Page 47 of The Bride Wore White

“Let me see that.”

Clara snapped the envelope out of Maud’s fingers and glanced at the front. Her name had been spelled out in letters that had been cut from a magazine. She tore open the envelope and took out the note. Her face tightened with disgust.

“This is outrageous,” she whispered. “The extortionist is demanding twice as much as last time. It says instructions for delivery will follow. That means the monster ishere, Maud, right here in Burning Cove. He followed me.”

“So it would appear.”

“This is beyond belief. In the first note, the bastard said there would be only one payment.” Clara crumpled the paper in one hand and began to pace the room. “Now there have been two more. What a fool I was to think it was finished. They say blackmailers never stop. Evidently that’s true. I would give anything to find out who has been sending these damned extortion notes.”

Maud said nothing. It was not the first time she had listened toClara vent her fury. The blackmail threats had begun arriving a few weeks ago. Each of the demands had been larger than the one before.

Clara reached the far end of the room, swung around, and paced back across the space. “I shall arrange to have the money wired to that account because I can’t be bothered with this nonsense. Not now. I have other priorities here in Burning Cove. But I have had enough, Maud. It’s clear now that the blackmailer will bleed me forever. When we return to San Francisco, I shall hire a private detective to track him down.”

“Yes, Mrs.Dover,” Maud said.

“I can’t believe it has come to this,” Clara whispered. “Gilbert is gone. Rollins is all that I have left. I can only hope that, although the talent did not manifest in him, it may show up in his offspring. After all, he is my son.”

“Yes,” Maud said. “He is your son. He is of your bloodline.”

Clara straightened her already rigid shoulders and raised her chin. “In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to the business of getting him a wife, one who showed some indications of a sixth sense. Now he is stuck with that weak, insipid little mouse.”

“Yes, Mrs.Dover.”

“Well, we both know there are ways to get rid of an inconvenient spouse, don’t we, Maud?”

Maud twisted a hand in her apron. “Yes. We do.”

“We shall worry about Ella some other time. Right now I must stay focused on making certain the vision I received last night is fulfilled.”

“Are you sure a face-to-face confrontation with Madame Ariadne is a necessary part of that vision?”

“Yes, Gilbert made it quite clear. There must also be witnesses. So you see, a spa setting is ideal.”

Chapter 21

It was two in the afternoon, and almost every padded lounger in the pool room of Spa Elegance was occupied when Prudence was shown into the humid space. She was draped in a fluffy white robe, her hair bound up in a towel turban, her feet protected by white slippers. She was no longer wearing her signature black, but the attendant made certain everyone in the space knew who she was.

“Please relax, Madame Ariadne,” the woman said, pitching her voice a little louder than necessary as she indicated an empty lounger. “I will bring you a pot of herbal tea.”

Prudence tried not to wince. She reminded herself that her appearance at the spa was part of a master plan to draw out a killer. She had left Jack sitting in the shade of the small sidewalk café across the street, a cup of coffee on the table, a fedora angled over his left eye to partially conceal his scarred face. His job was to watch the entrance of the spa.

If today’s plan did not work, they intended to follow up with a well-publicized dinner at the Burning Cove Hotel restaurant,followed by another night at the Paradise. Part of her was secretly hoping the spa setup failed, because the thought of another night of dancing with Jack held a lot of appeal.

The attendant arrived with the tea. Prudence reclined on the lounger and took stock of her surroundings. On any other day—specifically on a day when the obsessed Clara Dover was not in town—she would have enjoyed spending the afternoon in a first-class spa. She knew very well she would not be here today if Jack hadn’t called Luther Pell and asked him to make the arrangements. Pell had been happy to oblige.

The interior of Spa Elegance looked as if it had been inspired by the legendary spas of Europe. The blue-and-white-tiled walls of the high-ceilinged room gleamed. Women wrapped in large fluffy towels clustered around the edges of the three crystal-clear pools. Attendants dressed in aqua-blue uniforms padded about delivering tea and fresh slices of cucumber for the eyes. It was as if she had stepped into a Hollywood movie, Prudence thought.

Yes, she would definitely have been enjoying herself if it were not for the fact that someone wanted to kill her—possibly two people, if Jack was right.

She was reaching for the cup of herbal tea when the woman on the neighboring lounger spoke in low tones.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I couldn’t help overhearing the attendant address you as Madame Ariadne.”

“That’s right,” Prudence said. “And you are?”

“Mildred Ashwood,” Mildred said. “From San Francisco. I read in the papers that you were in town. I must say, this is quite exciting. I followed your case very closely.”

Prudence froze. “My case?”

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