He leaned in closer to Poppy. “I want to know how you got your hands on that newspaper.”
By now, plenty of others had gathered around, all of them awaiting Poppy’s answer.
“Edwin gave it to me,” she said. “He subscribes to all the major newspapers on the East Coast so he can buy antiques that get listed for sale.”
“Edwin doesn’t have two dimes to rub together,” Liam said. “Just last week he asked me for a loan. He ought to get a real job instead of trying to make a go of it buying old junk.”
“Junk?” Bertie asked. “I paid him six hundred dollars for an antique flask, and I still haven’t seen it yet.”
Patrick spoke directly to Liam. “Being broke isn’t a crime, but it’s awfully convenient that Edwin was reading the Pittsburgh police blotter. Someone tried to frame us in Pittsburgh and probably pulled some strings to get it reported in the paper. I wonder if Edwin was in Pittsburgh this summer.”
Liam’s expression turned fierce. “Let’s go ask him.” He gestured for the bodyguards to follow him to the far side of the ship where Edwin was playing deck shuffleboard with some of the younger cousins. Even Poppy rose to follow.
“Edwin, when was the last time you were in Pittsburgh?” Patrick asked.
Edwin straightened and leaned casually on his shuffleboard cue. “I’ve never been to Pittsburgh.”
“But you subscribe to the Pittsburgh newspaper,” Liam asserted.
“No, I don’t,” Edwin said, beginning to glance nervously at the people suddenly gathered around him.
“Yes, you do,” Poppy insisted. “You said you monitor it for antique sales and that’s why you had a copy on the island.”
Edwin shook his head, smiling condescendingly at Poppy. “You brought that newspaper to the island. Don’t you remember? You said you wanted to follow the Pittsburgh golfing league.”
Poppy looked confused. “No. The only time I heard mention of the Pittsburgh golf league was when that redheaded fellow mentioned it during the croquet game last weekend. He’s such a crass fellow. I don’t care that he is your hunting partner. I don’t like him and wish you would stop bringing him to my croquet parties.”
The only assailant who’d gotten away the night of Liam’s attack was a redheaded man with a long, crooked nose.
“Tell me more about this redheaded fellow,” Patrick asked, striving for a calm tone so Poppy would cooperate, but Liam was more aggressive.
“Did he have a long nose and carry a hunting knife with deer antlers carved into the handle?”
“I have no idea,” Poppy said defensively. “He’s Edwin’s friend, not mine, and I’ve asked Edwin to stop bringing him around because I can’t tolerate the smell of garlic on a man’s breath.”
Edwin looked sick, but he still managed a nonchalant laugh. “Poppy’s got it wrong,” he said, looking at Liam. “She brought the newspaper to the island, and she was the one who showed me the article about Patrick stealing from some kind of church fund.”
Poppy bristled. “That’s a lie. You brought the newspaper to the island, and now you’re trying to blame me.”
“You probably shot at us too,” Joshua said, staring straight at Edwin in appalled wonder. “None of the Blackstones even know how to load a gun except you.”
“But I’m an excellent shot,” Edwin defended. “If I wanted to shoot someone, I wouldn’t have missed.”
“That was because the gun was loaded with the wrong ammunition,” Joshua said. “Of course the shots went wild. You ruined the best weekend of the year.”
“And I’ve got a scar on my arm I’m going to have for the rest of my life,” Poppy yelled, giving a two-handed shove to Edwin, who stumbled back. The cast on his leg made him clumsy, but he caught himself before falling.
Patrick reeled as the implications sank in. The redheaded man was the lead assassin, and it looked like he and Edwin were hunting partners. Edwin had been short of cash lately.
“Where’s Bertie’s jade flask?” Patrick asked. “He’s been asking about it for weeks.”
“What’s the redheaded guy’s name?” Liam demanded. “He almost killed me in front of my mother, and if I have to beat his name out of you, I will.”
Liam and Patrick stood shoulder to shoulder as they closed in on Edwin, who continued retreating until his back was against the railing of the yacht. His nervous glance darted around the others who congregated around them, but no pity was to be found.
One of the bodyguards looked at Liam. “Do you want us to take him down?”
The color dropped from Edwin’s face as the semicircle of men closed around him. He swallowed hard, turned around, then dove into the bay.
Edwin’s mother screamed. “Somebody save him! My poor boy, he’s got a broken leg and won’t be able to swim!”
A pair of deckhands scrambled to lower a tender to the water below.
“Bring along plenty of men,” Oscar ordered. “Desperate men do desperate things.”
“I’ll go,” Liam said, his voice a combination of anger and anticipation.
“Not you,” Patrick said. Given Liam’s furious mood, Edwin might not survive the rescue, and they needed him alive. He glanced at Joshua, a healthy man who looked keen on getting to the bottom of this. “Joshua? Care to join me?”
Joshua nodded and shucked off his coat.
Edwin was making progress swimming toward shore despite the cast on his leg. He swam toward the Jersey coast in long, overhand strokes.
Patrick, Joshua, and three crew members boarded the tender, then the deckhands began lowering the boat. Patrick looked up at the people clustered along the railing and spotted Gwen watching Edwin in shocked surprise. She liked Edwin. She bragged about his world travels and knowledge of antiques. This was going to hit her hard, but she had to learn that her wonderful, eccentric family had at least one truly rotten apple.
The boat wobbled as it hit the water. Crew members detached the ropes, and Patrick took his place beside Joshua, both of them rowing after Edwin. It didn’t take them long to pull alongside him. Edwin had resorted to a breaststroke, still heading for shore but barely making any progress as his strength faded.
Patrick leaned over to talk to him. “We can take you aboard now or do it on shore. Either way, you’re not going to escape.”
Edwin spit out a mouthful of water and kept struggling toward shore. “I was broke,” he said, panting and barely able to keep his head above water. The cast on his leg was probably getting heavier by the second.
“You ordered a hit on Liam because you were broke?”
“I didn’t want to do it,” Edwin panted, still swimming. “There’s a price on my head. If you get in too deep with the moneylenders, they play tough.”
“The kind of tough that ends up with a broken leg?”
“Yeah. Atlantic City . . . the cardroom.”
Edwin’s need for a plentiful stream of revenue might explain why Liam’s sudden arrival back in the family was such a threat. Liam was outspoken in his hostility to the steel merger. He could have stoked up the unions and delayed the creation of U.S. Steel. After getting control of his father’s shares, Liam might even have scuttled the deal for good, meaning that the lucrative dividends Edwin expected to earn from the deal would vanish. He’d made a preemptive strike to eliminate the possibility of Liam ever returning to the family.