Chapter 1
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Doreen sighed and left the conservatory-turned-crime-scene as Nick called his local police contact to report this event.
She led the way back through the main part of the house, Mack following closely behind her, with Nick trailing slowly along, as he made his call.
Mugs seemed completely at home—even if Doreen wasn’t.
Goliath stayed nearby, and Thaddeus tucked closer into her neck.
The house remained the same and yet, in some ways, very different. When she mentioned that to Mack, he nodded.
“Is the house different, or are you different?”
She glanced at him and then quickly nodded. “You could be right,” she muttered. “I hadn’t thought of it in that way.”
Nick faced her, pocketing his phone, and asked, “So, where do you want to start?”
“I don’t know if we’re staying here at night for the next few days,” she began, with a bit of a grimace, “but, if not, we should probably find a place to stay.”
Nick suggested, “It probably would be better if we stayed here, particularly since we have the police on the way.”
“Oh my,” she muttered and then shrugged. “That’s fine then,” she conceded, giving them both a smile.
“Why don’t we start with the secret rooms,” Mack suggested, a smile on his face.
She looked over at him and laughed. “What’s this, just a treasure hunt for you? You’re acting like a two-year-old at Christmas.”
“Absolutely,” he admitted. “Everybody wants to find hidden treasure. I am not so different than most.”
She led the way into Mathew’s home office, and there she stopped, looking around and frowning.
“Does it look different?” Nick asked.
“I’m not quite sure. Something is different.” She turned around and pointed, “His desk and his chair still seem to be the same, but I’m not sure about this couch.” She studied it keenly. “I thought a black leather couch was here, not this more modern one—not his usual taste.”
“So could maybe Robin made this change?” Mack noted.
Doreen nodded. “That’s possible. I really don’t know.
Mathew never let me decorate the house, claiming I didn’t have good taste.
” She wandered over to his desk and sat down.
It was hard to take it all in. She hadn’t expected to come back here ever.
Now that she was here, it all had such a foreign feeling, a heaviness that she hadn’t expected.
She looked over at Mack, catching him watching her, probably understanding what she was going through.
Yet she could also see a little worry in his gaze.
She smiled up at him. “I’m fine. Honestly. ”
“Good,” he muttered, “because you don’t look … comfortable.”
She frowned and then chuckled. “That’s just you being you.” She got up from Mathew’s desk and announced, “We’ll have to go through all the drawers because I know one of these opens funny.”
“Funny?” Nick repeated, racing around to the side of the desk. “What do you mean by funny?”
“A secret drawer is in here,” she replied, waving carelessly at the desk. “He used to taunt me about it, telling me how I would never get into it.”
“Ooh, that’s mine then,” Nick stated, rubbing his hands together. “I love those.”
Even Mack laughed at that. “He always loved puzzles when we were growing up, especially the kinds that nobody else could get. He was all over them.”
“Then you’ve got your work cut out for you on this one,” she declared. “I’m not sure what’s in it. … I think he kept his gun in there.”
At that, Nick stopped in horror and turned to her.
She shrugged. “A guy like Mathew is bound to have weapons around.”
“Of course he would.” He shook his head. “Let’s figure out this puzzle.”
She pointed to one drawer. “I know it had something to do with this drawer, but I don’t know what the trick is.
” She left him to it, walking over to the painting on the far side of the wall.
She waved Mack over and said, “I don’t know whether this lifts off the wall or swings open.
I don’t want to damage it, so can you give it a try?
You can reach it a little easier than I can. ”
He walked over and took a look and tried to swing it open. That didn’t work. When he tried to lift it off the wall, it didn’t lift either.
When he turned and frowned at her, she shrugged. “Another one of those things that he just loved. Anything that made everybody else feel stupid.”
“I really don’t like this guy.”
“You don’t have to. He’s dead.”
Mack snorted at that. “Even in death, I don’t like this guy.” He then returned his attention to the painting, running his fingers along the back of the frame. Suddenly came a click.
She eyed him in delight as he pulled the whole thing forward, as if opening a door, revealing a safe behind it. “Okay, so that’s the main safe,” she shared, staring at it. “I don’t remember the combination though. I hope … it could be in one of his desk drawers.”
“Which drawer?” Mack asked.
“The secret drawer. He used to keep stuff like that in there because nobody else could get into it.”
Mack laughed, turned to his brother, and declared, “Okay, now back to you.”
“Sure, no pressure,” Nick muttered.
“But that’s okay,” she said, “because you’re really good at this stuff.”
He glared at her from his stooped position and stated, “If that was meant to be sarcastic, that’s not fair. I haven’t had very much time in here.”
“Nope, you haven’t,” she agreed, and then she walked over to a picture closer to the window and looked back at Mack. “This one too.”
“What about that one?” he asked curiously.
“I think another safe is in here.”
“Another one?” He frowned at her.
“Yeah, I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure. Another one is in here somewhere.”
“Good enough,” he replied. It took another minute or two for him to figure it out, but soon he had that one swinging away from the wall too.
She looked at the safe found behind it and nodded. “I’m sure he changed the combination on this one, but at one time it was my birthday.” Still she slowly and carefully entered her birthday, and unexpectedly the safe door popped open.
Mack crowded her to look inside. He whistled yet again. “Considering he used your birthday for the combination, I guess it’s really not a surprise that it’s full of jewelry boxes.”
She stared at it and frowned. “I guess not. Yet, if Robin had any idea that the combo was my birthday, she would not have been happy.”
“The good news is she apparently didn’t know.” Mack took out one of the many velvet boxes, opened it up, and stared. “Good God, these are what? Emeralds?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I can’t remember the name, but he was working with some high-end jewels at one point.
I don’t know if they are emeralds, but what else looks like that?
” She pulled out a couple more boxes, opened them, and noted, “These are yellow diamonds. I do know that.” She rolled her eyes at Nick.
“I’ve seen these necklaces before, a couple times. ”
“Did you ever wear them?” he asked.
“Of course not.” She carelessly waved at one of the matching pairs of earrings.
“It’s worth too much. You don’t go out in public with this stuff.
” She snorted. “Mathew would never allow it. He would have high-quality imitations made so that nobody knew for sure. So, if they were stolen, the real piece was safe and secure.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Nick muttered, shaking his head, “but, good God, how much … I don’t even want to ask how much money is tied up in this stuff.”
“A lot,” she declared, “and he used to deal in jewels all the time.” She dug down to the bottom under the jewelry boxes and pulled out a bunch of paperwork. “If we’re lucky, these documents will be the insurance riders, which should give us some idea of their value.”
That caught Nick’s attention, so he left the desk and grabbed the papers, flipped through them, and nodded.
“That’s exactly what these are,” he confirmed, “so that’s a boon.
” He shook his head when he glanced back at the docs again.
“Pretty unbelievable.” He carried the papers back to the desk, muttering to himself.
“Maybe so,” she conceded, but she wasn’t all that interested in them. “I know we’re waiting for the police, but do we need to have them involved in any of this stuff?”
“They shouldn’t have to be,” Mack stated, standing beside her. “No reason to get them involved in all of this since it’s your private property.”
“And how the heck does that work?” she muttered, with a headshake.
Just then came a whoop as Nick popped up from behind the desk. “I think I got it.”
She walked around the desk, saw the open drawer, and smiled. “Yeah, that looks like it.”
Sure enough, Nick opened the secret drawer, and there was a small handgun.
She nodded. “I think the gun license is in there somewhere too.” She stared at the weapon with revulsion. “It’s nothing I ever wanted him to have. I’m not really a fan of a guy like him being armed.”
Nick lifted it out gingerly with his handkerchief, frowning at it as he sniffed it. He told Mack, “I don’t think it’s been fired recently.”
Using the handkerchief, Mack took it from him, looked it over, and sniffed it too. “No recent smell of firing. Seems it’s been in this drawer for a while.” He faced Doreen and added, “So, that’s another good thing.”
“I’ll take any good things, considering we have a dead body in the greenhouse,” she muttered, yet with a smile. “Plus anything that makes our job easier right now is good.”
“And,” Nick added, “the license is here. Seems in order. Oh, Doreen, you’ll want this.” He handed her some numbers written on a sticky note.
She smiled and walked over to the first safe. The numbers worked, and the safe door unlocked. Mack stood behind her as she checked it out. She snorted, pulled out one single sheet of paper. “This is so Mathew. You’re too late. I already moved these contents.”