had to quiet her with his mouth as she cl**axed. His own release was so powerful, his entire body tightened against her. He wanted to shout her name, but he groaned against her neck instead.
Long minutes passed as they clung to each other. Then Sam gently kissed her brow, whispered good night, and left her.
Lyra heard water running. Deep inside, she felt a longing. She knew he would go back to the guest room, but she wished he would sleep with her.
It suddenly dawned on her that these were the thoughts of someone who was needy. Not good, she told herself. Not good at all. She didn’t want to go to sleep worrying about such things, so instead, she focused on the positive. She thought about his smile and how it made her want to sigh, and the way he watched out for her, and how calm he was in the face of disaster.
She was drifting off to sleep when Sam slipped into bed beside her. She opened her eyes slightly. His gun was on the bedside table, which meant he was there for the night. Feeling his arms around her, she fell asleep with a smile.
———
LYRA WOKE UP to pounding. For a second she thought it was an earthquake; the house felt as though it was moving. She bolted up in bed and looked around for Sam, but he wasn’t there. She cleared her head enough to realize the pounding had a rhythm to it. Someone was downstairs making all the noise.
Oh, no. What was Gigi having Harlan do now? She had enough shelves to open a shoe store. He couldn’t be building more, could he?
If Lyra and Gigi were home alone, she would have gone downstairs in her robe, but Gigi would have heart failure if Lyra wasn’t dressed for the day with two men in the house. Muttering to herself, she took a shower and got dressed in a navy skirt and white blouse. She was just starting down as Sam was coming up to get her. He had a goofy grin on his face.
Immediately suspicious, she said, “What?”
He shook his head. “Come see.”
Lyra followed the pounding and found Harlan smashing a giant hole in Gigi’s bedroom wall. He’d hung a clear plastic drape to keep the dust and drywall inside his work area. Spotting Lyra, he lifted his mask and waved, then went back to work.
Lyra stood as though in a stupor for a few seconds before abruptly turning and going into the kitchen. She was pouring herself a glass of orange juice when Gigi walked in.
“Good morning. You slept late today. It’s almost nine.”
Sam was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Lyra pulled out a chair and sat, but she didn’t stay there long.
“Is Harlan building more shelves?” she asked.
“No, dear. It’s my panic room.”
Lyra nearly knocked the glass of juice over when she shot up. “What? A what?”
“A panic room. Surely you know what those are.”
Lyra dropped into her chair and looked up at Sam.
He folded his arms across his chest and said, “I tried to explain to your grandmother that she might be overreacting to the news she heard yesterday …”
You think? she wanted to say.
She looked across the table at Gigi waiting anxiously for her opinion. “I think it’s a great idea,” Lyra said.
Gigi nodded. “There you are, Sam. She agrees with me.” Smiling, she went to see how Harlan was doing.
Sam pulled out a chair, straddled it, and stacked his hands across the back. He leaned in and stated, “A panic room.”
“Yes, I know. And why not? Yes, this house is small, but Gigi’s bedroom is good-sized, and she has a closet she doesn’t need, so why not build a panic room? It will make her feel safer.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and started to laugh. “In a little while, I’ve got to go next door and terrorize an old lady into confessing that she’s killing Gigi’s flowers. Don’t know why I was so surprised by a panic room. I should have taken it all in stride after hearing about the holy water.”
Gigi poked her head in the doorway. “Do you want some toast, Lyra? Sam?”
“No thanks.”
“Sam, dear, did you tell Lyra the news?”
“I was just about to.”
Gigi disappeared down the hall, and he turned back to Lyra. “There’s more news?” she asked. “What else is Harlan building?”
“Your brothers called Gigi. They want her to come home. I assume that’s the ranch. Your brothers heard about the break-in … everything, actually.”
“How did they hear? Who told them?”
Before she could become outraged, Sam said, “Two FBI agents appeared at their doorstep and took the boxes, remember?”
“Did they have to tell my brothers?”
“If they wanted the boxes, yeah, they did. They couldn’t just stroll out of there with your property without a reason.”
“I should have called them.”
“Gigi said they’ll be calling here again.”
“I can handle them,” Lyra assured Sam. She knew she was facing a long argument. They were her older brothers, and they couldn’t come to grips with the fact that she had grown up and could make her own decisions.
“There’s a little more news,” Sam said as Gigi returned carrying an empty coffee cup. An uncomfortable glance passed between them.
Uh-oh. “What is it?”
Gigi answered. “Your parents have heard that there’s trouble.”
Her shoulders slumped. “How did they find out?”
“Your father called the ranch while the FBI agents were there, and the housekeeper told him. He and your mother are coming here this afternoon.”
Gigi and Sam waited for Lyra to react. She said nothing, but the blood was rising in her face and her jaw was clenched. Slowly she pushed her chair back and stood. As she was walking out of the kitchen, Sam asked, “Where are you going?”
She didn’t look back when she answered. “To tell Harlan he should hurry up with that panic room.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
MRS. EDITH CASTMAN FOLDED LIKE A HOUSE OF CARDS. She was outside tending her flowers, so Sam didn’t have to knock on her door and identify himself as an FBI agent. Instead, he casually strolled into her yard, his gun conveniently covered by his navy blue sweatshirt. He complimented her flowers, told her he was a bit of a gardener himself, but certainly not as good as she was, and he would love some tips.
She looked at him suspiciously. “You a foreigner?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not here to take a job away from an American, are you?”
“No, I’m not.
She took off her glasses and wiped the lenses with her apron. The wrinkles that extended from her nostrils to her chin were deep craters, and her mouth seemed to be permanently downturned. It took only a second for Sam to size her up: Mrs. Castman was an unhappy woman.
The flowers, she explained, were her pride and joy because they never talked back.
Having no wish to hear a more detailed explanation, he nodded, pretending to understand.
“Not everyone can grow flowers like I do,” she bragged. “Just look at those burned-up flowers next door. Never even came to bloom.”
“They do look pretty bad,” he agreed.
“They’re not bad; they’re dead.” She snickered and lowered her voice. “The woman living there poured holy water on her flowers because she thought that’s what I did.”
Mrs. Castman wasn’t just unhappy, Sam decided. She was mean-spirited, the kind of woman who enjoyed watching other people suffer.
“Wow, look at those!” he said, pointing to some purple flowers. He wanted to draw her back to her garden. “I’ve never seen anything so full of blooms. You have an amazing touch. I’d give anything if I could get results half as beautiful in my garden.”
“Are you going back to your foreign country?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll show you what I use to grow my flowers. I wouldn’t tell you if you were staying around here. I can’t have you competing.”
Harlan was putting sheets of drywall in the back of his truck when Mrs. Castman and Sam walked into her backyard. He wasn’t there by accident. Sam had asked him to hang around as a witness in case the situation came down to Sam’s word against hers.
“That young man is inside that woman’s house all the time,” she said under her breath as she nodded toward Harlan. “I know something’s going on, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m just thankful I won’t have to live next door much longer. I’m moving back to Pennsylvania in the fall. I’ve already sold my house to a young couple. You can be sure I didn’t mention the carrying-on next door when they were looking at my house.”
Sam knew Gigi would be happy to learn that Mrs. Castman would be moving. He followed her through her tiny backyard and waited while she opened her garage door. The light streamed in and Mrs. Castman set the watering can she was carrying on a bench. The odor of soil and fertilizer hung in the stagnant air. Gardening tools were strewn on an old table. Bags of fertilizer lay on the concrete floor, and bottles of liquid fertilizer and pesticides were lined up on the shelves on the wall.
“I use a special mixture of fertilizers,” she confided as she reached for one of the bottles. “It’s my secret formula,” she added with a fiendish grin that reminded Sam of an old silent movie about a mad scientist.
As she poured liquid from several bottles into a bucket, Sam stepped to the side. In plain sight was a black bottle with the words “Perma-Kill” on it.
He picked up the bottle, held it toward her, and asked quite pleasantly, “Did you use this herbicide on your neighbor’s flowers, or did you just mix it into the soil?”
Mrs. Castman’s hand went to her throat. “What? What are you talking about?”
She reached for the bottle, but Sam held it away from her as he read the warning on it. “Caution. If Perma-Kill is absorbed by the soil, it can kill all vegetation for up to a year.” He looked back at the woman’s shocked face. “So you had to reapply this to Mrs. Prescott’s garden each year, did you?”
“You have no right to poke through my things!” she shouted.
“It’s in plain sight,” Sam countered, “and you invited me in. Isn’t that right, Harlan?”
At that moment, Harlan stepped around the corner and stood in the open doorway.
“But I …” she stammered. “I didn’t …”
“Oh, but I think you did, Mrs. Castman. There could be witnesses, you know,” Sam said, suggesting that he already knew of some. He pulled out his badge. “You have the right….”
“Wait, wait. What do you mean, I have the right? Are you a policeman?”
“FBI.”
She took a deep indrawn breath, and Sam could almost see her mind racing as her eyes darted back and forth. “I didn’t break any laws. Did that woman say I did? Did she call you? Don’t you have better things to do than arrest a poor, elderly woman who only wants—”
“You want to know how many laws you’ve broken? Let’s start with trespassing and vandalism and—”
“All right. All right. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“By what?” he asked, hoping she’d admit what she had done.
“I noticed her flowers were dry, so I … They would have died anyway … I don’t want to go to jail,” she cried. “What can I do to make this up?”
Sam pretended to think about the problem. “I should take you in,” he said. “Your neighbor’s yard will have to be torn up, and all that contaminated dirt will have to be hauled away. Then there’s the cost of hauling in new dirt and flowers for planting—”
“I’ll pay,” she rushed on. “I’ll do the right thing here. I’ll have it all replaced.”
He nodded. “Okay, but I’m warning you, you step one foot in your neighbor’s yard and you’re going to jail.”
As Mrs. Castman hurried into her house to make the call to the nursery, Sam walked back to Gigi’s. Harlan stood by the kitchen door waiting.
“Thanks, Harlan.”
“I didn’t do anything to help.”
“Mrs. Castman knows you heard her admit what she did. If she causes any more trouble, you call the police.”