I glanced at Elliot, who was shaking the doctor’s hand.
“Isobel,” I said, “what were you—”
I stopped when I spotted Elliot and Claudia coming toward us.
“Robyn,” Elliot said. “I understand you were at the mall yesterday. One of the police officers I spoke to said that he took a statement from the girl who walks my dad’s dog.”
Isobel stared at me.
“You were there?” she said.
“I was doing some errands with my friend.” I nodded at Morgan.
“It’s quite a coincidence that you witnessed the whole thing,” Elliot said. “The police told me they took a lot of statements. If they don’t lock up that boy, then there’s something seriously wrong with our justice system.”
Morgan glanced at me.
“Is your father well enough to have visitors?” I asked.
“I’m sure he’d love to see you,” Isobel said before Elliot could answer. “Come on. I’ll take you.”
Morgan shrugged, slipped into the waiting room, and started sorting through a stack of dog-eared magazines. Mr. Schuster opened his eyes as soon as he heard us enter the room. He looked right at me, then touched the bridge of his nose and traced a line diagonally across his cheek to the bottom of his ear.
“He wants to know how Nick is,” Isobel said.
“I haven’t seen him,” I said. I turned to Isobel. “Did you take your grandfather to the mall to see Nick?”
Isobel’s cheeks turned pink. She bit her lower lip and glanced at her grandfather. He nodded.
“Did Nick ask you to meet him there?”
“No,” she said. “I called him.”
I had been right. The phone hadn’t rung because Nick wasn’t the one who made the call.
“Grandpa asked me to. At first he wanted me to see how Nick was doing. Then he wanted me to arrange for him to see him. But every time I called, a man answered and told me that Nick couldn’t come to the phone.”
That explained why Glen had told me to stop calling the one time I’d tried to get Nick on the phone. He must have mistaken me for Isobel. But Isobel had finally got through.
“Do you know why your grandfather wanted to see Nick?”
Isobel glanced at her grandfather again. Again, he nodded.
“He wanted me to ask Nick if he stole those coins. He wanted to look at Nick when he answered. He knew he’d be able to tell if Nick was telling the truth.”
Mr. Schuster nodded.
“And?” I said.
Mr. Schuster shook his head slowly.
“We didn’t have a chance to talk to Nick before Grandpa . . .before he fell,” Isobel said.
I looked into Mr. Schuster’s watery eyes.
“Do you think Nick pushed you?” I said.
He neither nodded nor shook his head. Either he didn’t know or he didn’t want to say. I don’t think he wanted to believe that Nick would hurt him.
“What about you, Isobel?” I said. “What do you think?”
She looked uncertain. “I don’t know.”
“Now what?” Morgan said when I went back to the waiting room.
Good question. I was both relieved and puzzled by what Isobel had told me. Nick hadn’t gone to the mall to meet Elliot. And it seemed less likely that he had gone to harm Mr. Schuster. Instead, he had gone because Mr. Schuster, through Isobel, had asked him to. But I was still haunted by what I had seen at the mall and I wondered, not for the first time that day, whether my father had had a chance to do what I had asked. But even if he had, it wouldn’t explain what had happened to Mr. Schuster’s coin collection. Maybe I had been wrong about what had brought Nick to the mall, but that didn’t mean I had been wrong about everything. I thought about what Esther and Edith had said about Elliot asking his parents for money and about what I had overheard Claudia say about credit cards. I also thought about Elliot’s insistence that his father wasn’t well enough to make his own decisions. Add to all of that his sudden interest in his father’s coin collection—and his knowledge of Nick’s past . . .
Another picture started to emerge. What if Elliot was scheming to get control of his father’s affairs, including his financial affairs? What if he’d come up with a way to get his hands on both the coin collection and the insurance money—by making Nick look like a thief? It would explain a lot of what had happened. But how could I prove it?
“Robyn?” Morgan said, elbowing me.
“Huh?”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I need to talk to Elliot. I’ll be right back.”
I got up and went back out into the hall. Elliot and Claudia were standing outside Mr. Schuster’s room, deep in conversation.
“Oh, yes, the dog,” Elliot said when I asked him. “We’ll be here for a while, but Connor is at the house. He’ll let you in.”
Perfect, I thought. I waved Morgan out of the waiting room and told her I was going to go walk Orion.
“So I guess I’ll catch up with you later, then,” she said.
“Uh-uh. You’re coming with me. I need you to help create a diversion.”
“Diversion?”
While we waited for the bus, I explained to her what I had been thinking. Morgan was intrigued.
“But what about what happened at the mall?” she said.
“I’m working on that.” Or, rather, I hoped my father was.
As the bus pulled up in front of us, my phone rang. It was Ben.
“You want to do something tonight?” he said.
“Uh, okay,” I said. I hadn’t given Ben much thought lately. I had been too preoccupied with Nick. He must have picked up on my mood because he said, “Is everything okay, Robyn?”
“Sure. Everything’s fine.”
We made plans to see a movie. Morgan looked quizzically at me when I dropped my phone back into my pocket, but she didn’t ask.
After a short ride on the bus, we got off and walked to Mr. Schuster’s house. I was about to ring the bell when Morgan put out a hand to stop me.
“Just a sec,” she said. She pulled a compact mirror out of her bag, checked her reflection, then freshened her mascara. “Okay. Ready.”
As Elliot had promised, Connor let us in. He quietly acknowledged me but couldn’t take his eyes off Morgan. She’s what most people would call beautiful. She knows it, and she’s not above using it to her advantage—or mine, if I ask. She flashed Connor a great big smile and thrust out a hand. He puffed up a little when she asked him what his sport was.
“How do you know I’m into sports?” he said, cheeks flushing.
“Are you kidding?” Morgan said. “The shape you’re in, either you’re into sports or you work out on the reg.”
“I’m gonna go and get Orion,” I said—not that anyone was listening.
“Football,” Connor said. “And I play hockey.”
I headed for the basement. Orion jumped up at the barrier when he heard me coming.
“Hey, boy,” I said, holding out a dog biscuit. He devoured it and barked. He seemed more worked up than usual. He probably missed his visits with Mr. Schuster. I removed his leash from the hook and pushed the barrier aside. Orion wriggled through the opening before I could attach the leash and bolted up the stairs. I ran after him, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“Hey!” Connor shouted in alarm.
By the time I reached the top of the stairs, Connor was plastered against the wall, his eyes wide with terror. Orion was in front of him, barking furiously. Morgan was off to one side, staring steadfastly at the floor. She didn’t know Orion, but she did know better than to stare a strange dog in the eyes. The dog might take that as a challenge.
“Orion,” I said. “Sit.”
Instead, Orion turned and streaked up the stairs. This was not going according to plan.
“Catch him!” Connor screamed at me. “Put him back in the basement.”
I glanced at Morgan. She took Connor by the hand.
“It’s okay,�
� she said calmly. “Robyn knows what she’s doing.” She shot me a glance that told me that she hoped so. She led Connor toward the living room, and he darted inside gratefully. Morgan mouthed “Good luck” at me from behind the room’s French doors. I had a feeling I was going to need it. Morgan was doing her part, but Orion was not cooperating. He was really wound up.
The barking stopped just as I got to the top of the stairs. Orion wasn’t in the hallway, which meant that he was in one of the rooms. I pictured him lurking in a doorway, ready to pounce.
Get a grip, I told myself. Orion might not be perfect, but he wasn’t vicious, either, no matter what Connor thought. Second, dogs can sense fear. I told myself to think of something pleasant, something that would calm me. An image flashed into my mind: Nick and me cuddling together on my father’s couch.
It was like a blow to the heart.
All of a sudden, I realized that I wasn’t mad at Nick anymore. I missed him. I wanted to be with him. If only he wasn’t in so much trouble . . .
I drew myself straight and reminded myself that I was upstairs for a reason. I stood silently in the hall and listened for Orion. A whimpering sound was coming from Mr. Schuster’s bedroom. I peeked inside. Orion was lying on Mr. Schuster’s bed. His head was flopped on a pillow.
I approached him cautiously and sat down on the bed beside him. He looked at me with sad eyes. I held my hand out so that he could sniff it, then patted his head. He whimpered again.
“I know exactly how you feel,” I said. I patted him some more and then snapped the leash onto his collar. “Come on. We’ve got work to do, and then I’ll take you for a nice, long walk.”
His ears pricked up when he heard the word walk. He jumped off the bed and padded down the hall with me. Connor and Morgan were still locked away in the living room. Connor’s eyes got big when he caught sight of Orion coming down the stairs. Then Morgan reached out and touched his arm, and Connor seemed to forget that there was anyone else in the house.
When we got to the bottom of the stairs, I slipped a few Kanine Kookies out of my pocket. After a quick glance to make sure Connor wasn’t looking, I threw them into Mr. Schuster’s den and let go of Orion’s leash. The big dog bolted through the den door to hunt for the biscuits.
“Oh, no!” I cried. Connor’s eyes widened again at the sound of my voice. “Don’t worry. I’ll get him,” I said. I darted into the den after Orion.
Orion had finished one of the three biscuits I had tossed into the room and was sniffing around for another one. I left him to it and crossed to the desk. Elliot was running his business from here, he’d told me. Just like the last time I’d been in Mr. Schuster’s den, the desk was piled with file folders and business papers. I was distracted for a few moments by a copy of the police report on Nick’s arrest that was lying on top of the pile. I scanned it quickly, absorbing a few details that were new to me. It didn’t sound good. Nick would need a very good lawyer if these charges went to court. I set the report aside and shuffled through the rest of the papers as quickly as I could, not at all sure what I was looking for—not until I found it.
It was a file folder with several letters inside. Elliot owed the bank a lot of money. And he’d been turned down for a loan by a number of other banks. His business was in trouble. That would certainly give him a motive for cashing in on his father’s coin collection.
“No, I don’t think we need to call animal control,” I heard Morgan say loudly. “I’m sure Robyn has everything under control. Don’t you, Robyn?”
Orion was happily crunching on the last of the biscuits I had tossed into the den. I hastily put the file folder back where I had found it, grabbed the end of Orion’s leash, and wrapped it around my wrist.
“Time for a walk,” I said, my voice as loud as Morgan’s had been. I led him out of the den.
Connor was still safely behind the French doors with Morgan when Orion and I stepped out into the front hall.
“See?” Morgan said, standing up. She smiled sweetly. Connor looked as if he were going to melt. He opened his mouth to say something but clamped it shut again when Morgan opened the French doors to let herself out. Connor watched longingly as she pulled on her coat and boots. But his fear of dogs must have got the better of him, because he stayed put and waved reluctantly as we headed for the door and let ourselves out.
“So?” Morgan said eagerly as soon as we were out on the porch. “Did you find anything that might help Nick? Were you—”
The words died in her throat as the front door swung open. Connor was standing there with a love-struck look on his face that vanished as he absorbed what he had just heard. Or, I hoped, maybe he hadn’t heard anything at all.
“Come on, Morgan,” I said quickly. “Let’s go.” I turned to leave—and found myself face-to-face with the man who had come looking for Mrs. Schuster a few days back. He gave me an odd look, as if he thought he knew me but couldn’t place me.
“Is Claudia Schuster here?” he said. As soon as he spoke, Orion started to bark. The man stepped back. His expression cleared. “You’re the brave young lady who walks the dog,” he said, smiling at me.
“Mrs. Schuster isn’t home,” I said. “But this is her son. He can probably let you know when she’s going to be back.”
I tugged on Orion’s leash, and we marched down the front walk without once looking back.
“Slow down,” Morgan said when we finally reached the street.
I shook my head. “I hope Connor didn’t hear what you said, Morgan. If Elliot finds out I know Nick, he won’t let me in the house again. And I’m already worried about what they’re going to do to Orion, especially if they put Mr. Schuster in a nursing home.”
“I’m sure he didn’t hear anything,” Morgan said. “If he had, he would have said something.”
“Maybe,” I said. But maybe not.
“You weren’t kidding about him. What a wuss. I think he’d even be afraid of Missy.” Missy was Morgan’s black Lab, the sweetest dog on the planet.
“To be fair, he was mauled by a Rottweiler,” I said. “But between him and his mother . . .”
My phone rang. It was my dad. “How soon can you get to the mall?” he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I
s he taking you shopping?” Morgan said when I told her I had to meet my father.
I filled her in. She looked dubiously at Orion.
“What about him?” she said.
“I don’t suppose you could walk him and then take him home?”
She looked at the big dog and shook her head. “You know I’d do anything for you, Robyn, but—”
I didn’t blame her. “It’s okay. I’ll take him with me for now.”
My dad was waiting at the bottom of the escalator where Mr. Schuster had fallen. He looked from Orion to me.
“Will he behave?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. At least, I hoped so.
“Okay, follow me.” He led the way across the main floor and down a narrow corridor to a door marked: Security. Authorized Personnel Only. He rapped on the door. A uniformed guard opened it.
My father introduced himself. “Mr. Logan is expecting me,” he said.
The security guard showed us into a room filled with wall-mounted TV monitors. A middle-aged man who had been watching the monitors stood up to greet us.
“Mac,” he said, pumping my father’s hand. “Long time no see.”
“How’s the private sector treating you, Walt?” my father said.
“Can’t complain. I hear you’re doing well.”
“Guess I can’t complain, either.” My father grinned and introduced me. Then he said, “About that footage I asked you about . . .”
“I’m surprised no one else has asked me about it yet,” Walt said.
“The injuries weren’t life-threatening,” my father said. “I’m sure they’ll get around to it.”
Walt took a DVD from his desk and popped it into a player on the other side of
the room. We gathered around a TV next to it. I told Orion to sit. He obeyed immediately. I could have kissed him. Then I held my breath as Walt pressed Play.
“Okay,” Walt said. “This is your guy, right?” He pointed to Nick standing at the top of the escalator.
“That’s him,” my father said.
When I had witnessed what had happened, I’d been at the bottom of the escalator, looking up from one side. The camera angle was completely different. It caught the action head on, and this time I saw things that I hadn’t seen the first time. Mr. Schuster shuffled into the frame, leaning heavily on his walker. Isobel was holding his arm. She was frowning. People were coming at them from all directions, heading for the escalator. She and Mr. Schuster got separated, and Schuster seemed to be having trouble navigating his way through all the people. He got dangerously close to the top of the escalator. Then Nick came up behind Mr. Schuster and Isobel. Isobel turned, still frowning, and said something to him. She pointed to her left and started to help Mr. Schuster away from the top of the escalator. It looked like Nick was trying to give her a hand.
“He’s being awfully helpful to someone he intends to push, isn’t he?” Walt said.
My father didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the screen. So were mine.
Suddenly the expression on Nick’s face changed. He cocked his head and frowned, as if he had heard something. Then it happened. Nick thrust out his hands. They rammed into Mr. Schuster’s back. Mr. Schuster lurched forward and toppled down the escalator.
“Let me see that again,” my dad said.
Walt stopped and rewound. This time he slowed the footage down. We all leaned forward to get a better look. We must have watched it half a dozen times, Walt playing the scene frame by frame when my father asked him to, before I was sure about what I was seeing. Yes, Nick had pushed Mr. Schuster. But I could see why. A man in a wide-brimmed hat darted in front of someone else to get directly behind Nick. Nick turned his head toward the man. Then, for no reason that I could see, the man rammed Nick with one shoulder, throwing him off balance and propelling him violently forward. Both of Nick’s hands flew out in front of him—and sent Mr. Schuster reeling.
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