Lost Legacy (6 page)

“We should wait a minute and see if they come back on,” she said.

“Right. Could be a momentary disruption in the power supply.” Victor injected an extra dose of firmness into his words, hoping the dean would listen to the advice. In spite of the warning, he heard Lock shuffling forward. Before he could say another word there was a cry of pain and the sound of the man falling.

He groped in the darkness, fighting a surge of frustration. His doctor skills were worth precisely nothing when he couldn’t even see the patient. It reminded him of the spelunking trips Luca strong-armed him into; only, his brother always carried enough gear on their adventures to survive a nuclear winter. And Victor now found himself in a black hole without so much as a matchstick.

He felt around for Lock’s leg and was rewarded with a groan.

“I think I twisted my ankle,” the dean said, voice hoarse with pain.

“I’m going to go get help. Brooke, can you sit with him?”

She didn’t answer.

“Brooke?”

Her voice came from ahead. She’d moved past while he was checking out the dean.

“I’ll go,” she said. “You need to stay, you’re the doctor.”

I’m not a doctor anymore,
he wanted to snarl, but he kept his voice calm. “Brooke, that’s not a good idea.”

“I used to play a game like this with my brother. Blindman’s bluff. And besides,” she said, “I’m shorter than you. Less likely to bang my head.”

He would have tried again to make her see reason, but he heard a clang from the basement, a faraway thud of a door swinging open. “Did you hear that?”

She must have, because she stopped moving.

As the lights were abruptly restored, the tunnel flooded back into view.

Victor blinked as his sister strode into view.

“Sorry I’m late, but I just got your text,” she said, a sardonic grin on her face. “Wouldn’t it be easier to search with the lights on?”

“Funny,” Victor said. He looked down at the dean, who had a hand over his eyes. Victor gently probed Lock’s ankle while Brooke and Stephanie joined them.

“We were getting a quick tour,” Brooke said, “when the lights went out.”

“And you were going for help?” Stephanie said.

Brooke’s cheeks pinked. “I’m pretty good at bumbling along in the dark.”

She was, too, Victor noted. She’d made it nearly to the door by the time Stephanie turned the lights on. It didn’t erase his irritation that she’d ignored his advice. With Brooke and Victor’s help, Lock got to his feet. “You see?” he said sheepishly. “I told you the tunnels were dangerous.”

“I saw an intercom back in the dorm,” Stephanie said. “Who can I contact?”

“Press zero and the operator can tell the security people to send a cart for me.”

Stephanie left and Victor supported the dean out into the basement, into a service elevator and finally up to the lobby, where he eased into a chair. Brooke perched uneasily on a sofa across from the dean.

Victor paced. His mind was running through what they’d seen in the tunnels. He felt Brooke’s eyes on him. “You should have stayed put. Might have been you that hurt your ankle.”

“I’ve hurt myself plenty of times. I’m a dancer.” A shadow crossed her face. “At least, I was.”

Half frustrated, half intrigued, he felt the urge to find out every detail of her life.

The arrival of a golf cart interrupted them, and soon the dean was loaded on board. As the two attendants in jumpsuits helped the injured man, Stephanie whispered in Victor’s ear.

“You sure?” he said.

Stephanie gave him the irritated look she gave him whenever he questioned her research.

Brooke saw the exchange and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I apologize for the drama,” Lock said with a smile. “Call me if I can help you further.”

Victor smiled. “Actually, I think it would be better if we stayed for a few days.”

Lock’s eyes widened. “What do you mean? What on earth for?”

Brooke was staring at Victor now, blue eyes round with surprise.

“There are a few more things I’d like to look into.”

Lock shook his head, wiping at a smudge of rust that marred his shirtsleeve. “You’ve seen the tunnels. There’s no treasure hidden down there.”

“Colda had an apartment here on campus,” Stephanie said.

Lock started. “How did you know that?”

Stephanie smiled. “We wouldn’t be very good treasure hunters if we didn’t check out the professor’s place.” She looked around. “He loved chess, spent a good deal of time in the library, too. All that bears looking into.”

Victor noticed the tiny bead of sweat on the dean’s temple. Exertion from hobbling out of the tunnels?

“I suppose,” Lock said, “but the university security and the police have searched his apartment and, besides, we’re not in the business of hosting guests.”

Brooke rose from her seat and smiled, a grin that both mesmerized Victor and made something tingle through his veins.

“Of course you are,” she said, with a sweeping gesture. “You’ve got an entire building here for your women guests. And there are plenty of vacancies at the moment.”

“Another for the men, right across the way,” Victor added.

“No,” Lock said. “The administration will never allow it.”

Victor cast a glance toward the stately columns of the library. He didn’t want to play the card, but Lock gave him no choice. “I heard Bayside was interested in purchasing the land behind the university for a new science building.” A worthy endeavor. Very worthy. Very expensive. Gage family money would be crucial in such an effort. It was essentially blackmail, but he knew Lock needed some motivation to grant his request.

Dean Lock heard the unspoken message. He lowered his head for a moment, rubbed his face with his good hand before he met Victor’s eyes again. “You’ve got to be out by demolition day. You can’t stay here tonight. I’ve got to inform the university president. Come to my office tomorrow morning and I’ll give you the keys to Colda’s place and the dormitories.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Victor said.

Lock shook his head. “Isn’t that like the barracuda thanking the squid?”

They watched the dean bump away, seated in the back of the cart.

“I’m going to pack up some gear and update Luca about our college overnighter,” Stephanie said with a mischievous grin. “He’s not going to believe this, and it’s going to make him insane not being here.”

Victor and Brooke followed. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel. We’ll return in the morning.”

Brooke caught his arm and turned him to face her. “I don’t understand. The dean is right. There couldn’t be a Tarkenton in that tunnel. Do you really think we’ll find it in Colda’s office?”

“No. I imagine the police have thoroughly searched that, and whoever else is after the painting.”

“Then why are we staying?”

He noticed a cobweb trapped in the coppery strands of her bangs. He gently removed it, feeling the soft silk of her hair. For a moment, he forgot the question until she repeated it.

“We’re staying because the power didn’t fail when we were in that tunnel,” he said.

Brooke frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Stephanie told me the switch was off. Someone did it on purpose.”

“Who would do that?”

“We can rule out the dean, for one, and there are no students around, no staff.”

Her face clouded. “Then someone else doesn’t want us here.”

“And I can only think of one reason why. There really is a treasure here that somebody wants for themselves.”

They walked to his car in silence, the fog enveloping them in moisture. It wasn’t until he checked her room for unwanted visitors and prepared to leave that she asked the question.

“What is your nickname? The one your father gave you?”

Victor sighed. “Sea Tiger. It’s a catchy name for the barracuda.”

She cocked her head. “Why? Your teeth aren’t sharp and pointy.”

He laughed. “It’s not an altogether flattering comparison. Barracudas are relentless when they want something. They don’t sleep, and you can’t distract them when they’re fixed on their prey.”

“So you’re relentless?”

His gaze wandered over her face, lingering on her lips. “Only when I need something.” He walked away, wondering why he felt a strange need coursing through his heart at that very moment, a need that had nothing to do with a missing painting.

* * *

Brooke hardly slept. She awoke the next morning with gritty eyes and tangled sheets. A shower did little to revive her as she tried to organize her thoughts. They were going to camp out at the university and do what? Search Leo Colda’s room? It seemed to her unlikely that they would find anything the police or the university personnel who had gone to look for their missing professor hadn’t.

And Victor had led the charge, pressuring the dean to allow it.

She recalled the intensity that smoldered in his eyes.

Sea Tiger.

Relentless.

And if he found evidence that somehow linked her father to wrongdoing?

She knew her father was a man of principle, an innocent in the robbery, yet he had been secretive of late.

Scribbling notes, closeted in his study, leaving her and Denise to wonder.

No,
she told herself, twisting off the shower faucet.

Dad isn’t guilty of anything, and I’m going to get his painting back to prove it.

She had to. Her father was failing, and his reputation was the only thing he had left. Finding a Tarkenton would be a coup that no one could take away from him. The sale of it would help her bring Tad back home and maybe pay for someone to help with the challenges of his Fragile X Syndrome. She could not afford to fail. Tad was counting on her, too.

Chin up, Brooke.

With her few belongings stowed in a small bag, Brooke headed down to find Victor already waiting in the lobby. He leaned against the wall, in black jeans and a tucked-in T-shirt. Black jacket, loose-fitting. He could have been a tourist, or a man waiting for his date, but for the intensity on his face. Her pulse edged up a notch as she joined him.

“Morning,” he said. “Did you get any sleep?”

“No. You?”

He shook his head as they walked to the car. “I don’t need much.”

“Is that the barracuda in you?”

He shot a look at her and then smiled, an expression that lifted the dark shadows from his face. “I have a hard time shutting off my mind.”

She picked up the file tucked neatly between the seats in Victor’s Mercedes. “Last night’s project?”

“Research,” he said. “Go ahead and look.”

She riffled through the papers, which included a brief biography of L. Tarkenton and some glossy photos of several of his oil paintings.

“I need you to tell me about the missing painting,” he said. “There are no references to the one you described that I could find.”

“I’m not surprised. Dad’s spent most of his life sniffing out hints about it. It’s called
The Contemplative Lady.
The subject is a young woman looking out the window of a drawing room. It’s done in oils. My father found reference to it in one of Tarkenton’s letters but no one has ever found proof that Tarkenton actually went beyond the planning stages of the work, until my father came home with the painting from that estate sale. It’s unsigned, but he’s sure it’s the Lady.”

“Are you sure?”

She hesitated only a moment. “Yes. I’m not a trained art historian, but I’ve spent four years immersed in my father’s world.”

“What happened to dancing?”

The car suddenly felt very small. “I got a scholarship to a dance academy in New York but I injured my knee.”

“So you came home?”

She flushed. “Yes. I worked some part-time jobs and spent years trying to find a passion again. Finally, I started college, which was a terrible mistake.”

“Why?”

“My brother had trouble. He can’t control his anger sometimes. He was sent to a group home. If I had stayed home, he might not have gotten so bad.” She shook her head, wondering why she’d told him any of the whole messy story. Desperate to change the train of conversation she noticed another file, stuck in the pocket of the driver’s side door. “What’s in that one?”

Victor stared at the road ahead, accelerating through a yellow light. “More research.”

“May I take a look?”

“Nothing you’d want to see.”

Her pulse quickened. “I guess I’d better take a look anyway.”

He shot her a look but she could not read the expression behind the serious demeanor. Slowly he removed it and handed it to her.

Her heart sank as she scanned the pages. “What is this?”

“It’s a copy of Tuney’s report to me after he finished his investigation into the museum theft. Cops determined the mastermind was familiar with the delivery schedule even though that was only provided to the curators and security people a few days before. When the truck pulled into the lot, the thief was waiting.”

She forced out the words. “But there was no proof of my father’s involvement. Lock could have been behind it.”

“There was not enough proof to pin it on either one. I was just refreshing myself on the details. Take a look at the second set of papers.”

With fingers gone suddenly cold she found the pages. “Phone records? From my house?”

“Not official. That would be illegal.”

She forced a calm tone even though her insides were churning. How much had he pried into the private life of her family? “Then how did you get them?”

He sighed. “My sister is very…effective at collecting information. She called in a favor. Cop told her, off the record, that Colda called your house in San Diego once the week before he disappeared.”

The breath seemed to bottle up in her lungs. “It doesn’t mean anything. They were colleagues, Colda was evaluating a painting for him. It makes sense that he would call our house.”

“Then why was the phone call only five seconds in duration?”

“What?”

“Cop said Colda hung up the phone immediately after it was answered.”

“Hung up?” Her head spun. “Was he worried that someone was eavesdropping?”

“Not sure, but he was worried about something. Seems he booked a flight out of SFO.”