by Jan Thompson
Helen nodded. “And Greek. She’s learning Greek. I told her it’s not the same as the New Testament language since that’s ancient Greek. But she said she’d feel closer to God if she could pray in Greek.”
“God speaks all languages, though.”
“Well, it gives Mom something to do. She’s not getting out of prison any time soon.”
“True. So she’s learning Hebrew next?”
“You bet. By the time the release her, she’d speak at least four or five languages.”
Onscreen, Reuben appeared. He waved to the camera. “Hello, Jake.”
“Hey, man. Well, I better let you two go so you can take your midnight stroll or whatever it is you married couples do.”
Reuben chuckled. “You’d be surprised at what we don’t do. When are you coming back to Santorini?”
“When this is over, I might,” Jake said.
“Come over and we’ll go sailing.”
“You got it, man.”
Chapter Seventeen
After they hung up, Jake plugged in the laptop to the wall to charge it up while he thought of Helen’s husband, Reuben, who had come a very long way from being a convicted art thief to a consultant for law enforcement.
Jake firmly believed that it was possible to reform criminals. And yet, he wondered if it was too late for Molyneux.
Could she really be Imogen, the second wife of Chisolm Wright, the woman he had met while they were both at Oxford University, studying history?
How could two history students have veered so far away from lessons of history? Instead of avoiding the foibles of past wars, they had embraced them. Imogen more so than Chisolm.
Was that why their marriage had fallen apart?
Jake read that their divorce had been bitter. In the middle of their brawl were two young children, a boy and girl, who stood to lose the most.
The divorce papers had stated that neither Chisolm nor Imogen was the biological parent of the two children, which they had raised as their own. However, with Imogen gone a lot, they hired a live-in nanny, Philomena Caddock, to watch the kids.
Somehow Chisolm had fancied the nanny more than his own wife.
The fallout of the Wright divorce was bad. Chisolm threatened to testify that his estranged wife was Molyneux in real life. That didn’t happen. Multiple threats to his life made Chisolm take his two children and flee to his native country of the United States, where he entered the federal Witness Security Program.
For all practical purposes, they had been gone for twenty-five years.
That was, until the nanny surfaced, insisting that Chisolm had continued living until two years prior when he disappeared for good, leaving her with no means of supporting herself. As an illegal immigrant to the United States, she could not get a proper job nor could she draw on social security or get a welfare check.
Falling through the economic cracks, Philomena drained their bank account and then began going through the valuables that Chisolm had left behind.
Etsy or eBay wasn’t good enough for her. Nope. She attempted to reach Chisolm’s old buddies in Europe, perhaps hoping that she could get a higher black-market price for her finds.
When buyers and brokers began to ask about a particular set of brooches, it went downhill from there for Philomena. The unwise move was probably how she ended up in the morgue.
Jake felt sorry for her.
And for himself. Philomena had wanted to meet Jake in Cannes to tell him where Chisolm’s son and daughter were. The cost of that information was twenty thousand dollars, a price that Helen Hu had been willing to pay after the FBI refused the offer.
Unfortunately, Philomena had been a no-show the same day Jake ended up in the ocean.
“And here we are.” Jake scooted off his bed and put the laptop on the only table in the room.
He yawned and nearly climbed back into bed.
“No,” he told himself aloud. “Get some coffee and get thee out to the cabin!”
He called a local rental car place. They offered to deliver the car to the motel, but Jake said no. Instead, he took an Uber over to pick up the car.
He decided to check on Earl later. More to tell him if Jake had made it to the cabin today.
Jake had a feeling he was already late getting to the cabin. By now the whole place would have been picked over by that treasure hunter, a woman of mystery.
Who just might be the key to this whole affair.
Or not.
Chapter Eighteen
Beatrice could not believe that Dad had a cabin in the woods some three thousand miles away from where she lived in the same country. It didn’t show up in the will after he supposedly passed away because he had been still living in the cabin until recently.
By the mercy of God, Dad’s friends in had Charleston adopted Beatrice and Benjamin, eventually bequeathing to them several hundred million dollars on top of what Dad had left them. Sometimes Beatrice wondered where all that money had come from, but she had been taught not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“The cabin is problematic,” Kenichi announced when Beatrice parked the van by the side of the road, somewhere behind Jake’s rental car. Both vehicles were exposed to any passerby.
“Why did Jake stop here by the side of the road?” Beatrice asked. “It’s too obvious.”
“I think we should forget this expedition.” Raynelle. Her voice sounded like she had just woken up.
Beatrice stared ahead. Through the windshield, she could see the sunlight every now and then when the wind blew the leaves to let the sunshine through.
“I love the woods and all, but something seems off,” she said. “I’m beginning to think that this is not the right place. Someone tell me how Philomena could live here when there’s no driveway to her cabin?”
“Good point.” Kenichi surveyed Google Maps to see what they were up against. “Okay. I see a lake—or pond—near the cabin. There seems to be a parking space on the other side of the lake.”
Raynelle rolled her eyes. “Please don’t tell me they park their car and row a boat.”
“You don’t necessarily have to row a boat if you have a motorboat.”
“Smarty pants, Ken. I’m saying it’s just a lot of trouble to get to and fro. Is that a vacation home, perhaps?”
Beatrice drew a deep breath. “Jake’s parked in front of us, and he’s going to see us. We have no kudzus—like back home—to hide our big van.”
“So we’re going to sit here and do what?” Raynelle was in a bad mood.
Kenichi laughed. “She needs more painkillers.”
“No, I don’t. I need my right arm to not be broken, is all. I can’t protect you, Bee. I feel so useless.”
“I can take care of myself,” Beatrice said.
“No. Your brother is going to kill us if something happens to you,” Kenichi said.
“Speak for yourself, Ken.” Raynelle sat back and winced. “I don’t work for Benjamin.”
Beatrice was about to get out of her driver’s seat when a loud rap on her window startled her.
She spun around and screamed.
Outside the window, Jake laughed. He motioned for her to roll down the window.
Beatrice hesitated before she decided to do what he asked. “What do you want?”
Well, that came out wrong, but whatever.
“We could’ve carpooled.” He grinned.
Beatrice noticed the dimple on his cheek. She hadn’t been paying attention, really. But Jake kept showing up everywhere she went. It didn’t help that she was following his trail, having no trail of her own.
She felt helpless.
In her last project the year before, she had recovered five oil paintings dating all the way to the nineteenth century. They belonged to a prominent Jewish family who perished in the Holocaust during World War II. The artwork collection was sent to Jerusalem, where their relatives eventually loaned them to a holocaust museum.
It had taken Beatrice and her team three years to find t
hose paintings. Yet they had good fortune all the way. Each week was an adventure for her as they were met with success after success.
From that mountaintop celebration, she fell down the hill into this pit of repeated failures. At the bottom of the valley, she found herself having to follow a former FBI Special Agent who might not know what he was doing either.
After all, she had to call for help on his behalf six months prior.
He was almost shot the other day at the Fisherman’s Wharf.
Now he had lost his partner, all laid up in the hospital from broken bones and gunshot wounds.
And here they were following him.
Yep, the same dude.
“Following me again, aren’t you?” Jake asked.
Beatrice didn’t reply.
“Thank you for your vote of confidence.” He chuckled. “You’re assuming I know where I’m going.”
“Do you?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure. There’s no path through there. Even with GPS.” He held up a phone.
It wasn’t his burner phone. In fact, it might be his partner’s phone—the one that Kenichi couldn’t track.
Beatrice didn’t want to tell him about the dock.
In fact, she wasn’t sure if Jake wanted to get in a boat after his harrowing experience. Then again, he wasn’t her.
“The cabin is a rental. Long-term rental,” Jake added.
“Are you plying me with information so that we invite you in for coffee?” Beatrice asked.
“You have coffee? Fresh?”
“Ken made it somewhere between Eureka and here.”
At the back of the van, Kenichi made a loud noise. Like he didn’t approve the invitation or something.
Oh yeah. They had to hide everything again.
“I’ll just stand right here and talk to you,” Jake said. “But I’d like a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind. I ran out.”
“Ken, please?” Beatrice didn’t look away from Jake.
“I hope there’s no poison in the coffee,” Jake joked.
Or at least it sounded like he was joking.
Beatrice almost smiled.
Jake was looking intently at her.
Inside the van, Kenichi made an even louder grunt. “No coffee for you!”
“What now?” Beatrice asked.
“I’ll live.” Jake seemed amused.
“I mean what are you thinking right now?”
Jake stepped closer to the van, lifted his sunglasses above his head. “So what’s all this plumber getup?”
He must’ve noticed the embroidered company name on her shirt. She couldn’t remember what it said, so she glanced down to make sure she had the name right.
Plunging Needs Plumbers. No hyphen.
Kenichi had thought of everything. What would they do without his brain?
“If you have to ask…” Beatrice said.
“Tell you what. If you have an extra shirt my size, I could be part of the team.”
Jake surprised her. What was she going to say about that?
“No!” Kenichi yelled. He was still at the back of the van, out of sight. Apparently, he had heard the conversation.
“Who is he? The Wizard of Oz?” Jake made Beatrice laugh.
Sigh.
The whole expedition had been a failure as they were now stuck by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, looking for a cabin that may not have plumbing needs.
“I know your bodyguard is injured. Broken arm. Can’t shoot—unless she’s ambidextrous.” Jake waited.
Beatrice didn’t say a word.
“No? Well, then you have a problem. The Wizard over there, as far as I remember, usually stays in the van. I saw him fight in the forest, so he’s got training. But you could use extra protection.”
“Extra protection?”
“You didn’t want to tell me anything, but I looked you up, and I suspect you’re not a random stranger I met in San Francisco.”
“Maybe people go there for vacation though.”
“Yeah, but only one person is Chisolm Wright’s daughter.”
Beatrice kept calm. How could he have guessed? Had Philomena told him enough to set him on her trail?
“You followed me all the way from Paris to Cannes and then from France to the States because you think that I could lead you to the Amber Room—the very thing that Molyneux wants to find.” He paused. “Am I right?”
He’s guessing.
Beatrice remained silent. Then nothing could be used against her. However, maybe it was a bad mission to begin with. She should have gone as far away from Molyneux as possible instead of trying to beat her to the Amber Room.
“Someone must have told you that your deceased father kept a map to the whereabout of some of the panels of the lost Amber Room,” Jake seemed to suggest.
And that person who told her everything about the Amber Room would be Benjamin, the armchair treasure hunter who knew more about Molyneux than anyone Beatrice knew.
The brooch collection was his specialty.
“When Philomena resurfaced, you thought she could lead you to your dad’s map. You knew they were in a brooch collection of some sort. Perhaps it is your only connection left with him. Memories?”
“My father died twenty-five years ago. I was a child and have few memories of him.” However, Beatrice was impressed with Jake’s deductions.
“So you are Chisolm’s daughter. How did you go from Amberlyn Peterson to Beatrice Glynn?”
He was fishing and Beatrice fell for it. She looked into the distance. A bird flew in the forest. The leaves rustled. The sunlight came through again.
Life goes on.
Her eyes moistened.
“Hey,” Jake said quietly. His hand reached through the window and touched her shoulder. His fingers were warm and gentle. “I’m sorry.”
Kenichi appeared. “Get your hands off her.”
His snarl surprised Beatrice.
“Are you her boyfriend?” Jake retracted his hand.
Beatrice felt bereft for some reason.
“No. But neither are you,” Kenichi snapped. “Now move along. Go. Leave.”
“It’s a pointless exercise,” Jake said. “You’re just going to follow me anyway. I say let’s team up.”
“You have nothing to offer us,” Kenichi said.
“On the contrary, I do.” Jake turned to Beatrice. “I think Philomena is a bait. Which puts us all in Molyneux’s crosshairs, considering she seemed to have a penchant for killing family members—you know, like your dad and his girlfriend.”
Beatrice drew a deep breath. No, she wasn’t related biologically to Molyneux. However, Jake might be getting somewhere.
“Then explain why we seem to be alone here,” Kenichi replied. “I don’t see her people coming after us right now, do you?”
“Because they’re probably already in the cabin.”
That made everyone quiet.
Beatrice couldn’t imagine what she was going to miss if Molyneux’s men ransacked the cabin before her team arrived. What if there were clues in the cabin about how Dad had lived long after they all thought he was dead? Why hadn’t he reached out to her and Benjamin at all for over twenty years?
“They might be waiting for us,” Beatrice said. “An ambush we cannot win. If we call 911, it would take forever for the police to show up.”
“They can send a chopper,” Jake said. “I’m in contact with my associates and they are on standby if anything happens to us.”
“How far away are they on standby?” Beatrice asked. “San Francisco?”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Someday, we’ll learn to trust each other.”
“Not any day,” Kenichi snapped. “Her standards are too high for you to reach.”
What? Beatrice didn’t know how to respond to Kenichi.
There was something else more urgent. “Boys, pay attention. We might be able to get to the cabin, but we might not be able to get out again if Molyneux’s people
are there.”
“I’ve already worked out that scenario,” Kenichi said.
“You have? We’re a team here,” Beatrice reminded him. “I don’t recall approving anything.”
“You were driving. Ray was napping. I was braining. You’re welcome.”
Beatrice did not like Kenichi’s answer at all. She was in charge. She paid the bills. What was Kenichi doing behind her back? Who was ordering him around?
“Can you get backups in fifty minutes?” Beatrice asked.
When Kenichi didn’t answer, Beatrice knew that he had been working on something long before they left Eureka. “We’ll talk about it later, but I expect you to answer to only to me.”
Not to my brother also.
“If they come for us, they’ll be in a group,” Jake said, diffusing the tension.
Beatrice wasn’t happy at this point, but she decided to deal with Kenichi later. Perhaps she would also call her brother to tell him what she thought about him running interference.
Hopefully it was only Benjamin giving extra orders—and not the enemy.
“I’m not the enemy here.” Kenichi’s voice softened.
Surely he hadn’t read her mind.
“I have to see the cabin,” Beatrice said. “Give Jake a spare uniform.”
Chapter Nineteen
Something was terribly wrong.
Jake knew it and he sensed that Beatrice knew it too. They were probably walking into a trap.
At the moment they were parked near the dock. There was only one boat. It looked like it hadn’t been used in a while.
Across the pond—filled with green scum—a small rustic cabin stood. Its windows were closed, the curtains inside drawn. Behind the cabin, tall trees stood guard.
“Who on earth would build a cabin there?” Raynelle ate a sandwich. She seemed to be in her own time zone or something.
Jake wondered if she was putting on a show of indifference or if the painkiller was doing a number on her. Put her in a daze, perhaps.
Inside the van, it was stuffy. Jake regretted asking for a plumber’s uniform. It was made of polyester that didn’t go well with the stuffy van.
Kenichi was sweating buckets as he programmed his drones.