Piper grimaced. "You're disgusting."
He laughed, but even then, his eyes didn't leave her. And she knew. When she found his damned treasure, he was going to smash her over the head with the shovel and bury her in its place. In his own mind, he'd left himself no other way out.
Clate scanned the horizon from his upper terrace, his eyes throbbing, his throat on fire. The sun had dipped low, the sky was a soft, lavender-blue as dusk settled. If Piper had a letter proving he was a snake in the grass, she'd have marched straight over with it and shoved it under her nose.
Something or someone must have distracted her.
"She's in the woods."
He turned, and Sally Shepherd emerged from the kitchen, ghostlike. If he had tried to touch her, Clate wouldn't have been surprised to see his hand go through her. She had no color in her face. He noticed a swollen, colorless bruise at the corner of her right eye. Yet her mouth was set, a grim dignity about her.
"At least that's where I expect she is." She breathed, maintaining the set of her mouth. "My husband left the house about an hour and a half ago. If Piper saw him—if he—" She swallowed, faltering.
Andrew and Benjamin were searching their sister's property; their father and the police were on their way. Hannah came out onto the terrace. She hugged a shawl around her slim, old woman's body. "I understand now. Before he died, Jason told Sally what he'd done. Sally, please. Take Clate to your husband. Hurry."
"I moved the chest," she said in a clear, steady voice. "I—I had to. But I never looked inside. I couldn't. It was all I could think to do at the time. I didn't want to know if there was treasure inside. My grandfather was so horrified by what had happened to Hannah's parents. He'd lived an exemplary life. It didn't seem to me that whatever was inside that chest made any difference."
Neither Hannah nor Clate spoke.
Sally swallowed, her dignity ragged but in place. "I was wrong."
"You were young," Hannah said, touching the other woman's hand. "Sally, dear, where did you move the chest? Take Clate. Now."
Lifting a hand, Sally pointed across the marsh. "It's out there. Paul made me tell him. He hit me."
Clate straightened, ignoring the residual effects of his poisoned iced tea. If Paul Shepherd was out there, Piper was in danger. "Show me."
Nodding, summoning the last shreds of her dignity, Sally led him off the terrace and down across the lawn, past the grape arbor, and into the woods. Scrub trees gradually gave way to larger pine, cedar, oak. He could see where deer had been chewing on trees. Mosquitoes buzzed in his ears. Fresh assaults of nausea threatened to drop him to his knees. His throat burned. He pushed on, gripped in a terror he'd never known, not even when he'd gone down to the county hospital and identified his mother's body.
Piper. If he was too late, if he lost her—
He couldn't finish the thought.
He and Sally ducked under the low branches of an oak into a small clearing of soft, high grass, golden in the evening sun.
On the far edge of the clearing, in front of a stout, lone hemlock, stood Paul Shepherd. Piper was on her knees next to him, at a strategic angle for the shovel he had in his hands.
Piper smiled weakly at Clate. Dirt and sweat smudged her face, an ugly red swelling at the corner of her eye, in the same place the bastard had hit his wife. Clate could feel himself going rigid, reaching deep into his soul for control, for calm, for the courage to wait for his moment. There were more cuts, more bruises. On her arms, on her hands. He couldn't see her legs. Blood mixed with dirt on her fingers.
His head cleared. Anger pushed back his nausea, his fatigue and pain. He noticed a small, unimpressive looking steel-and-wood chest to Shepherd's right. Hannah's treasure. What she'd dreamed about that night eighty years ago had happened. Her memory of when she was a little girl drawn to her window by the wind, the scents of the night, was real.
"Oh, Paul." Sally's voice was barely audible. She choked back tears and stood back from Clate, away from her husband. "Stop now, please, before you do anything else. The police are on their way. You can't possibly—"
"Get away. Both of you." He croaked out the words, his grip tightening visibly on the shovel. Desperation showed in his wild eyes, his trembling lip. "I can crush her head with one swipe. That's all it'll take."
Sally sucked in a small, strangled breath. " Why, Paul? What can you possibly hope to gain?"
"Shut up!"
Clate eased forward. He was acutely aware of his surroundings —sounds, smells, the slightest stir of the breeze. Yet all his energy was focused on the man in front of him. Everything depended on the choice he made now. Everything. He couldn't look at Piper. If he did, Shepherd would know just what was at stake.