A Killer Closet (7 page)

“Well, she was a dear, close friend.” Harriet placed they key in the lock of the enormous and heavily carved double door.

“And I wasn't?” Adelle said.

Harriet switched on a light, revealing a massive grand staircase of what appeared to be marble looming in front of them. She moved to a keyboard on the wall to deactivate the alarm that was screeching an alert.

Irene took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to relieve the tension that was building inside her. “All right, let's start searching.” She turned to her left, moving into a room swathed with darkness.

Adelle seemed unwilling to move. “Searching for what?”

“For whatever it was Susana wanted you to find.” Irene moved farther into the darkened room, but she stopped and turned quickly when she heard footsteps on the staircase.

Something was moving down the stairs, something large and lumbering. Her rational mind told her it had to be human. She stopped breathing when she heard the sound.

The click of a bullet dropping into a chamber.

Irene heard an alarmed intake of breath from Harriet. She hurried back to the entry hall and saw Adelle reach a trembling hand toward her. She took Adelle's hand and put a finger to pursed lips to signal both women to be silent.

A vortex of indecision swirled in Irene's mind. Her first instinct had been to herd the two women back toward the door, but that came with a fear that they would all be shot in the back. Staying put didn't seem to be a better option. It would be best to try to hide in the shadows.

Before she could act, Irene caught a glimpse of blue fabric as the figure continued the slow advance down the stairs. A woman. Irene could clearly see the blue color of the dress that fell just to her knees. The design was unmistakably Chanel. The same dress Angel had sold that morning.

A face emerged out of the shadows. Her customer! Or, more correctly, Angel's customer stood above them.

The woman smiled—a warm, friendly smile—but she kept the gun pointed directly toward Adelle's head. “Good evening,” the woman said, still smiling. “I'll kill your mother first if you take another step inside this place.”

“Oh, my God!” Adelle inched closer to Irene and leaned heavily against her. “What have you gotten us into, Irene?”

“Who are you?” Irene demanded.

Adelle gasped. “For heaven's sake, Irene, shut up and get us out of here.”

The woman chuckled as she walked down the stairs. “It doesn't matter who I am.” She moved all the way down the stairs and toward the women until she was standing next to them. She placed the barrel of the gun against Adelle's head. Harriet gasped, and Adelle went limp, forcing Irene to catch her in her arms.

“What do you want?” Irene managed to sound more forceful and confident than she felt.

“You should listen to your mother and keep your mouth shut,” the woman said. “Oh, before I kill all of you, I do want to say how much I love the dress, Irene, my dear.”

Harriet's face had gone completely white, and Irene was afraid she, too, was about to faint, but all she did was stumble backward. Her movement distracted the armed woman enough to allow Irene to act. In an instantaneous dancelike move, Irene allowed her mother to slip to the floor while she bent forward and brought the edge of her hand downward with brutal force against the wrist behind the gun. The gun fell to the floor in an angry and fiery outburst. Before the stunned woman could react, Irene had both of her arms pinned behind her.

She yelled at Harriet, “Pick up the gun!”

Harriet, terror-stricken and gray with fear, did as she was told. With trembling hands, she handed the gun to Irene, barrel first. Acting quickly, Irene forced her shoulder into the woman's chest while she retrieved the gun from Harriet. She jabbed it into the woman's stomach, forcing her against the wall.

“Now tell me who you are!”

“I'm…I'm the caretaker.” The woman's voice was a weak quiver.

Irene jabbed the gun deeper into the soft folds of the woman's plump stomach and shouted, “You're no caretaker. Tell me who you are!”

The woman bent forward in an attempt to protect her midsection. “I'm telling the truth, I swear!”

“What's your name?”

“Maureen Elliot. Don't shoot me, please, I beg you.”

“Why did you follow us here?”

“I…I was hired to come here.” She sobbed and tried to wipe her nose on her sleeve. Irene swatted her arm away and moved the gun barrel only inches from Maureen's nose.

“Not on the sleeve of a designer dress!” Adelle cried, struggling to stand.

Maureen sniffed, and her face turned gray. She looked as if she might throw up.

“Who hired you?” Irene demanded, jabbing her again with the gun.

“I don't know his name,” Maureen blubbered and sniffed again. “He paid me to follow you. Told me to go to your store so I'd know what you looked like. Gave me money to—”

Maureen stopped mid-sentence and glanced down at Adelle, who was trying to grab her legs. She kicked at Adelle, just missing her chin. Adelle dodged the blow but screamed nevertheless. Then Harriet screamed. Irene had allowed the melee to distract her and felt the gun leave her hand as Maureen grabbed it. Next, she heard the gun fire.

Irene saw her mother's eyes widen and her mouth gape open before she slumped again, hitting her head hard against the floor. In the same instant, Harriet swayed and fell atop Adelle. Maureen, still with the gun in her hand, leapt toward the door and escaped into darkness. Without stopping to think, Irene bent over the crumbled heap on the floor.

“Adelle! Harriet! Are you all right?”

Adelle flung her arms in a wild motion. “Get off me! Get off me!”

Harriet sat up, opened her eyes, and took on a confused expression before her eyes rolled back and she swayed forward. Irene caught her before she drooped over Adelle again.

“Good Lord, is she dead?” Adelle had managed to stand again and was staring down at Harriet.

Irene propped Harriet against a wall. “She's not dead. Find the kitchen and get her some water.” She bounded out the door, hoping against hope that she would find Maureen. She saw nothing but headlights. The blue sedan rounded the corner of the house where Maureen had obviously hid it and now was moving away. She must have found a back way out of the village and gotten ahead of them. Irene's first instinct was to run to her own car and follow her, but she hesitated and glanced over her shoulder toward the house. Leave Harriet and Adelle alone? She wouldn't dare.

She made her way back to the house. As soon as she entered, she saw Harriet still leaning against the wall, holding a glass of water. Adelle sat on one of the steps of the grand staircase with both her arms wrapped around her.

“Thank God you're back,” Adelle said, as soon as she saw Irene. “I was afraid you'd leave us here all alone in this awful place.”

“I see you found water for Harriet. Good work, Adelle.”

Adelle's only response was to roll her eyes.

“She got away, didn't she?” Harriet said.

Irene gave a defeated sigh. “Yes.” She sat down on the step next to Adelle.

Harriet made the sign of the cross. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

“Who the hell is she?” Adelle asked.

“Someone hired to follow us. Maybe to kill us,” Irene said.

“But why?” Harriet asked.

“So we wouldn't find whatever it is Susana wanted you to find.”

“Then we have to find whatever that is,” Harriet said.

Adelle sprang to her feet. “No, we don't! All we have to do is get out of here. I don't give a shit what Susana wanted us to find.”

“Your language has coarsened considerably with age,” Irene said wryly.

“Now is not the time to criticize me, Irene. Give me the keys. If you're not going to drive us out of here, I will.”

Irene stood and walked to the table in the entry hall where she had placed her handbag. She fished for the keys and dangled them in front of Adelle. For a moment Adelle looked as if she might take them.

“You know I don't drive at night,” she said.

“Oh, that's right, you don't,” Irene said, and dropped the keys back into her handbag.

“Harriet…” Adelle began.

“Don't look at me!” Harriet said. She was still leaning against the wall and holding the water glass with both hands as if she were afraid it might get away from her.

“What if that woman comes back?” Adelle said. “You should have gone after her, Irene.”

Irene sighed. “Yes, I should have.” She chose not to remind her mother that she had just said she was afraid she had left them alone to chase the woman.

With some effort and a groan or two, Harriet got to her feet. “Where should we start looking?”

“Do you know if there's a home office somewhere in this monstrous place?” Irene asked.

Harriet shook her head. “No, I don't remember one, but I haven't seen all the rooms.”

Irene walked to her right, switched on a light, and saw the room Harriet mentioned. She shivered when she saw the heads and glassy eyes of what seemed to her to be every large animal known to man.

“Creepy,” she said.

“Poor taste,” Adelle said.

“Why do you want to find an office?” Harriet asked.

“Doesn't it seem reasonable that Susana might have wanted us to find a document of some sort?” Irene was making her way through the enormous room that was furnished with the highest-grade leather sofas and chairs and two giant fireplaces, one on each end. “Something that would inform us about why anyone would want to kill her?”

“I suppose so,” Harriet said. She followed Irene through an opening that led to a dining room almost as large as the trophy room had been. A large hand-carved rustic table sat beneath a chandelier made of cattle horns with a gleaming, showy galaxy of crystal lights. High-backed chairs upholstered with what looked to be the hides of cattle with the hair still intact lined the table. Several large western-themed paintings hung on the walls.

“Nice,” Irene mused, looking at the paintings. “Look, there's a Wyeth and a Peter Hurd, and over there's a Catlin. My God, that one looks like an original Remington!”

Adelle sniffed. “It's okay, if you like that kind of stuff.”

“It could be upstairs,” Harriet said. “The office, I mean.”

“Yes,” Irene said, pulling her attention away from the amazing display. “Why don't we split up?” she added. “You take this wing of the house, Harriet. I'll take the other wing, and you can search upstairs, Adelle. We should look for things like a note or an envelope, or maybe something hidden in—”

“I'm not going upstairs by myself,” Adelle said. “I'm afraid to think what may be up there.”

“All right,” Irene said with exaggerated calm. “You search down here, and I'll go upstairs.”

“Don't leave us down here for long,” Adelle said.

Irene had already started up the stairs, and she thought it best that she not respond. The landing at the top opened up to two wings with hallways on each side. Irene turned on lights in each hallway, and a quick look told her that all the doors were closed.

Maybe Adelle was right, she mused. Maybe coming here was a bad idea. It would take forever to search this enormous place. She started down the hallway to her left, trying each door and peeking inside to see one lavishly furnished bedroom after another. She wanted to find an office, which she still believed would be the most logical place to hide an important document.

As she continued opening doors, she became more convinced that they should have left as soon as the woman who called herself Maureen Elliot did. She would likely send someone up here to finish the job she'd been hired to do. The best thing now would be to leave soon, before Maureen could contact whoever had hired her, presumably someone even more dangerous. Irene knew they had time for only a quick look before they had to start back to Santa Fe.

For now, though, she continued searching, crisscrossing the hall, opening a door on one side and then on the other. All of the rooms were bedrooms. The Delgados would need plenty of sleeping quarters to house the guests for the legendary parties they hosted. She was almost ready to give up the search when she tried the double doors at the end of the hallway.

She opened the doors and switched on the light to see a pleasant sitting room, perhaps for guests of the wing. Susana or her decorator had forgone the western theme for this room in favor of soft greens and blues and white linen upholstery for the two sofas. A few magazines lay on the tables. Irene picked up each one and shook it. Nothing fell from between the pages. Lush green plants flanked the sides of the wide windows that must have afforded a view of the forest in the daytime but now looked out on a palette of stark blackness. There were no pinpoints of light to suggest stars, but Irene could hear the wind snarling as it slashed at heavy pine boughs. Then in the distance a jagged white knife cut the sky and a few seconds later an ominous grumbling warned of what might be next.

Irene turned away from the window and, noticing the plants again, stuck her finger into the soil to find it damp and warm. Someone had watered the plants not too long ago. Maureen? Or was there someone else? The real caretaker, perhaps. Was he or she still here? The thought sent an icy ripple down Irene's spine, and she looked around, half expecting to see someone lurking. There was no one. Hoping to dispel her feeling that someone was watching, she sat down on the spotless white linen sofa and dialed Angel's number. She told herself that it was to make sure everything was going smoothly back home. Truth was, she also just wanted to make contact with the real world, maybe alert Angel that she might need help. It took only a few seconds to determine there was no cellphone connection this far into the wilderness.

Standing and switching off the light, she hurried out of the room and down the hall toward the stairway. She had just reached the landing when the thought occurred to her that there could be a similar room at the end of the second hallway. Telling herself it would take only a few minutes to look, she turned to her right and took the other passage. She quickly saw that there was, indeed, a room at the end, with double doors similar to the ones in the first room she'd inspected.

She opened the double doors, found the light switch, and turned it on. The room was lined with bookshelves. A delicate Queen Anne desk and matching chair were situated in the center of the room, atop an expensive Persian rug. It was an office, but was it the one she'd been searching for? She'd envisioned lots of filing cabinets full of drawers or maybe a safe containing the secret to Susana's and maybe even Loraine's death. This had to be Susana's office. A glance around the room confirmed her suspicion. The bookshelves were full of women's fiction by writers such as Jodi Picoult, Philippa Gregory, and Anne Rice. A reminder to renew a subscription to a woman's magazine lay on the desk.