Sharp Edges (33 page)

She had nearly died.

He made himself concentrate on the winding road. Since he could not trust himself to carry on a civil conversation, he sank, instead, into his dark thoughts.

He had nearly lost Eugenia today.

Too many loose ends left.

He could have lost her forever.

Loose ends.

Christ. She had almost died.

What about the loose ends?

A strained silence settled over the front seat of the car. Eugenia did not break it until they were halfway back to Glass House. Then she stirred and turned her head to look at him.

"It's looking more and more as though I was wrong about Nellie having been murdered. Fenella claimed she didn't kill her, and for some reason, I believe her. Maybe Nellie really did get washed overboard."

"She was in a rush to return to the island that day to collect her things. She wouldn't have been as careful as usual," he agreed gently. "She might not have paid attention to the weather forecasts."

Eugenia sighed. "It still doesn't feel right, but I can't see any other logical explanation."

"Then you have to let it go."

"I suppose so." She kept her attention on him as he drove. "I told Peaceful that Fenella did a lot of ranting and raving when she cornered me in the gallery."

"I know." Cyrus flexed his hands on the wheel. "She must have really flipped."

"Thank God."

He glanced at her, startled. "What do you mean?"

Eugenia stared out the window at the waters of the Sound. "If she hadn't gone off the deep end and decided to destroy all of the artwork in the chamber, I wouldn't have had a chance."

He could almost feel the shudder that went through her. It passed straight through him, too, twisting his guts in the process. "You don't have to remind me."

"She said a lot of things. I didn't repeat all of them to Peaceful exactly as she said them."

"It's a wonder you can remember anything that she said, given what was happening at the time."

Eugenia cleared her throat. "I'm glad you see it that way. Because that's the excuse I plan to use if the authorities ever come back to ask why I didn't mention the exact nature of the blackmail threat."

Cyrus frowned. "You said it had something to do with a shady art deal."

"That much was true enough. What I didn't add was the name of the piece of art involved in the deal."

He took his foot off the accelerator and gazed blankly at the road ahead. Then he turned his head to stare at her. "Are you telling me that Fenella Weeks knew something about the Hades cup?"

"She said she discovered that Daventry had acquired the cup with the assistance of the people who helped him get his designer pills."

"Hell." He tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together in a different way. "Maybe Fenella was after the cup. That might explain a couple of things."

"No, I don't think she cared about the cup at all. Her only goal was revenge. She seemed content with the success of her blackmail scheme."

"Until the night she shoved Daventry down the stairs."

"It wasn't a crime of opportunity, as you thought," Eugenia said quietly. "It was a crime of passion."

"I don't suppose she happened to mention where Daventry hid the damn thing."

"I don't think she knew or cared about the hiding place." Eugenia paused briefly. "But she did confirm that he was obsessed with the cup and that he knew there was a risk in owning it."

"It's got to be somewhere in that house." Cyrus put his foot back on the accelerator. "Daventry would have kept it handy so that he could see it whenever he wanted." A sudden thought interrupted his chain of logic. He glanced at Eugenia. "Can I assume that you've finally decided to accept the fact that the Hades cup exists and that Daventry had it?"

"I have to admit that Fenella's comments made a very strong impression."

He breathed deeply. "Given the way in which they were delivered."

"Yes."

"If it's any comfort," he said, "I don't think you need to be concerned about the authorities coming after you because you neglected to mention the Hades cup to them."

"No, I guess not." She smiled wryly. "As far as the experts in the art world are concerned, the cup doesn't even exist."

"And you're one of those experts who believes it's a myth. Obviously, you value your professional reputation too much to want people to think that you would listen to a crazy person's demented ravings about a mythical piece of glass."

"Right."

Cyrus paused. "Okay, so what's the real reason you didn't mention the cup to the authorities?"

"You know the answer to that."

A sudden sense of lightness unfurled deep inside him. She had done it for him.

"You kept quiet about it because of me, didn't you?" he said carefully. "You wanted to give me a chance to find it."

She shrugged but said nothing.

He took one hand off the wheel and put it on her thigh. "Thanks, Eugenia. I owe you."

"I was just trying to hold up my end of our bargain."

"Yeah. Sure. Well, thanks, anyway." The bright warmth died away, leaving Cyrus with a strong inclination to brood. He forced himself to concentrate instead on the host of fresh questions that the day's events had raised. "We've got a lot of loose ends, you know."

"Yes." She frowned. "We do, don't we?"

"Let's see what we have. Daventry was murdered and Nellie witnessed it. She left the island in his boat that night."

"She came to see me, but I'm still not sure why."

"She gave you one of the
Glass
paintings," Cyrus reminded her.

"And we've since turned up two more of them." Eugenia glanced at him. "Those paintings of Nellie's keep appearing in this thing, don't they?"

"They sure as hell do," Cyrus said. "I wonder why."

"Each one is a portrait of a piece of glass in Daventry's collection," Eugenia said slowly. "Maybe the missing one is a picture of the Hades cup."

"Even if it is, where does that leave us? There's no value in a painting of the damn thing." He paused. "But if someone thought there was, it might explain why Jacob's and Rhonda's cabins were searched."

"It would be more logical to search Glass House, wouldn't it?"

"Not if you had a reason to think that the paintings had been removed," Cyrus said. He broke off to wrestle with that problem.

"Well?" Eugenia demanded.

"On the surface it looks like we've got two separate scenarios going on here."

"I see what you mean. Fenella Weeks was clearly responsible for one set of incidents stemming from Daventry's death and the steps she took to conceal it."

"Right," Cyrus said. "But the Hades cup provides a link. Still, I think it's safe to assume that Fenella was acting alone and had her own crazy agenda. She wasn't interested in Nellie's paintings."

"So who else would be looking for them?"

"Good question." And possibly a very dangerous one, he thought. But why would anyone go after a picture of the cup rather than the cup itself?

Eugenia flattened her palms on her thighs and rubbed them against the fabric of her black jeans. "What do we do now?"

He did not like the uncharacteristically subdued tone in her voice. "We go back to Glass House, where you will take a long, hot shower while I open one of those very expensive vintage bottles stored in Daventry's wine cellar. Then I will cook dinner for you. After that, we'll talk about what we do next."

She gave him a sidelong look. "You're going to cook dinner?"

"Think of it as a dining adventure."

"Cyrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you please stop the car? I think I'm going to be sick."

"If this is about my cooking—"

"No.
Please
."

"Damn. I should have realized. I wondered when it would hit you." He pulled the Jeep to the side of the road and cracked open the door.

By the time he reached her, she was already out, bent over, clutching her midsection. He held her gently as the spasms wracked her body.

When it was over he handed her his handkerchief.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Tears streamed down her face. "This is so embarrassing. I never cry."

"It's a good sign. Better to let it out now than to bottle it up inside. The ones who keep it contained have the most trouble later."

"You sound like you know what you're talking about."

He remembered the first murder victim he had found. The killer had used a knife and then lain in wait for the first cop on the scene.

In the end, there had been a lot of blood, his own, the killer's, and the victim's. It had all mingled together in the dirty alley. He had survived with a scar and the knowledge that he had killed a man.

Then he recalled the stain left on the ground by the blood that had pooled around Katy's body. He thought about the deep, wrenching guilt of knowing that he had failed to protect her from Damien March.

"Yeah," he said. "I do."

She buried her face against his shoulder and cried for a long time.

The phone rang just as Cyrus dumped the pasta into a pan of boiling water. He studied the directions on the side of the empty package as he reached for the receiver. "Colfax here."

"It's me." Rick sounded tired but excited. "I'm ready with my report."

Cyrus heard the muffled sounds of traffic. "Where are you?"

"In Mr. Stredley's car. He picked me up at the ferry dock a few minutes ago. We're on our way to the airport."

"Good." Cyrus glanced at his watch. "Plenty of time to make your flight. Let's have the report."

"I copied down all the license numbers of all the cars that had two men in them. There weren't very many. Only seven in all. I gave the list to Mr. Stredley. He says he'll turn them over to Mr. Yates to trace."

"Nice going. I appreciate the help, Rick."

"I also got a look at almost all of the walk-ons. None of them wore snakeskin boots, though."

"Part of the job is to weed out the dead ends."

"Want me to stick around to do some more weeding?" Rick asked eagerly.

"You've got a job waiting for you, remember?"

"I remember. But, Cyrus?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm thinking of going into the security business."

Cyrus grinned and stirred the pasta. "You didn't get bored?"

"No way."

"We'll talk about it later."

"I'm serious," Rick insisted.

"So am I. Tell you what, if you're still interested in the security business after the end of your freshman year, I'll give you a job at Colfax Security next summer."

"For real?"

"You ever known me to be anything else except real?"

Rick paused. "No. Never."

"Let me talk to Stredley."

The pasta boiled over five minutes later, just as Cyrus finished checking on Rhonda and Jacob.

"Damn." He tossed down the phone, turned off the halogen burner, and grabbed the pot holders.

"What's wrong?" Eugenia asked from the doorway.

"This never happens with tuna sandwiches." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye while he poured the pasta into a waiting colander.

She looked remarkably normal. Her face glowed from a recent hot shower. Damp tendrils of dark hair bobbed around her ears. The rest of the thick mass was caught up in a large clip on top of her head. She had put on a sweater and a pair of loose, flowing trousers.

"It was very nice of you to cook a meal from scratch," she said.

"That's me, Mr. Domestic." He set the empty pan down on the counter. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better, thanks. The hot shower helped. Want some help?"

"No, I'm in complete control here."

She glanced at the pasta. "That's what they all say."

"Sit down and drink your wine."

"Okay, I can handle that."

He went to work serving the pasta and salad he had prepared. "I just talked to Rick and Stredley. Rick's on his way home, and Stredley tells me that Rhonda Price and Jacob Houston are safely registered in a Portland hotel under false names. Quint will schedule people to keep an eye on them until this is over."

Her eyes widened. "That will cost a lot, won't it?"

"Yeah."

She groaned. "I was afraid you'd say that."

"Don't worry about it. I can afford it."

"Did Rick or Mr. Stredley have anything else to tell us?"

He hesitated. "Rick says he wants to go into security work."

Eugenia gave him a quick, knowing smile. "Like uncle, like nephew."

He grinned, unable to contain the tide of satisfaction that had flowed through him at Rick's words. "He'll probably change his mind a hundred times in the next four years."

"Maybe. But maybe not. I see a lot of you in him." She looked at him over the rim of her wineglass. "You know something, Cyrus? You'd make a terrific father."

He did not know what to say to that. It hit him hard that the only kids he wanted to father at that moment were hers. But it did not seem an appropriate time to bring up the subject.

"I've been thinking," she continued.

"Forget it." He carried the plates to the table and set them down. "I told you, no thinking until you've had a chance to rest."

"You and Rick never got to finish comparing the measurements of the rooms here in Glass House with those on the architect's drawings."

"So?"

She met his eyes. "I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep very well tonight. Why don't we finish the job?"

"Fine by me." He sat down.

Eugenia looked at the meal he had put in front of her. Her expression brightened for the first time since he had brought her back from Peaceful's office.

"Where did you get the idea of putting tuna on top of pasta?"

"It was sheer, culinary inspiration," he said modestly.

Three hours later, Cyrus found what he was looking for, a discrepancy of nearly three square feet.

"Well, what do you know." He surveyed his surroundings as he retracted the tape measure. "The wine cellar."

"This was where we found Leonard Hastings that first night." Eugenia examined the array of bottles. "Do you think he knew something?"