Sweet Liar Read online

  One morning, two days before the performance, Samantha threw up. “Nerves,” she said as Mike handed her a washcloth. As he’d done before, Mike held her head while she heaved, then smiling mischievously, he suggested breakfast, which sent Sam back to the toilet.

  By midmorning she felt better, ate some toast and juice, and took the vitamins Mike handed her. With a wicked grin, she said, “How’s the dancing coming?” It had taken her four days of badgering to get Mike to tell her what he was doing to prepare for his role of Michael Ransome. When he’d at last told her, he’d had such a look of martyrdom on his face that she couldn’t help laughing. Mike was taking lessons in ballroom dancing.

  At eleven Mike went with Sam to Maxie’s, then waited outside for what turned out to be three hours while Maxie told Samantha everything she knew about that night in 1928. When Samantha came out, she was white-faced and drawn looking.

  “Find out?” Mike asked, taking her hand.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Most of it, but not all.” Looking at Mike, her mouth was a hard line. “That corrupt old man,” she said, and Mike knew she was referring to Doc. He also knew that Sam would have cursed, but there were no words to describe what she felt about the man.

  Everything had gone so perfectly that there had to be something that went wrong, and it did. On the morning before the day of the performance, after Samantha had thrown up for the third time, Kane called and said that one of his sons was sick. He said it was nothing, but Samantha could hear the worry in his voice.

  “Blair’s with him and she says it’s nothing to be concerned about, but I don’t want to leave him. Could Mike get Dad or Frank to go with him to…”

  “To get Doc?” Samantha finished for him.

  “Yes,” Kane said with a sigh, wishing Sam didn’t know so much. “Dad will know what to do.”

  After Samantha hung up, she called Mike into the library and told him what Kane had said.

  “Sure, I’ll get Dad,” Mike said as he moved toward the door, but Sam put her body in front of it.

  “I am going with you.”

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” Mike’s humorless voice said as he reached for the knob.

  Samantha put her hand over it. “Mike, listen to me, it makes sense. I know what you and Frank have done, and don’t even think of lying to me about it. Your brother thinks money can buy anything.”

  “For Frank it usually does.”

  “I know that this time his money bought the guards at Doc’s place.”

  “It wasn’t too difficult since they haven’t been paid in weeks. Doc holds them off with promises of big money coming in from Europe, but I think he’s broke. Frank could find out nothing about any money coming in from anywhere.”

  “Who did he ask? His Wall Street friends?”

  “Money is money everywhere. Frank asked in places you don’t want to know about.”

  “Simple little Sam, too dumb to hear all the facts.”

  “Dear little Sam whose life is in danger,” Mike shot back at her.

  Calming, Samantha looked at him. “How many of Doc’s guards were you able to bribe?”

  “Most of them. Okay, okay, eighty percent. There were three of them we couldn’t get to and there’s the house staff, such as it is. It’s going to be dangerous getting in there.” He leaned toward her. “Samantha, those guards carry guns.”

  She took a deep breath. “Mike, I’m small. I can go places you and your muscled brothers can’t. I can climb fences and trees. What if you and your dad have to climb a fence? Who lifts whom? You can toss me over like a javelin if you need to.”

  “And land on your pretty head?”

  “Don’t you dare patronize me!” Putting her hand on his chest, her face softened. “Mike, you must take me. If there are any problems, Doc won’t kill me and I can protect you.”

  “And what makes you think he’ll stop at killing you? You know you’re not his granddaughter.”

  “Because now I know what happened to Half Hand’s money,” she said softly. “And if Doc hurts either of us, he’ll never see a penny of that money.”

  32

  They had to go over the wall.

  When they hid their vehicle in the trees, under cover of darkness, and went to the gate to find that it was locked, Samantha’s first reaction was to turn around and go back to the city. According to Mike, Frank had bribed the men guarding the gate and it wasn’t supposed to be locked.

  “We don’t have time for you to turn coward now,” Mike said. He was afraid for her, true, but he’d had a lifetime of experience of living with his older brother: If Frank said the gate was going to be open, then it was—they were probably at the wrong gate.

  At the far back of the walled property was a tree with a sturdy branch hanging over the tall brick wall. Climbing the tree first, Mike then helped Samantha up behind him. After throwing a few small packages of very fragrant meat onto the uncut lawn to ascertain whether the dogs were penned as they were supposed to be, he lowered Samantha to the ground. Lifting her hands above her head, lacing her fingers, she made a handle for her body, then Mike stretched out on the tree branch, slowly lowered her to the ground, then jumped down behind her.

  “Run,” he ordered and took off, Samantha on his heels.

  As promised, the side door to the house was unlocked, and there were little night-lights on so they could see their way around furniture. Mike noticed that in a few places there were tables missing and places where chairs should have been.

  When they sneaked past the kitchen, they heard voices, even though it was after midnight now and the house should have been asleep. Holding their breaths, they tiptoed past whoever was in the kitchen and went up the stairs.

  One of the stairs creaked when Samantha stepped on it. Seconds later, a guard appeared, looking up the darkened stairs, but Mike’s quick thinking saved them, for he practically threw her up the two remaining stairs where she crouched behind a sideboard, while Mike pressed himself into a doorway.

  “You’re getting nervous in your old age,” they heard a man say.

  “There’s something going on tonight, I can feel it,” answered another voice. “You think the old man’s all right?”

  “I think he’ll outlive us all,” was the answer, and the voice held no love for its employer.

  When the men walked away, Samantha let out her pent-up breath and followed Mike when he motioned her to follow him. He seemed to have memorized the floor plan, because he knew where to go and which door to open.

  Sitting up in bed, Doc was waiting for them. He wasn’t sleeping, he wasn’t reading, he was merely waiting. Fully dressed, on top of the covers, he didn’t so much as blink in surprise when they entered.

  “I heard you on the stairs,” he said to Mike. “You would never have made a cat burglar.”

  “I leave thievery to you,” Mike answered, then cocked his head at the man. “You’re going with us.”

  “I had planned to. I want to see this party you have planned for me. It’s been many years since anyone went to such trouble for my benefit, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “What do you know about us?” Samantha hissed at him.

  When he turned to her, for a moment, Samantha’s blood seemed to grow cold, for in this dim light, he didn’t look like a pathetic, crippled old man but like a young, heartless gangster, a man who cared for no one and nothing.

  “I did not live as long as I have by not knowing what goes on around me. I know that you have bribed most of my guards into leaving doors unlocked and penning up the dogs.” He gave a nasty grin. “I relocked the front gate. I didn’t want you to have it too easy, and in seven minutes I will have the dogs released.”

  At those words Samantha thought she and Mike should leave, and quickly, as she didn’t want a wild run with snarling dogs nipping at their heels. This seemed to be Mike’s idea too, but before he left the room, he scooped Doc’s frail body into his arms, then took the stairs down two at a time, Samantha ri