Last Night (3 page)

"You
'
re not going to die, Lillian. Remember what the doctor said? You
'
re perfectly healthy. Just re
member to take
your blood pressure medication.
"

Lillian pe
rked up. "Oh, I almost forgot. I
brought in your package.
"

"
Thanks.
"
Dana wasn
'
t expecting anything, but she did buy most of her clothes mail orde
r because she despised shopping.

"I put the box in the refrigerator," Lillian said with pride.
"
A bottle must have broken. It
'
s leaking. I didn
'
t want the food to spoil.
"

"
Food? I never order food. It must be a gift. I
'
d better come get it now.
"
She tossed the mail on the front seat of the temperamental Toyota she
'
d driven for years and followed Lillian up the walk.

Inside Lillian
'
s modest home the white linoleum floor had surre
ndered to time and was now a de
pressing amber, but it was clean. The dishes were drying in a wire rack on the counter. Lillian was doing just fine on her own in the home she loved, Dana thought as her friend opened a boxy Frigidaire that had been new in the fifties.

"
Here it is.
"
She handed Dana the package.

With a growing sense of apprehension Dana accepted it, recalling the black rose and the ominous note that she had received at the office. There was no return address on the plain brown wrapping paper. She touched the bottom of the package, then quickly pulled back her hand and stared at it.

"
Sweetie, is anything the matter?
"

"
No.
"
Dana beelined for the door, realizing just how poor Lillian
'
s vision had become. Whatever was inside was leaking blood.

2

D
ana raced to her house, holding the dripping package away from her suit. She dumped it in the kitchen sink, half-tempted to call the police. Perhaps she was overreacting, she thought, as she peeled back the soggy brown paper. There might be a perfectly innocent explanation for this.

Inside a Ziploc plastic bag was a rabbit-skinning knife slathered with blood. The blade had punctured the plastic, causing the leak. She tested the blade. It wiggled, not quite anchored securely in the handle.

"
Oh my God!
"
she cried, her voice echoing through the small kitchen.
"
It can
'
t be!
"

She inspected the bloody knife more closely. It looked
exactly
like
the one she remembered so well —
even though it had been over twenty years since they'd thrown it into the swamp.

Bile rose up in her throat and the memory she
'
d blocked for years intruded with sickening clarity. There was a bloodstained note the size of a business card with the package.

I know what you did. Pack your bags, bitch.

The words echoed in her mind. A similar message had come with the black rose she had received that mo
rning. Twenty years without a w
ord. Nothing. Until today.

Why, after all these years, when her career was really taking off, did the past have to come back to curse her? She
'
d grown complacent, believing that after all this time she was safe. You were never safe from someth
ing like this. Somehow—someone—
knew what had happened that night so long ago.

She picked up the telephone to call her sister. Then she remembered Vanessa wasn't in Maui. She was here in Honolulu for the evening. Thank God. The Coltrane family compound where Vanessa lived with her husband a
nd young son was her father-in-
law
'
s home. Thornton
"
Big Daddy
"
Coltrane had his nose in everyone's business.

She checked her watch. If she hurried she could make the cocktail hour at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club where the Coltranes were staying. It was always crowded and noisy. No one would overhear her talking to Vanessa.

D
ana arrived at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, the pinnacle of society in the islands. While the elite on the mainland congregated at country clubs, Hawaii's wealthy so
cialized at yacht clubs. The se
curity guard opened the gate and Dana hurried in. Normally she would have smiled at the ridiculousness of having a statue of King Kamehameha overlooking the c
lu
b
'
s courtyard. Generations ago the wise king had unite
d the warring islands, but now—
thanks to the Coltranes and the other white settlers —the king's descendants were in the kitchen or waiting on tables, she thought with disgust.

Inside, burgees of the great yacht clubs of the world hung from the ceiling. The small, triangular flags all had one thing in common: the red star. A yacht club wasn't a
"
serious
"
club until some member earned a star in a death-wish yacht race.

Naturally, the Royal Corinthian had a star. And the R.C. had what Dana thought of as
"
yacht snot
"
—an attitude. The real reason the club existed was to exclude "undesirables.
"
She didn
'
t belong. The welcoming smiles wer
e for a judge, for Vanessa Col
trane
'
s sister. Not for a girl from the backwoods of Georgia.

Dana spotted Vanessa in two seconds. As usual, her sister was standing in a cluster of men, flirting. Vanessa had a presence about her that would have shouted,
"
Look at me!
"
had she been in Levi
'
s in
stead of tonight
'
s designer gown with a diamond necklace that circled her throat as regally as a crown graced the head of a reigning monarch.

Dana waved, suddenly a young girl again, fondly waving to her older sister. After the death of their parents Vanessa had raised Dana, but since her marriage to Eric Coltrane they had grown apart. What had happened to the bond of trust that they had shared for so many years? The Coltranes. And
Dana
'
s career. She wasn't seeing her sister often enough and she missed her terribly.

"Dana, darling.
"
Vanessa threw her arms around her and hugged tight.

For just a second Dana clung to her. She loved Vanessa so much—and owed her so much—that she couldn
'
t quite bring herself to destroy Vanessa
'
s happiness by telling her about the knife. Her sister had every right to enjoy her life, even if it wasn
'
t a life Dana would have chosen.

Vanessa
'
s blue eyes became serious.
"
I wasn
'
t expecting to see you until Monday. You
'
re still vaca
tioning with me, aren't you?
"

"
I
'
m flying over to Maui first thing Monday, just as we planned.
"
Dana steered Vanessa toward the terrace that overlooked the yacht harbor where the members
'
boats were docked. "But I have to talk to you tonight.
"

In the semidarkness of the terrace Dana explained what had happened. Vanessa quickly cast an apprehensive glance at the interior of the club to her husband, Eric. As usual he was standing with his brother, Travis, and their father, Big Daddy Coltrane.

"
It
'
s just a joke,
"
Vanessa whispered.

"Someone must know
something.
A rabbit-
skinning knife with a loose blade. That
'
s not a wild guess. I haven't mentioned what happened that night to anyone—ever.
"

It was true. She had tried to block out that fatal night and everything that had happened. She
thought she
'
d done it with amazing success—until this evening. But there was always some hidden corner of the mind set to betray with terrifying memories of the past.

"I never told anyone, not even Eric." Vanessa glared at her husband, who was standing inside, his back to them.
"
We never talk.
"

Normally Dana would have been sad for her sister, who
'
d married for money, not love, but tonight she was too upset. "There must be an explanation—
"

"Help me,
"
Vanessa pleaded suddenly, and Dana was stunned by the turn their relationship had taken. Once she would have expected Vanessa to help her, to mother her as she had when they
'
d been teenagers alone in the world. Time had bolstered Dana
'
s confidence, while it had eroded Vanessa's.
"
This has to be a Coltrane plot. They
'
re going to take Jason away from me.
"

The panicked look in her sister
'
s eyes alarmed Dana as much as Vanessa
'
s convoluted logic. This was totally out of left field.
"
How could they take your son away from you?"

Vanessa stared out at the harbor, where the lights atop the forest of masts swayed rhythmically with the surge of the ocean.
"
You don
'
t know Big Daddy. He has his ways.
"

"
The notes were sent to me, not you. I don
'
t think this has anything to do with the Coltranes,
"
Dana said.
"
It must be a blackmail scheme. Someone must think I have money. Obviously they haven
'
t
checked to see how little municipal court judges make.
"

"
I can
'
t get any money to pay off a blackmailer.
"
Vanessa
'
s voice was trembling now. "Big Daddy sees all my bills.
"

"We have to fi
nd out who's behind this and…"
And what? What would she do when she found the blackmailer?

"
You
'
ve got to do something,
"
Vanessa cried, clutching Dana
'
s arm. "Don
'
t let them take Jason away from me. He
'
s all I have.
"

"
Don
'
t panic,
"
Dana said with more confidence than she felt.
"
I have a friend who can help us. I
'
m going to see him right now.
"

Vanessa followed her outside, whispering,
"
Don
'
t call me at home. Wait until you see me on Monday to tell me what's happening. I don
'
t trust the Coltranes.
"

Convinced Vanessa was paranoid, Dana walked out to her car. Vanessa had never had a childhood; their parents' death had robbed her of any semblance of a normal youth. Men flocked to her, yet she had never found love.

Dana had prayed that having a child would help Vanessa, and it had. Vanessa loved Jason, so much so that she was overly protective. Borderline obsessive.

Was Vanessa
'
s paranoia about Big Daddy justified? Even if he had discovered their secret, why would he send notes to Dana, not Vanessa? The whole thing was strange, confusing. Right now she
needed an objective, analytical mind to help her, someone clear-headed and intelligent.

Garth Bradford. The criminal attorney was the best legal mind in the islands—probably in the country—and he was the man she
'
d choose to defend her. If it came to that.

She called him on her car phone. There was a momentary pause at the other end of the line after she identified herself. She knew what he was thinking. They
'
d been friendly for years, but not so close that she ever had called him at home on a Friday evening.

"What
'
s on your mind?
"
As usual, there was a smile in Garth
'
s voice.

"
I need to discuss something with you in private.
"
Suddenly she thought he might be with a woman.
"
Are you busy?
"

"
No,
"
he responded. "Have you eaten? I
'
m fixing dinner. Come over and we
'
ll talk.
"

"I
'
m starving,
"
she fibbed, already mentally calculating just how much to tell him.

She drove along the shore into the exclusive Kahala section of the city, where the homes were nestled at the foot of Diamond Head, fronting a private beach. Just hearing Garth
'
s voice had calmed her, and she recalled the first time she'd met him. The DA had assigned her to a murder case where Garth had been defending the man. She had seen him sitting at the counsel table, but didn
'
t consider him much of a threat.

He
'
d looked like a sandy-haired jock who
'
d be
more at home on the football field, if he hadn
'
t been confined to a wheelchair. But it wasn
'
t his handicap that had totally disarmed her. It was his easygoing smile. How serious could he be?

Well, she found out. He annihilated her case, only half-trying. She could laugh now, but she
'
d been hu
miliated then. It had taught her an important lesson: Never underestimate Garth Bradford.

He was the most honest, ethical man she'd ever met. He accepted his handicap with complete dignity. She
'
d never once heard him complain. Come to think of it, Garth never even mentioned it. All she knew about the accident that had left him without the use of his legs, she
'
d heard from others.