Page 75 of When She Dreams

“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 beenan 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 anaccident?”

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.

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