A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(83)

The powder seemed to have taken her much more quickly than it had the first time. He touched her neck. Her pulse was slow, but strong. He was still a little worried. He had ordered the powder from an online pharmacy in Mexico. He didn’t know what sort of regulation there was in another country, how strong the powder was, or even if it was the same strength all the way through. But it was too late to undo this, and she had been fine the first time.

He began by taking her overnight bag into the bedroom, then unpacking it. He laid the dress she’d worn across the top of the chair and her shoes on the floor as though she had stepped out of them. He went into the bathroom and put her toothbrush and toothpaste, mouthwash, hairbrush, makeup case, and deodorant out on the counter by the second sink. He ran water over the toothbrush and shook it a bit to make it seem used. He even ran the fresh bar of soap under the faucet for a second and put it back on the soap dish.

He went into the bedroom, opened the covers on the bed to bare the sheets, and then returned to the living room to pick her up off the couch and carry her back to place her on the bed. Her shorts and tank top came off much more easily than the dress had last time. She had done much of his work for him.

This morning as he drove toward his storage facility, he remembered the rest. He went over each detail. He had started to pull the covers over her sleeping form, but he had made the mistake of letting his eyes linger too long on her. He was hoping she would believe she’d relented during the part of the evening she wouldn’t remember, and if that had happened, they probably would have had make up sex. He felt a little guilty, but then assured himself that he had the right, after all he’d done for her. He also knew that this might very well be the last time.

Now he wished that he could still be at home to try to guide her to the proper interpretation of what she would see when she woke up. He had planned to be there. He had called to give Verna Machak the day off so she wouldn’t be in the way, but a few minutes later he’d remembered that Salamone hadn’t come to the storage office on his usual day, so he probably would come today.

JANE DROVE PAST DAVID CRANE’S house at eight fifteen, and on to the plaza to park her car. She returned on foot and went through the little woods to watch the house. The Range Rover was gone, and she knew it would be at least two hours before the housekeeper, Mrs. Machak, arrived. She moved to the house and walked slowly and quietly, checking windows to see if the girl Chelsea was still there.

Jane moved from window to window, but the house appeared to be empty. There were a few rooms that she suspected only opened onto the central Japanese garden and the broad hallway with the pillars. She moved into the garden and looked. There was an empty office, a living room, and a couple of rooms that had no obvious purpose. She followed the wall and realized she had misinterpreted the structure of the building. It seemed to fold twice, to wrap itself around the garden, giving the illusion that the garden was completely surrounded.

She saw that there was a louvered window in the pantry beside the kitchen. She touched it, wiggled one of the louvers a little, and saw what she had been hoping for. The sheets of glass were tempered—maybe even unbreakable—but they were mounted in an aluminum framework that opened and closed with a crank. She took out her pocketknife and used its blade to bend the frames holding the first two louvers, then slipped the first one out. She removed the next and the next the same way. Soon she had all eight out and piled neatly on the ground beside her.

Jane hoisted herself up and slithered in the window, stopped and listened for a minute, pulled herself through and listened again, and then moved out of the kitchen. She looked for the bedrooms first. People who had something to hide seemed to be most comfortable keeping it close to them while they slept. The row of bedrooms was where she had thought it would be, off the gallery on the right side where there was a view of the garden, but the windows were shielded by the protruding front wing.

There were a couple of model bedrooms that looked as though nobody ever stepped inside except to dust. Then she reached the master suite. She slipped inside and saw the girl. She was lying on the bed, fast asleep, so Jane backed out and closed the door to keep any noise from reaching her.

She went to the office she’d seen from the outside, closed the door, and began to search the drawers of the big desk. It was an impressive piece of furniture, the top of it made from two pieces of a large tree with a subtle pattern of whorls. In the inside top drawer she found a Kimber .45 caliber pistol. She checked the magazine and found it loaded.

Seeing the gun reminded her of the one she’d found in Nick Bauermeister’s toolbox. It made her shift her search to places that might hold stolen jewelry. She didn’t find any, or anything else that looked as though it had been hidden. The filing cabinets were full of file folders that contained Crane’s personal financial records, mostly monthly brokerage reports. Other drawers seemed to be duplicates of the financial records of the Box Farm Personal Storage Company—property taxes, business taxes, and other dull paper. She moved out of the office and worked her way through the house, listening for sounds that would mean Chelsea was awake.

When she finished her first circuit of the rooms it was still only nine, and she had at least an hour before Mrs. Machak would show up. She thought about the pistol. It had been a promising find, but plenty of people owned handguns. They were legal and common. Nick Bauermeister had been killed with a rifle, so the gun proved nothing. She turned her attention to finding a hiding place that was long and narrow, but she was beginning to feel discouraged. The murder weapon was probably either destroyed or still in the possession of the shooter.