No Filter

by Heather Day Gilbert

  On the way home, I marveled at the way things had gone off without a hitch. Surely there'd be something valuable inside the safebox Gerard had so carefully hidden—something the cops would definitely want to see.

  Still, I didn't want to call them tonight. Since the police were staying in contact with Bo, they'd likely let him know of my find, which would in turn cut into yet another night of sleep for him. Although I had an uneasy feeling about making off with someone else's property, I knew it was groundless, because Glen was in jail right now. I'd just sit on the box until tomorrow.

  I felt a stab of worry. What if Moreau was somehow involved with this? What if Gerard had hidden something to keep it from his smuggler boss?

  I turned on the heat to take out the chill in the car. Moreau was far away on some distant private island, Bo had said. Even if he had someone else in Ivy Hill keeping an eye on things—someone like Jedi or Katie—there had been no one around to see my secret dig.

  I pulled into my parking space and contemplated popping the trunk, but decided to leave the safe in the car overnight. My arms were already tired from hauling the box from the woods.

  Jogging up to my back door, I unlocked it and went inside. Coal's head was angled and he was actually watching a car chase on TV, which cracked me up. I was secretly proud I'd wound up with such an intelligent dog.

  He got up and danced around me, and I realized he needed to get outside to relieve himself. I opened the door and let him run out into the fenced area while I scrounged around my kitchen for something to eat. I was famished after my secret mission, and adrenaline still coursed through my system. I dumped salsa into a bowl and grabbed a bag of chips, settling back into the couch to search for a show I wanted to watch. Suddenly, Coal's yowling barks reverberated through the house.

  What on earth was going on? The dog rarely barked, but now he was full-on bellowing at something. I rushed out, certain he was going to wake the older neighbors and get me reported for breaking the noise ordinance.

  He stood, stock still, his head erect and pointing toward the gate. I eased over that way, trying to see if he'd spotted someone trying to break in.

  The streetlight illuminated a woman with a thermal head wrap and tennis shoes. She was standing on the sidewalk and stretching her legs. Catching a glimpse of my movement, she turned and we recognized each other. It was Isabella Rhodes, apparently taking an evening jog in town.

  She gave me a brief wave and pulled earbuds from her ears, which explained why Coal's howling hadn't gotten to her yet. I placed a quieting hand on Coal's head and he stopped barking. However, he continued to emit a series of whiny groans as I walked over to the gate, as if to say that no one had the right to stop on the street outside his fence.

  Isabella jogged closer. "I'm so sorry—I didn't realize your dog was barking. I crank really loud music for my jogs."

  "I didn't realize you jogged in town," I said.

  She shrugged. "I usually don't. I have a treadmill at home, but tonight I just needed to get out, you know? Mary Anne told me I needed to burn off some of my anxiety, and she was right. I feel better already."

  I didn't see any need to beat around the bush. "I heard about your husband," I said. "I'm sure that was such a shock for you."

  Her eyes were dark as she looked at me. "Yeah. Honestly, I've been a mess. I wish we'd never gone to that oyster roast."

  I figured the oyster roast itself wasn't the catalyst for Glen's homicidal behavior, but it had to be unnerving for Isabella to realize she'd been married to someone who could murder in cold blood. On top of that, her upstanding husband had been involved in an art fencing ring.

  The Rhodes' reputation was going to be tarnished in town from here on out. I looked at Isabella with her brand-name exercise gear and fancy headband. Would she have to go to work if Glen's company went under?

  She pulled out a blingy cell phone. "I'm going to call my butler and have him pick me up," she said. "I didn't plan on jogging this long, but it felt so good to breathe the fall air and clear my head. I kind of got turned around and wound up in your part of the neighborhood."

  "I understand." I felt a wave of sympathy for the real housewife of Lewisburg. "You want to come in and have something to drink while you wait? You probably shouldn't be jogging, now it's gotten so dark out."

  She blinked. "Really? You're asking me in for a visit?" She put a manicured hand on my arm. "You're a real sweetie, Macy! Sure, I'd love to—maybe just a glass of water?"

  I swung the gate open and Isabella stepped inside. Coal's groans ratcheted up to near-barks.

  I shushed him as he started sniffing at Isabella. "Quiet. Come on with me," I said, pulling at his collar so he'd walk alongside me. I led the way to the back door and let Coal inside, then turned. "There are a couple of uneven steps there," I warned Isabella.

  "I know. I saw them." she said, her voice unnaturally smug.

  What was that all about? Was she making a jab at how old my house was? How rude.

  I reached out to push open the screen door, but a hand yanked mine back. "Not so fast, coffee princess," Isabella said darkly. "You see, I saw those steps the last time I was here...when I came and stole your precious dog."

  28

  The streetlight barely penetrated the darkness of my back garden, and I couldn't see Isabella's face clearly. Was she seriously telling me she'd stolen my dog? Isabella High Heels Rhodes?

  "What are you talking about?" I asked, yanking my arm free of her hand.

  The moment I broke free, something cold and hard nuzzled into my back. It was just the right size to be the barrel of a handgun, and I had no doubt it was.

  Isabella had a gun.

  "Who even are you?” I asked, my shock making me brash.

  She chuckled. "I'd love to stay and chat—you know, since we're friends and all—but I'll keep it short. And don't make any sudden moves, because I have a nine millimeter aimed at you. Shut the back door, nice and slowly."

  As I pulled the wooden door shut, I could see Coal turning in a circle, fluffing his pillow. I wished I hadn't shushed him so vigorously and shut down his guarding instinct for the evening.

  I turned back toward Isabella and she took a step closer, pressing the nose of the gun into my stomach. "My husband thought I didn't know about his secret fencing ring. He must've assumed I was a mindless idiot. But I listened in on his calls and had him followed. I figured out he was working with Gerard and Alice, then I realized they were running artwork through Ivy Hill. It wasn't hard for me to pump Gerard for information—after all, the man fell for me, hard. I talked to him one day and he told me about a big art score he'd stumbled into."

  "What, something like a rhino horn? Or maybe a Tiffany lamp?" I asked, anger and more than a little curiosity getting the best of me.

  "Much bigger. See, I taught history at high school—in particular, the World War Two era. So when Gerard was bragging about intercepting some famous Nazi loot, I feigned ignorance and teased him to tell me what it was."

  I thought about whipping around and rushing into my not-quite-shut back door, but there was no way I'd be able to take one step without getting shot. I had to assume that Isabella, clueless as she'd seemed up until now, knew exactly what she was doing with a gun.

  I guessed the best idea was to keep her talking, especially since she was proud of how she'd played both her husband and Gerard.

  "So, what was it? Something worth killing for, I assume? Because you did kill Gerard and Alice, right?"

  Her voice became smooth as honey. "It was worth killing for, yes. Gerard told me he'd gotten his hands on part of a panel from the Amber Room."

  I knew exactly what she was talking about. In one of my art classes, we'd learned how the Nazis had dismantled a Russian room that had been lined in real amber. The treasures from that room would be worth hundreds of millions.

  "So he told you where it was?" I asked, hoping to keep her talking so I could formulate an escape plan.

  "Not rea
lly. He made some kind of joke about how his dog knew the secret, but no one else did. Next thing you know, he said he was going to tell Alice about it—he'd decided to donate the money from it to Ivy Hill so they could build an indoor pool and start up drug rehab classes. Donate it! Can you imagine? I had to stop him."

  "So you met up with him when no one was around and bashed him on the head with a golf club?" I asked, wishing I could sit down. My legs were starting to cramp from standing so still. But I knew better than to shift Isabella's train of thought to anything to do with me.

  "It was easy enough," she said. "And once he was dead, I went through his house—he'd given me the key, of course. I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find the panel. So I bought a big dog crate, then headed back the next day, planning to take his dog. But when I showed up, that interfering Doctor Schneider had already taken him to the shelter."

  "So you had to steal him from me, because you realized maybe Gerard had hidden something on his dog?"

  "Right. Besides, I'd decided to pull Alice into the loop at that point. I lured her in by telling her I knew about the fencing, but I promised to give her a big cut of the amber panel if she helped me find it." She laughed. "Alice didn't like dogs, but she agreed to help me snatch Coal one day when you were out. We wrangled him up to the attic at Ivy Hill—you actually heard him barking that night, remember? I realized you wouldn't give up on looking for him in the main building, so Alice and I moved him over to that abandoned shed. We also took him to an out-of-town vet to get him X-rayed. Since we didn't know how big the amber piece was, we thought it was possible that Gerard had surgically implanted a smaller piece into the dog, but he hadn't, of course."

  I leaned against the porch railing, forcing my knees not to give out. She was going to kill me, right here on the porch of my own home.

  Sensing my unrest, Isabella barked, "Sit down on the step!"

  I slowly sank into a seated position. "Isn't your butler coming soon?"

  Her white teeth glinted as she answered. "I never called him. See, I came here following you. In my own car. Actually, I've followed you since you pulled out of the woods over by Ivy Hill." She crouched down, the gun catching the light from the street as she waved it near my face. "So if you know what's good for you, you'll tell me what you know about Gerard's treasure. Did you find it?" Her voice took on an edge. "If not in the woods, then maybe in the storage unit?"

  So she was the one who'd tried to break in there, too. "I didn't find anything," I lied. "Maybe Alice did?"

  She leaned closer. "Alice served her purpose, but then she started getting cold feet. She said she was going to get out of art fencing altogether, and that she didn't want the 'blood money' from Gerard's amber piece to fund Ivy Hill anyway. That Tiffany lamp was going to be the last thing she moved through the place. She had an attack of conscience, I guess."

  "So you got rid of her before she could confess?"

  "Of course, and I decided to frame Glen in the process. Really, it was the perfect setup. I took Glen's glass, but I kept my sleeves pulled over my fingers so only his prints showed up on it."

  I sighed. "That's pretty smart. But you seriously strangled Alice all by yourself?" I was getting shaky as I realized she wouldn't keep talking for long. If she got more demanding, I'd have no choice but to give up Gerard's metal box to save my life.

  "Piece of cake," she said. "I told Alice she had something on the back of her shirt, then I went around to take it off...and pulled her scarf tight around her neck. I grabbed the Tiffany lamp on my way out—I went down the fire escape stairs out back, so no one saw me. Then I stashed the lamp in the trunk of my car and went back and joined the party. Glen had gone to use the bathroom, which gave me the perfect opportunity to draw attention to the fact that he wasn't with the crowd when Alice was killed."

  She was cold, all right. Cold enough to kill two people and frame her husband for it. She was definitely going to kill me if I didn't cooperate.

  "Enough talking," she said abruptly. "You've been distracting me, haven't you? Getting me to toot my own horn?" She gave a callous laugh. "You know I can't let you live now, right? I basically confessed everything to you."

  "I won't tell anyone, I swear." My stupid voice wavered, betraying me.

  "You lie!" She was practically shouting. I wished any of my neighbors had left their windows open, but given the low temps, everyone was probably running their heat.

  Shoving me aside, she sat down right next to me on the step. She moved the gun barrel up to my head and pressed it against my temple.

  My breathing had gotten shallow, and I was fairly certain I was going to pass out. On the bright side, passing out could only ease the process of getting shot to death.

  "Tell me where the amber is," she demanded.

  "Okay," I said, unwilling to hedge any longer. "It's in the trunk of my car. In a metal box Gerard had buried in the woods."

  "How did you know where it was? You're not lying to me, are you?" The cold gun barrel poked against my skin and I tried to take a deep breath.

  "I tracked it down—took some work," I said.

  She stood and stretched out her empty hand. "You know what? I don't want the whole story on your little treasure hunt. Just give me your car keys."

  The hand that held the gun had relaxed at her side. Was she going to shoot me the moment I handed over the keys? Or would she get the metal box first?

  "Sure," I said, slowly standing as I reached into my pocket. "You have to insert the key in the trunk lock—it's an older car."

  She took the keys and jangled them in her hand. "Thanks for being so helpful. Now I'm going to have to ask you to come along with me."

  "Okay," I said, counting on the darkness to hide me as I backed into the doorbell.

  The moment it rang, Coal set off into a furious spree of barking. I jumped off the porch and raced into the dark garden, where I squeezed behind the boxwood hedge.

  "Get back here now!" Isabella's low shout dripped venom.

  That shout was Isabella's biggest mistake to date. She had her back turned to my house as she searched for me, but I was staring right at the back porch. Light from the house grew brighter as the wooden door was nudged open. The next thing I knew, the screen door was rammed backward as Coal came streaking out of the house, his deep barks indicating that he'd charged out at top speed. He launched himself at Isabella's back.

  "What—" she shouted, but her voice was immediately muffled as she thudded to the ground.

  The back gate burst open and I could see a man's outline. "Macy!" Bo shouted over the sound of Coal's increasingly frantic howls. I could see he was holding his gun.

  I scrambled out from my hiding place, shouting at Bo as I ran toward him. "I'm here! Coal's tackled a woman with a gun!"

  Bo leaned in toward my ear. "Sneak around behind me and turn on the porch light. I'll deal with her."

  By now, Isabella was yelping, as if in pain. "Get your brute dog off me! I can't move! I'll kill you!"

  I managed to reach inside the door and flip the light on. Bo was standing over Isabella, his gun pointed at her chest. "Take her gun!" he shouted. "I've kicked it toward you!"

  I hurried over to grab the weapon, then focused on the scene that was playing out in front of me.

  Coal had literally stretched out on top of Isabella's chest, effectively pinning her entire upper half to the ground. He'd planted his hind end right up by her face, which seemed a fitting touch.

  "We've got her," Bo said. "Call the cops."

  "You got it, bro." I shakily pulled out my phone, dialed 9-1-1, and asked that Detective Hatcher be notified immediately of an armed break-in at my place. Was I ever going to have a story to tell him.

  29

  The next day dawned with a cloudless, deep blue sky, almost like it was celebrating our victory from the night before. Isabella was now in jail where she belonged. I rolled out of bed and slid into my slippers. Coal roused from his pillow and padded over to me.

&
nbsp; "Good dog. Good dog," I repeated. I'd have to be careful not to spoil him with treats after his incredible act of bravery last night.

  It was my day off, and I knew what to do with it. I was going to whip up a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup—one of the few recipes I excelled at—and drop some by Summer's place. When she'd called to let me know one of her employees would be bringing the dogs to the cafe for Jimmy this morning, she'd still sounded awful. Besides, I wanted to tell her what really happened to Gerard and Alice.

  Padding downstairs, I ground the Guatemalan beans and brewed a couple of cups with my French press. After the third sip, some part of my brain finally woke up and I realized that I'd totally forgotten to hand over Gerard's metal box to Detective Hatcher last night. Things had been chaotic, with Coal barking and Isabella ranting about false arrest and me trying to explain what had really happened.

  I was just about to dial Detective Hatcher when my doorbell rang. Coal gave a huge bark and I told him to be quiet. I cracked the door and looked out, blinded by the sunshine that was hitting the back porch.

  "Macy Hatfield?" a deep voice asked.

  I bristled. Coal trotted over to my side, as if picking up on my unease. I could make out dark hair and a very tall male form, but I could hardly see the man's face and eyes.

  "I'm FBI agent Titan McCoy," the man said, flashing a badge at me. "We've been looking into the dealings at Ivy Hill, and Detective Hatcher recommended I follow up with you after the events of last night."

  "You don't say." I kept the door nearly shut. I knew I sounded skeptical, but I had good reason to after everything that had happened. "Maybe Detective Hatcher should've called to let me know you were coming."

  The dark-haired man chuckled and leaned in a little. I could suddenly make out every detail of his face. He was probably in his early forties, with friendly but wary eyes. He was clean shaven, but had that kind of five o'clock shadow that made it evident his beard grew in fast. He wore jeans and a sweater, not the suit I'd imagined FBI agents wore.