Hidden Legacy (25 page)

“I’m listening.”

“No, not now. I-I…” She looked around, feeling as if Will had sensed her intent and was watching her.

“Is Willy there with you?”

She was shaking again. “No. I…”

“Where are you I’ll come get you.”

“No. I mean, I’m outside a convenience store in Bridgeport. I don’t have much time. I’ll meet you.”

“I can send someone over.”

“No,” she said, regaining a bit of courage. She was going to do this her way.

“What part of town are you in?”

“I need to take the dog to the vet. She’s been sick, and Will’s being stupid about it.” He cared for that damned dog of his more than he’d ever cared for her, yet he wouldn’t do the one thing that could help the animal. That should have given her a clue. Tears sprang to her eyes. She twisted away, hiding, even though there was no one to see.

“Which vet are you going to?”

“I’ll meet you. Tonight at eight. At the Aubery library. Go to the back door. I’ll wait for you there.”

“I don’t like this, Cindy.”

“I swear I didn’t know who he was, what he was doing.” God, she was making a fool out of herself, blubbering like an idiot. “He took that opal at the museum last week. He made
me
carry it in my purse.”

“It’s okay, Cindy. We have ways to protect you. You’re not in trouble. He is.”

The first bit of calm warbled through her. She sniffed. “I’m taking the dog to the vet, then I’m leaving, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“I wish you’d let me come pick you up. I’d feel better.”

“No, I have to do this. She’s really sick.”

“Let’s meet in a more public place. I don’t like the idea of you isolating yourself.”

“I’ll be fine.” And suddenly, she knew she would. She’d always felt awkward in the real world. But the library was different. There she’d felt safe, alive—useful. All those kids looking up at her, eager to learn. Sharing the magic of words and stories, opening new worlds to them. She’d be just fine. She was going home.

“Cindy, listen—”

“I’ll see you tonight. The library. Be there.” She hung up.

In a few hours, she’d have her life back again.

And once she did, she wouldn’t allow another man to seduce it away from her.

Ever.

* * *

On hearing Cindy’s name, Juliana had dragged her stool next to Lucas’s desk. The vacuum bell whirred away, drawing out any air bubble from the cast of her wax model. She removed her goggles and laid them on the desk.

“I don’t like this,” Lucas said, twirling his coffee cup. She’d learned it was a sign of tension.

“What did Cindy say?”

“She wants to talk.” The cup screeched a protest on the desk’s surface.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes. No.” He got up, stuffed his hands in his pants pocket and stared out through the retail shop. “She wants to meet at the library tonight. I don’t like it.”

“We can go there ahead of time to make sure she’ll be safe.”

He whirled around to face her. “
We
aren’t doing anything. I don’t want you involved in this.”

“It’s a bit too late, don’t you think?” She crossed one leg over the opposite knee. Her foot swung in time to her irritation “She’s bound to be scared. She might feel more comfortable talking to a woman.”

“I’m trained to handle this, Juliana.”

She huffed. “And I’m a woman. I’ll understand another woman. We have Will’s betrayal in common.”

“Betrayal?”

“She loved the man. She wouldn’t willingly give him up unless he’d done something to betray that trust.”

He bent over his laptop and tapped in commands.

“What are you doing?” Juliana asked, craning her neck.

“Flagging her card. Willy won’t have allowed her to use it, but she’s taking his dog to the vet behind his back. If she uses it for anything, I’ll know, and can figure out where she is.”

“Was. Where she was. Wouldn’t it be easier to just wait for her?”

He shook his head. With a couple more key strokes, the screen changed to an electronic yellow pages. He requested a list of Bridgeport veterinarians. “No, Willy’s losing control. He’s getting disorganized, making mistakes. We have his prints. It’s only a matter of time now. He’ll try to get control back any way he can. If he suspects Cindy has any intentions of abandoning him….”

Juliana’s foot stopped swinging. Her palm lay flat on the desk top. “You think he’d hurt Cindy.”

From the printer, he snatched a list of addresses and phone numbers. “Don’t know, but I certainly don’t want to take a chance. She knows him in a way no one else does. We need her.”

“Which is why you need me there with you. Willy probably has her scared half to death that the police will put her in jail and throw away the key .”

Lucas scanned down the list and frowned. “Even if she admitted helping Willy after the fact, because of her clean record, she’d probably just get probation. If she gets in with us, we’ll take care of her. That’s the way it works. It’s not the small fish we’re after. It’s the big shark.”

“But she doesn’t know that.” The man could be so dense when he wanted. He didn’t understand the first thing about women, how their minds worked, how their fears motivated them.

“Are you doubting my charm?” he asked with a half smile.

“You just don’t get it.”

He glanced up at her with a clueless expression. “What don’t I get, Jewel?”

“You and Willy play your games and it’s people like Cindy and me who get hurt. You could charm her from here to Sunday and it won’t make a difference. She needs someone to trust. Someone who understands what she’s been through. You’re not it.”

“Listen just because you’ve—”

“You’ve got mail,” Lucas’s computer interrupted.

Lucas clicked his mail open, then whistled his disbelief.

“What?” Juliana asked, dragging her stool closer.

He frowned deeply, his mind clicking away. “According to the fingerprint index, the Phantom is Wilbert Linley Putnam II.”

She whistled. “As in the governor of New Hampshire?”

“The one and only.”

“That can’t be. Why would the governor do something so, so—risky? There has to be a mistake.”

Lucas tapped more keys. “It’s lines and swirls in black and white, Juliana. It either matches or it doesn’t. This does.”

“Still. The governor of New Hampshire?” Her mind reeled.

Wilbert Linley Putnam II. A man, who on the surface, seemed to have everything. Name. Wealth. Prestige. It didn’t make any sense. Why would a man with every advantage choose a life of crime as a hobby? Surely, with all the public scrutiny of his every move he would have been caught by now. She toyed with the strap of her goggles. “So why is he spending his private time stealing jewels?”

“To fill a perceived need, according to all the psychologists.”

Lost in thought, Lucas paced about her small work area. She could almost hear his brain sorting through options, and it made her uneasy. “Lucas?”

“It doesn’t fit.”

“What doesn’t fit?”

“The dates. They’re all wrong. He’s leading me there for some reason. But I don’t have a choice. I have to check this out.” He shut down his computer and readied it for travel.

She shed her lab coat and grabbed her purse from beneath the desk. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, stay.” He gathered files and stuffed them in his briefcase. “I don’t want to worry about you.”

“I want, I need—”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes, leaving no room for argument. “This is my job.”

“And it’s my life. He stole it. I want it back.” She took a deep breath to control her simmering temper. “Just because he’s a public official, it doesn’t give him the right to get away with kidnapping my child. I need to be a part of this. If you won’t let me go with you, then I’ll go to the library and stake it out.”

“Stake it out?” he laughed wryly. “You’ve been hanging around me for too long.”

Too long. Not long enough. Everything was becoming a jumble, which meant she needed to focus. Now that the monster finally had a name, she couldn’t sit still. She’d done too much of that in the past two weeks. She wanted the Phantom caught. She wanted to confront him. She wanted to bring Briana home.

“Don’t shut me out,” she said, placing her hands over his. An immediate spark of heat lit his eyes. “Please. I’m tired of feeling helpless.”

He turned away from her, squirreled a hand through his hair, swore, but relented. “Okay, come with me, then. We’ll go have a talk with the governor. We should be back in plenty of time to secure the library.”

Chapter 14

The governor’s staff informed Lucas that Mr. Putnam was on the road that day. The most Lucas could charm from the secretary was an abbreviated version of the politician’s itinerary. Governor Putnam had them well-trained.

Trying to follow Putnam’s trail proved quite the chase. The man had not kept to his original plan. Lucas dismissed the notion that this was a wild goose chase, but the longer the pursuit, the more his gut revolted.

Then there were the dates. How could the man have been two places at one time? News reports with photographs put the governor in-state during out-of-state thefts.

The fingerprints came from a reliable source. How could they be wrong? Yet everything in him screamed a protest.

The profile was wrong.

The physical description was wrong.

The timing was wrong.

Everything was too orchestrated. Had he somehow played right into Willy’s hand? And why did Willy want him to believe he was the governor?

Lucas didn’t share his concerns with Juliana, who kept a running tab on time, adding to his strain. To keep her occupied, he had her set up the laptop and retrieve information on the governor.

“He was married to Erica Valere,” she said, scrolling the screen down for tidbits of information. “Wasn’t she a Hollywood actress?”

“I think so. Not much of a career, as I recall.”

“They had one son, Wilbert Linley Putnam III. She’s been dead for almost twenty years now. A few years after her death, he remarried. Barbara Carr of the Carrs of Boston, a family of influential attorneys.”

“A good thing to have in the family when one has political aspirations.”

“His son was arrested several times as a teenager, but no other trouble since then. He’s working as a consultant on the governor’s staff. One of his daughters is a high school senior. The other is a sophomore at Dartmouth.” Juliana finished Putnam’s personal profile, then ran down a list of his political exploits from his early days as a representative to his governorship. Something niggled at Lucas, but he couldn’t figure out what.

“Can I input another name?” Juliana asked, keeping her gaze riveted to the screen.

“Who?” He was instantly alert to her anxiety.

She tried to shake off her request as unimportant. “One of my clients. Brent Horton. He surprised me at the workshop and was showing much too much interest in the replica.”

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

She did, and he became annoyed with her. How was he supposed to protect her if she kept information from him? “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You didn’t come home. I forgot. We know who the Phantom is now, but….”

We don’t know a thing
. The Phantom was too intelligent to let himself get caught so easily. “Go ahead.”

Lucas finally cornered Putnam in his office at the State House in Concord past six. He left a fuming Juliana driving the car in circles because no parking spots opened up along the street. Besides, he didn’t need any distractions, and Juliana was always a distraction.

Putnam was a large, imposing man. His hair was surprisingly rich in color, considering his age. Just the right touch of white at the temples gave his electorate the feeling of solid trust and reliability. As did his pin-striped suit with just enough wrinkles to denote he hadn’t sat on his duff all day doing nothing, but had been out working for the interest of his people.