Trophies (5 page)

My pulse quickened; my breathing sounded too
loud in the silent house. At least one searcher had been inside,
perhaps still was. Perhaps more than one. It was too much of a
coincidence for this to be unrelated to Aunt Edith's murder.

And Patty was here. The thought of losing
her, too, just as I'd lost Aunt Edith, ripped something inside me.
I had to protect her.

I slipped the Walther P-38 from the hidden
holster and eased backward into the entry hall, turning on my heel
and surveying as a soldier, not an art critic. Nothing stirred in
the kitchen, ahead and to my right. The shadows beneath the
staircase, against the wall opposite the kitchen, and in the dining
room beyond, lay undisturbed. Beside me on the left, Uncle Hubert's
old study was swathed in a cloak of gloom, the heavy curtain on the
single window doing its job. If lying in ambush, that was where I'd
hide.

Behind me, the front door closed. Two
feminine voices murmured. In the still, still house, the intrusion
was jarring. My pulse and breathing slowed as I accepted the
trespasser's unspoken challenge. This fight I would not lose.

Someone gasped. I glanced over my shoulder.
The two women stood in a huddle by the closed door. Patricia stared
not at me but at the gun in my hands. Caren, a blend of warm eyes
and cool control, tilted her chin.

"I think someone's been in the house," I
said, as quietly as I could. "You two stay here while I make sure
he's gone."

Patty started to speak, but Caren laid a hand
on her arm. Those warm eyes, the inviting brown of bittersweet
chocolate, were trusting. "Be careful, Charles," was all she
said.

The gloom in Uncle Hubert's study lumped all
the shadows into one impenetrable mass. The big mound opposite the
door would be the desk. But beyond that, in the room's center and
depths, lay unbroken blackness. Walking into it wasn't inviting and
I'd be silhouetted by the entryway's light. But I had civilians to
protect. My fingers and nerves tingled. I eased around the study
doorway and got my back to the wall, keeping the women at the edge
of my vision.

Footsteps pattered in the rear of the house.
Behind me.

"The kitchen!" Patty said.

The back door slammed.

I ran. The back door, beyond the pantry,
wasn't locked, although it should have been. Without stopping to
think or reconnoiter, I flung it open and peered out.

The deck was empty. The flowerbed beyond held
spindly tea rose bushes, impossible as cover. I stepped into the
drenching sunlight, beyond the house's safety. The backyard was
deserted, the wooden privacy fence in clear view for its full
length. The neighbor's air conditioning system clicked on and
hummed, and a dog down the street barked, a string of deep-throated
woofs that would drown any sneaking footsteps.

I raced across the flowerbed and jumped atop
the fence's horizontal brace. In the neighbors' domains and the
edge of the front yard visible, no one was in sight, running or
otherwise. The dog barked again, then a car engine started in the
next street over.

Standing openly on the fence staring around,
rather than peering from cover, was crazy even for a crazy man. All
I was doing was making the most stupidly conspicuous target of
myself, and in the heat, no less. The engine noise diminished in
the distance and odds were the burglar escaped with it. There was
nothing more I could do.

I hadn't faced a non-training, combat-type
situation since before the diagnosis, so this was a first. I was
glad to see I had handled it, if not with the smarts my training
should have brought to bear, than at least without having to fight
my way through a series of flashbacks or something similarly
unstable. Perhaps the Army shrink who'd analyzed me after the war
hadn't known as much as he'd thought. I jumped down from the fence
feeling better than I had yet that day.

Nevertheless, reaction was setting in as if I
had suffered a flashback. I looked down at the P-38, an
evil-looking German weapon from the Second World War. It started
shaking in my grip. Not good news, that, and I flipped on the
safety catch with a sigh.

Patty and Caren met me on the deck. I
swallowed irritation and ushered them back inside.

"Was that wise?" Caren's eyes were even wider
and so dark they seemed almost black. Her skin, normally the shade
of mocha java with a little cream, was flushed, I suppose with
shock at my silly mistake.

She had not dressed for the office, but wore
a casual blouse and shorts in shades of brown that matched and
complemented the browns of her eyes, dark hair, and skin. The long
line of her legs was tempting, but as usual I couldn't escape
sinking into Caren's bittersweet chocolate eyes. They swamped me.
I'd missed her without realizing how much.

"That was extremely unwise." I leaned against
the butcher block table and set down the Walther. The shaking was
so bad it was obvious. Anything I held would only amplify the
movement — but at least I'd been in control during the action
itself. "Thankfully he didn't stop for potshots or target practice.
He might not have been carrying."

"Did he take anything?" Caren asked.

It didn't feel like a robbery. How could a
lone burglar haul his swag over the back fence to a car on the next
street? But it was best to be certain. I re-holstered the Walther
and herded still-frightened Patricia into the parlor, trusting
Caren to follow. Aunt Edith's beloved sterling silver vase, a
marked Paul Revere, held a bouquet of cut red roses atop the coffee
table, and her tiny hippopotami, carved in the late 1700s from
gem-quality jade, amethyst, and multi-colored tourmaline, huddled
in a tight herd on the sideboard, on the folded-up doily crocheted
by Uncle Hubert's great-grandmother.

"No," I said, "all the small, expensive stuff
is still here."

"Then what—" Patricia said, breaking off as
the house phone jangled.

I sat on the short sofa and pulled the
cordless from beneath the roses. Who knew which of Aunt Edith's
collection of artists, charities, or brokers it would be. "Hunter
residence."

Winded gasping came over the line. For a
moment I didn't understand. Then I did. Too shocked to breathe, I
sat frozen and listened.

"They're mine." The voice was hoarse,
whispered, and full of hate. "Mine, I tell you. Give them up."

"What are you talking about?" Even in that
stunned moment, I knew better than to request a name.

"Mine!"

The parlor faded about me and the sidewalk
before the gallery took its hazy place. Bullets slammed one after
another into the small, shadowy form and drove her back against the
brick wall. Blood sprayed. Her hair jerked from its chignon, her
shoe dropped off as she staggered. Her fading echoed through me
like a dwindling ghost as she fell onto the sidewalk beside her
teenaged great-nephew and a fat, middle-aged security guard. She
collapsed onto her back, legs bent, glassy eyes staring up at the
night sky.

I gripped the closest pillow with one hand,
the receiver with the other, staring at the blood-red, wilting
roses—

—the picture window of the Carr Gallery, just
overhead, was splattered with something dark. More of it sprayed
the polished maple door, the brass railing and handle and mail
slot. A small hole in the door, at waist level, had been marked
with chalk—

—more dark stains, lit obliquely by the dawn
light, trickled down the red brick, dripped from one concrete step
to the next, painted the sidewalk. I suddenly realized I could
smell it—

—but all I heard was a dial tone. I stared at
the receiver. The pulse pounded in my ears and my breathing came in
quick shallow puffs. "That was him."

"Who?" Patricia said.

Caren was a step ahead. "The burglar?"

"No," I said, "the murderer. That was him. He
was right here, in this house." And I missed him.
Damn.

I threatened Caren and Patricia with
horsewhipping if they left the parlor and searched the house to be
certain the danger was past. In the dining room behind the stairs,
the china cabinet door was slightly open; in Uncle Hubert's study,
the books were no longer pulled into even lines near the edges of
the shelves. The cellar door in the pantry also gaped. Upstairs,
Patricia's bedroom was rumpled, but my mousy cousin wasn't the best
housekeeper. Aunt Edith's master suite, the guest room, and my old
room were immaculate, which perhaps meant we'd surprised the
murderer before he climbed the stairs. Satisfied, I released the
ladies from their imprisonment and turned my attention to the front
door lock. Something in the keyway was one question I could solve
quickly.

The first option was to take apart the
deadbolt and pry open the cylinder. I could always send Patty to
the closest hardware for another. But I wasn't comfortable with
that plan and wasn't certain why not. The next idea, to send Patty
back to my condo for the rest of my lockpicking kit, left me no
happier. It's Patty, I decided. I didn't want Patty nor Caren out
of my protective sight, not with the owner of that vindictive voice
loose out there, and so I would have to solve this little puzzle
with the tools at hand.

Thankfully, Aunt Edith hadn't left me bereft
in the lockpicking department, at least.

Patty vanished into the kitchen and began
banging about. But Caren stood nearby, watching me with a clinical
expression, and again I nearly drowned in those eyes. Even while
performing a subtle examination, she was sensuality in sandals. I
forced myself back from that relational cliff — funny how I still
felt comfortable with her, awkwardness had seemed more likely given
our breakup — and asked the question I could not ask before
Patty.

"Caren, did you bring your kit with you?"

The corners of her eyes crinkled. "My makeup
kit?"

She always loved scoring off me that way.
Even then, it made me smile and want to banter. But Patty could
walk in on us and I needed this information first. "Your little
black bag, Doctor Gallardo."

Caren sobered. "No, I didn't. Charles, I saw
you shaking, just as Patricia said. How are you feeling?"

That sounded less like the captivating woman
and more like the psychiatrist, and the depth of my sudden
disappointment astonished me. Caren was inherently a "soul doctor"
who always understood what I was trying to say no matter how it
came out, who saw through my every polite lie and let me know it.
And now I remembered why I'd broken up with this gorgeous,
intelligent, witty, warm woman: she was so damned empathic she
scared me. It was bad enough my emotions showed clearly on my face
and everyone knew how I felt; for this woman to always know what I
was thinking, as well, had been simply too much.

During our earlier, abbreviated relationship,
Caren had refused to treat my PTSD. Girlfriend or doctor, she'd
insisted, but not both. Now that I'd entered some sort of difficult
stage — three flashbacks in one day plus extra adrenaline surges I
didn't need — I was grateful she seemed willing to bend her own
rules. Of course, it was also true she wasn't my girlfriend any
longer. But that thought, instead of comforting me with the
knowledge the doctor was truly in, instead disappointed me
further.

I pulled a face. "If I start hallucinating,
just knock me out with something."

"That's a deal."

After rummaging about Aunt Edith's bedroom, I
found her toolkit in the back of the closet, up on a shelf where it
would have been out of sight for someone of her tiny stature. The
blue leather was smooth and soft, old and well-handled. I unzipped
it as I trotted downstairs. Bits of elastic held picks and rakes in
place on the right-hand side, slim wooden handles polished by use.
The shims of various sizes and curvatures were neatly separated. A
white hand towel, little more than an absorbent handkerchief,
covered that side.

And on the left were the miscellaneous tools
not contained within my smaller kit: a penlight, a jeweler's
hacksaw with spare blades, a few needle files, and tiny tweezers
made for removing bits of broken keys from doorknobs.

I kept the tweezers out and zipped the case
shut again. It was bad enough I'd drawn Patricia's attention to my
unsavory reputation. I'd leave her memories of Aunt Edith as
untarnished as possible.

Caren awaited me at the foot of the
stairs.

She held a frying pan like a baseball
bat.

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Patty stepped
into the hall from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel,
and giggled. Simply as that, the tension in the house shattered.
Could I learn to live with a woman who knew me better than I knew
myself? She wasn't the first such I'd met, and our relationship did
seem to be picking up right where we'd left it off.

"You always know the right thing to do," I
said in passing.

Caren hefted the pan onto her shoulder, like
a sentry's rifle, and followed me to the front door.

Inside the house, the deadbolt unlocked with
a lever. I flipped it, pulled open the door regardless of the
invitation to the resident insect life, and dropped to my knees
facing the deadbolt.

Caren slid down beside me, cradling the pan
on her lap. "Explain to me what you're doing."

With the best grace I could manage, I told
her about picking the lock and how it had taken longer than normal.
Patricia would pour her heart and disappointment out to Caren, it
was the other reason she'd been invited over, we all knew it, so
there was no sense in attempting to hide my lockpicking skills now.
Little as I liked airing my secrets — and it felt like ripping a
bandage off a certain hairy and private portion of my anatomy — the
quicker I aired them, hopefully the quicker they'd be
forgotten.

While I spoke, I inserted the tweezers into
the keyway and felt about. Her gentle, amused eyes watched me and
my hands by turn, both the show and the narrator.