23
Nils opened the door wide and stepped aside. “The FBI claims they haven’t got a clue what’s going on with these mutilation killings.”
She walked in, wiped her feet on the welcome mat, shrugged off her coat, walked through his living room and into his kitchen. “So you do work with the FBI?”
“In cases of domestic crime, which this is.”
She set the oven to three hundred and fifty degrees and placed the mac and cheese on the middle rack. “But you don’t believe what they’re telling you.”
“I don’t believe they’re going to share information with the MFAA. To them, the MFAA is like the upstart child who babbles about its pretty antiques while the world is falling into anarchy.”
“Not even when Jessica was brutally killed at her desk?”
“The FBI is investigating her death, even though she worked for the CIA.” Kellen thought she could hear Nils’s teeth grinding. “But the investigating office is run by a dick who’s pissed that we’ve got a plan to shut down the smuggling depots and he didn’t get invited in as the lead. Why would he? He doesn’t know jack shit about art or artifacts or anything but brute force.”
“O-kay.” Bad blood there. “Mara Philippi says she talked to an old boyfriend at the FBI.”
“She’s pretty. Maybe she’ll get someone to pay attention.” He sounded intensely bitter.
Kellen reached into his cupboard, brought out a serving bowl, emptied the bag of salad into it. She washed her hands, then tossed the greens with her hands. She caught a peculiar expression on his face. “I know where everything is. All the kitchens are arranged the same.”
“I have never seen anyone actually use their hands like salad tongs.”
“Think about it. Someone in the kitchen used their hands to cut up the lettuce, celery, radishes…”
“Wearing sanitary gloves, one hopes!” Still he looked pained.
She thought about that photo of the affluent Brooks family. She suspected they had a home that included a staff and their own cook, and the idea of anyone actually touching food with their fingers would be an anathema to him. That both amused her and helped convince her of the authenticity of his personal history. “I promise I’ll use utensils when I add the dressing.”
“What kind of dressing?”
“What do you care? I’ve seen you. You’ve been in the resort eating all day. This is for me.”
He looked even more startled and offended.
Wow. He was spoiled.
She pulled the list of possible Librarians out of her pocket and handed it over. “Here. See what you think.”
He pulled a stool up to the eating bar and looked over her chart and her profiles.
“I like the pilot, too,” Nils said. “Chad Griffin. In and out, travel the country, transport the goods, stay here when the weather’s bad and check up on everything.”
“I’m prejudiced against him because I don’t like the man, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t the Librarian.”
“Why did you put Carson Lennex above him?”
“Archaeology degree. The man knows his stuff, he has a huge book collection, went to Machu Picchu on vacation. Which a lot of people do, but…” She shook up the simple dressing of red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard and extra virgin olive oil, drizzled it on the greens and dug in.
“Fascinating.” He pulled a pen out of his pocket and scribbled a note on the list. “I would have never suspected him. He’s too old and too famous. So I would have never done the research. Good job.”
“Snooping pays off.”
“I thought you’d include your local policeman, the guy who took the body to the coroner.”
Nils was asking all the right questions. “He’s disappeared.”
That got Nils’s attention. “When did you find that out?”
“This evening.”
“Disappeared to where?”
“If we knew that, he wouldn’t be disappeared.” She waved him to silence and told him about Leo’s call. “I was aggravated with Lloyd for not getting back to me, but now he’s vanished and no one thinks he deliberately ran off with the body. Not even me, because if he’s the Librarian, that would be stupid.”
“It would. Foul play is suspected?”
“The sheriff has her men searching for him, but the countryside is wild and includes many places to hide someone who is kidnapped, or to stash a body.” She stared into the salad and reimagined the rugged mountains, the dense forests, the long stretches of beach battered by ocean. “As we’ve discovered.”
“So only two men made the list?”
“I do suspect a man simply because in the greater world a man is more likely to command the respect and be in the position to obtain power. But if your suspicions are right, that the Librarian is using Yearning Sands Resort as a base, the possibility exists it could be a female because the hospitality business is predominantly female. We have a lot more choices here.” She pointed at the names on the chart. “I’m suggesting these two because they have the physicality to handle the rigors of the job. Pickups, drop-offs, if needed.” She paused a beat. “Murders.”
“I also had Mara Philippi on the list,” he said smugly. “She has a murky background.”
That brought her interest into sharp focus. “What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t believe the research I was able to assemble about her. There are legitimate reasons for her to have faked credentials. She might have worked at a federal agency that obscured or changed her records, she might be in witness protection, she might be running from an abusive relationship—”
“All of which explains her obsession with fitness and fighting—and none of which explains her obsession with winning the International Ninja Challenge.”
“Maybe she’s throwing up a smoke screen and has no intention of entering the contest,” he suggested.
“She says she’s already entered and been accepted.”
“Have you seen proof?”
“No.” Kellen finished the salad. “You’re right—she could be lying and will sadly announce she didn’t make it. But I don’t think so. I think if Mara is the Librarian, she has such an impenetrable ego this is really the challenge—to show herself on television and online, to be seen by the world and make fools of everyone.”
“You have quite an unflattering opinion of her.”
Kellen struggled to explain. “She’s not an easy person to be around. She’s demanding. She’s selfish. I don’t know her any better than I did on the day we met. She has said that everyone here has secrets.”
“Do they?”
“No one comes to live at the lonely, battered edge of the continent unless they’re escaping a past.”
“What are you escaping?”
Her temper crackled. “You tell me. You did the research.”
“I’ve never seen blue eyes spark quite like that.” He leaned forward. “May I kiss you?”
She couldn’t have been more horrified. “Good God. Why?”
He threw back his head and laughed, and for the first time since she’d met him, he looked carefree. “Because we’d be good together.”
“I’m not here for that. If that’s the game you’re playing—”
“No!” He held up one hand. “This is not some long scene I’ve concocted to seduce you. Forget I said anything. It was an impulse. I’m not usually given to impulse, but you’re an unusual woman. Intriguing.”
“And you’re nosy. It’s not an attractive trait. Try to contain yourself.” Kellen pulled the mac and cheese out of the oven and tested it. It was still frozen in the middle, but warm around the edges, and she was desperate. With a serving spoon, she shaved off the warm parts and mounded them into a bowl, then covered the casserole again and put it back in the oven. She took her first bite and sighed with pleasure. “You can keep your crummy lobster mac and cheese,” she told him. “Dungeness crab is the clear winner.”
“I couldn’t begin to say. I’ve never had crab mac and cheese.”
An appeal for a serving, and she ignored it. She pulled a stool into the kitchen and settled across the counter from him. “Adrian and Mitch are on the list as possible assistants to the Librarian. They were good soldiers and I like them, and mostly I trust them, but Adrian got into something bad, I don’t know what, but he’s jumpy and scared. Sometimes Mitch lacks a moral compass. Both have had problems adjusting to civilian life. I don’t know whether they truly could be tempted by the Librarian to be the muscle of the Yearning Sands operation, but I know sometimes money leads them.”
He studied the list intently. “Right. You didn’t include your other two friends as either the Librarian or assistants.”
“No.” She didn’t have to explain herself, or defend Birdie and Temo.
He went on to the last name on her list. “Sheri Jean Hagerty. Why her?”
“Sheri Jean’s father was by all accounts a lovely man. But her mother is the matriarch of her extended family and absolutely the most ruthless human being I’ve ever met.”
He scribbled a note beside Sheri Jean’s name. “So she could have learned heartlessness at her mother’s knee.”
“I guarantee she did. The family has a small truck farm east of here where they grow fruits and vegetables to sell on a stand beside the highway. Everyone in the family works that stand while they’re growing up and everyone, no matter who they are, spends part of their summer working the farm. We’re talking about high-powered people. Business owners, CEOs, president of a prestigious Midwest college. Every autumn, her mother comes to the resort to negotiate the terms for next year’s produce, and on that day, chefs tremble, Annie cries and Sheri Jean hides.”
“You’re saying her mother is forcing Sheri Jean to be the Librarian.” He pulled a long, disbelieving face.
“Not at all. I’m saying Bo Fang crushed her dreams, and a woman without dreams has no hope or joy.”
“The old lady’s name is Bo Fang?”
“Appropriately.” She laughed at his reaction. “Sheri Jean told me that Fang means fragrant, but I wasn’t sure she was serious.” She slid her spoon into the thick cheesy dish, over and over, filling the empty spaces in her belly.
In a goaded tone, he asked, “Do you mind if I try a bite of your mac and cheese?”
“Do you know how to get it out of the oven by yourself?”
His eyes narrowed on her. “I may be a Brooks, but I assure you, I have a Bo Fang in my background. My grandmother Mrs. Judith Irene Brooks does not tolerate idle hands.”
She had rather enjoyed provoking him, and her one-shoulder shrug was the polished epitome of indifference. “Help yourself.”
He came around the counter and into the kitchen.
She scooted until her back was against the wall. Tonight she might feel more at ease, but she didn’t intend to discover she was wrong about him.
Of course, he observed her maneuver, and those glorious brown eyes snapped in irritation. “You don’t like lobster?”
“I don’t like anything from Maine.” TMI. She needed to be careful about that; he’d already proved himself able to dig through her past. When he seated himself with his own bowl and spoon, she continued, “Sheri Jean is the youngest daughter. According to Bo Fang, the youngest daughter’s duty is to stay close to her mother and care for her into her old age. She sent Sheri Jean to a private high school in Massachusetts, where Sheri Jean excelled and was accepted to an Ivy League college. Bo Fang wouldn’t let her go there—or anywhere. She made her come home and learn the truck farm business.”
“Sheri Jean didn’t go to college? Because of her mother?”
“That’s right.”
“She could have defied her mother.”
“She did. She married the most inappropriate man… From all accounts, Dirk Hagerty was a lazy, cheating gigolo, and it cost Bo Fang dearly to get rid of him.”
“Which put Sheri Jean in debt to her mother.” He took his first bite. “You’re right. This is wonderful. The chefs here are gifted.”
“The crabs here are pretty gifted, too.” She watched him eat again and wondered where he stashed all those calories. “My last point—Sheri Jean was born on this coast. She knows every inch of it. Whoever is in charge of this smuggling operation is intelligent, and Sheri Jean is smarter than the rest of us put together.”
“You’re pretty smart yourself. She wasn’t even on my list.”
“That’s why you picked me to help you, isn’t it?”
“Your military records indicate you have a gift for situational analysis.”
“Right.” Had Nils discovered the real reason she was medically discharged? If he had, he didn’t care much, and that gave her some insight into his character. Not a flattering insight, either. And what was with that request for a kiss? “I thought you were involved with Jessica Diaz.”
“We were friends. Old friends, good friends. Friends with common goals.”
“Hmm.” If that was true, that made his appeal a little less offensive.
Damn him. Why had he introduced the man/woman thing into this mess? Sex was for people who had a future, who could remember all the days of their lives and could live without looking over their shoulder wondering what was sneaking up behind them…and what they had done.
Her appetite vanished. She took her bowls and placed them in his sink, ran some water and left them. Let the bastard load his own miniature dishwasher. She said, “The problem is—I can make a list all day long and my suppositions carry the highest percentages of being correct. Commanders tend to command, and thus I listed the resort’s department heads. But while we can play the percentages, we have to face the fact the Librarian could be a resident of Cape Charade. It could be one of the housekeeping staff. The people I have on the leader list could be the assistant and vice versa. And how many people does the Librarian have on the payroll?”
“I figure to make an operation of this size work—ten to twenty?”
“There you go. I don’t know how you’re going to make this sleuthing work.”
He finished his mac and cheese and pushed the bowl away. “In the autumn, a collection of illegally seized South American tomb art went astray.”
“About the time Priscilla went astray?”
“Exactly at that time.” He pulled out his tablet and passed it over.
Kellen flipped through the tomb art photos. A stone tablet covered in hieroglyphs, stone statues of angry, broad-cheeked faces, a carving of a woman’s naked pregnant body and the pièce de résistance, a red stone figure of a man squatting on his haunches with an enormous and well-polished penis protruding from between his legs. “Eye-catching,” she said drily and passed the tablet back.
“The private collector paid a lot of money to own those artifacts, and the knowledge of his displeasure spread throughout the art world. It’s said he demanded a refund and was told some version of ‘Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.’”
“I’ll bet that went down well.”
“Wealthy people don’t take being swindled with any amount of grace. Word spread that the Librarian is losing his grip.”
“Who spread that word?”
“I may have helped.” He twirled his imaginary mustache. “But I didn’t start it. I want to find the Librarian, get him off the streets, dismantle the operation from the inside. It’s important to me.”
“Revenge for Jessica?”
“Yes, and a fulfillment of our mission.”
Kellen nodded.
“The Librarian created this very profitable operation, but you must know everyone would like to step into the Librarian’s shoes. He has to deliver Central American tomb art to this collector or be discredited. So—four days ago, another tomb was looted. Two archaeologists were shot. One died.”
“You think the artifacts are coming here?”
“Yes, and the Librarian can’t afford for anything to go wrong this time.”
Kellen thought about Mr. Gilfilen, lurking in the dark outside in camouflage, watching and waiting for his chance to break open the smuggling ring. If Nils Brooks was correct, Mr. Gilfilen faced a danger he could not imagine. How could she tell him without revealing what she knew about Nils Brooks and his operation?
She sagged. Was she ever going to enjoy another full night’s sleep?
Nils leaned over the counter. “Priscilla Carter was somehow involved in the theft of those artifacts. They haven’t resurfaced. Do you have any idea where she might have hidden them?”
“I didn’t know Priscilla. I wasn’t here when she was alive. Everyone who knew her tells me she wasn’t very smart and she wasn’t particularly principled. Assuming my information is correct, she might have taken the art, one assumes because she recognized the potential for profit, and she could have stashed it anywhere. The resort is huge and old, riddled with closets, storage, even some secret passageways.”
“I know it’s difficult, but—”
“But perhaps she didn’t realize its worth, or she wanted revenge on the Librarian and put it in the garbage.”
He put his hand on his chest as if his heart hurt. “Why would she want revenge?”
“If she was romantically involved with the Librarian and discovered he—or she—was using her as camouflage… A woman scorned, Mr. Brooks. You may never recover that tomb art. You may never uncover the Librarian.”
She was quite enjoying Nils’s horror, when out of the corners of her eyes, she saw something move outside the window. Someone was looking in.
Slowly, heart thumping, she turned to face the intruder.
Her husband, Gregory, was there, looking in. Dead and looking at her, a soft green light on his evil face.