1 Witchy Business (5 page)

“I did it myself.”

So much for that. I closed my eyes for a minute. A vague memory of art history came to me. “Who was Escher’s mentor?”

“Why?”

“Sometimes, the best way to find something stolen is to find the
reason
it was stolen. Indulge me, Niall.”

“Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita was his graphic arts teacher and also was a woodcut artist of many beautiful prints,” Niall said. “He died with his wife and son, in Auschwitz.”

I swallowed, trying to imagine the horror of that and knowing that I couldn’t.

“If Samuel had the block—perhaps as a gift or memento from Escher—that would explain why no prints were ever made from it,” I said.

“What an interesting idea. The provenance is…well,
difficult
with that piece,” Niall admitted. “Could my woodcut block have been stolen Nazi booty?”

“It’s just a theory.”

“One that provides us with a possible reason for someone to try to steal it back,” Niall said.

I shrugged. “Possibly. Or it could be nothing to do with that. It could just be that someone wanted it, or that they found out what it might be worth. I’d like to believe that it was something more…”

“Romantic?” Niall suggested.

“Worthy of it,” I corrected him, “but the truth is that until I find it, we won’t know.”

“And you will find the woodcut?” Niall asked, reaching out, his fingers just brushing my arm.

I nodded. “You can bet on that. I’m very good at my job.”

“Oh, I guessed that,” Niall assured me. “You are a true art aficionado and a very interesting insurance investigator. I don’t often meet women as clever as you…Elle.”

I liked the way he said my name. It sent a wave of warmth through me.

“Thank you. On that note, I should finish my investigation and go back to my office.”

He smiled and nodded to a plate at the center of the table. “Yes. You should. Although not before you try the shortbread.”

I finished my coffee and tasted it, just to be polite. I finished it with a wide smile on my face. “This is good. You should pass on my compliments to your cook.”

Niall shook his head. “This is one small triumph I can call my own.”

 Okay.
This
man baked? “Thank you, Niall. You are a man of many talents.”

“Well, you can’t eat art, now, can you?”

I laughed. “You are an amazing baker. Do you make art, too?”

“I do.” Niall gestured in a way that seemed to take in the piano, the shortbread, the whole room. “I try to explore all the ways there are to touch the emotions of those around me. So far, my art is not very good, but it pleases me.”

 “So, is there a room like the other one, a gallery, except filled with only your own art?”

Niall smiled like he might not answer, but then nodded. “There is. Only the staff know of it. And one or two close friends.”

That sounded like an invitation. “Maybe another time, after I solve the case of the missing Escher, you’ll show me some of your own artwork.”

“I’d like that,” he said warmly. “Very much so, in fact. Perhaps I will even have to work on some etchings, just so I can say that I have shown you them.”

It was an old joke, but the promise behind it seemed real. A thread of joy spiraled through me and I cloaked my reaction carefully, so I could return to being a professional insurance investigator.

“I think I’d better get on with interviewing your staff now,” I said, reluctantly standing.

I caught a thread of something that was almost disappointment, coming from Niall, as if I had failed some sort of test by shutting the conversation down like that. Even so, he stood with me. His eyes were latched onto mine and warmth bloomed in my body. Embarrassingly so.

“My staff will offer any assistance you require,” he assured me. He opened a drawer of a side table and handed me a business card and uncapped a gorgeous Waterman fountain pen. He turned over the business card and wrote a phone number. His script was very artistic, with grand loops and the European hash mark through the number seven.

“This is my private number. You can contact me anytime. Day or night.”

I tried not to think too hard about the images that last word conjured up, of Niall having to get out of bed to answer the cell phone. Would he be wearing paisley silk pajamas and a red velvet smoking jacket? Would he be wearing anything?

“I will call if I find anything to report about your missing Escher,” I promised.

I made my way out through the house then, looking for Niall’s assistant, finding her in a small library that seemed to double as an office. She was young and dark-haired, very pretty but, as it turned out, completely unable to help me.

“I’m sorry,” she said, after I had asked her a few questions. “I feel so stupid, not having seen anything. Mr. Sampson went out for his meeting with the Durham backers, so it was just the three of us—the staff—in the house. I was mostly in here, trying to ensure that some of the contracts were in order, although I might have gone through to the kitchen once or twice for tea. I really didn’t notice anything until Mr. Sampson came back and raised the alarm.”

My abilities weren’t perfect when it came to telling if someone was lying, but it seemed like she was telling the truth. She seemed genuinely upset to have let Niall down by failing to spot the break-in. More than that, I could see how loyal she was to him.

I asked the driver, David, and the housekeeper, Kelly, the same questions. Nobody had seen anything, but they had all gone to the kitchen at some point. Other than that, it seemed like they had all just gone about their normal duties until Niall had gotten back.

Which was a problem, because if they were all telling the truth, that no one saw nor heard a thing related to the theft, then we had a thief who could take a work of art from a secure, alarmed property in broad daylight without anyone noticing. Was that possible?
Maybe.
It was certainly a large enough house that three people could be at different corners of it and never see one another, let alone anyone else. More than that, if they heard someone moving about, they would simply assume that it was one of the others going to the kitchen for a snack.

I left the house still thinking about that, promising to do everything I could. Still thinking about Niall, too, although that was normal, wasn’t it? He was a client. I was meant to think about him. Although possibly not the way I did.

Perhaps it was because I was so distracted that I got most of the way home before I realized that someone was following me.

First, it came to me as a prickle on the back of my neck. A tiny certainty that someone’s attention was on me. It had probably been there before, but I’d ignored it because I was thinking about Niall. And because it was normal for me, up to a point. I always got a lot of interested looks when I was out and about. Mostly from men. Yet, this prickle didn’t go away, the way those generally did.

Finally, I had to start paying attention to it. Thankfully, it was still a busy street in daylight. I slipped into a doorway, waiting as the sensation got closer and closer…

Footsteps came close and I stepped out to confront whoever it was, trying to remember the basics of the self-defense courses I’d taken. If this was some would-be mugger, I wanted to be ready with my skills. Only it wasn’t a mugger. Anyone but.

I stared at Rebecca as she stood in front of me. “You scared me half to death, stalking me like a fiend. What are you doing?”

“That,” she said, “is almost exactly what I was about to ask you.”

When Rebecca grabbed hold of my arm and practically frog-marched me back in the direction of Niall’s home, I thought about pulling away, just on general principles. That wouldn’t have been a good idea, though. Although she worked as a liaison to the coven, Rebecca was far more of a generalist as a witch than me, giving her far more direct combat magic, even if her primary skills were in ritual and divination.

My witch skills were more in the areas of emotion sensitivity and emotion manipulation. That meant that I could feel, for example, the anger coming off Rebecca as she pulled me along. Great. That made two of us.

 “Are we running from the police?” I quipped as I kept up with her frantic pace.

“Worse,” she replied, which startled me.

“So, is this a reality show and I’m not privy to the joke? Where are the video cameras?”

“Don’t push your luck, Elle. Death would not become you.”

Okay, now things were getting interesting. Since when did Rebecca make death threats to get what she wanted? So, I let her lead me, trying to ignore the embarrassment of it all. It was actually quite intriguing to let her pull me around. What was she going to do with me, now that she had my attention? More importantly, what could she possibly want in Niall Sampson’s place that she had to try to force me to go back there under a life-or-death edict?

I would have gone to Niall’s of my own accord, so there was certainly no need for this head teacher and child routine. As she led me toward Niall’s, about the only reason I cooperated was that it seemed so out of character for Rebecca.

Ultimately, though, at the last moment, just when I thought we were about to walk up and knock on Niall’s door, she headed across the street. Her fingers dug deep into my flesh, propelling me. This house wasn’t quite as large or impressive as Niall’s, but it must still have cost a small fortune. An estate agent would have called it the cheapest house on the block, and stressed the exclusivity of the location.

They would have been sensible to do it, too. Although the property was still in the Georgian style, it had the look of a property that had been empty for a while. The front garden, such as it was in a city as crowded as Edinburgh, was overgrown with weeds and old newspapers were piled up like drunken gnomes. A real estate sign that said, “Fix Up” lay ignored by the front steps. There was even a broken window with a spider making a grand web in the missing-glass space between the outdoors and indoors.

“Hello, eensy weensy spider,” I said as we passed the creature. She looked at me with all of her eyes and blinked.

“Greetings. I’m moving in with my egg sac,” came a thin, high-pitched voice. I should have expected that. Magic spiders. Obviously. This was Scotland. Where else did the story of Robert the Bruce and the spider come from?

“Congratulations,” I said to the spider. “I hope it’s a girl, and a boy, and a girl, and a—”

“Don’t talk to the help,” Rebecca admonished me. She breezed up the stairs and pulled me to the door, which was huge and looked halfway to a gothic style, like something out of an old horror movie. It didn’t really fit with the architectural tone of the area.