Hidden Talents (7 page)

He pulled on his leather gloves and went down the steps. At that moment he would gladly kill for a cup of coffee. He hoped Serenity had some. Tea just wasn't going to cut it on a morning like this.

It didn't take long to reach the cottage. Her Jeep was still parked in the drive next to his Jag, but when he pounded on her front door, there was no response. Caleb twisted the knob, and shook his head in disgust when it turned easily in his hand. The woman really was living in another world. She didn't even bother to lock her door.

“Serenity?”

There was no answer. He closed the door again and went back down the steps. He glanced at the Jeep and realized she couldn't have gone far on foot. It was early, but perhaps she'd walked into the tiny village for coffee.

He couldn't help but notice that she had failed to invite him to join her.

The walk into the heart of Witt's End took less than ten minutes.

The only thing one could say about the small cluster of eccentric, highly original, hand-built structures that comprised downtown Witt's End was that each was unique. There were several odd geometric forms worked in wood and glass and decorated in vivid colors. Caleb spotted a small café next to Witt's End Grocery. The lights were on inside.

The lights were also on inside Witt's End Grocery. Curious, Caleb changed course and walked into Serenity's store. Bells tinkled overhead as he opened the door.

“Serenity? Are you in here?”

A strange apparition garbed in flowing saffron and orange robes emerged from between two aisles. It levitated toward him. He couldn't decide at first if the being who confronted him was male or female. He or she had completely shaved his or her head. There was a ring in his or her nose.

“Serenity is not here.” The voice had sepulchral overtones, but it was definitely female.

“Who are you?” Caleb asked.

“I am called Zone.”

“I'm Caleb Ventress.”

“Caleb Ventress. He who brings danger, turmoil, and confusion.”

“Actually, you've got that backward,” Caleb said. “I'm a business consultant. My job is to straighten out turmoil and confusion.”

“You are the great unknown.” Zone lifted her hands toward the ceiling in a ritualistic gesture. The wide sleeves of her robes fell back to reveal a row of silver bracelets on each arm. “Out of the chaos and danger will come change, but there is no sign yet of whether that change will be good or evil.”

“I've got a track record that strongly indicates the change will be highly profitable for all concerned. Would you mind telling me where my client is?”

“Client?”

“Serenity. You may remember her. She's your employer.”

“Serenity has gone.”

“Where?”

“To poor Ambrose's cabin. She said there was something she wanted to get,” Zone said.

“The negatives,” Caleb said under his breath. “Of course. I should have thought of that myself.”

“All negative forces are countered by positive forces,” Zone intoned. “It is the nature of the universe.”

“Sure. Look, could you give me directions to Asterley's cabin?”

“Turmoil and confusion,” Zone whispered. “Turmoil and confusion. And great danger. I have seen the warning in the mists. I hoped it was a dream, but now I fear that it was a true vision.”

“Let me put it this way,” Caleb said patiently. “If you don't give me directions ASAP, you and I will be having a serious conversation about your unemployment benefits or lack thereof.”

“Take a right when you leave here. First left outside of town. Ambrose's cabin is at the end of the road.”

“Thanks,” Caleb said. “You've been very helpful.”

A
DEEP SENSE OF MELANCHOLY SWEPT THROUGH
S
ERENI
ty as she searched the extensive files stored in Ambrose's basement. The man had had so much talent, she thought. But his artistic gifts had been compromised by a lifelong battle with the bottle and a personality that always got in the way of his relationships with others. The evidence of his repeated failures surrounded her. It consisted of sixteen file cabinets full of unsold photographs.

And the corresponding negatives.

Fortunately, Ambrose had filed by date, usually lumping three or four years' worth of work together. Within that constraint, he filed items alphabetically. She pulled open one of the drawers that contained Ambrose's records for the past three years and started searching for her name. As she expected, the folders were in pristine order.

She found the file labeled
Makepeace, Serenity
, almost immediately. Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor overhead just as she reached inside the folder. She froze.

“Serenity?”

The sound of her own name was muffled by the thick wooden ceiling of the basement, but there was no mistaking the dark, deep voice. Caleb was upstairs.

Serenity didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed. That was one of the problems she was having with Caleb lately, she thought. Her emotions seemed all mixed up around him.

“I'm down here. In the basement.” She hastily plucked the single large envelope out of the folder, tucked it under her arm and closed the drawer.

Caleb's footsteps echoed as he approached the basement door. A moment later he appeared at the top of the stairs. “I should have figured you'd try something like this. Tell me, just as a matter of idle curiosity, are the laws concerning breaking and entering different here in Witt's End than they are in Seattle?”

“I wouldn't know.” Serenity decided that what she was feeling now was definitely annoyance. Extreme annoyance. “I've never compared the legal codes. As a free-spirited child of the universe, I don't feel the need to pay much attention to man-made laws.”

“A convenient philosophy.” Caleb started down the stairs. “Did you find the photos?”

She gave a start. “How did you know?”

“I may not be a child of the universe, but I'm not an idiot.”

She clutched the envelope tightly to her side and glared at him. “I'm not stealing them, you know. They belong to me. Ambrose once told me that if I ever wanted them, I could have them.”

“Did he?” Caleb's gaze went to the large envelope under her arm. “What are you going to do with them?”

“I don't know. Tear them up and throw them away, I suppose.” She scowled at him. “They've caused me enough trouble as it is.”

“I thought you said they were high art.”

“They are art. But they've also proven to be trouble. So I'm going to get rid of them. I certainly don't have any use for them.”

A thoughtful expression crossed Caleb's hard face. “You do realize that the fact that you found those photos here implies that Asterley was the blackmailer, after all. It's obvious now that he didn't give or sell those negatives to someone else.”

“Yes, I know.” Serenity felt another twinge of sadness. “I still can't believe Ambrose would have done something like this. I suppose he must have had his reasons.”

“Hell, you'd make excuses for the devil himself.” Caleb came to a halt on the bottom step and surveyed the room. He whistled softly. “I see Asterley liked photography equipment. Looks like he only worked with the best.”

“Ambrose cared passionately about his work.”

“Yeah, sure. A real artist. Come on, let's get out of here.”

Serenity smiled coolly. “Surely you don't want to be seen leaving here with me? If we're caught, you might be implicated in my criminal activities.”

“As your partner and business consultant, I'll just have to risk it. Part of the job, you know. Let's go, Serenity.”

She was genuinely amused now. “You're really nervous about being down here, aren't you?”

“Is that so strange? Where I come from, people get arrested for doing things like this.”

“Relax, Caleb. Ambrose was a friend. He wouldn't mind my being here.” Serenity started toward the stairs. “But I'm ready to go now. There's something very depressing about this basement.”

She was less than a yard away from where Caleb waited impatiently on the bottom step when she heard the muted sound of an automobile engine.

“Damn it to hell,” Caleb muttered. “Someone's out there.”

“It's probably just Jessie or someone else from Witt's End,” Serenity said, hoping that was the case.

“What if it's one of his relatives come to collect his things? Or the cops? If you don't mind, I'd just as soon not get caught taking stuff from a dead man's house.” Caleb went back up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and quickly closed the basement door. Then he returned to the bottom of the steps, reached out, caught hold of Serenity's arm and urged her toward the wall.

“What in the world are you doing?” she gasped.

“Quiet.” Caleb flipped the second light switch, which was located at the bottom of the steps. The basement was instantly plunged into total darkness. “Maybe if we get real lucky, whoever it is will simply go away.”

“I'm sure it's someone I know,” she grumbled.

“Not another word,” Caleb breathed in her ear.

Serenity was genuinely nervous now, in spite of her brave assertion that there was nothing to worry about. She listened as the cabin door was opened in the room above. Footsteps quickly crossed the floor. Whoever it was seemed to know his or her way around, she thought.
A friend of Ambrose's, then. Jessie, perhaps
.

She was about to voice her conclusion to Caleb and tell him that there was no cause for alarm when she heard the footsteps move directly overhead, heading toward the basement door. She groaned silently and nudged Caleb with her elbow. She hoped he realized that there was no place to hide if someone opened the door at the top of the stairs.

“Hell,” Caleb muttered. “Guess we'll have to play this by ear. Try for the casual touch. Just an old friend tidying things up or something.”

“Honestly, Caleb, you worry too much.”

“All of us big-time consultants worry. It's why we're so highly paid.”

“I wish you'd stop bringing up the subject of your outrageous fees.”

“It's a subject that's very dear to my heart. Here, let me have that.” He whisked the envelope she had been holding out from under her arm.

“Caleb, that's mine.”

“I'll give it back later.” He snapped the wall switch again. The overhead bulb lit up the windowless room. “All right, we're going to take the offensive. Act like we have every reason to be here.”

“We do. Sort of.”

The door opened at the top of the stairs. A man appeared. “What the hell? Who's down there?”

“Who are you?” Caleb demanded with the sort of natural arrogance that one tended to associate with cops and other authority figures. “This is private property.”

The stranger at the top of the stairs gave a visible start. He gazed uncertainly down into the basement.

He appeared to be in his late fifties, thin and wiry, with a narrow, smoker's face and sunken eyes. Dressed in an old sweater and a pair of slacks, he had the restless, twitchy look of someone who ran largely on nervous energy. He was clearly alarmed to see that the basement was occupied. His mouth opened and closed and then opened again.

“Now just a damned minute,” he finally said forcefully. “I've got a right to be here.”

“Hello,” Serenity said brightly. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the envelope containing her photos had disappeared inside Caleb's jacket. “Didn't mean to startle you. Are you a member of the family?”

“Family?” The man stared at her. “What family?”

“Ambrose's family,” Serenity explained gently. “Sorry if we're intruding. We didn't think he had any close kin. He never mentioned his relations.”

“I'm not a relative, I'm a friend.” The man hesitated. “I mean, I was a friend. My name's Gallagher Firebrace. I'm a photographer from Seattle. I've known—I mean I knew Ambrose for a long time. Last night a photographer I know in Bullington called me. He told me he'd heard that there'd been an accident. I drove up here to see if there was anything I could do.”

“Caleb Ventress,” Caleb said easily, as if he was accustomed to being discovered skulking around other people's basements. “This is Serenity Makepeace. She was a friend of Asterley's, too. We just came by to straighten things up a bit.”

“I see.” Gallagher glanced down at Serenity. “You're right. Ambrose doesn't have any family.”

“I wonder who will inherit all this stuff?” Serenity said.

“I have no idea.” Gallagher's eyes swept the array of expensive equipment stored in the basement. “He owed me a lot of money.”

“Is that right?” Caleb watched him.

“Probably owed money to a lot of people.” Gallagher sighed heavily. “He was a hell of a photographer. Too bad he couldn't get his personal life under control. It was the drinking that ruined his business.”

“The drinking seems to have ruined everything for Ambrose over the years,” Serenity said softly.

“And in the end it finally killed him.” Gallagher came slowly down the steps. “No surprise, I guess. Still, he was a pal, a fellow pro in the field, and I had been kind of hoping he'd climbed on the wagon to stay. Well, that's neither here nor there now. I wonder what will become of all his equipment. He spent a fortune on it, you know. A lot of it was my money.”

“There's some valuable-looking items in here and in the room above,” Caleb observed.

“Ambrose didn't care much for people, but he loved camera equipment,” Gallagher said. “Poor, dumb bastard. He was always so certain that if he just bought a new camera or the latest high-tech lighting gadget, he'd finally get his career back on track.”

Serenity frowned. “I hadn't thought much about it until now, but Ambrose must have spent a lot of money on equipment over the years.”

“Tell me about it,” Gallagher said with a rueful smile. “God knows how much I gave him. No telling who else he talked into loaning him a few bucks.”

“His friend Jessie probably gave him some,” Serenity said. “And I know Julius gave him a little cash from time to time. So did Montrose and Quinton. So did I, for that matter.”

“No matter how much anyone gave him, he always seemed to need more,” Gallagher said. “Face it, the guy was a mooch. Still, there was something about Ambrose that you had to like, you know?”

“I know,” Serenity said. “It was his passion for his work, I think. People responded to it.”

“I guess that was it.” Gallagher hesitated. “Ambrose had talent. But he got a reputation in Seattle for showing up drunk on one too many shoots, and that was the end of the line for him. He moved up here to Witt's End and more or less fell off the face of the earth as far as the rest of us were concerned. Still, when I heard the news, I had to come up and check it out.”

“And maybe help yourself to a few pieces of photo equipment from Asterley's collection?” Caleb suggested. “At a rough estimate, I'd say that Nikon lens over there on top of the last file cabinet is probably worth a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred.”

“Now, see here,” Gallagher began angrily. “I told you, the guy owed me money. A lot of it. I've got a right to collect one way or another.”

“The county sheriff might have a few things to say about that,” Caleb said. “If there's no immediate family or heir to claim this cabin and everything in it, the state will step in to handle the property of the deceased.”

Gallagher compressed his lips into a thin, disgruntled line. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Bet on it,” Caleb advised. He took Serenity's arm and started purposefully up the stairs. “I think all of us had better be on our way. Doesn't look like there's much we can do around here.”

Serenity looked at Gallagher as she and Caleb reached the top of the stairs. “We'll probably have a wake for Ambrose sometime soon. I'll be glad to phone you and let you know the time and place.”

“Thanks, but I've got to go down to Portland for a shoot tomorrow,” Gallagher said. “An annual report for a major firm. I'll be busy for several days.”

“We understand. Business is business.” Caleb turned off the light and closed the basement door. He gave Gallagher a mockingly polite nod. “After you.”

Gallagher took one last, frustrated look at the closed basement door and then shrugged. Without a word, he led the way out through the living room and onto the front porch.

“See you around.” Gallagher took a package of cigarettes out of his pocket as he went down the steps toward a nondescript green sedan.

“Drive carefully,” Serenity called automatically.

Gallagher jerked open the car door. “Shouldn't be any problem. The fog has finally lifted.” He got in behind the wheel and slammed the door closed.

Another car, a familiar, aging Chevrolet, pulled into the drive just as Gallagher started his engine and began to back out.

“For a dead man, Asterley is sure getting a lot of callers this morning,” Caleb muttered.

“That's Jessie Blanchard,” Serenity explained. “She was closer to Ambrose than anyone else.”

Jessie, starkly, artistically elegant at the age of forty-nine, got out of her car. She was dressed, as usual, all in black; sweater, jeans, and high boots. She had on a black jacket and she wore an abundance of silver and turquoise rings on her long-fingered hands.

The style, which Jessie had perfected years ago and which never varied, accented her silver and black hair and her exotic bone structure. She turned to glance at the green car as it disappeared down the road. Then she looked at Serenity.

“Who was that?” Jessie asked in her husky voice.

“His name's Gallagher Firebrace. He said he was a friend of Ambrose's,” Serenity explained.

“Firebrace.” Jessie's brows drew together. “I think Ambrose did mention him from time to time. He's from Seattle, isn't he?”

“Apparently.” Serenity went down the steps to give Jessie a quick hug. Jessie looked weary but calm, almost resigned. “Are you okay?”