I thought he would get angry, but he didn’t. “I don’t know,” he said.
I searched his eyes. He didn’t blink or look away.
“I believe you,” I said. I hesitated to ask more questions, but I had to know. “Someone saw you lurking around Mr. Schuster’s house the day the coins were stolen . . .”
“I wasn’t lurking. I wanted to see if Orion was okay.”
“My dad says you also don’t have an alibi for when it happened. Where were you the night of the break-in?”
His eyes shifted to the floor.
“You said no more lies, Nick.”
He got up and walked to the door. For a moment I thought he was going to walk out. Instead, he pointed up—to the skylight above the dining area.
“I was up there,” he said.
“You were on the roof?”
He nodded.
“What were you doing up there?”
“You were sitting at the table practically the whole night with your computer,” he said softly. “For a while, you were on the Internet. It looked like maybe you were researching an assignment. After that, you did a lot of typing. Then you pulled a book out of your backpack and just kind of zoned out. I couldn’t tell what you were reading—the way you were sitting, your head was in the way. But I noticed you didn’t turn any pages.”
My cheeks burned. Ben had been at a family dinner that night. Billy and Morgan were out. So I’d spent a Friday night doing my homework—well, doing some homework. When Nick had seen me looking at that book, I hadn’t been reading. I’d been staring at a photograph—of Nick and me.
“You were watching me that night?” I said.
“A couple of other nights too.”
“Why?”
He shifted uneasily but didn’t answer.
“We should tell my dad,” I said. “And the police. You couldn’t have robbed Mr. Schuster if you were up on the roof all that time.”
He turned and went back to the couch where he’d been sleeping. What was the matter with him?
“Don’t you get it, Nick? You do have an alibi. They’ll have to believe you.”
“What alibi?” he said. “I have an ex-girlfriend who didn’t even see me that night. The same ex-girlfriend who’s up to her eyeballs in this thing. She’s come to see me a couple of times. She’s been walking Mr. Schuster’s dog. She was at the mall when I supposedly pushed Mr. Schuster. And as soon as her dad bails me out, she suddenly comes forward and says she was doing exactly what I described her doing that night.” He shook his head. “If I was a cop, I wouldn’t believe it. I’d think that you were lying to help me. Wouldn’t you?”
“But if you’re telling the truth . . .”
“They won’t believe me. And they won’t believe you.”
He was right again, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. I wished I had looked up that night. I wished I’d seen him.
“My dad will believe me,” I said.
Nick made a face. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather he didn’t know. It’s not going to convince the cops I’m innocent, and it will only make your dad think I’m some kind of stalker.”
“But—”
“Please, Robyn. He’s been good to me. I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
Reluctantly, I agreed—for the time being.
“That doesn’t change the fact that I know what I was doing that night and that you couldn’t have described it if you hadn’t seen me.” If I’d had any doubts left, they were all gone. There was no way Nick had anything to do with Mr. Schuster’s missing coin collection.
Nick was silent for a minute. “Robyn?” His voice was soft again. “Is it serious with that guy?”
“You mean Ben?”
He winced at the name.
“Why did you wait so long to call me, Nick?” It had taken him nearly two months. He had left me a garbled voice mail message. I hadn’t been able to make out a phone number where I could reach him. “And why didn’t you call me back after you left that message?”
“You know how it is. Stuff happens. Things didn’t work out the way I expected. At first I couldn’t call you. Then—” He shrugged. “Then I didn’t want to.”
“Thanks a lot,” I muttered. I turned for the door. Nick grabbed my hand to stop me. It was the first time he’d touched me since he’d disappeared. He looked at me for a moment. Then he dropped my hand.
“I ran into a little trouble,” he said. “But I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to think I was a total screw-up. I thought I’d sort things out and call when I was in the clear. I guess I should have known it wasn’t going to work out when you didn’t even try to get in touch with me—”
“Get in touch with you?”
“Then I left you that message, and you still didn’t call back. I should have figured you’d found someone else. I mean, why wouldn’t you?” He shook his head. “I must have been crazy to think you’d want to be with me. I saw you with that guy, Robyn. I saw him put that ring on your finger.”
“I did call you back,” I said. “At least, I tried. I tried the number you called from. But it was a pay phone. I couldn’t get through.”
“You were supposed to leave me a message at Beej’s.”
“I couldn’t hear you. Your voice was drowned out by all the noise in the background. Where were you calling from, anyway?”
“One of those gas station-restaurant places on the highway.”
“Why didn’t you call me again? I kept waiting for you to.”
He looked skeptically at me. “Are you trying to tell me that you only started going out with that guy after I left you that message? How dumb do I look? You expect me to believe that just because I didn’t call again, you went out and found someone else and that just a couple of days after that, he’s giving you an expensive ring?” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no right to be angry. You look good with that guy, Robyn. You two look like you belong together. And I bet your mom likes him, huh?”
“Nick—”
“Look, I’m sorry I got your dad involved in this. But I didn’t know who else to call. My aunt is pissed off because I violated my bail conditions. She doesn’t want me back if I can’t obey the rules. Your dad said he’d help me find a good lawyer and get the charges dealt with as fast as possible. After that, I’ll be out of your life. I promise.” He sunk into the couch and turned off the light.
I reached out and touched his arm. He laid a hand over mine for a moment and then gently brushed me away.
“Being here is hard enough, Robyn,” he said. “Don’t make it any harder, okay?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I
woke up with a start and could just make out a large, shadowy figure creeping toward my bed in the dark. I shot up, my heart pounding.
“Sorry, Robbie,” said a soft voice. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I reached out and switched on the lamp on my bedside table. “Dad, what are you doing?” I glanced at the clock. It was five in the morning, but he was fully dressed. “Is something wrong?”
“No. I just need to get something.” He crossed to the closet that ran along one wall of my room and opened it. I got a chill when he bent down in front of a big metal lockbox on the floor—it was where he kept his gun. But to my relief, he picked up a briefcase instead and dusted it off.
“I need to talk to you about something, Dad.”
“I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait. I’m in kind of a hurry.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Something came up. I left you a note. I should be back sometime tomorrow. We’ll talk then, okay?”
“Okay.”
He slid the closet door shut. “When Nick gets up, I want the two of you to go over to Henri’s. Tell Nick he’s to stay there until I get back. Tell him I mean it, Robbie.”
Henri (short for Henrietta) is Vernon Deloitte’s girlfriend. Vern is my father’s business partner.
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“Nick would never leave here, if that’s what you’re worried about, Dad. He’d never do anything to make you mad at him.”
“That’s good to know—but that’s not what I’m worried about. Someone has to be responsible for him, and I can’t do that if I’m not here.”
“I’ll be responsible for him.”
“You’re not old enough, Robbie. And after what happened”—he looked pointedly at the cast on my arm—“I’d feel a whole lot better if you were somewhere safe. Not to mention what would happen if your mother ever found out that I left you and Nick here alone . . .” He shook his head. “Go along with me on this. Nick stays put at Henri’s, and both of you stay over there tonight. Okay?”
“Okay.”
After my dad left, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I crept into the living room, put the TV on at low volume, and dozed off soon afterward.
I woke up a couple of hours later when the door to my father’s office opened. Nick looked out, a bland expression on his face.
“I’m going to go and clean up,” he said.
I was still curled up in the same chair by the time Nick had showered and changed into jeans and a fresh T-shirt. His hair was still damp. I told him what my father had said. He shrugged and said okay.
“Mind if I get something to eat first?” he said.
“Go ahead.” As he padded over to the kitchen in his sock feet, I called after him. “In the DVD Beej gave me, you said that you were asleep on Mr. Schuster’s couch when Elliot and his family showed up.”
Nick turned slowly to look at me. “I’d been staying in an abandoned building,” he said. “I didn’t think Mr. Schuster would mind if I bunked at his place while he was in the hospital. Someone had to look after Orion.”
“How did you get into the house?”
“I used my key.”
“You have a key to Mr. Schuster’s house?”
Nick frowned. “You sound surprised.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Mr. Schuster trusted me. He gave me a key to the front door, one to the side door. You know, in case he was at a doctor’s appointment or something when I came over to walk Orion.”
“Did you tell the police you had keys?”
“Have,” he said. “I still have them. What’s with all the questions, Robyn?”
“I’m trying to figure out what happened.”
His expression soured. “So now you don’t believe me?”
“I do believe you,” I said. “That’s why I’m trying to figure it out. Come on, Nick. Did you tell the police you have keys to Mr. Schuster’s house?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?” I said. “They said that the person who took the coins broke into the house. But you didn’t have to break in. You have keys.”
“Most cops I’ve ever met, once they tag you as a screw-up, they can’t see you any other way, ever,” Nick said, his voice heavy with disdain. “If I told them I had keys, they’d think I used a crowbar just to throw them off.” When I looked skeptical, he said, “Think about it, Robyn. It’s not like Mr. Schuster gives out house keys to the whole world. If the coins were stolen but there was no sign of forced entry, someone with a key must have taken them. So if I used a key, it would be like pointing the finger at myself. But if I used a crowbar, I could say it wasn’t me, I didn’t need to break in, I had a key. That’s the way the cops would see it, Robyn. Guaranteed.”
“You went back to Mr. Schuster’s house after you were released on the breaking-and-entering charge. Why?”
He looked intently at me for a moment, trying to decide how much to say.
“I wanted to talk to Mr. Schuster,” he said at last. “I went to the hospital first. But they said he’d been discharged.”
“What did you want to talk to him about?”
“What do you think?” His voice edged with frustration. “I wanted to tell him I would never steal from him.”
“What happened when you got to the house?”
He sighed, came over to where I was sitting, and sank into a chair opposite me.
“I was hoping Elliot wouldn’t be there. He’s a scary guy when he’s mad. When his wife answered the door, I thought it was going to be okay. At least she knew me. She knew what Mr. Schuster thought about me too. I thought for sure she’d let me talk to him.”
Nick had said to Beej that when Elliot found him in the house that first day, he’d thought Claudia would say something. I thought he’d meant that he thought Claudia would calm Elliot down. But that didn’t seem to be it.
“She knew you? You mean you’d met Claudia before?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know her well or anything. But she dropped by one time last fall when I was at the house.”
“Isobel told me that they haven’t visited Mr. Schuster in years.” Then I remembered what Schuster’s neighbor Esther had said: Elliot hadn’t visited his father since his mother had died, but Claudia had.
“I know. Mr. Schuster told me. I guess that’s why he was so surprised when she showed up. She said she was in town for some kind of convention. I could tell she was wondering what I was doing there. Anyway, we talked. Mr. Schuster told her about the program I was in while I was at the animal shelter.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Mr. Schuster always tells me I have nothing to be ashamed of. He says I’ve changed—that if anything, I should be proud of myself. But...”
“He’s right,” I said quietly.
He brightened for a moment. Then his eyes went to my ring. I slid my hand out of sight.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I assumed that she would have told Elliot about me. But I guess she didn’t, because when Elliot fired me, he acted like I’d been lying to him, hiding my past. But I wasn’t. I really thought he knew. You should have seen him, Robyn. He got all red in the face and started yelling. He said he’d had me checked out. He said he didn’t want a criminal anywhere near his father’s house.”
I thought back to what Nick had said on the DVD: the coins disappeared a few days later.
“After they released me on the breaking and entering, I went back to the house. I wanted to set things straight with Mr. Schuster. Claudia was there alone, but she wouldn’t let me in. Then I heard Orion barking down in the basement. The basement, Robyn! I wanted to get him out of there, but Claudia wouldn’t let me do that, either. I’d already told them about the basement—”
“What’s so important about the basement?” I said.
“When Mr. Schuster adopted Orion, he set up his bed in the basement. That’s where all his other dogs used to sleep—his wife used to insist on it, and he kind of got into the habit. But it was nice, you know? He had it fixed up with a blanket and a basket and a nice big pillow. Really cozy. But Orion didn’t like it down there. Mr. Schuster couldn’t figure out why. Then, before I left town, he told me that he’d found out that Orion’s original owner—the one that abandoned him—used to keep Orion locked in the basement for months at a time. No exercise, no sunshine, just a dark unfinished basement. So Mr. Schuster moved his bed upstairs to his coin room.”
“Coin room?”
“It’s really a spare bedroom at the back of the house, but Mr. Schuster called it the coin room because it’s where he kept his coin collection.”
“And that’s where Orion was the night the Schusters arrived and he bit Claudia?” I said.
“It was just a nip,” Nick said. “She must have known he was in there. He was barking. But she barged in on him anyway. He can be a little territorial. Anyway, when I went to set things straight with Mr. Schuster and I heard Orion down in the basement, I had to do something. I had to get him out of there.”
“Claudia says you forced your way into the house.”
He hung his head. “Maybe I lost my temper. The next thing I knew, Claudia was calling the cops.” He let out a long sigh. “I was in enough trouble. I didn’t need any more. So I left.”
I hated to ask the next question, but I ha
d to be sure.
“Did you hit her, Nick?”
“No way. I didn’t touch her.”
“She told the police you did.”
“She lied,” he said bitterly. “But the cops arrested me again. When they released me that time, they told me I had to stay away from Mr. Schuster, his house, and his family.”
“Isobel told me that Mr. Schuster and Elliot hardly ever spoke to each other. She said that the family hadn’t seen Mr. Schuster since before his wife died. She and Connor kept in touch with him by e-mail. But she never mentioned that her mother had visited him.”
“Yeah, well, I could see why she might not want to tell the kids,” Nick said.
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Schuster told me that the real reason she showed up was to ask for money.”
“He actually said that?”
“Yeah. He was pretty mad about it. Claudia told him that Elliot’s business was in trouble.”
“He owes a lot of money,” I said.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Nick said. “Elliot’s all about money, according to Mr. Schuster. He told me that the only time he’d heard from him recently was when Elliot called to bug him about insuring his coin collection. Mr. Schuster was pretty surprised about that too. He always said that the only difference Elliot could see between an 1850 and an 1851 Seated Liberty Silver Dollar was the date.”
“Is there another difference?”
“Sure is. One’s worth a couple of hundred dollars. The other is worth a couple of thousand. But Elliot didn’t know that. He didn’t know anything about coins.”
“Until Connor told him,” I said.
Nick digested that piece of information. “Maybe that’s why Elliot suddenly wanted Mr. Schuster to get his collection insured. He arranged the whole thing, you know. Mr. Schuster only went along with it because he wanted to make sure that if anything happened, his grandson would be able to collect. He said he probably should have had them insured a long time ago. But Mr. Schuster didn’t collect those coins because of what they were worth. He collected them because he loved them. He’d pick one up and start talking about it—it would be like a history lesson, you know?” He smiled. “Mr. Schuster said he’d loved to have seen the look on Elliot’s face when he found out that Connor was going to inherit the bulk of the collection.”
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