Текст книги "Day Shift"

Автор книги: Charlaine Harris

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“Could you be here tomorrow at four, Mr. Bernardo?” Van Zandt asked, in the abstracted tone of someone looking at a schedule book and a computer screen. “She should be out of court by then.”

“Phil, here’s my situation. I live in Midnight, and I’ve got reporters camped outside my door. I can’t get out of my house without running the gauntlet. If I have to, I have to, but I really don’t want to do that. Is there any way Ms. Powell can come to my place?”

“I can just catch her. Hold on.” There was an electronic buzz. Then some music kicked on. It didn’t suck.

Phil was back in less than two minutes. “She can come to you on Monday at eleven,” he said. “Before you get all excited, let me tell you her fee.”

After a very practical discussion, finally Manfred understood his compulsion to work hard and save money, a compulsion that had driven him for the past few months.

It was so he could pay Magdalena Orta Powell.

7

Olivia needed to get groceries. She didn’t do a lot of cooking in her little apartment—microwaving was more her speed—but she was out of Windex and close to being out of toilet paper, and she’d gotten up with a hankering for a sliced apple and vanilla fruit dip. With no idea that anything odd was going on, she stepped out the side door of the pawnshop to get in her car, only to see a small crowd hovering outside Manfred’s place. The sheriff’s car was there, too.

She ducked right back inside. She stood fuming for a moment. Then she swiveled on her heel and went through the pawnshop door. Bobo was reading in his favorite chair, a veritable poor man’s throne upholstered in velvet. He was using his e-reader today, so she knew he was following his current program of reading one hundred great mystery and suspense novels. Olivia did not know who had created the list and how the selections had been picked, but she did admire Bobo’s faithfulness to his agenda.

“What’s going on out there?” she asked, jerking her thumb toward the rental house.

“Good morning to you,” Bobo said, putting his e-reader down reluctantly. “I’m on number twenty-seven, which happens to be Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club.”

Olivia was not in the mood for Bobo’s cleverness. “What. Is. Going. On?” she demanded.

“Yes,” said Joe, coming in the front door just in time to hear her question. “What?”

“I stood out there and listened for a minute. Manfred’s been accused of being a jewel thief, and it’s been hinted that he killed the old lady,” Bobo said. “You should know more about it than I do, since I hear you were on the spot.” He gave Olivia a very level look.

“I had nothing to do with Manfred’s situation,” she said immediately. “Who’s accused him? Of stealing what?”

Bobo said, “I only know what I overheard the reporters saying when I put my trash can out at the curb. And I’ve told you that.”

Joe said, “I don’t believe it for a second. Manfred? Nahhh.”

Olivia fumed, though she kept it under a tight lid. She was smart enough about herself to know that she felt strongest and most effective in situations in which she could take control and take action. Not always the same thing . . . but often enough. “He didn’t do it,” she said.

“I agree with both of you,” Bobo said. “He’s an honest man in a charlatan’s job. I don’t think he had any more to do with that than he did the murder/suicide the same weekend. In the same hotel.”

There was a substantial silence.

Olivia scowled. She did not exactly feel guilty. But she didn’t feel happy, either. And she hated the proximity of the newspeople. The new proprietors of the hotel were bad enough. One reason she’d settled in Midnight was to avoid scrutiny . . . and because the place felt right. “I want this to go away,” she said, and she thought, I miss Lem.

Bobo nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I do, too.”

Olivia threw herself into a chair, a violently flowered padded rocker. Furniture that landed in the pawnshop tended to stay there. “So you’re seriously worried that he might be arrested?”

“Yeah, I am,” he said. “I don’t think he’s guilty of anything, but the appearance of . . . well, being a psychic, that looks fraudulent. No matter what the truth is about that, it’s not right for him to be accused by the son of this woman he was trying to help. For another thing, the reporters are going to be coming in and out of town as long as there’s a story, and now they even have a place to stay right here in town, if the story gains traction. And they’ll be dragging up Aubrey’s murder and the Lovells’ disappearance.” The Lovell family had run Gas N Go prior to their sudden departure from Midnight. Aubrey Hamilton, Bobo’s former girlfriend, had been found dead in a riverbed north of town.

Olivia thought about the situation for a few minutes. Her eyes went from Joe’s face to Bobo’s. Bobo was good about letting people think, one of his many fine qualities. Before she’d gotten to know Lemuel, Olivia had wondered why she didn’t feel any particular appreciation for Bobo as a man. He’s too much rose, not enough thorn, she concluded, as she pondered ways of getting the reporters out of Midnight.

Joe said, “A few minutes ago one of the reporters came to get her nails done. She asked Chuy to hurry in case something broke in the story, but she was tired of standing outside Manfred’s door. So maybe they’ll just get bored and leave.”

“Fat fucking chance,” Olivia said, and Bobo nodded. They were far more media savvy than Joe. The tinkle of the bell over the door made them all turn in that direction.

To Olivia’s utter amazement (and from their faces, Bobo’s and Joe’s as well), the Rev walked into Midnight Pawn. And he was holding the hand of a little boy.

Olivia could count on the fingers of one hand the times she’d seen the Rev in the pawnshop. The Rev’s orbit, besides a very rare shopping trip, included his home, the Wedding Chapel and Pet Cemetery, Home Cookin Restaurant . . . and nothing else, unless there was an extreme emergency.

Therefore, this was such an emergency.

And right after the door swung shut on the Rev and the little boy, it opened again to admit Fiji, who had a basket on her arm.

“Following the Yellow Brick Road, Feej?” Bobo asked. “Hi, Rev. Hi, young man.” He walked over to squat down in front of the boy.

Of course, Olivia thought, half-exasperated. He would love kids. “Rev,” she said. “What can we do for you?” She watched Fiji flow around the Rev and come to a stop close to the boy, look at him intently. She opened the basket and out jumped Mr. Snuggly.

Mr. Snuggly immediately went to the boy and stood at his feet, looking up. The boy had dark brown hair, long and tangled. He wore denim shorts and a Walking Dead T-shirt, which was an unusual choice for a child his apparent age. But what was that?

“Hail, little brother,” said Mr. Snuggly in his small shrill voice. With a movement too quick to track, the boy was on his knees in front of the cat, peering into his face. Suddenly, the boy smiled. It was bewitching. He looked up at Fiji, and Olivia could see that his eyes were pansy purple.

“Okay, I’m in love,” Fiji said cheerfully. “Hey, kid. I’m Fiji. This is Mr. Snuggly.”

“I’m Diederik,” the boy said.

“I’m Bobo.” Bobo extended his hand to the boy, who took it uncertainly. They shook, in an awkward way. Shaking didn’t seem to be a custom with which the boy was familiar. To Olivia’s surprise, Joe opened his arms and the boy stepped into them without hesitation. They hugged briefly, and the boy moved away.

“And I’m Olivia,” she said, taking a step forward.

He looked up at her, and Olivia had the sensation that she was being weighed and measured. He did not extend his hand, but he gave her a respectful nod. Olivia was quite content with that, even flattered. Then something happened to the boy’s face. His turned it up and rotated it as if he were following a scent.

“What’s that smell?” he asked the Rev.

The Rev bent over and whispered in the boy’s ear.

“Ahhhhh,” the boy said, as if a suspicion had been confirmed.

The Rev straightened and looked at all of them, in turn. “Diederik’s going to be staying with me for a while. His daddy’s got to do a few things.”

Olivia could think of at least five questions she wanted to ask, but this was the Reverend Emilio Sheehan, and he had many secrets. She knew she had better not ask any questions. It would be taken amiss. You didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the Rev.

“We’re glad to have you, young man,” Bobo said. “You’re welcome to come hang out with me here at the store any time, if the Rev has other stuff to do.”

“Or with me, at the Inquiring Mind,” Fiji said, as warm as melting butter.

“I can take you bow hunting,” Olivia offered stiffly. She liked the way the boy had known right away she deserved respect. Or at least I could comb your hair, she thought. Grooming was something else Olivia understood.

“Thanks,” the boy said, to all of them, and he seemed pleased, though his tone was noncommittal.

“In the meantime,” the Rev said, obviously coming to his main point, “what are all these people doing in town? The hotel was bad enough.” He’d taken off his dusty hat, and his thinning black hair was combed across his skull, damp with sweat.

“Sit down,” Bobo suggested. “I’ll tell you.” They all sat, except the boy, who didn’t seem much interested in what the adults were saying. He roamed around the shop making scarcely a sound, his big purple eyes taking in all the oddities and peculiarities around him, his mouth slightly open in wonder. Olivia remembered the first time she’d been in Midnight Pawn, and she could understand his fascination.

Four years ago. She’d been on her way to Dallas to get a flight to—where? Somewhere east. She’d completed a job east of Marthasville, an old rancher who wouldn’t sell his land to a man with a lot of money. She almost never left from the same airport she’d flown into, and never under the same name. That day, for the first time, she’d seen the exit for Midnight and Davy on the highway.

A town called Midnight. The name had caught her fancy.

She’d been in no hurry, so she’d taken the exit. And she’d seen the closed storefronts, but the pawnshop . . . stuck at a crossroad in what seemed like to her the middle of nowhere . . . had been fascinating.

She’d had to go in.

And she’d been captivated by the cases full of old things, mysterious things. The shelves had seemed crowded with objects she had to handle. She’d looked for a long time. When Bobo, the new proprietor, had told her gently that he needed to close for an hour to get his supper, she’d driven up to eat in Davy (not trusting the Home Cookin Restaurant, wisely, because then it had been run by an old couple who had never been able to cook as well as Madonna Reed). But after a hasty hamburger and tonic water in Davy, she’d found herself going back to the pawnshop, which was so much larger inside than it appeared to be on the outside. Since it was dark by then, she’d met Lemuel.

She had never met anyone like him before. She didn’t know how he’d felt about her that night, but she’d been drawn to him, powerfully. Olivia had been in the presence of hundreds of men who were better looking and richer and more powerful in a worldly way. And she’d known Lemuel for what he was immediately. But Lemuel . . . something in the age of him, the strength of him, the ruthlessness of him, drew her in.

That night, the little sign behind the cash register, which she hadn’t noticed at all during her earlier visit, suddenly seemed to leap out at her. APARTMENT DOWNSTAIRS FOR RENT, with no other information. “It was waiting for the right person to read it,” Lemuel had said afterward, and Olivia believed that was so.

They hadn’t become lovers right away. They were both cautious people, even when biology and inclination were herding them in the same direction. It was like they took their honeymoon first, their time of learning each other, in a bubble large enough only for two.

Lost in remembering something rare, Olivia only came back to the pawnshop and the little boy when the Rev said, “When is Lem coming back, Olivia?” That was very direct, for the Rev.

Olivia said, “He’s taken those books and gone to consult friends of his. Right now he’s in New York.” She didn’t spell it out; the magic books, the ones Lemuel had been searching for in the pawnshop all those years, had been found by Bobo by sheer accident, and Lemuel was having a wonderful time looking through them. But some had been in a language so ancient Lemuel didn’t have a clue as to how to translate the text, so off he’d gone, the first time he’d left Midnight for any length of time in over a hundred years.

She hadn’t offered to go with him. He’d have asked her to go if he’d wanted her to, and though she’d hoped, and mentally shifted her obligations around just in case, he hadn’t mentioned it.

The Rev waited, expectant.

“I don’t know when he’ll return,” she said calmly. “When he’s done what he set out to do, I suppose.”

“Can you call him?”

“I can, but I won’t,” she said. “He’s having a great time, and he deserves it.”

She did not know that at all. She had heard from Lem only twice since his departure: once after he’d found no help in Atlanta, and again when he’d tracked down a possible translator in Minnesota, who’d not been able to help but had referred him to a vampire in New York.

She had told herself that to Lemuel, a week was like a moment. To her, it was like a week. Or two. And she had reminded herself that he did not like the telephone, though he knew how to use it. Lemuel had a cell phone, and from it he had texted her briefly at each stop. Nothing else.

The Rev looked grave, as if he could read her thoughts. But he didn’t say anything more about Lemuel. Instead, he said, “We have to get all those people out of Midnight.” He jerked his head to his right, to indicate Manfred’s house. The boy had his back to the Rev. He’d wandered to the first set of shelves to stare inside a glass case at a ukulele. It appeared to be older than any of the people in the room.

“We all want that,” Bobo said, between sideways looks at Diederik. Olivia knew they were all trying to figure out what made Diederik so special. “But I don’t think there’s a short-term way to make that happen.”

Fiji was fidgeting, and finally she said, “Bobo, do you have a brush or comb handy?”

“There’s one under the counter,” he said, and after a moment’s search she came up with a small hairbrush. She looked at it dubiously, but she took a deep breath and advanced on Diederik with a determined look.

“Come on, young man,” she said. “You and this so-called brush need to meet each other.” Diederik looked alarmed, but he reacted to the authority in Fiji’s voice and came over to stand in front of her. She turned him around so his back was to her, and then she went to work on his dark hair. Seeing how gentle Fiji’s hands were, Olivia turned a little away so she wouldn’t have to watch.

The boy did look less like a feral child when Fiji had finished.

“While you’re fiddling with the boy, we need to talk about the situation,” the Rev said. “Olivia!”

“Yes?” Olivia straightened and looked at the older man. His clothes might be ancient, his hair thinning, and his body small, but when the Rev spoke, you listened, and you listened good.

“You have to find this missing jewelry so they know Manfred doesn’t have it. Then they will leave.”

“Why me?” she said angrily.

“Because you’re a thief,” the Rev said, and there was no judgment in his voice. “You can figure out where a thief would hide such a thing.”

He could have said worse things, and they would have been true, so Olivia felt a moment of relief. But she wasn’t pleased with the way everyone was carefully avoiding her eyes, and she felt the cold feeling creeping across her, the feeling she got when everyone’s hand was against her.

“Why should I help Manfred?” she asked. “I hardly know him.”

“Olivia,” the Rev said. One word. But it was enough.

“I’ll do my best,” she said. “But I’d better be able to count on any help I call on the rest of you to give.”

“I’ll help,” Fiji said instantly. Despite the fact that her attention was apparently focused on Diederik, she’d been listening. Now she pulled an elastic band from the pocket of her skirt.

Of course she’d have one, Olivia thought. Of course she’d be ready to help. But there was no sting to these thoughts. Olivia had finally accepted the fact that Fiji was simply that kind of person.

“I’ll help however you ask me,” Bobo said.

Joe hesitated for a moment. “Chuy and I will do what we can,” he said cautiously. “And, of course, Rasta is always ready to help,” Joe added, and everyone laughed except the Rev and the boy.

Olivia nodded to show she’d registered their offers.

Fiji had put Diederik’s hair back in a neat ponytail. He looked like a different kid. He looked older.

“Rev, Diederik here needs to take a bath,” Olivia said, so Fiji wouldn’t have all the grooming to herself. “And he needs clean clothes.”

The Rev looked at the boy as if he were seeing him for the first time. “If you say so,” he said. “Diederik, I have to take care of you right. I promised your father.” He turned to look at the rest of them. “The chapel will be empty for a while. Keep an eye on it. I have a funeral today at four. A cat named Meatball.”

Mr. Snuggly froze in the act of licking his paw. He made a sound that was close to that of coughing. Olivia realized that the cat was laughing.

“That’s worse than ‘Mr. Snuggly’?” Olivia murmured. The cat gave her a disdainful look.

The Rev left without any more words, taking Diederik’s hand again as if Diederik were a three-year-old instead of . . . Well, how old was he? Olivia watched the ill-assorted pair as they went to the Rev’s house, presumably to put Diederik in the bathtub. She said, “You figure he’s eight years old?”

Fiji frowned. “Last night I thought he was a lot younger. His clothes flapped on him.”

Bobo shrugged. “I think he might be as much as eleven.”

Fiji was returning Mr. Snuggly to the basket. “I’d believe eleven,” she said. “And today his clothes are tight.”

Joe said, “I wonder how old he’ll be tomorrow.” And he left without adding to his statement. They all stared after him.

“I wonder what he knows,” Fiji said.

Olivia, bored with the conversation, said, “I’ve got to go over to talk to Manfred. I’ll call him first.” She went down to her apartment to get her cell phone.

When it was in her hand, she was tempted—once again—to call Lemuel.

But she didn’t.

8

As he’d been instructed, Manfred was waiting at his back door to let Olivia in. She’d run across the side-by-side driveways and reached the door so swiftly that some reporters weren’t sure they’d seen anyone. Manfred was able to close and lock the door behind her before any of them could make a move.

“Boy, am I glad to see you. Uh, can I get you a drink or something?” Manfred’s first impression was not reassuring. Olivia the Deadly seemed irritated and tired. He had hoped for Superwoman, but he’d gotten something less. He tried to conceal his dismay.

“Yeah,” she said. “Some water would be good.”

They sat at the little table that he’d crammed into the kitchen and regarded each other steadily. “The Rev has appointed me to get you out of this,” she said, not making any pretense at sounding happy about it.

“Why? I mean, he and I aren’t exactly buddies.”

“He has this kid staying with him. Diederik. There’s some big mystery about him.” One corner of Olivia’s mouth dipped down wryly. There was always a mystery. “The Rev doesn’t want reporters anywhere around this kid, is what I gather. So he wants them gone. The quickest way to do that is to solve your problem.”

“Do you think . . .” Manfred trailed to a halt.

“That I can do it?” Olivia smiled, not troubling to make it a socially acceptable smile. “If anyone in Midnight can and will, it’s me.” She regarded the psychic. “You know I have skills, right?”

“Ah . . . I figured. But.” He floundered for a moment. “The thing is, Olivia, your skill set, as far as I know, is kind of drastic.”

“Awwww . . . squeamish?” The shark smile was very much in evidence. Olivia was enjoying being herself.

“Yes,” Manfred admitted. “More than you, anyway. I hope we can find a way to solve this problem without doing anything . . . undoable.”

“I was never as young as you.” She looked away for a long moment before turning back to say, “I’m going to do this whether you approve of it or not. This is a town issue, not just your problem. So tell me what’s happened.”

Okay, this is what I’ve got to work with, Manfred told himself. “Arthur Smith was here this morning right on the heels of the newspeople. Lewis Goldthorpe’s accused me of stealing jewelry from Rachel. My client who died,” he added. “And as it turns out, she might not have died of natural causes. But they haven’t gotten all the bloodwork results back yet.”

“What do they suspect?”

“Arthur asked a lot of questions about her water bottle. I got the impression that he’d been told it might have had something in it that shouldn’t have been there.”

“Something you didn’t drop in?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t make a joke of this,” he said. “You know I didn’t. And I’m pretty scared, in case you couldn’t tell.”

Manfred expected her to say something cutting, but instead, Olivia simply nodded. “Okay, then the first step is to determine where Lewis has stashed the jewelry he says you stole. Because we’re going to assume that he’s hidden it. Why do you think he’s doing this? And where do you think he’s put it?”

“I’ve had a couple of hours to think about it. First, Lewis is crazy. But he’s also devious and shrewd, at least according to Rachel. She talked about him a lot. Lewis and his problems were the main reason she was so hung up on keeping contact with her dead husband.”

“Which you were glad to help her do.” Olivia didn’t exactly sneer, but Manfred thought it was a close thing.

“Yes,” he said evenly. “I was glad to help her. And it was easy to reach him. He was more accessible than a lot of spirits.”

Olivia’s mouth crimped in a skeptical line. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go along with that. To get back to the subject. Why does Lewis have such a hard-on for you?”

“First, because he never liked Rachel to spend money he thought she should leave intact for him. Second, because a lot of the advice Morton gave her was about curtailing Lewis’s schemes. And she followed that advice. Third, because Lewis became convinced I was angling to marry Rachel.”

Olivia raised a questioning eyebrow.

“No, of course not,” Manfred said. He tried a smile. “Rachel was a sweet woman, but she was older than my mother. Not my thing.”

“So you believe Lewis has stolen this jewelry and pinned it on you to get even. Also so he can sell the jewelry, I presume?”

“I believe Rachel hid it to keep Lewis from stealing it from her. That’s what she told me.”

“So she didn’t have it with her at all. When are you supposed to have gotten this jewelry?”

“Lewis is alleging that Rachel had it in her purse because she was going to get it appraised. He maintains that I rifled her purse before I called the front desk for help.”

“I was in the lobby when she dropped her purse,” Olivia said.

Manfred stared at her. “You were?”

“I helped her pick up everything. Me and some other people. And there was nothing like a jewelry case in there. So I know you’re telling the truth. I’m going to assume you didn’t even touch her purse?”

“No,” Manfred said firmly. “I did not.”

“I also assume the police tested it for fingerprints and didn’t find yours.”

“I assume the same thing.”

“Since she told you she’d hidden the jewelry—what did she have, by the way?”

“She mentioned diamonds and rubies, I think.”

“Okay, so she told you she’d hidden it from Lewis. Where might she have done that? It would almost certainly be at her house. When people hide things, they want to keep them close.”

“Since she’d been sick and she’d been staying close to home, that would be my guess, too. I hoped she would get a safe-deposit box, but I don’t think she did. She wouldn’t have said ‘hidden’ if she’d put the jewelry in a bank. She would have told me it was safe.”

Olivia nodded. “So, it’s in the house. You’ve been there, I hope?”

“Yes.” Manfred clearly didn’t recall the visit with any enthusiasm. “I didn’t want to go, but after our first face-to-face session, she insisted I see where Morton had lived.”

“Surely that’s pretty unusual?”

“Oh, absolutely. Usually, people are at least a little embarrassed about going to a psychic. But not Rachel. She wanted me to meet her family. She was so excited about being in touch with her husband again.”

Olivia had a strange half smile on her face. “So you actually met the family?”

“Yeah, I told Arthur Smith about it. I met Roseanna and Annelle, the daughters. I admit I was worried about what they’d think, that they’d picture me as some kind of gigolo. Lewis made a huge deal out of not meeting me. That time.” He told Olivia about the time Lewis had come pounding on the door during his next session with Rachel. “So after I met him, I wished I hadn’t. And let me point out that while I was at her house, the daughters didn’t bring their husbands or children. Again, I don’t blame them. They didn’t know what I’d be like.”

“That’s fascinating,” Olivia said insincerely. “What I really need to know is the layout of the house.”

“It’s big,” Manfred said. That had been the thing that had struck him most forcefully. He had never been in a house that large. “It’s six thousand square feet, she told me. It’s two stories. It’s in a long, narrow, lot. There are surveillance cameras on the front yard and the backyard.”

“Gated community?” Olivia had brought a small notepad, and now she was writing in it.

“Oh . . . no. It’s in Bonnet Park, like Vespers is. But the neighborhood where Rachel lived is really old and snooty. Her house is set back from the street, with tall hedges on both sides between it and the neighbors. There’s a swimming pool in back, below the terrace.”

“Can you draw me a layout of the ground floor?”

Manfred thought about that. “I think so,” he said. “I didn’t go in every room, of course, but I did kind of a sketchy house tour. Once she got me there, Rachel wanted to show me every room. It was awkward . . . for everyone but Rachel.”

Slowly, Manfred drew the plan for the ground floor, with many erasures. It contained the formal living room, a dining room, a family den, the kitchen and pantry, and a game room, plus two bathrooms; one off the game room, and one between the kitchen and the family den, with a doorway onto the hall. “The terrace and pool are off the French doors in the family den,” he said, “but there’s also a hall that runs the length of the house and leads right out to it. Of course, that’s where the pool house is, to the right of the swimming pool. There’s a U-shaped driveway out front for visitors, and a driveway that goes all the way behind the house for family. I guess there’s a garage back there. I forget.”

“You have a good memory,” Olivia said.

“I’d never been in a house like that.” He could remember how impressed he’d been and how he’d struggled to look as though he took all this absolutely for granted. He remembered, too, how hard all this space and opulence had been to reconcile with Rachel Goldthorpe, who had been such a comfortable woman to be with, just like any grandmother he’d see at a church or a Denny’s.

“Okay, what about the second floor?” Olivia looked at him expectantly.

“I’m sketchier on that. I just walked through really quickly. I didn’t want to scare the daughters, so I was paying more attention to having a good conversation with them, telling them a little about my own family, trying to put them at ease.”

“Someday I’d like to hear about that,” Olivia said.

“When you tell me about yours, I’ll tell you about mine,” Manfred said. Olivia gave him a very hard look, and he knew he’d hit a nerve.

“Do the best you can with the second floor,” she said, pointing at the pad and paper.

So Manfred tried. “Okay, you go up the front stairs . . . then you reach a landing, and turn, and up more stairs. There’s the open area over the entryway, which is two-story, and the first room on the right you come to is Lewis’s room—when he was a kid. It has its own bathroom. The girls’ rooms are next, and there’s a bathroom in between ’em. Of course, they’re not being used now. The other side of the hall is kind of the grown-up side. First, there’s Morton’s office. Or maybe she called it a library? It has a little bathroom. Next to it, and huge, is the master bedroom. I just peeked in there. Some of the windows overlook the side of the house, and there’s a balcony, a big one, overlooking the pool at the back and the pool house. Where Lewis is staying now.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Two years, maybe. It was the first time I’d been to a client’s home, and the first set of one-on-one readings I’d done on my own.” He smiled, a little wryly. “And in case you haven’t picked up on it, I was really stunned by the size of the house. I’d never seen anything like it.”

Olivia’s expression was completely neutral as she looked down to the floor plans he’d drawn. Even without touching her, it was easy for Manfred to tell that she’d grown up in a house that large, or larger. She said, “The bigger the house, the more hiding places.”

Manfred gave himself a moment to feel smug. He’d called that one—her voice was the voice of knowledge. “I’m sure you can pare down the possibilities,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“When you’re hiding something, you want it under your surveillance, right? That’s human nature. As you said earlier, she’d want to keep it close. She would hide jewelry in a place she dominated. Since Lewis had moved back, that would be a limited number of places.” Manfred shrugged. “I know she liked to garden, so it’s possible she hid ’em in the yard, but given her poor health in the past few weeks, I’d probably give up on everything else before I started looking outside.”

“So noted. Her bedroom would be the most likely, since she would be fairly sure he wouldn’t come in if she was around. He’d be in the kitchen pretty often, getting a drink or a snack. The downstairs hall bathroom would be out, since he’d use it regularly. Not the dining room or the formal living room downstairs. I’d put the probabilities in this order: her bedroom, her bathroom, Morton’s office next door, then the kitchen, then the other downstairs rooms, then the empty upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms, then outside in the yard.”