The Collector

by Nora Roberts

  to see it again.”

  “Someone closer to her height, wearing a black shirt. I need to ask the police what Oliver was wearing.”

  “Oh. But it might’ve been navy or dark gray. The light wasn’t very good.”

  “A dark shirt, then.”

  “I’d talked myself out of thinking there’d been someone else. You talked me into it,” she said when he looked at her again. “Then I talked myself out of it. Now you’re talking me into it again. I don’t know which is worse.”

  “There’s no worse.” He lowered the glasses again, his eyes sharp with an anger she could feel shimmering off his skin. “But there’s the truth.”

  “I hope you find it. You can see the building from another angle from the terrace, if you want. I could use the air.”

  She went out without waiting for a response. He hesitated a moment, then taking the binoculars, followed her.

  “I want some water. Do you want some water?”

  “That’d be good.” And would give him a bit more time. He followed her through, past a dining area. “Workstation?”

  “Laptop goes anywhere. I try not to spread out too much. You can forget things, and that’s annoying for the client.”

  “So you write here, about teenage werewolves.”

  “Yeah—how did you know?” She held up a hand. “Google. You can’t escape it. And since I did the same with you, I can’t whine about it.”

  “You’re a military brat.”

  “You actually read the bio. Was. Seven different schools by the time I graduated from high school, so I sympathize with Kaylee—my central character—for wanting to stay put through high school.”

  “I know the feeling. Divorce can uproot the same as military orders.”

  “I guess it can. How old were you when your parents divorced?”

  “Six when they split—officially.” He stepped outside with her, into the heat and the appealing scent of sun-warmed tomatoes and some spicy flower.

  “So young, but I guess any age is hard. Just you?”

  “A sister, Chloe, two years younger. Then we inherited Cora and Portia when our father remarried. They had Oliver, but split when he was a baby. Our mother remarried, and there was Valentina—step, then Esteban, and so on, down to Rylee, she’s fifteen and might’ve read your book, and the youngest, Madison. She’s four.”

  “You have a four-year-old sister?”

  “My father’s current wife is younger than I am. Some people collect stamps,” he said with a shrug.

  “How do you keep them all straight?”

  “I have a spreadsheet.” He smiled when she laughed—and again had the image of her in a red dress whirling in front of a campfire. “No, seriously. When you get an invitation to a college graduation or somebody’s wedding, it’s good to know if you’re related to them. Who’s the gardener?”

  “The amazing Macey. I call her that because she’s pretty close to perfect. I’d like to be her. She has one of your paintings.”

  “The people who live here?”

  “No, sorry. My thoughts are like buckshot sometimes. Sage Kendall. Julie told me, realized she knew her—a little—as a client, and that she bought one of your pieces. A woman playing the violin in a meadow. I know the piece because I’d told Julie if I had a wall, I’d have bought it. I probably couldn’t have afforded it, but if I’d had a wall and could’ve afforded it, I’d have bought it. It’s wonderful. Now it’s sad, because she must’ve thought it was wonderful, too. Screw water.” She set the bottle aside. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Good.” She rose, went inside.

  Ash lifted the glasses again. Oliver might have nudged his latest girlfriend to buy the painting. Bragging rights again. Or she might have bought it thinking it would please Oliver. Who knew?

  “Did you ever see anyone else in there? A visitor, a repairman, anyone?” Ash asked when she came back with two glasses of red.

  “No, and I remember wondering about that. Everyone else I watched had someone. A little party, or friends over, a delivery. Something at some point. But not them. They went out a lot, nearly every night. And they both went out most days, not usually together. I figured they were going to work. Then again, they might have had someone over when I wasn’t looking. I know it seems like I just sat here trained on the building, but honestly I might take a look in the morning, then in the evening. Or if I was restless, late at night.”

  “A place like that, you entertain. Oliver liked having parties, having people over, and he’d have wanted that in that kind of space. So why didn’t they?”

  “A lot of people get out of the city in the summer, which is why I’m usually really busy in the summer.”

  “Yeah, and why didn’t they?”

  “Didn’t he work?”

  “He worked for an uncle on his mother’s side. Antiquities—acquisitions and sales. If he was still doing that. Mostly he lived on his trust fund when he could get away with it. But I think he’d been working for Vinnie—the uncle—for nearly a year now. I think it was working out, at least that’s the family buzz. Oliver finally found his place. And now . . . I’ll have to talk to Vinnie.”

  “It’s hard. Especially with such a big family. So many people to tell or talk to about it. But it has to be a comfort, too. I always wanted a brother or sister.”

  She paused a moment because he was staring at the boarded-up window again.

  “Did you talk to your father?”

  “Yeah.” Because that depressed him, Ash sat, studied his wine. “They’re in Scotland for a few weeks. They’ll come back to Connecticut when I let them know the arrangements.”

  “You’re making them?”

  “Looks like it. His mother lives in London now. This flattened her. Losing a child has to flatten you, but . . . She loves her daughters, but Oliver was the center for her.”

  “Is someone with her?”

  “Portia lives in London, and Olympia’s married again. Rick—no, that was her first husband, before my father.” He rubbed a space between his eyebrows. “Nigel. Decent guy, from what I can tell. He’s with her, but she’s shattered so it ended up I should do what needs to be done for a private service, probably on the compound.”

  “You have a compound.”

  “My father does. The press is already getting ugly, so it’s just as well they all stay away until it’s time.”

  While you’re in the middle of it, she thought. “Are reporters after you?”

  He drank some wine, deliberately relaxed his shoulders. “Half brother, one of several halfs and steps. It hasn’t been that bad, especially since I keep a fairly low profile otherwise.”

  “Not so low when you were dating the dancer.” She smiled a little, hoping to lighten what must be a terrible weight. “Google and Julie.”

  “Well, that was mostly about her.”

  “Do you think so?” She sat back. “Successful artist with deep, deep family pockets and a swashbuckling air.”

  “Swashbuckling?”

  Now she shrugged, pleased she’d amused him. “That’s how it strikes me. I think it was just as much about you, and I hope the press leaves you alone. Do you have anyone to help you?”

  “Help me what?”

  “Make the arrangements? With a family that big, that spread out, it’s a lot. Not even considering the circumstances, and with both his parents out of the country. I know it’s not my place, but I could help if you need it. I’m good at making calls, following instructions.”

  He looked back at her, into those big dark eyes, saw only compassion. “Why would you offer that?”

  “I’m sorry, it really isn’t my place.”

  “That’s not what I meant, at all. It’s kind, very kind of you.”

  “Maybe it’s the window watching, or the writing, but I have a habit of putting myself in someone else’s place. Or maybe the habit is why I do the other. Either way, in your place I’d be overwhelmed. So if
there’s something, just let me know.”

  Before he could speak, before he could think what to say, his phone rang. “Sorry.” He lifted a hip to pull it out of his back pocket. “It’s the police. No, stay,” he said when she started to stand up. “Please.”

  “Detective Fine.” He listened a moment. “No, actually I’m not home, but I can come to you or . . . Hold on a minute. They have something,” he told Lila. “The cops want to talk to me again. I can go there, or I can have them come here. They went by my place looking for me.”

  She’d offered to help, hadn’t she? Lila reminded herself. She’d meant it, so here was something she could do. “You can tell them to come here. It’s okay.”

  He kept his eyes on hers as he lifted the phone again. “I’m with Lila Emerson, where she’s staying. You have the address. Yeah, I can explain that when you get here.”

  He slid the phone back into his pocket. “They didn’t like me being here, connecting with you. I could hear that loud and clear.”

  Lila took a contemplative sip of wine. “They’re going to wonder if we knew each other before, and if we somehow cooked all this up, and you killed your brother, I covered for you. Then they’ll realize that doesn’t work on many levels.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No, because you wouldn’t have invited them here, with me, so they’d have this to wonder about. But more, I called nine-one-one seconds after she fell. How is that covering for anyone? Why call at all? Why not let some bystander call? And why not say I saw your brother push her when I called? Clean and simple. So they’ll chew on it, then just want to know how we ended up sitting out on the Kilderbrands’ terrace having a glass of wine. And that’s a reasonable question with a reasonable answer.”

  “That’s logical and straightforward.”

  “When you write you have to figure out what makes sense.”

  Compassion, he thought, married to logic and flavored with what he believed to be a well-honed imagination.

  “High school werewolves make sense?”

  “It doesn’t have to be possible so much as plausible, within the world you create. In my world, my werewolves make perfect sense. Which doesn’t explain why I’m so damn nervous. Too many police.” She rose, grabbed the watering can though she’d already watered. “I’ve gone my entire life without any real contact with the police, and now it’s all over. I’m talking to them, you’re talking to them, and I’m talking to you, which is one degree of separation. Julie’s talking to them, so—”

  “Because she brokered the painting?”

  “What? No. Her apartment was broken into last night. Just some kids—it had to be, because all they took were a pair of Manolos, a bottle of perfume, a lipstick—that sort of thing. But it’s still a break-in, still a police report. And now here they come again. Now I’m overwatering the plants.”

  “It’s hot. They’ll be fine.” But he stepped over to take the can from her, set it down again. “I can meet them downstairs.”

  “No, I didn’t mean that. Besides, I want to talk to them now since you’ve talked me back into believing your brother didn’t push her. Should I make coffee? I have a stash of goldfish—the little crackers. I could set them out. I never know what to do. Why didn’t I make sun tea?”

  “It’s that buckshot again,” he decided. “I think you should relax.” He picked up the wine she’d set aside, handed it to her. “And we’ll go inside and talk to the police.”

  “Right. I’m glad you’re here,” she said as they went inside. “Although if you weren’t here they wouldn’t be coming here. But I’m glad you’re here. And here they are,” she said when the bell rang.

  Stop thinking about it, she told herself, and walked straight to the door.

  “Detectives.” She stepped back to let them in.

  “We didn’t realize the two of you knew each other,” Fine began.

  “We didn’t—before.”

  “I overheard enough at the precinct yesterday to realize Lila was the nine-one-one caller.” Ash took a seat in the living room, waiting for the others to do the same. “I caught up with her on her way out, asked if she’d talk to me.”

  Fine gave Lila a long, speculative look. “You asked him to come here?”

  “No. We talked in the coffee shop across from the police station. Ash asked if he could see the perspective where I saw what happened. What I saw of what happened. I didn’t see the harm, especially since Julie knows him.”

  Waterstone cocked his eyebrows. “Julie?”

  “My friend Julie Bryant. She manages Chelsea Arts, and they carry some of Ash’s work. I told you about Julie,” she remembered. “I use her address.”

  “Small world.”

  “It seems that way.”

  “Small enough,” Fine picked up. “The victim has one of your paintings in her apartment, Mr. Archer—purchased through Chelsea Arts.”

  “So I’m told. I didn’t know her. It’s more unusual for me to meet or know someone who buys my work than not. I’m not pushing myself into your investigation. He was my brother. I want answers. I want to know what happened. Tell me what he was wearing,” Ash insisted. “What was he wearing when you found him?”

  “Mr. Archer, we have questions.”

  “You told them what you saw?” he asked Lila.

  “Yes, of course. You mean the fist, the dark sleeve? Yes.” She paused a moment. “Oliver wasn’t wearing a dark shirt, was he?”

  “You saw a flash of movement,” Waterstone reminded her. “In a dimly lit room, and through binoculars.”

  “That’s true, but in that flash I saw a dark sleeve, and if Oliver wasn’t wearing a dark shirt, he didn’t push her. I should’ve seen his face. Ash said Oliver was six-one. Why didn’t I see some of his face over her head when he had her against the window?”

  “If you remember your statement,” Fine said patiently, “you said it happened very fast, that you were more focused on her.”

  “That’s all true, too, but I should’ve seen some of his face. I shouldn’t have seen a dark sleeve—not if Oliver Archer pushed her.”

  “But you also didn’t see anyone else in the apartment.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Fine shifted to Ash. “Was your brother in any trouble? Do you know of anyone who’d want to hurt him?”

  “No, not that I know of. Trouble didn’t stick to him.”

  “And you never met Sage Kendall, whom he was involved with, living with, who purchased one of your paintings for a five-figure price tag? Upper five-figure.”

  “I knew I couldn’t afford it,” Lila muttered.

  “I never met her, and he only recently told me about her—as I told you in my statement yesterday. He didn’t push her. He didn’t kill himself. I know why I’m sure of that, but why are you thinking it?”

  “You had some problems with your brother,” Waterstone pointed out. “Your half brother.”

  “He was a frustrating pain in the ass.”

  “You’ve got a temper, been known to throw a punch.”

  “Yeah, can’t deny it. I never threw one at Oliver—it would’ve felt like punching a puppy. And I’ve never hit a woman, never will. Check on it, dig into it, look all you want, but tell me why you’re not sure this is what it was made to look like.”

  “I can go outside or into the other room if you don’t want to talk about it in front of me.”

  Fine just looked at Lila, then shifted back to Ash. “And whatever we discuss, you’ll pass right on to her.”

  “She’s done the right thing all the way down the line. And she showed a complete stranger genuine compassion when she could’ve just told me to leave her alone, she’d already done enough. Why wouldn’t I tell her? And she doesn’t leave the room for anyone.”

  Lila could only blink at that. She couldn’t think of the last time someone had stood up for her—or had to.

  “Your brother had a mix of alcohol and barbiturates in his system,” Fine said.

&n
bsp; “I told you, he’d never have mixed pills with alcohol.”

  “He had enough of both that the ME believes he would have OD’d if he didn’t receive medical attention. The ME’s findings are that your brother was unconscious at his time of death.”

  The hard look on Ash’s face never changed. Lila knew, as she was watching him.

  “Oliver was murdered.”