Victor didn’t admit it, but the same question had been prodding at him, also. “Stryker?”
“For what purpose?”
“A joke?”
She shook her head. “I don’t see him as the joking type. He’s after something.”
Victor zipped his bag closed. “Doesn’t matter. The bigger issue is that Donald Ramsey arranged the museum theft and now Colda’s dead so we may never know where the painting is, or even if it ever was here in the first place.”
She sat up. “But something is going on here, something that may impact Brooke.”
His gut squeezed. “She has her aunt to help her now.”
“That might not be enough.”
He didn’t answer. “We came for treasure. That’s our job. There’s no treasure so it’s time to pull the plug.”
“Quit seeing everything in black or white. You know that whatever Brooke’s father did or didn’t do, it had nothing to do with her.”
“Yes, it does.”
Her eyes widened. “No more than you are connected to our dad’s decisions. Or responsible for the bad choices I made. Brooke is not a part of what happened to Jennifer. You can’t paint her with that brush.”
Blood pounded in his veins. “I don’t want to be tangled up in her life.”
“That’s okay as long as you’re clear about the reasons. Is it because she’s Donald’s daughter? Or you’re scared because you’re attracted to her?”
He spun on his heel to face his sister. “I’m not attracted to her.”
“That so? Then why do you smile when she’s around? You laugh, think about things other than balancing the books or reading dusty references about Vermeers and Treskilling stamps.”
His face grew hot. “There’s no one for me. Jennifer was it, Steph, so don’t try to fix me up, especially with Brooke Ramsey.”
She shrugged. “Just calling it like I see it, brother, even though you refuse to.”
“Enough, Stephanie.” He clamped his jaws together to keep from snapping at her.
I’ve got no feelings for any woman and I never will.
Tuney rapped a knuckle on the open door. “Got a minute?”
“Yes,” Victor said, gesturing him to a chair. “We’re pulling out of Bayside.”
“I got your text message and the photo of the pawn. Now you figure the whole treasure in the tunnel thing is a wild-goose hunt, huh? I could have told you that. Oh, wait. I did tell you that.”
Victor ignored the sarcasm. “I’ll call the dean and clue him in.”
Tuney folded his arms. “Couple things before you go. Checked in with the cops. They didn’t find Colda’s body yet.”
“Is that unusual?” Stephanie asked, pulling up a chair. “Could be it was washed away?”
“Could be.”
Victor eyed him. “Are you thinking Colda didn’t die in that car?”
Tuney didn’t appear to hear the question. He let the words trickle out slowly, like the first drops of rain before a storm. “Let me tell you the other thing. The chess piece, the pawn, it’s Colda’s.”
Victor straightened.
“What?” Stephanie said. “How did you figure that?”
“When the professor first disappeared, I poked around, talked to a lot of students. The guy was a big chess enthusiast, used to challenge the students to matches and generally he won. Here’s the thing. He always brought his own chess set, an antique from 1850, boxwood and ebony. He called it his lady friend. Kind of pathetic, really. Guy really was an oddball.”
“And the pawn on Brooke’s bed?” Stephanie said. “Was it from that set?”
He nodded. “Black ebony with the green registration sticker on the bottom.”
Victor fought his way through the surprise. “So Colda put this on Stephanie’s pillow? He’s alive?”
“Or someone who has Colda’s chess set.”
“How could Colda or anyone else have gotten into the dorm that night? I checked all the exit doors and windows. All locked from the inside.” Victor closed his eyes and sighed. “Of course. He came in through the basement passage or some other that we don’t know about.”
“Guy’s a regular phantom,” Tuney agreed. “Who knew an old dried-up professor could get around so well?”
Victor’s nerves prickled. If Colda was alive and in hiding on the campus, then he would do anything to discourage people from flushing him out. People like Brooke and her aunt.
Tuney’s eyes glittered. “So you’ll be staying, then? Keeping an eye out until the search is officially over?”
“Why does it matter to you? The university will be happy to get rid of us, seems to me,” Victor observed.
He stood. “Just doing my job.”
Victor looked closely at Tuney. “Your investigations have been very thorough. I’m surprised the university would go to such lengths to find their professor. Why not let the cops handle it?”
“Not my concern as long as they’re paying me.”
“You’re good at finding things out.”
“Used to be a pretty effective cop back in the day.”
“Paulson mentioned you’d worked for SFPD.”
Tuney grimaced. “Then I guess he told you I got canned. I didn’t say I was a good cop, just effective. Anyway, I’ve got a personal motive. Fran is dead, though everyone seems to have forgotten that fact, and I’m staying on this like stink on cheese until someone pays.”
Victor hadn’t forgotten. He also knew that the need for revenge fed on itself until it consumed a person. Tuney wasn’t about to be put off the trail anytime soon. “Question. Back during your investigations after the museum theft, did you know that Dean Lock and Donald Ramsey were friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Close enough that Lock visited Donald’s son, Tad?”
Tuney cocked his head. “I didn’t know that. What are you getting at?”
Victor shrugged, not really sure himself. “Struck me as odd, is all.”
“The whole thing is odd, so keep me apprised about the next foray down below,” Tuney said.
“I told you we’re leaving,” Victor said.
Tuney grinned. “You’re not leaving.”
“And how do you know that?” Victor said.
“Because if there’s a chance Colda’s alive, then there’s still a chance you can put your hands on that Tarkenton. You’re not going to walk away from that.”
“You’re wrong,” Victor said.
Tuney left him with an ironic smile. Victor stared after him, thoughts dancing around his mind. Brooke. Colda. Donald. A priceless painting that might lie just yards below his feet.
Stephanie was already on her laptop before Tuney cleared the building.
“Checking on something,” she said. A moment later, she reached for her cell phone.
Victor circled the room, energy surging through him, the same energy that had filled him before they found the Vermeer and the dozen treasures before that. They were close, he was sure. But something hummed through his thoughts that had nothing to do with treasure.
Was Colda alive or dead? Had he left the pawn, and what message was he sending? What they’d mistaken for eccentricity might be flat-out insanity, and insanity could be a very dangerous thing.
Stephanie interrupted his thoughts.
“Left a message for the university president.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “You went right to the top of the food chain. Do you think he’ll return your call?”
“I left Dad’s name. He’ll call.”
“What are you checking on, exactly?”
“It suddenly struck me that maybe Tuney isn’t really employed by the university after all.”
“What would be his motive for lying?”
She held up open palms. “At this point, who could guess?”
Victor nodded. “The whole situation gets murkier by the moment. Is anyone telling the truth in this whole mess?”
Brooke.
The name materialized in his mind. Donald was a criminal, but she knew him only as a loving father. That meant she had an enormous blind spot, a blind spot that just might get her killed.
“Finished packing?” Stephanie said innocently.
“Thinking,” he growled.
Stephanie smiled.
* * *
By late afternoon, Brooke and Denise had made their plans. The following morning, Brooke would try to retrace the path she’d taken the day before, hoping to find a route around the collapsed section. Stephanie had given her the map already, and she and Denise pored over it, cobbling together a route to explore.
As they plotted, Brooke told her aunt about the pawn left on her pillow the night before.
Denise’s gray eyes widened in shock. “Here? In this room? Who left it there? Not Colda.”
Brooke shook her head. “I just don’t know. It doesn’t seem to make any sense at all.” She sat back, uneasily. “Another thing is, there’s the possibility that we won’t be allowed to stay to figure any of this out.”
“Lock?”
She nodded. “Victor strong-armed him into cooperating, and since he isn’t going to work with us anymore, Lock may just throw us out on our ear.”
Denise took her hand and Brooke was comforted by the look of strength on her face. “We’ll face it one step at a time, honey, like we’ve done with everything else.”
Brooke felt close to tears again. “I just want everything to be okay, for Dad to have his moment and Tad to come home.”
She gave Brooke a final pat. “We’ll keep pushing forward. That’s all we can do.”
They didn’t have to wait long to find out the dean’s thoughts on the subject. He hobbled up using one crutch for support as they exited the dorm. He looked closer at Denise, who stood a head shorter than Brooke.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you again, too, Jeffrey.”
Brooke looked from the dean to her aunt.
Denise turned to Brooke. “The dean and I go way back. We were college sweethearts, weren’t we?”
An edge in her tone told Brooke the relationship didn’t bring back fond memories for her aunt.
“That was a long time ago,” the dean said, cheeks pink in his pale face. “I thought that was old history.”
“It is, on my part,” Denise said, “but I didn’t think you could leave it all in the past. That’s why I didn’t offer to come with you in the first place, Brooke. I thought the dean would be more cooperative if I wasn’t there to stir up bad memories.”
The dean exhaled loudly. “This situation has nothing to do with what passed between us in the past, Denise.” He focused on Brooke. “Victor tells me they’re finished and going home.”
Brooke swallowed hard. She’d known it, but hearing about his departure caused a fresh pain inside her heart.
It’s better for him to go, Brooke. You’re getting your feelings all confused. Distance would be the best thing.
“You need to do the same,” Lock continued. “For your own safety.”
“That’s very kind of you to think about our well-being,” Denise said. “I wish you had been more inclined to think about our family when you blamed Donald for the museum theft.”
Lock’s lips thinned. “There were two people with the delivery schedule,” he hissed. “Donald and myself. I know I wasn’t behind the heist.”
“I don’t,” Denise said flatly. “I know exactly what kind of man you are, you showed that to me forty years ago. Donald didn’t rob his own museum.”
“You’re implying I did.”
“Not implying,” she said. “Colda mailed a note to the police claiming he was responsible, but he must have gotten the delivery schedule from someone.”
Brooke’s stomach knotted. This was a man they had to placate, and her aunt was succeeding only in throwing gasoline on the fire.
“Can we leave that for the moment?” she said, holding up a calming hand. “We’re here just to find my father’s Tarkenton. We need to explore the tunnel again and examine Colda’s apartment one more time.”
“Without your Treasure Seekers?” the dean said.
Brooke nodded. “Yes.”
“Too dangerous. The university would never allow it.”
Denise cocked her head. “You can allow it. You did before. You can do it again.”
“I could,” he said, leveling a look full of hate at Denise. “But I won’t.”
“Please, Dean Lock,” Brooke said, stepping forward. “We have reason to believe Colda faked his suicide, that he’s still alive and in the tunnels.”
Lock’s eyes widened. “And you still believe Colda may have hidden the painting down there? This Tarkenton your father pretends to have found?”
Denise tensed but Brooke laid a hand on her arm. “Yes.”
“That’s idiocy. I’ve said so from the start, but I indulged you because Mr. Gage is a benefactor of this university. You’ve found absolutely zero evidence so far, only a bad picture painted by Colda, something he dreamed up on his own.”
“It will cost you nothing for us to take a look, and if I’m right, think of the reward, an unknown Tarkenton revealed to the world, found at your university.”
His eyes glistened with the same desire, the near fanaticism that her own father displayed when he spoke about a master painting. For a moment, Brooke felt sick, but she thought that very zeal might just cause him to acquiesce.
She was wrong.
“No,” he said curtly. “You’re welcome to check out his apartment again but that’s it. Pack up your things and be out by sunrise tomorrow. You’re not authorized to be on this campus anymore.”
FIFTEEN
B
rooke felt numb. All the effort, the worry had come down to a big, fat dead end.
Denise’s expression was anguished. “I’m so sorry, honey. I should have kept my mouth shut, but when I saw him there, it all came out.”
“It’s okay,” Brooke said, forcing an optimistic tone. “At least we can look at Colda’s place one more time. Maybe we’ll see something we missed before.” She puzzled over the earlier text she’d received from Victor.
Pawn belonged to Colda.
Be careful.
Careful. Why would he care about that? Pain surged inside. She shook away images of him as they walked across the nearly dark campus. Brooke tried to think of how to bring up the subject of Denise’s contentious past with Lock. Her aunt spared her the trouble.
“I loved him once. Jeffrey, I mean. We were college freshmen together and he was a budding pianist. Brilliant, too. I loved his passion for music and art. He seemed so much more alive than anyone else I’d ever met.” She smiled sadly. “I made some bad decisions and got pregnant.”
Brooke tried not to show her surprise. “I didn’t know.”