David Graham turned toward her and Emily thought how the woman in the rest room had been right: he seemed so very nice. “You really don’t know, do you?” he asked as he held up the set of rubies she’d worn. The large drops caught the light from the single overhead fixture and looked like miniature fires.
“I have no idea,” she said tiredly.
“Shall I tell her?” David asked the others, making them turn toward her.
“Can we stop you?” Statler asked, looking at Emily in a way that made her body feel very cold.
There was a sneer on Charles’s thin face. “He’s the wolf as you so charmingly put it.”
At that Emily blinked. Maybe her little jest hadn’t been as charming as she’d thought at the time. Saying what she did would seem funny in the movies but in real life it had been rude.
The next moment, her head came up. What was she thinking?! Next she’d be apologizing to men who had tied her to a chair and were probably going to kill her. She glared at them.
“Did you think we’d fall for your insolence, for your…” Charles asked.
“That’s enough,” David said. “She’s going to die, what else do you want?”
“Michael,” Emily thought. Maybe if she called him in her head he’d hear her and come rescue her. But even an angel needed an address. “Where are we?” she asked, hoping to send that information to him telepathically.
“We’re in a state you never heard of,” Statler said. This got a laugh from the other two.
“So where did you find these?” Charles asked. “We looked everywhere.”
It took her a moment to realize that he meant that they looked through the Madison House attics. “You searched the house? But I saw no evidence that anyone had been there.”
“Do you think we’re amateurs? Who do you think spread the story of there being a ghost in that house?” Charles asked, his hatred of her clear in his voice.
“But there is a ghost in that house. Captain—” she began.
“Spare us your silly tales. Where did you find the rubies?”
“My, uh, friend did and I don’t know where he got them. Maybe you should ask him.” Maybe she could persuade them to bring Michael into this then he could rescue her. As he always did, she thought, and there were almost tears in her eyes. Be brave, Emily, she told herself. At least you know for sure that there is life after death. But even that thought didn’t make her less frightened.
“Is this the friend who’s asleep in the limo?” came a female voice and in walked the woman Emily had met in the rest room. “Honey, if you gave him all three of those pills he won’t ever wake up.”
For a moment all Emily could do was gape in consternation.
“Did you think you could get the kind of information that I gave you from just anyone?” the woman asked, her face showing her amusement at Emily’s confusion. Moving toward the desk, the woman put her arm around David’s waist. “This is my dear little brother,” she said as she reached for the rubies. “I do think they’ll look better on me than in your bank vault,” she said, smiling, then turned back to Emily. “You do look disbelieving. Did you think I just happened to be in that place and happened to give you all that information? Didn’t you think it was odd that only one woman came in during the whole time we were in there? We had someone outside guarding the door. Oh, and too bad about your friend. He was nice-looking.”
At the thought of Michael’s death, Emily almost gave up. So now Michael was probably without a body and was back in Heaven, but then she remembered something. “You can’t kill him. Not until he finds out what evil surrounds me and fixes it.”
At that absurdity, they all laughed. “Baby,” Statler said, “there’s lots of evil around you.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to make a nasty crack to that remark, but a phone rang and Charles pulled a cell phone out of his suit coat pocket. The men were clean and dressed in fresh street clothes while Emily felt as though she’d never had a bath in her life, plus, her bladder was bursting.
“Yeah, uh huh,” Charles said into the phone. “Got it. Let’s get her out of here.”
Statler grabbed her upper arm with one hand and held a knife in the other—whether to cut the ropes or slit her throat, Emily didn’t know.
But before she could find out, the phone rang again and Charles put his hand up in that way that powerful men do when they expect to be obeyed. For a few moments he listened, then he put the phone down. “The jail bird escaped.” He turned to glare at Emily. “Seems your friend is on the loose again.”
At that Emily nearly burst into tears of relief that Michael was still alive, but she got herself under control and tried to remain calm. She had no doubt that Michael would find her; after all, he had contacts in very high places.
“So we’ve got to wait until tonight to get rid of you,” Charles said in disgust.
Emily took a deep breath to give herself courage. “Can’t you at least tell me why you’ve stalked me? You’ve planted bombs in my car twice.”
“I told you that was a stupid idea,” David said to Statler. “Stat thought that a car bomb would make everyone believe that your death was connected to the Mafia and that crook you were with. But it didn’t work, did it? Somehow, the FBI knew.”
Emily was silent. She was not about to tell them that Michael was her guardian angel and could see the auras of cars.
“I can’t believe you didn’t figure it out, smart lady like you. When we started to find out about you, we were…” David looked up. “What were we?”
“Impressed,” Statler said.
“Yes, impressed. You were feeding some big news stories to that brainless boyfriend of yours and he was rising in the news world because of it. Too bad you didn’t marry him, you could have made him governor.”
“But the stories I researched had nothing to do with why you tried to kill me?” she asked and in spite of the horror of the situation, she was very interested now.
“None whatever.” Again he held up the rubies.
“You tried to kill me for those?” Emily asked in disbelief. “You could have stolen them. Or, from what I hear, you could have bought them.”
“But they are yours,” David said and this seemed to be a great joke to him.
Emily was confused. “You could have had them reset, recut, anything and that would have made them yours.”
“I thought you said she was smart,” the woman said with contempt.
Emily’s mind raced. Softly, she said, “What do you mean that they’re mine?”
“You own them legally because you inherited them.”
“From the captain?” She was getting more confused by the moment but then her head was full of things outside the normal world. For the last weeks she had been living in a world that included both people with and without bodies. If the captain, who was dead, owned the rubies then he gave them to her, did that mean she had inherited them?
“You ought to shoot her just for being so stupid,” the woman said, turning her back on Emily.
“What was your mother’s maiden name?” David asked.
“Wilcox.”
“And her mother’s name?”
“I…I don’t remember.”
“Try Simmons.”
“Ah, yes, I do believe that was it,” Emily said and was even more confused because it was a common enough name.
“And what was Captain Madison’s wife’s name?”
“Rachel—” Emily’s head came up. “Simmons,” she whispered. Emily just sat there blinking as thoughts raced through her mind. “You mean that I have something to do with Captain Madison?”
“Ever see a picture of his wife?”
“No, after the captain’s death she destroyed all pictures of herself.”
“Not all of them. My family had a few from when she was a girl.” David put his hand to his inside coat pocket and withdrew a photo which he held before Emily’s face.
“But she…”
“L
ooks like you. Yes she does. Just like you. Notice the jewelry in the picture.”
“I see,” Emily said, recognizing the rubies, but, truthfully, she didn’t see anything. “Who are you?”
He knew exactly what she meant. “My great-grandmother was the captain’s wife’s sister. But you, little Miss Librarian, were the captain’s wife’s great-granddaughter.”
Were. Past tense, as though she were already dead. “I…I never knew, never thought. I didn’t even know she had a daughter. It’s not in any of the records. What do you think drove her mad? I don’t know; I hadn’t found that out yet.”
“But you would have. See, it was a well-kept secret in my family. Young Rachel Simmons got pregnant by her lover then he left her so she was shipped off to an aunt’s to have the baby. When she came back her father married her off to the captain. By that time he was the only man in town who’d take her. Did you find out that the captain killed two men in duels who made jests about his wife’s virtue in a public bar? No, well, you would have found it out. You always snooped on a story until you found out everything.”
“The captain killed her lover,” Emily said as she tried to take all this in.
“No, he didn’t,” David said. “The wife killed him. She loved him with all her heart, the silly cow, then he left her the moment he heard she was pregnant and about to be disinherited. He went abroad then came back years later to find his former lover living in a mansion and wearing rubies the size of lemons. He secretly courted her again. The captain knew but he loved her so much that he let her do whatever she wanted. The captain would have let her lover live with them if that’s what she wanted. But when his wife figured out that all the lover wanted was her jewelry, she took one of the captain’s pistols and shot him through the heart.”
“After she shot him in the genitals,” the woman added.
“Oh yes, I forgot that grisly detail. I always forget that detail.”
“And the captain took the blame for it,” Emily said in wonder.
“Yes. He persuaded his faithful old servant to give evidence against him in a courtroom so the captain was hanged instead of his wife. Later the servant killed himself in remorse and the wife went mad.”
“And the baby was raised by a nice family in Iowa,” Emily said softly, thinking where her mother’s people were from.
“Right.”
“And when she grew up she married and gave birth to your grandmother.”
“So I guess this means that the captain left everything to his wife and she left a will giving everything to her daughter, wherever she was,” Emily said.
“Exactly.” David gave his sister a glance. “I told you she was smart.”
“But I knew nothing. I—”
“But you were researching the captain’s history, snooping into things that didn’t concern you and you would have figured it out. Too bad you aren’t as stupid as your boyfriend. You wouldn’t be in danger if you did. He couldn’t find his shoes without help.”
“So if you get rid of me then you become heir to the Madison fortune. Is there a fortune?”
“Oh yes, a substantial one,” the woman said.
“And there are rumors of hidden riches in that house,” Statler said. “His wife had a fabulous jewel collection. It seems that colored stones helped her forget what she’d lost. Besides rubies, she had emeralds and canary diamonds and great hoards of semiprecious stones. All worth millions today. But when she died not one stone was found. She hadn’t sold them, so everyone figured they were still in the house.”
“Why isn’t this known?” Emily asked. “It seems that there would be legends about a house full of jewels.”
“There are legends of ghosts. We spent a lot of money putting in a sound system that would scare off bratty kids come to sneak around the place,” Charles said, speaking for the first time in a while. “The ghost overrode any stories of treasure.”
“But why didn’t you just claim the house and do what you wanted to it?” Emily asked. “No one knew about me except you. I certainly didn’t know.”
“Judge Henry Agnew Walden, is why. We presented our claim five years ago but he said he wanted to know what had happened to the daughter. And he didn’t believe us when we said she’d died when she was an infant.”
“I told you he wouldn’t believe anything you said,” the woman said. “My dear brother seduced and abandoned the judge’s daughter. The judge learned the hard way about orphaned children.”
“So what was I to do? She was offering herself to me,” David said with eyes that had no regrets.
“Say no?” his sister asked archly.
“What if I give the place to you?” Emily asked. “What do I want with an old house and a bunch of jewelry? Where would I wear it anyway?”
At that they all turned to look at her and the identical expressions they wore said, We’re not fools.
“I’d sign any papers you had,” she said meekly. “Couldn’t you draw up a contract very fast?”
“What a splendid idea. You sign over millions of dollars’ worth of jewels and land to us, then later you don’t go to court and try to get it back. Is that your plan?”
“But I’d be too afraid to do anything,” Emily said and she could hear the whine in her voice. So much for bravery, she thought.
“Odd thing about money. If there’s enough of it it gives the most timid person courage. Believe me, Miss Librarian, a good lawyer could talk you into suing and you’d win, of course. After all, she was your great-grandmother.”
“Enough!” the woman said as she looked Emily up and down. “Any more talk and you’ll be asking her to marry you.”
“That is an idea,” Statler said, looking at the upper half of Emily that was hanging out of the dress.
“I say we get her out of here and get it over with. The sooner it’s done, the sooner her body will be found and the sooner you can be declared the nearest relative,” the woman said. “And give me those,” she added as she snatched the rubies from her brother’s hand.
“Michael!” Emily said in her mind and wished with all her might that she’d listened to him, obeyed him and not tried to be a femme fatale.
Emily didn’t have another thought because a needle was stuck into her upper arm and the next moment she was aware of nothing.
Chapter 23
WHEN EMILY AWOKE, SHE WAS INSIDE THE TRUNK OF a car. She’d never been inside a trunk before but there was no mistaking the smell, the sounds, the jostling ride, and the tire jack sticking into her rib cage.
For the life of her, she couldn’t grasp what was really happening. Being tied up and put into the trunk of a car was something that happened to other people, not to her. Not to boring little librarians whose idea of a good time was to find a first edition in an antique store.
“Michael,” she said aloud in her mind. She couldn’t speak because her mouth was taped. But if she could talk, she would have liked to say some things to him that she hadn’t said before.
First of all, she loved him. She loved him for who he was, not because he was an angel or even because he loved her. She loved him because he always cared about people, whether those people had a body or not.
And she was so sure of his love for her that she knew she could drug him and he’d still love her the next day. Sure, he’d be angry and he’d shout at her and tell her what a damn fool thing she’d done, but he’d still love her. How many women felt that sure of the men in their lives that they could do that? With Donald, she was always trying to please him, but with Michael, just being herself seemed to please him.
“I love you,” she said in her mind and tears gathered in her eyes as she thought that now she’d never get to tell him so. She’d never get to tell him he was right and she was wrong about the party, and she’d never get to tell him how much fun she’d had with him. He was interesting and funny and caring, and all the things that any woman would want, she thought. And I treated him like dirt, she thought, more tears coming to her ey
es.
So now she was on her way to her death. She had no doubt of that. And even Michael and all his powers had not been able to save her. What would happen to him when he got back to Heaven and told Archangel Michael that he’d failed, that he hadn’t been able to eradicate the evil that surrounded Emily?
So now she was going to die and she’d never see him in human form again. Next life she’d be human and he’d be in Heaven looking down at her. At least he’d be there for a hundred more years before he was transferred elsewhere. Suddenly, a hundred years didn’t seem like very long because that was all she was going to have with him.
When the car stopped, Emily wasn’t afraid anymore. Maybe it was because since she’d met Michael she’d come to know what awaited her. There was no question of life after death or reincarnation anymore. At least not for her. For her there was only certainty that she’d never again see Michael.
When the trunk was opened, she was not surprised to see that she was in a woods. So, she would become one of those bodies found by children playing and no one would be able to identify her. She’d never even made out a will.
“All right, let’s get this over with,” Charles said as he grabbed her arm and began pulling her deeper into the trees. She’d already seen that there would be no use asking for mercy from this man; he had no heart.
Please let me die with dignity, she prayed. Don’t let me blubber and beg.
With new resolve, she did her best to keep her footing as Charles pulled her across the rough forest floor.
It was David who heard the noise first. “What’s that?” he asked, his nerves obviously on edge. The others were so calm that Emily wondered if they’d done this before. They were known as the Lethal Three and maybe with good cause.
Maybe Michael used some sort of witchcraft, or in his case, angel craft, because the motorcycle was upon them almost before they could hear it. It was one of those huge old black Harley-Davidsons that only the meanest hoodlums would ride, and nothing had ever looked better to Emily. If he’d ridden up on a black stallion he couldn’t have looked more like a hero of old.