Page 51 of Once a Hero

The desk was practically empty except for a blotter that took up half the desk top. It had ink stains on them. The way the blotches spread on the blotter, Beatrice suspected that the ink had come out of fountain pens.

Benjamin had often told her stories of how their dad liked to write with fountain pens. Sometimes the ink wells spilled and stained the table and his fingers.

No, they were not tall tales. After all, Benjamin had been ten years old when Dad disappeared the first time, shortly after Dad gave Benjamin one of his old fountain pens.

Was this where Dad sat through all those missing years?

She looked past Big Man and his cohorts. There were books on the shelves, sculptures, an old radio from the 1940s, and several closed boxes. She wondered what was in some of the lacquer and mother-of-pearl boxes, but she was afraid to provoke anyone by rushing there to peek in.

Yes, she would like to survey the house, to see what was left of it that Philomena hadn’t sold.

Another man came into the office and placed a laptop on top of the desk.

Beatrice held the chair and scooted forward. As she was doing so, she glanced under the desk to see where her legs and feet were going.

That was when she spotted it.

No one would have seen it except that the waning sun was shining into the room. To begin with, if a person worked here in the afternoon, they’d have to close the curtains to prevent glare on the laptop screen.

However, thanks to the sunshine, Beatrice spotted a distressed leather pouch hanging down from the underneath the table. Perhaps it had loosened from its position or something.

Surely this wasn’t a big find.

Still…

Curiosity got the better of her, and she palmed the leather as she was pretending to adjust the office chair so that she was comfortable in it. She slid it into one of her cargo pockets.

Oddly enough, Big Man hadn’t emptied out her pockets. That told Beatrice that they had something bigger in mind.

The lost Amber Room, perhaps?

The audio on the laptop crackled.

Okay, it didn’t crackle like in the days of old, but Beatrice imagined it could have, considering how the old-world ambiance in this office.

The video screen was blank. Only Beatrice’s face showed up on a rectangle in the top right-hand corner of the laptop screen.

“Amber Wright,” Molyneux said.

Beatrice didn’t answer.

“I’m still Imogen Wright to you.”

Was that a confession?

Beatrice hadn’t spoken to this woman in twenty-five years. At five years old, she could hardly recall the adoptive mother who was never home. In fact, she remembered Philomena more than anyone else. The nanny was always with Beatrice and Benjamin—even as they had different names then.

When Beatrice still didn’t answer, Molyneux continued. “Your father wanted to name you ‘Beatrice.’ We fought over what to name you, and he finally saw things my way.”

Did he?

“Looks like once he entered WITSEC, he named you what he wanted.”

“You could have tracked us down. Why didn’t you?” Beatrice asked. “Twenty-five years.”

“I made a promise to your father to leave you children out of our quarrels.”

“A promise among thieves?” Beatrice asked.

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