Ghost on the Case (Bailey Ruth #8)(5)



I was right beside her as she slid from the driver’s seat. She gently clicked the car door shut and turned on the flashlight long enough to spot a blacktop path. She knew the way, walked swiftly. The path curved along the shore of the lake. The water looked dark and motionless. The sound of music grew louder. We came around a curve, and the mansion rose to the left. Two wings extended from the broad center portion. The third floor was ablaze with lights shining out in wide swaths from ceiling-tall windows. Guests in formal attire, some dancing, some in convivial clumps, were visible. I left Susan long enough to rise in the air for a quick peek into an elegant ballroom that overlooked the terrace. I admired enormous chandeliers that likely had once graced a grand British country home. Drums thrummed, trumpets blared. The music sounded like a mixture of banshee wails and a buzz saw needing grease. I turned to see Susan picking her way from dark shadow to dark shadow, moving toward the wing where only an occasional light shone. I joined her as she reached the far side of the house.

Susan puffed out a sigh of relief and hurried up a paved walk. The music was now muffled, though the heavy boom of the drums was audible as thumps. Occasional windows were lighted in this wing, two on the second floor, one on the ground floor. A soft glow rimmed drawn curtains in a room near the back of the house. A few feet from the rectangle of light, she stopped so abruptly I bumped into her. She gave a startled gasp.

“Sor—” I broke off the instinctive apology as she stiffened into a hunted posture. Her head jerked back and forth as she sought the source of the voice.

I scarcely breathed and cautiously eased away from her.

The thin sharp beam of the flashlight flared. She twisted and turned the beam all around her, but the light revealed nothing more than drifting leaves on the flagstones and dense shadows beneath the evergreens that bordered the walk. The hand holding the flashlight trembled. She remained in that strained, tight posture for a moment longer, then with a sharply drawn breath turned and walked toward a door next to the rectangle of light. She stopped, slowly reached out. She took a deep breath, used her gloved right hand to grip the handle. She turned it and gave a little puff of relief when the door opened.

I was already inside when she stepped over the sill. A Tiffany lamp on a side table glowed, providing some light.

The large room was masculine, oak-paneled walls, heavy leather furniture, a desk as large as a pool table, wooden filing cabinets, thick floor-length red velvet curtains. One wall was covered by a glass case. Rows of bright fishing lures glittered on pale pine. A stuffed marlin mounted on more pinewood hung above the mantel of a fireplace. The opposite wall of bookcases was filled with knickknacks, likely souvenirs from travels. In a quick glance, I saw a bronze gong on a teak base, a porcelain elephant, a diorama of the Great Wall of China, a mud-stained polo stick, a lariat, a Cubs baseball cap, a miniature wooden sailboat with a plastic sail, a worn small teddy bear with a bow tie.

My nose wrinkled. I like the smell of coal smoke, but this room held the memory of smoldering cigars. An oversize brass ashtray was on one corner of the mahogany desk.

Susan closed the door gently. Her gaze flickered around the room, but there was no movement, no sound beyond the muffled thump from the faraway music. She took a quick breath, hurried across the room to the hall door, punched in the lock. Some of the tension eased from her body. Whirling, she looked across the room at an oil painting that hung behind the desk. An eighteenth-century highwayman looked masterful astride a rearing black stallion. He was attired in a red coat and black breeches, a musket in one hand. He gazed across the years, his lips curved in a cruel smile.

Susan took slow steps across the Oriental rug, skirted the desk, came up between the red leather desk chair and the painting. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder at the hall door, now securely locked.

Fumbling a little, she ran her left hand behind the frame of the painting.

I heard a click.

She gripped the beveled frame and pulled. The painting swung away from the wall to reveal a large safe inset in the wall. Quickly she tapped a keypad in the center of the safe door. There was not the slightest sound as she pulled the safe door open.

To say I was disturbed can scarcely attest to the turmoil in my mind. Clearly, this was not Susan’s house. Even more clearly, this was not her safe. She was dressed in black. She’d slipped into this room, and now with gloved hands she was reaching into a safe. If I appeared, asked her what she was doing, I could easily thwart what was obviously a robbery. Was that the course I should take?

If I’d ever wished for Wiggins it was now.

It was almost as if he whispered in my ear. Precept Three: “Work behind the scenes without making your presence known.”

Wiggins clearly had been concerned for Susan. Moreover, his expression was dismal when he concluded she was in an Impossible Situation. She received a phone call that made her fear for her little sister’s safety, and now, dressed in the modern equivalent of the eighteenth-century highwayman’s garb, she was reaching with both gloved hands into a safe hidden behind a painting in a grand mansion. I hardly had to jump to any conclusions to understand that Susan must have access to this safe because she worked for its owner and that she was willing to commit a crime to do what she must to protect her sister.

Her hands came out of the safe holding a shoe box, a bright red, white, and blue Reebok running shoe box. She tucked the box beneath one arm, closed the safe, pushed the painting back against the wall. A soft click.

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