Eight Days to Live

  She lifted the lid. “What the hell?” She frowned as she pushed aside the cotton padding. Inside was another box, but this one was gold and studded with blue lapis. “Wow. Now this is worthy of a Swiss bank deposit. But she’d have to have a lot of jewelry to fill this beauty.” She lifted the thin, filigreed lid. More cotton padding. She impatiently pushed it aside. “A tablet?” A large stone tablet with script that was tiny, precise, and completely filled the tablet. She studied the script. “Arabic?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe Aramaic . . .” His eyes were narrowed. “This is granite, and it looks old. Not that I’m an expert.”

  “Well, we’re not going to be able to do anything with it here.” She closed the lid and put the black box in her tote. “It is heavy. And it must have been important to Adah if she put this in a safety-deposit box.”

  “Maybe.” Caleb shut the deposit box and locked it. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What do you mean? ‘Maybe’?” She followed him into the vault room, where Barnard was waiting. She forced a smile as she handed him the metal box. “Thank you again, Mr. Barnard.”

  “It was my pleasure.” He put the deposit box into the larger outer box and turned the key. “If you please?”

  Jane inserted her key and turned it.

  Caleb looked up at the video camera in a corner of the room. “It’s a shame you’re having trouble with those cameras, Barnard.”

  Jane’s eyes widened. Count on Caleb to cover their tracks. She hadn’t even thought beyond getting to the box.

  Caleb was shaking his head. “Perhaps if you erased the video and started it over, it would reset them?”

  Barnard frowned. “I suppose that’s possible. Yes, I’ll try it. It’s a shame that you can’t trust technology when you need it.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine once you reset it. You Swiss are the true masters of fine workmanship.” He took Jane’s elbow and urged her down the corridor toward the front door. “Good day, Mr. Barnard. I can’t tell you how helpful you’ve been.”

  “Good day.”

  Jane glanced back to see Henrik Barnard standing where they’d left him, frowning up at the video camera.

  “Will he erase them?” she asked in a low voice as Caleb opened the front door for her.

  “Eighty-five percent probability. If he doesn’t do it now, it will bother him enough to make him come back later and do it.”

  “It’s scary that you have it down to percentages.”

  “I’ve been at this a long time. We didn’t need a video record of our presence in the bank. It was only another little push for me.”

  “And what happens when he discovers that Adah Ziller is dead?”

  “Nothing. After he erases the videos, he won’t remember that you were ever here.”

  “What about the receptionist at the desk who announced you to him?”

  He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to answer. “She won’t remember either, will she?”

  “Not if I did my job.” He glanced at her as they reached the car. “It still bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  “Hell yes, it bothers me. I either have to doubt my sanity or accept the unacceptable. No one should have the ability to do that.”

  “But I do. I didn’t ask for it, but it’s part of me. I handle it the best way I can.” He opened the passenger door for her. “And I’m going to use it to protect you whether you like it or not.” He glanced at Jock behind the wheel. “Is everything okay?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Jock said curtly. “Get in the car.”

  “Right.” Caleb jumped in the backseat and glanced at the rearview mirror. “What the hell is wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” Jock started the car. “It just doesn’t feel . . . I don’t know. Are we going back to Lina’s place now?”

  “Yes.” Jane was studying his face. She knew that expression. Tense, alert, on edge. “There was a gold box with a tablet in the deposit box. Very small script that might be Aramaic. We’ll have to have Lina take a look at it.”

  “There wasn’t anything else? Maybe some more of those coins you found in her bedroom?”

  She shook her head and nodded at her handbag. “Nothing but the tablet. We’ll have to see how important they are.”

  “They’re important,” Caleb said. “For one reason or another.”

  “Don’t give me that enigmatic bullshit,” Jane said. “I’ve had enough of your mysterious ‘gift.’ Just come through with good old down-to-earth answers.”

  “How boring,” he murmured. “I’d much rather deal in enigmatic bullshit.”

  “Those tablets have to be important.” Jock’s gaze was on the rearview mirror. “Why else are we here?”

  Jane’s gaze followed his to the mirror. “Do you see someone?”

  “No.” He glanced at Caleb. “But I still don’t feel right. Keep an eye on that rearview mirror.”

  “My pleasure,” Caleb said. “Trust, at last.”

  “Not trust. Necessity. I’m driving, and I want a sharp eye on our backs. You might as well keep busy.”

  “By all means.” He smiled. “If there’s anything to see, I’ll see it. Now get us to Lina’s cottage.”

  TEN

  IT WAS CLOSE TO ELEVEN WHEN THEY drove up the road to Lina’s cottage. The moon was bright overhead and illuminated the mountains and valley with almost surreal beauty.

  “Peaceful,” Jane said. “I can see why she’s content to stay here.”

  “Yes, the light on the mountains is pretty spectacular.” Caleb glanced casually back at the road through the mountains which they’d just traveled. “And she set herself up to ensure that she wouldn’t have to move again. Let’s just keep it peaceful.” Caleb reached for his phone. “I’ll tell Lina that it’s us coming up her drive. We don’t want to alarm her.”

  Or she might reach for that AK-47, Jane thought, as Caleb talked to Lina on the phone. It was difficult to accept that the woman who lived here gardening and working in seclusion could possibly be violent. But who could blame her for protecting herself after the life she had lived?

  She could see the front door of the cottage open and Lina’s slender figure silhouetted against the lamplight as they drew up before the cottage.

  “I’m not quite finished,” she said, as they got out of the car and walked toward her. “I’ll give you what I have, but you’ll have to wait for the rest.”

  “How long?” Jane asked.

  Lina shrugged. “A few hours. It was more difficult than I thought it would be. Come in and have a cup of tea. Do you have the time?”

  “We have the time,” Caleb said. “We have no choice. Jane has something else for you to translate.”

  “Not tonight. I’ll finish the first book that I promised you I’d do. But I need some time away from Adah Ziller.” Her lips tightened. “I don’t understand her. She liked it.”

  “What?”

  “Pain.” She turned and went back into the house. “She was twisted.”

  “S and M?”

  “Oh, yes.” She put on the kettle. “Some of the passages are very descriptive. Particularly the ones that have to do with Jack Millet. What he did to her was unbelievable.”

  “He was her lover?” Jane asked.

  “That’s not love,” Lina said. “And she didn’t care. She liked it.” She got cups down. “You said that she’d been murdered? Maybe it was just that one of her lovers went too far. She said that Millet almost killed her several times while they were playing their games.”

  “No, that wasn’t how it happened,” Jane said. “And it’s not another ledger we found in the safety-deposit box. There was a tablet that we need translated.” She took the black container out of her tote and set it on the table. “As you can see, it’s pretty large, and the script is very tiny. Caleb thinks that it may be very old.”

  “A tablet?” She looked suddenly thoughtful. Then she shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  “It would help us,” Jock said quietly.
“I know you don’t want us here, but we can’t leave until we know.”

  “I don’t mind you being here. I’m not that much of a hermit.” She glanced at Caleb. “But don’t bring me any more of this ugliness. It brought back too many memories.”

  “I didn’t have any idea what I was bringing, or I would have warned you,” Caleb said. “We know very little about Adah Ziller.”

  “Well, I know quite a bit.” She poured tea over the leaves in the pot. “You can start with the printout on the table over there, but you’ll have to plow through it. As I told you, it’s disjointed.”

  “Can you summarize?”

  “As long as you don’t make me describe her sexual perversions.”

  “Sit down,” Jock said as he crossed the room and nudged her away from the teapot. “Relax. I’ll take care of this.”

  “I won’t argue. I like to see a man do domestic chores.” She dropped down in the easy chair. “It was strictly forbidden to let any male lift his hand in the house where I grew up.”

  “And my mother made sure that I helped out,” Jock said. “Or I got boxed on the ears.” He poured tea into cups. “So watch all you please. You won’t see me shirk.”

  Lina gazed at him thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think you would.”

  “Adah,” Jane prompted.

  Lina nodded. “The ledger begins when she’s fourteen. She grew up in Syria. Her father was a merchant and was moderately well-to-do. She had a Western upbringing and was sent to England when she was sixteen to complete her education.”

  “Where did she meet Millet?”

  “Before she left Syria. She met him at something called the Offering.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She doesn’t elaborate much. A sort of meeting her family went to every year since she was a child. She always found it exciting, but when she met Millet there, that was the only thing she could think about. She called him the Guardian. He was older than she, in his early twenties, and she kept talking about his power and what she wanted to do with him. She seduced him.”

  “At sixteen?”

  “She was no virgin. She had been experimenting since she was thirteen. But Millet was special to her. At last she’d found someone who had the same tastes. She was upset when she had to leave Syria.” She took the cup Jock handed her. “But she replaced him quickly. She’d acquired a taste for power and knew that was the fast lane. She honed her sexual talents while she was at school and took a job with Med-Coast Oil. She climbed the ladder quickly there.”

  “What about Millet?”

  “She still saw him occasionally. And they’d spend weekends together whenever she went back to Syria for this Offering meeting every year.”

  “She went back every year?”

  “Sometimes she didn’t want to go, but she said that she had to do it. It was her duty.”

  “Judging by what you’ve said, I wouldn’t think she would pay much attention to duty.”

  “She paid attention to the Offering.”

  “And she never described exactly what kind of meeting it was?”

  Lina shook her head. “No, but she usually liked the meetings once she was there. It was exciting. She said that she was able to make contacts she’d never have made otherwise. She said that rich and powerful people came who were completely out of her reach in everyday life.”

  “When she wasn’t screwing Millet,” Caleb said.

  “He was entertainment. The other men she met there were business.”

  “Did she mention names?”

  Lina nodded. “Two movie stars. A Wall Street financier. A fast-food chain CEO. She wasn’t choosy as long as they could move her ahead.” She paused. “But toward the end of the ledger, she talked about one man quite a bit. He was going to grease her way to the top. All she had to do was to do what he ordered, and he’d give her whatever she wanted.”

  “Who?”

  “Alan Roland. She said he was a mover and shaker in the financial world. Very rich, tremendously powerful.”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” Jane said. “And was he talking about sexual favors?”

  “She went to bed with him, but that wasn’t what she was talking about. She evidently found someone who was using her as much as she used everyone else.”

  “To do what?”

  She glanced at the box on the table. “A tablet. Something called Hadar’s Tablet. Roland wanted her to steal the tablet from Millet, who was evidently its custodian.”

  “Why?”

  Lina shook her head. “She didn’t go into reasons. But it was very valuable, and she knew it would be dangerous. It was kept in a special cabinet in the Offering Room, and she had access because of her affair with Millet. But if she were caught, he would kill her. She was going to make Roland pay.”

  “It seems that she did it.” Jane’s gaze was on the black container on the table. “That tablet we found in the safety-deposit box.”

  “Yes. She was to give it to Roland. That was part of their deal. He was to take possession, but Millet wasn’t to know that she no longer had it. Which meant that she had to run the entire risk.”

  “Charming.”

  “She was willing to do it. He gave her two hundred thousand dollars to steal the tablet and promised her another five if she kept her mouth shut about his involvement. But she double-crossed him. She kept the tablet herself and was trying to squeeze Millet for every dime she could get.” Her lips twisted. “And she was getting hush money from Roland for not telling Millet that he’d paid her to steal the tablet. Money was rolling in from every direction.”

  “How could she get away with it? Millet would think nothing of grabbing her and torturing her until she told him where she’d hidden the tablet.”

  “She told Millet that she’d placed the tablet with a friend who would send it to the police if Adah didn’t check in with her regularly.”

  Jock shook his head. “Big risk.”

  “And why would this tablet be important anyway?” Jane asked. “No hint?”

  “I should know by the end of the ledger,” Lina said. “I scanned it and saw several references to Hadar and a tablet.”

  “But if this tablet was her cash cow, why would she leave the information about the safety-deposit box lying around in the office, where anyone could find it?” Jane shook her head. “If Weismann and Adah were intimate, then she must have known that he’d have access to it. That gold key is very showy, and she left the information in the study where it would be seen. She was either careless or wanted someone to know about that Swiss account. She doesn’t appear to have been careless.”

  “A puzzle,” Caleb smiled at Lina. “So will you finish up this translation and let us get out of your hair?”

  “Gladly,” she said emphatically.

  “Good.” He moved toward the door. “I believe I’ll wait outside. It’s so beautiful looking down at your valley. Call me when you’re ready.”

  Jane watched the door shut behind him and turned to Lina. “How can I help?”

  “Be quiet and stay out of my way.” Lina had picked up the ledger again. “Sit down over there, and I’ll tell you when I’m finished.”

  “Another cup of tea?” Jock asked Lina. “I’ll even make a fresh pot so that you can enjoy having me wait on you.”

  Lina didn’t answer. She was already deep in her work.

  Jock looked at Jane inquiringly.

  She shook her head. She was still thinking about Adah Ziller and trying to put it together. “Weismann. We have to assume Millet sent him to Adah to get the tablet or find out where it was. But if she was as cynical as Lina says, I can’t believe he fooled her for long. She was very sharp, and I can see her having a sexual fling, but she would have gotten around to checking him out. She had to be playing him along, and leaving that gold key and bank info was just too obvious.”

  “Makes sense,” Jock said. “But the key was genuine and the tablet was in the bank. Why run a risk like that? Weismann was—??
?

  “Get out,” Lina said. “If you can’t be still, go for a walk.”

  “Sorry.” Jane headed for the door. “You’re right.”

  Jock was at the door and opening it for her. “If you need anything just—”

  “I need you out of here,” Lina said flatly.

  Jock chuckled as the door shut behind them. “She definitely makes her desires known. Interesting woman.”

  “Yes.” Jane took a deep breath of the cool night air to clear her head. Her mind was full of deceptions and tablets and the twisted desires of Adah Ziller. She had been thinking of her as a victim, but that was far from the truth. She had been balancing Millet, Roland, and Weismann and trying to cheat all three men. But her clever machinations had been useless in the end. She had been caught off guard for one moment, and that had been enough to kill her. “Weismann bothers me. I can’t see how he figured in—”

  “Where’s Caleb?” Jock interrupted. His gaze was darting over the garden and down the road. “Oh, shit.”

  “WHERE THE HELL IS HE?” Jane asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong is that I don’t think Caleb just went for a stroll,” Jock said. “I should have known I couldn’t trust him.” He went to the edge of the road and looked out at the foothills. “He must have noticed someone following us.”

  Jane remembered that instant when they’d gotten out of the car and Caleb’s gaze had wandered casually back toward the curve of the road and commented on the light on the mountains. “And didn’t tell us?”

  “He’s not into sharing. He left us on that damn doorstep at Adah Ziller’s.” His lips thinned. “I may break his neck.”

  Jane felt the same way. “Dammit, if we’d known we were being followed, we could have lost him.”

  “Yes.”

  She caught an undertone in his voice that caused her gaze to fly to his face. “You wouldn’t have tried to lose him either.”

  “I don’t know if I’d have led him here, but I would have tried to trap the bastard.”

  “Who is it? You said we weren’t followed from Paris.”

  He nodded. “And because we weren’t followed, that meant someone was at the bank waiting for us.”