Jack kept glancing at her, waiting for her answer.
“I agree. But how do we exclude Sara from this one thing?”
“She’s been alone for a couple of hours, so she’s writing. When she’s absorbed by that, an earthquake can’t disturb her. One time in New York she went into her bedroom to get ready to go out to breakfast. She didn’t come out until it was time for dinner.”
“I thought she retired from writing.”
“I think trying to make a writer retire is like persuading a lioness to pretend she’s a kitten. Can’t be done.”
“And irritates the hell out of the bear.”
“What?”
“It’s just a saying about talking to a man. Can’t be done and irritates the hell out of the—”
“I got it. What if I called your uncles and told them you were using bad words?”
Kate didn’t laugh. “Clever pirate,” she mumbled as they pulled into the garage.
She didn’t want to think about her uncles. “You think Lachlan residents will ever stop calling this the Stewart Mansion?”
“Nope. Could be flattened by a hurricane and rebuilt and it’d still belong to the Stewarts.” Jack reached over the side of the truck bed and handed the bags of groceries to Kate. As she opened the door into the house, he gave a conspiratorial nod. They were going to talk to Mr. Niederman alone.
They were quiet as they put the groceries away. Paper and nonrefrigerated items could be left for later. It was better to come and go quickly.
It was when Kate looked at the bulletin board that she knew something was wrong. She’d pinned Mr. Niederman’s address there but it was gone. When she tapped Jack’s arm, he pivoted so fast on his crutches that he nearly fell. “It’s gone,” Kate whispered. “The address isn’t there.”
“I know how to get there. It’s my town, remember? We’ll—” Suddenly, Jack understood what Kate was thinking. His face turned red and he let out a yell that shook the house. “Medlar!”
There was no answer.
Kate ran to Sara’s bedroom, threw open the doors and ran into the little library, Sara’s writing room. It was empty.
“I’m going to murder her,” Jack muttered when Kate found him in the garage. He heaved himself up into the vehicle.
She jumped into the passenger seat and shut the door. “You think she went ahead of us?”
“Oh, yeah. I saw that her car was gone, but she likes to park it under the palms on the far side. Says the car enjoys the view.”
“Why did she go without us?”
“Because she figured out that we were going without her.” He was backing the truck out. She’d never been in a vehicle doing fifty miles an hour in Reverse. She held on to the armrest and checked her seat belt—then noticed that Jack’s wasn’t on. But the look on his face made her stay quiet.
She’d never seen him so angry. In fact, she’d never seen anyone look as furious as Jack did. Kate remembered Sara telling about Jack’s fights with Roy. The laughing, easy-tempered man she’d come to know wasn’t in the truck with her.
Thiswas what Cheryl saw that night, Kate thought. Roy Wyatt’s dark good looks had been distorted into menacing, threatening rage. No wonder it was easy for people to believe that Roy had murdered two women.
Jack used back roads with little to no traffic to get to an area she’d never seen before. It was rural, with thick growth hanging down around them. Ahead of them was a crossroads with a stop sign, but Jack wasn’t slowing down. There didn’t seem to be any cars coming but the untrimmed shrubs made it hard to see very far. “There’s a stop sign!” she yelled.
In the next second Kate saw the brilliant yellow streak of Sara’s MINI Cooper coming from the side. She screamed. Jack turned the wheel so hard the truck skidded into a circle—and headed directly toward a palm tree with a trunk as thick as a stone pillar. He slammed on the brakes.
Instinctively, Kate threw her arm across her eyes. There was no way they weren’t going to hit the tree.
There was another abrupt turn that threw her against the door, then the truck stopped. By the time she opened her eyes, Jack had already leaped out of the truck and grabbed a single crutch from the back.
“Sara!” Kate flung open the door and jumped to the ground.
The back of Sara’s MINI was barely visible under trees and tall shrubs. Jack was fighting his way through to the door.
