Sudden Recall Read online

  Alarmed, the gunman swung in that direction. And that’s when Shane launched himself. He slammed into Dennis with a force whose impact carried both of them to the floor of the level where they struggled for possession of the gun.

  There were cries. Whether they originated from Eden, Nathanial or Claire Jamison below them, Shane didn’t know. He was too busy using every technique he had ever learned to disable his opponent. He permitted himself no diversion except to shout, “Eden, get out of here! Take the boy and run!”

  He had no opportunity to learn whether she obeyed him. Bryant Dennis was proving to be an equal match for him in their battle for the gun. Shane redoubled his efforts, landing punches in several vulnerable areas. It was an old-fashioned, ferocious fist to the jaw that finally defeated his opponent.

  Stunned, the bastard relaxed his grip on the pistol long enough for Shane to wrest it from him. But when he sprang to his feet, weapon in hand, he found himself backed up to the perilous edge of the tier. Dennis had also leaped to his feet, and before Shane could level the pistol at him, Dennis rushed at him with a savage howl.

  Shane sidestepped the charge. Unable to check the momentum of his attack, Dennis sailed out into space. Shane heard a yell followed by a thud. When he managed to recover his balance and swing around, he saw Bryant Dennis sprawled silently below him on the floor of the parade ground. The angle of his head indicated a broken neck.

  Where were Eden and Nathanial? Or, for that matter, Claire Jamison? Shane lifted his head, his anxious gaze searching for them. There! Around on the other side!

  He could see Eden. She must have taken Nathanial with her when she’d fled in that direction, but he was nowhere in evidence. At one time there had been another brick stairway over there. It was no more than a mound of rubble now, which meant they had been unable to get down.

  Eden must have hidden Nathanial then in one of the numerous compartments that had once quartered the garrison and the fort’s stores of ordnance. With her son safely out of sight, she was now bravely, but foolishly, on her way back to help Shane.

  “No, Eden!” he shouted to her. “Go back!”

  She wasn’t alone over there. Claire Jamison, having reached the second tier, was in pursuit of her quarry. From his angle, Shane could see her lurking at the side of a pier out of range of Eden’s vision. There was something else he could see glinting in the moonlight. Something neither he nor Eden had anticipated. Claire had drawn a gun of her own from her shoulder bag.

  Even from this distance, Shane could swear he saw the vicious expression on her face when, alerted by his shout, she turned and fired at him. He fired back. She seemed to hover there for an instant, and then she crumpled to the floor and lay still.

  It was only then that Shane felt the burning in his chest and realized he had been hit. He tried to go to Eden, thinking she might still have need of him. But his legs carried him no more than a few faltering steps before he sank to his knees, his hand clutching his chest.

  It was his left hand, the one wearing the wedding band. But he couldn’t see the ring. It was soaked in blood. And then he couldn’t see anything. The moon went black.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eden couldn’t stand it. This endless vigil with no definite word had her half out of her mind. If she had to sit here much longer in the waiting room without knowing, she would lose the other half of her mind.

  Her inability to see him was almost as bad as not hearing whether there was any change yet, any sign of improvement. Absolutely no visitors, she had been informed. All they would tell her when she checked periodically at the nurses’ station was he was still unconscious, still on a ventilator and IV drips in the intensive care unit, where he had been moved yesterday morning after spending hours in surgery.

  What if Shane didn’t make it? Eden didn’t want to think that, didn’t want to even consider it, but she knew it was a very real possibility. The surgeon had been candid when he had explained everything to her.

  “The bullet tore a hole low in his right lung, causing a rib fragment to puncture his liver. We’ve repaired those, but there was a massive amount of bleeding.”

  Eden shuddered over the memory of how much blood Shane had lost as she’d huddled over him before the paramedics arrived, after which he’d been airlifted to the nearest hospital on the mainland. She had the DuBoises to thank for that. Victor had heard the shots when he’d let the dog out into the yard, and while Estelle had phoned 911, he’d raced to the fort where he had stayed with Eden, doing whatever he could to help.

  “Transfusions have replaced the blood,” the surgeon had continued, “and a chest tube is draining off the fluids, but his condition is critical.”

  “Will he…” Eden couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  The surgeon had tried to be encouraging. “He’s a strong man, and he was in good health before this happened. Those factors are very much in his favor. It’s a matter of time now.” He’d paused before adding a kindly “A few prayers wouldn’t hurt.”

  Eden had been silently doing just that ever since. But she was all out of prayers now and able to do nothing except wait. That and try to keep herself from imagining the yawning black hole in her life if the worst happened. To go on without Shane and her love for him was unthinkable.

  She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t.

  “Any news yet?”

  Eden looked up from her chair as her father strode into the waiting room. Both of her parents had flown in from Chicago to offer their love and support, and there had been concerned phone calls almost hourly from either her sister or one of her three brothers. It was a demonstration of how the Hawkes closed ranks in a family crisis, and Eden didn’t fail to appreciate it.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Did you deliver Ma?”

  “Only as far as the ferry landing, where I was instructed to come straight back here and not leave you. Victor DuBois was meeting her on the other side with his car, so I imagine by now your mother is with her grandson.”

  Nathanial was once again in the care of Victor and Estelle. Eden was no longer worried about her son’s safety. Not now, after Shane had eliminated the threat to him. But, dear God, at what cost?

  Eden’s father stood there regarding her, a worried expression in his blue eyes. Unlike his three sons, he was a short man, with strong features and liberal amounts of gray in his dark hair. His size and easy smile were misleading. He was a tough P.I. and, when he had to be, a tough father. He demonstrated that now with his daughter.

  “Honey, you look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell.”

  “Come on,” he ordered, “let’s you and I take a walk. You could use the exercise.”

  “Pop, no. I’m not stepping foot out of the hospital until—”

  “Who said anything about going outside? There are miles of hallway in this place. Let’s use some of them, at least on this floor. They’ll find you when they have something to tell you. You can let them know at the nurses’ station where we’ll be.”

  Her father was right. The waiting room was beginning to suffocate her. Leaving word at the desk, they struck out along the nearest corridor. It felt good to pace something besides the confined area of the waiting room.

  “How about filling me in now,” Casey Hawke suggested. “You’ve already told your mother and me the essentials, but I’d like to know all of it. You can start with how this Lissie Reardon ended up in Savannah with Nathanial, passing herself off to the Jamisons as his mother.”

  “While maintaining the lowest possible profile the whole time she lived with them,” Eden added. “She never wanted either Nathanial or her photographed or written about, if she could avoid it. Nathanial was the grandson of a wealthy man, and publicity could make him vulnerable to kidnapping. That was her plea, anyway, and Sebastian agreed with her. It was an excuse, of course. What she really feared was exposure.”

  “You learned all this from the police, I suppose, when they came here to interview you?” />
  Eden nodded. “Charlie Moses, his wife and the surviving Dennis brother have been arrested and charged. They were all in on the plot. Charlie and Hugh Dennis aren’t saying much yet, but Irene told the police everything, hoping it will save her when they go to trial.”

  They moved over to one side to avoid a gurney being wheeled off the elevator. “So, what’s the rest of the story?” Casey urged when the gurney had passed.

  Eden knew that her father’s interest was genuine. But she also realized he was using it in an effort to occupy her mind with something other than her anguish over Shane. As if anything could distract her from that. But she did her best to satisfy her father.

  “Beth—Lissie, that is—lied to Shane when she told him Sebastian had made Nathanial his chief heir. I suppose she figured, if she exaggerated that part of it, she stood a better chance of enlisting her brother’s support. Because, without any evidence, Shane might not believe the actual danger to Nathanial.”

  “So, the old man hadn’t—”

  “No, but he was about to. He no longer had any patience with his family and their greed, including his wife. And if he rewrote his will, Nathanial would get not just a share of his fortune as in the present will, but nearly everything. Claire couldn’t let that happen. Something had to be done before Sebastian changed his will. It was her scheme, but the others were in on it with her.”

  “Murder?”

  “Yes, but cleverly choreographed to look like an accident. Claire arranged for every member of the family, including herself, to have a sound alibi. She chose a night when the staff was off and everyone out of the house except for Sebastian, Nathanial and his nanny.”

  Eden paused for an announcement over the P.A. summoning a staff member who wasn’t responding to his pager. Then she continued her account.

  “It was no secret that Claire’s two sons loved to gamble. She sent them to Atlantic City with instructions to remain visible all evening at the tables in one of the casinos. Charlie Moses was down in Brunswick on a case, and Irene was with him. Claire was scheduled to attend a charity costume ball several blocks away from the mansion.”

  “And Lissie Reardon was in the hospital,” Casey remembered. “So who killed Sebastian?”

  “Claire, of course. No one else had the guts for it. She made dinner that night, which she usually did when it was the cook’s night off. Though she never ate desserts herself, her chocolate mousse was a favorite with the whole family. Only this time she dosed it with something guaranteed to put them all pleasantly asleep without leaving any evidence they’d been drugged.”

  Casey nodded. “Which wouldn’t have been any problem for a doctor with access to drugs. Okay, so after she sees them settled in for the night, she goes off to her party. Right so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she must have come back later and killed Sebastian. Only how did she manage that without being missed at this ball?”

  “She used Irene.”

  “Who was supposed to be elsewhere with her husband.”

  “In Brunswick with Charlie, yes.”

  They had reached the end of the long corridor where they stopped at a window overlooking the parking lot two floors below. It was already dark outside. Eden could see that the pavement was wet with rain, glistening in the headlights from arriving and departing cars. It was a dreary scene. She tried not to let the sight depress her, tried not to think of Shane down the hall struggling for his life.

  “When Charlie and Irene checked into the hotel in Brunswick,” Eden continued, “she complained of a sinus headache. They had the desk send up something for her to take, after which she went straight to bed. When Charlie ordered room service for himself, he made certain that the waiter who arrived with his meal, and another one who collected the tray long afterward, caught glimpses of his wife asleep in her bed. What they actually saw in that dim room were pillows under the covers, along with just enough of a wig showing that matched Irene’s memorable red-gold hair to convince anyone it was her.”

  “Except Irene wasn’t there,” Casey realized. “She was—”

  “Racing back to Savannah on the interstate. She and Claire exchanged places at the party. It wasn’t difficult. By then Irene was wearing an identical costume, wig and mask. The switch needed to last only long enough for Claire to tear back to the Jamison mansion under the cover of darkness in a long black coat.”

  “So she arrives and finds…what?”

  “Nathanial in his bed, his nanny in a chair beside him and asleep over the book she’d been reading to him before he drifted off, and Sebastian asleep in his own room down the hall and still in his wheelchair, although Claire had the police thinking he must have gotten out of bed on his own after she’d seen him settled in it for the night.”

  “No witnesses.”

  “And no problem for Claire to wheel her husband out to the landing, push him in the chair down the flight of stairs, make certain he was dead and slip out of the house and back to the party where she relieved Irene.”

  “Who was able to return to the hotel in Brunswick with no one the wiser,” Casey figured. “So what went wrong?”

  “My son.”

  Eden and her father were on their way back along the corridor now, which was suddenly busy with the traffic of dinner trays being delivered to patients in their rooms. They dodged the stream of servers as Eden continued the story.

  “Claire was so busy the next day playing the grieving widow and dealing with all the details connected with a prominent husband’s death, which the police were satisfied was the result of a tragic accident, that she had no thought for Nathanial, who was the responsibility of his nanny, anyway. It wasn’t until the afternoon when the woman came to her in tears that she realized something had gone very wrong.”

  “Which was?” Casey asked.

  “Nathanial and Lissie Reardon were missing. When Claire questioned the nanny, she learned that Nathanial had gone to bed the night before with an upset stomach after throwing up his dinner. That, together with his grandfather’s death, had him so distraught and so frantic to see his mother, the nanny decided the only way to settle him down was to take him to the hospital, where Lissie sent her out of the room. When she came back later to collect Nathanial, both mother and son were gone.”

  “So Claire knew she had a problem.”

  “One that alarmed her,” Eden said, “because if Nathanial had vomited the chocolate mousse before the drug it contained had time to be absorbed into his system, it was possible he had awakened after she’d checked on him. And it was just as possible that he’d cracked his door open, maybe because he’d heard the sound of the chairlift Claire had summoned to the top of the stairs so it would look like an accident had occurred while Sebastian was trying to lever himself from the wheelchair onto the lift. If so, that meant Nathanial could have seen her push Sebastian’s wheelchair down the flight of stairs.”

  “Which,” Casey said, “as you mentioned to your mother and me earlier, Nathanial has finally admitted is what happened.”

  “And why he was so scared, and Lissie so terrified of the consequences she fled Savannah with him. Her action convinced Claire that Nathanial was a witness. He had to be found and silenced.”

  “She almost succeeded,” Casey said angrily, “but Claire Jamison won’t be a threat anymore to my grandson.”

  No, Eden thought soberly, she and her son died in that windswept fort, victims of their own avarice. But if it hadn’t been for Shane… Oh, if she could only see him, touch him, let him know just how much he mattered to her!

  Her frustrated need must have been evident to her father, because he stopped her on their way back to the waiting room, renewing his effort to turn her mind in another direction.

  “What about this Harriet Krause? Did the police explain her death to you?”

  “Yes, Irene gave them the details about that, too. Charlie had paid Harriet to tell him everything she knew about Lissie, including the existence of a brother
. That was why Bryant and Hugh Dennis were taking Shane that night from the motel to Harriet’s apartment. They wanted her to tell Shane in person what his sister had done and that Lissie hadn’t been entitled to Nathanial. They hoped shock might accomplish what force had failed to do and that Shane would reveal what he had done with Nathanial.”

  “I suppose Harriet would have been paid for that, too.”

  “Yes, and to keep quiet about all of it. But she was scared after Shane and I visited her, and when she phoned the Dennis brothers to let them know we’d been there—”

  “But they couldn’t have murdered the Krause woman, not when they were busy chasing you.”

  “No, it was Claire who killed her. She’d arrived in Charleston furious with her sons after they called to tell her they’d lost Shane. Then, when Harriet phoned threatening to go to the police to save herself, Claire went up to the apartment to offer her more money. But Harriet was in no mood to be bought off this time.”

  “So Claire made sure she wouldn’t talk.”

  “With a heavy object that turned out to be a brass book-end from Harriet’s—”

  Eden broke off, checked by the sight of a young woman headed toward them with an expression of urgency in her gait. Eden recognized her. She was one of the ICU nurses. Eden felt herself go rigid with fear as her father’s hand closed around her arm to steady her.

  It wasn’t until the nurse got closer that Eden realized she was wearing a smile. A smile almost as good as her cheerful words when she reached them.

  “Good news, Ms. Hawke. Mr. Reardon is awake.”

  “Does that mean—”

  “He’s rallied, yes. He’s also asking for you and making such a fuss about it that the doctor is afraid he’ll have a relapse if he doesn’t permit you to see him. You can have fifteen minutes with him.”