The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(70)
“No. I’m just saying that . . .” For the first time, Stevie saw Larry lost for words. He was reaching for a danger Stevie could not precisely see, but the form of it was faintly making itself known in the air, in the shade of the trees, and the changing temperatures. She had felt it several times, and now Larry was feeling it too.
“When you spoke at our orientation,” she said, “you said that people got stuck in tunnels before, sometimes for days. . . .”
“That never happened,” Larry said. “That’s just part of the pattern to get people to stay out of any hidden structures they might find, because we weren’t sure if there were any more out there. I want you to put my number into your phone. Now. Get your phone out.”
He waited until she produced her phone and added him.
“There’s no chance you’d go home, is there?” he said.
“Leave? Why? And no. But why? Tell me something.”
Larry paused for a moment.
“I don’t know,” he said. “And that’s what bothers me. Let’s just say I have a bad feeling and I want you to have that number. I want you to use it anytime you want, no matter what. Doesn’t matter when.”
He inhaled deeply through his nose. She could see the traces of pain on his face as he looked around, probably for the last time.
“They can’t do this to you,” she said again.
“This isn’t about me. But if you want to do something, you need to promise me you’ll take care of yourself and do as I said. Leave it all alone.”
Stevie felt her eyes burning and watering. Sometimes the wind made this happen. This was not one of those times.
“You promise?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I promise.”
He nodded, and turned back in the direction of the Great House. Stevie’s brain continued ticking. The money issue and this development fused into one idea.
“Wait,” she called to him. “Can I ask you one favor? Can I get a ride?”
October 30, 1938, 1:00 p.m.
IT WAS FUNNY, REALLY, THAT THE RIDDLE HAD BEEN THE ANSWER.
Albert Ellingham sat in his office, listening to the ticking of the green marble clock on the mantelpiece. This clock had once belonged to Marie-Thérèse Louise, the princesse de Lamballe, and was said to have been a gift from her dear friend, Queen Marie-Antoinette. It was a fine clock, made of deep green Swedish marble run through with gold. While the woman who had gifted it and the woman who had owned it were both beheaded in the French Revolution, the clock lived on, keeping perfect time. He had purchased it in Switzerland around the time Alice was born. The antique dealer had told Albert Ellingham the clock’s history, how some of the princess’s belongings were removed from her house before the people raided it, how carriages full of art came over the border into Switzerland as the aristocracy in France were dying. He told tales of blood and heads on spikes and superior workmanship.
Albert Ellingham had paid a small fortune for the clock. It pleased him to look at it, so solid, so storied, the green the color of pine.
The wall of French doors that led out onto the patio and down to the garden was heavily curtained. Albert had been keeping the curtains closed since he had drained the lake. He could not bear to look at the hole in the ground, the one that looked like a grave. Today, though, he opened all of them wide, and the view rewarded his courage. The Vermont sky was a particularly perfect blue, and the trees all around painted in golds and reds. The fine days of the season would soon be over, and the snow would come to the mountain. There would not be many days like this.
Today was the day it had to happen.
There was much to be done. There were several objects on his desk, and they all required his attention: a pile of legal documents, a Western Union telegram slip, a copy of the collected stories of Sherlock Holmes, and a spool of wire.
The documents first.
He picked up one, freshly printed on legal parchment. He scanned it until he found the part that concerned him:
In addition to all other bequests, the amount of ten million dollars shall be held in trust for my daughter, Alice Madeline Ellingham. Should my daughter no longer be among the living, any person, persons, or organization that locates her earthly remains—provided it is established that they were in no way connected to her disappearance—shall receive this sum. If she is not located by her ninetieth birthday, these funds shall be released to be used for the Ellingham Academy in any way the board sees fit.
This bit had been finalized yesterday, and Robert Mackenzie had not been happy with it. Mackenzie brought it in, fresh from the lawyer, and then sat down opposite Albert and stared.
“What is it, Mackenzie?” he finally had to say. “Out with it.”
“I don’t like it. And you know why.”
“I do.”
“They’ll come out of the woodwork,” Mackenzie went on. “Every kind of two-bit scam artist in the world will descend on this place like a plague of locusts.”
“One of those locusts may know where my daughter is,” Albert Ellingham said.
“It’s unlikely. And how would we ever know which one?”
“Because I know something about my daughter that no one else knows,” he said. “I will know the truth.”
Mackenzie sank back into his chair and sighed.