The Marquesa's Necklace (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1) (23 page)

The house stood near the top of one of the many hills in and around Oak Grove. Unlike the rest of the neighborhood, it sat in the middle of several lots, which gave it a big yard and plenty of room between it and its closest neighbors. Much of the original gingerbreading had disappeared over the years. Jake and I debated whether to try to find a craftsman to make matching pieces to replace what was gone, or tear out what remained and start from scratch. We never made a decision.

Despite the fact that Dolores’ heater was running, I shivered as I pulled into the driveway and the headlights illuminated the broad front porch. I’d never seen it in the dark. With only the beginnings of sunlight to soften the darkness, it was easy to imagine ghosts flitting from room to room.

Elijah was halfway out of the car with the key in his hand before I even turned off the engine. At least we wouldn’t need to crawl in through the back window.

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked.

“In a minute. It’ll be easier to unlock the door if I keep the headlights shining that direction.” The few spare moments would give me time to steady my nerves.

I took my time walking up the stairs, pretending to adjust the focus on my flashlight. Elijah handed me my key, and I shoved it in my pocket. As long as Jake’s bank didn’t know I had it, I wouldn’t tell them. Inside, I took a moment to scan the front room with the flashlight. For some strange reason, I wasn’t in a hurry, even though I knew where I needed to go.

My plan made it sound all so easy. Get the necklace, call the newspaper, and present it to Freddie in a front of their reporters and anyone else I could call to get down to the police station in a hurry to act as witnesses. The bad guys would see the news, and I’d have my life back. Still, I hesitated, searching for any flaws in the concept. Only one came to mind—I’d be losing Elijah. When this was over, he’d be gone.

Once I’d delayed as long as possible, I started my way up the front staircase, Elijah following close behind. The room I needed was at the end of the hallway. The smaller of the two rooms on the third floor, it overlooked the back yard, and probably served as a nursery when the house was built. Jake said he would turn it into my office.

In a way, I wished I could be alone for the moment. I wanted to be able to wear the necklace one more time. Keep it for a day or two before I turned it over to the proper authorities. As much trouble as it caused me, I deserved to enjoy the feel of it gracing my neck.

I could feel the ghosts staring at me as I slowly walked down the hallway. Anytime now, one would pop out of the plaster walls and grab the flashlight. I’m not normally the kind of person to believe in ghosts, but there was something different about this house.

I researched its history when Jake bought the place. The house had been built by Harold, the son of one of the original settlers in Oak Grove, Joseph Aldridge. During the Pennsylvania oil boom Harold had made big money. When he got married in his mid-forties to a much younger wife, he had the house built as a wedding present to her. Their plans, according to the reports I dredged up, were to fill the house with children. Unfortunately, Harold died in an accident in the oil fields while his wife was pregnant with their first child. She raised the child alone and never remarried, so the big house remained mostly empty. Other families lived in the house after that, but it hadn’t been occupied for years.

I flashed the light around the barren room, amazed at how unsoiled it had remained. Only one corner had a resident spider, and I wondered if Harold’s ghost kept the place clean. When Elijah cleared his throat, I figured I’d delayed long enough. The closet door was tightly closed, and I tried to remember if Jake and I had closed it the last time we were here together. Or had Jake closed it after stashing the necklace inside?

I took a deep breath, yanked opened the door, stepped inside the closet, and turned around. I flashed my light towards the door frame, expecting to see the brilliant sparkle of jewels twinkle back at me. Foolish of me, because the necklace had come in a velvet lined wooden box. Tentatively, I reached into the empty space behind an exposed stud, praying that no spider had taken up residence there.

And found nothing.

“Fuck.”

Elijah stuck his head in the closet. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s not here.” I pushed him out of the way as I exited the small space. “I was so sure.”

Elijah grabbed the flashlight out of my hand and went in to look for himself. “It would make a good hiding spot,” he said when he rejoined me. “But nothing’s there.”

I sighed. “God damn it, Jake,” I said. “Where the hell did you put the fucking necklace?”

“We should check the closets in the other rooms.”

I hated it that Elijah made so much sense. I wanted to throw a tantrum—stomp my feet, punch the walls—and as long as he was with me I couldn’t. So I played the grownup and nodded. “You’re probably right. Let’s go check.”

As we moved out into the hallway, I wondered if the wind was picking up. Was a storm on the way? The tree branches, untrimmed for too many years, scraped against the outside walls. At least that’s how it sounded like to me.

By the time we moved down to the second floor—still empty-handed—enough daylight streamed in through the windows that we didn’t need the flashlight to make our way from room to room. The second floor had three bedrooms, one bathroom and a large linen closet, so we split up to do our search. I took the linen closet and the flashlight because the closet had no window.

What it did have was a lot of shelves. Some of them pretty high up. Without a ladder, I wasn’t able to see on top of the highest one. I couldn’t imagine Jake throwing the necklace up there. And he wasn’t tall enough to get it back down without standing on something.

As I moved onto the bathroom, I wondered how Elijah was doing. I hadn’t heard any shouts of excitement, so probably the same as me. Chances were, he would get through searching the three bedrooms before I got done with my two rooms. I’d find out for sure when we met in the hallway before moving downstairs.

To save the batteries, I turned the flashlight off when I left the bathroom. There was enough light that I could see that Elijah wasn’t waiting for me. Maybe his search had taken longer than I expected. So I sat down on the top step to wait, and stared out the window above the landing. Jake planned on replacing it, leaving the bottom half clear glass, and installing stained glass in the top. He wanted a rose pattern, because the window overlooked what had been a rose garden. Lost in thought, I didn’t even look up when the footsteps stopped behind me. And it was too late to do anything when I felt a gun shoved into the side of my head.

Chapter Thirty

“Hand it over,” a deep voice growled from behind me.

I raised my hands in the air. “I don’t have it. It isn’t here. I don’t have any idea where it is,” I said. The words of my teacher—“Show no weakness”—echoed in my head as I tried to calm my racing heart and control the shaking of my knees.

A shoe prodded my side. Too hard, I thought, grimacing, considering I wasn’t putting up a fight. “Stand up,” the voice said. “And don’t turn around.”

I did, slowly, plotting what self-defense move to use in this situation. None of them that came to mind would work. Not when I stood two steps below my opponent, I had no idea how big he was and he had a gun.

“Back up until I tell you to stop.”

The more he talked, the more the voice seemed familiar. But now was not the time to solve that puzzle. With my hands still in the air, I edged my way up to the landing. When I felt the gun poke into my back, I was tempted to twirl around and try to grab the hand holding it. Except out of the corner of one eye, I spotted another figure moving towards us, and it wasn’t Elijah. Where
was
he?

I wanted to take a shower by the time they got done searching me, spending far too much time touching all the spots I didn’t want them to touch. Then they shoved me down the hallway. I still hadn’t got a look at the first guy, but I engraved the face of the second in my brain. Unless he got plastic surgery, I’d be able to recognize him. If I survived.

If I had to make a guess, I would’ve said he and Rufus were related. They shared the same stocky build and square face. Even the irritating smirk he wore as he ran his hands over my breasts while he searched me reminded me of Rufus. Rufus Jr. worked as good as any other name for this man.

I still didn’t have any idea what the first guy looked like. They made damn sure I didn’t see him. I made damn sure I’d be able to identify that voice if I ever heard it again.

Junior opened the doorway at the end of hall and shoved me inside. I rushed across the room and dropped to my knees by the lump on the floor. I had found Elijah.

He was alive, but unconscious, and the bump on his head explained why. I ran my hands over the parts of his body I could reach without turning him over to check for other injuries. Thank God, I didn’t find any. But I also didn’t find his gun. I don’t know why they found it necessary to tie him up.

“If you’re done playing nurse,” Junior said. “You can put your hands behind your back.”

I got the distinct impression when he waved his gun around that it wasn’t a suggestion. So I stood and tried not to tense up while he roughly tied my wrists together. A second length of rope was shoved between my jaws and tied around the back of my head, effectively gagging me. More rope was wrapped around my ankles. Then, with a push on my shoulder, he knocked me back down to the floor. He blindfolded me, and I was unable to resist. I waited as his footsteps crossed the room and he closed the door behind him.

Using the wall as a brace, I struggled to get to a seated position. I listened to the sound of Elijah’s uneven breathing and prayed that he would be all right. I used the time to gather my strength for whatever was to come.

That’s when I started to think of him as Eli.

I didn’t have long to wait before I heard voices outside the room and the door pushed open. I held my breath, and listened. There wasn’t much more I could do.

“Neither one of ’em is going anywhere,” the voice I recognized as Junior’s said.

I slowly released my breath into silence and drew another. There was a grunt and a squeak as the door closed. I sat unmoving, while two sets of footsteps moved away and continued down the hall. And I waited.

Once I figured I’d waited long enough, I started the process of working my legs through the loop created by my arms. I’d end up with my hands in front of me. It wasn’t easy, but I’d done this once in self-defense class. The first step in the slowly forming plan to free both myself and Eli.

As I worked, I paid attention to the sounds of the search in progress, praying no one would return to our room. With my hands finally in front of me, I removed the blindfold and started to untie the knots on the rope behind my head. Not that it was important in the overall scheme of things, but the rough texture of the rope was making me gag and cutting into the tender sides of my mouth. Luckily, Junior had done a really poor job and the knots worked free easier than I’d anticipated.

While I pondered what my next step should be, I checked on Eli again. His breathing seemed, to my untrained ears, to be easier and more even. I ran my hand over his head, and before I stood, dropped a light kiss on his forehead.

I needed a weapon, but the room was empty. Even the rod in the closet had been removed. If I broke the glass in the window I would have a cutting edge. No defense against a bullet, but the upside was that I could use it to cut the ropes binding Eli. He wore loafers; and I figured they would shatter the glass better than my tennis shoes.

The downside was that I couldn’t figure out a way to muffle the noise of the glass breaking. It might bring our captors back to check on us. Not what I wanted. I scooted my way across the floor and pressed my ear against the door. I needed to know what was going on outside our makeshift prison.

I thought about lowering myself out of the window, getting away, and bringing back help. But I hated leaving Eli alone. He wouldn’t have been in this fix if it weren’t for me.

He groaned loudly, his eyes fluttered, and his body jerked. Eli needed medical attention, and soon. I crawled back to him, but his breathing returned to normal.

Chewing through the ropes on my hand seemed a hopeless task, but I might be able to get my ankles free. Junior had done a better job with those knots, but with my hands in front of me, I should be able to get them untied. I settled myself with my back against the wall, and went to work, keeping one corner of my mind focused on the noises below.

With fingers bloodied by the coarse sisal fibers, I untied the last of the knots and shook my legs free. Things had quieted down. I wondered if the men had left or if they were still busy searching for the necklace. I’d decided I needed to leave the house on my own and come back to rescue Eli. I wasn’t strong enough to lift him, and I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to walk on his own even if I managed to wake him up.

As so often happens in old houses, the sash had been painted shut. I wasn’t strong enough to break the seal when I tried to pry the window open. So back to breaking the glass. But now that my legs were free, I might be able to kick it out rather than use Eli’s shoe to break it. And if I wrapped the rope around my foot and ankle, I wouldn’t cut myself in the process. It was a bad plan, but the only one I had.