Chapter Eighteen

There was an unnatural gleam in Jerry’s eyes that gave him an appearance quite unlike himself. He hesitated for a moment, his upper lip raised in what looked like the beginning of a sneer. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be around today, but now that you’re here, you can make yourself useful.”

“My cousin Johnny will be coming any minute now.” I raised my chin to look him in the eye.

“You’re a sharp one,” he said, “but I happen to know that your cousin’s gone to one of the farms up the valley. He’s quite smitten with one of the farm girls, if stealing a kiss is any sign. But then, you wouldn’t know much about that kind of thing, would you?”

“I asked you what you’re doing here, now I’m asking you to leave.” I made a move to elbow my way past him, but he caught my arm and shoved me against the doorframe.

“Not so fast.”

I was beginning to realize that more was at stake here than a kiss. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but it’s not too late to leave before you get yourself in trouble.”

“It could have all been so easy.” He shook his head in wonder that I wasn’t a mind reader. “I gave you every opportunity to confide in me. The compliments, the special attention. But no, you had eyes for someone else, I think.” He glared at me. “So I had to get more persuasive. Get you to move out of this crusty old mausoleum long enough for me to find what I was looking for. Time was running out, you see, and I don’t much relish getting my legs broken by some strong-arm debt collector.”

I leaned against the doorframe, willing my legs not to buckle. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“The king’s crown, as if you didn’t know.”

“But that’s…” My mind spun as it dawned on me that he wasn’t referring to my mother’s painting. “You’ve been tearing up the house looking for a crown?” My voice went up a register as I realized how foolish I had been.

Mr. Ching’s grandson had been trying to protect his grandfather’s livelihood, by breaking some windows to put off the guesthouse opening. He’d been misguided, true, but acting for a cause.

Jerry’s motives were far less noble. I’d been following the wrong leads. My only excuse was that I’d been concentrating on not just the house renovations, but on something that had grown much more important to me. Someone.

“Not alone. I had to bring that goon into the picture to push back the payment day.”

“You mean the man on the street corner. He wasn’t following me, was he? He was keeping track of you.” It was strangely easy to discuss with good-natured Jerry how he had misled me. Lied to me. A rational corner of my mind cautioned me not to misjudge him again, but the more I got him to talk about his scheme, the more I could meet it head-on.

“He was reminding me of what I owed, you could say.”

I backed away from him into the library, stalling for time. “I’m sure if you asked your father for help he would—”

“My father’s washed his hands of my gambling debts once and for all,” he said. “I went to that well one time too often, begging for a stake to win back what I’d lost. Once I get my hands on those diamonds, I’m through with him and this godforsaken rock-pile of an island for good.”

It sounded as though Jerry had dug his own grave, but I wasn’t about to say so. I glanced forlornly at the empty gun rack and tried to think of a way to distract him long enough to…to do what?

“Where is it?” he demanded, his eyes glittering with overwrought expectations.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Where is the crown?”

“I don’t…” I faltered as I watched his lips curl to show his teeth.

He grabbed my arm and steered me across the room to where the secret panel was wide open. A little sneer of triumph hovered around his mouth.

“I did find the hidden panel,” I confessed, “but it was empty.” I took a deep breath, resolved to bring the conversation back to a calmer level.

So far, Jerry hadn’t stolen anything. I had to convince him to walk away from his crazy scheme before it was too late, when he might turn on me like a wounded animal and rip me to shreds or die trying.

“You’re a smart guy. What makes you think the crown diamonds are hidden in the house?” I asked in a conciliatory voice.

“You mean apart from your father recording it in the house inventory?” A slow grin spread across his face. “‘The King’s Crown’ is right there in black and white.” He nodded toward the legers that I hadn’t gotten around to reading. “We have copies of everything in our office.”

I shook my head, hoping I could reason with him. “It’s the title of a painting by my mother,” my voice trailed off.

His next words knocked the stuffing out of me. “You mean like the one that got stolen from the Art Academy?”

“It was you?”

“That goon Arty got a little carried away,” Jerry snorted with contempt. “He was only supposed to look at the necklace in the painting and check out what was written on the back. It was my way of assuring the big boss that I was working on getting him his money. Instead, that moron brought the whole police force down on our heads looking for an art thief.”

I was beginning to realize that in desperation Jerry had built a house of cards on a faulty premise—that the missing diamonds in the king’s crown had been fashioned into the necklace in my grandmother’s portrait. Hadn’t I toyed with the same line of reasoning? The problem was that right now it could be dangerous for me to knock his whole flimsy tower off balance.

“He’s good with a knife, that Arty,” Jerry said in a sly voice, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t approve of what he did to your painting, you understand. He’s got a mean streak.” He looked me straight in the eye and said with silky charm, “Listen Merrylei. If I don’t come up with the diamonds today, the next person to ask you about them will be Arty. I don’t think you’d enjoy that very much. He might even drag your aunt into this—you wouldn’t want that, now, would you?”

The threat was unmistakable. I had to choose my next words carefully if I was going to lead him in the only direction that would keep Auntie May and me safe. I played a hunch that I hoped would pay off. “You must have put two and two together when you first saw the portrait at the Art Academy.”

“It rang a bell right away when our company was called in to insure the exhibit. I noticed the printing on the back and found out that the painting was on loan from the Wentworth family—as you know, all those rumors are still flying around about the royal jewels. To top it off, the little history lesson about the king’s crown at the Historic Society meeting last month pretty much cinched it.”

“And you figured I wouldn’t report the theft of a necklace that was set with stolen royal diamonds.”

He lifted his shoulders and rolled his eyes. “Bingo.”

“I guess I don’t have any choice then.”

He tightened his grasp on my arm and twisted it behind me, pulling me close. His hand was clammy. Just remembering how he had held me around the waist at the Charity Ball was nearly enough to make my stomach turn. I hadn’t noticed what a strongly built man he was, until just now. I hadn’t ever really seen him at all.

“You don’t need to hurt me. It’s upstairs.” I spoke as calmly as I could to soothe his agitation. “I’m going to take you to the necklace.”

He relaxed his grip a little and pushed me in front of him, up the stairs and across the second story hall. I hesitated in front of my mother’s bedroom door and made one last attempt to dissuade him. Once he had the necklace, what would he do with me? I didn’t want to consider the possibilities.

“I didn’t see your car in the turnaround, but someone undoubtedly noticed you drive in,” I cautioned.

“Quit the chit chat—I’ve been here enough times to know where to park behind the trees.”

Drawing in a harsh breath, I opened the door and guided him to the jewelry box.

“You’re not serious, a jewelry box?” he scoffed. All I could do was turn and face the glittering excitement in his eyes.

“Open it,” he said.

I had the brass key ring still looped on my left wrist so I wriggled the other hand out from his grip and he roughly tossed it away from him. First I lifted the lid to reveal the velvet compartments. “This is the main part.” His eyes were bulging, so I continued, “And this is the hidden part.” I pressed the fleur-de-lis to open the little drawer. “The necklace is yours now. You should be the one to take it out.”

His face was flushed as he lifted the shimmering strands from the drawer and held the necklace up in front of him. He looked drunk with elation.

I was overcome with the same eerie sensation I’d felt since I began remodeling the house—that a sinister malevolence was watching me. What had been a nameless faceless presence, was Jerry all along. “Just like in the painting,” he muttered under his breath. “These must be worth a fortune. Enough to settle all my gambling debts with a lot to spare.”

I estimated the distance to the door and inched away from him, but Jerry swung toward me and slammed me hard across the face with his fist. I staggered back for an instant before I lost my balance and landed on the floor. The fall knocked the breath out of me, and I gasped in labored spasms before my lungs filled. I’m suffocating, I wanted to cry, if only I could catch my breath to speak. I’m suffocating; suffocating in the room where my mother died.

It was only after I managed a sharp intake of air, and then another that I could take in what was going on. Jerry stood with his legs straddled over me, ignoring my rasping wheeze while I clutched at my throat. He seemed to have retreated into ghostly corridors of his own invention and drawn the shutters across his face. “I would have taken you anywhere, Merrylei. We could have travelled the world together,” he lamented, more to himself than to me. “Paris, Rio—I would have given you anything. Anything you wanted. When the Lurline sails next week, I’ll be aboard. First class, that’s going to be my style,” he boasted.

So his courtship of me hadn’t been entirely about getting his hands on the king’s crown. It became painfully clear that he had feelings for me, and I hadn’t responded. Now anger and spite had swept away the last vestiges of his self-control, churning his temper into a vacant fury. Something about his stance over me made me fear that more violence was to come. I had to get out from under his feet and work my way toward the only refuge I could think of.

I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. “I was going to wear the necklace to the Charity Ball.” My contrived cheerfulness probably didn’t deceive him, but gave me the chance to gather my legs under me and struggle to my feet.

He looked at me with arched brows as though just remembering I was in the room. “It could have complicated things. Arty was getting impatient.” A smirk played faintly around his mouth. “He was expecting more than a sneak preview of the diamonds that night.”

Dear me. I had overheard Jerry arguing with Arty. Was he planning to rip the necklace right off my neck at the ball? Afterwards there would have been the problem of what to do with me… A chill caught me off guard as I imagined Arty’s knife and the way he had slashed the portrait.

With self-preservation battling against dread I launched an offensive to move the ball down the court, as Johnny would say. “Let’s see if I have this straight. With the money from my necklace, and I suppose from the sale of this house, you would have whisked me away on a romantic world tour,” I said, making no attempt to disguise my sarcasm.

“You always did have a smart mouth,” he snarled, grabbing my arm and dragging me into the hall. “Too smart for your own good.”

I kicked him in the shins, but he raised a menacing hand again. “Where do those stairs go?” He cocked his head toward the far end of the hall.

Freedom was in my reach if only I played my cards right. “No one ever goes there. That’s the attic.” I injected what I hoped was the right amount of anxiety in my reply. Actually, I didn’t have to fabricate much of anything, I was quavering in my shoes.

“And you have the only key,” he leered.

I shook my head violently and stuttered like an imbecile. “No, I don’t. It’s been…lost.”

“You’re a terrible liar. C’mon.”

I exaggerated resistance by digging in my heels as he dragged me down the hall, then made a last-ditch lunge for the banister. When we were in front of the attic door, he wrenched the key ring off my wrist and told me to open the lock.

I fumbled several times until the key clicked. The door yawned open, and he shoved me into the dim interior that smelled of dust and desertion. How can I compare my guarded relief at that moment to the hopeful anticipation I’d enjoyed on the day when Jamison and I explored the attic? Then, the darkness promised discovery; now I was desperate for an escape.

“I’ll take those.” He tugged the keys out of my hand.

“No one will find me here,” I pleaded as he shut the door in my face. “I could be here for days.” I hoped I wasn’t laying it on too thick. A key turning the tumblers in the lock was Jerry’s only reply.

This was no time to let up my guard. I beat on the door with my fists and begged melodramatically, “Please let me out,” then let an agonizing minute or two crawl by. Time moved ahead in slow motion, ticking away into the shadows. My heart thudded so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door, even with my ear clamped against it.

When at last I straightened my back, I couldn’t estimate how long I’d been cramped against the door. Every nerve ending strained to detect the slightest sound, like a magnet pulls metal out of thin air. I reached around the roof beam, groping with itchy fingers for the little peg Mr. Gonsalves had installed. There was the skeleton key, if I only dared use it. Maybe if I waited—counted to a hundred? Five hundred? Five thousand? This was ridiculous.

I took a deep breath and turned the key. A squint through the crack, first to the right then left. The upstairs hall was empty, so I lowered myself down each stair, one cautious step at a time.

The house was still, held in the pall of a single cloud scudding above the valley. A tingle of air brushed against my arms as a stray current wafted up the staircase from the front of the house. Keeping my arms close to my sides and breath drawn in, I crept forward.

It was the grandfather clock that chimed an end to my halting escape. At the sound, my over-strung nerves sent me stumbling into a side table with a crash that would have wakened the dead. Ahead of me the front door stood wide open.

From the foyer I looked out across the lawn. The sun flirted with the luminous rim of the only cloud in the sky, then edged clear. Off to the side of the turnaround, I saw a silhouette moving through the trees. I suppose there was no reason for Jerry to hurry—seeing as how he was confident he’d locked me away—so he had taken his own sweet time leaving the house and walking to his car.

The fragment of a plan streaked through my brain. If I raced down the path, I could get to the carriage house before he drove past our driveway.

I can’t honestly explain how my feet negotiated the stones without stumbling. I usually pick my way along the path, but I was guided by the kind of intuition that athletes sometimes talk about, when their thoughts get out of the way of their feet, and instinct takes over.

I hadn’t yet heard the rumble of a car starting when I reached the carriage house, so I dashed up the stairs to grab a .22 from my closet and returned to the portico.

That’s when I heard the car. With steady hands I pumped a cartridge into the chamber and walked out in front of the portico where I could be seen from the turn-off.

Jerry had put the top down, and I clearly made him out as he slowed to a near standstill out of curiosity or disbelief, to puzzle over the figure standing in the open where it couldn’t possibly exist. I imagined rather than saw, his brows pucker as I put him squarely in my sights.

Then, I adjusted my aim lower and squeezed the trigger. He might have heard a slight hissing sound as the small caliber bullet hit the mark and punctured his rear tire. Probably not. The shot cracked through the wooded silence, then dissipated into the trees.

I calculated that soon after Jerry left the valley, his tire would begin to lump and bump with the telltale sign that he needed to stop and get his jack and spare out of the trunk. That would give me plenty of time to phone Captain Maddox.

My whole body sagged as he sped away. My knees knocked together. I tried to move my legs, but a smoky mist formed at the edges of my vision that closed in on me and left me trembling.

I absolutely and positively refuse to faint.

As if through a tunnel someone was calling my name. The sound tapered into hollow emptiness, far away and without logic, before total blackness took over.