by Paula Munier
She blinked back tears. Funny how grief waxed and waned. It faded away until you thought you were safe and then a random word, sound, gesture brought you right back to the brink again.
“Are you all right?” Troy looked at her with those warm brown eyes.
“Fine.”
“Don’t tell the butler I let you in this door.” Mrs. Espinosa was a short, friendly, curly-haired widow with the unflappable air of a woman who’d raised five kids on her own and now enjoyed the relatively leisurely occupation of running a billionaire’s house. She reminded Mercy of a poodle—a smart and energetic protector who did not suffer fools gladly. “Guests come to the front door.”
“We aren’t guests,” said Troy.
“Butler?” This was news to Mercy, who didn’t think of Feinberg as the butler type. But then what did she know about the hopes and dreams of the very rich?
“Si, Señor George Wilcox, very British, very proper.” Mrs. Espinosa wrinkled her nose.
“I see.”
“Master Henry, we were so worried about you.” The housekeeper hugged the drowsy boy. More Hail Marys. “We didn’t realize he was missing. We thought he was hiding again.”
“Again?”
“Yesterday we found him in Mr. Feinberg’s map room. I think he likes maps.”
Mercy had never been in the map room, but if Henry liked it, she bet she would, too.
But first things first. “We need to get Henry into warm clothes right away,” she said. “He’ll need something to eat and drink, too.”
“Of course. And maybe a sandwich? Some hot chocolate?”
“That would be great.”
“Follow me.” Mrs. Espinosa gave each dog a pat before bustling through the kitchen and through the massive dining room, leading them all up a spectacular stone and wood staircase to the second-floor landing, a space flooded with light from floor-to-ceiling windows and a breathtaking view of the mountains. The housekeeper turned down a wide hallway displaying eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American art, formal portraits of serious-minded men and women, grand landscapes of the American West and dark New England seascapes of determined fishermen in turbulent waters.
On each of the handsome walnut doors to the guest rooms hung gold frames with large calling cards listing the name of the visitor staying in those quarters. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery commanded what Mercy imagined was the grandest of these rooms. They passed others marked as Mr. and Mrs. Farrow, Ms. Lea Sanders, Mr. William Montgomery, Mr. Ethan Jenkins, and Miss Alice de Clare.
Mrs. Espinosa opened the last door on the right, the one labeled Master Henry.
Henry was fully awake now, and he wiggled out of Troy’s arms, rubbing his eyes. Elvis and Susie Bear immediately flanked him, and he put his arms around their necks.
Troy ruffled the boy’s stick-straight brown hair. “We need to get you cleaned up a bit, buddy. Starting with those knees.”
“Clean clothes should be in the bureau.” The housekeeper pointed to a fine antique highboy next to the sleek modern metal king-size four-poster bed. “And there’s an en suite bath on the left of the fireplace. Do you need any assistance?”
Henry shook his head hard.
Troy laughed. “I guess that’s a no.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Mrs. Espinosa smiled at Henry. “I’ll prepare something special for you, pobre niño.”
“Peanut butter,” announced Henry, surprising them all.
“Peanut butter it is,” said Mrs. Espinosa.
After the housekeeper left, Mercy looked at Henry. “I guess you’re kicking me out, too?”
The boy stared down at the polished wide-planked floors.
“I suppose Elvis and Susie Bear get to stay.” She looked at the dogs, who’d been shadowing the boy all the way from the woods.
Henry smiled.
“Just us guys,” said Troy. “And the Newfie.”
“Okay, see you downstairs.” Mercy shut the door behind her. But instead of heading down the hallway to the stairs, she pulled out her cell and texted her grandmother, asking her to contact Lillian Jenkins.
“May I help you?” A well-built man of medium height stood outside one of the guest rooms on the opposite side of the hallway closer to the staircase. He approached with an air of quiet authority.
She slipped her cell back into her pocket, and met the butler halfway, hand outstretched. “Mercy Carr.”
“I know who you are.” He shook her hand. “I’m George, the butler.”
He wore a smartly pressed, perfectly tailored navy suit (the kind her attorney father always wore to court) and spoke in a perfect British accent (only slightly less plummy than the Queen’s). He had a full head of light brown hair and a matching, neatly trimmed full beard and mustache. His posture was impeccable, his manner polite, his smile welcoming.
“Nice to meet you.” She’d never before met a butler up close and personal, but George looked just like how she imagined a butler should look, from the white silk handkerchief in his breast pocket to the gold signet ring he wore on the little finger of his left hand.
“Mr. Feinberg speaks highly of you.”
“I was just looking for the restroom.”
“This way.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Only a fortnight. Two weeks.”
“Not very long.”
“Long enough to know that I will be quite content here. Nemeton is a lovely estate and Mr. Feinberg is a gentleman.”
She wondered how many billionaires you could say that about. She often mistrusted the very wealthy as a matter of principle, but she’d found Feinberg to be a good guy. She was happy to have him as a neighbor, and proud to call him a friend. But she did wonder how her name could have possibly come up in conversation in just fourteen days.
“If you follow me downstairs, I’ll show you to the ladies’ room.”
“Isn’t there anything up here? I want to stay close to Henry.”
“Of course.” He gave her a knowing look and directed her to a guest room without a calling card, two doors down from Henry’s room.
“Madame,” he said, opening the door for her.
“Mercy, please.”
“Mercy.” He spoke her given name as if it were unfamiliar to his tongue. “Now, if that will be all…”
“I’m good. Thank you.”
George gave a slight bow and disappeared down the hallway. She waited inside the door until the butler had retreated and descended the staircase before she slipped back across the hall and into Alice de Clare’s room.
She found herself in one of the most elegantly feminine rooms she’d ever seen. A wall of floor-to-ceiling windows framed another glorious view of Vermont in autumn. A massive pink marble fireplace dominated one wall; across from it sat an elaborately carved Art Nouveau bed of walnut, whose floral filigree headboard was backed with pink velvet. Prints—oops, knowing Feinberg they could be originals—brightened the pale cream-and-gold papered walls. Mercy stepped closer, recognizing the art as a Virginia Frances Sterrett illustration from one of her most beloved books as a child, Old French Fairy Tales by the Comtesse de Ségur. She’d devoured every book of fairy tales she could find, but this one—a gift from her mother on her eighth birthday—remained her favorite. The magical stories of fairies and genies and princesses fascinated Mercy, and Sterrett’s fanciful illustrations fueled that fascination.
As a child she would get lost in the fantastical forests and flora and fauna of the Comtesse’s and Sterrett’s imaginations. As she stared at them now, she was tempted to get lost there again.
But she wasn’t eight years old anymore. Since Afghanistan she’d felt so old, older than her twenty-nine years and older even than these timeless stories of love and hate and good and evil. She had her own stories of love and hate and good and evil now. And no fairy tale could fix that.
Mercy turned her attention away from the enchanted paintings that had illuminated her childhood and began a quick
search of the room. She heard the door squeak and stopped cold.
“What are you doing in here?” Troy poked his head into the dead woman’s room, grinning at her. “Snooping?”
Caught.
“Maybe,” she said.
Stepping in, he shut the door behind him.
“Where’s Henry?”
“Right behind me. The dogs, too.” He pulled another pair of plastic gloves from his duty belt and handed them to her. “Easy. This is my last pair. If I’d known I’d be spending the day with you, I would have brought along more.”
“Very funny.”
“At least be careful.”
As she slipped on the gloves, she felt the weight of his brown eyes on her. They were warm but also all-seeing and all-knowing.
“Make it quick.” He backed out the door again. “I’ll go head off Henry.”
She heard the door close behind the game warden as she headed for the expensive Louis Vuitton luggage on the walnut rack in the corner. In true butler fashion, Alice de Clare’s belongings had been unpacked for her. Since she was French, she probably didn’t mind. Mercy always unpacked her own duffle; she wondered what George the butler would think of that.
A week’s worth of designer blouses, slacks, and skirts hung neatly in the walk-in closet, along with a black leather trench coat; two pairs of heels, two pairs of flats, and a pair of riding boots lined the floor beneath them.
In the antique bombe dresser next to the bed she found drawers filled with extravagant French lingerie and expensive jewelry. Thanks to her own uber-chic mother, Mercy recognized the best in clothing and accessories when she saw it—even if she herself lived in yoga clothes, cargo pants, and T-shirts. A small dressing table in the closet held an empty black satin evening clutch and a glamorous litter of toiletries—bottles and brushes and pots and perfumes, all Chanel. Nothing personal. Nothing of interest.
She moved onto the sleek kidney-shaped desk. On the cream-and-gold leather desk blotter lay a burgundy suede portfolio embossed with a silver rose, a matching daybook, and a black-and-platinum Mont Blanc pen.
The portfolio held designs for the remodel of the Bluffing Bear Inn, which if carried out to the letter would transform the campy ski lodge into a swank twenty-first-century version of itself. With Alice gone, Mercy didn’t know if that transformation would still happen, but if an overhaul was inevitable, she hoped they used these plans.
She looked to the daybook, which might hold more promise. As she’d seen no cell phone or purse near the victim, this daybook could be the only clue to the dead woman’s recent activities. Mercy flipped through it. Appointments, initials, doodles. The usual. Still, she felt like she was getting somewhere.
She retrieved her cell from the front pocket of her yoga pants. There was a text from her grandmother Patience, telling her Lillian was up in Burlington running a book fair, but that she would come home as soon as she could.
Mercy confirmed receipt of the text, then began snapping photos of pages from the daybook, starting with today’s date and working backward through the calendar. She’d gone back about a month when Troy stuck his head back in the room. “Ready or not, here we come.”
Henry pushed his way through the door, heading straight for her, the dogs on his heels. She tucked her cell back in her pocket and deposited the daybook back on the blotter, moving in front of the desk so Henry couldn’t see it. He was out of his pajamas and slippers and was dressed in jeans, striped socks and sneakers, and a black sweatshirt emblazoned with a knockoff of the bright orange-and-pink Dunkin’ Donuts logo that read Dungeons & Dragons.
She frowned at Troy. “Hi, Henry.”
“It’s okay. Henry isn’t a tattletale.” He punched the boy gently on the shoulder. “You can keep a secret, can’t you?”
Henry wasn’t listening. He was staring at the illustration behind her, which featured a boy in a red Robin Hood–style suit greeting an old monk in a black cloak holding a blue-and-gold book. They were up in the mountains, on a pass filled with big boulders, long vines, and tall flowers.
“Funny you should like that one,” said Mercy, grateful for the opportunity to distract the child from any evidence of her snooping. “That’s Good Little Henry. He’s on a quest to find the magical plant that will save his sick mother. Do you know the story?”
Henry shook his head.
“Tell him the story later,” said Troy. “Henry has something to show you.”
“What’s that?” She smiled to encourage the boy.
“Go on, show her.”
Henry stuck his fingers in his pocket and pulled out a beautifully barred gray-and-white crumpled feather. He held it in his open hand and stretched his arm out toward her.
“May I?”
He nodded.
She plucked it from the boy’s palm, straightened it as best she could, and held it up to the light streaming in from the large windows. “It’s lovely. Where did you get it?”
He ignored the question, simply reached out for the feather. She gave it back to him, and he stuffed it back into his jeans pocket, turning his attention to Elvis and Susie Bear. The feather forgotten.
“It looks like a peregrine feather,” said Troy. “I found it stuck in the waistband of his pajamas.”
“I thought peregrine falcons were endangered.”
“They were nearly wiped out by DDT. But since then we’ve been working with falconers to reintroduce them in the wild. It’s been slow going, but it’s working. Slowly. They’re listed as a threatened species now.”
“So Henry just found it in the woods?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible; they do molt. But there still aren’t that many of them here. And they’ve got their own predators to worry about. Eagles, great horned owls, bears, foxes.”
“Poachers.”
“They sell the eggs and the feathers. But the biggest money is in live birds. Falcon racing is huge in the Middle East, and they’ll pay big bucks for peregrines.”
They heard a muffled noise outside down the hall.
“We better get out of here before Harrington shows up.”
Henry started chanting again, and the dogs settled against him. Ballast for an anxious child.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to see him.”
Henry stopped chanting as quickly as he had begun.
Mercy leaned over and whispered in the boy’s ear. “We don’t like him much, either.”
She could have sworn the boy smiled.
* * *
DOWNSTAIRS, MRS. ESPINOSA had set out pitchers of cold milk and platters full of peanut-butter treats: peanut butter–and-jelly sandwiches cut into quarters, peanut-butter granola bars, peanut butter smeared on apple slices and celery, even peanut-butter cookies.
“I see you like peanut butter almost as much as I do.” Mercy pulled out a chair beside Henry, who sat quietly at the long oak table with Elvis on one side and Susie Bear on the other. “And as much as your furry friends there.”
Henry carefully arranged a plate with a peanut butter–and-jelly sandwich quarter, one celery stick, and a peanut-butter cookie. He ate around the crust of the sandwich, dividing the leftover crust between the dogs.
Mrs. Espinosa stood over the boy like the food police. “You can do better than that.”
Henry slipped one celery stick into each hand and let each dog lap it up.
Mrs. Espinosa shook her head. “Boys need to eat.”
Troy shrugged. “I never liked celery much myself.”
“He didn’t eat a bit of his breakfast,” said Mrs. Espinosa, watching as Henry chomped down the cookie in two bites and washed it down with half a glass of milk. “That’s much better.”
Elvis stiffened into his alert position and barked once, loudly. Susie Bear shambled to her feet. Both dogs held their noses high in the air, in the direction of Nemeton’s grand entrance.
“Harrington,” said Mercy. Of course, the self-important detective would use the front door. She
was sure he’d have a butler himself if he could afford George.
Henry stood up. “Nana.”
“Nana?” asked Mrs. Espinosa.
He repeated the word. Nana became a chant, the incantation continuing as surely and precisely as a metronome.
“Let’s go.” Mercy put her arm around the chanting Henry and headed for the side door.
Harrington appeared in the doorway. “Where do you think you’re going?” he bellowed behind her.
“We’re taking Henry to see his grandmother.” She used her army MP voice, the one that said I’d rather die than retreat, and if it comes to that you’re going down with me.
She didn’t turn around as the detective shouted after them to stop.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ranger: warrior of the wilderness, reads the trees and speaks to the animals, protects the forest and all its creatures.
—HENRY’S GAME
GUNNAR GAVE THEM ALL A RIDE TO TROY’S TRUCK, and they piled in for the trip to Mercy’s cabin, where Henry could hang out until his Nana Lillian could pick him up. Patience was still there, along with Amy and Brodie and the baby.
“We were beginning to worry about you.” Patience raised an eyebrow at Mercy as she ushered the boy into the great room, along with Troy and the dogs.
“Long story.”
“I bet.” She looked up from the KitchenAid stand mixer, where she was spooning in boiled potatoes. “I figured sooner or later you’d all need to eat.” Patience believed in feeding a crisis, like feeding a cold.
“This is Henry.” Mercy waved a hand at her grandmother at the island separating the kitchen from the living area. Amy and Brodie lounged on the couch in front of the flagstone fireplace, and Helena played with blocks on the floor by a brightly colored cloth tunnel that ran along the pine-paneled wall on the other side of the room, the kitty Muse batting at the blocks as the baby tried to stack them up.
“Henry, this is my family. Extended.” She looked over at Brodie, who dozed with Amy on her long butter-colored leather sofa, nested in the quilts she’d bought when she’d moved in here with Elvis. A maroon one for her, a teal one for the shepherd. That was then, this was now.