Chapter 16

Allegra was dressed once more in her running-away costume of brown slacks and pullover, her white hair braided out of the way and tied with a pert velvet ribbon. When we came in she was standing in the center of the long gallery, her arms set akimbo, hands on hips. Coxie and Steve, the guard, were both remonstrating with her.

“I want to know where those two pictures are!” Her voice managed to be indignant and still ladylike at the same time. This was not the Allegra who would ride a horse impudently through the Coconut Grove. Instead of flying in the face of authority, she was authority itself.

Gretchen ran down the room to fling her arms about her grandmother. “I’m so glad to have you home!” she cried. “Even if Brett shouldn’t have done this when I wasn’t there to help.”

Allegra released herself gently from her granddaughter’s embrace, eyeing me over Gretchen’s shoulder. It was to me she spoke.

“You’re my son’s wife, so you’re in charge now, and you must answer my question. There are two paintings missing that always hung on that wall.”

I looked up at the wall she indicated, and saw no empty spaces.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know the collection well as yet. Will you please explain?”

“There were two Lautrecs that always hung right there. I didn’t like Ross’s arrangement, but I got used to it, and I know every painting on these walls. Now he seems to have hung a couple of unimportant Hudson River schools there. Why? What has happened to the Lautrecs? They are valuable.”

Gretchen flung up her hands. “Oh, Gran! There’s no use asking Sharon. What does she know? Dad moved things around whenever the notion struck him. You’ve been away for a long time, and he might have done anything at all with those paintings. There are a lot put away in storage, you know.”

I was staring at the wall. “Wait! I think I do remember one of those pictures. I noticed it especially because it wasn’t the Moulin Rouge sort of thing that Lautrec made so popular. It was an oil of a carriage drawn by a single horse, with a driver on the high seat, wearing a top hat. A lovely picture.”

“That’s it!” Allegra tapped me smartly on the arm in approval. “That was one of them. So you must have seen it on this wall recently.”

“I believe I did. It could even have been here on the day Ross died.”

“I knew it, I knew it! There’s been a theft. Two Lautrecs are missing!”

Gretchen gave me a look of reproach. “Gran, we don’t know that. Dad moved the portrait of Ysobel Hollis that last day. He might have moved others as well.”

Allegra looked at me brightly. “You don’t think so, do you?”

I didn’t think so, but Gretchen was shaking her head at me in warning.

“I can’t be absolutely sure,” I said.

Allegra seemed to wilt a little, suddenly a very old lady. “I’m tired. Take me upstairs,” she said to Gretchen. “If I can climb those stairs.”

She climbed them between Gretchen and me, with Coxie trailing after us, and on the way Gretchen whispered sharply in my ear. “Just let it alone,” she warned me.

Mrs. Broderick had taken the opportunity to get two of her maids into Allegra’s rooms, and they were being tidied and dusted. Gretchen shooed them out of the bedroom, kissed her grandmother lovingly, and turned her over to the nurse. “I’ll come visit you later, Gran.”

We went into the corridor together. “Do you think those paintings have been put somewhere else?” I asked.

“I think they’ve been stolen,” she said. “Just as the netsuke have been stolen. But I don’t want Gran worried about this. I’ll see what I can do about it.”

She went off looking grim and tense, and I wondered if Vasily was in for a bad time. If he’d taken these things, he deserved it. Perhaps it would be easier for everyone if she took him off to Europe for a while. Yet somehow I was glad to have them both in the house. I hated to think of these echoing halls with so many of the family gone. It would be especially lonely at night, when the servants all vanished to their own quarters. But I mustn’t start frightening myself.

When I stepped into my room it seemed more alien than ever. I must move out of it soon. Perhaps to a smaller bedroom, with a sitting room. In some strange way, I could feel Brett’s presence here, and I was always aware that she had planned and furnished its pale elegance for herself. Besides, I didn’t want to stay here, with Ross’s room and all its unhappy memories right next door. And there was still the portrait of Ysobel Hollis to be dealt with. It must be hung somewhere else—or put away.

But I didn’t want to decide anything now. All I needed to do was mark time until I could see Jarrett this evening. Always, through this strange morning, the thought of him had been warm at the back of my mind. I would talk to him tonight, tell him everything of my day, and of fears that he would help me to dismiss.

Something inside me said, “Wait, wait! You’ve been wrong before. You mustn’t trust so easily. You mustn’t care so easily.” But I wanted to trust. I wanted to care. I didn’t want to live by that cynical rule of my father’s—that things were seldom what they seemed. There had been an unexpected warming in me toward Jarrett and I wanted to turn to him.

Once more, the outdoors drew me, and I went down the gracefully curving stairs to the yard. I’d hardly stepped out of the house since Ross’s death, except for the funeral and my trip to town just now. I needed to push walls away from me, to breathe clear, salty air blowing in from the Atlantic.

The afternoon was warm and sunny—a real taste of Florida. I would go down and walk on the beach, I thought. It was time I faced those sands again, and banished memories that hurt me. But as I turned in the direction of the water, I saw with delight the flame tree—the flamboyant—the poinciana! It had burst into full bloom with every spreading branch ablaze with glorious fire. I stopped to drink in its beauty. All over southern Florida, these trees would be flaming now. Allegra must have seen to the planting of this one, since she’d honored the name for her own Poinciana. For how many seasons had Ross watched this blooming? Yet now he would never see it again, and the realization brought sadness with it. I walked on slowly.

As usual, there were two or three men at work on the grounds, tending the mowing, the watering, the flower beds, ready to pounce on any weed that showed itself. I stopped beside a man who was inserting something through a funnel into the trunk of a coconut palm and asked what he was doing.

He shook his head gloomily. “All over Palm Beach the coco palms are dying of a disease. The town is having them all injected, but I’m not sure it’s doing much good.”

These palms were plentiful at Poinciana. From every upstairs window one looked out upon their shaggy heads and slim, leaning trunks. In the days when there had always been visitors at the house, I’d been told that these trees were kept free of coconut clusters, lest they fall upon the heads of innocent guests.

I found my way to the tiled tunnel through which Ross had taken me on our way to the beach. Overhead, traffic was zooming past, while I walked on echoing stone. When I came out upon the sand at the far end, I saw the bathhouse and swimming pool Allegra had built, but it was the ocean that drew me.

Today the wind was strong and whitecaps rolled in, curling a froth of lace onto the sand. The ocean’s voice roared in the sound of the waves, and where the beach was wet and firm I followed the edge of the water as it reached my feet. Sea grape grew against the wall that protected the boulevard, rusty brown from salt winds, with spiky branches as thick as my arm, and big tough leaves. In the summer I would come down here and swim. If I were still here in the summer.

I’d been afraid of being haunted by the memory of that night of a Florida moon when I’d walked here with Ross. Strangely, however, that was beginning to seem another lifetime away, another man I had walked with. A man I had lost because of the stranger he had turned into. I couldn’t mourn-for the stranger. Gretchen was right. We must both admit to a sense of relief some of the time.

I walked on, looking up at the roofs of large houses that fronted on the water across the boulevard, and when I began to tire I turned back toward the tunnel again. But as I went down the steps to its sunken floor, I heard echoing voices. At once I drew myself close to the wall, where I wouldn’t be silhouetted against the light, not wanting to meet anyone now.

As my eyes became accustomed to the dim mustiness of the tunnel, I made out the two people standing together at the far end. There was an air of secrecy, perhaps of conspiracy, about them, and I knew instinctively that they had come here separately to a private meeting. One was Vasily Karl, the other Brett Inness.

The clattering echoes of their own voices must have warned them, for they began to speak more quietly, and I couldn’t make out the words. Crouching against the wall, I didn’t hesitate to listen, to strain to pick up any phrase I could catch.

Once I heard Brett’s words, “She knows …” and then her voice was lowered. The clamminess of unreasoned fear dampened my arms. Ever since I’d come to Poinciana, I had sensed secrets that were hidden beneath our everyday lives. I’d tried to speak of this to Ross, and he’d shrugged it aside. Perhaps that very shrugging off had been fatal for him. Perhaps what he had chosen to ignore so arrogantly had in the long run killed him. The troubling question returned to me.

Why had Brett turned on the alarm system?

A voice was raised again—Vasily’s voice: “… stop this.”

“Hush,” Brett said. “You have no other choice.”

I began to wonder how visible I might be if they really looked this way. But I was afraid to move, lest the slightest sound betray my presence. There was something terribly wrong at Poinciana. Something—evil. Yet I wasn’t sure against whom it might be directed. There seemed only two choices—Gretchen and me. And I was the likely one. She knows, Brett had said. I could only think she meant me. But what did I know? And why should it matter when I’d already made it clear to everyone that I meant to leave Poinciana to Gretchen as soon as it was possible for me to get away? Or was there a more far-reaching plot against me? If something happened to me, then everything would revert to Gretchen. That would mean investments, the controlling shares of Meridian Oil stock, property in other towns—I really had no idea of all that Ross had left me. I only knew that it had not been a gift of love, but one of revenge and punishment against his daughter.

The murmuring voices had stopped. There was movement now at the other end of the tunnel, and I saw Brett’s elegant figure stand briefly against the sunlight of the arched opening. Then she disappeared up the steps to the yard. After a moment Vasily followed, moving to the left, approaching the house from another direction.

I returned to the sand, where children were playing with a beach ball. Out over the water a flock of brown pelicans caught my eye. They were spectacular birds, diving accurately into the water from a great height to capture fish in their huge yellow beaks.

When I’d watched long enough, I returned and dared to go cautiously through the tunnel. Even then, I didn’t step immediately into the sunlight, but clung to the wall as I climbed the steps and looked carefully around the grounds.

Except for a gardener, no one was in sight, and I stepped onto the grass and started toward the right wing of the house. If anyone saw me approaching, it might be thought that I’d come from somewhere else than the tunnel.

“Good afternoon, Sharon,” said a voice behind me.

I whirled in alarm, to see Vasily Karl leaning against the coquina rock wall that ran along the edge of the boulevard. Beyond him cars whipped past. I was totally unable to speak. He smiled at me easily, but I sensed watchfulness in his eyes, and suspicion.

“Don’t look so astonished, Sharon,” he said. “Did you think you were being clever by waiting a while before you came back through the tunnel? Of course I saw you all along, standing there, listening. Though I think Brett did not. When she left, I decided to sit here and wait for the rabbit to come out of the hole.”

I made a desperate effort to collect myself. “Much good it did me,” I told him. “I couldn’t hear a word either of you was saying.”

“I quite believe you,” he said cheerfully. “When I saw you come into the tunnel, I took care to keep my voice down, and I persuaded Brett of the need for quiet. So now you have another mystery, don’t you? This strange meeting between Gretchen’s mother and her husband. Whatever can they be up to?”

“Would you like to tell me?” I asked.

“Good! I like a lady who can bluff when she is frightened. You are frightened, aren’t you, Sharon? And with good reason. It would be very wise at this time to turn everyone out of Poinciana, including Allegra, and close it up for a while. Then take yourself far away from Palm Beach. Where you will be safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“You wouldn’t even begin to guess,” he said. “Just take my word and leave.”

“Is that what you’re really advising?”

“Advising, yes. But I think you will refuse to go. You are just stubborn enough to refuse to give in to your fears. Isn’t that so, Sharon?”

“I don’t want to talk to you!”

I moved away from him across the grass. The lawn seemed to go on forever, but I didn’t stop or look back until I was safely inside the house. Then I paused beside a window from which I could see the ocean and the entrance to the tunnel under the boulevard. Vasily was nowhere in sight.

My first thought was of Jarrett. He was the only one I could turn to and I hurried to his office. He still hadn’t returned, but Myra took one look at my face and said, “Sit down, Mrs. Logan.”

She went through her usual ministering of refreshments—her cure for everything—and for once was discreet enough to ask no questions. After a while I stopped shaking.

“Tomorrow,” I said, “I’m going to move out of my room upstairs. It’s too big for me now.”

“And too lonely,” she observed wisely. “I wouldn’t want to rattle around in that empty wing all alone. Especially not if I had a feeling that there were those in the house who didn’t mean me any good.”

I stared at her. “Why do you say that?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Mrs. Karl has hated your marriage from the beginning. She can’t be happy about you now.”

But it wasn’t Gretchen I feared, though I couldn’t tell Myra that.

“Anyway, moving would be fun, wouldn’t it?” she went on. “I mean, to have all the rooms there are in this house to choose from? To be able to furnish your own apartment any way you wish?”

“I don’t suppose I’ll bother,” I said. “I doubt I’ll be here long enough.”

She sighed, and I could see the wheels going around in her head. Obviously, she thought me foolish not to take every advantage I could of being Mrs. Ross Logan. I couldn’t tell her that Mrs. Ross Logan was someone I didn’t want to be.

“There’s one thing I’d like to ask you,” I went on. “Do you happen to know whether Mr. Logan removed any pictures from the gallery on the day before he died?”

She thought about that for a moment. “There was the portrait of your mother. He brought it to his office in the afternoon, and I wondered if he was going to hang it there.”

That would have been like him, I thought. But he had a better idea.

“That’s not the one I mean. Mrs. Logan thinks there are a couple of Toulouse-Lautrec paintings that are missing. And I believe I’ve seen one of them hanging in the gallery since I came.”

She thought about that solemnly, and then hopped up from her chair and scooted toward Ross’s office, flinging words back at me.

“I don’t know for sure,” she said. “I mean I don’t know what pictures they were, but I believe he brought some things from the gallery here either that last day or the day before. Let’s look.”

I followed her and watched as she opened a deep cabinet, gesturing for me to look inside. I could see the edges of frames standing on their sides, and I drew one of them out. It was an oil on wood of coach and horse, the driver sitting up in front, with his whip and top hat. I pulled it out in delighted relief and reached in to pull out the second picture—the portrait of a lady in a garden. Another Lautrec.

“That’s wonderful!” I cried. “Now I can put Mrs. Logan’s mind at rest. But I wonder why my husband brought these here?”

Myra managed to look both wise and arch at the same time, while she said nothing.

“Stop playing games,” I told her impatiently. “Even if you’re only speculating, I’d like to know what you’re thinking.”

She bent to close the cabinet, and then looked at me with a half-smile that was both appealing and apologetic. “I really do like you, Mrs. Logan. You don’t look down your nose at the help, and you’ve tried to be kind to my friend.”

“Your friend?”

“The old lady. Mrs. Logan. I understand she’s back in the house again. Just the same, I don’t want to stick out my neck with things I’m not really sure of at all. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I can stand being hurt,” I said. “And I expect you’re perfectly sure about a lot of what goes on at Poinciana.”

She was still hesitant. “But this is pretty crazy—really far out. Do you suppose rich men ever steal from themselves?”

I went to the big leather armchair opposite Ross’s desk, remembering that it was in this chair I’d sat that night when I’d run away from him and come here with Jarrett. The last night.

“Maybe you’d better explain,” I said.

She was airy about her reply, still being cautious. “The rich don’t always keep a lot of cash in their pockets. Isn’t it true that sometimes they have to liquidate funds in order to pay big debts? So couldn’t a rich man who owned a great many valuable possessions put some of them—well, in hock, so to speak, in order to raise money if he needed it?”

I had never thought of such a thing. If Ross had needed cash, I was sure that Jarrett could have raised it for him in a moment. Millions. We had never been short while we traveled, though now that I thought about it, most of the time we’d managed on lavish credit. One thing I knew. Not for a moment must I openly accept such an idea from Myra Ritter. I owed it to Ross not to give her fertile imagination anything to build on. Besides, even if it could possibly be true, it had all been brought to a halt now. It didn’t matter. The paintings had been found.

I shook my head emphatically. “Mr. Logan would never have touched his netsuke collection, or his precious paintings. So I’m afraid that idea is out. Anyway, thank you for the coffee, Myra.”

I left her and started up the stairs that led to the wing where Allegra had her rooms, but I couldn’t put her words from my mind. Certainly Ross’s anger over the first two missing netsuke had seemed real. And he had seemed convinced that his mother might have taken them. Yet I knew too that he would have been perfectly capable of putting up a smoke screen to serve his own ends. Perhaps there were funds he didn’t want to touch. Or he might not have wanted to ask Jarrett when so many vast interests were involved. The rich were different, as Scott Fitzgerald said.

The netsuke, no, but about the paintings I was less sure. Ross hadn’t collected those himself, even though he had enjoyed owning them. In any case, I was too close to all of this to judge what Ross might or might not have done. Myra, the outsider, might well have cut through to an unpleasant truth.

Jarrett would know. Increasingly, this was becoming my refrain. Tonight at dinner I would be able to talk to Jarrett. But now I could at least set Allegra’s mind at rest about the Lautrecs, and if she was awake, I would tell her now. I must also let Gretchen know—and soon.

Allegra was no longer in bed when I reached her rooms. She had installed herself at the desk in her parlor and was making notes with a pencil. I hoped she wasn’t back in the past planning another ball.

Coxie sat knitting in a chair by a window, and both of them looked up when I appeared at the door.

“Good,” Allegra said. “I wanted to talk to you. I want you to tell Coxie to throw out all those pills and things she keeps pushing at me.”

“The doctor—” Coxie began.

“Let me know the next time he comes,” I said. “Mrs. Karl and I would like to speak with him.”

“Then there’s the matter of those missing paintings,” she went on, making a check beside an item on her list.

“That’s what I came to tell you about, Mrs. Logan,” I said quickly. “Both the Lautrecs have been found. Ross had put them away in his office for some reason.”

“In his office?” Her look sharpened. “I wonder what he was planning? Anyway, I’m glad you found them.”

When I’d made sure there was nothing else she wanted at the moment, I left her and followed the corridor, looking for rooms I might move into. If I chose this wing, I would be close to Allegra and her nurse as well, and not off in lonely, isolated grandeur. I would also be at the opposite end of the house from Gretchen and Vasily, which would suit me very well.

I selected a room that opened toward the lake and would make a pleasant sitting room. Next door would serve as my bedroom, and the changes in furniture would be simple enough for my temporary purposes. I would have a phone connected, and move in here tomorrow. Mrs. Broderick could manage all this, I was sure.

I found the housekeeper supervising the cleaning of a suite in Gretchen’s wing. She explained with barely concealed satisfaction that these rooms were to be for Miss Inness, who was moving into them later this afternoon.

So Gretchen had paid no attention to my request. Or else Brett had overruled her. This was not something I could settle with Mrs. Broderick. I explained about the change I wanted to make in my own living quarters.

“I’ll wait until tomorrow to move,” I said. “That should give you time to make a few changes. I’ll show you the rooms I’ve chosen whenever you’re free.”

Mrs. Broderick inclined her head. “As you wish, Mrs. Logan,” she said, and I knew that she guessed the reasons for my moving and was scornful of such weakness. Since Ross’s death, she had become even more of a fortress of authority, as though the uncertainty of all our lives at the moment must not be allowed to touch the running of Poinciana.

I made a small effort to placate her. “We must have a talk before long. I know very well that you are the one who keeps the house running smoothly.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Logan,” she said, but I knew I was still the stranger, of whom she disapproved.

The rest of the afternoon I spent in the Japanese room checking through the remainder of the netsuke. No more seemed to be missing, and when I’d examined them, briefly, I was able to give my attention to the ivory carvings, the cloisonné and Satsuma that I’d wanted to learn about ever since I’d come to the house. My old excitement over such treasures had weakened, however, and I knew I was only waiting for the hour when I could go to Jarrett’s cottage.

In the late afternoon, I showered and dressed carefully. The coming visit might not be altogether easy and enjoyable. There was too much that was unpleasant that I had to tell Jarrett—even to the question Myra Ritter had raised about Ross and the paintings. Thus my dressing was, in a sense, like putting on armor for the evening.

I wore my lime green silk from Hong Kong, and added no jewelry, except for the rings Ross had given me. In a sense, my rings were the symbol of my right to be in this house. I was still Mrs. Ross Logan, whether I liked it or not, and their presence on my hand prevented me from tossing everything over and running for my life. Which was what Vasily had suggested that I ought to do, and which was what I really wanted to do. Yet I must stay. For a while.

Somewhere in all those frantic years with Ysobel and Ian, a sense of duty to others had somehow been inculcated in me. Perhaps a stodgy, old-fashioned principle, but it was still there, operating in me, and I had to obey its edicts. Once Ian had told me that I was the one responsible member of the family, and I recalled that I’d laughed at his words.

An unexpected flash of memory swept through me. There had been a night in San Francisco … I had been waiting when Ysobel returned to her dressing room. Something had shaken her confidence during her performance, and she, who was determined to remain forever young, had felt suddenly old. Ian had been out front checking on the house, and we were alone.

“I’m losing it,” she said bleakly. “Something’s slipping away, and I can’t stop its going. They weren’t responding out there tonight. And if they don’t respond, I’m not anything.”

I couldn’t bear to see her in such a mood, and I had given myself to reassuring her. Just before she went on again she came to put her arms about me, and her cheek against mine. I could still remember the scent of her stage makeup, and her special perfume.

“Thank you for being my friend,” she said, and went out to where the applause that greeted her sounded as enthusiastic as ever.

I had sat down before her dressing table and looked at myself in the mirror in astonishment. I touched the cheek hers had touched, and felt a comfort I’d never known before. Her friend, she had said. And if she had lived, perhaps that was what we might have been eventually—friends.

Now, looking into another mirror in another time, something seemed to melt the coldness inside me. In the past I had allowed harsh words, perhaps carelessly spoken, to freeze me, so that I could never see Ysobel as vulnerable and human too. I’d been absorbed in my own self-pity.

The poignancy of loss was intense at that moment, and yet there was a healing too, a beginning of true comfort for me. I went downstairs with a new courage lifting my steps.

The grounds were empty as I followed the shell path to Jarrett’s cottage. Keith saw me coming and ran to open the screen door, with Brewster at his heels.

“Dad’s in the kitchen,” he told me, smiling and excited. “He’s making lasagne, and he makes it better than anybody. Mrs. Simmons had to go home to see a sick daughter, so we’re on our own tonight. I’m fixing the salad.”

He ran off, with the dog after him, and while I hesitated, Jarrett called from the kitchen. “Sit down, Sharon, and I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I sat down and looked around. The cottage had been charmingly furnished with old, well-worn pieces that suited its character. A few throw rugs were scattered across polished floors, and the sofa wore cheerful chintz. Part of the wide room had been separated into a dining area, from which steps led up to an outside deck. A plain oak table was set with woven place mats and old silver.

Jarrett came out of the kitchen with a spatula in hand. “Hello, Sharon.” His red hair was in his eyes, and from beneath it his look approved of me. “We’re nearly ready. So come and bring things in.”

I began to relax as I carried salad bowls and a basket of bread sticks to the table. From where Jarrett seated me I could look out toward the fiery poinciana tree and see beyond it the belvedere that rose above the roofs of the big house. I wished I need never go back under that roof again.

The lasagne was perfection, as Keith had promised, and for dessert there were sweet Florida melons. No long silences troubled us while we ate, though the talk was of the inconsequential. Brewster had had his own dinner, and he lay watching us with bright doggy interest. I could almost believe that life was normal, and that the threats of Poinciana had ceased to exist. Tonight I was seeing a Jarrett that I’d never glimpsed before. An easier, more contented, simpler man. Which only meant that I’d not even begun to understand his complexity.

When we’d eaten, I helped to put dishes in the washer, and it seemed pleasant to be doing those small domestic chores that had never been a part of my nomad’s life.

When Keith had taken his bicycle and Brewster and gone off to visit a friend, Jarrett led me up inside stairs to the raised deck he had built along one side of the cottage. We stretched out in long teak chairs to watch the sun go down over the lake, and I hadn’t felt so peaceful in months.

“Is this the way you always live?” I asked him.

“When I’m in Florida. Pam and I had a home in Maryland, but I’ve let that go. I’m not sure where we’ll live when you close Poinciana—or do whatever you decide to do with it. Perhaps Gretchen and Vasily will stay, if you leave it to them. But my work is up North. If I’m to continue, that is.”

Again the certainty of Jarrett’s leaving was a fact, and I closed my eyes, not wanting to think about it. For this little while there had been no antagonism between us, and he had treated me with a solicitousness that seemed almost tender.

But the sense of peace, the deceptive atmosphere of normal living could not last.

“You’d better tell me,” he said. “I could see the strain in your face when you came in. Has it been a bad day?”

Slowly, groping for words at first, I told him everything. About the missing netsuke and the uncomfortable meeting with Gretchen. About our lunching together, and my surprise glimpse of Vasily and Brett in the tunnel. About Vasily’s words to me afterwards, and especially of his coming to the tower and retrieving Ross’s manuscript. I spoke too of the missing Lautrecs, and of how they were discovered in Ross’s office. Finally I told him what his son had said about Brett Inness turning on the alarm. This last didn’t surprise him.

“Yes, I know. Keith told me the next day. He was up late that night and he’s always loved to roam the grounds after dark. He was near the house, down at the art gallery, and when the alarm went off and he saw Brett come running out of the house, he was sure she’d turned it on. But what was happening scared him, and he came straight to the cottage and sneaked back to bed. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to be out in the first place.”

“What do you make of this?”

“Nothing—yet.”

“But you didn’t bring it up with the police?”

He smiled at me ruefully. “There’s an old Logan rule dating back to Allegra’s time. We protect the family. I’ll talk to Brett when I have a chance.”

Once more, I disliked the concealment that always seemed part of the very atmosphere of Poinciana.

“I don’t believe she left that ‘Gretchen’ note for Ross, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “Brett would take stronger action than that.”

I was considering this when Jarrett surprised me by reaching out to take my hand. The gesture seemed to happen quite simply, and the touch of his fingers quieted me, easing my turbulent thoughts so that a sense of contentment filled me. His touch asked for nothing and offered nothing. Only friendship. Yet something in me knew that if I wanted it, this might very well be a beginning. If only I could trust again as easily as I had done with Ross. Instead, I thought of women who built those imaginary heroes they fell in love with, and I was wary. After a moment I slipped my hand away. It was myself I distrusted, more than Jarrett.

I went on to tell him what Myra Ritter had said about the possibility of a rich man stealing from himself. Jarrett seemed neither surprised nor outraged, as I’d half hoped he might be.

“I don’t know that this is what happened,” he said. “But it’s not impossible. Ross enjoyed the little games he sometimes played. Power games, meant to fool those around him and subject them to his will. There’s no telling now what he might have been up to. I’m glad the Lautrecs have been found. Perhaps the netsuke will also turn up.”

“Why did you work for him?” I asked. “Why did you go on working for him?”

“I suppose the trap closes. One gets caught. Getting out becomes hopelessly complicated. If I’d left, a number of projects that I believe are important would have been abandoned. Ross was never a philanthropist at heart. It was my job to make it seem that he was one. But I’ve already told you this.”

“You must have hated him.”

“Not always. Not entirely. There were times when I was sorry for him.”

“Sorry for Ross Logan?”

“He wasn’t a happy man. He was caught in the trap too. A trap set up in the beginning by Charles and Allegra, and baited with all the things they expected of him.”

At that moment there was no compassion in me for Ross. “But how could you not hate him, when—?” I broke off because the thought of his wife could not be spoken.

“Sometimes I suppose I did,” he agreed.

A voice spoke out of the darkness that had gathered around the deck. “And when you did, you could have killed him. Is that not so?”

The voice was Vasily’s, and there was both mockery and challenge in the words.

Jarrett left his chair to move to the rail, and I sensed a barely controlled violence in him. “You have some reason for a remark like that?”

“Not I,” Vasily said cheerfully. “Gretchen. It’s her latest theory. Will you permit me to come up and join you? I thought it might be well for you to know what she is saying, and what she plans.”

He didn’t wait for Jarrett to answer, but came up the outside steps and leaned against the rail beside him. “Good evening, Sharon. Have you been thinking over the things we discussed this afternoon?”

“Sit down,” Jarrett said. “You’d better tell us what’s on your mind.” He had already suppressed his first instinct to anger.

Instead of taking a chair, Vasily perched on the broad rail, swinging his legs. “My wife has, I believe at Brett’s prompting, decided that you and Sharon caused the shock that resulted in her father’s death. She has been claiming that all along, as you know. But now she means to give an interview to this effect. I’ve tried to dissuade her. Give me credit for that, at least. But when Gretchen goes on an emotional binge, I know of no way to stop her.”

Jarrett swore softly under his breath. “Nor does anyone else. I’ll try to talk to her, but that might be only a red flag. Thanks for coming to tell me. Incidentally, why did you?”

In the reflection of light from the windows behind me, I could see Vasily’s face, see that for once he looked a little anxious.

“Let’s call it self-preservation,” he said. “I lack the talent for destruction that Gretchen has. What she cannot win, she destroys. That she herself may be ruined in the process never seems to stop her.”

I broke in. “But she can’t have any possible basis for claiming such a thing. Oh, I know she’s thrown out wild accusations, but I didn’t think she took them seriously herself. I had lunch with her today, and she seemed almost friendly. Why should she do this now?”

Vasily moved his hands in an eloquent gesture that was thoroughly European. “She has been brooding. You were both there immediately after her father’s death. Perhaps you were even there before he died?”

I knew that I had not been, but for the first time I wondered if Jarrett could have reached the office while Ross was still alive. By his own admission, he too was capable of subterfuge. I hated my own mistrust, and I had to answer Vasily.

“That’s nonsense! Anyway, why would Gretchen do this? I’ve already told her she can have Poinciana. What more does she want?”

“Brett has convinced her that you will never give it up. Tomorrow she will act. She’s planning to call a press conference in the early afternoon. I myself think this is unwise, and I would like to see her stopped. Among other things, she will claim that there have been thefts at Poinciana, and that one of you may be filching valuable items to sell outside. Items that ought to belong to her.”

“She’s absolutely mad!” I cried.

“She may very well be,” Jarrett agreed. “I’d better go talk to her now, and see if I can coax her back to reason. I’m sorry to end the evening this way, Sharon. Would you like to come back to the house with me? Do you want to talk to Gretchen?”

“I’ll go back,” I said. “But I’ve had enough of talking to Gretchen for one day.” What I didn’t want was to be left alone with Vasily, who was making me increasingly uneasy.

“Remember,” Vasily said, “you didn’t see me. It wouldn’t do for Gretchen to know that I came down here.” He faded away into the darkness of the grounds, out of which he’d come.

All the lovely evening had been spoiled, and I felt hopeless again as I walked beside Jarrett toward the house.

He put an arm around me as we came near. “There’s nothing to worry about. Gretchen can’t back up her wild claims. People in the media will see through her, and I’ll call a conference of my own if necessary. Though news of conflict at Poinciana won’t do us any good.”

“Why would Brett urge her into this?”

“Because she is a vindictive woman. Because she’s still trying to punish Ross for all he did to her. She has some grounds for feeling the way she does, you know. But she has always managed to keep her influence with Gretchen. Love can be a very strange and mixed-up thing between mother and daughter, as well as can all the other kinds.”

How well I knew that. “I doubt that Brett ever loved Gretchen.”

“That’s probably true. It’s Gretchen, unfortunately, who grew up wanting Brett’s affection and approval as she never wanted anything else, especially since she wasn’t her natural child. She didn’t have to work so hard with her father.”

“In spite of everything, I feel sorry for Gretchen,” I said. “She has so much going for her, and she doesn’t use it.”

When we reached a side door, Jarrett put his hand on my arm. “Take it easy, Sharon. Things will work out. Don’t try to solve everything inside your head all at once. I’ll phone you later, after I’ve talked to Gretchen. Will you be in your room?”

I said I would wait for his call, and went upstairs. Even when I was away from him, I could still feel the touch of his hand and see the kindness in his eyes.

The corridor that led to my room seemed emptier than ever as I hurried along, and I closed my door quickly, locking it. I wondered now why I had been willing to spend one more night in this room.