The Stolen Chalicel (21 page)

Everyone assured Ted they would keep him informed. There was no point in him flying back home if there was nothing for him to do. At the very earliest, he’d head back to the States tomorrow.

Grosvenor Street, London

J
OHN
S
INCLAIR SAT
in his favorite leather chair, his feet propped up on an ottoman, working his way down a list of contacts. It was four in the afternoon. As usual, the tea tray was on the map table, laden with a sterling silver teapot and a plate of stem-ginger biscuits. Sinclair was just putting a cup of steaming Lapsang souchong to his lips when he heard Cordelia’s voice in the hallway downstairs.

“Hellooooo!” she called.

“Up here, Delia.”

She sauntered in and dropped her coat and handbag on a chair.

“I’m surprised you’re home,” she said. “Didn’t you have a meeting with Jim Gardiner?”

“We ended early. Something turned up concerning VerPlanck’s wife, so I’ve been working here.”

Cordelia walked over and looked at his notes. As she stood next to his chair, the scent of her new French perfume enveloped him. He looked up.

She was absolutely lovely this afternoon. That outfit was terribly fetching in a ladylike way—the little tweed form-fitting skirt and jacket paired with very high heels. Her legs were encased in shimmery stockings.

“What kind of assignation requires an outfit like that? If I may inquire.”

“Nothing illicit,” she replied. “I’ve been over at Kensington Gore . . . a luncheon for female members of the Royal Geographical Society. I told you about it last night.”

“But why so late? It’s after four.”

“It was a lecture also. A retrospective on Isabelle Bird.”

She sat on the arm of his chair and leaned over his shoulder.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“Looking for a lead on the Sardonyx Cup,” he replied, checking off a name and turning the page.

“Who are these people?”

“Nobody
you
know. They’re all pretty shady characters.”

He put his teacup and legal pad on the floor and reached around to pull her into his lap. Her skirt rode up and he could see her stocking tops were fastened with frilly garters. He ran his hand along the silky nylon band and unfastened one of them.

“John . . .” She giggled, delighted.

He trailed a hand up her thigh. She was absolutely luscious this afternoon. He started kissing her neck, nibbling his way up to her ear. Her skin was warm and soft.

“John. What are you
doing
?”

“Kissing you. Any objections?”

“I didn’t say that . . .”

She turned her face toward him and pressed her mouth to his. Her lips were pliable. The first kiss turned into another. His hunger mounted. He shifted her weight against him and fumbled with the buttons of her jacket.

“John, don’t start something you can’t finish,” she warned. Her mouth sketched a line of kisses along his jaw.

“Who says I’m not going to finish,” he said, unbuttoning the silky little blouse beneath her jacket. She was wearing some wisp of lace underneath.

“Don’t you have work to do right now?” she asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” he answered, pulling her to her feet. “I have a meeting upstairs, with you.”

Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole

I
T WAS
T
IPPER’S
second night in the abandoned cabin, and nobody had come for her. It was getting a
lot
colder. All she was wearing was a thin shirt, a suede riding jacket, and jeans. As the sun went down and the temperature dropped, her body was racked with deep waves of uncontrollable shaking.

She heard something scurrying around in the far corner of the shed—probably mice.
Dear God, don’t let it be a snake!
In the shadows, something was moving. For that reason alone, it was important to stay awake. She was convinced that if her eyes closed, she might die. Sleep finally came, and the shivering stopped.

Tipper dreamed of a warm place, and Ted was there. They were sailing on
The MoonSonnet,
and the ocean spray was cool on her face. They were happy.

She woke to the sound of dripping water. The ceiling was leaking and her clothes were wet. She could hear rainwater pounding on the tin roof. There hadn’t been anything to drink for more than twenty-four hours, and she was mad with thirst. Tipper bent her head and licked the rainwater off her hand. Then she sucked some out of the sleeve of her leather jacket. It tasted like dust.

Another full day had come and gone. It was nearly dawn. Tipper’s hands and feet were getting numb, but she didn’t care. Life was slipping away. There was no longer hunger or cold.

She lay on the floor and looked up at the ceiling. The timbers of the shed were turning blue-gray in the early dawn and pale patches of sky were visible through chinks in the roof.

How did she end up here? Tears coursed down her face to the dirt floor. Was this some kind of divine justice? How could she have stolen from her own husband? And to take his favorite cup was unforgivable!

Ted didn’t deserve that. Sure, he was dull and predictable. But she had known that when she married him. Over the years, she had wanted more excitement and had strayed. Then it got out of control. Too many men, too much booze, and, ultimately, the drugs.

The years had become a blur. There had been only a few moments of real enjoyment to remember. And when she really thought about it, the good times were in the early days—when she and Ted still loved each other.

With each outrage on her part, Ted’s polite manner had become more rigid and unforgiving. With each passing year, she had done more and more to try to provoke him, until there was nothing left between them but animosity.

And that was the saddest thing of all. She would never again have the chance to tell him that she truly loved him. It was too late. She was going to die in this shed in the middle of the wilderness.

Tipper heard something moving in the corner. A long
shhhhhhh
sound, as if something were dragging along the dirt. The noise would stop and then start again.

Exhaustion and thirst had sapped her strength, and all kinds of terrors seized hold of her. Off and on, all through the night, she had imagined a snake. But then she told herself it was a figment of her fevered imagination.

With the first light of dawn her fears were realized—
it was a rattler!
She could see its eyes clearly—glimmering in the growing light; the scales had an oily sheen. It undulated sideways a few feet to the left or right, but seemed in no hurry to approach.

She watched the snake constantly, aware of its menace. During her childhood in Jackson Hole, she had picked up encyclopedic knowledge of rattlesnakes. The reptile would never approach a human thinking it was food. But if antagonized the snake could be deadly, striking and paralyzing her with a dose of its myotoxic venom. Death would come within hours.

“Get out of here!”

She shouted in the hope of scaring the reptile into retreat. Every time she yelled, it would coil and hiss but gave up no turf. Apparently this abandoned shed was its home, and Tipper was the intruder.

Horrified, she realized that her body was completely immobile. Drained of all strength, she could neither struggle nor move. Her hands and feet were still bound with leather restraints. After two full days of extreme temperatures, she was suffering from exposure.

Heavy rain had come through the roof in the evening, soaking her to the skin but not giving her much in terms of hydration. Nighttime temperatures had been close to freezing. And then there was the other extreme—heat. During the day, the high-altitude sun broiled the tin roof so that inside the shed it easily reached ninety degrees. The air filled with dust particles.

Tipper had not been able to drink water for two and a half days except the few drops of rain she could suck out of her clothes. Dehydration was robbing her of any will or ability to escape. A person could survive only a few days like this. Her head pounded from lack of fluid.

Thankfully, every time she shut her eyes it brought relief. Finally, unable to keep the snake in sight any longer, she closed her eyes and willed herself to let go.

It was seven o’clock in the morning and the sheriff was standing on a ridge, surveying the spot where Tipper had probably disappeared. They could only guess by figuring out her direction from the house and drawing possible routes through the wilderness.

There was no way to track anything up here. The high ground was
unprotected from the wind. It had rained heavily last night, and most of the water had run off into the gullies. Now the earth was bone-dry again. The sagebrush was no help—the resilient groundcover sprang back instantaneously after the horses trod on it.

“You figure it was about here?” the sheriff asked Arthur. The heavyset man nodded slowly. “Tipper said she was going to ride out this way.”

“About what time?”

“Just before noon. For a couple of hours.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, Jane and I drove into town. We did some shopping and then stayed for dinner.”

“That’s kinda odd, to go into town when you have a houseguest.” The sheriff squinted at the man with suspicion.

“Not really. Tipper was raised here. Her daddy was one of the early land developers in Jackson. She’s a good rider and loved to go out on her own. Did it all the time.”

The two men looked out over the expanse of the valley. There were hundreds of acres of private ranches and national parkland, all the way up to the Montana border.

“Well, my deputy and I’d better get going. We have a lot of trail to cover today if we are going to find her. The search party went north yesterday and didn’t turn up so much as a broken twig.”

“We better find her soon,” Arthur worried aloud. “It’s been two and a half days.”

Late in the afternoon, the Jackson Hole sheriff rode up the trail that skirted the edge of the Grand Teton National Forest. He saw an old shed at the edge of the woods—an abandoned outbuilding for horses or cattle. It clearly hadn’t been used in decades.

Thousands of these old structures were scattered throughout the national parkland. Many were log cabins and shacks from the 1860s—vestiges of the early settlers. Traces of the early inhabitants of the West were everywhere, preserved in the arid climate. As people rode through the park, they often came across old Conestoga wagon wheels lying in the high grass.

The sheriff pointed out the abandoned homestead to his deputy. He couldn’t check every building or they’d be out here for a month. They had nearly eighty acres to ride.

Still, it would be better to look. With a guy as rich as Mr. VerPlanck, the sheriff didn’t want anybody saying his investigation wasn’t thorough—even if finding VerPlanck’s wife out here was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The assignment wasn’t bad. Nothing to complain about so far. Two days, beautiful and clear, fall foliage glowing in the hills. Even the horses seemed to enjoy the afternoon, walking with energy along the steep trails. Wildlife galore: yellow-bellied marmots, deer, elk, and antelope, and lots of little ground squirrels known as chizzlers. But, so far, no trace of any human presence.