After showering and dressing in the upstairs gym, Jeff and Emory found Virginia and Juniper whipping up eggs and hash browns in the kitchen.
Juniper greeted them with a raised flute of orange juice. “Boys! Glad to see you up. Mimosa?”
“I’ll take one.” Jeff hurried to the mimosa station set up on one corner of the island. “Emory?”
“Sure. Do you all need any help?”
Juniper took a sip and returned her attention to the eggs. “You could set the kitchen table.”
Jeff handed Emory a full flute and clinked glasses. “Juniper, I think this is the happiest I’ve seen you.”
Juniper laughed. “I am happy… or on my way there. You three have helped me realize that Ms. Geister isn’t after me, and Miss Luann told me last night that her spirit is definitely at rest now. I know you all don’t believe in that, but I feel better knowing all my bases are covered. On top of that, the residuary clause will be read tomorrow, and this will all be over. I can kick Eden out of here. Oh, and you all must be happy.”
Virginia flipped the hash browns in the frying pan. “Why’s that?”
“You’ll be able to go home.”
Right arm laden with a stack of four plates, Emory shut the cabinet door. “Go home?”
Jeff finished his thought. “We haven’t figured out who killed Blair or Tommy yet.”
Juniper waved off their concern. “You all have done enough. You did what I hired you to do. Actually, I guess you could go home today, but I’m hoping you’ll stay. The thought of being alone in this house with that woman…”
Virginia pulled a serving dish from a cabinet. “You’re staying here tonight?”
“Yes. The reading is at 7:20 in the morning, and I have to set up for it. Is anyone in my room?”
Emory stopped in front of Juniper. “I’ll get my stuff out of there, but there’s still a murderer on the loose. We need to find out who it is.”
“Let the sheriff take it from here. Oh, five settings. Rue Darcé should be here soon, and I’m going to ask her to join us.”
Jeff broke the news to her. “Rue has already come and gone. She asked if you could get rid of Tommy’s truck for her.”
“Oh. I suppose. I wasn’t expecting her so early.”
“Zyus Drake arrived as she was leaving,” said Jeff, as if sharing a juicy piece of gossip. “And he brought a friend. Myles Godfrey.”
Juniper dropped her spatula. “What on Earth is that man doing in this house?”
After a sip of orange juice, Jeff answered, “Helping Zyus search for the Pangram Box.” He licked the pulp from his upper lip.
“He can’t do that! Ms. Geister didn’t say he could have any help.”
Placing plates on the table, Emory replied, “She didn’t say he couldn’t.”
Juniper huffed. “There goes my mood.”
After breakfast, Juniper went on a grocery run, leaving the PIs alone for clean-up. Knowing they had less than a day before Juniper would end their involvement in the case, they headed upstairs to the murder board to narrow their list of suspects. Before reaching the office door, they heard an argument down the hall. Myles Godfrey was standing in front of the guest bedroom door, arguing through a three-inch crack at Eden Geister on the other side. Meanwhile, Zyus Drake lurked a few feet away.
“It’s not in here!” Eden growled. “I would’ve seen it.”
“Blair granted him total access to the house!” Myles replied.
Virginia opened the office door and whispered, “Guys, we have work to do.”
Jeff took a step inside the office, but Emory stayed still. “Aren’t you coming?”
“In a minute. I want to talk to Zyus.” Emory left his partners and approached the masked man. “What’s going on?”
Zyus nodded toward Myles. “I think the Pangram Box is in that room, and he needs to get in there to look for it.”
“What makes you think it’s in there?”
“It’s the only room I haven’t searched, and it’s where… it happened.”
Emory thought for a second about his time in the guest room and wondered where it could be in there.
“Have you reconsidered helping me? I could use all hands on deck.”
Eden slammed the door shut, and Myles yelled, “You have to leave sometime!” He rejoined Zyus and tilted his head toward the guest room. “I see the family resemblance. Let’s check out the rest of the house. We’ll come back once her highness deigns to leave the royal bedroom. What’s going on here?”
Zyus placed a hand on Emory’s shoulder. “If I’m reading Emory’s face right, he was just thinking about helping us.”
Myles crossed his arms. “Zyus told me you already looked for this Box. You had your chance to find it and failed miserably.”
“I haven’t even tried… full-force.”
Myles laughed at him. “How old are you? That’s the excuse of a defeated, blubbering child. I wasn’t even trying.
Emory hardened his face. “Mr. Drake, I will find the Pangram Box for you.”
“Oh good,” said Myles. “Go ahead and try. I thrive on competition.”
“You hear that?” Emory pointed to the air above him. “It’s Blair Geister’s spirit laughing at you.”
“She never beat me!!” Myles screamed.
After checking in with his partners at the murder board, Emory began his search in earnest. Riding a renewed inspirational vigor, he returned to the wine cellar, determined to decipher the riddle behind the Pangram Box.
He walked around the room, staring at the Hugo Hickory painting from every possible angle. He repeated something Jeff had said to explain some of the decisions the puzzle’s creator had made in her personal life. “Maybe Blair was just much more colorful than we realized.”
Emory’s eyes focused on the white stone tile behind the wine racks. He glanced at the stone-tile beneath his feet before returning his gaze to the painting, to the blanket on the ground beside the coyote. He scanned the walls around the room and looked up at the white batten ceiling. “This room is white.” He inhaled and held his breath for a couple of seconds. “I think I know!”
He raced up the stairs and into the office, where his partners were removing photos from the murder board. “Guys!”
Jeff held up a picture from the board, cutting him off. “Rue Darcé. Still a suspect?”
“No. After talking to her this morning, I just don’t think the motive was strong enough to drive her to murder.”
“We all agree then.” Virginia took the photo from Jeff and tossed it in the wastebasket beside the desk.
Emory waved his arms in front of him. “Guys, can we take a break from the murder board for thirty seconds?”
Virginia plopped onto the sofa. “Sure. What is it?”
Emory’s eyes darted from Virginia to Jeff, who took a seat behind the desk. “I know where the Pangram Box is.”
Virginia jumped up. “Seriously?”
“That’s great!” said Jeff.
Emory held up his hands to temper their excitement. “Well, sort of. I know the path it’s taking.”
Virginia sat back down, disappointed. “Okay. That’s good too, I guess.”
Jeff asked, “Emory, what the hell are you trying to say?”
“I know the stops, but I don’t know the order. The sacred colors. Remember Waya’ha’s blanket was woven in the Cherokee’s sacred colors – black, blue, red and white. Those colors correspond to certain rooms in this house. The wine cellar is white—”
“The library is red,” said Virginia.
Jeff said, “The guest room is blue.”
Virginia shook her head. “But there’s no black room here. I think we’d notice that.”
“Yes, there is,” said Jeff. “The theatre!”
Emory grinned. “The only problem is I don’t know the order the Box will travel.”
Jeff put an arm around him. “But still, we just need to find the hiding place in each of those rooms, and then we can figure out the order.”
Emory added, “And hope that the final room really does allow us access to the Box.”
Emory walked past the closed guest room door and heard movement on the other side. She’s still there. I’ll try the library first. He heard another noise and realized it didn’t come from the guest room. He proceeded down the hall and opened the master bedroom door to find Myles Godfrey with his fingers in the crater Emory had hammered into the wall. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Myles jumped and turned around. “Do what?”
“Brown recluses.”
“I’m not scared of spiders.” Myles’ finger followed an imaginary line from the hole in the wall to the one in the floor. “This is how it happened? Someone wired the bed to electrocute her. Serves her right for having a solid gold bed.” He eyed the bathroom door. “Is the royal throne gold too? Pretentious bitch. Killed in the way she feared the most. Poetic justice.”
“What did you have against her?”
“Have you ever had a tormenter?”
Emory thought of his former partner, Wayne Buckwald, and answered to himself.
Myles gripped the nearest bedpost. “Someone who’s given everything that you’re owed? The business. The respect. The accolades. The adoration. I was in this business for fifteen years before she became a thing, and then everyone acted like she invented the I-beam.”
“You give her no credit for her talent?”
Myles scoffed. “It wasn’t her talent that got her noticed. It was her sex. She was doing nothing any different from me, but everyone made such a big deal out of the fact that she was a woman in a business dominated by men.”
“Even if – and I don’t believe it is – but if that’s what got her noticed, she didn’t build an empire based on novelty. She had to put in the work to create a billion-dollar company from nothing.”
“No more work than me!” Myles spoke down to the floor as if Blair Geister were in hell. “Well, I’m not number two anymore, Blair. Watch me thrive in the absence of you.”
“You did it, didn’t you?”
“I never lifted a finger against her.”
Emory shook his head. “The acts of sabotage at The Monolith.”
Myles held his hands up, exposing his manicure. “My days of getting my hands dirty are well behind me. Now whether people in her employ were eager for some extra cash in exchange for a little tinkering is another story. It’s not like Blair inspired loyalty among her staff.”
“Was their tinkering exclusive to The Monolith?”
Myles waved a finger at him as he walked past him. “You’re trying to stall me. I have a treasure box to find.”