Clate tried to sit up, his stomach slightly less turbulent. Hannah had removed her vial of God-only-knew-what from under his nose. He had his eyes half opened. Where the hell was he? The library, he decided. Someone must have brought him there. Last he remembered, he was passing out on the kitchen floor.
"He'll be fine now," Hannah pronounced.
"Clate." Andrew's voice again. Clate hadn't brought him into his line of vision yet. "Jackson, where's Piper? She was supposed to be here for dinner."
Piper. Clate staggered to his feet. A strong arm—Andrew's— caught him by the elbow and steadied him. His eyes focused. His vision was blurred still. "Piper?"
"She's not here and she's not at her house," Andrew said. "Her car and bike are still here."
Clate took in the words, took in Andrew's terror, even as he rolled off the couch and staggered out of the library, down the hall to the kitchen. His head throbbed, his legs shook, his stomach undulated. Piper. He turned the sink faucet on cold and stuck his head under. He soaked his hair, his face, the back of his neck. He switched off the water, stood up, and just dared himself to throw up.
Hannah was sniffing his iced-tea glass. "Don't wash this. We'll have it tested for poison."
Clate didn't argue. Even Andrew kept quiet.
"Jackson, Piper was pissed at you. I showed her a letter—"
"I haven't seen her. I was starting dinner when I collapsed. She's not—" He took a breath. "Hell."
Andrew straightened, his face pale. "I'm calling the police. Benjamin's at her house working on the roof. I'll get him over. Hannah, you can call Pop and Liddy, Sally and Paul, Carlucci, anybody you can think of. We'll find her."
But Hannah had sunk against the counter, her little bony hand shaking; her frail body looked bloodless. "Not Sally and Paul." Her voice quavered, yet her tone was confident. "That's what my dream meant." Her eyes focused on Clate, her mouth drawn down in a mix of determination and terror. "My God, we have to hurry."
"Clate's not dead," Piper said as she jabbed the spade into the hard ground. "You're bluffing."
"Hannah's missing herbs, Piper. The police will blame her. Either she made a mistake because she's old and crazy or she intentionally poisoned him to get her house back and stop him from putting in a resort. He is, you know. I've heard it on good authority. Men like that, nothing stops them." He spoke with a note of admiration, envy. "Keep digging."
Her arm and shoulder muscles screamed in agony, but she couldn't stop. If she did, Paul would kick her. He had several times already. "Paul, listen to me. You're not that desperate. Clate's not dead. I'd know it if he were. You can make a case that you were trying to disable him, not kill him. You don't have to do this."
"Shut up. Dig, damn it."
She could hear the panic bearing down on him. She continued digging. One spadeful at a time. Through roots and worms and rock. It was exhausting work, and whenever she tried to catch her breath, he kicked or hit her, not hard enough to disable her, just hard enough to scare her into thinking about what came after the hole was dug.
"I need water," she said.
"Tough. Dig."
"There's no treasure."
"It's another eighteen inches down, Piper."
"The treasure's a myth. It's a story Hannah's father told her while he was off in the war. It doesn't exist."
He kicked her, harder this time, on the outside of her right shin. She bit back a cry of pain. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. This whole thing was about him, his ego, his need to be the big man with the name, the reputation, the money. He was a sniveling, arrogant, miserable coward who'd turned a hunger for the easy way out—for treasure—into a campaign of terror. One mistake had piled onto another, until a neat, tidy operation was entirely out of hand, and he was willing to commit murder to get what he wanted and keep from owning up to what he'd done.
And he knew, she thought. He knew what he was. That was why he kicked her, hit her, enjoyed, on some level, having her in his power.
"The hole's too deep," she said. "I have to get down in it."
"Do it."
Once he took his eyes off her, the moment his attention flagged even for a split second, she'd have at him with the shovel. She was just waiting for her chance. She jumped down into the hole. This spot wasn't on Hannah's list. It wasn't even visible from the bedroom window from which she'd watched her shadowy figure. Jason Frye. Dead for nineteen years, and now his handiwork eighty years ago was causing more trouble.
If Hannah hadn't imagined the whole thing.
The muscles in her shoulders and arms aching, Piper hacked the shovel into the dirt. She was on relatively high ground, and the scrub trees and brush produced organic matter that had enriched the soil, making it heavier, denser, less sandy.
"I want the treasure, Piper. Don't mistake me. This isn't just to cover my tracks." His voice was hoarse, every fiber of him focused on her as she dug. "I want the money it'll bring. If Sally had more spark, I'd have the house, the land, and the treasure. But she's the Frye, and she doesn't care what I want. Thinks it's unseemly for someone of her social status to want anything."