By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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to the refrigerator, Piper took a cookie off the cooling rack. “I’ll be fine. I just …”
“What?”
She turned back to face her aunt, cookie in one hand and a pitcher of cream in the other. “I just want my life to go back to normal. Is that so much to ask?”
Vi took the cream and placed it on the cart. Then she met Piper’s eyes. “And what would normal be?”
“My job. My routine. Everything was fine until … dammit.” She bit into the cookie, and barely tasted it.
Vi said nothing.
Piper took another bite of cookie, then set it on the counter. “Your cookies used to fix everything,” she complained.
Vi stepped forward then and ran a hand down her niece’s hair. “What is it you want to fix?”
“I liked my life just fine. It was exactly the way I wanted it to be. Everything was on track. Until the Lightman case. But I was going to handle that. I still can. But seeing Duncan again has mixed up everything, and I’ve just made it worse.”
Vi took her hands. “How have you made it worse?”
“I just wanted him so much. He wanted me, too. So I came up with a plan that would solve the problem. We’re adults, so why shouldn’t we have this temporary arrangement? No promises, no strings. It was working. It was great.”
“Until …?” Vi prompted.
“I kissed him in the stone arch.” There. She’d said it. Vi squeezed her hands. “And you think he’s your true love.”
“No.” But wasn’t that exactly what she was afraid of?
Don’t panic.
“He can’t be. What we feel for each other is desire.” Something that red-hot and primal couldn’t be love. “It’s chemistry. It’ll go away. In the meantime, I told Duncan we have to stop. I mean, it would be dangerous to keep indulging ourselves when there’s so much at stake.”
Vi nodded. “Yes, the biggest stakes of all. You’re afraid of losing your heart. Do you know how Duncan feels?”
“No.” Panic surged. “But he agrees with me that we need to step back. Quit while we’re ahead.”
“He said that to you?”
She lifted her chin. “Actions speak as loudly as words.”
Vi placed a hand on Piper’s cheek. “Even when you were little, you always had the best arguments. I wish I had a dollar for everything you ever talked me out of.”
Piper frowned at her. “What are you saying?”
Vi smiled at her. “That you’ll figure this all out. And when you come up with a solution that satisfies you, you’ll convince him.”
“FRESH BAKED COOKIES,” Vi announced as she and Piper entered the main parlor with the tea cart. By the time she had filled the cups, the men had joined them. Daryl sat on the love seat next to Vi. Piper sat on the sofa. And as Duncan pulled out the desk chair and placed it closer to the tea cart, something tightened around her heart. Oh, he’d heard her argument loud and clear. He was keeping his distance, and he looked perfectly happy to do so.
She tried another cookie. Chocolate chip were her favorite, but they tasted like sawdust. She’d made the right decision, she told herself. Break it off before it could get riskier.
And just as soon as they figured out how to put Lightman back in jail and how to stop the crazy person who was sending her flowers, they could both go back to D.C. and make a clean break of it.
“These are spectacular, Vi,” Duncan said as he reached for another cookie.
Obviously, they didn’t taste like sawdust to him. She picked up her cup of tea and set it right back down.
“I wish we had something more to celebrate,” Duncan said. “The good news is one of the security cameras got a couple of partials on the face of the person who tossed rose petals all over the terrace.”
“I’ve sent it to one of my top technicians,” Daryl said. “He’s working up a full face composite and he’ll run it through a facial recognition scanner. However, not everyone is in the system.”
“We’ll be able to check it against members of the Macks family and the family members of other victims of the RPK,” Duncan said. “It will take some time. Which we might not have. Daryl and I were talking about it while we worked.”
Daryl waved a hand. “And I agree with Duncan’s analysis, so I asked him to fill you in.”
Piper’s stomach sank. He was totally working with Daryl now. She’d gotten just what she’d asked for. What she’d demanded.
“Until we know for sure, I think we have to assume we’re working with three different problems here. Number one, we have Lightman in town—a man motivated by his own self-interests. Then we have the guy in the hoodie who set up the scene in Piper’s apartment and keeps sending her vases of roses and threatening notes. And third, we have Cam’s library visitor.”
“The last two could be the same person,” Piper said.
He met her eyes for the first time. “True. But I believe the person who followed us into the caves this morning is interested in the sapphires.” He paused to glance up at Eleanor’s portrait. “And his determination to have them has become obsessive. Following us into that cave was risky. He may not know for sure yet that we discovered the second sapphire earring, and he could very well see Piper as competition. Or he could believe she found it, and he’s furious with her. He may very well have showered those rose petals outside the library today, with the purpose of luring Piper out and eliminating her.”
Her stomach didn’t sink this time. It froze. “We’ve already established that I have a very large target on my back. But I’m not leaving the castle. Running away will not solve this.”
“His behavior today indicates that he’s not only willing to take risks to get what he wants, but that he has an ability to seize the moments that present themselves. That makes him much more dangerous than someone who has to plan everything out in advance.”
She met his eyes. “I’m not running.”
“Duncan doesn’t want you to run,” Daryl said. “He wants to cancel the photo shoot tomorrow.”
“No.” Vi and Piper spoke in unison.
“That’s just another kind of running away,” Piper argued. “And the castle can’t just shut down because I made the mistake of coming here.”
Vi rose and joined her on the sofa. “Adair set the shoot up months ago. And we have a wedding scheduled next week. I also have two appointments with prospective clients tomorrow. Plus, Daryl has already vetted the magazine and Russell Arbogast and Deanna Lewis.”
“I have some men digging deeper on both of them as we speak,” Daryl said.
“There’ll be strangers on the grounds,” Duncan said, speaking directly to Piper. “This person almost lured you out of the castle when there were just the two of us here. There’ll be more opportunities tomorrow.” He shifted his gaze to Vi. “And the shut-down wouldn’t be permanent. We just need more time to gather information.”
Piper gripped Vi’s hand in hers. “We’ve got top-notch agents from the FBI and the CIA here in the house and Sheriff Skinner plans to be present for the photo shoot. Aunt Vi and I are smart. We won’t do anything stupid. And we have Alba.”
Daryl gave Duncan an I-told-you-so look. “Then we’ll have to go with Plan B.”
“Not until you run it by us,” Vi said.
“No negotiations on this one,” Daryl said in a flat, no-nonsense tone. “If we’re going forward on schedule tomorrow,