Tempting Fate. Carla Neggers
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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