Lake Silence (The Others #6)(82)
“Does this have something to do with what I sensed when we played the Murder game?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Grimshaw waited at the top of the stairs. When Julian joined him, he knocked on the door that didn’t have a company name before turning the knob and going in.
The small receptionist’s desk was bare of everything but a notepad, a pen, and a telephone. It looked old and ornate and in pristine condition, making Grimshaw wonder when the furnishings had been moved into this office—and how anyone had gotten the furniture up the narrow flight of stairs. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases created a partial wall that divided the reception area from what he assumed was a private office.
“Come in, gentlemen,” Ilya Sanguinati said.
No surprise that Ilya had known who had entered his space. The terra indigene could communicate with one another over distances, and the driver would have told him who was climbing the stairs for a meeting.
Grimshaw walked to the opening that served as a doorway and stopped, surprised at the lush plants that filled the credenza beneath the windows overlooking Main Street. The desk in this room was twice the size of the other and was also an antique, but it had a monitor and keyboard on one side and a telephone and trays for paperwork on the other side.
Ilya Sanguinati looked up and blanked the screen on the monitor. “Officer Grimshaw. Mr. Farrow. Is there something I can do for you?”
Grimshaw settled in one of the visitors’ chairs while Julian took the other. “Yorick Dane is in town, staying at Ineke’s.”
Julian snapped to attention and swore quietly.
“I’m surprised she let him through the door,” Ilya said.
“He used an alias. Vicki DeVine identified him during a ruckus this morning. He and his wife aren’t scheduled to check out until tomorrow, but I’m sure Ineke will want to toss him out as soon as Dr. Wallace examines him. I need your help to persuade her to let him stay for the rest of today.”
“Why would I do that?” Ilya asked in a mild way that filled Grimshaw with dread.
“Yes, Wayne, why let that man stay another hour?” Julian asked with an edge in his voice.
“According to Dane, his family still controls The Jumble because Vicki didn’t fulfill the terms of the agreement,” Grimshaw replied, watching Ilya.
Something cold and ugly moved in Ilya’s eyes, a reminder that a taste for antiques and expensive clothes didn’t change the fact that the Sanguinati were lethal predators.
“I read through all the paperwork with regard to the divorce settlement and Victoria’s claim to The Jumble,” Ilya said. “There were no conditions to her receiving The Jumble, no terms that needed to be fulfilled.”
Grimshaw nodded. “I figured as much. If everything was aboveboard, Dane wouldn’t have come here using a false name.” Well, it would have been hard for Dane to find a place to stay if he’d used his own name unless he wanted to rent one of the houses on High Street for a month—or stay in one of the run-down campers at the edge of town.
Ilya hesitated, then handed Grimshaw a sheet of paper from a legal pad. “He isn’t the only one who has come here under false pretenses. The humans staying at The Jumble also gave aliases. And they’re pretending to be reviewers for travel magazines. Also, they were overheard to say that Victoria had to be removed from The Jumble before their own deal could go through.”
“How did you get these names?” Grimshaw looked up. “You didn’t ask Aggie Crowgard to go poking around in their rooms, did you?”
“Of course not. For one thing, Crows can’t get through the screens in the windows, something which is not an impediment to the Sanguinati in our smoke form. I entered the suites in the main house, found the humans’ identity cards, and memorized the names and addresses. My driver uncovered the real identities of the two humans who are staying in one of the renovated cabins.”
“What’s the second reason you didn’t ask the Crows?” Julian asked.
Ilya gave him an arch look. “I didn’t want them to be tempted by the shinies scattered on the dressers—at least not while Victoria still has control of The Jumble. If ownership should change hands . . .” His shoulders moved in a minute shrug.
Grimshaw handed back the paper and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if that would relieve the headache building behind his eyes. “Any thoughts about what’s really going on? Because I’m not buying Dane’s claim that Vicki failed to meet part of the agreement and the Dane family can reclaim The Jumble by default.”
Ilya sat back in his chair. “When I reviewed all the legal documents that dealt with Victoria’s divorce and settlement, I found it interesting that the listed value of the house, automobile, and furnishings that Yorick Dane retained was considerably less than the value of The Jumble, despite the automobile being fairly new and the house needing nothing more than annual maintenance. The liquid assets were divided based on those assessments.”
“The Jumble is a business venture made up of several buildings and acres of land, not to mention private access to the lake,” Grimshaw said. “It stands to reason it would be worth more than the residence.”
“No one had put any work into those buildings in decades,” Julian countered. “That should have been taken into account by whoever had done the assessment.”