Last Man Standing. Julie Miller
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“What?”
“Show me some of your etchings?” The line might be trite, but it had the intended effect.
The old man laughed. “You flatter me, girl.”
Whatever was happening to his deteriorating mind and body wasn’t affecting him now. He leaned on the desk and pushed himself to his feet. Paul Meredith was right there to support him, but Jericho waved him aside. “If you’d let an old man hold on to you, dear, I’d love to show you some of my favorite pieces.”
Tori’s pulse thrummed in anticipation as she tossed her bag over her shoulder and stood. Lax security. The distraction of a power struggle within the family. Approval from the boss.
The Divine Horseman was as good as hers.
Chapter Three
Tori hadn’t really thought Jericho would take her straight to a vault filled with stolen goods. But she had hoped he’d do more than point out the Borglum bust she’d already seen on display in the entryway or the George Caleb Bingham painting over the mantel in the living room.
There were no fewer than six archways off the foyer, and she’d been shown through only two. They were both public areas—places to entertain guests. She hadn’t seen anything remotely resembling a safe or secret room. Or an office. The Meades owned buildings in downtown Kansas City, but there had to be a nerve center for an estate this size. A place to run a business, hold meetings. Keep records.
Stash stolen artifacts.
Jericho did own an impressive collection of art. But, recalling the list supplied by the two Bills, she knew everything she’d seen thus far had been legitimately purchased.
There was no golden horseman in sight.
If she was going to find it, she’d have to gain access to the restricted rooms of the house and open a few of those locked doors. With or without Jericho’s or Cole Taylor’s permission.
Forty-five minutes after the tour had started, Paul tapped his watch. “It’s time for your medication, Jer. At least an hour before dinner, remember?”
“You’re as fussy as an old woman,” Jericho grumbled. “Call Aaron,” he ordered. With a reluctant sigh, he patted Tori’s hand and excused himself for a chance to rest.
Tori stood alone in the foyer for several minutes. It was long enough for her to study the paintings on the wall, making mental appraisals of each one’s value and working her way closer to the restricted wing of the house. She was close enough to reach for the knob of one of the French doors recessed in an archway when Aaron Polakis suddenly materialized behind her.
She traced the ivy vine carved into the walnut molding framing the doorway. “This house has beautiful woodwork, don’t you think?”
He didn’t care about her opinion. “This way, Ms. Westin.”
His accent was even more pronounced as he replaced each W with a V sound. For a moment, she thought he might have been spying on her, that he’d seen her looking into places she shouldn’t and was going to call her on it. But then she realized he was more worried about something else.
He was slightly out of breath. And the instant her gaze fell to the open front of his jacket, he quickly buttoned it, then pulled down the cuffs of his shirt at the end of each sleeve. The adjustments were brisk and methodical, but done hastily enough to make Tori think he’d just changed his clothes and run in from somewhere.
The man had been out of uniform and out of touch. But whether he’d been taking a legitimate break and had been caught unawares, or he’d been caught off guard, period, was hard to tell. Another flaw in Cole Taylor’s half-baked security system.
“We go now.” Aaron led her directly to her room on the second floor. “There—” he pointed out the tall, antique armoire where her clothes had been hung “—and there.” He opened the door to the adjoining bath. “Dinner is at seven in the dining room. Down the stairs. To your left.”
“Thank you.”
His dark eyes swept over her with something like disdain before he closed the door. Maybe he was anxious to get back to whatever had detained him, or just afraid she’d report him for dereliction of his duty. She certainly hadn’t made a friend there. But she did appreciate the silent reminder to watch her back while she was here.
After throwing open the drapes and sheers in a futile effort to bring some much-needed light into the room, Tori dropped her bag onto the chenille bedspread and picked up the monogrammed notecard lying on her pillow beside a piece of wrapped candy. She unfolded the card and read the dramatically scrawled message written inside.
Miss Westin—
Welcome to Meade Manor. Looking forward to our time together.
Enjoy your stay.
J.D.M.
“Nice touch.” Her host was definitely old school, like her grandfather. But she had a feeling that his polite, gentlemanly manner, like Frank Westin’s, was just a facade that hid a ruthless, driven man who cared more about profit than people.
Tossing the card onto the bed, she popped the candy into her mouth. She winced at the strong taste of bitter mint inside the chocolate and spit the nasty thing back into the wrapper, then tossed the whole thing into the trash.
“I prefer a caramel on my pillow, thank you very much.” Speaking her real opinion out loud, even on a topic as mundane as candy preferences, reminded Tori that she was playing a role for the next several days. Professor Westin could talk freely. Agent Westin needed to be on guard every moment she was undercover. With her mind firmly in business mode, she conducted a thorough search of her room and the white-tiled bathroom. She found one listening device on the lamp atop the correspondence desk, but her sensor picked up no cameras. For a passing moment, she considered disabling the bug. But no sound from a room where someone intended to eavesdrop would raise suspicion.
“Let’s see, what shall I wear?” The mundane comment covered her as she ran her fingers along the joint where the walnut armoire butted against the wall. The tall antique with its flowery cornices rested flush against the rose-patterned wallpaper, not even separated by the width of the baseboard. One of the lovely eccentricities of Victorian manor houses was the scarcity of built-in closets. Architects and designers of any era rarely attached furniture to the wall itself. So that meant…
Tori opened the door and hauled out her suits and blouses on their hangers and dumped them onto the bed. She pulled a penlight from her bag and, reliving a favorite childhood book, climbed right up into the armoire itself, searching first with her eyes and then with her fingertips for any kind of latch. She’d almost given up in disappointment that she wouldn’t be transported into another world when she spotted a set of four odd marks imprinted in the dust on the back panel.
“Curious,” she thought, holding her right hand up beside the marks. The size was greater than her own hand, but the pattern was the same. Other than an odd span between the third and fourth spot, they lined up in the perfect imprint of four fingers. “I’ve had company.”
And she didn’t think it was the lost maid.
Even a forensic specialist would have a hard time recovering usable prints once a layer of dust had settled over them. But four out of five was a significant number. It should be easy enough, through casual observation, to find out who in the house was missing the ring finger on his or her right hand.
But it wasn’t the who so much as the how that interested Tori right now. Placing her own hand beneath the telltale prints, she pushed. And smiled at the answering click. A spring-loaded door. She backed out of the armoire as the panel sprang open, then stepped inside for a closer look.
“Ooh.” She shivered as she stepped into a pocket of cold air. Every follicle on her arms and legs puckered into a sea of goose bumps. Who ran air-conditioning inside the walls of a house? But as she took another step in, the chill