CHAPTER FOUR

OOUTSIDE, ABBY PAUSED in the recessed entryway to Seibert's Jewelry. Slanting rain hammered the sidewalk now. She struggled to keep the box snugged close to her body while she nervously wrestled the umbrella open.

She reminded herself there was no need for nerves. No one out here on the street knew she was carrying a three-million-dollar necklace in the plastic bag hanging from her wrist. The bag had HOLLOWAY’S HARDWARE written across it and surely looked as if it held a box of nails or a bottle of drain cleaner, and no one was going to mug her for that. She couldn’t, in fact, recall anyone ever having been mugged on Sparrow Island.

Yet in spite of that reassurance, every nerve in her body felt as if it were standing at attention, like porcupine quills. Except that these quills were jabbing inward, pricking her skin and raising goosebumps, making her mouth feel as if it were full of dry feathers.

Darkness was coming early on this wintry, rainy day. Raindrops haloed the street lights, and headlights already blazed on passing vehicles. She eyed a pickup cruising by with suspicious slowness. Were the occupants sizing her up? They might not know about the three-million-dollar necklace, but they could think she’d just purchased something expensive in the jewelry store . . .

Enough, she chided herself. She shook her head, half laughing, half annoyed with herself for these runaway thoughts. And earlier she’d been grumbling that Ida had too vivid an imagination!

She was just about to step onto the sidewalk when she spotted a familiar figure up the street on the opposite side. It was Hugo, carrying his own conservative, dark umbrella. Great! She started to wave and call to him, eager to share what she’d just learned about the necklace, but then she stopped. Hugo was not alone, she realized as she spotted another person on the far side of his tall figure.

Sharing the umbrella with Hugo was Dr. Dana Randolph. At barely five feet tall, dressed in dark slacks and high-heeled boots, the slender, blond woman looked more like a Seattle sophisticate than what she was—the responsible and competent head of the Sparrow Island Medical Center.

Seeing the two of them together puzzled Abby. Back at the museum, Hugo had said he had an appointment later. Was Dr. Randolph the person he meant? Was he ill and not telling anyone? Was that why he’d seemed so preoccupied and distracted? But if that was the situation, wouldn't he have met Dr. Randolph at the clinic, not out here on a rain-swept street? More likely, Abby decided, he’d just happened to run into her and offered her the shelter of his umbrella.

Yet their heads were bent together as if they were engrossed in an intense and private discussion, and neither of them paid any attention to a couple of passersby on the sidewalk. Abby pressed herself against the door to the jewelry store, umbrella angled in front of her, suddenly reluctant to have them know she’d spotted them together.

If Hugo actually was ill and he’d been on the phone about a medical problem earlier, he obviously didn't want anyone to know about it. She didn't want to embarrass him or herself by intruding on a private discussion with his doctor.

Abby waited until Hugo and Dr. Randolph were well down the street before stepping out to the sidewalk. At the same time, glancing back, she realized Gordon Siebert and his clerk Judee were watching her curiously from inside the store.

They were no doubt wondering why she was acting so furtive and sneaky, she realized in embarrassment. She gave them a self-conscious wave and stepped out briskly, only to realize if she continued going in that direction to reach her car, she might well run into Hugo and the doctor after all.

Okay, she’d circle around the block to reach her car. She grasped the handle of the umbrella firmly and headed in the opposite direction, stepping over a stream of water already flowing along the curb at the corner.

When she got halfway around the block, it occurred to her that since she had no idea where Hugo and Dr. Randolph were headed, she might still run into them. No problem, she told herself firmly. She’d just walk rather than drive over to the bank. It wouldn't take much longer, and she’d be sure to miss them.

When the bank came into view Abby sighed with relief, only to draw up short before the door. There, hanging across the heavy glass door, a sign barred her way: CLOSED. She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket to peer at her watch. Five minutes after five o’clock. She tried the door to be certain. Locked.

She peered hopefully through the heavy glass, thinking she might attract someone's attention. Lights still shone in some back rooms, but no one moved around out front, not even when she rapped lightly on the glass.

Abby turned and looked both ways up and down the street as her nervous apprehension suddenly roared back. For a few minutes she’d concentrated so intently on dodging Hugo and Dr. Randolph that the contents of the plastic bag had slipped her mind. Now it felt as if the box were flashing a neon signal to anyone in the vicinity: Three-million-dollar necklace here! Just come and grab it!

She headed for her car almost at a run, encumbered by the plastic bag, her purse, her umbrella and the driving rain. By the time she scooted safely behind the wheel of the car, she felt both foolish and exasperated with herself. If she hadn't been so concerned about dodging Hugo and Dr. Randolph, she’d have reached the bank in plenty of time. And if she hadn't let her imagination run wild about someone snatching the necklace, her palms and back of her blouse wouldn't be soaked with nervous perspiration now.

She now had no choice but to take the necklace home with her for the night. But it had been in her desk for who knew how long, and no one had knocked her on the head to get it, so there was no reason to think someone would do so now. She further brightened with the thought that Henry Cobb might be at the house when she arrived and he’d take the necklace off her hands.

Of much greater importance and concern than the necklace, she reminded herself, was Hugo.

Could he really have some serious medical problem? she wondered as she drove toward home. She’d never known him to suffer more than a cold or touch of the flu. But his wife had died of malaria years ago, which she’d contracted when they were in Africa. Could Hugo have some little known tropical ailment that was only now surfacing many years later?

She wished she could ask him, but she knew she had to respect his privacy and wait until, and if, he wanted to tell her. She felt an unexpected twinge of regret that he obviously didn't feel he could share something this important and personal with her.

Well, that didn't mean she couldn't talk to the Lord about him, even if she didn't know details. She offered another heartfelt prayer for his healing if he was ill. “And if Dr. Randolph is treating him, I pray for wisdom and good judgment for her too,” she added. “Guide her in bringing him back to good health. Amen.”

It was going to be a wild night weather-wise, Abby realized as she drove home. Wind buffeted the dark cedars lining the road, and once she had to dodge a fallen branch. Rain pummeled the windshield, and the occasional slap of a windblown, wet leaf on the glass made her flinch. Disappointment hit Abby when she saw that Henry's cruiser was not at the house as she pulled into the driveway. Once in the garage, she hesitated a moment before going on through the laundry room into the kitchen. Should she tell Mary about the necklace?

Yes, of course. But later, not tonight. She didn't want Mary apprehensive and nervous with three million dollars in mysterious jewels there in the house with them.

Inside, the fragrant scent of spicy spaghetti sauce greeted her, and a fire crackled in the fireplace in the living room. Mary was by the sliding glass doors leading to the back deck, leaning over in her wheelchair to dry Finnegan's paws with a towel. The dog's golden coat glistened with raindrops. He gave Abby a welcoming thump of his tail. He was Mary's service dog, helping her with activities she couldn't manage from her wheelchair, but he took a proprietary air toward Abby too.

“Finnegan's been out in the rain?” Abby asked.

“He wanted to go out for his playtime even though it was pouring rain,” Mary said. She was in the habit of letting Finnegan out to play for an hour or so every afternoon, time off from his workday to just be a dog and run and dig and play with his ball. The yard wasn't fenced, but he was well trained and never wandered far from the house even when outside alone. She tousled his head affectionately. “He really didn't want to come in even when it got dark.”

Abby looked toward the sofa where Mary's cat Blossom was curled into a fluffy white cushion. She laughed. “I don't see Blossom having any such ideas about running around in the rain.”

“Right. She looked out the window a couple of hours ago, gave one of those haughty flips of her tail and hasn't moved from that spot on the sofa since.”

Blossom, bedraggled and hungry when Mary had first found her a few years ago, had wasted no time taking on airs that proclaimed her royal Persian heritage. It had come as a surprise to both Abby and Mary when Blossom and Finnegan turned out to like each other. The cat was especially fond of washing the dog's silky ears.

“That sauce smells wonderful. Is Henry coming to dinner?” Abby asked hopefully as she shed her damp jacket.

“No, he has a meeting tonight, so it's just you and me.”

Ordinarily, Abby would have been delighted. She liked Henry Cobb and never felt his presence intrusive, but Mary had such an active social life with her knitting, crafting and reading groups, plus the flower arranging lessons she taught at Island Blooms, that sometimes it did seem as if she and Mary didn't have much sisterly time together. But tonight she’d really hoped the deputy sheriff would be coming over.

“I thought maybe we could play Monopoly later,” Mary added. “I ran across our old board when I was cleaning out my closet earlier today, and stormy nights remind me of Monopoly evenings with Mom and Dad when we were kids.”

“Great! I haven't played in years. I’ll just run upstairs and change. Want me to make a salad to go with the spaghetti?”

“It's already made. And garlic bread is ready to go under the broiler. With the weather so awful I didn't go over to the flower shop today, so I had plenty of time. I’ve been working on some greeting cards using those flowers we pressed last summer.”

Mary's creative talents with flowers had made Island Blooms well known even beyond Sparrow Island, but her talents were not limited to fresh blooms. She did popular dried arrangements as well. The greeting cards were one of her latest projects.

“I’ll be down in a minute, then.”

Abby had been discreetly concealing the plastic bag behind her purse so Mary wouldn't notice and ask what she’d bought at the hardware store. The bag bumped her leg as she carried it upstairs. The box weighed only a few ounces, but somehow it had seemed to get larger and heavier and more noticeable ever since she learned the contents were worth three million dollars. Or more.

Upstairs in her bedroom, she looked around for a safe place to stash the box for the night, then reminded herself there was no reason she couldn't just leave it out in plain sight. No one was going to be prowling the house looking for it. She set the plastic bag beside the lamp on her night stand and draped her damp jacket over a chair.

She jumped when a screech from the main road startled her. No doubt just someone braking suddenly on the slick road. Yet the unexpected sound reinforced her feeling that she didn't want the necklace out in plain sight. Just in case.

Just in case of what? a small, interior voice questioned suspiciously.

She refused to answer it. Small, interior voices never seemed to ask helpful questions, just annoying ones. But even though the necklace was undoubtedly perfectly safe out in the open, it wouldn't hurt to have it hidden.

After trying several spots in the closet and in a chest of drawers, she finally tucked the box between the mattress and the box spring on her bed. Then she had to laugh at herself. Wasn't that the first place a burglar would look?

She changed into a comfortable pair of faded jeans and an old sweatshirt with a cartoonish version of a hungry-looking vulture eyeing a Volkswagen Bug and the words “Think Big!” emblazoned across the front. Mary was dishing up spaghetti when Abby went down to the kitchen. Abby put the garlic bread under the broiler and poured coffee. When Mary dropped a potholder, Finnegan retrieved it for her without even being asked.

Mary chattered animatedly all through dinner. She hadn't managed the Island Blooms flower shop herself since the accident that had confined her to a wheelchair, but she was still very interested in what was going on with her business. She spoke excitedly of an exceptionally large order of flowers for an upcoming wedding at The Dorset, Sparrow Island's elite resort hotel that was popular with Seattle residents for special events.

“Oh, and I heard someone saw Ida Tolliver and Aaron Holloway renting a couple of horses to go riding together out at the Summit Stables,” she added. “Maybe they’ll get together yet.”

So much for Ida's “secret” about the tentative relationship, Abby thought, smiling to herself.

“And Dad called to say they had an oversupply of eggs now, if we want a couple extra dozen. I thought I might make an angel food cake. I remember you used to love angel food.”

“Mmm,” Abby said. Maybe she should have left the necklace out in the car instead of bringing it into the house.

“Is something wrong?” Mary asked.

Abby jumped. “No. Of course not.” She realized she’d lost the train of the conversation. “The spaghetti is delicious.”

“You seem rather preoccupied, as if you have something on your mind. Why are you looking at Finnegan like that?” Mary added suddenly.

“I’m not—” Abby broke off as she realized she was watching Finnegan. “I just noticed that he keeps looking toward the sliding glass doors.”

As if there might be something . . . or someone . . . lurking out there on the deck or in the backyard, though she didn't say that to Mary.

“I didn't let him bring his ball in because it was all wet and squishy. He's probably worried about a raccoon or something making off with it.”

Of course. Put a lid on the runaway imagination, Abby told herself firmly. What she said aloud was, “I’m busy working on the new ‘Bird Flight and Early Human Flight’ exhibit for the museum. I’d really like to find a model of an ornithopter to use in it.”

Then she had to explain what an ornithopter was, and Mary, who had never quite understood Abby's interest in the bird world, laughed and said, “Sounds like something that would fascinate Bobby.”

“It does, doesn't it?” Abby agreed. Bobby McDonald was the ten-year-old son of their next-door neighbors, Sandy and Neil McDonald. He was curious about anything to do with science or nature. A boy who could be as helpful as a third hand, or as unhelpful as a puppy underfoot. “I’ll have to tell him about it.”

By the time Abby cleared the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, Mary had the Monopoly board set up on a card table in front of the fireplace.

Abby sat in the upholstered chair by the hearth, determined to concentrate on the game and enjoy her evening with Mary. But just as she landed on a railroad square, a loud thump startled her. “Did you hear that?” she asked uneasily.

“Hear what?”

“That noise. Like . . . something out front.”

“Just the wind tossing that old doormat around. We really should get a new one, you know.”

Right. The doormat. Not a prowler sneaking around trying to figure out how to get into a house to steal a three-milliondollar necklace.

The game progressed, with Mary rapidly gaining properties and adding houses to them. Abby couldn't seem to concentrate. She kept hearing things. Something rattling in the backyard. A rustle like someone trying to climb the trellis outside the kitchen window. When the phone rang she jumped so hard that she hit the edge of the table, sending Mary's little houses flying in all directions. She had to get down on her hands and knees to round them up while Mary talked on the phone with Candace, her manager at Island Blooms. A few minutes later she made an excuse to dash upstairs because she thought she heard a peculiar noise up there.

When she returned, Mary finally tossed down the dice in exasperation. “Abby, what in the world is wrong with you? You’re as jumpy as Blossom when she sees a strange dog. You’re making me nervous. And Finnegan too.”

Finnegan did indeed seem rather nervous, jumping up every few minutes to wander from the dining room to the sliding glass doors to the front door. Maybe she was making him nervous, Abby acknowledged to herself. Or maybe the storm bothered him. Or maybe, just maybe, he was nervous because he knew someone was out there prowling around.

Logically, there was no reason for anyone to be prowling, Abby reminded herself. Only a few people besides herself knew of the existence of the necklace. Hugo, of course. Ida Tolliver. Gordon Siebert and his clerk. Hugo might also have told Dr. Randolph by now, although that seemed unlikely. Hugo hadn't appeared that interested in the necklace. Yet even if he had told the doctor, neither she nor anyone else on that short list of good people would be prowling around the house with criminal intent.

Yet it was also true that there was someone else who knew of the necklace's existence. The unknown someone who had hidden it in Abby's desk. Could that person somehow have been keeping an eye on his hidden treasure and knew Abby had removed it from the hiding spot today?

“Abby, is something going on that I don't know about?” Mary demanded. She tilted her head speculatively as she studied her sister.

Okay, Mary had a right to know, Abby decided reluctantly. If there was danger, Mary should be aware of it. Silently she went upstairs and returned with the plastic bag. She took out the box and opened it. Mary's reaction of wide-eyed awe was one with which Abby was already becoming familiar.

“Abby, what is this? Where did you get it? It's gorgeous!” With none of Abby's own hesitation about touching the necklace, she picked it up eagerly. In the flickering glow of firelight, the diamonds glittered as if lit from within.

Abby told Mary the full story, from cleaning out her desk to going to Siebert's Jewelry to getting to the bank too late to put the necklace in the safe deposit box. “And that's why I was hoping Henry would be here tonight,” she finished. “I keep thinking, valuable as the necklace is, that someone might be willing to do something quite . . . unscrupulous to get it.”

“You really think there's danger of someone coming here?” Mary peered around their solidly built home. She sounded doubtful.

“My head says there isn’t. My nerves don't seem to be getting the message,” Abby admitted.

“The doors are locked. We have Finnegan. I’m not worried.” Mary waved a dismissive hand, and her eyes sparkled with a different thought. “What happens if you can't find the owner of the necklace?”

“I don't know. I hadn't thought about that.”

“Maybe you’ll own it!”

“I’m sure the real owner will turn up. Surely no one's going to simply abandon something this valuable.”

“You never know. Maybe the person passed away or has amnesia or something. Such things happen.”

Abby could see that having the necklace here in the house definitely wasn't making Mary as edgy as it was her. Mary seemed, in fact, to be rather enjoying the unusual situation.

“Let's try it on!” Mary said.

“Try it on?” Abby repeated doubtfully.

“Why not?” In a moment Mary had figured out the clasp, more complicated than anything in Abby's own small collection of costume jewelry, and held the necklace out to Abby. “Here, fasten it around my neck.”

Abby did so, then brought a mirror so Mary could see the results. Mary laughed delightedly at the unlikely sight of the fabulous diamonds against her everyday pink sweater.

“Just the thing for when Henry takes me to dinner at the Springhouse Café! Or you could wear it on bird walks with tourists at the conservatory. Or wouldn't it be fabulous as a collar for Finnegan?”

Abby laughed at Mary's frivolous suggestions, and her own mood suddenly lightened. When Mary suggested Abby try on the necklace, she did. She laughed again. The cartoonish vulture made an even more unlikely backdrop than Mary's sweater for the luxurious diamonds.

Mary picked up the card. “‘To Claudia,’” she mused. “I guess no one knows who Claudia is?”

“Not yet.”

“Maybe the necklace was meant to be an anniversary present. A fiftieth anniversary.” Mary's blue eyes went a little dreamy. “Wouldn't that be romantic?”

“Not if it's a stolen gift.”

“Who says it's stolen?” Mary demanded.

“No one. But its being in the desk is just so strange. Something just doesn't seem on the up-and-up about it.”

“So what are you going to do with it?” Mary asked as she carefully and, Abby thought, with some reluctance, tucked the necklace back in its box.

“Take it to Henry in the morning and see what he thinks.”

“Providing we survive the night, of course,” Mary said with a teasing twinkle in her blue eyes.

Mary's refusal to be nervous took away some of Abby's lingering apprehension. They played Monopoly until it was time for the late news on TV. Then Mary, yawning, rolled her wheelchair toward her bedroom on the main floor, where everything had been remodeled to accommodate her after the auto accident.

Finnegan would sleep on a rug beside Mary's bed, of course, as he always did, and Blossom would curl up on a favorite chair in Mary's bedroom.

Abby went on up to bed too, taking the necklace with her. She determinedly parked it on the nightstand rather than nervously hiding it away, but it was a long time before she fell asleep.