37
When Sam and Lincoln arrived at Enchanted Petals, there was a sign on the gate saying Closed Today. It seemed strange to Sam that a garden center would be closed on a July day. Possibly even stranger was what Lincoln said to Sam when he apologized for it.
“Relatives?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like I said, our family owns the property.”
He got out of the car and opened the gate.
Sam watched him, feeling odd about the coincidence.
They drove into the driveway, through a meadow, up to a white Victorian house with ornate gingerbread trim.
The side door bore the sign Enchanted Petals—Sam could see that it was the flower shop.
Behind the house were a red barn, the greenhouse, and vast flower beds.
“Where’s the trail?” Sam asked. “That you told me you hiked on?”
“It’s on that rise,” he said, pointing to a hill at the edge of a pine forest beyond the barn.
“But you didn’t have to actually hike it, to know that this place was here,” Sam said. “I mean, you made it sound as if you spotted it from far away and made a haphazard discovery. That’s different from saying you’re related to the owners.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m really sorry for leaving that part out.”
“Why did you, then?” Sam asked.
Lincoln exhaled. “Honestly, when you called the number and told me it rang at Enchanted Petals, I was blown away,” he said.
“Part of me wanted to talk you out of coming, because I feel so embarrassed—confused, actually—about my family winding up with that 1740 fantasies phone number. But I’m glad we came, so you can see how innocent this place is.
It’s really beautiful—do you want a tour? ”
“Sure,” she said, hiding how rattled she still felt.
“Let’s start inside,” he said. “There’s an amazing library of nature books, especially about horticulture. My dad owned property in Grasse, France, where they grow flowers to make perfume. He’d like to do that here, but the growing season is different. Rhode Island is colder than Provence.”
Sam thought about Crispin Adams, how she knew him only as a collector who bought paintings from Kate’s gallery.
“Guess your dad has a lot of interests,” Sam said. “Art, flowers, perfume . . .”
“They intersect, if you think about it. My dad likes beauty,” Lincoln said.
He turned the front doorknob, but it was locked, so he walked a few steps and tried the shop door without success.
“Usually someone’s here, even when the shop is closed. I don’t know what’s going on. Let me make a call, I’ll get us in,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “Let’s just look at the grounds.” Her instincts told her that she’d been right to want to check this place out—that it still had a connection to 1740—but she didn’t like the fact that Lincoln had lied about his family owning it.
Lincoln ignored what she said and dialed a number on his phone.
Sam walked away from him, toward a walled rose garden. She heard him making a call, asking someone why the garden center was closed, then asking if there was a hidden key. He must not have gotten the answer he wanted because she heard him swear and then make another call.
The lawn was manicured, the hedges were trimmed, and the rose garden was well tended. The roses were in full bloom, some shades of pink and red, but mostly white and pale-cream flowers—like the ones that had been left on Dr. Tyler’s grave.
“Well, that’s embarrassing,” Lincoln said, walking over to her.
“What?”
“I kept the big secret, that I’m related to the owners, and then I tell you all about it, and I couldn’t even get us into the building,” he said.
“That’s really okay,” she said, feeling nervous about being there at all.
“But good news—my dad is bringing us the key,” he said.
“Your dad?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” Lincoln said. “Let’s go for a walk. I’ll show you the greenhouses and the hiking trail while we wait.”
Sam hesitated. She loved nature and hiked whenever she had the opportunity, but just then she felt uneasy.
Lincoln seemed too relaxed, considering Maeve was missing and the weird surprise that his family was connected to this property.
Sam didn’t want to go wandering off with him; in fact, she realized that she didn’t even want to be there at all.
“Let’s go back to the Ocean House,” Sam said. “Call your dad back and save him a trip.”
“He’s already on the way,” Lincoln said.
They walked into the greenhouse, hot and humid from sunlight pouring through the glass and moisture from the sprinklers.
Long rows of benches were covered with pots of geraniums and petunias.
Baskets hung overhead, artfully planted with summer flowers.
A large adjacent annual garden was enclosed with a wire fence.
Sam could see cosmos, zinnias, dahlias, and other bright flowers.
Several plants appeared to have been gnawed down almost to the ground. Lincoln walked over to examine them.
“Damn squirrels,” he said. “Wait here.”
Sam watched him run into the barn. A few minutes later, he came back with a large black plastic box. He stepped over the wire enclosure and began looking for a place to put it.
“What is that?” Sam asked.
“Pest control. Rodenticide.”
“No,” she said. “Don’t put it there. Animals eat the poison, and it causes internal bleeding, they bleed to death. It’s horrible—they suffer.”
“And they stop eating our flowers.”
“Do you realize that if you poison the squirrels, it will also poison anything that eats them? Cats, owls, hawks?” Sam asked.
“People should keep their cats inside,” Lincoln said sharply. “Outdoor cats don’t stand a chance in the country—too many predators. You can’t worry about everything, Sam.”
Yes, you can, Sam thought. “Lincoln, please don’t do it.”
He completely ignored her and began walking along the rows of plants, looking for a place to hide the black plastic box. She wanted to yank it out of his hands, but he gave her a strange smile that sent prickles down the back of her neck, and she froze.
“Fine,” he said. “I won’t poison the rodents.”
“Let’s go back to the Ocean House,” she said again.
“What’s the difference, there or here? We’re still going to be waiting.”
“I want to see Kate.”
“She hasn’t even been answering your calls,” Lincoln said.
His mood had changed dramatically since speaking to his father. She felt as if something was about to happen, and it scared her. She wasn’t sure she felt it directly from Lincoln or from the garden property, but she knew she wanted to get away from there.
Just then, she heard tires on gravel. The driveway wasn’t visible from here, over by the barn. Lincoln looked surprised. He walked halfway to the lodge, leaned to see around the building, and saw the car that was approaching. Then he hurried back to Sam.
“Come on, let’s hide,” he said.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“My dad and someone I don’t want to see,” Lincoln said. He reached for Sam’s hand and tugged her toward the barn. “Don’t let them see you.”
“Why, what’s wrong?” Sam asked.
“Tell you later,” he said. “Just hide, Sam.” He pushed her into the barn, threw the poison box into a corner, and slid the door closed behind him.
With the door closed, the barn was dark, but slivers of light came through cracks in the boards.
Sam’s thoughts were racing. Why was Lincoln so insistent that she hide?
Was he embarrassed to be with her? Maybe he was afraid that his father would wonder why he was with her instead of Maeve.
Sam felt foolish and annoyed, hiding in a barn, so she decided to just walk out into the sunshine and say hello.
But she heard the barn door creak as it was opened, her gut told her to do the opposite. She made herself very small and hid behind the firewood rack.
“I told you, Dad—no one’s here,” Lincoln said.
“Then whose purse is in your front seat?” Crispin Adams asked.
“A friend’s. She forgot it when I dropped her off earlier,” Lincoln said.
“What friend?”
“You don’t know her, Dad,” Lincoln said.
“How old is she?” his father asked.
There was a long silence when Lincoln didn’t answer. Sam’s heart was pounding. What a strange question—what would his father care about Lincoln’s friend’s age?
“How old is this friend?” his father pressed. “Is she a possibility?”
“Forget it, Dad,” Lincoln said. “Let’s get out of the barn, okay? It’s damp, and it smells like mold.”
“I’d like to know what you were doing in here,” his father said. “You seemed very secretive when I saw you closing the door behind you.”
“No,” he said. “I was just looking for some rat poison. Some animal has practically decimated the annuals. I was going to put traps in the greenhouse and garden.”
“Little fuckers,” his father said.
“Yeah, the dahlias are basically gone.”
“I’m glad you called. I need your help, and this can’t wait, Lincoln,” his father said. “The police are getting close. We have to move the party, got it?”
“Got it,” Lincoln mumbled, dropping his voice.
“Don’t sound so sullen. You’re my son, and this is your inheritance. Be proud.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Lincoln said.
Sam stayed where she was until their voices faded and she heard the rasp of the barn door being pushed shut.
She poked her head up, saw that the door was still cracked open a few inches, and crept forward.
She glanced outside and didn’t see anyone, so she squeezed through the door’s narrow opening.
She walked softly to the edge of the barn and peered around the corner to see the driveway.
Parked right behind Lincoln’s Mercedes was a black Range Rover just like the one Sam had seen on the video, stopping on Bluff Avenue to pick up Maeve and her captor.
Lincoln was standing there with his father and a woman with her back turned.
She heard someone calling loudly from inside the Range Rover and practically jumped. Was that Kate’s voice?
“This is beyond the pale. Can you shut her up?” Crispin Adams asked.
“Of course, Crispin,” the woman said.
When she turned to Lincoln, Sam saw her face and gasped.
“Maybe your father believed you about no one being in the barn, but I don’t,” Maeve said. “I recognize that purse in your car. It belongs to Sam Lathrop. Were you really so stupid as to bring her here?”
“Maeve . . .” Lincoln began.
“You idiot. Now Sam is part of it. Go get her, and we’ll bring her with us, along with her aunt.”
Sam held her hand to her mouth. That is Kate in the car, she thought.
“No way,” Lincoln said. “Leave Sam alone.”
“You’re an idiot. I’ll get her myself,” Maeve said, sounding furious.
They have Kate, they have Kate, and Maeve’s part of it, Sam thought, shaking with panic. She pulled back, hiding around the corner, just as Maeve started toward the barn.
Sam stayed out of sight until Maeve entered the open door, and then she began to run.
She had no idea where to go, but she knew she had to get out of there.
Her eyes stung with tears and fury at Maeve’s betrayal as she dashed for the woods, needing to lose herself in the trees so they couldn’t see her.
She made sure to avoid the trail Lincoln had pointed out—they would look there for her.
As soon as she was a relatively safe distance away, hidden in the forest, she stopped to call Conor for help.
That’s when she realized that her phone was in her bag, the one Maeve had seen in the front seat of Lincoln’s car. She couldn’t go back for it; her only chance was to start running again, to keep going as fast and as far away as she could.
Tuesday, July 6; 3:30 p.m.
“We’ve got to locate Miranda,” Conor said, focused on finding Kate. “And given the connection Sam noticed between her and Leo, we should find him too.”
“Could Miranda be on the boat with him? Did you hear an engine in the background when she called?” Tom asked.
“There was background noise, but I’m not sure what it was. She talked in a low voice—someone was there, and she didn’t want them to hear what she was saying about Kate.”
“About Kate being next,” Tom said.
“Kate’s already been taken,” Conor said, berserk over that fact.
“You don’t know that.”
“You saw that room in Fernando’s house. Her car’s there, and she’s not. They’ve got her somewhere. I should have gone with her.”
“Let’s focus on what we know,” Tom said.
Conor had called Uncle Mike to ask if he knew the name of Leo’s boat or where he docked it.
Mike didn’t know the boat’s name, but he remembered that Leo had mentioned that he kept it at Breakwater Marina in South Kingston.
Tom said he knew the manager there, so he made the call.
Both calls steps in finding Kate, but time was ticking by.
Conor knew that anything could be happening to her, and every minute that passed meant that she was farther away from him, in greater danger.
He waited impatiently while his brother spoke with Henry, the boatyard manager.
It was a short conversation—summer days at any New England marina meant busy times and long hours for yard managers.
Clearly Tom and Henry had known each other for years, so Tom used sailor shorthand to get the information he needed.
“What did he say?” Conor asked.
“First, Leo told Henry the same thing he told us—that he’s heading to Block Island.
He said that Leo sometimes takes women out on the boat, rarely the same one twice, and he doesn’t remember anyone named Miranda.
He saw Leo when he was getting ready to leave today, and he had a friend with him. A judge from Providence.”
“A judge? Did he give you a name?” Conor asked.
“Yes,” Tom said. “Randall Flook. Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t know many Rhode Island judges. We can ask Uncle Mike about him. What else did he say?” Conor asked.
“He told me the name of Leo’s boat,” Tom said. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“What?” Conor asked.
“Rosebud,” Tom said. “Like in Citizen Kane—it’s the last word spoken in the movie, the main character’s obsession—he says it on his deathbed. Guess Leo’s a film buff.”
“That’s not it,” Conor said, his heart smashing in his chest. “An obsession, yes, but of a different kind. Beauty and the Beast.”
“How does that work?”
“Belle asks her father to bring her back a rose from his business trip. He picks one, but it’s from the Beast’s garden, and the Beast says he has to trade his daughter if he wants to stay alive. The father hands Belle over to him . . . she becomes the Beast’s prisoner.”
“Like the women on Psyche,” Tom said.
“And maybe on Rosebud,” Conor said, feeling sick. “This can’t be a coincidence—it’s all too close. Leo is in on this, Tom. He’s part of the whole thing.”