Murder in D Minor Boxed Set

by Virginia Smith

  Most of the group had already assembled. The bride and groom stood to one side of the room, Ryan nodding his head while Debbie pointed toward the rows of chairs. Liz’s father and uncle were enjoying a family reunion, clapping each other’s shoulders and exclaiming over their thinning hair, while their mother watched her sons with a proud smile. Ryan’s family watched the reunion from the far corner. The bridesmaids stood talking to a man who held a big black bible—the pastor, obviously—while the groomsmen had each collapsed over a row of chairs. Tim grinned. They’d apparently had a pretty late night, playing games after he left to camp out on Liz’s couch.

  At the far end of the room, Liz’s friends sat behind metal music stands tuning their instruments. A third chair, the one on the right, was empty.

  A frantic jolt kicked Tim’s pulse up a notch. He scanned the room again.

  Liz was not here.

  He marched over to her mother.

  “There you are, Tim.” She smiled up at him. “I hope we have time to catch up later. Maybe we can sit beside each other at dinner?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tim gave her a distracted smile. “Um, where’s Liz?”

  Her head turned in a smooth arc as she looked around the room. “Why, she’s not here, is she? I’m sure she’ll be—”

  Tim didn’t wait to hear what Mrs. Carmichael was sure of. He hurried up the center aisle toward Liz’s friends.

  “Where is she?” he asked with a glance at her empty chair.

  Caitlin adjusted the music on her stand. “We left her up in the condo talking to Debbie. They’ll be along in a minute.”

  “Debbie’s over there.”

  Two heads jerked up as Jazzy and Caitlin looked where Tim pointed. The sudden widening of their eyes told him all he needed to know. He whirled and almost ran across the room to Liz’s cousin.

  Steady. Don’t alarm them. Liz wouldn’t like that.

  He forced what he hoped was a calm smile. “Hey, Deb. Have you seen Liz?”

  Debbie turned a distracted glance toward him. “Liz? Yes, she’s over—oh. That’s funny. She was right behind me. I carried her cello down and she went back to get her music.” She pointed toward the corner, where a cello case leaned against a wall.

  Tim fought a surge of alarm. “She went back to her room?”

  “Yeah. And I stopped by the front desk to ask Mr. Harrison a couple of things about the setup on my way back.” Debbie’s brow wrinkled. “But that was at least fifteen minutes ago. I wonder what’s keeping her.”

  Ryan lifted a shoulder. “Maybe she—”

  Tim didn’t wait to hear his theory. He dashed out of the room, not caring that everyone’s eyes were fixed on him as he left.

  Liz’s foot nearly missed the next step. She stumbled, and gasped at the pain that shot through her shoulder—as much as she could gasp past her gag. Jeremy had grabbed the nearest thing he could, a cloth napkin from the dinette table, and had shoved the whole thing in her mouth. Then he’d jerked her to her feet and forced her through the door, her arm twisted painfully behind her.

  Tears of rage blurred her vision. How dare he treat her like this? They had been sweethearts once. Her foot nearly missed another step.

  “Watch where you’re going,” he hissed in her ear. “And hurry up. I don’t want to run into anybody in this stairwell.”

  He forced her down four flights of stairs in a stairwell at the rear of the building, but instead of exiting on the ground floor, he kept going. Liz didn’t even know this building had a basement.

  As though he read her mind, Jeremy’s voice sounded from close behind her head. “Kate brought me down here a couple of times on her break. She’s not nearly as big a prude as you were, Lizzie.”

  Eeewww. Best not think about that. Focus instead on keeping her shoulder muscles tight so he didn’t jerk her arm out of its socket.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Jeremy reached around her and pulled open a heavy fire door. In the next moment he pushed her through, his hold on her arm still unbreakable. The door closed behind them, plunging Liz into darkness.

  Tim didn’t bother with the elevator. He poured on the speed and ran down the short hallway from the reception room to the lobby. Then he banged through the fire door into the stairwell, and took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the fourth floor. Before he reached the top he heard a door close behind him, and the clatter of feet echoing on the steps. As he rounded a floor he saw Liz’s friends below him hurrying to catch up.

  His breath came in painful gasps by the time he reached the top, whether from the exertion or fear for Liz, he didn’t know. He didn’t let breathlessness stop him, but burst into the fourth-floor hallway and dashed toward the door to Liz’s condo.

  It was unlocked.

  The lump in his stomach took on the weight of lead. She wouldn’t leave herself exposed with an unlocked door, not after being attacked on the slopes yesterday.

  He ran inside, his gaze sweeping the empty room.

  “Liz! Are you in here?”

  A hollow silence answered. Heart thudding behind his ribcage, Tim dashed through the place. He checked both bedrooms, both bathrooms, even the closets. All empty.

  He returned to the main room in time to see Jazzy and Caitlin run through the doorway. And the person on their heels made Tim look away with a cringe.

  How could he face Liz’s father, when less than two hours ago he’d promised to take care of her?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  A dim light flipped on. Liz got a brief glimpse of concrete floors and rows of housekeeping carts before she was shoved into a smaller room. Discarded furniture filled most of the floor space. A stack of old mattresses lined the back corner.

  “Here. Sit down.”

  Jeremy pulled a scratched dinette chair into the clear space in the center of the floor and pushed her down into it. Fresh pain shot through her shoulder at the sudden release. Her cry was muffled by the napkin wadded in her mouth.

  Jeremy ran his hand through his hair, panic whitening the skin between his eyes as he stared down at her. “Honest, Liz, I didn’t mean for this to happen. But I don’t know what else to do. I’ve got to get that pin. You have no idea what I’m up against.”

  If he hoped to make her feel sorry for him, he could forget it. Liz was too frightened and angry to be moved by pity. Especially toward the man who’d gagged her and tried to rip her arm out of its socket. Besides, she’d already told him she couldn’t give him Grandma’s brooch. She reached up to pull the gag out of her mouth to tell him so again.

  Jeremy saw her. He put one hand on the back of her head and pushed it back in with the other. “Sorry, but I can’t risk you screaming. Sound echoes down here, and I saw a couple of cop cars out front when I arrived. Good thing I had the foresight to make a copy of Kate’s keys, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the nerve to come up to your room.”

  He looked around and then went to a pile of laundry in the corner. The towel he picked up was frayed. He pulled out a pocket knife and sawed through one edge, then ripped it lengthwise.

  “This ought to keep you quiet,” he said as he folded one of the strips and covered her mouth, gag and all. Tears stung Liz’s eyes when he pulled it tight around her head and tangled her hair in the knot. The wadded napkin filled her entire mouth, and she gagged as it pressed against the back of her throat. Her tongue felt cottony, every bit of moisture absorbed by the fabric.

  Fear mounted as she watched him pace with quick, frantic steps. This was not the Jeremy she knew. That guy would not have hurt anyone. This one looked desperate, like he was ready to fall to pieces. Like he was capable of anything.

  His pacing stopped suddenly. He seemed to come to a decision. Feet planted in front of her, he pulled a slim cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans.

  “I have no choice,” he told her as he punched buttons. “I don’t know what else to do. This was not supposed to be my job. I did the research, got the proof. That was supposed to be the end of it.”r />
  Research? What did that mean? Jeremy was employed as a researcher, but last she heard from Debbie, he still held the same job he’d landed right after they graduated from college. He did statistical research related to economics and housing trends, boring stuff like that. Certainly nothing remotely connected to jewelry.

  He held the phone to his ear. “Yeah, I got her.” Pause. “No, not the pin. Her. She doesn’t have it.”

  He jerked the phone away from his ear with a grimace. Liz heard a male voice shouting on the other end, though she couldn’t make out the words.

  “She says she locked it in a bank vault or something. Listen, you’re going to have to come deal with this. I’ve done everything I can.”

  Liz’s heart sank to her toes as she listened to Jeremy give directions for slipping into the basement of the lodge without passing the deputy sheriffs upstairs.

  Tim, where are you? I need help!

  “Tim, you have thirty seconds to tell me what’s going on. Where is my daughter?”

  Mr. Carmichael’s stern expression warned Tim that the man would not accept vague explanations. Time to come clean.

  “I don’t know where she is, sir. I’ll tell you everything. But I have to call the sheriff first.”

  The man paled. “Why do you have to call the sheriff?”

  Tim didn’t waste any more precious seconds, but pulled out his phone and dialed his boss’s number. Caitlin and Jazzy each placed comforting hands on Liz’s father’s arms, their anxiety apparent in the gazes they fixed on Tim.

  “Daniels.”

  Tim wasted no time with greetings. “She’s missing. We need a team out here to search this place top to bottom. Dogs, too.”

  “Slow down, Richards. Feed me the facts one at a time.”

  Sheriff Daniels’s even tone acted like a cool cloth on Tim’s burning mind. He walked into the kitchen area, mostly so he could turn his back on the alarm blossoming on Mr. Carmichael’s face.

  He forced himself to speak slowly. “Miss Carmichael was last seen fifteen minutes ago in her rented condo at Eagle Summit Lodge. She failed to appear for the wedding rehearsal. The last person to see her was her cousin, who said she returned to the condo to get her music.”

  Tim twisted around and scanned the room. He spotted a black leather folder with a shoulder strap on the floor beside the couch. He turned toward Liz’s friends with an unspoken question, and Caitlin nodded.

  “That’s her portfolio.”

  Tim swallowed, then told the sheriff, “The music she was after is still here.”

  “Anything missing? Look out of place?”

  He relayed the question to the others.

  “A napkin,” Jazzy said instantly. “From the table. There were four.”

  Sure enough, pale green folded cloth napkins sat before three of the four chairs. The fourth was missing.

  Both girls disappeared into the back bedrooms while Tim told the sheriff about the napkin.

  “Did she have the jewelry on her?” the sheriff asked.

  “No, sir. We locked it in my safe-deposit box this morning.”

  Caitlin and Jazzy returned to the living area. “Looks like everything else is here,” Jazzy said.

  “Her jacket is still hanging in the closet,” Caitlin added.

  Mr. Carmichael put his hands together and covered his mouth with his fingertips, as though in prayer. But his eyes never left Tim.

  “Nothing else is missing,” Tim told his boss. “Only Liz.”

  “All right. I’m sending in a team. Secure that room and meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes. I’ll call the two men on-site there and have them shut the place down. Nobody in or out.”

  Tim glanced at his watch. Ten past four. The slopes had just closed, which meant skiers would be coming down off the mountain right about now. If there were any who were staying at the lodge, they wouldn’t be happy about not being able to get to their rooms.

  Tough. Liz’s life might be at stake.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see you in fifteen.”

  He disconnected the call and announced to the three people watching him, “Okay, everybody out of here. We’ve got to secure this room.”

  “Now, wait just a minute.” Mr. Carmichael’s jaw had the same stubborn set Tim had seen so often in his daughter. “Nobody’s going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”

  Alarm pulsed along Tim’s nerves. He didn’t have time for explanations. Everything in him whispered that every minute counted, that they had to find Liz quickly. But her father deserved to know the danger.

  “Come on.” He jerked his head toward the door as he started to move. “I’ll explain on the way downstairs.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Jeremy shredded a couple more towels into strips with his pocket knife and knotted them together. As he used them to tie Liz’s hands behind her, she tried to control the panic rising like acid into her throat. She couldn’t make herself believe, even now, that Jeremy would really hurt her. Especially not for a piece of jewelry. Surely he placed some value on their former relationship.

  But she knew nothing about whomever he had called.

  When her hands had been secured behind her back, Jeremy stood in front of her. “Liz, I never meant for things to go this far.”

  Unable to speak, she glared up at him.

  “Honest. It all started a year or so ago when I met this guy on a chairlift over at Park City Mountain Resort. We got to talking on the ride up, and he told me he was a jeweler. He was telling me all about making jewelry and picking out good diamonds and how a well-made piece of jewelry is like art or something, worth way more than just the value of the gold and stones it’s made of.”

  A jewelry maker? Liz straightened in the hard chair. A memory surfaced, an image of Mr. Cole’s wide eyes as he examined Grandma’s brooch.

  “I don’t know anything about that stuff. The only jewelry I ever saw that was interesting was that pin your grandmother gave you. So I told him about it. It was just something to talk about to kill time on a long lift ride, you know?”

  Liz could almost hear the conversation. Jeremy always had wanted people to think he knew more than he did.

  “So he starts asking me questions, like how old it was and all that, and he tells me if that pin’s origin could be proved, it might be worth a lot of money.” Jeremy pulled another chair from the stack of dilapidated furniture. He straddled it, facing her. “Well, you know that’s what I do, Liz. I’m a researcher. True, I didn’t know anything about jewelry, but I know how to research. And I have a lot of free time on my hands, working for the government. So a couple of days later I decided to research your pin. I went down to the Family History Library and traced your family tree. And you know what? I traced your genealogy all the way back to England in the late 1700s.”

  In spite of the gag and the raw places the rough strips of terry cloth were rubbing on her wrists, a spark of interest kept Liz focused on his story. She could picture Jeremy doing all the things he described. Going to the Family History Library in downtown Salt Lake, where the LDS Church, otherwise known as the Mormons, maintained the world’s largest collection of genealogical records. Spending hours on the Internet. It was the kind of stuff he’d always liked to do.

  “And you’re not going to believe what I found out, Liz.” A smirk twisted his lips. “You’ve got some pretty notorious ancestors. Have you ever heard of King George IV of England?”

  Well, duh. Everybody knew about the kings of England. Liz nodded.

  “Ever heard of his famous mistress, Lady Jersey?”

  Liz shook her head. Where was this going?

  “At first I thought you might be related to British royalty.” Jeremy snickered. “But it turns out you’re just related to the mistress. Lady Jersey was pretty notorious back in the late 1700s, and she had a lot of influence over old Georgie when he first married. When George commissioned a jeweled pin as a wedding gift for his new wife, Caroline of Brunswick, Lady Jersey threw a fit.
So George commissioned an identical one for her.” He leaned forward over the chair back. “I actually located a satire sketch from that time period showing both Lady Jersey and Caroline of Brunswick wearing the matching pins. Do you know what that means?”

  Liz could guess. This pin was worth a lot more than the value Mr. Cole quoted her. If it could be proved that her family’s brooch was one of the two, and if someone managed to gain possession of both pieces and the proof …

  “Those two pins together, along with the sketch, are worth well over half a million dollars.” Jeremy rested his chin on his hands on top of the chair. “What do you think about that?”

  I think you’re a jerk and an idiot. She let her disgust show in her eyes.

  Jeremy snorted and shook his head. “I figured you’d at least be impressed with my research. Anyway, after a few years, George got himself another girlfriend and sent Lady Jersey packing. She kept the pin, of course, and when her daughter got married, she gave it to her as a wedding gift. That’s how your family tradition got started. Lady Jersey’s daughter was your great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.”

  A buzz sounded loud in the concrete room. Jeremy jerked to his feet. Tendons in his neck corded visibly when he read the text on the screen of his cell phone.

  “Come on.” His voice was tight. “He’s here. We’ve got to meet him outside.”

  The fear that had receded during Jeremy’s story returned and sent a wave of nausea through Liz’s stomach. She sucked in a deep breath through her nose and fought the urge to vomit. If she threw up with this gag in her mouth, she’d choke to death. Liz’s legs wobbled unsteadily as he pulled her to her feet.

  Jeremy marched her out of the little room into the long, cluttered hotel basement. He led her to the far end, toward a large metal exit. From its position, Liz knew it would let them outside on the corner nearest the slopes. She tried to picture that side of the building. It was opposite the lobby, as far away from the front entrance as they could get. Beyond that corner of the building was the tree-lined trail where … she gulped. Where she had seen a man cross the snow toward Jason Sinclair’s body two days ago. This corner of the building was secluded. Bare.