“Where are you going?”
“To see if I can find something in the way of hard evidence.”
“I was afraid of that,” Gardner said. “I’d better come with you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Yes, it is.” Gardner sighed. “Sylvia and Cady will never forgive me if I let you do this alone.”
Cady stood in the vault and looked at the next row of boxes. Only a few more to go. She squeezed the little gold key tightly against her palm. Maybe she was wrong about this. Maybe the key did not open any of the glittering works of art.
There was no way to be certain unless she finished the task she had set for herself. She reached for an exquisite little casket that looked as if it had been designed to hold jewelry. The small chest was decorated with tracery, elegantly inlaid and covered with gilt work. Viennese, she thought. Seventeenth century. Property of a lady.
The doorbell chimed from the front hall. She put the casket on a small table and hurried out of the vault.
The bell reverberated again just as she reached the door. Habit made her pause long enough to peer through the peephole. She smiled when she saw who stood on the front step.
She opened the door. “Come in, Gabriella.”
Gabriella was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt decorated with a picture of a bespeckled banana slug reading Plato. The motto “Fiat Slug” formed the backdrop of the illustration.
“I came to see Dad.”
“Yes, I figured that much out right away. I’m afraid that he’s not here now. He was gone when I got back a little while ago. I don’t know where he went but I’m sure he’ll return soon.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Did you do the bus to the city and ferry across the bay routine again?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve had a long trip.” She closed the door. “This is a weekday. Are you missing some classes?”
“I’ll borrow someone’s notes.”
“Right. Want some tea or a soda?”
“No thanks.”
“Okay, then. Maybe you’d like to help me out in the vault while we wait for your father.”
Gabriella frowned. “You’ve got a vault in this place?”
“My aunt had it built to house her collection of antique boxes and jewelry chests.” Cady started back down the hall. “A lot of them are extremely valuable.”
Reluctantly, Gabriella trailed after her. “What are you doing with them?”
“I think Aunt Vesta may have hidden something important inside one of the boxes. I’ve got a little key that she sent to me shortly before her death. I’m pretty sure that when I match it up with the right lock on the right box, I’ll find whatever it was that she concealed inside.”
“No offense, but your aunt sounds like she was a little weird.”
“You aren’t the first person to make that observation.” Cady walked back into the vault.
Gabriella paused briefly in the hall. “Is this a portrait of your aunt?”
“Yes. That was painted when she was in her thirties.”
“You look a lot like her.”
Cady started back up the spiral staircase to the small balcony. “A lot of people say that.”
Gabriella came to a halt in the doorway and gazed around in awe. “This is incredible.”
“What you see in here is a collection that was put together over five decades.” Cady went along the balcony to the table where the Viennese casket rested. “My aunt loved boxes. Actually, she loved all the decorative arts. She had a great eye for them.”
“Dad says you have a very good eye, too.”
“That’s why he hires me from time to time.” She picked up the key.
“Is he going to marry you?” Gabriella blurted.
Cady’s hand froze in front of the lock. She felt a familiar, unpleasant twinge. Damn. She did not need another panic attack.
“I told you that we haven’t talked about marriage,” she said carefully.
“I know.” Gabriella took another step into the vault chamber. “I used to think that he would never marry again. But now I’m not so sure.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about marriage. Lately whenever the subject is mentioned, I feel a panic attack coming on. Have to stop and do deep breathing. It’s very annoying.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Gabriella hesitated. “I have a friend whose mother gets panic attacks. She takes some medication when they get bad.”
“I have some for emergencies. But for the past few years I’ve been able to handle them with deep breathing.”
“I didn’t mean to give you a panic attack. It’s just that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what you said the other morning. You know, about Dad needing to move out of the house and get on with the rest of his life. I realize now that maybe he might want to marry again someday.”
Cady looked over the balcony railing. “Would that be so bad?”
“It would be sort of strange, at least for a while. But I’ve been thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing.” Gabriella looked up at her. “Not if the person he married really loved him.”
“That would be important.” Cady gently eased the key into the lock.
“It would provide him with some companionship.”
“In his declining years, do you mean?”
“Yes.” Gabriella brightened. “I wouldn’t have to worry about him being alone.”
“Do you worry about that now?”
“Sometimes. I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t go out and have friends and stuff. And he’s got his work. But lots of times he’s just there at the house, all by himself in the evenings. I mean, what if he fell or something?”
“And couldn’t get up?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No.” Cady smiled. “I think it’s very nice of you to be concerned about your father. But I wouldn’t worry about him too much if I were you. He can take care of himself.”
“Well, sure, I know that, but he’s getting older and…”
Cady sucked in a breath.
“What’s wrong?” Gabriella demanded.
“It fits. The key fits.”
Gabriella bounded up the twisting stairs and hurried toward Cady.
“Open it,” she said.
Cady maneuvered the tiny gold key very gently. She heard a faint click. Cautiously, she raised the lid of the jewelry casket.
A stack of faded letters bound with a ribbon and a photograph lay inside.
Gabriella peered at the old photo. “Looks like you. Except that the hairstyle and the bathing suit are seriously retro.”
“About fifty years out of style.”
“Your great-aunt, I guess?”
“Yes.” Cady picked up the photograph and examined it closely.
It was a picture of Vesta, but not the stern, dour woman she remembered. In this picture her aunt was radiant with happiness. The shot had been taken at a beach. Hawaii, perhaps. There was a grove of palm trees in the background. Next to her aunt stood a good-looking man dressed in a pair of swim trunks. He had his arm around Vesta’s waist in a casual embrace that was at once intimate and possessive.
The man looked a lot like Randall.
“Who’s the guy?” Gabriella asked.
“I’m not positive, but I think his name is Randall Austrey. If I’m right, he’s the grandfather of a good friend of mine.”
The shock of what she was looking at hit her in a rush of excitement and dawning comprehension. Randall’s grandfather and Vesta? Lovers? She glanced at the faded writing.
“Love letters,” she whispered.
“Cool.” Gabriella surveyed the interior of the box. “There’s something else under the letters. Looks like jewelry.”
“Yes.” Cady reached inside to pick up the stack of letters.
“This is going to be interesting,” Gabriella said. “Mind if I get myself some of that soda you offered a few minutes ago before you open the letters?”
/> “Help yourself.” Cady studied the photo again. “The kitchen’s at the end of the hall.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right back.” Gabriella hurried down the twisting steps and vanished through the doorway of the vault.
Cady looked at her aunt’s glowing face and smiled sadly. “You never told anyone, did you? He married someone else and broke your heart and you never loved again. But that’s why you cared so much about Randall Post. That’s why you wanted me to marry him. That’s why, in the end, you wanted to do the merger. For the sake of your lover’s grandson. What was it like watching him grow up and realizing that he looked more and more like his grandfather every day?”
Vesta smiled back across the years and said nothing.
Cady looked more closely at the photo. Vesta’s suit and hair were still wet. She must have walked out of the water only moments before the picture was taken.
“You would never have panicked in the water.” Cady looked at the palm trees. There was something about them that made her uneasy.
Then she noticed the snorkeling gear in Randall Austrey’s hand.
It took her a few seconds to put it together. But when the truth exploded in her mind, she dropped the photo on the table as if it had burned her fingers.
She rushed down the spiral stairs, grabbed the phone and hit one of the numbers that had been entered into the automatic dialing list.
“So, do you do this kind of thing a lot?” Gardner asked a little too casually as he climbed through the window behind Mack.
“What kind of thing?” Mack surveyed the bedroom in which he stood.
“Break into houses. Worry about running into murderers. That kind of thing.”
“Didn’t used to do a lot of it, but I’ve been getting into it more since I got involved with Cady.”
Gardner nodded and brushed his gloved hands against each other. “Figures. Never a dull moment.”
“Not so far.” Mack opened a closet door.
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“I’m not sure.” He tried another closet. “I’d give a lot to find a silver mask and a black cloak, but that’s probably expecting too much.”
“Can’t see us getting that lucky. Why don’t I try the kitchen?”
“Good idea.”
Gardner went down a hallway and disappeared.
A moment later Mack heard a muffled sound from the front of the house. He went quickly along the hall.
“What did you say?” he asked as he walked around the corner.
“I said, shit.” Gardner appeared at the other end of the hall. He held a half-eaten apple in his hand. “Someone took a few bites out of this a very short time ago. He’s not in San Francisco like we thought. He’s here in Phantom Point.”
“Damn.”
Mack jerked his cell phone out of his pocket as he headed for the door.
The line was busy. Apparently Vesta Briggs had never signed up for call waiting service.
“Damn,” he said again. He punched in 911 instead.
He was outside on the street, running now. Gardner was right behind him.
“Hello?”
“Leandra, this is Cady.” She paused. “You sound breathless. Everything okay?”
“Sure. I had to run for the phone. I was in the restroom when you called.”
“Sorry. Listen, I’ve got to ask you something. It’s going to seem a little strange but just bear with me.”
“I can do strange.”
“Good.” Cady took a breath. “When you and Parker Turner went to Hawaii a couple of months ago, did he do any diving?”
“You’re right, that is a strange question.” Leandra paused. “As a matter of fact, the answer is yes.”
“Dear heaven,” Cady said so softly that Leandra didn’t hear.
“He told me that he used to dive when he was younger,” Leandra went on cheerfully. “Said he hadn’t been underwater in years and wanted to get back into the sport. Said that I make him feel thirty again. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Dear heaven.”
“He wanted me to take some introductory classes but I didn’t like the idea of being underwater with all that heavy gear.”
“Dear heaven.”
“Are you okay, Cady?” Leandra’s voice sharpened with concern. “You sound a little upset.”
“I’ve got to hang up now, Leandra. I need to call Mack right away. I just hope that he’s got his cell phone on.”
“Okay, but—”
“Goodbye, Leandra.” Cady cut the connection.
The unpleasant shivers were getting stronger. The sense of urgency was almost overpowering.
Something was very, very wrong. It took her a second to realize what it was.
There was no sound coming from the kitchen. Not even the closing of a refrigerator door.
Too quiet.
Cady hung up the phone and went swiftly up the little staircase, trying to make no noise on the wooden treads.
Once on the balcony she opened the door of the nearest display cabinet and picked up the heavy medieval steel chest inside.
The hall was no longer silent. She heard the faint rustle and scrape of shoes on tile. Two sets of footsteps, not one.
A shadow moved in the doorway. Cady looked down from her perch and saw Gabriella walk slowly, hesitantly into the vault. She was unnaturally stiff and awkward in her movements. Fear shimmered in the air around her.
“Come out, Cady,” Parker Turner said loudly from the hall. “Or I will shoot her right in front of you.”
Cady said nothing. She stood very still at the edge of the balcony, the heavy chest clutched in her hands. People never looked up when they first entered a room, she told herself. Almost never.
“She’s not here.” Gabriella swung around quickly. “Can’t you see that? She must have heard you. She’s gone for help. You’d better get out of here.”
“Unpredictable bitch. Just like her damned aunt. I know she’s here somewhere.”
Parker took a step into the vault to check for himself.
Cady hurled the steel chest straight down toward his head.
At the last instant, he must have sensed the movement above him. He jerked backward in time to avoid taking the chest on his skull. The steel box caught him on the shoulder.
He yelled, his voice hoarse with rage and pain. He reeled backward into the hall, reflexively shying away from the source of the assault. The gun clattered loudly on the stone floor, skidded and disappeared partway under a cabinet.
“Get it,” Cady shouted. “Get the gun.” She threw herself down the staircase.
Gabriella, demonstrating that when it came to a crisis, she was her father’s daughter, was already on the floor groping for the weapon.
A sickening thud sounded from the hall. Cady, halfway down the steps, glanced across the room. Through the open door, she caught a flash of khaki.
Gabriella sat up, the gun in a two-handed grip. She had the weapon pointed toward the door.
“Don’t shoot, Gabriella. That’s your father out there.”
“Dad.” Gabriella put down the gun and struggled to her feet.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Gardner peered cautiously around the edge of the door. “Someone got a gun in here?”
“It’s okay.” Cady leaped to the bottom of the steps. “Where’s Mack? Is he all right?”
Gardner glanced to the side along the hall. “He’s a little busy at the moment. Looks like he’s trying to pound Turner’s face into the floor.”
Twenty-eight
Two hours later Cady sat with her friends and family in the living room of Vesta’s villa amid the remains of the four oversized pizzas that had been delivered a short time earlier.
“Twenty-two years in the business,” Sylvia said. “Most of it spent in the old furniture department.”
“Aunt Vesta always said he had a great eye for the European pieces,” Cady muttered.
“I still can’t quite take i
t all in,” Gardner said. “Turner was the brains behind the whole thing. Amazing.”
“He got the idea after Leandra’s divorce,” Mack said. “He knew that Felgrove was greedy enough to go for the fake furniture scam. It was such easy money, after all. Parker made sure that all of the pieces moved through the Austrey-Post galleries so that if the frauds were discovered, Felgrove would be the one left twisting in the wind. Once he had Stanford sucked into the arrangement, he started applying pressure to propose the merger to Chatelaine’s.
“He had been close enough to Vesta for a long time and knew that she cared deeply about Randall and the future of Austrey-Post. He was sure that she would want to protect the firm for Randall’s sake. The only way to do that would be to agree to the merger.”
“He also thought he had me in the palm of his hand,” Leandra spoke dully from the depths of a chair. “So much for my plans for a more mature, adult relationship.”
Cady and Sylvia exchanged an uneasy look. They both knew that Leandra was bravely trying for her trademark breeziness but they also knew that she wasn’t hitting the right notes. Discovering the truth about Parker Turner had hit her harder than she wanted to admit.
“What would have happened if Leandra had refused to marry him?” Sylvia asked.
Mack shrugged. “The furniture scam was very lucrative. He probably would have continued on with it until it was exposed. Then he would have quietly disappeared and left Stanford Felgrove to take the heat. But Turner decided to go for the brass ring.”
“He wanted to marry into the business,” Cady said.
“Yes.”
Oblivious to the emotional undertow, Gardner sat forward on the edge of the sofa. He frowned thoughtfully at Mack and then switched his gaze to Cady. “Weird, when you think about it.”
“What’s weird, dear?” Sylvia asked.
“That both Mack and Cady figured out that Parker was at the bottom of both the scam and Vesta’s murder at about the same time today.”
“Just another case of psychic interception,” Mack said dryly. “No big deal. Happens all the time between two people who are endowed with E.S.P., like Cady and me.”
Gabriella looked deeply pained. “Come on, Dad. This is serious.”
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