“What do you mean, the bulk of it? Isobel told me that Connor was going to inherit the whole collection.”
Nick hesitated. “Mr. Schuster said he was going to leave some coins to me.”
“He did?”
“He said he’d even decided which ones but that he wasn’t going to tell me. It was going to be a surprise.” He shook his head. “He liked to talk about coins and history and stuff like that. It made him happy, so I listened. I think he got the idea I was as interested as he was.”
“Are you?”
“The history part of it is okay. But I know his grandson is really into coins. He should get them all. He’d appreciate them way more than I would. I tried to tell Mr. Schuster that. I told him if he wanted to leave me something, he could leave me Orion. You know what he said?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“He said if I kept going the way I was—in school, with a job, a place to live—he’d consider it. He said he wouldn’t let just anyone have Orion. It would have to be someone who could give him a good home. Guess that’s not going to happen.” He stood up abruptly. “We should get going. I don’t want your dad to call Henri and find out we’re not there.”
“Okay,” I said. But there was one thing that was bothering me. One big thing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“C
oins don’t jump into backpacks all by themselves, Nick.”
“I thought you said you believed me.”
“I do. What I mean is, someone had to have put those coins there,” I said. “You have your backpack with you pretty much all the time, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Did you ever see anyone mess with it?”
“No.”
“And it’s never been out of your sight?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Well, almost never.”
“What do you mean, ‘almost’?”
He looked down at the floor. “I used to stash it whenever I went to the hotel,” he said. He spoke so quietly that I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.
“Hotel?”
“But I always put it somewhere safe. And when I got back, it was always right where I’d left it.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What hotel?”
“What difference does it make? I’d stash it, I’d be gone for forty-five minutes, an hour at the most, and it was always there when I came back.”
“And you never noticed anything different about it?”
He shook his head. “I always just checked to make sure my stuff was still there, and it always was.”
If Nick didn’t take Mr. Schuster’s collection—and I was 100-percent positive that he hadn’t—then someone must have put those coins in his backpack. But how? And when?
“I don’t understand. Why did you go to a hotel?”
“To clean up, okay?” he said. He sounded angry.
“Clean up?”
“It’s bad enough I had to do it,” he said. “Now I have to tell you about it?” His eyes burned into me. “There’s this big hotel not far from where I was staying. It has these huge bathrooms down where all the conference rooms and meeting rooms are. There’s no running water where I was living. So I’d go there to wash up. There’s this one time of day when you’re guaranteed no one will walk in on you. I tried to look like I worked there, you know, maybe as a janitor or a maintenance guy. Carrying a backpack would have made me look like I didn’t belong, so I always stashed it before I went. Satisfied?”
“Why didn’t you stay with your aunt?” I asked. “Or come back here? My dad would have let you have your place back.” Then he wouldn’t have been in Mr. Schuster’s house when Elliot and his family had arrived.
The buzzer sounded.
I got up, pressed the intercom button, and said, “Yes?”
“Robyn, it’s me.” Ben. “I need to talk to you.”
I glanced at Nick. He looked away.
“Come on up,” I said. As I buzzed him through the downstairs door, I turned back to Nick. “I didn’t know he was coming over,” I said apologetically.
“I’m going to get my stuff,” Nick said. He disappeared into my dad’s office.
I heard Ben’s footsteps out in the hall and opened the door before he could knock. He was carrying a bouquet of flowers, which he handed to me.
“How’s your arm?” he said.
“Sore.”
“Then we’ll have to find things to do that won’t hurt it. We’re off all week, Robyn, and I don’t want anything to ruin—” His eyes shifted to someplace over my shoulder and his expression changed. I turned and saw Nick, his backpack over his shoulder and his duffel bag in his hand. He stared at Ben.
“I’m going to Henri’s,” he said. He pulled his jacket out of the closet.
“Wait,” I said.
“Robyn—” Ben began.
I pulled away from him.
“Did you go to that hotel at the same time every day?”
“What difference does it make?” Nick said.
“What hotel?” Ben said.
“Please, Nick. Just answer the question.”
“Yeah,” he said sullenly. “The coast was always clear right around one thirty, after everyone had had their lunch and gone back to their meetings. Sometimes there was no one down there at all.”
“Did you go to the hotel the day the coins were stolen?”
“What coins?” Ben said.
“I went every day.”
“We have to get in touch with Isobel,” I said.
“Who’s Isobel?” Ben said. “What’s going on?”
“Someone planted stolen property on Nick.”
Ben frowned. “I thought you told me that you and he—”
“Ben, he’ll go to jail if someone doesn’t do something.”
Ben didn’t say a word. I got the feeling that he wouldn’t have minded if Nick got locked up for life.
I reached for the phone. My dad’s number was blocked—it wouldn’t show up on Mr. Schuster’s phone. But what if Elliot or Claudia answered instead of Isobel? Would they recognize my voice?
“Here,” I said, thrusting the phone at Ben. “Ask for Isobel. Say you’re a friend of hers from school.”
“It would be nice to know who Isobel is.”
“I’ll explain, I promise. Please? It’s important.”
He didn’t look happy, but he nodded. I punched in Mr. Schuster’s number and listened as Ben asked if he could please speak to Isobel.
“It’s her,” he said, holding the phone out to me.
“Isobel? It’s me, Robyn.”
“Ro—”
I cut her off. “I need to talk to you. Is anyone listening? Just answer yes or no.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Can you get away from the house to meet me?”
After a slight pause, she said, “Yes.”
“That’s great... Is your grandfather still in the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to visit him?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me when? Just say a number.”
“One.”
“You’re going to see him at one today at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a coffee place in the lobby. Can you meet me there for a few minutes at, say, one thirty?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Thanks. And Isobel? If anyone asks, say it was a friend from school calling, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
I hung up.
“Why do you want to talk to Isobel?” Nick asked.
“Someone put those coins in your backpack, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“If a complete stranger broke into the house and stole those coins, why would he plant some of them on you? How would he even know about you, let alone where to find you?”
He thought about that for a moment. “You think the thief was someone who knows Mr. Schuster?”
&
nbsp; “And who knows you too,” I said.
“A lot of people in the neighborhood know me. I was there every day for a couple of months to walk Orion. Any number of people could have seen me, Robyn.” He thought for another moment. “Mr. Schuster had the house painted last fall. I got to know the two guys who did the job. You don’t think it could have been them, do you?”
“Do you?” I asked back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
B
en drove us to Henri’s house and waited in the car while I went inside with Nick. Nick and Henri had met last fall. She greeted him warmly.
“I’ll be back after I’ve talked to Isobel,” I said.
Nick watched grimly from Henri’s front door as Ben and I drove away.
Isobel was sitting at the back of the crowded coffee shop off the main entrance to the hospital. She looked like she had been crying. Then her eyes went to the cast on my arm.
“What happened?” she said.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “What’s the matter, Isobel? Is your grandfather okay?”
“The doctor was just talking to him. My dad says we can’t stay at Grandpa’s much longer, and the doctor says Grandpa shouldn’t be living by himself anymore. My dad said Grandpa could come and live with us, but Grandpa said no. So then he said that Grandpa would have to go into a nursing home. Grandpa didn’t want to do that, either.”
I didn’t blame him. I remembered when my father had to put my grandfather into a nursing home. He said that when people go into a home, they have to give up most of the things that they spent a lifetime accumulating—their home, their neighbors... their pets.
“What about Orion?”
“That’s what Grandpa is most upset about,” Isobel said. “He agreed to the nursing home on one condition—my dad has to find a good home for Orion. Otherwise, he won’t go. I feel sad for Grandpa. I wish he’d come to live with us instead.” She looked at Ben. “Are you the one who called me?”
Ben nodded.
“Are you Robyn’s boyfriend?”
Ben looked expectantly at me, waiting for my answer.
“I’m sure Nick didn’t steal those coins, Isobel,” I said, trying not to notice the hurt expression on Ben’s face. “But I can’t prove it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I was hoping you could tell me everything you can remember about what happened.”
“I have told you, Robyn.”
“Maybe you forgot something,” I said. “Can you tell me again?”
She frowned. “There isn’t much to tell. We all went out to dinner and when we came back, the coins were gone.”
“What about earlier in the day?”
“Earlier? Well, I was home all morning. We all were. Then, around noon, my mom and I came to the hospital, and I spent the rest of the day here with Grandpa. Why?”
“I thought if you were at your grandfather’s house, you might have seen something. Or noticed someone lurking around.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“What about your father?” I asked Isobel. “Was he at the house that afternoon?”
She shook her head. “He left before lunch. He had to go to a meeting out of town. Something about his business.”
“Do you know where the meeting was?”
She shook her head. “Only that it was out of town. And that it was the wrong day.”
“Wrong day?”
“He said he was almost there when he realized that he’d made a mistake. The meeting wasn’t until the next week. He had to turn around and drive all the way home. We were supposed to meet him at the restaurant, but he showed up at Grandpa’s house to pick us up.”
“Did he go to the meeting the next week?”
Isobel frowned. “I don’t think so,” she said. “No, he didn’t go anywhere. Maybe the meeting was canceled. He hasn’t been in a very good mood.”
So Elliot had no alibi for most of the day of the robbery. But the coins hadn’t been discovered missing until after the family came back from the restaurant.
“What about Connor? Where was he?”
“He went to the big reference library downtown to do some homework. Connor likes libraries. He said he found a nice desk off in the corner.”
“And you and your mom were here at the hospital all afternoon.”
Isobel shook her head again. “My mom was only here part of the time. She went off to buy a glass to replace one of Grandpa’s special glasses that she accidentally broke that morning.”
“So she bought the glass, and then she came back to the hospital?”
“She came back to the hospital, but she didn’t buy the glass. She said she went to every department store in town, but none of them had the exact same type.”
“She must have been gone for a long time,” I said.
“She was. Almost three hours.”
“After you left the hospital, what happened?”
“Mom and I went back to Grandpa’s house. Connor showed up a little while after that. Then my dad showed up. He wanted to take a shower before we went out, but my mom said she was too hungry to wait.”
“Then what?”
“Then we went to dinner.”
“Do you remember what time?”
“Around seven thirty, when we left the house.”
That’s what my dad had said. It had been in the police report.
“After dinner, we stopped at a bookstore so Connor could buy a coin magazine. As soon as we got home, Connor and I went up to check if Grandpa had a coin that he’d seen in the magazine. Orion was barking, so my dad went to check on him. That’s when he noticed that there was something wrong with the side door—it had been broken open. By then Connor and I had found out the coins were missing. My dad called the police.”
“He told them about Nick, didn’t he?”
Isobel nodded. “He told them where they could find him too.”
“How did he know where Nick was living?”
“I told you. Dad hired someone. He had Nick checked out. Connor and I heard him telling my mom before he fired Nick.”
“And he said he knew where Nick was living?”
“He had the address. He said it was an old building?”
I nodded. “But that’s not where the police found Nick,” I said.
“I know,” Isobel said.
I stared at her. “You do?”
“The police came to Grandpa’s house after they arrested Nick. They told my dad that Nick wasn’t where Dad had said he might be, but they found a crowbar there. They said they found Nick someplace else and that he had some of Grandpa’s coins on him. They showed them to my dad. But he didn’t know if they were part of Grandpa’s coin collection. He had to ask Connor.”
“And Connor identified them?”
She nodded. “He said they were Grandpa’s. Then my dad found some papers from the insurance company. The coins were listed on it. My dad said it figured that the coins the police found were the least valuable ones in the whole collection.”
“Did they say where they’d found Nick?” I asked.
“They said he was staying with a girl. My dad asked if it was the girl who had come to the house with Nick—he described her. The police said yes. And that’s all I know. I guess I haven’t been very helpful, have I?”
I wasn’t sure.
“Robyn?” She looked awkwardly at me. “I’m sorry I told my dad about you and Nick. He was so angry. I tried to tell him how much Grandpa liked Nick and that you were only trying to help.”
“It’s okay, Isobel,” I said. “Tell your grandpa I’ll come and see him soon. Tell him I’m thinking about him.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said when Ben pulled up outside of Henri’s house. Henri lives in the heart of the financial district. Her closest neighbors—so close that they rub shoulders with her little house—are downtown office towers.
“I want to,” Ben said. “Unless there’s some reason you don’t want my help.”
“But it isn’t yo
ur problem.”
“It isn’t yours, either.” He looked at me for a moment. “You didn’t answer when Isobel asked if I was your boyfriend. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “There’s just so much going on.”
He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was disappointed by my answer. He got out of the car, circled around to my side, and opened the door for me.
We found Nick sitting at the big oak table in Henri’s dining room, cutting a picture out of the newspaper. A huge stack of old papers sat on the table in front of him. He started to smile when he saw me, but his smile vanished when Ben followed me in.
“Where’s Henri?” I said.
“Upstairs.” Henri is an artist—a painter. Her studio is on the second floor of her house. I looked at the scissors in Nick’s hand and the small pile of photo clippings near his elbow.
“I asked if there was anything I could do,” he said. “It’s for some new project she’s planning.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down. Ben sat beside me.
“Nick,” I said. “Did you tell Elliot where you were living?”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “That’s not something you go around telling everybody.”
“But he knew.”
Nick shrugged. “Like I said, he hired someone to check me out.”
“Were you the only person who slept in that building?”
“I saw six, maybe eight, different guys around at different times. It’s a big place. People are always going inside to get in out of the wind or have a few drinks or whatever.”
“And where is this place exactly?”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh. No way.”
“Come on, Nick.”
Ben straightened up. He knew something was going on.
“You’re not going down there, Robyn,” Nick said.
“Someone put those coins in your backpack without you knowing. The only time anyone could have done that was when you left your bag where you were sleeping and went to the hotel. Maybe one of the other people who hang out there saw something.”
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