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Beverly put down the binoculars for a moment to rest her aching arms. How long had she been sitting here? It felt like hours, but when she checked her watch, it had only been thirty-five minutes. She rubbed some caked dirt off the bottom of her slacks where she’d half-tripped on the carpet of slimy pine needles.
Parking her car a quarter mile away in a different neighborhood had felt like a good idea, but not only were her arms aching, the ground was ice cold. And so far, she hadn’t seen anything to help her decide how to proceed.
This home wasn’t a castle to match Mr. X’s, but it fit the definition of a mansion. Tree-lined drive, animal topiaries, and Greek-god statues in the garden in front, columned portico, and a house crafted of brick and stone in the Norman or Tudor style. Not many visible signs of a security system, but she couldn’t imagine Reggie Forsythe not having one. She listened. No dogs, or so she hoped.
She rubbed her hand on her slacks. Her feet and legs may be cold, but her hands were sweating. What was she thinking, believing she might have a chance to gain access to Forsythe’s domain? Especially since he was home, too, as she’d discovered when he drove his Jag into the garage a half-hour ago. When she’d called his office on a pretext earlier, his secretary said Forsythe would be on a conference call locked in his office for the next several hours. So much for that.
Beverly picked up the binoculars again, training them on the front of the house. Eerily quiet and not even a ghosted silhouette in any of the windows. Thanks to her research, she’d learned Forsythe had servants, but they weren’t live-ins and should have left by now. She’d tracked down one former servant, a maid, but the poor woman had refused to talk about her former boss. After what Mr. X told Beverly about the man and the way he treated his staff, she wasn’t all that surprised.
Just as Beverly was about to call it a day and head back through the forest of bayberry shrubs and red maple trees that barely provided cover, she heard the distinctive sound of a motor. She recognized it as the same garage door motor cranking up she’d heard when Forsythe’s Jaguar entered only fifteen minutes ago.
Hesitating only a second, she dropped her binoculars, scrambled to her feet, and ran through the side yard, dodging a few statues. With her heart racing, she hurled herself behind a tall topiary shaped like an evergreen layer cake.
She was only two feet from the front of the garage, and she got a good look at Forsythe as he sped out of the garage with his Jag in reverse. At a dangerously high speed.
She also saw his dark, clouded expression as he recklessly navigated the circular driveway, coming close to hitting a lamp pole. Why did he leave his meeting early and drive all the way home just to zip in and out of his house in a virtual blur?
This time, she didn’t hesitate as she rolled under the garage door like a limbo expert, landing on her stomach as the door closed behind her with a definitive thud. Well, she’d come here in hopes of getting in, hadn’t she? Not quite this way, but it would do.
After covering her hand with her sleeve to avoid leaving prints, she approached the door and turned the knob cautiously. A peek through the crack in the door looked promising, so she slipped inside to find a blue-tiled entry with chestnut paneled wood. One way led downstairs, the other up to the kitchen. She chose the kitchen.
Then she stopped. Two hallways branched out from the kitchen, giving her more decisions to make. It was like being in a treasure-hunter movie—one way led to gold, the other to certain death. Which to choose?
A series of paintings on the wall of one hallway suggested a route to a more formal area, so she headed that way, looking down to see if she was leaving any flecks of dried mud from her clothes. They might serve like bread crumbs leading her back to the way she came, but she didn’t want to leave any traces she’d been here.
At the end of the hallway, she found a study which looked like an excellent place to start. She used her sleeve-wrapped hand to open various file drawers and flip through the contents. Housekeeping records, a few invoices, bills. Not that she’d expected him to be moronic enough to keep incriminating papers in plain sight, but she had to try.
If he’d found the Lady statue, no doubt it was safe inside some vault. But as she took a look around the room, she changed her mind. Pieces from the silver-obsessed Reggie Forsythe’s collection littered the room on various bookshelves, tables, a curio cabinet. Could the statue be among them?
Kornelson’s notes weren’t all that helpful in describing what to look for. Beverly had researched the Lady of Chartres as depicted in historical paintings and statues and hoped she had a rough idea of what the silver statue should resemble, but this could be different. She wasn’t sure who the artist was—maybe he’d used a girlfriend as a model. Beverly hurried through the study, foyer, and a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves but no joy.
Leaving the study, she headed down another branch of the hallway, grateful for her rubber shoes on the hardwood floors. One of her shoes caught on a small rough joint between floorboards and made a little squeak. She stopped and listened. No sounds.
She entered the oval dining room, with its elegant, long mahogany table and blue silk-covered chairs, at first admiring the craftsmanship of the table. But then, all thoughts of incriminating documents and silver statues flew from her mind, and she had to fight the urge to flee.
For on the left side of the room, an elderly man lay on his back on the floor, his eyes wide open. Blood trickled from the gaping hole in the top of his head, and a blood-covered silver candelabra lay beside him.
Oh, dear god. Beverly put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes for a brief moment, as she fought the acidic bile rising in the back of her throat. Then she opened her eyes wide and gingerly kneeled down beside the man, checking for a pulse in his wrist despite what the gory scene was telling her loud and clear.
The man was dead. She wanted to close those staring eyes, wanted to put something over him, a blanket, a sheet, anything to give him one last modicum of respect.
Standing up again, she forced herself to study his face. Even with the bloody wound, she could see his features. He was a handsome man in his 70s with a full head of white hair and eyes clouded with cataracts. She knew who he was, this man. Reginald Forsythe, III. And apparently, murdered by his own son.
Beverly couldn’t stay there any longer. She’d be a suspect, and that would throw attention off the real killer, the man she hated more than life itself. Still fighting the bile rising up in her throat, she took one last look at the body on the floor.
Before turning to make her way out of this damned, doomed house, she whispered softly to the dead man, “Oh, grandfather.” And then she stumbled out the way she’d come.
