A Devious Lot (Antiques & Collectibles Mysteries Book 5) (29 page)

“No,” she said. “Lillian. I saw her yesterday.” She turned her neck toward the window. “She was standing there, by the window. The sun was shining all around her. She was young again, and oh so beautiful.” He brushed her hair back from her forehead. Her skin felt clammy and damp. “She spoke to me,” she said, her voice fading, her eyes closing. “She said we’d be together soon.”

Malcolm wiped the tears from his eyes. “Sleep now,” he said. “I shall return tomorrow.”

Malcolm watched her for a little while, the steady rise and fall of her chest as she drifted off to sleep. Then he got up and closed the door softly behind him. Loretta was waiting in the foyer. She handed him his hat and coat and he dressed and went out into a cold rain. He shivered, but it wasn’t from the inclement weather, he was thinking about Lillian stabbing Victor Henson to death in 1851. His mother was very young at the time, and he knew she might have gotten her story wrong. But even if only a portion of it was accurate, he thought Lillian and Julius had been wise to go to America. Better to live an ocean away from wagging tongues and pointing fingers than having a scandal hanging over you like an albatross your whole life.

When Malcolm arrived home, he climbed the steps to the front door and paused on the landing. Through the window, he could see Fannie on the sofa reading a book to their six-year-old granddaughter; Caroline was on a chair by the brightly lit Christmas tree knitting a scarf. He opened the door and went inside. “Angels from the Realms of Glory” played on the radio, one of his favorite tunes, from a 1916 recording by Trinity Choir. Realizing his wife and daughter hadn’t heard him come in, he hung his coat and hat in the closet and walked quietly down the hall to his study. He went to his desk, took the little wooden box with the portrait of Lillian’s eye from his pocket, and put it in a drawer.

He never looked at it again.

Chapter 33

Two weeks before Christmas, and a day after flying home from England, Molly was at Java Jitters, her favorite coffee shop in Burlington, Vermont, waiting for Lombardi to join her. She loved the coffee shop’s bright and cheery atmosphere, from the concrete floors and brick walls to the twelve-foot-high tin ceiling. Outside, it was snowing lightly and the shops along the pedestrian esplanade were decorated for the holidays. A jazzy rendition of “Jingle Bells” played over speakers in the ceiling. Molly glanced at her friend, Jazzy Joyce, the owner of Java Jitters. She hustled behind the counter as a long line of customers waited for their morning caffeine fix. She wore a red holiday apron with Mrs. Claus on the front holding a rolling pin, and under it the words
Flour Power
. Jazzy caught Molly’s eye and pointed to the door. Molly turned and saw Lombardi come in. She noted with some amusement how most of the women in the coffee shop paused in whatever they were doing just to get a look at him. She couldn’t blame them. He looked like a movie star in black jeans and a slim-fit gray winter coat, his jet black hair slicked back from his handsome face, his probing eyes dark and mysterious. He stood over Molly’s table and eyed the to-go cup of coffee waiting for him.

“Is this a sign I shouldn’t get too comfortable?” he asked.

“No, it’s a sign that I ordered coffee for you so you wouldn’t have to stand in line. Hopefully, it’s still hot.”

Lombardi unbuttoned his coat and hung it over the back of his chair before he sat down. He wore a baby blue V-neck sweater over a white shirt and a chunky gold watch that looked like it could tell time in multiple time zones.

“Thanks,” he said. “Is that for me, too?”

He pointed at a cinnamon roll on a plate. Molly had already polished off a pistachio muffin and had saved the roll for him. She passed the plate over.

“It’s all yours,” she said.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Are you kidding? Nothing. Actually, I owe you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He took the lid off his coffee and took a sip. “How’s that?”

“I want to apologize for not taking your advice. I should have called Inspector Boyle before I confronted Dora that day.”

“Okay. But that was over a month ago, and you already apologized to me on the phone from England, remember?”

“I know, but I wanted to say it to you in person. I acted without thinking about the consequences. It was foolish and stupid, and I’ll never do it again.”

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“No, actually, I don’t,” he said. “I hope Matt has a hefty life insurance policy on you.”

Molly stared at him. “What a thing to say!”

He grinned. “Hey, I’m a realist. Sue me.”

“Matt was really upset with me when I told him I went to Channing Hall by myself,” she said. “I had to apologize to him about that, too.”

“You’re apologizing all over the place, aren’t you?” He leaned back in his chair and grinned wider. “Maybe you should give sleuthing a rest for a while.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe I should, but with my luck, I’ll probably find a dead body on my way home.”

“Feel free to call me if you do,” Lombardi said and laughed. “By the way, Inspector Boyle had only good things to say about you. I called him the other day to congratulate him on his retirement. He told me thanks to you he was able to retire with the most cases solved of anyone in his department.”

“He’s a good man, and I’m happy for him,” Molly said.

“He says it will be a while before there’s a trial for any one of those clowns. There’s a lot to sort through, deals to make, the legal process goes on and on.”

“I told him I’d fly back, if they need me as a witness,” Molly said. “At least Brenda, Giles, and Dora are all in prison and not going anywhere. I’m sick of all three of them.”

“And Tiffany? Are you still mad at her, even though she paid a heavy price with her life?”

“I’m sorry she’s dead, but when she realized what Giles and Dora had done, she could have turned them in. Instead, she chose to blackmail them. Although I admit, I’m impressed she figured out the switch. After she got the name of Penelope’s hairstylist in London from Cecil’s notebook, she called to ask her about their natural hair color.”

“Dora went to her, too?”

“Yes, they always made an effort to look alike,” Molly said. “Anyway, Valentina, the stylist, told her Penelope was a natural blond, and Dora was a strawberry blond. She always used a bright golden blond color to brighten Penelope’s hair, and Dora used it to match her hair color. That’s why Dora was adamant that Cecil use the same color.”

“She had to look like Penelope, because she was pretending to be Penelope.”

“Exactly,” Molly said. “And when Valentina told Tiffany that Dora was a strawberry blond, she realized the woman portraying herself as Penelope Cassidy was an impostor.” She sipped her coffee. “I bet Tiffany was suspicious when she met Dora in person, and that’s why she started spying on her. She had Kofi’s photographs, she’d studied the real Penelope’s face, and she sensed something was off. I’m not even sure Tiffany really loved Giles. It was more about saving face, and I think if she’d been the one to dump him, it would have been a whole different story. When she started to put the pieces together about Penelope and Dora, her mission to get him back turned into a mission of revenge.”

“So much for true love.” He finished his roll and wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “How’s your aunt, by the way? Is she ready to move back to America and get out of that murderous village?”

“She loves Marlow Crossing. It’s been her home a long time, and she’ll stay there until the day she dies.”

“When is Clara coming back?”

“She’s staying on with Tessa through New Year’s, even though she’s getting around fine on her own now. Sean’s flying over in a few days and then they’ll come back together.”

“Whatever happened to the eye miniature?”

“I thought I told you.”

“No, you did not,” he said. “Did you bring it home with you? Are you wearing it? I’d love to see it.”

“I wouldn’t bring it back, even if it belonged to me,” Molly said. “It’s made of ivory. There would be all kinds of hurdles to get over.”

“Why? It isn’t new ivory, it’s old.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “The United States has laws against importing ivory and it’s complicated. Anyway, the eye miniature has a new home. Tiffany’s brother in Australia decided to donate it to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It will live on there forever, among all the other treasures.”

“Holding on to its secret identity,” he said.

“I have a picture of it,” Molly said. “I took it with my phone before I handed it over to Boyle, who gave it to Blaze.” Her phone was on the table and she pulled up the photograph. “Here it is.”

Lombardi was silent as he looked at the photo of the eye miniature. Molly drank her coffee and thought about buying a box of assorted muffins to take home for tomorrow’s breakfast.

“She’s beautiful,” Lombardi said quietly. “And sad, I think.”

“Sad? What makes you say that?”

“You don’t see it in her eye? The pain?”

Molly took her phone back and studied the photo. “I see a blue eye,” she said.

“Guess I’ve been a cop too long,” he said. “I see pain everywhere, even in a piece of jewelry.”

“I wish I knew who she was, and why she made the portrait,” Molly said. “Did she give it to a lover or a friend? I guess we’ll never know.”

“You told me eye miniatures were often given to secret lovers,” he said. “Maybe her identity was always meant to be a secret.”

“We could make up a story about her.”

“Hey, that’s a good idea,” he said. “Let’s pretend she had a secret lover, someone she couldn’t be with, and she gave him the eye miniature to remember her.”

“When you put it that way, it sounds too sad. I want a happy story for her.”

“Well, I can’t give you one,” he said. “The truth is, Molly, it’s hard not to be with someone you love. Trust me, I know.” He put the lid on his coffee and pushed his chair back. “Thanks again for the coffee and roll.”

“You’re leaving already?”

“I’ll see you on Saturday. Matt invited me over to watch the Patriots game. I’ll buy the pizza.” He put his coat on, his face suddenly stony. He was back in cop mode, professional, turning off his feelings. “I’m glad you’re home, Molly.”

She watched him go out the door. Through the window, she saw him turn up the collar of his coat as the snow came down harder. Over the speakers in the ceiling, Nat King Cole sang “The Christmas Song.” Molly picked up her phone and looked again at the photograph of the eye miniature. For the first time, perhaps because Lombardi’s suggestion had put it into her head, she saw sadness in the woman’s eye. How could she have missed it? It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen the portrait before.

What did Lombardi say?
I see pain everywhere.

Molly didn’t want to see pain everywhere. She was in love and newly married, and she wanted to have a baby—maybe not right away, but soon.

She gathered up her things and stood in line at the counter.

Some things, she knew, were worth the wait.

In case you missed it,

following is an excerpt from the first book

in the Antiques & Collectibles Mystery Series,

A Killer Collection
!

Molly Appleby is a young writer for
Collector’s Weekly
, and when the attractive reporter isn’t covering auctions and antique shows all over the South, she’s trying to get her new relationship with a coworker off the ground. When her latest assignment takes her to North Carolina pottery country to cover an exclusive kiln opening, she’s certain the show promises surprising offerings and rare finds. What she doesn’t expect to find is a dead body.

George-Bradley Staunton is known throughout the antiques world as a very wealthy and very ruthless collector, and when he drops dead just after the opening, there are all too few mourners and a seemingly endless list of suspects. When the local police are stumped, Molly steps in to put her journalist’s nose to work sniffing out the culprit. But no sooner does she start collecting clues than another dead body falls into her lap.

As Molly digs beneath the genteel surface of antiques and collectibles, she finds a world filled with backstabbing and competition, and what started as a story about rare collections might leave Molly with nothing more than a collection of corpses.

Chapter 1

It was quick, it was ruthless, it was in-your-face collecting. . . . Did people really go this crap over pottery?

—Andrew Glasgow, from
Catawba Clay: Contemporary Southern
Face Jug Makers