Ariadne's Thread

by Marie Treanor

  Shug stopped dead and stared at her. “Gone? How can it be gone? You were in the room the whole time, weren’t you?”

  Ignoring the inconvenient question, Addie shrugged. “Can you guys get out from this floor without it? Because I’m pretty sure I can’t. If I break my ankle, I won’t be able to drive. I’ll have to go out the front door and meet you. Can we leave now, please?”

  “Without the stuff? It’s not just we won’t get paid, we’ll be mince!”

  “You’ll be mince,” Addie corrected with the most satisfaction she’d felt all night. “Look, there must be something here your man wants, even if it’s not money. He can’t have picked this house at random. What’s in there?”

  Joining the throng around the safe, she knelt on the floor and picked up the large pile of papers Shug had rejected.

  “Music,” she said blankly. “Screeds and screeds of sheet music…hand written…”

  The letters across the top of one page seemed to dance before her eyes. “Sonata for J” by Christopher Maxwell.

  “Maxwell…” She stared at Tammy. “You’re Christopher Maxwell’s granddaughter? Great-granddaughter? And your brother…”

  Her brother was John Maxwell, the great concert pianist who had been tried last year for the murder of his wife. The verdict had been “Not Proven”.

  Jesus Christ. No wonder he’d seemed familiar. She’d seen him play at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. Twice. And tonight she’d played his piano. In front of him. She cringed at the mauling she’d given his grandfather’s great work—no wonder he had been grumpy… And the man who may or may not have killed his wife was not the man to anger lightly. That journalist’s strange questions made a lot more sense now, as did the overheard conversations.

  With difficulty, Addie dragged her mind back to the important issue here.

  “They’re valuable,” she said flatly. “Original manuscripts by Christopher Maxwell, the greatest Scottish composer ever. Some say he was the greatest British composer, better even than Elgar.”

  “Who?” said Shug, bewildered.

  “Land of Hope and Glory,” Jim explained helpfully.

  “That’s shite,” said Shug succinctly, turning back to Addie. “So you’re saying this stuff is what we’re meant to take?”

  “I’m saying it’s valuable. I don’t know what you were told to take.”

  “Contents of the safe,” Shug remembered. “I just assumed it was money. Or at least jewelry.” He regarded the heap of papers. “All right. Nab it and let’s get out of here.”

  Obediently, Jim began to stuff it into the sports bag he’d brought for the night’s loot. “Not like that,” Addie said alarmed. “That manuscript is a hundred years old. Be careful with it!”

  Snatching the papers from him, she smoothed them, tidying them in her hands while her eyes scanned for an envelope or some card to protect them. Under the other girl’s curious stare, she reached up to the desk, brought down a large envelope and slid the papers inside in two bundles.

  Which is when another name caught her attention. Music written on newer paper. The writing across the top was in a strong, distinctive hand, but less copper-plate than Christopher’s, sloppier. More notes littered the margins.

  She said slowly, “This is by John Maxwell.”

  “Is that good?” Shug asked.

  “Not as good as Christopher.” She began to draw it back out. “We’ll just leave it…”

  “Wait a minute,” said Shug, frowning with the effort to remember anything not directly associated with himself. “Is he not the bugger who did in his wife? Scottish pianist? That’ll be valuable and all, then. Take the lot.”

  Addie, who’d acted more from instinct than thought, reluctantly pushed the papers back in and placed the envelope inside the sports bag. She supposed it was harder to steal from someone you’d actually met, especially something so personal. Her gut twisted. But hadn’t she met Christopher, too? Was he not the Edwardian ghost in the piano room? Dredging up her memory of old pictures, she tried to match faces.

  “What about her?” Jim asked, interrupting her train of thought.

  “She’ll scream as soon as we’re out of the room,” Shug said with displeasure. “And then we’ll have a trail of pissed teuchters after us as we’re trying to get away.”

  “I won’t,” Tammy whispered.

  “Aye, right,” said Shug with heavy sarcasm. “We’ll take her with us.”

  “We can’t,” Addie protested. “You’re going to have to climb out the window! Without a rope!”

  “Jim can pass her down to me,” Shug said stubbornly.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Addie said. “Leave her with me till you’ve gone. I’ll stuff her mouth and lock the door—no one’ll hear her for ages. There’s a party in full swing downstairs. Give me the gun, and she’ll be good.”

  Shug hesitated over the last bit. The struggle waged visibly across his thin face before he eventually began to hand over the weapon.

  Jim said disparagingly, “She doesn’t need that, Shug. She can keep the lassie quiet without it.”

  Shug snatched the gun back, and Addie glared at her brother. Shug was still capable of shooting someone before this night was done.

  Chapter Three

  As the door closed behind the two men, the women regarded each other. Tammy’s face looked a little wild now. The fear seemed to have vanished with the gun, leaving reaction and new courage born of hope.

  “Don’t,” Addie said severely, “even think about it. Like the man said, I don’t need a gun. Ever been to Castlemilk, hen? No, I thought not.”

  The girl closed her mouth. No way had she been to the great, sprawling housing scheme on the edge of Glasgow, but she’d heard of it. Uncertainty was back in her face, so Addie felt quite justified in further blackening Castlemilk’s not entirely deserved reputation.

  “And if you don’t want that mad bastard with the gun back here, you keep your mouth shut for a good fifteen minutes so we can get clear. Do you understand?”

  “I’m helpless, not stupid.”

  “Good. I’m going to go now.” Addie stood.

  “Bye,” said the girl sarcastically.

  Addie flicked her a quick grin. “Happy New Year.” Rummaging in the key-tray, she found the one handily labeled “Office”. Exactly why Shug and Jim hadn’t used it earlier was beyond her. “Has anyone ever told you your house is haunted?”

  The girl smiled derisively. “Spooked you, did they?”

  “They? There are more of them?”

  “Who did you see? The maid with the kitchen knife? The naked bloke? The one in the kilt? The kids?”

  “Actually, I think it was your great-grandfather.”

  “Beardy guy in a stuffy suit?”

  Addie stared at her. “Don’t you mind living here with…all of them?”

  Tammy shrugged theatrically. “They don’t come near me now. It’s Johnny they plague the life out of. Especially old Christopher.”

  A hundred questions started to Addie’s tongue. She’d even opened her mouth to start asking them before she remembered what she was meant to be doing. Escaping the scene of the crime.

  She reached for the door handle. Tammy said, “They’ll follow you, you know—the ghosts. Hunt you down wherever you go, haunt you to madness until you return what’s ours.”

  Addie grinned. “Nice try, Tammy—but I don’t believe you.”

  “Watch out for the psycho with the gun,” Tammy said vindictively as Addie opened the door.

  Addie’s smile twisted. “Honey, I’ve been watching out for him most of my life.”

  ef

  For John Maxwell, the party had come to life. Somewhere ’round about the time he’d ejected the Glaswegian girl from his study, he’d stopped wishing his guests would all fuck off. Stopped being angry that he’d let his mother’s shining, pleading eyes talk him into the party in the first place.

  Why? Because a sexy girl had looked at him without the ve
iled fear he’d grown inured to. Because he’d actually enjoyed crossing verbal swords with her. Because her casual touch had inspired an unexpected rush of lust, reminding him, if he needed reminding, of his long months of celibacy.

  He didn’t even care that he couldn’t immediately find her again. She wasn’t local. A friend of Tammy’s from Glasgow, she must be staying the night. He’d taken no interest in the domestic arrangements until now, but he reckoned he could afford to be patient for once.

  Nevertheless, moving among his thinning guests, he almost felt he was hunting—which brought a self-deprecating smile to his lips. He wasn’t exactly an inexperienced teenager on the pull, desperate for a quick fuck on a Friday night.

  Although he wouldn’t mind…

  Where had she disappeared to? Somewhere with Tammy, maybe—he couldn’t see his sister, either.

  As he made his way back into the hall, he reflected that Kate was quite an unusual friend for Tammy: unpretentious in speech and manners; direct, prickly, with more than a hint of fire. An intriguing mixture of brashness and vulnerability he found oddly touching—especially when she snapped at him to cover up whatever attraction she felt. And he was almost sure she felt something. Her eyes gave her away. Although that could be wishful thinking on his part because the way she moved, so quick and unconsciously graceful, set off all sorts of erotic fantasies in his imagination…

  Liz Conway emerged from the dining room. Maxwell swerved the other way and surprised the speculative stares of a group of guests. At least two were neighbours he once counted as friends.

  Long ago, he’d refused to let such stares and whispered conversations behind his back hurt him. Though it was bloody rude to do it in his house while accepting his hospitality.

  “Happy New Year,” he said cynically, raising his glass to them. They almost fell over themselves to return the greeting, but he’d already moved past them.

  Liz caught up with him before he’d even got as far as the grandfather clock. He sighed, biting back his ill-tempered words for the sake of his newly discovered good mood. But he’d rarely met anyone so single-minded as Liz, and being her pet project had grown irksome.

  “Johnny. How’s it going?”

  “Fantastic,” he returned, dropping his glass into his free pocket for later. Liz’s eyes widened as they followed it. “Seen Tammy?”

  “She was with Lady Maxwell. Then she went upstairs.”

  He stretched his lips. “Not much gets by you, does it, Liz?”

  “I’m a journalist. It’s my job to observe. Which reminds me, I’m not sure I trust that Kate girl. She seems quite…out of place here.”

  “Wrong accent?” John mocked. At least Liz had the grace to blush, although she didn’t back down.

  “Common as muck springs to mind, and it has nothing to do with her accent. Who is she?”

  “No idea.”

  “Well I hope you watch what you say to her. This kind of party is really too open.”

  He stared at her. “It’s New Year.” Was she actually warning him that Kate was a reporter? Of a less respectable variety than her own? He laughed aloud, then wondered if it was true, and if he cared.

  “It won’t be so funny if you’re splashed all over the front pages again,” Liz snapped. He only grinned, and she stepped closer, veiling her irritation. He didn’t move away, merely regarded her with the cool mockery that kept most people at a manageable distance.

  “Johnny…” she began.

  “Got to go, Johnny, my lad,” interrupted Archie Brown, another jovial neighbour. He and his wife Betty and his daughter and son-in-law already had their coats on. “Got to put the wife to bed before she disgraces me,” Archie explained with a wink.

  “The wife” gave Archie a hearty thump on the shoulder that would have felled many lesser men flat. Feeling Liz’s disappointment battering at his back, Johnny began to walk with his departing guests to the front door, where Betty gave him an unexpected hug and a wet kiss on the cheek. Amazing what a bucket full of booze will do…

  Which is when, over Betty’s plump shoulder, he caught sight of Kate again.

  She was running lightly down the stairs, trying to avoid looking at him. Under the slinky red top, her breasts undulated, making his mouth water. Her untidy hair flew even more askew, and yet somehow that only made her sexier than ever. Hastily, Maxwell released Betty before she could notice his fast-growing erection.

  Something soared in him, at once glad and predatory, and he smiled right at Kate. Inviting her to share, inviting her to… He wasn’t quite sure. But God, she looked so fuckable…

  Caught in his gaze, Kate’s eyes widened, and for an instant she froze.

  Even over the distance between them, he saw he hadn’t been wrong. She did want him. Either she didn’t know or didn’t care about his past. And in a fit of lust, Maxwell realized he didn’t care, either, if she was a tabloid journalist ferreting for salacious copy. He’d give her it on a plate just for that look of genuine desire.

  For the first time in more than a year, a sense of fun began to bubble up inside him. Kicking the front door shut behind him, he resolved to enjoy the hunt.

  ef

  It should have been easy now. Home straight. Just getting out of the house had become Addie’s prime concern. Actually going home seemed so distant that it wasn’t worth worrying about. It was right over there with the fantasy about moving out of Castlemilk and into that nice little house with a garden and a piano, and a music teacher for Kate who lived just up the road.

  She should have been able to walk down the stairs, mingle with the guests as she drifted through the hallway and escape via the front door without anyone noticing. But inevitably, as she reached the stairs and looked down, the first person she saw was her host, John Maxwell, concert pianist and suspected wife killer, standing right in front of the bloody door with a whole bunch of people who looked ready to make their departure—all faux fur coats and loud laughter.

  A middle aged woman threw her arms around his neck, soundly kissing his cheek. John Maxwell tolerated the embrace rather than returned it with any enthusiasm, but at least he smiled faintly. Then, over the woman’s shoulder, he saw Addie descending the stairs, and his smile became real. Flatteringly, stomach-churningly real.

  Desire hit Addie with unexpected force. Not just the powerful physical attraction she had felt earlier, but a fierce longing. Why couldn’t it be real? Why couldn’t she be a friend visiting with Tammy—whom, in spite of everything, she rather liked? Why couldn’t she go down there and have a New Year drink with this amazing man who, whatever his private life, played music like a god?

  Why did she have to be the lying little schemie, a trespasser, doing what she knew was wrong just to get an easy way out of the mess she’d made of her own life?

  God, he was coming toward her. She darted glances to left and right as she reached the foot of the stairs, even swerved to the side in a hopeless effort to avoid him, but inevitably, she found him right in her path, his mouth curved in a crooked smile.

  “Elusive Kate,” he observed. “Where are you off to now?”

  He was even more overpowering than she remembered. This man killed his wife and got away with it! Isn’t that what “Not Proven” always meant…?

  Hoping her voice wouldn’t shake, she said, “Looking for Tammy. Or a drink,” she added, inspired, as she realized he wasn’t holding one, either for her or himself.

  “Ah.” He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a short glass tumbler with a hefty measure of amber liquid. Addie blinked.

  “How did you do that?”

  “Practice.”

  Since she couldn’t do anything else, she took the glass from him. When their fingers touched, electricity sparked from his through her whole body. God, why couldn’t it be real? Well, maybe just for this moment, she could pretend…

  What, that he didn’t kill his wife? Or that you haven’t just locked his sister in an upstairs room? That you haven’t just
stolen his unique work? And his great-grandfather’s valuable original manuscripts?

  Unexpectedly, his finger touched her cheek, making her flinch from his gentleness. His hand fell away at once. “I’m sorry. You just looked so sad. What’s the matter?”

  She smiled. Pretend, pretend, it’s only for a moment… “Nothing,” she said brightly. “Nothing at all. Happy New Year.”

  He sighed, producing another glass from his other pocket, and clinked glasses. “What is it about New Year? All humbug, superstitious nonsense and very temporary bonhomie. And yet you still find yourself hoping.”

  “Hoping for what?” She took a cautious sip from the glass. Fiery and smooth, its flavor filled her mouth, burned down the length of her throat.

  A smile flickered across his face and was lost. “For it to get better. What about you? What do you want from this year?”

  “A house,” said Addie promptly. “And a piano.”

  “To make it all go away?”

  Arrested, she stared at him. He spoke sardonically and yet there was a disturbing compassion in his deep, dark eyes.

  “Whatever your trouble, it’s only transitory,” he said. “You’re far better living your life than losing it in…obsession.”

  Greatly daring, she said, “Is that what you do?”

  His lips twisted. “It’s what I’ve done. But I’d rather talk about you—can I tell you something?”

  “Sure.” Don’t get involved in this, Add—get yourself out the door. Any minute now, someone’s going to discover Tammy locked upstairs… She’s going to scream… She lifted the glass to her lips.

  He said, “You’re beautiful.”

  Startled, she almost choked. “Aye, right,” she said cynically and became fascinated by the way his eyes laughed at her while the rest of his face remained straight.

  “And that’s the other reason I like you.” His gaze dropped to the region of her lips, causing those butterflies in her stomach to tighten once more. Heat began to spread outward. She wondered how he would kiss, how he would taste.