Questioning the Heiress

Hell.

Egan leaned in and looked straight into her eyes. “Caroline, what exactly did you write in that journal?”

Chapter Four (#ulink_146e39b7-04b7-5936-ba38-b58d486778ef)

“It’s gibberish,” Caroline concluded as she glanced over the notes that she’d spent most of the previous night and that morning making. Or, rather, the notes that Egan had insisted she make so she could try to re-create her stolen dream journal.

She’d told him the night before that it was futile, that the dreams hadn’t revealed anything important. Caroline still believed that. But Egan had persisted anyway, right before the bomb squad had given her the all-clear to leave his office and go to the house of her best friend, Taylor Landis.

Taylor had welcomed Caroline with open arms. Literally. And her friend had hardly let her out of her sight since. They’d chatted, drunk some wine, and then Taylor had called her security expert to go over to Caroline’s house to change all the locks on the windows and doors and to repair the security system. It wouldn’t give Caroline peace of mind exactly, but it was a start.

“Okay, let me have a look at those notes,” Taylor insisted. She had her long blond hair gathered into a ponytail, she gave it an adjustment and then waggled her fingers. “Maybe they won’t be gibberish to me.”

Caroline handed her the notes and proceeded with her so-called walk-through of her own house. Yet something else Egan had insisted that she do. With an armed security guard shadowing hers and Taylor’s every move, Caroline checked her office to make sure everything was in place.

It was.

A PC, laptop and several thousand dollars worth of computer accessories. All still there.

She checked off another room from her list and went to the guest suite off the main corridor. She’d decorated this one all in blue. Pale, barely there blue, for the most part, with the exception of the glossy navy paint on the floor and a fiery abstract oil painting that hung over the natural white stone mantel. She no longer liked that particular bold shade of blue in the painting because it instantly reminded her of Egan’s eyes.

Caroline made a mental note to replace it.

“You dreamed about clocks chasing you?” Taylor commented, reading from the reconstructed journal.

“Yes.” Caroline frowned. “And don’t you dare say anything about ticking biological clocks. I get enough of that from my parents.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” However, Taylor’s pun indicated she’d thought it. Caroline’s frown deepened at her friend’s grin.

Caroline checked the white marble guest bathroom. Nothing missing there. And she went into a storage room crammed with carefully stacked, unopened cardboard boxes. Things she’d bought to redecorate when she’d moved from her condo to the house five months earlier. The house had been a thirtieth birthday gift from her parents, and even though she had plenty of space—fourteen rooms—Caroline just hadn’t gotten around to making the place hers.

She glanced inside the storage room, saw nothing undisturbed and then headed to the one area that she did indeed want to check out.

Her garage.

With her attention nailed to the notes, Taylor followed her. So did the guard, but he kept some distance from them.

“In the dream you had, a man saved you from the attacking clocks,” Taylor concluded. “Looks like your rescuer was Egan Caldwell.”

Caroline stopped so abruptly that Taylor nearly plowed right into her. “How did you come up with that?”

“Easily. In your notes, you said you were running through the woods with the clocks in pursuit. A man stepped out. He had blond hair, a blue shirt and a silver star embedded in his hand. He shot arrows at the clocks to stop them. Sounds like Egan to me. He has a star badge. He often wears a blue shirt, and he has blondish hair. And if you ask me, those arrows are phallic symbols.”

Stunned, Caroline snatched the notes and read over them again. Oh, God. She was certain she hadn’t dreamed about Egan and his phallic symbol, but if Taylor believed she had, then Egan might think that as well. She’d have to change the notes before he arrived. Except that she couldn’t.

Could she?

No. If he found out, he’d view that as the equivalent of tampering with evidence.

A better solution was just to keep the journal from him and not let him read a single word. She’d wait and show the notes to the psychiatrist, especially since she was meeting with the doctor the following day. Maybe she could convince the psychiatrist to keep them private. After all, it was obvious to her that the dream wasn’t connected to the murders or the hit-and-run.

Caroline tucked her journal beneath her arm and stepped into the garage. The doors were open, allowing in the humid breeze and plenty of light so she could see the damage. It was indeed minimal. A few small holes in the wall and some smoke stains—that was it.

Unfortunately, the minimal damage didn’t extend to her.

Someone had violated her space, and Caroline wondered how long it would be before she could walk into her house and not think about being killed.

Maybe she never would.

The white Mercedes was gone, of course, towed away in the early hours of the morning by the CSI agents, who were probably now looking for clues about the person who had left that explosive for her. She prayed they’d have answers soon.

Caroline continued to look around the garage, and her gaze landed on the workshop door. It was wide open. And it shouldn’t have been. Good grief. She hurried to close it. Except it wouldn’t shut. The CSI had apparently busted the lock, probably to check for evidence, and she glanced inside the workshop at what they’d no doubt seen.

Her old secret.

Something she didn’t exactly want to announce to the world, including Taylor, who likely knew about it but was too much of a friend to say anything. Caroline would have to do something about getting that door fixed.

Taylor ran her fingers over the remaining vehicle, the 1967 candy-apple-red Mustang. “You used to drive this car all the time,” she reminded Caroline.

“Yes. But I gave up on hot, fast things.” And for reasons she didn’t want to explore, she immediately thought of Egan again.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to think of him for long because she heard the voices in her backyard. Obviously, the guard heard them as well because he reached for his gun. Caroline waved him off, however, when she saw her visitors approach the garage.

Kenneth and Tammy Sutton.

She didn’t want a gun drawn on her neighbors. Of course, Kenneth was also Egan’s prime suspect, but Caroline didn’t believe that. Except she hated the uncomfortable feeling that crept through her now. Egan was responsible for those doubts.

But the question was—were his doubts founded?

Twelve hours ago, Caroline would have replied with an emphatic no, but that was before someone had tried to blow her to smithereens.

“Are you all right?” Tammy asked, hurrying to her. She latched on to Caroline, hugging her, and engulfing her in a cloud of Chanel number-something. The woman’s layers of thick gold chains dug into Caroline’s breasts and her bloodred acrylic nails were like little daggers.

Caroline untangled herself from the hug and stepped back. “I’m fine,” she said, realizing she’d been repeating that lie all night and all morning. To her parents. To Taylor. Even to the security guard lurking in the mudroom doorway. And now to Tammy Sutton.

Kenneth strolled closer. No hug. He had his hands in the pockets of his expertly tailored gray suit. With his dark hair combed to perfection, he looked ready for work. And probably was. Being chairman of the City Board often required a sixty-hour-plus week, and it was already past the normal start of his workday.

“You look tired,” Kenneth observed.

“Caroline and I sat up chatting all night,” Taylor volunteered. Covering for her. So that she wouldn’t have to discuss the stress of the explosion and lack of sleep. “She’s doing great, just like Caroline always does. Of course, she’s anxious to catch the monster who did this.”

Kenneth and Tammy nodded sympathetically. “So did the intruder take anything?” Kenneth asked.

Caroline inadvertently glanced down at the new dream journal squished between her arm and side. “Not really.”

Tammy must have noticed that glance and the uncertainty in Caroline’s voice. “Are you taking inventory?”

“Something like that.”