Master of Illusion

by Nupur Tustin

  “Throw down a blanket?” Bob seemed puzzled. “The Christmas blanket? You want it on the floor?”

  “To provide some cushioning for the wine bottles,” she explained. “So they don’t crack or shatter when we set the bags on the floor.” Under Bob’s less-than-gentle handling, that situation wasn’t entirely unlikely.

  And even if it hadn’t been for the box Dirck had put in her care, she’d have needed to take every precaution possible to ensure the wine bottles remained intact and ready for use.

  “You sure you want the Christmas blanket, though? Thought you wanted me to put it into storage.”

  “I did. But since you haven’t, there’s no reason not to use it, is there?” She knew she was beginning to sound a bit testy, but she couldn’t help it. Bob, with all his questions, was trying her patience. Why couldn’t he, just for once, get on with it?

  “Oh-ka-ay.” Bob swung the bag around, about to plonk it down heavily on the ground when Celine intercepted it.

  “Here, let me hold onto that.”

  She set the bag gently down as Bob retreated into the barn. She could hear him shuffling around inside, probably trying to locate the blanket even though it was right in front of his eyes.

  She worked quickly, unloading as many bags as she could, but four or five still remained when Bob emerged again.

  It was just her luck that the bag he sought to lift out was the one with the cardboard carton in it.

  “Hey! This one has a wine carrier.” He fumbled with the zip tie, trying to loosen it and peer inside.

  “That one’s mine.” Celine grabbed the bag out of his arms. “Needs to go into storage.” She clutched it close to her body.

  “O-ka-ay.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snatch. It’s just . . .” she hesitated, casting around for an explanation.

  Your parents, Sister Mary Catherine prompted.

  “It’s some stuff that belonged to my parents . . .” Celine grasped the lifeline eagerly.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie. From what Dirck had told her, whatever was in the box had greater sentimental than actual monetary value.

  Bob nodded. He knew about her parents. Almost everyone did by now. He lowered his head and returned to his work.

  In about fifteen more minutes all the hefty bags were piled up on the thick cotton quilt that was usually spread around the Mechelen Christmas tree stand to hold the presents that John and Dirck gave the employees of both the bar and the Winery.

  “I’ll get the racks, then,” Bob said, plodding toward the driver’s side of her Pilot. He yanked the door open, pushed her car seat back, and eased himself in.

  Chapter Five

  The Pilot disappeared from view and Celine returned to the barn to consider the problem of where to store the object Dirck had given her. She glanced at the barn door. The hefty bag stood just inside it, the outlines of the cardboard box it contained visible through its creases.

  She’d gotten the impression it contained some type of gewgaw—the kind of showy bronze ornament that someone’s Great-aunt Mildred might have proudly displayed above her mantelpiece about a hundred years ago.

  It was most likely old enough to be considered an antique now, but that probably didn’t make it any less god-awful.

  Had the black hefty bag not been secured with a zip tie and were Bob not likely to return any moment, Celine might’ve sneaked a peek just to see how ugly the thing was.

  “It’s no Cellini or Riccio.” Dirck’s smile had been wry as he recalled the sixteenth-century Italian sculptors whose bronze figures he and John had drooled over in a Christie’s catalog online.

  Celine still couldn’t understand why Dirck wouldn’t let her store it in her cottage. It would’ve been the best place for it. But Dirck had been adamant.

  “I’m not sure how safe that would be,” he’d said, his voice so firm she’d realized there was no arguing with him. “At this point, it’s worth more than a few pesos.”

  He’d dragged the bag out of a closet that Celine had never even known existed. It was in a room concealed behind the Delft’s wall panels. No one would’ve suspected there was a room there much less that inside it was a secret closet.

  Controlled by what looked like a thermostat.

  “It is a thermostat,” Dirck had informed her. “But it’s also programmed to open and close the closet.” He’d shown her the code to punch in to open the closet and the one you punched in to lock it.

  “Both codes are changed every week,” he’d told her. “From now on that’s going to be your job.”

  Celine had known about the room. She and Dirck frequently sat there after the bar closed to go over accounts and inventory and to plan events. But in all the time she’d worked at the Delft, she’d never guessed about the closet.

  The loud tick-tock of the wall clock caught her attention. Bob would be back any minute now.

  But where on the Estate could she find a hiding place as safe from detection as that closet?

  Put on your thinking cap, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine urged her. The solution is staring you in the face.

  “You mean, right here? In this barn?”

  Where else?

  It was as good a place as any, Celine figured. She surveyed the clutter of tools and odds-and-ends that jostled for space on the stone floor and the shelves that lined the walls.

  The barn must have been what Dirck had in mind as well.

  Why else had he called Bob out of the blue, insisting that the empty wine bottles be stored here? Dirck must’ve figured Bob would have to go to the bottling room to get wine racks, giving Celine several precious minutes alone to find a good hiding place inside it.

  Celine whirled around, scrutinizing every inch of the place. There didn’t seem to be anything in here quite as impregnable as the Delft’s secret closet.

  The barn had originally been used for horses. The stalls had long been dismantled and the stone flooring extended to what had once been packed dirt covered with rubber mats. But a large square of hardwood floor remained in what had once been the tack room. An old green wheelbarrow was parked here, surrounded by gardening tools.

  Dirck and John’s gardening tools.

  Celine’s gaze kept returning to it.

  If all she was looking for was a temporary place to store whatever it was and keep it out of sight, did it really matter if it wasn’t all that secure?

  “John and I were taking care of this for a woman we both knew.” Dirck had stared down at the bag in his arms.“She meant a great deal to us once. Still does.”

  He looked up at Celine.

  “I just don’t think I can hold on to it any longer. It needs to go back. But until it does, we have to keep it safe.”

  Celine stared at the wheelbarrow. It contained a few bags of potting soil and a trowel or two.

  A hoe, a rake, and a spade, all three of which looked like they went back to their owners’ Boston days, stood propped up against the barrow.

  In the early days, Dirck and John had enjoyed working together on the Mechelen gardens. Afterward, when a team of gardeners had taken over the main grounds, their efforts had been restricted to the small plot that fronted the twin cottage they shared on the Estate.

  But on the day he’d had his heart attack, John had been alone in his garden, using his spade to turn over a dry patch of soil.

  Under the wheelbarrow, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine suggested. No one will think to look under it.

  “But you don’t have to move it to see under it,” Celine pointed out.

  Just move the barrow.

  Celine sighed. It was true most people might think a hefty bag stored under a barrow contained nothing more than gardening tools. But who was to say, someone wouldn’t open it?

  On the other hand, of course, no one but Dirck and John had ever used those tools. The team of gardeners the Mechelen employed had their own gardening shed. And Bob Massie had never touched a gardening tool in his life.

  Maybe it
was the perfect place. Hiding in plain sight. Safe from prying eyes, just like Dirck wanted.

  She propped the hoe, the rake, and the spade against the wall, and pushed the barrow out. Its wheels creaked as it reluctantly yielded to her efforts and moved. A layer of potting soil and dust coated the floor where the barrow had stood.

  Celine was using one of the trowels to brush it aside when she noticed one of the floorboards was loose. Curious, she lifted it up.

  Then a couple more.

  Underneath the loose floorboards, housed between two floor joists was a large, coffin-shaped steel container with a lid.

  A heavy-duty steel ring was installed in the middle of the lid. Celine grabbed hold of it and pulled the lid open.

  The container was empty.

  She peered inside. The space was perfect for the hefty bag with Dirck’s cardboard box.

  And Sister Mary Catherine was right! No one would think to look for anything under an old wheelbarrow.

  Celine got off her knees and ran back toward the barn door. She needed to get this taken care of before Curious Bob returned.

  Make sure the floorboards are flush with each other when you’re done. Sister Mary Catherine reminded her.

  Celine carefully hoisted the bag into the steel container. Breathing heavily from the effort, she closed the lid and started putting the floorboards back.

  And push the dirt and potting soil back over the area before you wheel the barrow back.

  She had just finished when the low hum of the Pilot’s engine reached her ears. Bob was back. She stood up, dusted the knees of her denim jeans, and sprinted toward the barn door.

  Bob cut off the engine.

  “Took me a bit of time. But I found what we needed.”

  He plodded toward the back of the car and popped open the rear hatch. Wine crates stacked the cargo area.

  “Got as many as I could.”

  “I see that.”

  “Take a couple in and start filling ’em up. I’ll bring in the rest.”

  Back in the barn, Celine swiftly opened up hefty bags and began transferring empty wine bottles into the racks Bob had brought back. Bob lumbered in, bringing in a couple of racks at a time, as she worked.

  “Don’t forget that stuff of yours that needs to go into storage,” he reminded her.

  Trust Bob to remember something as trivial as that.

  “You’d better get it back in your car.”

  She glanced up. He was standing, crate in hand, looking at her.

  “I will. When I’m done here.”

  She’d known he’d remember and she was prepared.

  While she unloaded the bottles, she’d been collecting the empty bags and piling them into one large hefty bag. Now, as Bob set his crates down and trudged out the barn door, she reached over to zip-tie it.

  Then she carried it out to her car, dumping it on the rear passenger seat.

  The barn floor was still sufficiently strewn with hefty bags for Bob not to notice that she’d gotten rid of some.

  Twenty minutes later, she was back in the Pilot, circling past the barn to a small cottage behind a thick row of lush green boxwood.

  She was finally home.

  Chapter Six

  Celine dug into the slim navy blue purse that rested almost constantly against her right hip—its long slender strap descended from her left shoulder and across her body—and fished out her cottage keys.

  As she slid the main key into the lock of the blue cottage door, an inexplicable feeling hit her. She twisted her head up and around.

  Her gaze circled over the clear night sky studded with tiny pinpricks of starlight; the hedges—black in the darkness—that shielded her cottage from view; and the pebbled path between two neat pockets of grass that led to her door.

  It felt like the end of something.

  The sensation was so strong, her fingers reached for her phone, ready to text Dirck. Celine wanted to let him know where she’d kept the cardboard box. That it was safe.

  Mainly she wanted to hear that he was all right.

  But Dirck had told her not to contact him at all that night. “I know you can handle this. You don’t have to report back to me. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.”

  The end is nigh. It is coming, she thought.

  But the end of what exactly, she had no idea. It was just a feeling she couldn’t shake off

  She stepped into the cottage and flicked a switch by the door. The light that came on illuminated a large open area—a kitchen and dining space to her left and a cozy living room on the right. She pulled her purse strap over her neck and set the purse and her keys on top of the granite-topped island that separated the kitchen from the dining area.

  Very little in the cottage belonged to Celine. It had been given to her fully furnished when she’d gratefully accepted Dirck’s offer to join the Delft Coffee & Wine Bar as its Marketing Manager.

  That had been seven years ago. She’d agreed to have a small sum deducted from her bi-weekly paychecks as rent, but after the first few months, Dirck had stopped taking the amount out of her salary.

  “Consider it a perk of the job,” he’d said when she asked him about it. “Well-deserved, too. You do far more than the job calls for.”

  That was true. How many marketing managers tended bars and helped harvest grapes? But getting involved in the business—at John Mechelen’s suggestion—had helped her understand its unique challenges and devise ways to address them.

  Still, the perk had never sat right with her. It had always felt more like a favor. How could living rent-free be a justified benefit when she was doing no more than it took to do the job well?

  Not that she wasn’t grateful to Dirck.

  She just wasn’t convinced she deserved the benefit. And she hated being beholden to anyone.

  Celine grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the island and flung herself on the living room couch. The apple, at least, was hers. She’d paid for it—and the rest of the fruit in the bowl and all the food in the small kitchen refrigerator. The clothes in the bedroom closet were hers as well.

  If she ever had to leave, these were the only things she’d be able to take with her. Everything else would stay right here.

  And that was all right with Celine. Ever since her parents had died, she’d felt like a traveler through life. There was no point collecting very much or getting attached to your possessions.

  Not when you weren’t destined to have a permanent home anytime soon. Not when you had to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Wanderers traveled light.

  But in the seven years that Celine had been in Paso Robles, she had never felt she would have to move on.

  Not even when John Mechelen had unexpectedly died last October.

  Her cottage on the Mechelen Estate had felt like as much like a permanent home as a cottage that you didn’t own could feel.

  She took a bite out of her Gala apple. Its crisp juiciness filled her mouth.

  Why was she so sure it would all come to an end soon?

  The first inkling of unease had come, Celine realized, when Dirck had agreed to show B-aw-ston Greg his art.

  “Showing someone your art doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to sell it,” she said to herself as she took another bite of her apple.

  And selling the art didn’t mean anything either, did it?

  But her objections were as persuasive as some smarmy politician’s promise to waive all debt and make everything free. Dirck was getting ready to leave—

  Celine stopped short. The thought, popping into her head out of the blue, had left her stunned. Was Dirck really preparing to leave—the bar, the winery, everything he and John had built together?

  She took another bite of her apple and chewed slowly. What had happened to make her believe that?

  Her mind rewound the day’s events.

  And stopped at the moment her employer of seven years had revealed that the bar she’d worked in contained a secret closet.
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  It had taken Dirck seven years to reveal its existence to her. Seven years.

  Why had Dirck taken so long to confide in her?

  Chapter Seven

  Dirck had always said he trusted her. That she was like the daughter he’d never had. After all, Celine had been born the very year that he and John Mechelen had arrived in Paso Robles—with nothing but their paintings, their gardening tools, and a desire to start a new life.

  Had John known about the secret space? Celine was sure he must have. Especially if he and Dirck had taken joint responsibility for the gewgaw concealed inside it.

  And Dirck in turn probably knew about the steel container fitted between the floor joists under the barn floor. It had been perfect for the cardboard box she’d just stored there.

  So perfect she wondered if the container had been custom-built.

  The width of it, about fifteen inches across, was a precise match for the dimensions of the cardboard box. Too precise for it to be a coincidence, Celine thought.

  And Dirck hadn’t mentioned that either.

  She clamped her lips together and gripped her apple in both hands.

  If Dirck doubted her, could she blame him? He’d taken her in, given her a job, a home. That was as much as she could expect. Especially after the way she’d lost her position at the Montague Museum back East.

  She’d been innocent of the charges, but could you blame someone for having their suspicions? And being cautious?

  He didn’t want to burden you, Celine. Sister Mary Catherine sounded exasperated. Is that so very hard to understand?

  “Burden me with what? The knowledge that we have a secret space that until now held a somewhat valuable item that he and John have been keeping for a friend? And what about the steel container in the barn?”

  He knew you’d find it.