NINETY-FOUR

BY the time Mike came down the stairs, I had it all figured out.

“Clare, I saw the room where they kept you,” he said. “It’s exactly like you described. I searched the other bedrooms, but there’s no sign of Annette. We’re back to square one.”

“No, we’re not. I think I found the key to what’s going on—right here in plain sight.”

He peeked over my shoulder.

“Let me tell you this story in pictures,” I said, “starting with the photo of this very pretty, very pregnant woman. This is Victoria Holbrook, and she’s standing in front of Schönbrunn Palace. That’s in Vienna.

“I overheard Victoria tell Madame that she’d moved to Vienna, and Nora Arany hinted that Victoria might have moved there because she was pregnant. Right, and right.”

I pointed to a second picture. “Here’s Victoria standing with her child, a boy, maybe four or five years old. I heard Tessa Simmons wonder aloud if she had a first cousin adopted by an Austrian family, and this picture appears to answer that question. Victoria didn’t give away her son. She decided to raise him herself.”

I moved to the next picture. “A few years after that Vienna photo, Victoria moved from Vienna to Venice—Venice, California. Here’s Victoria and her nine- or ten-year-old son on the Venice Boardwalk.”

Mike leaned close. “There’s a man with them, but his head is turned, and I can’t see his face.”

“Don’t worry. The next picture reveals all.”

I tapped the glass. “That’s Victoria, her son, and the boy’s father. The event is the son’s graduation from UC Berkeley School of Law. The graduate is wearing rimless round glasses instead of the horn-rims, and his hair is longer, but you can clearly see the boy is Owen Wimmer.”

“And that man beside him?”

“Harlan Brewster. It looks to me like Owen was his only child, a bastard son who thought he was destined to inherit the Parkview Palace and the family fortune, only to be thwarted.”

“Slow down, Clare. You’d better explain.”

“Annette had breast cancer two years ago and beat it. But Owen probably expected her to die and leave everything to Harlan, who would then leave it to Owen. But it was Harlan who died, giving Annette control of the Parkview fortune, which she intended to pass on to her niece, Tessa.”

Mike nodded. “And you think Owen snatched Annette. For what purpose?”

“A copy of Annette’s last will and testament was taken out of the Gotham Suite. That’s the will that names Tessa as the beneficiary. I think Owen wanted to coerce Annette into signing a new one, naming Victoria Holbrook as the beneficiary.”

Mike Quinn smiled that smile he always displayed right before he collared a perp.

I removed the graduation portrait from the wall. “You can almost see Owen’s resemblance to his father. I think Annette might have suspected who Owen was. And since there was no love lost between her and Harlan, there is no way Annette would leave a cent to his bastard son, even if it was her sister’s child, too.”

“This is pretty twisted,” Mike said.

“As the Parkview’s lawyer, Owen knew what was in the original will, and he also knew Annette intended to sell the hotel out from under his mother before Annette fled to France to be with her old flame, the painter.”

“Could Victoria be involved with her sister’s abduction?”

“It’s possible. But then why would she ask Stevens to investigate Tessa? Unless that was part of an elaborate frame job.”

“Everything you’re saying makes sense, but we have no evidence,” Mike said. “If the police picked up Victoria or Owen right now, they could deny all involvement and the NYPD would have to let them go in twenty-four hours.”

“I know you found no evidence upstairs, but this property was obviously Harlan’s ‘love nest’ with Victoria. Back at the Gypsy hotel, a friend of Annette’s drunkenly mentioned there was such a place, though she didn’t know where. Well, we found it. And if Owen hired goons to hold me here, he was probably holding Annette here, too.”

“Yes, but once you escaped, he obviously moved her. The question is where?”

“Mike, if Owen used Harlan’s property once, why not use it again? Hide her in plain sight, right? I think Owen is holding Annette on the Brewsters’ estate in the Hamptons. And I think I know precisely where. So how about we notify the police, get a warrant, and have the Sandcastle raided?”

A shadow crossed Mike’s face. “There’s something I didn’t tell you, Clare, but I think you’d better hear it now.”

Oh, no. I braced myself.

“When Lori Soles called me last night at the Gypsy, she warned me the FBI was taking over the search for you. And right now members of the Major Case Squad are probably pushing a theory with the Feds that you’re not innocent. That you were involved in either setting up Annette for abduction or taking money to be released in exchange for keeping your mouth shut.”

I held my head. “I just got my life back, and now you’re telling me I’m facing Federal interrogation and maybe forced hospitalization—or worse?”

“It’s decision time, Clare. Either we keep the appointment with that law firm, you turn yourself in to the authorities, and we try to convince them of our theory before Annette is either moved or killed. Or we go out to the Hamptons ourselves and find out if Owen is guilty.”

Mike paused, his penetrating blue eyes gazing into mine. “This is your life, sweetheart. I’ll go along with whatever you decide, but you have to make the call.”