“What a coincidence. I’m in the mood for the same therapy.”
Fifteen
They walked back to the villa, following one of the pleasant residential streets that wound up the hillside above the marina. The lights were on in most of the homes they passed. On the far side of the bay, fog had enveloped the city, but the night promised to remain clear here in Phantom Point.
“How did your day go?” Mack asked as he opened the front door of Vesta’s house.
“A complete waste of time, just as you predicted.” Cady walked into the hall and dropped her purse on the nineteenth-century neoclassical bench. “I don’t know what I expected to find, but whatever it was, it wasn’t there.”
Mack closed the front door and locked it. “No clues, huh?”
“None. Just heaps of letters to clients and business associates. The usual stuff. Advance notes regarding important collections that would be on display in the main gallery in San Francisco. Consulting advice on various acquisitions. That kind of thing.”
“What about computer files?”
“My aunt was never keen on computers.” Cady headed for the kitchen. “They made her uncomfortable because of the privacy issues.”
“She used them in her business, didn’t she?”
“Of course. It would be difficult to run a modern firm of any size without computers. But she didn’t trust them. Believe me, if Aunt Vesta had had a secret to hide, the last place she would have chosen to conceal it would be a computer.”
Mack followed her into the kitchen. “That fits with what you’ve told me about her. By the way, I picked up some sourdough bread and cracked crab for dinner.”
“Sounds great. That reminds me, we’ve been invited to an ambush tomorrow night at the yacht club.”
“Ambush?”
“My cousin Sylvia and her husband, Gardner. They want to meet you. I’m pretty sure they intend to grill you to see if they’re right in suspecting that you want to marry me because of my shares in Chatelaine’s.”
“Got it.” He opened the door of the wine closet and removed a bottle. “An ambush.”
“What about your day?” she asked as she took a box of crackers out of the cupboard.
He laughed very softly.
She frowned over her shoulder. “Did I say something amusing?”
“Not really. It’s just that for a minute there we sounded like an old married couple. ‘How did your day go, dear?’ ‘Not so great, how was yours?’”
She winced. “Well, we are supposed to be semi-engaged.”
“I’m not sure that semi-engaged is an officially recognized category in the etiquette books.”
“Do you read etiquette books, Mack?”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t read much fiction.”
“That’s what I thought. Let me worry about the technicalities of our situation.” She opened the refrigerator to take out some feta cheese. “Find anything interesting in my aunt’s personal files in the study?”
“Nothing in her files. But I may get lucky with some other data that I came across.”
She turned to reach for a plate and bumped lightly, accidentally, against Mack. A twinge of awareness went through her. This little remains-of-the-day scene was getting downright cozy.
“What data?” she asked.
“Some info I collected this afternoon.”
She paused, one hand in the cracker box. He sounded a little too vague, she thought. “How did you go about collecting this new data?”
“The old-fashioned way. Spent some time sitting in a car outside Jonathan Arden’s apartment.”
She yanked her hand out of the box and spun around. “Are you telling me you staked out his apartment in the city?”
“For a while.”
“Like a real private investigator, do you mean?”
“I keep telling you, I’m a consultant, not a PI.”
“Hmm.” She pondered an image of him watching Arden’s apartment from some shadowy doorway. “See anything interesting?”
“Saw Arden leave his place with a tennis racket and drive off in an expensive Jag.” He helped himself to one of the crackers. “Got the license number.”
“Can you do anything with that?”
He shrugged. “Not much. I know someone who can tell me whether or not the Jag is registered to Arden. But it probably is and so what?”
“If he’s a known con artist—”
“Again, so what? Being a professional psychic is not an illegal activity.” He paused to bite down on the cracker. “However—”
She jumped at the bait. “Yes?”
“Interestingly enough, Arden is not listed in the phone book.” Mack polished off the cracker and swallowed. “Or any other directory that I could find.”
“What do you think that means?”
“Don’t know.” He opened a drawer, rummaged around in it for a moment and plucked out a corkscrew. “Probably just that he’s so exclusive he only works by referral. Or—”
“Or?”
“Could mean he’s new to the area. Hasn’t had a chance to get into the directory.”
She drummed her nails on the counter. “Doesn’t sound like you got much out of that stakeout. Maybe you should have followed him or something.”
“To the tennis courts to watch him lob balls over a net? I think that would have been a little obvious, don’t you? Be tough to fade into the background.”
The cork came out of the bottle with a soft whoosh.
Morosely she watched Mack pour the red wine. “Arden’s the only lead we’ve got. I refuse to believe that he’s an honest psychic.”
“If he’s a con artist, he’s probably got a history of running scams. Also, chances are his previous operations involved the psychic bit.”
“You think so?”
He finished filling the glasses and put the bottle down on the counter. “Most cons develop a unique style of doing business and stick to it. If that’s true in Arden’s case, we may get lucky with some of the info I found in his trash.”
“His trash?” Shock lanced through her. “I thought you just watched his apartment. Mack, what did you do today?”
“I told you, I collected some information. That’s what you hired me to do.”
“Good grief.” She crossed the kitchen and gripped two handfuls of his shirt. “Tell me you didn’t break into Jonathan Arden’s apartment.”
“I didn’t break into Jonathan Arden’s apartment,” he said obediently.
“I don’t believe you. You must have broken into it. How else could you get into his trash?” She tried to shake him but there was no discernible motion. He just stood there, rock steady, and looked at her with laconic amusement. “Are you crazy? What if Arden had returned and found you inside? What if he’s the person who murdered Aunt Vesta? You could have been killed.”
“I’m touched by your concern.”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me. It was one thing for you to come to the rescue that night at Ambrose’s cabin. That was your case and a man’s life may have been at stake. But I do not want you risking your neck to help me prove that someone murdered my aunt. Do you understand? You’re supposed to investigate, not play hero.”
“Does this mean that you still think of me as having hero potential?” He looked interested. “I was under the impression that I’d been demoted after what happened between us at the lodge that night.”
“I’ve already warned you once about bringing up that subject.”
“You know, all of these restrictions are going to make it hard for me to do my job, boss.” Ignoring her hands on his shirt front, he reached around her to pick up another cracker. “But if it makes you feel any better, I seriously doubt that Arden is a killer.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Well, for one thing, there’s no obvious motive. What would he have to gain from the merger? Also, as a group, professional con artists prefer to avoid violence. In addition to not being a v
ery profitable way of doing business, it unnecessarily complicates things.”
“What do you mean, ‘it unnecessarily complicates things’?” she demanded.
“Most people who get conned are reluctant to go to the cops. They feel foolish and embarrassed because they allowed themselves to be sucked into a scam. The elderly, especially, tend to keep quiet because they’re afraid their kids and heirs will find out and assume that they’ve lost it. Gives the little ingrates a good excuse to go after a power-of-attorney on the grounds that grandpa can no longer manage his own finances. The kids get their hands on the money. Grandpa gets warehoused in a nursing home.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that, but—”
Mack reached over one of her clutching hands to pick up a glass of wine. “But all that changes if someone gets murdered,” he said gently.
Slowly, she released his shirt front and took a step back. “Because murder means the cops have to get involved?”
“Yes. And a murder investigation brings with it a lot more attention than any pro wants.”
She frowned at the wrinkles she had made in the fabric of his shirt. “I get your point but I still don’t want you taking chances. Having you arrested for breaking and entering isn’t going to get us anywhere.” Impulsively she reached out to brush the crumpled cloth, trying ineffectually to smooth it.
He looked down at where she was fussing with the fabric. “Would you fire me if I got arrested?”
The amusement in his voice was infuriating. She snatched her hand away from his shirt and turned on her heel to pick up her wineglass. “I’d have grounds. After all, you wouldn’t do me a heck of a lot of good in jail.”
“No, I guess not. Probably bad for your business image, too.”
“Very bad.” She realized that he was not going to give credence to her very real fears. She was not sure she herself understood the depths of her own reaction. All she could do was try to conceal the cold chill he had given her behind the legitimate annoyance of an irate employer. “Mack, I mean it, I don’t want you taking any chances on this job.”
He nodded. “I know exactly how you feel. Sort of the way I felt when I found you in the middle of a burglary-in-progress at Vandyke’s cabin.”
She spun back around, heat rising in her face. “You were extremely annoyed.”
“I was pissed, all right.”
“Fine.” She smiled coolly. “So you do understand. Stick to collecting information. Feed data into that whiz-bang database of yours. See what pops out. That’s all I’m paying you to do.”
“Well, no, it isn’t. Not quite.”
“I hired you to consult. Stick to the job description.” She took a swallow of wine to settle her nerves.
“The job description includes acting the role of your current besotted lover and soon-to-be official fiancé, remember?”
She sputtered on the mouthful of wine and groped wildly for a napkin. Mack handed her a paper towel instead. He watched with polite concern as she regained her self-possession.
“There’s no risk involved in that part,” she got out with an effort.
“I’m not so sure.”
She would not allow him to provoke her anymore tonight. He had done enough damage to her nerves for one day. “I can’t see that playing the part of my possible potential future fiancé puts you in danger of getting shot or arrested.”
“You never know.”
“Damn it, Mack—”
“Take it easy.” His mouth quirked slightly at one corner. “I told you I didn’t break into Jonathan Arden’s house. It was the truth.”
She tried to read his expression and failed miserably. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“I noticed. Does that make us even?”
“For what?”
“For the fact that I thought you had ulterior motives when you went traipsing off to see Ambrose Vandyke about a certain chunk of heavy metal. You know, the trust thing.”
She groaned and waved one hand in disgust. “Yes. Sure. We’re even.”
“How nice. A fresh start for us.” He took a long swallow of wine.
She eyed him closely. “If you didn’t break into Arden’s apartment, how did you get that information you said you found?”
“Went through the apartment building trash container in the garage.”
She stared at him for a few seconds before she became aware of the fact that her jaw had dropped. “Yuck.”
“In a word, yes. Luckily I had some gloves with me. Had to change clothes when I got back here, though. There were only six apartments in that building but I swear, every single tenant ordered in pizza last night.”
“What if someone had seen you?”
“I had a back-up story ready, just in case. If anyone had asked questions, I planned to tell them that I was a guest of one of the tenants and that I had accidentally dropped my watch in the trash that morning while getting dressed.”
“Heck of a plan. Lost your watch in the trash. Yes, of course. Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
“You’d be amazed at the kind of stuff people throw away without stopping to think. Garbage, especially a whole apartment building’s worth, seems so anonymous, doesn’t it?”
She thought about all the stuff she had casually discarded into various trash containers over the years. “Yes, it does. What exactly did you find?”
“Some junk mail. A lot of credit card applications. Empty envelopes. That kind of stuff.”
“Do you really think we’ll learn anything useful?”
“Probably not. I doubt that Arden is the careless type.”
“My, you’re certainly Mr. Optimistic.”
Mack shrugged. “Let’s just hope we don’t prove the old gigo theory right.”
“The gigo theory?”
“Garbage in, garbage out.”
At ten forty-five that night he sprawled in the chair in front of the computer, propped his elbows on the arms and put the tips of his fingers together. He regarded the data on the screen.
“Not much,” he said. “According to this, Jonathan Arden has no history of running his psychic scams for fun and profit in the art world. At least, my database has no information on any con artist who matches his description or operating style.”
“Sheesh.” Cady stopped pacing the study and came to lean over his shoulder. She glared at the glowing screen. “You mean he’s for real?”
“A real psychic?” He smiled faintly. “I doubt it.”
“You know what I mean,” she said impatiently.
He spread his fingertips apart briefly and then put them back together. “All I can say with any assurance at this point is that Arden has no record of scams involving claims of psychic talents in our neck of the woods.”
“Doesn’t mean he might not have a record elsewhere.”
“No, but as I warned you, this program is very specialized. It’s limited to tracking activity in the art world. I’m not the FBI or Interpol here.”
“Hmm.” She did not move. Instead, she continued to lean over his shoulder, glaring balefully at the screen.
He took the opportunity to inhale the scent of her, trying hard to be subtle about it. She smelled good. Faint traces of some flowery body cream or maybe that was soap, he thought. But mostly there was the warm, delightfully female fragrance that was unique to her. It stirred memories of the night at the lodge, making him feel edgy and restless.
“But the question still remains,” she continued, obviously heedless of the effect she was having on him, “why was Aunt Vesta seeing Arden? I just can’t bring myself to believe that she thought he was for real.”
She did not know what woke her later that night. She lay quietly for a while, listening to the small sounds of the large house. She heard no alarming noises, no footstep in the dark or muffled thuds. After a while she pushed aside the covers and got to her feet beside the bed.
Grabbing her robe off the hook on the back of the door, she wrapped herself in its folds and went o
ut into the hall. Barefooted, she padded along the interior balcony that overlooked the two-story living room. When she reached the staircase, she descended to the first floor.
She came to a halt in front of the French doors and gazed out onto the night-darkened terrace. The underwater lights were on in the pool. A dark, sleek, unmistakably masculine shadow moved beneath the surface, gliding toward the far end with powerful, efficient strokes.
Mack was doing laps.
She watched him for a while, aware of an increasing sense of unease. When he reached the tiled pool wall, he whipped around with a supple twist of his body and shot back in the opposite direction. Every time he broke the surface for air, his strong shoulders gleamed wetly.
Deep inside her, the uneasy sensation grew until it began to resemble full-blown anxiety. She told herself that she should go back to bed, maybe do some yoga breathing. Instead her fingers closed around the doorknob.
Outside in the pool, Mack reached a wall, flexed and glided back through the water.
She opened the door and stepped out onto the terrace. The cool night air made her pull the robe more snugly around herself.
Slowly she made her way to the edge of the pool. Mack must have sensed her presence. He came to a halt in the water and surfaced, flinging drops from his hair and face with a single, quick movement of his head. He found her in the shadows immediately.
“Something wrong?” he asked, treading water.
She hesitated. “No.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Mack, how can you swim in that pool?”
For a few seconds he studied her. Then he swam slowly toward the edge where she stood. When he got close, he put one hand on the tiled rim.
“Does it bother you to think of anyone swimming here because this is where your aunt died?”
“Well, yes.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Yes, it does.”
“You told me that the pool was drained and refilled after Vesta drowned.”
“Yes, but—” She broke off, unable to explain her feelings. Instead she looked around at the looming vegetation. “It’s like a jungle out here. Aunt Vesta planted all the shrubs and hedges to ensure her privacy. But they give me the creeps.”