Twenty-six
“I got one!”
Wes’s voice rang through the house, and Nadine backed out from under the bed where she was hunting for clues. She swore as she hit her head and went to go find him, trying to keep her animosity in check and to remember they were on the same team.
They’d split up the house to make sure they checked everywhere, and she found Wes in the hallway of the west wing, holding a copy of Thirty Pieces of Silver . Streaks of dust marred his black Cuban shirt, which had a slight V at the collar. There was a freckle near his throat that she couldn’t take her eyes off until he waved the book in her face.
“Hold on,” she said, refocusing her attention. It took a few seconds. “That’s the edition she kept moving around the salon when we were visiting. I recognize the scratch on the cover.”
He opened it with a flourish to reveal a newspaper clipping tucked at the beginning of chapter thirteen. “Voilà.”
She plucked it out. It was an obituary about a woman named Abigail Spencer, minus the notes or highlights of the other obits Dot had left. Also, no shade to Abigail, but it detailed a fairly uneventful life, without any of the elements Dot usually appreciated. Nadine turned her attention to the book. “Chapter thirteen. Does it have something to do with the text?” she asked. “Judas was thirteenth at the Last Supper.”
Wes groaned. “Do you remember doing Machiavelli in Professor Otterly’s poli-sci class?”
“That elective nearly killed me.” Nadine flipped through the book, looking for other notes. “When we did that chapter of The Prince ?”
“We thought it was about being Machiavellian.”
“Then Otterly was mad because he said it was ultimately about the death of God, and none of us got it.” Nadine returned the book, and he reinserted the clipping. “It was like getting to the end of a mystery and finding out some character barely mentioned was the killer.”
“That’s the first project we worked on together,” Wes said.
She shook her head. “That was the narrative journalism class.”
“No, it was Otterly. You sat in front of me, and I asked if you had a partner. That’s why we ended up doing the narrative project, so we didn’t have to juggle a bunch of meetings with different groups.”
“Very pragmatic.” A sparkling electricity passed through her before she decided she was reading too much into it. Wes’s extraordinary memory meant it was normal for him to recall their first project with the same level of detail she had about eating breakfast. “Look at us now.”
“I’ve been on worse jobs,” he said. There was a beat of silence where she caught Wes’s gaze for a moment too long. He coughed and turned back to the book. “I suggest we find everything and examine them later for connections. We can put them on the table in the library.”
She looked at the cabinet. It was third in a row of six, all of them stuffed with enough bric-a-brac to fill the house of a Victorian naturalist. “How did you find it?”
“It was the only book in the whole collection, so it caught my attention.” Wes looked regretful. “No pattern or anything we can apply.”
“Damn.”
“That’s one question for me, by the way.” He gave her a jaunty wave and headed down the hall. “I’ll collect it later.”
***
Wes glanced at Octavia, who had made herself at home in the corner of a cabinet surrounded by vases. “If you break it, you buy it,” he warned her.
He must be losing it, talking to Octavia. At least Erma listened, tilting her head to the side whenever he asked her a question. He returned to his examination of the room, which had to be one of his favorites. Winter-nude branches were painted on the pale pink wallpaper and climbed up the ceiling toward a large chandelier with peacock heads for the lights. Small birds sat on the branches, looking so lively it was like the artist caught them midsong. A large daybed covered in dark blue cushions sat on one wall, and matching portraits of a Qing couple in full court dress were displayed above.
He’d looked through and under the bed. Behind the picture frames. Checked inside the vases and under the rosewood chairs. That left one thing, the huge Italian-style bureau that had been lacquered a deep crimson and was a perfect hiding place for a secretive old woman with a perverse sense of humor. The drawers curved out in a smooth belly, each painted with a different scene of junks at a Chinese harbor, and seemed to contain nothing but unused linen place mats.
He couldn’t see any clues to Dot’s book or her mystery, so he sat in a chair and considered declaring this room done. But he kept looking at that cabinet. “Who does this kind of thing?” he asked Octavia.
Dot Voline did. Had the Agatha Christie story given her the idea in the first place, or was it simply a coincidence? Good old Miss Marple. She would be able to figure out what to do.
Then he slapped himself on the head. She had.
Going back to the cabinet, he emptied out the top drawer again and felt around the back. There it was: a small hole. He grabbed a letter opener shaped like a dagger and used the sharp end to poke carefully until there was a slight click and the bottom of the drawer popped up.
“Nadine,” he called, a bunch of newspaper clippings in his hand. “Have you found anything yet, or am I the only one?”
Her scream of fury was gratifying. They might be getting along, but it was still nice to win.
***
Later, Wes watched Nadine walk away after showing off her latest clue.
The woman was addicted to sundresses, and this one had little straps over her shoulders. The skirt reached past her knees but had a disconcerting way of hiking up when she sat or bent over. He refused to let himself linger on this, although he’d looked enough to know she had a birthmark on her right thigh that he could swear was shaped like a rabbit. He wanted to look closer to confirm it. He wanted to sink his fingers into those thighs. He wanted…
Whoa, what the hell. No, he didn’t, although Wes hadn’t missed her very flattering reaction when she’d seen him shirtless. Her eyes had run up and down his body like a physical touch, making all those hours in the gym suddenly worth it, and he’d had to step behind a box to cover his reaction. He couldn’t let that happen again. This was Nadine. Not his enemy anymore, but also not entirely anything else. Their relationship was a shifting liminal zone that wavered between colleagues, irritants, and potential friends. That they worked so well together threw him for a loop. It didn’t seem right that they should fit, yet they did.
Regardless, she was definitely off-limits, at least until this investigation was done. He didn’t need to muddy already murky waters, especially since he was thinking about Nadine far more than he was about the secrets in Dot’s house. Gritting his teeth, he left the room and found a fresh cupboard to turn inside out.
***
Two days of searching later, Nadine was in the porcelain room trying not to break anything as she put the rug back in place after confirming there was no trapdoor. Last night, Wes had suggested they hold a séance to ask Dot about the secret basement entrance, and although she’d laughed at him, she thought he might be onto something. Finding it was clearly beyond the ability of living beings. At least they were getting along, much to her astonishment. Their work styles meshed well, and despite the frustration of searching hour after hour, they had managed to not take it out on each other. This was unexpected but welcome.
Sighing, she surveyed the room. There were vases and figurines, teapots and plates, and a sewing kit with china needles. Anything that could be made from clay and fired was on display in styles from around the world. It was a collection fit for a museum.
She picked up a photo from a side table, never having seen a porcelain frame before. Forget-me-nots were painted around a black-and-white studio portrait of a smiling woman that might be Dot in the 1970s. When she took the photo out, there was nothing hidden, although a small stamp read “Werner and Knapp, Ottawa.” She brought it to the library table in triumph and went to the kitchen to draw a point on her tally.
“Getting there,” said Wes as he passed by. “Almost.”
He added another one to his side and grinned at her. Nadine should have been annoyed. She was annoyed. She loved winning, and the only thing better than winning was winning against Wes.
But she couldn’t help smiling back.