The Girl Who Knew Too Much

  In hindsight, maybe she shouldn’t have been so cautious after the disaster with Bradley Thorpe, she thought. Life was short. Sex—at least the kind she had just enjoyed—was exhilarating. A woman had a right to grab the good things when they came around. Perhaps she should have taken advantage of the opportunities that had come her way during her year in Helen Spencer’s fairy-tale world.

  But even as the thought occurred, she was quite certain that she would have wound up regretting a liaison with any of the charming, polished gentlemen she had met during the course of that year. For one thing, most of them had been jaded, bored, and utterly lacking in principles. They drank too much. They partied too hard. They were often thoughtless or downright cruel to those they considered beneath them. They lived for superficial entertainments, and they would have considered the seduction of Helen Spencer’s private secretary a form of entertainment.

  But everything was different with Oliver.

  She gripped the edges of the pedestal sink with both hands and studied her reflection in the mirror, searching for an explanation. Perhaps the episode in the storage locker had been so intense and so freighted with meaning because she and Oliver had endured danger together. The experience had probably created some sort of bond between them.

  If that was the case, she had to accept the fact that the bond was, in all likelihood, temporary. But it was real, which was a hell of a lot more than she could say about the connection she had felt with Bradley Thorpe. Then again, Bradley had been a lying, cheating bastard.

  She turned away from the mirror, let herself out into the hall, and went down the stairs. Oliver and Luther were on the patio, sitting in the shade. Both men got to their feet when they saw her.

  Luther smiled at her. The smile looked genuine but there was something odd about the way he was looking at her, she thought. It was almost as if he approved of what he saw. But that made no sense. He barely knew her.

  “Miss Glasson,” he said. “A pleasure to see you again.”

  She smiled and sat down. “I thought we agreed that you would call me Irene.”

  “We did, indeed.” Luther took his seat. His dark gaze sharpened. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Things have gotten complicated,” Oliver said. “We need some assistance.”

  “How complicated?” Luther asked.

  “We think that a killer may have followed Irene here to Burning Cove.”

  Luther’s brows rose. “The one who murdered Gloria Maitland and Daisy Jennings?”

  “Another one,” Oliver said. “And if we’re right, he is far more dangerous.”

  “What makes him more dangerous?”

  “If I’m reading the guy right, he’s a pro who enjoys his work.”

  Chapter 40

  That night they dined in the hotel’s restaurant. The room was crowded when they walked in shortly after eight, but they were immediately seated in an intimate booth on the balcony level.

  The position provided a measure of privacy while simultaneously allowing a sweeping view of the main floor. It was, Irene reflected, a lot like sitting in a box seat at the theater. From her position the dining room was a stage set lit by candlelight. The scene sparkled with crystal, polished silver, and glamorously dressed people.

  Oliver’s martini and Irene’s pink lady materialized along with an appetizer tray that featured lobster canapés, olives, and caviar.

  “I take it this is your personal booth?” Irene asked.

  “I like to keep an eye on my guests, and the view is excellent from up here,” Oliver said. “Most of the people who stay in my hotel eat dinner here even if they’re planning to go out to one of the local clubs later in the evening. I can get a list of those who don’t have reservations here tonight and those who order room service, if necessary. But I’m betting that our visiting monster doesn’t think that he has any reason to hide.”

  “What makes you so sure he’ll be here at your hotel?”

  “You’re the one he’s after and you’re here.”

  “No offense, but your reasoning is quite chilling. Do you really think you can identify him?”

  “If he’s here, yes. I’m good at reading people in an audience, Irene. It’s not that hard once you learn to pick up the cues.”

  “How do you do it?”

  “Like most illusions it’s really very simple,” Oliver said. “You let the subject tell you everything.”

  “That actually works?”

  “How do you think fortune-tellers, psychics, and mediums make their livings?”

  “I’ve always assumed that people who claim to be psychic were all frauds.”

  “They are. But they wouldn’t stay in business if they didn’t put on very convincing acts.”

  “You’re a magician,” she said, “not a fortune-teller or a psychic or a medium. You didn’t defraud people by making them believe that you could tell them their future or put them in touch with the dead.”

  He looked surprised by her vehemence.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I like to think there was a difference between my cold-read performances and the fraudulent variety, but the only real difference is that my audience understood that it was an act—just a clever trick. And for the record, I never performed the talk-to-the-dead scam.”

  “Of course not. People might have taken that seriously. So many do believe in spirits. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for making someone think that he or she really had communicated with the dead. That would be cruel.”

  He seemed a little amused by the certainty in her voice.

  “I was a magician, not a con artist,” he said. “But as I told you, a lot of the techniques used in both careers are the same.”

  “So, what do you see when you look out at your audience tonight?”

  He surveyed the dining room. “A lot of people with too much money and too much time on their hands. A lot of people trying desperately to have fun. A lot of people pretending to be someone else, at least for a night. But here and there, I see people who wish they were somewhere else.”

  “Or with someone else?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Oliver said. “A lot of those people. I also see some who are trying to reinvent themselves.”

  “Such as?”

  Oliver swallowed some of his martini and angled his head very casually toward a booth down below.

  “See the two women sitting together in the corner?”

  Irene followed his glance and spotted an attractive blonde dressed in a yellow-gold gown with a cowl neck cut very deep. The woman with her was a brunette dressed in violet. Both were drinking martinis and watching the room like a pair of hawks sizing up the local pigeon population.

  “What about them?” Irene asked.

  “They both checked in today. They spent the last six weeks in Reno at a divorce ranch and now they’re free.”

  Irene picked up her pink lady. “We in the gossip paper business call it taking the Reno cure.”

  The notorious quickie divorces available in Nevada were simple enough from a legal point of view, and they had certainly made things much easier for women, especially, to escape an unhappy marriage. In other states the process often took a year or longer, and the laws strongly favored the husbands.

  But obtaining a Nevada divorce was not cheap, Irene reflected. For starters, you had to be able to afford to move to Nevada and establish residency for six weeks. The Reno cure carried with it a strong whiff of scandal, of course, as did any other kind of divorce. But there was no denying that the state of Nevada was doing a booming business. People who were killing time waiting for the legal process to play out spent a lot of money at hotels, restaurants, and casinos.

  “What about the two women fresh in from Reno?” she asked.

  “They’re looking for rich husbands to replace the ones they just got rid of. My manager
informed me that the blonde asked to have her room switched to one that is closer to that bald man sitting at the table with the bored-looking young woman in blue. Both he and his companion have had enough of each other. She’s got her eye on another man and he’s looking for someone even younger.”

  Irene blinked, a little shocked in spite of herself.

  “And here I thought that those of us in the gossip business had a somewhat cynical view of human nature,” she said.

  “I’m not the one who concluded that a fast-rising movie star might be a murderer. Talk about cynical.”

  “Point taken. So, Mr. Magic, do you see a killer down there in the dining room?”

  He contemplated the scene for a long moment. “If I’m right, we’re watching for a man who checked in recently and who is traveling alone. I got the list of new guests here at the Burning Cove from the front desk. There are only a handful of names on it.”

  “But he might not be staying here.”

  “That is one of the unknowns,” Oliver admitted.

  “You’re probably right that regardless of where he’s staying he will be alone. I suppose the last thing a killer would want is a traveling companion.”

  “I still believe that the odds are very good that the killer is also from the East Coast,” Oliver continued. “He’ll have an accent and a certain style of dress. And he’s rich.”

  “You say that because he left that necklace behind in Helen’s safe?”

  Oliver’s smile was ice-cold. “A common thief would have been unable to resist such a tempting valuable.”

  “I think I’m beginning to see how you go about building up a profile of an individual you’ve never even met.”

  “Like I said, it’s not that hard once you learn to pay attention to the details. Bartenders do it on a regular basis. Take Willie, for instance.”

  “Who is Willie?”

  “The head bartender here at the hotel. She used to be one of my assistants.”

  “I thought most bartenders were male.”

  Oliver smiled. “Most are. Willie is a little different. You’ll see when you meet her.”

  “She can do what you do when it comes to reading people?”

  “She’s very good at it. So is my concierge, Mr. Fontaine. Enough about our problem. It’s been a very long day and I’m hungry.”

  “So am I,” Irene said, surprised by the discovery.

  “I can recommend the abalone.”

  “I’ve never had abalone,” she said.

  “Welcome to California.”

  Chapter 41

  Two hours later they walked back through the front door of Casa del Mar. Oliver had a list of guests—most male but some female—who had caught his interest for one reason or another. When he needed a name to go with someone on the list, the waiter checked with the maître d’ to provide it.

  Irene had been so caught up in the list-making process—demanding to know why Oliver selected certain guests out of a room full of people—that she had not had an opportunity to worry about what would happen after dinner. It was, she thought, just barely possible that the pink lady and the white wine that was served with the abalone might have had something to do with her failure to think ahead.

  The problem was that she and Oliver had not discussed the sleeping arrangements. It wasn’t the sort of thing a lady brought up in conversation, not in a classy dining room.

  A great awkwardness descended on her. The tour of the prop locker had turned her world upside down.

  Unable to think of anything else to do, she paused at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the railing, and gave Oliver what she hoped was a cool, gracious smile.

  “Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said. “Even if we did spend most of it talking about a killer.”

  “Never say I don’t know how to show a lady a good time.”

  His wry tone disturbed her. She took her hand off the railing and touched the side of his face.

  “I’m not sure what I should say at this moment,” she whispered.

  He caught her hand in his and kissed her palm. When he looked at her, she saw a shattering honesty in his normally unreadable eyes.

  “I’m not sure what I should say, either,” he said. “But I know what I want to say.”

  She was suddenly breathless. “What is that?”

  “Please don’t go upstairs tonight. Please say you’ll come down the hall to my bedroom instead.”

  “Yes,” she said. She brushed her lips across his. “Yes.”

  Chapter 42

  The following morning Luther arrived just as Irene and Oliver were finishing breakfast on the patio. Oliver waved him to a chair. Irene poured a cup of coffee for him.

  “I’ve got news,” Luther said.

  “Good or bad?” Irene asked.

  “Just news,” Luther said. “I contacted some people I know back east. There has been no progress in the Helen Spencer murder case. Officially it remains an active investigation. But my informant told me that, unofficially, the police have given up. They’ve concluded that it was either a random crime committed by a deranged individual—probably a transient—or the missing private secretary.”

  Irene caught her breath. “So there has been no progress and I’m still a suspect.”

  “If it’s any comfort, I think the police are leaning toward the deranged-transient theory,” Luther said.

  “Why?” Irene asked.

  Oliver looked at her. “Probably because of the necklace.”

  “Yes,” Luther said. “The thinking is that the secretary was not insane. According to the housekeeper and the butler, she was a skilled professional. If she had murdered her employer, the crime would most likely have been done with the goal of stealing something quite valuable.”

  “Such as the necklace,” Oliver concluded. “Any progress on that front?”

  “As reported in the newspapers, it was an extremely valuable item that went missing from a hotel safe in London shortly before Helen Spencer was murdered.”

  Irene gripped the arms of the rattan chair. “Miss Spencer traveled to London three weeks before she was killed.”

  Luther’s brows rose. “Evidently your employer traveled abroad frequently and she kept an apartment in Manhattan.”

  “That’s right,” Irene said. A queasy sensation roiled her stomach. “I’m the one who booked her tickets and made her travel arrangements. I sometimes accompanied her.”

  “Spencer always stayed in the best hotels, didn’t she?” Luther continued. “She attended parties in the homes of wealthy people.”

  Irene went cold. “What, exactly, are you implying?”

  Oliver gave Luther a knowing look. “You think Helen Spencer was a jewel thief, don’t you?”

  Luther shrugged. “It would explain a lot.”

  Irene stared at him, stunned. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Makes sense,” Oliver said. “She probably stumbled onto Atherton’s notebook when she cracked a safe in search of jewelry. She would have suspected immediately that the notebook was valuable. Why else stash it in a hotel safe?”

  “I think that is the most reasonable way to explain how Spencer acquired the notebook,” Luther said. “It’s possible that she was a professional spy who was paid to steal the notebook, but I think it’s far more likely that she was a thief who got very unlucky when she stole Atherton’s notes.”

  “Dear heaven.” Irene shook her head, dazed. “I lived in her house for nearly a year. How could I not have guessed the truth? I was so naïve. I thought she was my friend.”

  “It sounds like she was your friend,” Oliver said quietly. “Toward the end she must have begun to realize that the notebook was not only valuable, it was dangerous. She tried her best to protect you in case something happened to her.”

  Irene thought about the messag
e written in blood on the silver-flocked wallpaper. Run.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Luther looked at her. “Did Spencer meet with anyone in the days before she was murdered?”

  “I don’t know,” Irene said. “She had just returned from Europe. She went there alone. I spent the time at the New York apartment. She sent a telegram from London giving me the date her ship was due to arrive. I was to meet her at the pier. We were going to drive up to the country house together. But the information in the telegram was wrong. Miss Spencer was not on the ship. I discovered that she had arrived two days earlier. She must have gone straight to the country house.”

  “Yet she knew that you were waiting for her in New York,” Oliver said.

  “Yes,” Irene said. “I wasn’t the only one who got the wrong information. The housekeeper and butler were expecting Miss Spencer to return two days later, as well. Looking back, I think it’s obvious that she deliberately deceived us. She wanted some time alone at the country house.”

  “Time to make a deal for the notebook, perhaps,” Oliver said.

  Irene looked at him. “And time to meet her lover. He murdered her for the notebook.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Luther said. “What made you decide to drive to Spencer’s country house that evening?”

  “When I found out that she had arrived on a ship that docked two days earlier, I was frantic,” Irene said. “I couldn’t find her in New York. None of her friends had seen her. I telephoned the country house but there was no answer. I was afraid that she was there alone and had perhaps taken ill or fallen down the stairs. By then it was very late in the day. It’s a long drive and I was delayed by a bridge that had been closed due to the heavy rains. I didn’t arrive until nearly midnight.”

  “So you got into your car and drove all the way to the mansion, even though you knew you would be driving a mountain road at night,” Luther concluded.

  Irene looked at him. “Miss Spencer was very good to me. I would have done just about anything for her. If only I had arrived a few hours earlier.”