“That is the dumbest thing you could have said to me.” She flashed her coldest smile. “Take my advice and stop talking.”
For the first time he looked uncertain. She got ready to scream. He must have realized she was going to go through with her threat, because at the last second he stepped out of her way.
She yanked open the door and went out into the hall. Guilfoyle hurried after her. She ignored him.
“Miss Lodge, please wait,” he said. “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding.”
She hurried down the hall. The lobby was nearly empty. Dolores Guilfoyle was chatting with a couple that was waiting for their car to be brought around. When she saw Maggie and Arthur her face tightened. Maggie remembered the words from her dream: Stay away from my husband.
The dream guide named Jake opened the front door for Maggie.
“Can I get your car, ma’am?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” she said. “Someone is picking me up.”
Jake looked out at the driveway. “The Packard?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Nice car.”
“It is.” She smiled. “I just wish I got to drive it more often. My research assistant insists on being behind the wheel.”
Jake chuckled. “Can’t blame a man for wanting to drive that speedster.”
“Can’t blame a woman for wanting to drive it, either,” Maggie said.
She went briskly outside, aware that Arthur was right behind her.
“Miss Lodge,” he said. “Let me explain.”
Sam was waiting in the shadows, the fedora angled a little lower than usual over one side of his face. The result was that he looked a little more dangerous than usual. Relief splashed through her. He was all right. The disturbing sensation she had experienced a short time ago in the theater must have been a trick of her imagination, generated by the shadows from the seat in which Nevins had died.
Sam saw her and started forward, but his attention shifted immediately to Arthur. A hard, cold light appeared in his eyes.
“Ready to leave?” he asked. He took her arm but he did not take his eyes off Guilfoyle.
“Yes.” She gave Arthur a cool smile. “It’s been an insightful evening.”
“Tomorrow is the last day of the conference,” Arthur said. “I hope you will attend the seminars.”
He inclined his head in a courtly gesture and strode back into the lobby.
Sam watched him leave. “An insightful evening?”
“I’ll explain later,” she said. “What about you?”
“An insightful evening.”
He eased her into the front seat and closed the door. Rounding the hood, he got behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and put the car in gear. A prickly sensation made her glance back at the lobby.
Distance and darkness made it impossible to make out Dolores Guilfoyle’s expression, but there was no need for a closer look. Her stiff posture and rigid shoulders told the story. She was furious.
Sam drove out through the main gates of the Institute and headed toward the lights of the Sea Dream Hotel.
Maggie settled back into the seat. The memory of the earlier flash of anxiety returned. This time she did not dismiss it. She turned to study Sam’s hard-edged profile.
“Were you hurt?” she asked. “Did someone see you go into Oxlade’s villa? I know something bad happened. Tell me.”
Chapter 33
Her concern made no sense, Sam thought. She could not know he had been very nearly run down in the hotel parking lot, so how had she guessed there had been a problem? Another Maggie mystery.
“I’m fine,” he said. “No one saw me search Oxlade’s villa. At least, I don’t think I was seen.”
“That does not reassure me. I know something bad happened. Tell me. I’m the client, remember?”
“Trust me, I’m not going to forget that.” He pulled into the hotel parking lot and shut down the engine. “All right, I’ll give you the facts, but try not to leap to conclusions, okay?”
“Too late. I’ve already made the leap and I don’t like where I landed.”
“I can tell.”
He studied the other vehicles in the lot. There were a couple of Ford sedans, but he knew it was highly unlikely the one that had almost struck him was there—not unless the near miss really had been an accident. The parking area was poorly lit. Maybe the driver hadn’t seen him.
Right. Now he was the one with the overactive imagination.
“Sam?”
He rested one hand on the wheel. “The search took me longer than I had planned, so on my way back from the gardens I didn’t go into the hotel. I went straight toward the car. As I was crossing the parking lot, a vehicle came out of nowhere. Well, no, that’s not right. It came from the far side of the lot. The driver gunned the engine on the way to the exit. No headlights. I would have been hit if I hadn’t managed to get out of the way.”
“Someone tried to murder you,” she said.
She sounded shocked. Horrified.
“Could have been an accident,” he said, automatically trying to reassure her. “The driver might have been drinking in the hotel bar. Forgot to turn on the headlights, so he never saw me.”
“And you have the nerve to accuse me of having a vivid imagination. Someone tries to run you down in a parking lot while you are in the middle of what is very likely a murder investigation and you’re trying to call it an accident?”
He should have known better than to try to lie to her. He exhaled and cracked open the door. “Let’s go inside. I’d rather have this conversation somewhere other than this damn parking lot.”
He got out from behind the wheel. Maggie did not wait for him to reach her side of the Packard. She extracted herself from the passenger seat and hurried to join him.
“What did the car look like?” she asked, scanning the parking lot.
“Like every other late-model Ford sedan on the road.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“No. The car came from behind. By the time I picked myself up off the ground, the Ford was out of the parking lot. It disappeared around the curve, heading toward Cliff Road.”
“Or the Institute,” Maggie said.
“Or the Institute,” he agreed. “I did a quick check of the parking lot there while I waited for you.”
“Great idea.”
“I certainly thought so. There were two Fords in the lot. Both engines were cold.”
“Oh.” She hesitated, clearly disappointed. But true to form, her spirits quickly revived. “When you think about it, there are a number of places where you could conceal a vehicle on the grounds of the Institute. The old caretaker’s garage. Behind the gardener’s toolshed or one of the buildings that is still boarded up. For that matter, you could hide a car off the grounds as well and walk back through the gardens.”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to check all the possibilities,” he said.
“And you didn’t get a look at the driver.”
“No. Just a short glimpse of the silhouette from the back. Whoever it was wore a man’s hat, but that’s all I could see.”
“So it was a man at the wheel?”
“Maybe.”
Maggie shot him a quick glance. “Maybe?”
“A man’s hat set at the right angle makes a very good disguise for a woman, especially if you only catch a glimpse of her silhouette from the back.”
“I hate to tell you this, but you make a lousy eyewitness, considering you used to be a cop.”
“I know.”
Chapter 34
What have you done, Arthur?” Dolores Guilfoyle used the silver lighter on the coffee table to ignite a cigarette. She inhaled deeply and was shocked to see that her hand was shaking. “What did you say to the Lodge woman that made Oxlade think he had been deceived?”
Arthur grimaced and went to the drinks cart. “He was upset because I used the Traveler in the dream reading.”
“The Traveler?” Dolores snapped the cigarette out of her mouth. “What were you thinking? You know Oxlade is paranoid about that legend. He doesn’t want to be associated with it.”