Devious: Book Five in the On The Run series

by Sara Rosett

  11

  ZOE PRESSED THE MODERN DOORBELL outside Staircase House for the second time that day and braced for a confrontation. She hoped that by going to Staircase House in person, rather than calling Poppy, it would make it harder for Poppy to say no. Zoe put the odds at about a seventy percent chance that Poppy would close the door in her face. She didn’t seem to be a person who was easily swayed.

  After a few seconds, the iron-studded door swung open, and Poppy said, “Oh, good. I was going to call you.”

  “You were?” Zoe glanced around uncertainly, unsure how to handle the offhanded greeting. She’d expected ranting or a quick door slam.

  “Yes,” Poppy said. “Come in, please. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  Zoe followed her up the curving staircase to the high-ceiling room. Poppy gestured to the seats in front of the oversized fireplace, and Zoe settled onto a cushion, amazed that Poppy had invited her inside. Only a few hours earlier, Poppy had been accusing her of being a thief.

  Poppy sat down in a chair across from Zoe. The painting was still on the end table, but the brown wrapping paper had been removed. Zoe had taken a seat as close to the painting as she could get. She scanned the painting, trying to memorize every detail, from the frame to the brushstrokes.

  “My brother just rang me, which is a bit unusual. We’re not extremely close. He nattered on about several inconsequential things, but finally got around to what he really wanted—information about this.” She raised her eyebrows and shifted her gaze toward the painting. “He has never shown any interest in art or paintings. Something is going on. I want you to find out why he called me out of the blue to ask about A View of Edinburgh. What is so special about this painting?”

  “Yes, of course, I can look into that,” Zoe said, even though she wasn’t exactly sure how she’d go about it. Harrington had said she had latitude to work on her own. He might not have been thinking of quite this much latitude, but she couldn’t pass up this opportunity. She’d figure out a way to make it work for her and for Poppy. The important thing was that it would give her access to the painting. And Poppy was a family friend of Harrington’s, another reason to say yes and try to keep her happy. Although, Poppy seemed like the sort of person who lived most of her life in a moody, dissatisfied state. Perhaps “not angry” was a better way to describe the emotional state Zoe hoped to achieve with Poppy. “Perhaps he heard about the theft?” Zoe said.

  “I’m sure Robbie heard about it. He didn’t ask directly, but I know my brother. He tiptoed around the subject and was careful not to mention it, which means he knew. He could never keep secrets from me. He’s transparent, at least to me. What I want to know is how did he find out, and why does he care? He wouldn’t waste a minute of his time on it, if there wasn’t some angle for him.”

  “May I?” Zoe asked, reaching for the painting.

  “Yes.”

  Zoe picked it up carefully, mentally telling herself to go slow and examine each part of it. She’d already looked at the brushstrokes and the painting itself with Violet, but she studied the scene again. No amazing revelation popped out at her. Next, she carefully looked at each section of the thick wooden frame. It was solidly constructed. No cracks or fissures marred the surface, except for the scratch that was also visible in the photograph that Justine had given her. Zoe ran her fingers over the scratch, but the wood didn’t give or shift under the pressure of her fingers. Zoe turned her attention to the back of the painting. Yellowed with age, the only mark was a peeling sticker in the bottom left-hand corner with a zero followed by a seven.

  “What is that?” Poppy had shifted around and was standing behind Zoe’s chair, peering over her shoulder.

  “A cataloging mark, I think. Do you have an inventory of your family’s paintings? Or of Annabel Foley’s?”

  Poppy frowned as she strode over to a set of bookshelves. “I do remember someone mentioning an inventory…perhaps a solicitor? Yes, I think that was it. He recommended an update as the last one was done years and years ago. Positively ancient, he said. Probably by Aunt Aggie. She had that Victorian cataloging and classification bug. She wrote down everything.” Poppy ran her finger along the shelves. “Yes, here they are. The Agatha Foley section. She was Annabel’s sister. Annabel was the visual one, the painter. Aggie was into words. They were quite a pair. Very liberated for their time. Traveled the world together—without a chaperone, which was quite shocking in those days—after their father died. If anyone catalogued Annabel’s paintings it would be Aggie.”

  Zoe kept in contact with her immediate relatives, but she knew little about any of her relatives beyond her grandparents’ generation. What would it be like to know what your ancestors did during their lifetime and to call them by nicknames? It was a strange concept to Zoe, who tended to keep her distance from her relatives. Being let down by the people closest to her had made her skittish, but there was a warmth in Poppy’s tone as she talked about Annabel and Aggie that Zoe hadn’t heard before.

  Zoe carefully turned the painting back over and put it down face up on the table then joined Poppy at the bookshelves. Poppy pulled out several dusty books. “Here, have a look at these.” She handed a stack of books to Zoe then motioned her to a table at the back of the room near a floor-to-ceiling window.

  Zoe placed the books on the table. Some were hardback books with rich gold lettering on the spines and beautiful swirled patterns on the endpapers. Two of the books were softbound, the pages and covers flexing under Zoe’s fingers. Strings tied in a knot held the loose leather cover around one of the softbound books. The books looked intriguing, but her thoughts were still with the painting.

  “Earlier, you mentioned a family legend about a treasure. Could that have something to do with the painting?”

  Poppy shifted her head, shaking her hair away from her face as she looked up at the ceiling. “My father thought it did, but as I told you, he wasn’t exactly thinking straight near the end, if you know what I mean.”

  “Perhaps you’d better tell me about the legend anyway. It may not be true, but if someone thinks it is…then that could account for the sudden interest in the painting.”

  Poppy gripped the back of one of the chairs. “It’s just a silly rhyme. It can’t seriously mean anything.”

  “What is it?” When Zoe arrived, Poppy hadn’t offered to take her coat or bag, so Zoe still had her messenger bag slung across her chest. She dug inside and found her notebook.

  Poppy raised her eyebrows. “Fine. ‘The rosy-fingered vista of the empress will guide you to the sister.’”

  Zoe scribbled it down then looked up, perplexed. “I don’t get it.”

  “No one does. It doesn’t make sense. It was fun to imagine it meant something when we were kids, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

  Zoe glanced at the stack of books. “It does mention a sister.”

  Poppy flicked her hand. “Of course, that’s what Robbie and I latched on to when we were kids, but we hunted all over Frampton and here, too. Nothing related to the sisters at all.”

  “But you said they were great travelers. Were they the ones who supposedly brought back something valuable?”

  Poppy pulled back a chair wearily and gestured for Zoe to have a seat at the table. “I’ll give you the whole story,” she said in a resigned tone. “Aggie and Annabel did travel, and they brought back all sorts of things…paintings, books, statues, scraps of parchment, jewelry. They were quite big on relics. They brought back lots of scraps of papyrus from Egypt—copies of the New Testament—they were thrilled with them. They were both deeply religious. It was the era, you know. But they donated all of that—the papyrus—to the university.” Poppy ran her hand along the grain of the wood table. “Robbie’s friend Ivan, who is rather a book fiend, looked into it. When they were kids, he and Robbie used the legend as an excuse to creep into every dusty corner they could find. They also dug up the front lawn at Frampton one holiday when they were home from schoo
l. Father was incensed and put a stop to all their treasure hunting. But I do know that Ivan checked later about the papyrus, because he’s bookish and into that sort of thing, but there was nothing to it.”

  “What happened to Aggie and Annabel? Did they talk about a treasure? Is that how the legend started?” Zoe glanced at the stack of books with renewed interest.

  “No, the word ‘treasure’ is never mentioned.” Poppy touched the corner of one of the books. “I’ve read Aggie’s travelogues and her diary.” Poppy’s eyebrows pressed together creating a tiny wrinkle between them. “They both died in the winter of 1895, within a few weeks of each other. Influenza. Aggie mentioned the rhyme in her diary that year. They were getting a bit weaker and weren’t traveling as much. They had stayed in England, and Aggie was cataloging all of Annabel’s paintings.” She gestured to one of the softbound leather books. “Aggie became ill first. She liked puzzles and puns and cyphers. I think Annabel made up the rhyme to entertain her sister.”

  Zoe looked up from her notebook. “You sound as if they were friends of yours.”

  She shrugged. “Big lonely house. Lots of time on my hands when I was a kid. I read.”

  “What happened after they died? Did they have children?”

  “No. Never married. The estate went to a nephew, Fredrick. He was awful. The aunts said he was a wastrel, and they were quite right. He ran the estate into the ground. Fortunately he didn’t live long enough to completely destroy everything. My grandfather inherited the estate when Fred had one too many and fell out the window of a brothel.”

  “Wow.”

  Poppy nodded. “A real winner, I know.”

  Zoe looked at her notes. “So Fredrick…any mention of the treasure associated with him?”

  “He wasn’t quite as good a record keeper as Aggie, but he did have all the walls ripped out at Frampton—that’s another family story. Went quite potty about it, apparently. Insisted that the treasure was there and that the aunts had hidden it from him since they disliked him.” Poppy’s gaze shifted to the high ceilinged room. “Thank goodness he never came here. He hated the north. I’d dread to see what he would have done to this place. We probably wouldn’t have any paneling at all.” Poppy scooted her chair back. “That’s enough about my family history. I’m sure you’re completely bored.”

  “No. It’s fascinating stuff.” Zoe closed her notebook. “If you want to know absolutely everything about the painting, then there are some tests that should be run on it,” Zoe said.

  “Do it. You can arrange that?” Poppy asked as she stood.

  “Yes. I know an art dealer who could take a look at it as well.”

  “Set it up.” Poppy retrieved the painting and put it on the table beside the books.

  “The person I have in mind lives in Paris,” Zoe said. “It may take a few days to coordinate travel for him to come here.”

  “Then see if you can take it to him,” Poppy said. “I’ll cover the travel costs, of course. You’re surprised,” she said, studying Zoe’s face.

  “Well, it’s just that earlier today you wanted me out of here. You said it was a family matter and were clearly anxious to end any questions about the painting.” And there was also the little accusation of me being a thief, Zoe thought.

  “Yes, I have made a complete turnaround, haven’t I?” Poppy ran her hand along the back of one of the chairs. “Before, I thought it was only Justine involved.” She rolled her eyes. “Justine is rather slippery. I was so desperate to get someone to care for Father, someone who wouldn’t upset him, that I turned a blind eye to her personality. I realize now that I shouldn’t have done that. Foolish on my part, but now that Robbie is interested in the painting…” Her words trailed off as she drew the painting to her and looked at it. “Robbie is a good kid, but he’s frighteningly optimistic and has a tendency to be drawn to every possible scheme to make money. He actually fell into one that made money, a price comparison mobile app, but I’m afraid that the money he made from that thing is long gone. I’m sure he’s shifted it into other ‘opportunities.’ With him, it is like tossing money into the wind. I’ve tried to talk to him about long-term investments, but he laughs and says why accept a return of a few percent when the return could be over one-hundred percent?” She shook her head. “He doesn’t ever seem to remember that the one-hundred percent return is like a lightning strike—possible, but extremely rare and almost impossible to predict.” She returned the painting to the varnished surface of the table. “The police have found Justine. She was attacked and is in the hospital. Did you know that?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said simply, not wanting to mention that the police had requested her presence to discuss it.

  Poppy went on, “I’m sure Robbie had nothing to do with that—he isn’t violent. Just the opposite, in fact. So charming and considerate that he made my friends’ match-making mothers drool. But while he’s sweet, I’m afraid he may have been drawn into something…dangerous, maybe even thuggish. I need to find out why he’s suddenly interested in A View of Edinburgh, and if it is connected in any way to Justine.”

  Zoe decided to keep the information that Carla was digging into about Theo to herself for the moment. She wanted to know more before she shared those details with Poppy.

  “How soon can you start?” Poppy asked.

  “I’ll make some calls today and let you know about the tests.”

  “Do you need a retainer?” Poppy asked.

  “No, I’m sure Harrington wouldn’t want to do that since you’re a family friend, and there was a—ah, misunderstanding earlier. What I will need to do is send you a statement of work. It will detail exactly what I’ll do. I’ll need you to sign it, then I’ll return and pick up the painting.”

  “Let’s do it now.” Poppy went to a desk and opened a drawer. She returned to the table with a legal pad. “I’m not worried you’ll steal the painting, if that’s what you’re concerned about. You’ve already returned it once. I think I can trust you with it.”

  Zoe reached for the paper. “Thank you for trusting me, I do appreciate it. But I will need the agreement signed. In case there are any questions.”

  “And you’ll report back to me the moment you find anything.” It was a statement, not a question.

  12

  ZOE LEFT STAIRCASE HOUSE WITH the painting wrapped in a fresh layer of brown paper, the original statement of work with Poppy’s signature, and the old books from the Foley library. She called Harrington. He answered as she stepped out of the tunnel-like passageway to the Royal Mile. “I have some good news. Poppy wants me to research the painting.”

  “She wants to know what all the fuss is about, does she?” Harrington said. “I can’t say I’m surprised. You accepted the job?”

  “Yes. I know I should have contacted you before—”

  “No,” Harrington interrupted her, “you did exactly the right thing. Poppy is not someone who likes to be kept waiting. If you’d put her off while you checked with me, she likely would have contacted someone else. If we can close the loop on this painting, find some answers, it will be to the benefit of both Poppy and us.”

  Zoe let out a breath she’d been holding. “Okay, good. I’m glad you see it that way, too.” Harrington said he would send her a list of tests that she could check against those that Masard would recommend then signed off.

  Zoe went straight to the hotel and popped the painting in the safe in her room. It fit with millimeters to spare. As she closed the safe, her phone chimed with a text.

  It was from Jack. On flight. See you in the a.m.

  Zoe dropped down on the bed as she tapped out a reply. So much to tell you when you get here. A lot has happened.

  Good or bad? He texted back immediately.

  Mostly good. Getting rehired to uncover the truth about the painting was a good thing in Zoe’s book. Don’t worry. Not under arrest or anything.

  Glad to hear it. Jack finished off his message with one of those happy-faced emoticons,
which made Zoe smile. Who would have thought that her straight-laced, all-business husband would send emoticons? This one was a happy face blowing a kiss. He sent one more message. Closing door now. Have to go. See you soon.

  Zoe settled back against the headboard and dialed Masard’s number. He answered in French, but switched to English as soon as Zoe identified herself.

  “Henri, I have the painting.”

  “I knew you could convince her to see it again—” he broke off abruptly. Then he said, “No, I won’t ask you how you obtained it.”

  “In a perfectly honest way. The woman who owns it has hired me to find out why it is suddenly so popular. I’d like you to take a look at it. I can bring it to you. Would you be able to look at it tomorrow?”

  “No, I cannot. I am not in Paris. At the moment, I am in Salzburg.”

  Zoe opened her laptop. How far was Salzburg, and how hard would it be to get there?

  “There are, of course, experts closer to you,” Masard said.

  “Yes, but I know you. I trust you, and Harrington does, too.” She clicked away on the keyboard for a few seconds and studied the results. She’d learned the hard way to stick with the people she knew she could trust. Masard had proved himself to her and Jack. Normally, she favored the fastest way to accomplish something, but she wasn’t about to pick speed over reliability now.

  “I can be there tomorrow by noon. Could you work me into your schedule, or are you on vacation?”

  Masard’s laugh rolled through the phone. “On holiday? What is that? No, I am working, looking over an estate, but I would be happy to see you tomorrow evening.”

  “Wonderful. I also need to arrange the other tests you mentioned.”

  “Ah, yes. The infrared reflectography, x-rays, and such. I can give you some names.”

  “And costs, too,” Zoe said, thinking that Poppy had okayed a trip to have Masard look at the painting. A flight to Salzburg might cost slightly more than a trip to Paris, but with Europe’s low airfares it would be in the same price range, so Zoe thought Poppy would be okay on that change, but she had no idea how much the tests would cost. She wanted to be clear with Poppy about the expenses involved.