She shrugged and limped over to her cot. “Want to hang the threads back up and call it a night?”
His curse gave his opinion on that. Mariah didn’t care. She was wiped. And she wasn’t getting any more involved with a man who rang her chimes. She was over men—for so many reasons she could count them like sheep.
July 9: Monday, morning
Keegan declined Mariah’s invitation to breakfast as they climbed out of the golf cart at Dinah’s café the next morning. They’d barely spoken after their rough night’s sleep. He had too many questions, and she offered no answers. No matter how much she intrigued him, he wasn’t into the masochism of battering his head against stone walls.
He stopped at his room over Aaron’s shop to shower and find fresh clothes, his mind racing. Hillvale hid secrets: futuristic triptychs, gleaming crystals, garnet eyes in valuable paintings, and villains who knew more than he did.
He was an engineer, not a detective. Had he really thought he could just waltz in here and find his missing books? Or ask and have them returned? Stress had turned his brain to mush, if so.
What if the crystals in the bunker walls were from his family’s long-lost collection?
He looked at the time, added eight hours, and figured his father was home by now. He donned his glasses and opened his laptop. Connecting with Aaron’s wi-fi, he sent a message. His father merely replied that all was well, and he didn’t have time to Skype.
Which meant the old man was too depressed to talk. Keegan rubbed his forehead and swore, feeling the ache in his heart that this damnable catastrophe had created. What were the chances he could find answers to his questions in time to keep his father out of jail? The old man would die of humiliation, if nothing else.
Closing his laptop, Keegan found Aaron in his shop, selling a chandelier to a tourist wearing designer clothing. He waited until she was gone.
“What can you tell me about the triptych Lucinda Malcolm painted?”
Aaron shrugged. “Now that we have all the panels back, we’re setting it up in the old meeting house. The Kennedys’ uncle Lance has practically turned it into a shrine. We need security guards to protect it and don’t have the money. I think we’d do better to auction it off.”
“Except it belongs to the town, and the Kennedys would want to spend the money on a ski lift?” Keegan asked in amusement at his friend’s priorities. “May I see it?”
“You catch on quickly. Let me lock up and I’ll take you down there. Lance isn’t always a communicator, and he’s usually the one in charge. He never used to come out of his studio, but he has some bee in his bonnet about setting up a gallery in that barn of a place where he can display his own work.”
Keegan knew where the meeting house was. It looked like an old chapel, right across from city hall, not far from Aaron’s antique store. Of course, in Hillvale, nothing was very far. But he’d not yet met Lance, so he assumed it was preferable to be introduced to the Kennedys’ eccentric uncle.
Sunshine cut a swathe of light across the planks of the meeting house when Aaron yanked open one of a pair of huge old wooden doors. Inside, chattering voices halted, until they saw Aaron.
Keegan recognized Theodosia Devine-Baker’s voice hailing them. “Come in, Keegan, tell us all about your night with Mariah!”
He needed to learn American informality. He nodded in Theodosia’s direction and noted the urbane resort owner, Kurt Kennedy, at her side. In contrast to Kennedy’s tailored suit and styled hair, the tall, almost anorexic man Keegan assumed was the artist uncle looked like a homeless person in baggy, paint-stained clothes. The chief of police was also there.
“Educational,” Keegan replied, not revealing anything about his night with Mariah before addressing the chief. “Did our would-be thief have anything interesting to say?”
The impassive police chief often sat in the café, but Keegan had seldom heard him offer his opinion, and he didn’t expect one now.
Walker shrugged. “He lawyered up and will be out on bail in a few hours. It’s not as if we caught him doing much more than trespassing. I need to get back to the office.” Striding for the door, Walker waved and disappeared into the sunshine.
“I think he and Sam are getting serious,” the petite jeweler murmured. “They’ve hardly known each other a month, but I’ve never seen a more perfect couple.”
Kennedy rolled his eyes and rapped her on the head. “Which makes us what, chopped liver?”
“It makes us interesting.” She hugged his waist and continued on with her thoughts. “George Thompson and his wife were in my shop the other day. They’re not poor. They tried to negotiate the price of one my designer pieces, and when I wouldn’t give in, their credit card worked just fine.”
“I hope it was a piece with the honesty stones in it,” her significant other said with a grim smile. “They stayed at the lodge Saturday night, were rude to my best desk clerk, complained our housekeeping staff didn’t do their jobs, asked for a discount, and didn’t leave tips even for the wait staff.”
“Let me guess, your staff is mostly brown-skinned,” Keegan suggested, remembering his encounter with George outside the café.
Kurt Kennedy’s eyebrows shot up. “Most of them, yes, if you want to put it that way. We hire locally.” He held up his tanned wrist. “Brown.”
“Not talking color so much as bigotry,” Keegan said. “I met George Thompson outside Dinah’s café where he warned me about Dinah. I believe they may have stepped out of a different century. Or a hole in the ground.”
“That sounds about right,” Kurt agreed. “We still have our fair share out here who hide their fear of change behind hatred.”
Keegan’s far-sightedness allowed him to study the triptych from this distance. A set of spotlights dangled from wires in front of it. Not all of the lights worked, but he could discern the details. “Maybe they stepped out of the century in which that was painted. The mid-twentieth was not a time of acceptance. As far as I’m aware, Lucinda Malcolm died in the 1970’s, at a very old age. So a work that difficult had to have been painted by the 1950’s, if it’s truly hers.”
“The gallery owner who sells Lucinda’s work confirmed it’s an original.” Theodosia stood back to study the three four-by-eight panels. “Lucinda may have painted it fifty years in advance, but it reflects a specific day ten years ago. We’ve identified Kurt and his brother on the corner beside the building they turned into city hall. That’s Thalia, my mother’s cousin, coming down from the farm with the vase. Lonnie, her husband, is flirting with his girlfriend by the woodie wagon. Kurt and Monty weren’t even born when Lucinda painted an entire town that barely existed in her time.”
“The triptych shows the day when Monty and I were told we had to take over the resort,” Kurt explained.
Keegan went closer to examine the detail. “I’d heard she painted the future for family. So, who is Lucinda’s family in this work?”
“Cass.” The silent artist spoke up, pointing to a tall figure striding down the street, carrying a large tote bag over her shoulder. “Her mother was a Wainwright.”
Keegan snorted as the others searched for a resemblance in his face. There would be none, not after all these centuries. “The Wainwrights were descended from a younger branch of the original Malcolm family. I’m from the Ives side. The families often intermarried. So this might have been a significant day in Cass’s life?”
“I can’t see how,” Kurt said with a frown.
Aaron spoke up. “Ten years ago, I wasn’t here, but when I arrived, Cass was living alone, just as she is now. Kurt and Monty taking over the reins of the town was significant, but not to Cass. She owns property on the far side by the cemetery and vortex. She has nothing to do with the shops or resort.”
Theodosia added, “We thought the main significance of this painting was Thalia coming down the hill, seeing her husband flirting with another woman. We think she died that night.”
“But this Thalia was the one who kne
w about Lucinda Malcolm’s book?” Keegan zeroed in on his main concern.
“You think Thalia gave it to Cass?” Theodosia asked in surprise. “Wouldn’t Cass have told us if she had it?”
Both Kurt and Lance made grunts of doubt, but they refrained from commenting. Aaron frowned and crossed his arms.
Ah yes, the pragmatic Nulls didn’t like Cass, while the metaphysical Lucys believed Cass could do no wrong. Small towns were like that. “Then what about Daisy? Didn’t someone say she may have stolen Thalia’s book? Is she in this painting? Would she be related to Lucinda or Cass?” Keegan studied the faded paint in the unfinished lighting.
Everyone else did the same.
“I never saw Daisy without her cloak,” Theodosia said thoughtfully. “But I think Valdis was providing her with the costumes, and Val didn’t return to town until some years after the date this depicts.”
“So Daisy might not have been wearing a cloak then,” Kurt said, following her thought. “She’s been here from the beginnings of time, but I never paid much attention to her.”
“Cass did,” Lance, the artist, said, peering at the triptych as if it were the Holy Grail. “Cass probably gave her food and shelter when needed.”
As the Kennedys hadn’t went unsaid. Keegan got that. The wealthy often lived in towers separate from the mundane. His intellectual tower was little better.
Theodosia pulled up a stepstool to look closer. Wearing a tank top that revealed all her splendid cleavage, she left Kurt looking glassy-eyed. But Keegan was immune to diminutive red-haired sprites. He wanted tall, dark Mariah to give him her cynical version of events.
“There, under the window of the shop next to mine.” The jeweler pointed at a long-haired figure working in the shadow of the covered boardwalk. “Did Daisy start decorating the planters about then?”
Keegan hadn’t seen enough of the dead woman to recognize anything but the graying hair. The perspective of the painting was from the upper story of what he assumed was now the jeweler’s shop. The figure on the boardwalk almost under the window wouldn’t have been clear to the painter. He waited for the others to respond.
“There were rotten, wooden horse troughs back then,” Monty said in disgust. “I bought the new clay planters with my own money not too long after this.”
“Daisy was known to decorate rusted plows,” Aaron said. “If she had paint, she would paint troughs. That could be what she’s doing there.”
“Right outside the window of my house,” Theodosia said softly. “She may have overheard the knock-down, drag-out fight Thalia and Lonnie had right after this.”
“A witness?” Aaron asked with doubt. “You think George killed the witness to his brother’s crime?”
“Daisy’s testimony would never be accepted in court. No, if anything at all, Daisy would have feared the loss of the book to the wrong hands and decided that was the moment to steal it,” Theodosia said.
Nine
July 9: Monday, mid-morning
Mariah glared at Keegan’s long form sprawled in the golf cart she’d parked behind the café. “You need a ride?” she asked dryly, waiting for him to sit up so she could climb in.
“To Cass’s, if you don’t mind. I need an introduction more than a ride.” With lazy grace, he unfolded his massive frame from the bench seat to assist her into the cart.
“Cass only accepts visitors when she’s so inclined. I can take you up there. We can knock. If she answers, I’ll make the introduction. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, so I trust your mission isn’t important.” She slid behind the wheel and started the ignition.
Her distrust of men had let her ignore her urges for a long time. The Scot’s wide shoulders, narrow hips, and potent pheromones were wearing down her physical barriers. If she wanted to stay hidden, she needed to keep up her mental ones.
“Is there any chance that Cass might have Lucinda Malcolm’s book on crystals?” he asked bluntly.
Mariah scowled. “If there was any chance at all of laying her hands on that book, sure. And she’s perfectly capable of not telling us she has it. But she did seem rather surprised to learn Thalia had it, so I don’t see the connection.”
“Daisy,” he said as she steered up the back lane, avoiding the main highway. “Did Theodosia not tell you?”
“Her name is Teddy. No one calls her Theodosia. Or Devine-Baker.”
“I was brought up using titles. I will attempt to adapt.”
“Titles,” she said in derision. “Like Lord Chamberlain or whatever?”
“Like Earl of Ives and Wystan and the Marquess of Ashford, my English relations. Are you avoiding the subject of Daisy?”
“You’re related to royalty?” she asked incredulously, avoiding the painful subject of Daisy.
“They are not royalty,” he said with an unusual touch of impatience. “They’re not even toplofty enough to be considered nobility as far as I’m concerned. I regularly beat Ash at archery and golf, and the earl is an infant. This is all irrelevant to the problem at hand. If there is any chance Daisy may have stolen the book, would she have taken it to Cass?”
Mariah tried not to think of the huge lists of wealthy people caught up in her scandal, including some high-flying Brits. She was pretty sure the British aristocracy was not a large world. And Keegan was one of them?
She concealed a shudder. She’d stupidly thought she was safe from a miner’s son. Maybe she needed a new hiding place.
“What does this have to do with Teddy?” she demanded.
“Your mind is a wondrous place,” he complained as they drove up Cass’s driveway. “Teddy was the one who pointed out a figure that may be Daisy in the triptych. She claims Daisy may have overheard something the day a woman died in the shop, and that she might have stolen the book then. There was something about the day of the triptych being of importance to Cass.”
“If so, you’ll never see the book again unless Cass wants it so.” Mariah turned off the ignition at the front porch of the sprawling faux-Victorian mansion the town’s leading doyenne called home.
If Cass wanted to talk with Keegan, she’d be sitting in that rocking chair, waiting for them. Of course, if Cass wanted to knock Keegan’s socks off, she’d invite him inside. It was worth hanging around to find out. Mariah used her staff as a cane to limp up to the porch.
“Are you sure you should not have a physician look at that leg?” he asked in what sounded like concern.
How long had it been since anyone had expressed concern for her? Interesting intellectual puzzle. Since her Nana died, maybe? Mariah shrugged it off. “The swelling is going down. It will turn purple and green and be good as new in no time.”
And she didn’t have insurance and didn’t dare access her accounts, so the answer was an unequivocal no. She knocked on the dark green front door.
It creaked open. Keegan frowned. The man did concern real well. Mariah simply marched in shouting “Cass?”
Cass had the draperies pulled back to let in the light today, so she’d been expecting them. Mariah never knew what she’d see when she walked through the halls. Teddy had once called Cass’s house something out of a virtual reality program. She wasn’t far from wrong. Mariah figured they were striding through different dimensions, since the house was stuffed to the rafter with ghosts. Cass’s weirdness was nothing compared to Mariah’s, so she accepted the oddities.
Today, the front parlor was appropriately decorated in Victorian oak, burgundy velvets, and gilded frames. The enormous mahogany dining table had been reduced to family size. The walls were covered in artwork from different eras, and even the empty spaces where Daisy had stolen the red-eyed canvases had been filled with pretty landscapes. Cass was making an effort. Why? For Keegan?
“In the sunroom, dear,” Cass called.
As if Mariah had known there was a sunroom. Last time she’d been here, she’d seen no sign of one, but admittedly, it was usually dark. She walked past the sweeping staircase toward the back of the house.
Apparently accustomed to grandeur, Keegan didn’t even bother examining the artwork or the ornately sculpted woodwork on the banister. Mariah was pretty sure dragons, trolls, and gargoyles were involved.
About where a kitchen ought to be, a room filled with sunlight greeted them. The windows overlooked the downside of the mountain toward the west. If that was the ocean in the distance, it was concealed in a fogbank.
Cass sat like a queen on her throne-like wicker chair, sipping tea. Wearing what appeared to be a long, brown, velvet robe, she gestured at a wicker love seat. “Good morning, children. What brings you here?”
Cass was many things, including a mean bitch when she wanted. She’d infiltrated Sam’s brain for nearly a week. Gracious hostess was not normally in Cass’s repertoire. She had an agenda this morning, as always. Mariah settled on the cushioned seat and helped herself to a teacup without asking. She poured tea and offered it to Keegan.
“I’m just here to introduce a distant relative of yours, Keegan Ives,” Mariah said. “Keegan, this is Cassandra Kennedy Tolliver.”
Keegan didn’t take a seat or a cup until Cass nodded her approval and gestured for him to sit. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Tolliver.”
“Cass, please. Tolliver died decades ago. Ives? As in the earl of Ives?” She sipped her tea, her sharp blue eyes missing nothing.
Keegan held the delicate china in one big mitt, but he didn’t sip from it. Mariah thought that pretty damned smart for a Null.
“The earl and his father the marquess are cousins. I’m of the Scots branch. You know my family?”
“I’ve met a few through my mother’s family, but as in everything, it’s been a long time. I don’t travel much these days. What brings you here, Mr. Ives?”
“A book, ma’am. You are aware of the extensive Malcolm library?” At her regal nod, he continued. “Several valuable volumes from the 1700s are missing. I’ve learned one of them was in the possession of a lady who was murdered ten years ago. And the person who may have had opportunity to acquire it has just been killed. That volume was missing from the 1950 inventory. A second volume was gone in the 1980 inventory. The one that set me on this journey has only recently vanished. The three together could be. . . unsafe.”
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