by Gigi Pandian
“Positive.” He’d recovered from the shock and was now halfway up the stairs, where he could get a closer look at the painting. The stairs weren’t bound by any walls, but floated in the center of the foyer leading to the second floor gallery, like an atrium. The painting was on one of the walls that stretched the full height of the mansion.
Frustrated that he couldn’t get a closer look, Lane came back down the stairs. When we looked around, Sébastien was gone.
Lane swore. “We never should have involved him.”
“Really, what would you two do without me?” Sébastien came into the room carrying a ladder. “Though at my age, ladders are heavier than they used to be.”
Lane took the ladder. Sébastien and I held it while Lane climbed the rungs to get a closer look at the painting. He tugged at the frame. “It’s bolted to the wall. We’re not getting it down. But that’s okay. I can tell what we need to see from here. Someone painted over the face.”
“Obviously,” Sébastien said. “The question is who.”
“And when,” I added.
Lane sniffed the canvas. “Not recently.”
“Who was it meant to frighten?” I asked, but I thought I knew the answer. “You don’t suppose it was to get Marc’s parents to move out of the house?”
“This paint job is sloppy,” Lane said. “It looks far more like Marc than his grandfather, but the painting I remember from seven years ago was good.”
“The painting of the supposed ghost?” I asked. “Which was already painted over in 1950.”
He nodded. “It’s only the face that’s been painted over, which is why the overall appearance is so jarring. A different man’s face in the same old-fashioned clothes and setting.”
“It’s so high,” I said half to myself as I craned my neck. “And it’s got to be ridiculously heavy. It had to have been a conspiracy. Multiple people working together.”
“Or one very daring one,” Lane said.
“Come down,” Sébastien said. “You’re making me nervous perched up there on this old ladder.”
“Whoever this man is,” I said as Lane climbed down, “he’s not someone I would have wanted to be friends with.”
“I knew men like this in my youth,” Sébastien said. “It’s one reason I was glad to retire to the countryside.” He pulled the ladder away from the painting.
I put my hand on his arm. “Hold on.”
“The painting has been faked,” Sébastien said. “There’s nothing more we can learn from it.”
“There’s one more thing. This painting is designed to frighten. To keep people away from it.” I climbed the ladder and stood eye to eye with the creepy portrait. “What’s the one place we didn’t search for the missing naga statue, which we know couldn’t have left the house? Lane, do you have a knife?”
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to do what I think.”
“What choice do we have? Seven years ago, someone killed Marc, framed you, and stole the missing naga statue which they think leads to a bigger treasure. Now that same person has resurfaced and killed Rick, and they’re going after us and the treasure.”
He tossed me his Swiss Army knife.
The portrait was bolted to the wall. But what was behind it?
I opened the knife and ran the blade between the canvas and the frame. It took less than a minute.
No, this couldn’t be right. Behind the canvas was a mildew-spotted portion of the stone wall. There was no secret passageway or hiding spot.
I banged my fist on the wall. I pretended it was because I wanted to see if the wall was solid, but honestly, it was in frustration.
“It was a good idea anyway,” Sébastien said.
“But it couldn’t have left the house,” I murmured. “Should we search again?”
Had Rick visited this house? Did he tell the family he wanted to write a book about their family history? Considering how they tried to keep things out of the papers, they surely would have refused. What did they do to him that traumatized him so much he disappeared for six weeks and hadn’t written a word in seven years?
I snapped out of my reverie as Lane and Sébastien crept up the stairs.
I held my breath as I stepped over the landing where three people had died, and ascended the stairs leading to the library where Lane had witnessed a ghost killing his friend.
Chapter 35
We examined the scene of the crime in the library. The plan was both to stir memories and to see if there was any evidence remaining.
“This is where the first murder happened,” Lane said, standing in the center of the room.
“Since we’re recreating the scene,” I said, “I’ll go outside the room to the landing.”
“With Sébastien,” he said firmly, looking at the older man.
“No,” I insisted. “Not before we test the lock with all three of us on the outside. You said yourself the lock was jammed so you couldn’t get in to help Marc.”
Lane nodded and we tested the door. The lock was still broken, but instead of jamming to keep the door shut, now the creaking hinges refused to allow the door to close completely. I nodded my assent.
Sébastien and I left the library and closed the glass doors as much as possible.
As I looked through the heavy glass, Lane put his hands to his throat. I knew he was only reenacting what he’d seen seven years before, but my own throat felt as if it were constricting.
“Breathe,” Sébastien whispered in my ear as he squeezed my hand. I grasped his thin fingers and he squeezed back. We were keeping each other from rushing into that room.
“Where could it be hiding?” Sébastien asked softly, looking away from Lane to the corners of the room.
I took my eyes off Lane for a second to gape at Sébastien. “You don’t think—”
“Not a ghost. No. But something else that wasn’t a person.”
“You think it was a mechanism?”
“It’s a possibility.”
Oh no. And we’d left Lane inside with it.
“Then what are we doing out here?” I reached for the door handle, but Sébastien held me back.
“It was only activated once,” Sébastien said calmly. “Dozens of people, if not more, have been through the library countless times since then.”
But as Lane clutched his throat in agony and fell to the floor in a limp heap, I couldn’t stay put and watch from beyond the glass doors. I rushed inside so quickly that I tripped over the pile of sheets and went flying. I landed hard—on top of Lane’s prone body.
He grunted and cursed. The noise of a very annoyed man. But one who was very much alive.
Sébastien was already inspecting the crevices of the walls. He looked up at the ceiling. “You’re certain that’s exactly where Marc was standing?”
Lane cursed once more as I extricated myself from his limbs and helped him up. “Positive. And Jones, I appreciate the sentiment, but maybe you could put a moratorium on searching haunted houses in high heels.”
“Pity it wasn’t two meters to the left,” Sébastien murmured. “Then it would have been easy to get a rope through the light fixture. But here?” He shook his head.
“I thought of the same thing at the time.” Lane rubbed his shin. “The way the invisible assailant yanked him upward, it had to have come from above.”
“We could check the attic to be certain,” Sébastien said. “We should also have Lane show us what happened with the second death of Marc Durant on the stairs. Jaya, are you listening? Your face…”
“There’s no need to check the attic again,” I said. “Or to reenact the fall down the stairs. I know who killed Marc Durant. And how.”
Chapter 36
“Think about what we witnessed at the mansion,” I said to Sébastien once we were back at the apartment. “Not what we thi
nk is logical, but what we really saw when we watched Lane through the glass doors of the library, reenacting what he believed he saw seven years ago.”
Sébastien threw his hands into the air. “We were standing together. We saw Lane pretend to be strangled by an invisible rope or invisible hands. We both saw this. Ah! Unless you mean since I’m a foot taller—”
“Nope, not that type of misdirection.” The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I was right.
“There were no mirrors.”
“And I know what I saw seven years ago.” Lane, who’d been looking out the tiny obscured window, turned to face us. “I know it was a long time ago, but I’ll never forget it.” His eyes were tired. I didn’t blame him.
“I know you didn’t.” I took his hands in mine. “And I believe you saw exactly what you say you did. And what Sébastien and I saw was also real.”
“Jaya is enjoying her lecture a little too much,” Sébastien said to Lane.
“I need you to hear me out,” I said, returning to my lecturing position. “What I’m about to say is the only thing that makes any sense.”
“Remove the impossible,” Sébastien said, “and the only thing that remains, however improbable, is the truth.”
“Exactly.” I took a deep breath. “Marc strangled himself.”
I watched for their reactions.
“He wouldn’t have killed himself,” Lane said. “Plus that doesn’t explain his scream or why I found him at the bottom of the stairs with his neck at an unnatural angle.”
“I didn’t say he killed himself. I said he strangled himself. What you saw through the glass library doors—Marc was faking being strangled, just like Lane was tonight.”
“Of course!” Sébastien said. “Misdirection. He wanted it to appear he was being strangled, but in reality, he wasn’t. Not with any kind of force. He was putting on an act. It was for show. You’d already gotten him inside. He wanted you to run away.”
Lane swore. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t just leave him there.”
“You said you didn’t actually see him falling down the stairs,” I said.
Lane shook his head. “No. I heard his scream, heard the thunks as he fell, and found him lying at the base of the stairs. There was no other explanation for what happened.”
“There’s always another explanation,” Sébastien murmured.
“Marc planned to steal the statue and other valuable items like Lane thought,” I said, “but not for his family. Only for himself. He’d been divorced since Becca was little. She grew up with her mother, and although spending holidays here meant a lot to Becca, how do we know what Marc really felt? You yourself said Marc Durant was miserable. He faked his own death and disappeared.”
I watched Lane’s face as he struggled with the truth. The realization that he’d been traumatized by watching a man die—when that man had never died.
“We’ve been looking for the wrong killer,” I said. “Marc isn’t dead, and he killed the man who was about to prove it.”
“The family’s reluctance to come forward,” Sébastien said. “You think it wasn’t only that they thought the ghost killed him, but that his body disappeared?”
“I don’t know exactly what happened yet,” I said. “There are many ways he could have dealt with the issue of the body, some more gruesome than others. Lane, think back on what you saw in the library. Does my explanation fit with what you saw?”
He closed his eyes. “I knew there was something wrong at the time. Something off in what I was seeing. But I thought it was because of the oppressive atmosphere in that house. The ghost story. The painting. The whole history of that house.”
“That house was made for a grand illusion,” Sébastien said.
“Marc was miserable,” Lane said, “but I can’t believe he’d leave his daughter. The way he talked about her, he adored her.”
“He probably cared more than he thought he did at the time. After all, he followed what she’d been up to. That’s how Marc knew what she was doing—and how he found Rick.”
“Rick,” Sébastien said, “who figured out that the statue Marc stole led to a larger treasure in Cambodia. One that he was obsessed with finding.”
“And now Marc knows that too,” I said. “He’s already lost everything and has nothing more to lose. He’s going after the bigger treasure Rick discovered. Rick’s meticulous research was his own downfall.”
“But Cambodia is a big place,” Lane said, “and has a long history with France. It’s not like we’d get anywhere by waltzing into Raffles in Phnom Penh and asking, ‘Do you happen to have seen a Frenchman in his forties?’”
“No,” I said, “but we’re forgetting something. Rick was giving me clues in the manuscript. He wanted me to find the treasure. We know the subject of the treasure, that it’s the Serpent King’s daughter and her prince. It was something Rick wasn’t able to find seven years ago, so he was enticing me with the mystery.”
“But he wasn’t able to finish sending the book to you. And we know from Becca that she didn’t believe in or care about that part of the mystery.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. We now believe Rick was in Cambodia for his six missing weeks, right? We also know he’d previously done a lot of historical research on Cambodia.”
“For Empire of Glass.”
“Right. The reason that’s my favorite of his books is because the treasure wasn’t a worldly possession, but knowledge.”
“You think he was looking for that lost city he made up in Empire of Glass?” Lane asked.
I blinked at him. “You’ve read it?”
“Of course. It’s a classic.”
I kissed him.
Sébastien cleared his throat. Lane pulled away with a smile on his face.
“They’ve been excavating Cambodia for decades,” I said, “even after the land mines from Pol Pot’s regime and American bombs got in the way. From what we’ve pieced together from real history, Rick’s hints, and what Becca knew, the missing snake sculpture was meant to hold the prince and princess. That’s what we know. Beyond that, we’ve each been blinded by our weaknesses.”
“So was Rick,” Lane said. “He wouldn’t ask for help. It nearly killed him once, and did kill him a second time.”
“Marc never knew what he had when he stole the Serpent King. He thought it was one of his family’s valuable works of art, nothing more. But Rick figured it out.”
“You think that’s why the author had to die?” Sébastien asked.
Lane’s hair fell into his face as he shook his head. “I still can’t imagine Marc as a killer.”
“You’re biased,” I insisted. “Having a bad father doesn’t excuse what he did, but it made you empathize with him and not see him for what he really was.”
“I’m not saying he had a heart of gold,” Lane said. “I mean the exact opposite. He was weak. He dropped out of his business and medical school programs, he never stood up to his father, he didn’t fight for his family when they left for the United States.”
“You barely knew the man,” I insisted. “There’s a good chance Marc is in Cambodia right now to find the treasure Rick was unable to find seven years ago because he didn’t have the necessary information.”
“It appears that you two,” Sébastien said, “are going to Cambodia.”
Chapter 37
“Fourteen hours.” I groaned. “Fourteen hours to get to Siem Reap, Cambodia.”
Sébastien was headed home to Nantes to resume his life with Fitz and the creations he worked on at the Machines de L’ile. Lane and I were preparing for our trip to Cambodia. If not for Gabriela Glass’s invitation to meet her in Siem Reap, we would have gone to the capital, Phnom Penh, to begin to seek out experts to consult. But Siem Reap was the natural starting point if we were heading straight to the temples.
“Count your blessings,” Lane said. “It’s nineteen from San Francisco. And might I point out, you’re not complaining about where the money comes from to get last-minute tickets.”
“We never finished that conversation we started at the house in Berkeley, did we.”
“We’ve got a long flight ahead of us.”
“I’m not having that conversation on an airplane.”
“It’s okay if you’re not ready—”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to talk. We’ve got five hours before heading to the airport, right? I’ve got a few emails to send, then we’ll get the photos we’ll need for our visas. After that I’m all yours.”
“I think you’ve got that order wrong, don’t you?” He linked his fingers with mine.
“Mr. Peters, are you trying to distract me?”
“It’s one of my many skills.”
“I’m aware.”
An hour later, Lane stepped out of the shower while I was finishing my emails.
“You’re not telling people where we’re off to, are you?” he asked. “I thought we agreed—”
“We did. I was emailing my student Wesley. I wanted to ask him for more details about the letter Becca had taken from her family and planted. I also thought I’d see if I could find someone who knows about historical naga artwork in Siem Reap. Not an academic colleague who might talk to mutual acquaintances.”
“It’s probably an unnecessary precaution, but thanks for humoring me.”
“It worked out fine. I don’t know anyone personally there, but the Angkor National Museum has a large collection of naga art and history, so I emailed a curator there. Her bio shows an American education, so I know she’ll speak English.”
“I suppose it’s time for that talk now.”
“Yes, I—” My phone dinged. Wesley had already emailed me back. “Doesn’t that kid sleep?” I was glad he didn’t. “His authenticator x-rayed the letter! The squiggly lines. Becca’s ancestor didn’t only draw his map on the base of the sculpture. He drew his map on the letter.”
