If it hadn’t been for some serious argument on the part of her pragmatic brother, who claimed Betty had been denied her rightful share of the Fairchild estate, Megan would not have taken time off work, packed her bags and been standing barefoot at the Fairchild pool right now.
But the Fairchild legacy Megan had really come seeking was not money. She’d come to find an answer to that old family secret. She wanted to know where her gran had really come from, and why she’d been banished. It was a sense of birthright, of belonging, that Megan hungered for.
But her thoughts were suddenly shattered as the unflappable Mrs. Lipton came barreling out of the library. “Megan! Megan! Come quick! It’s Miss Fairchild! They’re arresting her!”
Megan stilled, towel in midair. “Arresting Louisa? What for?”
“Murder!”
Megan dropped her towel, grabbed a pool robe from the deck chair, and yanked it over her arms as she raced up the flagstone steps to the library.
She froze in the doorway.
A large sandy-haired cop was ushering a handcuffed Louisa out of the library as a skinny young policeman moved towards the gun cabinet.
Megan’s heart started to hammer. “Louisa?”
They all spun round.
The tall officer holding her aunt narrowed eyes like hot blue lasers onto Megan. Steady eyes. The most startling cornflower blue she’d ever seen. Eyes that sucked her right in. And held her.
Her stomach balled tight and her heart began to patter.
Part of her job as a legal consultant and art buyer was to evaluate instantly color, form, function. The artist in her appraised the cop just as fast.
He was tanned, well over six feet, features ruggedly handsome. He had the lean, hard lines of an endurance athlete—a sign of mental resilience, the kind that could too easily translate into obstinacy. But it was the overall impression—his electric aura—that shocked her to her toes. The impact was total, complete.
And it made her mouth turn dry.
“Thank God you’re here, Megan,” Louisa said, trying to twist out of the cop’s grasp. “Get my lawyer, Robert D’Angelo, get him on the phone. At once!”
Megan felt herself hesitate. The directness in the cop’s clear gaze was unnerving, commanding her attention in such a way she was barely able to register anything else in the room.
She cleared her throat, her eyes beginning to water with the effort of meeting his penetrating gaze. “I’m Megan Stafford,” she said to the cop. “Louisa is my great-aunt. What’s going on here?”
His eyes dipped quickly over her damp body, her skimpy bikini, bare feet. Megan pulled her robe closed, belting it tightly across her waist.
“Detective Sergeant Hastings,” he said. “And this is Constable Ron Peebles. The constable is here to execute a search warrant on the property. It’s on the desk over there. Your aunt is coming with me. She’s under arrest in connection with the murder of Sam Whittleson.” He began to escort Louisa out.
“Wait!” Megan surged forward, grabbed his arm. “You’ve made a mistake,” she said, locking eyes with his. “My aunt is eighty. She…she didn’t do this.”
His eyes narrowed. “Hindering an officer is an offense under the law—I don’t want to have to take you in as well, Ms. Stafford. Now if you’d please step back.”
She withdrew her hand slowly, adrenaline zinging through her, and with it came the first stirrings of hot anger.
The officer walked Louisa out of the library.
“Megan!” she called over her shoulder as the man led her into the hall. “Just get D’Angelo, will you? His number is on the library desk. Tell him to meet me at the Pepper Flats station at once. And watch that numbskull search,” she demanded. “Don’t let him touch a damn thing! Mrs. Lipton—”
“This way please, Miss Fairchild.”
“Mrs. Lipton, get Patrick,” Louisa shouted, craning her neck round as the cop opened the front door, escorting her out. “Tell him to speak to the managers. Tell them…tell them I’ll be back in a few hours.” Louisa’s voice was strained, her features pinched.
But it was the parting look she shot Megan that unnerved her grand niece the most.
Megan barely knew her estranged aunt, but the woman’s iron reputation preceded her. Louisa Fairchild was un-shakable.
Unsinkable.
Except now. Megan could see in her steel-blue eyes that this macho cop had rattled her aunt. Badly.
He’d shaken something deep and hot in Megan, too.
Adrenaline tightened her stomach. With it came an uncomfortably cold whisper of doubt. The cop had to have something on Louisa to actually arrest her.
Could her aunt be involved in murder?
She exhaled, trying to steady her hands. Right. Call Robert D’Angelo. Then get Patrick. Her brother could help gather the farm managers together.
She scrabbled through the papers on Louisa’s library desk. She’d met D’Angelo at dinner last week. He’d reminded her of a hungry beak-nosed bird of prey. Damn, she couldn’t find his cell number anywhere in this mess. Louisa’s private office was being redecorated, her boxes stacked in one of the outbuildings while most of her immediate paperwork and files had been temporarily relocated to this oak rolltop.
“Do you have the keys for this gun cabinet, ma’am?” Constable Peebles asked.
Her eyes shot to the young, dark-haired cop. “No. I don’t.”
He broke the lock. Tension fluttered through her stomach and perspiration began to prickle over her brow. “Mrs. Lipton! Where’s th—” She found an address book in the drawer. “Oh, I got it!” She flipped it open to D’Angelo, Fischer and Associates, quickly dialed the firm’s number in Sydney. He wasn’t there, but they gave her his mobile number. She dialed again.
Robert D’Angelo answered on the first ring. And the knot of tension tightened in Megan’s stomach as he told her he was miles away, on the outskirts of Sydney, and that APEC security blockades were going up along all major arteries because of the bomb blast. It was unlikely he’d make it through anytime soon.
“You need to get down to the Pepper Flats station yourself, Megan,” Robert instructed in his reassuring baritone. “And tell Louisa not to say one word. Anything she says while in police custody can be used against her in court. Drive that home to her, understand? I cannot stress this enough.”
Megan knew this was going to be a tall order. Asking Louisa to keep her mouth shut and her abrasive opinions to herself was akin to asking the sun not to come up.
“The police have four hours within which to officially charge her and to get her in front of a magistrate,” Robert said. “If they want to hold her longer, they’ll need to apply for another warrant. Watch this.
