the peaceful place…out. She focused on the hands of the wall clock and watched a minute dissolve into ten.
Yes. There now. She was fine. She would be just fine.
Better than fine, actually.
A rough plan began to form in the back of her mind. She needed Jackson gone now too, but it would get a little messy if there were too many murder attempts all at once. No, there had to be an easier way to get rid of Jackson.
Too bad she couldn’t send him to jail. That was a good place to go, if you were an annoyance. She ought to know. She’d certainly spent her share of time in jail. The tranquilizers began to kick in, giving her a relaxed and vaguely euphoric feeling. Jail. Hey, now. Maybe she should give this jail thing some thought. Maybe that wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
But for what?
Unless…
Unless she could get him to go for the attempt on his uncle’s life.
A light bulb flashed on in Patsy’s mind.
That was it.
Her heart began to hammer. In fact, while she was going to all the trouble, she’d set him up for both attempts on Joe’s life. A slow smile crept across her lips. Oh, yes, Patsy, honey, she gave herself a mental pat on the back, you are good.
Satisfied as a cat with a bowl of cream, Meredith went back to the society section and her half-empty cup of coffee. After a little nap, she’d get started on her plan to get Jackson out of the picture, and thereby solve a lot of nasty problems.
Annie Summers, her mouth full of bobby pins, looked into an antique, gilt-framed wall mirror with disgust. Her hair. Her lousy, rotten, crinkly, goofy hair was having one of its notorious bad days. The April sun streamed in from a nearby window, creating a rusty halo that gave her a bit of a fallen angel look. She curled an upper lip to enhance the effect. It was hopeless. No amount of spray or gel or relaxer or blow-drying or clippy doo-dads would whip it into submission, either. They hadn’t invented the product that could handle her particular mop, and the day they did, she was buying stock. She’d be a millionaire overnight.
“Moah? Amicks?” she muttered around the hairpins.
“Yeah?” Noah and Alex’s muffled voices came from the back of her shop.
“Mat are oo doing?”
“Playin’.”
“Id oo tut ’er shoes on, yike I asked?” Annie removed the pins from her mouth and crammed them into her makeshift bun and hoped for the best.
“Uh…” Whispered laughter and some scrambling reached her ears. “Yeah, we’re putting our shoes on.”
“Are you putting them on your feet?” She grinned at their giggles. One didn’t live with two five-year-olds and not know when they were up to no good.
“Er, uh, okay,” Alex, self-appointed spokesman for the two, answered.
“Are you putting them on now?”
“Uhh…yeah.”
“Are you wearing socks?”
“Oh…well—”
With a sigh, Annie dropped her brush on a Louis XIV love seat and strode from the showroom of the antique store, Summer’s Autumn Antiques, that she’d inherited from her father. Moving into the play area she kept next to her office for her boys, she stopped short and stared.
“What the—” Exasperated, Annie shook her head. “What are you guys doing in your—” she took in the bare chests and, in one case, bare bottom “—underwear? Alex, where is your underwear?”
“It was his idea,” Alex said, pointing at Noah.
“Was not.”
“Was too!”
“What idea?” Annie asked.
“We were going to put our clothes on the dog and surprise you.”
As Alex explained, Chopper, the aging black Lab, came hobbling out from behind the toy box, his foot caught up in the arm of a sweater. He sported socks and shoes on three of his four feet. His tail, which he wagged pitifully, protruded from the fly of some small body’s—obviously Alex’s—underpants. Chopper looked absolutely miserable.
Try as she might, Annie could not hold back the giggles. Screaming with delight, the boys joined in, doing a little jig that had their skinny little bodies flailing and leaping.
“Why on earth did you think to put clothes on poor Chopper?”
“No shirts, no shoes, no service,” Noah offered.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Annie looked back and forth between the two faces, mirror images of hers, both earnest in their explanation.
“We wanted Chopper to come out to lunch with us—”
“—and he couldn’t go if he was naked—”
“—cause Emma says the sign in the window says—”
Annie held up her hand. “Okay. I get it. But you guys need to know that they don’t serve dogs at the Mi-T-Fine Café. Even well-dressed dogs, like Chopper, here.”
Alex’s face fell. “Never?”
“Never?” Noah echoed.
“Nope.” She gestured to the dog. “And since they don’t serve naked kids either, put this poor animal out of his misery and you two get dressed.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll give you five minutes. If you’re not ready, I’m going without you. And I’m ordering hot dogs.”
“Hot dogs!” the boys shouted with glee and in record time were ready for lunch on the town—or at least at the restaurant next door—with Mom.
Over the glass entrance doors of the Mi-T-Fine Caféin Keyhole, Wyoming, an electronic chime announced Wyatt’s arrival. The restaurant was doing a healthy business and no one in particular looked up to see who’d come in. From inside the kitchen a wonderfully familiar female voice called, “Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
It was Emily. She sounded safe and healthy, anyway. That was a good sign. Wyatt breathed a sigh of relief.
“Take your time. I’m in no hurry,” he called and wandered to an empty booth in the front of the restaurant near a bank of windows that overlooked the quaint main street.
Keyhole was a Mecca for tourists on their way to or from Yellowstone National Park. Nestled in a lush valley, surrounded by spectacular, majestic mountains, the little town ingeniously mixed the new and the old to create a trendy, upbeat feel. Keyhole was known to antique hunters all over the country for its delightful painted lady Victorians, western facade buildings and the historic treasures they held within.
Skiers—both water and snow—hikers, climbers, wind-surfers, hunters and fishermen enjoyed the sports offered by the great outdoors. All around the perimeter of town, hotels were popping up as Keyhole became a mini-Aspen. It wasn’t unusual to see celebrities shopping or skiing in Keyhole anymore. Luckily, growth was relatively slow and Keyhole had managed to maintain its small-town flavor.
Wyatt could see why Annie loved this town. Like Prosperino, it was a bit of heaven on earth.
He plucked a menu from between the sugar container and the salt-and-pepper shakers and studied the special that was clipped to the cover.
At the other side of the café, Annie shushed her rowdy boys and, cocking her head, listened for the mellow baritone again, to no avail.
“No,” she whispered. “Couldn’t be.” Craning her head, she searched the aisle and tried to peer over the high-backed booths and the partitions that blocked her view of the front of the room.
That voice.
Just