Page 39 of The Other Lady Vanishes

“I am quite sure that you always know exactly what you’re doing, Mr. Pell.” She tapped the pencil on the notepad. “I do have a question for you.”

“You want to know why I haven’t taken this problem to my own security team.”

“Yes. Can I assume that means you suspect one of your security people might be involved in the pilfering?”

“It’s not exactly pilfering, Miss Kirk. We’re talking about small but steady losses that, if they continue, will add up to a considerable amount of money over time. And, yes, there is a possibility that someone on my security force is behind the theft. It would explain how someone is managing to sneak the liquor out of the locked storage room without being detected.” Luther glanced at his watch. “I have another appointment. I’d like to get this matter settled. Will you take my case or not?”

She hesitated only a couple of seconds. A successful conclusion to a case that had been brought to her by one of the most powerful men in Burning Cove would do wonders to establish her agency.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll take the case.”

“Excellent.” Luther smiled a very satisfied smile. “You’ll want a retainer.”

“Of course.” In spite of her uncertainties about Luther Pell, she got an odd little rush of excitement. She had landed her very first case. She was now a real private investigator. “I’ll want to take a look around your club. I’ll need to assess your current security arrangements so that I can analyze possible weak points.”

“Whenever it’s convenient for you,” he agreed. “Just say the word.”

She pretended to study her calendar. The only appointment on it was the one she had made a few minutes ago with Adelaide.

“I’m free tomorrow morning,” she said, trying to make it sound as if she could just barely squeeze him into her busy schedule.

“I’ll tell my men to expect you,” Luther said. “Thank you, Miss Kirk. I’ll look forward to working with you.”

He wrote out a check and left with the air of a man who had accomplished his objective and now had other important things to do.

She sat quietly for a time, thinking about Luther Pell. She was pleased to have the business, but her intuition told her that something did not feel right. After a moment or two she realized what was bothering her.

Luther Pell had not tried to probe deeply into her previous investigative experience. He had accepted her carefully prepared cover story without so much as a single question. That should have been reassuring but for some reason it was not.

She had dealt with dangerous men in the past. If there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that such men did not do business with people whose backgrounds they had not thoroughly researched. She cast her mind back, recalling every aspect of her departure from New York. She had planned her exit carefully and paid attention to every detail. She was almost certain that there was nothing for Luther to discover that might make him question her story.

Almost certain.

Chapter 21

Thelma Leggett opened the trunk of the aging sedan and removed the hatbox containing the stash of secrets. It had been her idea, which she hadn’t shared with Zolanda, to conceal the blackmail materials in the back of the limo. Her theory had been that it was a far more secure location than the villa. Anyone, including the housekeeper who came in daily, could search the big house while the occupants were out. But it was far less likely that a potential thief would look for a hatbox in the back of a car.

There had been another reason for storing the secrets in the limo’s locked trunk. With rare exceptions the car was usually close at hand, where Thelma, in her role as chauffeur, could keep an eye on it. Early that morning when she had dumped the big car in favor of the old sedan she had stolen in a poor neighborhood, she had simply transferred the hatbox from one vehicle to the other. It had been a shame to get rid of the limousine but she had no option. It was far too memorable.

The shabby old cabin on the outskirts of the decaying seaside town had been deserted for a while now. It was filthy and in need of repairs.There were indications that various rodents and a few transients had taken up residence from time to time. Definitely not the sort of classy accommodations she had become accustomed to during the three years that she and Zolanda had been running the psychic-to-the-stars game, Thelma concluded. But the one-room structure had a very big advantage—none of Zolanda’s clients knew about it. No one could follow her here.

The cabin had belonged to her uncle. She remembered him as a cheerful, fun-loving man who had always arrived on his sister’s doorstep with toys and candy for his niece. But he had come home from the Great War a changed man. He had retreated to the cabin, where he had done odd jobs around town while he proceeded to drink himself to death.

He had left the dilapidated structure to Thelma’s mother, who had tried unsuccessfully to sell it. After her death, Thelma had inherited it.

There was a faded For Sale sign in the window. She had put it there a couple of years ago but no buyer had come along. In hindsight, that was a very fortunate turn of events.

She set the hatbox on the sagging bed and removed the lid with shaking fingers. She was consumed with a feverish excitement. What she planned to do was extremely dangerous, but she needed cash and she needed it quickly.

She studied the contents of the hatbox and considered her options. She had known that if she disappeared in the wake of Zolanda’s so-called suicide, the cops would want to question her. She was reasonably certain that in the end they would have let her go for lack of evidence. But she did not dare hang around Burning Cove long enough to go through the formalities. She had more immediate problems to worry about.

She had called Adelaide Blake-Brockton that morning from a gas station, anticipating that no one would answer the phone. She had assumed that by dawn Adelaide would be dead or missing. But with Zolanda dead instead, the entire situation had changed. So she hadplaced the call in an attempt to find out if the plan to get rid of a certain tearoom waitress had been carried out successfully.

No one had been more surprised than she was when Adelaide herself had answered.

Sending Adelaide to the villa that morning to discover Zolanda’s body had been an inspiration of the moment. At the very least it would muddy the waters and help make Brockton look like a suspect. But that plan, too, had gone awry. According to the radio, the tearoom waitress had not been alone when she discovered the dead psychic to the stars. A certain businessman from Los Angeles had been with her.

Adelaide Brockton was a problem for Gill and Paxton, Thelma decided. But Jake Truett was another matter. It was no longer safe to assume that his presence in Burning Cove was a coincidence. He was on the trail of the diary. She had to run as far and as fast as possible, but for that she needed money—a lot of it.

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