Trophies (7 page)

The protected little sod's eyes nearly popped
from his skull as he stared at the spread, pun intended, before
him. Unaware of the magazine's reception, Hardenbrook glanced
through the journal, said something, and finally glanced down. By
then, Langstrom had turned three pages.

Needless to say, tryouts came to a screeching
halt. And needless to add, Cartier and Darrow were sent packing
that afternoon.

I felt like a hero, single-handedly
vanquishing the scourge of the first-years' dorms. Nothing less
than a knighthood, in my unbiased opinion, could repay the debt.
Unfortunately no one besides myself had any idea said debt even
existed.

To rectify that situation, I had to share the
secret of my success. It went against my secretive grain to take
anyone into my confidence. But by the end of the second week, even
I had become lonely. None of the other first-years seemed inclined
to break through the layers of reserve erected to protect myself
from parental disregard and William's perfection. I suppose I came
across as stand-offish. But the prospect of spending seven years
this way was daunting even for the most dedicated loner, and I
decided to take the step upon realizing that, all day Friday, I
spoke with no one.

After considering the selection of
first-years, I settled upon Langstrom. He seemed a clever enough
sort if conventional, eager and cheerful within what I deemed
rigidly restrained parameters, and it had been such a delight to
broaden his horizons. And if he looked like an egghead, well, that
wasn't his fault.

It took me years to understand why I really
selected Langstrom, and what he had that I wanted.

On Saturday morning I showed him the Swiss
Army knife, the spyglass, and the penlight, still hidden in the
greenhouse, and gleefully related my adventure. But when he
stiffened, I realized he was a tad green about the gills where the
naughties were concerned and I'd led him outside those parameters
mentioned above. The bottom dropped out of my stomach to match the
angle of his jaw.

"When this comes out," he said, eyeing me
sideways, "you're going to be in big trouble. No one really
believed you when you said you wanted to be a thief, you know."

Ridiculous. "Why should it come out?"

His expression turned blank at my question
and his jaw stayed down. It didn't occur to me that, because of our
different standards of parental control, I was used to getting away
with pranks and he wasn't. Instead, I jumped to what seemed the
obvious conclusion.

"You're going to tell."

"I'm not!" When he flared with anger, he
flushed and looked like an Easter egghead. "I'm not a snitch. But
Tufton's going to find out. You wait and see."

Yeah,
I thought as I stalked away.
Right, the man's magic.
Tufton could just go hang himself
with that supposedly admirable anatomy of his as far as I was
concerned. And, after that clear-cut rejection of me and my
behavior, so could Langstrom, whatever his own anatomy might turn
out to be.

That was when I decided to get even with
Langstrom, too.

current time

It was tempting to show off for Caren and
crack Aunt Edith's hidden safe, even though I knew the combination
perfectly well. I could pretend I didn't and use the Hollywood
routine, ear to the door and all, and watch her eyebrows go up.
She'd have something funny to say and I'd have another laugh.
Tempting, yes.

It seemed I did want to get back together
with her. My behavior and tumbling emotions were certainly giving
me something to consider.

But Patricia was also in the house. With my
luck she'd peer in at us and there would go the rest of her good
opinion. Besides, this was a safe opened by touch, not sound, and
I'd be impressing Caren with a lie. After Aunt Edith's and Uncle
Hubert's examples of strict honesty, that was distasteful. So I
opened the bloody thing the ordinary way, pulling out the two
hearthstones camouflaging it from casual observation — they didn't
appear to be disturbed — and kneeling on the hardwood floor in
Uncle Hubert's study to twirl the dial. Caren sat at the big dark
desk and watched, probably not impressed at all.

When I swung the door of the safe open, the
papers inside were strewn helter-skelter and creased where they'd
been stuffed back in, which was not like Aunt Edith at all.

"He was here, too."

"Will you know if anything is missing?" Caren
asked.

"I think so." Well, perhaps. "Let's see, her
will is in here, stock and bond certificates, of course—" I pulled
papers and envelopes out and set them aside.

"She always seemed a smart woman."

"An investor to beat all, especially me —
bank records, blank checks—" I set that little box aside "—contract
with her estate attorney at Wynne Cameron Gamble et al., whom I've
never met—"

"I suppose you should call him."

"Suppose I should—" But the thought scraped
me raw with a sudden, sharp vehemence. I didn't want her to be dead
and calling her attorney would somehow make it official. It took a
moment, hands buried in the safe and eyes closed, to corral the
pain. "—insurance policies—" Those were in large envelopes bearing
the names and logos of the providers. I set them aside without
letting myself consider their significance and sorted out the rest
of the documents. "No, I think everything's here."

"Charles, what's that in the back?"

Little was visible deep within the safe
except a shadow, and I didn't see even that until Caren mentioned
it. I reached into the very back, pulled out a green velvet jewelry
box, and opened it to find a woman's dinner ring. One fair-sized
emerald glowed amidst a handful of smaller accent stones,
encircling it with mixed pastel colors.

"It looks like Easter morning," Caren
said.

"It's beautiful but, you know, I've never
seen it before." And why hadn't the murderer taken it? It might not
have been what he sought, but it was a choice morsel, easily
fenced, and then he'd have something to show for his break-in.
Granted, he'd left the other expensive, portable objects behind, as
well.

"May I?" Caren held out her right hand with a
turn of the chair. Her left rested demurely in her lap.

I gave her an ironic look and slipped the
ring onto the appropriate finger. It didn't make it past her
knuckle.

She thrust her hand and its decoration
beneath the desk lamp and tugged the chain. The emerald's facets
glittered, brilliant and beautiful. "This looks like a love gift."
She glanced at me. "You never saw her wear it?"

"Aunt Edith never wears jewelry."

It took Caren aback. She slumped on the desk.
"Never?"

I shook my head. "Not even a brooch to fasten
her cloak against the wind. Just her wedding band."

For a moment I saw her hands, deft and
precise, the gold band flashing in sunlight then vanishing as she
drew on gardening gloves. It was so real, it might have been a
hallucination rather than an unsought memory. Then it was gone, but
the gash it hacked inside me remained.

Caren turned Uncle Hubert's swivel chair,
took off the ring, and stared at it. "I can't remember if her ears
were pierced."

"No."

She didn't glance up at the tightness in my
voice. "How strange. I mean, of course, a lot of women own jewelry
they never wear. But Edith always seemed so polished and perfectly
presented. I guess I expected all the details to be in place." She
gave the ring back and chewed her lower lip.

As I repacked and closed the safe, it
occurred to me that, despite the grief, I'd gladly chew that lip
for her. Having her around, it seemed, was influencing me more than
I'd anticipated. And perhaps I was kidding myself with that thought
about wanting more than just a lover. No woman had appealed to me
since breaking up with Caren, and the obvious meaning kicked a hole
in my ego to match the one in my world.

In our pause, her gaze turned to the massive,
and massively filled, bookshelves lining the study. "Could the
trespasser have been looking for something in here?"

"Can't imagine what." The weighty tomes, a
good distraction, covered all eras of English history and were
untouched by anyone except the cleaning lady and sometimes me since
Uncle Hubert's death, fifteen years ago. "Nothing looks much
disturbed, just pushed about a bit."

"Have you ever taken these books down?"

"Whatever for?"

"To see if there's a false back to one of the
shelves," she paused, "or a false book, for that matter." She slid
one of those sideways glances my way. "This house is full of
surprises."

"That's it." The proverbial light bulb lit
up. "That's what's been bothering me. I know this house. I've lived
here off and on for most of my life. I know where everything is in
almost every room and I can't for the life of me figure out what he
was searching for if it wasn't the safe."

She verbally jumped in. "Except for
what?"

"The garret." But the thought was like a
grenade to the guts. The day's sundry emotions — grief, horror,
aggression, attraction — all tried to erupt from me at once. My
grip on the granite hearthstone nearly embedded fingerprints, and I
wielded the physical pain to defeat the emotional assault. The
battle for self-control was getting harder to win with every
skirmish but I refused to lose.

Caren stared, then laid a hand on my arm.
"Charles?"

The emotions died hard. But it was the only
possible answer and the solution to this mystery could be as close
as the hidden staircase. Never mind that plague was preferable.

I carried both toolkits upstairs, Caren at my
side.

"You seem uncomfortable about this," she said
halfway up.

On the upper landing I paused and peered
through the two high windows into the cloudless summer sky. Opening
Aunt Edith's safe hadn't bothered me, because in our unusual
relationship, money wasn't important. I knew all about her
finances, her arrangements, and had helped draft her will, and she
knew all about mine, too. Besides, she'd given me the safe's
combination herself years ago.

But breaking into her garret was beyond wrong
and it pounded at my conscience. It was an invasion of her privacy
on a massive scale. It was a breach of trust, a violation of the
treaty she and I had formed in my childhood, and even reminding
myself she was dead and would never know made no difference to the
looming, horrific guilt I already felt.

"I can say without exaggeration that, of all
the nightmares I've had since I was thirteen, every one of them
centered about the garret, even though I've never been inside
it."

Caren rocked on her heels. "Goodness."

Aunt Edith's suite was through the double
doors at the rear corner of the house, and I had to still my
conscience again before pushing them open. The master bath was
directly ahead, bracketed by tall ceramic vases holding dried red
roses and sprigs of lavender, still breathing their heady scents
into the air. To the left opened the bedroom proper, the king bed
draped with a lovely green canopy that matched the swags over the
two windows. The bench on the linen chest at the bed's foot and the
seat of the chair before her dressing table were the same shade,
and the carving in the doors of the big armoire were picked out
with the maroon, lavender, and dark green of the flowers in the
vases. Double closets with mirrored doors stretched along the far
wall.

I refused to back out, no matter how
shameless this invasion felt, and led Caren between the furniture.
My reflection in the mirrors was accusing and I ignored it, too.
Once we'd twisted past the armoire's camouflage, the hidden nook
opened before us, and she gasped. We ducked around the u-turn and
there, just as I recalled it, was an unlit staircase climbing over
the closets to a plain, unvarnished wooden door. There was no knob;
the lock — oh, how I remembered that beast — was installed flush
with the door's surface.

On my knees before it, I used the penlight
for a close examination, then felt its innards with my favorite
half-deep hook. "Damn."

Caren knelt beside me. "I suppose this isn't
an easy one?"

"Pick-resistant top pins. And six of them, at
that."

"What does that mean? Should I start looking
for a key?"

I sighed and sat back on my haunches, letting
the challenge of the problem drown out my nagging conscience. "I
don't have my pick gun with me and that would be the easiest way to
get past this lock. I've already glanced through her bedroom today,
looking for her kit, and didn't see a loose key hanging about that
might fit this thing. Perhaps I can rake it."

Another quick examination of the lock with
light and hook, then I selected a large rake, one with deep curves.
I inserted my strongest tension tool into the bottom of the keyway.
The rake followed until it nudged the back of the plug. I turned
the tension tool left, and lifted and dragged the rake against the
top pins, increasing the turning pressure as I did. A little
jiggling, and three of the pins picked into place.

"Might not be so bad." The visual world faded
about me. I concentrated all my senses on the tools, feeling the
remaining pins to judge how much pressure the rake needed for the
next pass. Not much, it seemed, and I raked again lightly. Another
one picked into place.

"Any success?"

"Yes, actually." Again I assessed the
remaining pins. Number two felt light, but number five was stiff. I
tried light pressure again, but it took four tries before number
two picked. "Whoever invented these locks should be hanged. And
gutted."

"And where would the challenge be in your
life if these locks hadn't been invented?"

"Finding a good sloppy hamburger in this
health-happy town since Gerard's closed."