First Impressions Read online

  “Mother,” Melissa said from behind her. “Please—”

  “I’ll be all right, won’t I?” she said to the man.

  “You behave yourself and you’ll be fine.” He stepped back in the doorway to let Eden pass him, then glanced back at the two people in the icehouse before he shut the door, leaving them in the dark.

  Eden walked through the night, trying not to trip on anything. She had an idea that if she fell, the man would shoot her. In fact, she couldn’t see why he hadn’t just stolen the paintings in the first place.

  Far ahead of them, behind the house, she saw the outline of a car. His? Or did it belong to the FBI? She glanced back at the man, and he motioned for her to go toward the car. She took another step, then tripped over something and fell to the ground. She braced herself, expecting death.

  The man behind her pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. Eden had to work to keep from screaming. Lying on the ground, his nose inches from hers, was a man whose dead eyes were staring into hers. She put her hand in her mouth and bit her knuckles to keep from screaming.

  “He a friend of yours?” the man asked, humor in his voice.

  “I—” Eden began, trying hard to keep herself together. The man behind her shone his light on the dead body.

  “I asked if you know him,” the man said, this time with no humor in his voice.

  “He’s—” She went to her knees to try to get up. She thought that perhaps she had been hurt when she fell down the steps in front of the house, and she knew that there were thorns in her body from when Jared—She blinked to keep from remembering him. He couldn’t be dead, could he?

  “He worked for Brad,” she said when she was standing. When the man looked puzzled, she said, “Brad is the man you shot in the leg.”

  “Oh, him. I’m too nice. Anybody else would have killed him.”

  Eden gave him a weak smile that seemed to please him. He motioned for her to step over the body and go to the waiting car. Eden put her head up and tried not to think about what she was doing as she stepped over the legs of Drake Haughton, the young man who was Brad’s architect for Queen Anne. She remembered what Brad had said in the car about the man who was demanding the necklace wanting to go somewhere to paint. Had Drake been a frustrated artist? Had he been the one to paint the watercolors that Tess Brewster had sent to the frame shop?

  “I tell you,” the man behind her said, “I don’t know what the world’s comin’ to. With just plain, ordinary people kidnappin’ and robbin’ their friends, what’s left for us professionals to do?”

  “You’re a professional criminal?” Eden asked, sounding as though she was asking him if he was a plumber.

  “Yeah. Been one for years now. Most of my life, really.”

  “Do you enjoy your work?”

  “Was that one of them veiled things?”

  At first Eden didn’t know what he meant. “A veiled insult? No. I was just curious. How did you find out about the paintings?”

  “Applegate. Or whatever he called hisself. Did you know he was a spy? I might have to kill a few people now and then, but I’d never betray my country. But he did.”

  “Was the U.S. his country?”

  “I don’t know. Hey! Whose side are you on?”

  “My daughter’s,” Eden said quickly. “Did you kill Mr. Applegate?”

  “Yeah. But he didn’t do nothin’ for my country. He played the ponies and owed my boss a lot. He sold some info and paid some debts, but he’d just rack ’em up again. When my boss got sick of him, I went to see him. He said he knew where millions of dollars in paintin’s were.”

  “I see,” Eden said, looking ahead toward the car. She was walking very slowly, but the man didn’t seem to mind. She had an idea that he thought it was a nice night for a stroll. “How did he find out about the paintings?”

  “He said he figured out a riddle. That’s what he told my boss. Applegate said he was good at solving riddles and he figured out the one in some book. You read that book?”

  “I think perhaps I wrote it,” Eden said softly.

  “Not the smartest thing you ever done, was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t.” She didn’t add that she’d had no idea the riddle had anything to do with millions of dollars’ worth of paintings. “He told you where the paintings were, but you killed him anyway.”

  “That’s what I was told to do,” the man said, shrugging. “But I made him eat the paper he wrote down your name on. I thought that would get rid of it. Who knew they’d find it inside him? It’s amazin’ what they can do nowadays.”

  Eden was beginning to understand. A man with an addiction to gambling had for years paid off his debts by selling government secrets. But when the debts overwhelmed him, he’d been ordered killed. He’d tried to save his life by telling what he’d figured out about a riddle in a book that had yet to be published. But it hadn’t worked. He’d been made to eat what he’d written down, then was killed.

  “I guess your boss was interested in the riddle,” Eden said, walking even more slowly, trying to give Melissa and Brad time to get away.

  “Yeah,” the man said. “Real interested. But by the time we got here, the FBI was already here—and some man was stayin’ in your old house and paintin’ ever’ night. It was Grand Central Station in here. I had to get rid of the agent, and I had to ask that man what he wanted.”

  “Drake.”

  “Yeah, the necklace guy. When I found out that he was crazy and didn’t know nothin’ I let him go.”

  “Crazy?” Eden asked. The car was close now.

  “Yeah. Said he was plannin’ to be a great painter. I thought his stuff was good, but not great. I used to watch him paint while I was waitin’ for you to show up. The FBI took a long time to get you here.”

  “I was important?” she whispered. “You could have taken the paintings at any time.”

  “Naw. Boss said it had to be legal or he’d get only about twenty percent of their worth. He wanted you to show up so you could sell ’em to him, but, I tell you, it wasn’t easy. You got more men around you than a pop star.”

  “But you killed them off. What about the men who ransacked my house?”

  “To make you want to leave. You would be gone too, except for that FBI guy.”

  “And the snakes?” she asked softly.

  The man’s eyes brightened. “That was my idea. McBride and I go way back. I was supposed to keep you alive, but I knew he’d take care of you, so to speak, so I could afford to give him a little trouble. Payback for all the trouble he’s given me over the years.”

  Eden started to ask about Jared but couldn’t bring herself to do it. “You told Drake that we’d found the necklace.”

  “Yeah. I was watchin’ and listenin’. Seein’ as it was his paintin’s that led you to the necklace, he thought it should be his. He said it was his chance to prove his talent to the world. I helped him arrange the kidnappin’.”

  “Who did my daughter meet at the airport?”

  “Don’t know. Ugly little creep. He ran off as soon as I showed up.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “You’re gonna sell me the paintin’s,” he said. “I got papers for you to sign. You don’t like ’em, so you’re gonna sell ’em to me. And after I buy ’em I’m gonna find out, by accident like, that they have other paintin’s underneath ’em. All done legal-like and all sold on the open market. No tryin’ to find secret buyers for ’em. My boss wants all this to be legal.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask who his boss was, but she thought better of it.

  “’Course the funny part is that if you tell anybody what happened tonight, I’ll come back and do whatever I have to.”

  “Yes, I understand,” Eden said quietly. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a shadow move. Was someone there? Had someone survived this man’s slaughter? “I assume that you’re getting a good cut for doing this. If it’s to be your name on the papers, legally, y