Smoke in Mirrors (18 page)

He had gotten so good at the control thing that when he was confronted with situations he could not control physically, he could at least control his own emotional reaction to the events.

Take his divorce, for instance. In the end, he’d been more annoyed by the dissolution of a perfectly good business partnership than he had the ruination of his marriage. Which probably didn’t say much for the marriage, but that was another matter.

The bottom line was that with Leonora he was, for the first time, conscious of feeling edgy and restless, not quite in full control. He needed to do something, anything.

Before coming here to Deke’s house, he’d rearranged the drawer in the nightstand beside his bed. It hadn’t been easy. He’d been forced to remove a flashlight, the remote, some electrical cables, a stack of financial magazines, a carton of tissues, three pens and a notebook to get at the box of condoms that had somehow worked its way to the rear of the drawer.

He had opened the box, removed two of the little packets and put them into his wallet. Then he had carefully placed the box back into the drawer. Right at the front, where he could find it again quickly. In the dark.

It wasn’t much in the way of concrete action, but it was something.

A man had to think positive.

She heard the
muffled squeak behind the paneled wall just as she pulled out the
C
tray in the old wooden catalog. The faint noise was followed by the low murmur of
voices. Julie Bromley and her boyfriend, Travis, were doing their lunch hour disappearing act again, taking the concealed flight of servant’s stairs to the third floor.

She gave them a few minutes to get where they were going, marking their progress by the creaks and groans of the hidden staircase. When the sounds ceased, she closed the catalog drawer, left the office and went to the door of the library to check the long, gloom-filled central hall.

The old looking glasses glimmered malevolently in the dim light. There was no sound of activity downstairs on the first floor of the mansion.

Satisfied that everyone was at lunch, she went to the narrow door set into the wooden paneling next to the library and pushed it open. She moved cautiously into the small space on the other side and let the panel swing shut behind her.

Julie’s and Travis’s voices filtered down from the floor above. Somewhere overhead another door opened and closed.

She removed the pencil-thin flashlight she had stashed in her pocket that morning and switched on the slim beam. The narrow ray revealed the twisted staircase that coiled around itself and disappeared into the shadows. The prints of Julie’s and Travis’s shoes were evident in the heavy coating of dust that covered the skinny treads. Judging from the heavy smudges in the thick grime it was obvious the pair made this hike to the forbidden third floor on a regular basis.

She started cautiously up the staircase. The treads were so narrow that her heels hung out over the edge of each step. How in the world had the servants of yesteryear, laden as they must have been with heavy silver platters and stacks of bedding, managed to navigate these treacherous steps? It was a wonder they had not fallen and broken their necks.

Halfway up the spiraling staircase one of the steps groaned loudly beneath her weight. That was the telltale sound she heard in the library when Julie and Travis made this trek, she thought.

At the top of the stairs she found another slender door inset in the wooden paneling.

She shut off the flashlight and pushed carefully against the panel. The door swung open on creaky hinges. She went through the opening and found herself in a cramped, unlit corridor that was much narrower than the hall on the floor below. In the old days this would have been the section of the house where the servants and less important guests had had their bedchambers. The only light came from the small windows at both ends of the passage.

There were no carpets up here, she noticed. The wooden floor had not been swept or polished in a very long time. It was easy to follow the footprints in the dust.

She went slowly down the hall. Rows of old mirrors hung on the walls, just as they did in every other section of the house. But unlike the well-kept looking glasses on the first two floors, these were all covered with a heavy accumulation of grime.

The metal frames were badly tarnished; the wooden ones were cracked in places. Corners were missing. The gilded finishes on the eagles and scrollwork were flaked and chipped.

There were hairline and spidery cracks in most of the reflective surfaces. In others, large shards of glass had fallen out, leaving jagged slivers of the original mirror in the frame. The layers of dirt on what was left of the glass were so thick that she could not see her own image in any of them as she went past.

Occasional blank spaces on the walls marked places where a mirror had been removed at some time in the
past. Presumably the most valuable and interesting looking glasses had been taken downstairs to add to the main collection. The ones left up here were, for all intents and purposes, in long-term storage. She wondered if the odd mirror in Alex’s house had been stolen from this floor.

In addition to the mirrors several pieces of old, heavy, Victorian-style furniture had also been stashed up here. A pair of long, wooden tables loomed in the shadows on either side of the hall. At the far end of the corridor she could see a tall cabinet projecting out from the wall.

Halfway along the shadowed passage, the footsteps in the dust came to a halt in front of a door.

Assorted muffled groans reverberated through the panels. Obviously she had discovered Julie and Travis’s secret retreat.

“Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, baby, that feels so good.”

Travis’s voice rose into a hoarse groan of undisguised masculine satisfaction.

Leonora flushed. She felt like a voyeur standing out here in the corridor, listening to Julie and Travis have sex. Okay, maybe not exactly a voyeur. She couldn’t actually see anything, she reminded herself. Nevertheless, it was a very uncomfortable feeling.

Embarrassed, she hurried off. There was no excuse to hang around here. The small mystery was solved. The pair’s reasons for disappearing upstairs to this floor were now obvious.

She might as well take the opportunity to have a quick look around before she went downstairs.

Three-quarters of the way along the corridor she heard a door open behind her. Panic sizzled through her. She ducked behind the nearest large object, an antique cabinet, and held her breath.

“Your zipper,” Julie said urgently. “Jeez, are you
crazy? Do it up. If Mrs. Brinks sees you like that, she’ll probably fire me. We both know I can’t afford to lose this job.”

“Take it easy.” A soft hissing sound announced that Travis had corrected the oversight. “There. All neat and tidy. Happy now?”

“This is serious, Travis.” Julie’s voice sharpened. “I mean it. If you get me fired we’re both going to regret it.”

“Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. Ready?”

“Yes. Hurry.”

Leonora heard the door to the servants’ staircase squeak when it opened.

“What’s the big rush?” Travis asked. “Brinks went into town for lunch, remember? She won’t be back for at least an hour.”

“There’s something I need to do today if I get a chance.”

“What?”

The door to the servants’ staircase closed on Julie’s muffled answer.

Silence settled.

Leonora waited a few seconds and then stepped out of the protective shadow of the cabinet. She went back along the passageway to the panel door and stepped into the tiny stairwell.

Going down the narrow staircase was more precarious than climbing it. She took her time, keeping the slender beam of the flashlight focused on the steps.

Halfway down, she saw the thin crack of slightly lighter shadow that marked the door that opened onto the second-floor hall.

She was about to continue on down when, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a second line of less dense shadow in the wall to her left. The wall that separated the library office from the staircase.

That explained why she had heard Julie and Travis going up and down the servants’ steps so clearly through the wood. There was another door off the landing that had, at one time, been used to service the library.

She continued down the steps, moving cautiously, not just for reasons of safety but to avoid making noise. The last thing she needed was for someone passing by in the hall on the second floor to hear her and come to investigate the strange sounds emanating from the staircase. Explanations would be awkward.

At the foot of the stairs, she paused to aim the flashlight at the second panel door. She summoned up an image of the layout of the little office. The card catalog was positioned directly on the other side of this wall. Years ago someone had evidently concluded that the servants’ stairs were no longer practical and that there was, therefore, no reason not to shove the heavy wooden catalog up against that wall.

She was about to switch off the penlight and let herself out into the hall when she caught the faint glint of gold. A chill went through her. She lowered the beam of light to the crack that marked the base of the narrow door that had once opened into the library.

Approximately half an inch of what looked like the trailing end of a bracelet or a necklace stuck out below the edge of the wooden panel. It was almost invisible in the shadows. If she hadn’t noticed the second door and aimed her flashlight in that direction, she would never have seen it.

How could anyone lose an item of jewelry in such an odd location? Perhaps it had been placed on top of the card catalog years ago. It could have fallen off the back and landed on the floor behind the catalog.

But in that case, how had a tiny section of it ended up under the old servants’ door?

Curiosity laced with an inexplicable sense of dread drew her toward the bit of gold. She stopped in front of the panel door, searching for a way to open it.

The sound of rustling movements on the other side of the wall made her go cold. Someone was in the library office.

She listened to drawers being opened and closed in the desk. Whoever it was, he or she was moving quickly, as if afraid of being caught.

A moment later the rustling sounds ceased. The faint echo of footsteps hurrying away through the bookstacks announced that the intruder had departed.

She waited until she heard the footsteps go past the hall door before she went to it and opened it very carefully.

She stuck her head out in the corridor just in time to see Julie Bromley turn the corner and disappear down the main staircase.

She thought about that for a moment and then went back to the other servants’ door.

With the card catalog hard against the wall on the opposite side, it was impossible to push the wooden panel inward toward the office. She had to pull it toward her.

She had almost decided to go into the library to find a ruler or some other object she could use to pry the door open when she noticed the small depression in the wooden panel. It was just the right size to allow her to set her fingers into it.

She tugged gently. The door groaned, reluctant to move on its aged and rusty hinges. But in the end she got it open.

She found herself looking at the solid wooden back of the tall card catalog. When she aimed the flashlight at the floor she saw the bracelet.

With trembling fingers she reached down to pick up the slender band of gold links. She didn’t need to see the
name inscribed on the small gold plaque to identify the bracelet. She recognized it immediately.

She tightened her fingers around the strand of gold and closed the panel. She went to the other door and let herself out of the dark stairwell into the hall.

A moment later she was back in the library office. She looked around, examining things closely. A few items were askew on the desk. Nothing obvious. She probably wouldn’t have noticed the new position of the pen and the pad of paper if she hadn’t been looking for trouble.

She pulled open the bottom drawer in the desk and removed her satchel. When she undid the clasp and looked inside she saw at once that the contents had been disturbed.

She took out her wallet, opened it and quickly counted the cash inside. It was all there. So were her credit cards.

But if Julie Bromley had not come in here to help herself to some easy money, why had she searched the office?

The restlessness drove
him out of his workshop late that afternoon. Wrench looked up from his empty food dish.

“Want to go for a ride?” Thomas said.

Wrench trotted briskly toward the front door. Thomas picked up his keys, the binoculars and his jacket and they left.

Outside, Wrench bounded up into the passenger seat of the SUV and took up his usual position, riding shotgun. Thomas got behind the wheel and fired up the engine.

They drove to the abandoned cottage near Alex Rhodes’s house, parked the SUV behind the old structure, got out and locked up.

Together they made their way through the wet trees to the vantage point Thomas had discovered yesterday with Leonora.

Wrench amused himself investigating scents and smells while Thomas settled down with the binoculars.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to discover today. He had just needed to get out of the house for a while. Spying on Rhodes was as good a way to pass the time as any.

An hour later he was about ready to head back to the SUV with Wrench when a small, battered Ford drove into the front yard of the cottage.

A young woman dressed in jeans and a red leather jacket got out of the car. Her long hair was caught back in a ponytail.

“Not his usual kind of client,” Thomas said to Wrench. “Judging by that old beater she’s driving, I don’t think she can afford his antistress formula. So what’s she doing here?”

He heard her
car in his driveway just as he was about to check the living room window for the twelfth time to see if the lights had come on in her cottage on the other side of the cove.