He tapped his neat, clipped fingernails on the table and imagined how much those bank accounts would be worth now…and his heart began to race. Valente owed him…for all he’d put up with over the years, Valente owed him.
Fourteen
The following Friday—tendays after Fiona had discovered a skeleton in her shop’s closet and that a stuffy lawyer could take her to the moon—she found a bracelet belonging to the skeleton.
It had to belong to the skeleton, she reasoned, staring at the delicate gold links that clasped a heavy oval plate, because it had somehow got caught up on the inside of the wall she’d broken through.
She’d forgotten about the debris that she’d removed before finding the skeleton, and only now had she enlisted Carl’s help in moving it from the back room out to the Dumpster. The detectives had missed it too—although they’d gone over every other inch of the small closet under the stairs with a fine-toothed comb. Now she understood how some of the celebrated errors in police investigations happened.
Fiona turned the bracelet over in her hand and saw the faint engraving on what looked like an old-fashioned identification bracelet. Stepping toward one of the fluorescent lights that spilled into the back room in a decidedly un-designer-like fashion, but even then, she couldn’t read the small engraving without her reading glasses.
Once she had her cheaters in place, she finally could discern the plain, neat letters that read: “GJF liebe NV 17/6/40.”
Fiona felt a swell of sadness rise within, and, without truly being conscious of why she did so, she looked out toward the main shop—toward The Lamp—and spoke very softly. “Is this yours? GJF?”
The sudden rush of wind past her face made her nape-hair stand on end and brought sourness to her mouth, but Fiona stood there, unmoving. The scent of roses filled the air as tears dampened her eyes. Chills shivered over her skin, and her hands trembled while her stomach surged sickeningly. A chandelier hanging high overhead tinkled alarmingly.
“Itisyours.” Sadness washed over her, slowly, almost lovingly, as she held the bracelet. “Who are you?”
The tinkle of the chandelier above the heavy walnut desk was the only answer. She sifted the cool links through her fingers, smoothing the pad of her thumb over the engraved gold plate.
“Fiona?” Carl’s voice rang from the front of the shop, where he’d been waiting on a customer. He came around the corner, a questioning look on his face. “Did you say something?”
Before she could answer, he frowned and rubbed his arms. “Feels like a bad draft in here somewhere.”
“Look what I found,” she said, with a quick glance up at the now-still chandelier. Gretchen the cat sat up on her regular perch—on the rail at the top of the stairs, her tail twitching like a thick whip. “It must belong to the skeleton, because I found it caught up in that garbage we were going to take outside.”
Carl took it and read the engraving aloud. “GJF—something—NV?” He looked at her. “What’s the middle word?”
“Liebe. You know, love. And—NV…that must be Nevio Valente.” She looked up just as the nubbly white Lamp, behind Carl, flickered twice. “Oh!” She swallowed the startled exclamation as her companion looked at her with raised eyebrows, then whirled to look behind him.
“What is it?”
“N-nothing.” Fiona’s heart thumped rapidly, but she smiled at him. “I’m sure the NV must stand for Nevio Valente.” Then, her pleasure at the discovery faded as she realized what that could mean. “If he knew her…if it was him…then he probably knew she was here.” Her stomach dropped.
“What?” Confusion dotted Carl’s expression, then he returned to the bracelet. “This must be a date after it—written in European format. Makes sense because of the German. June seventeenth, nineteen-forty.”
“Yes.” Fiona tried to push away the heaviness that had settled over her shoulders, and she held out her hand for him to return the bracelet. “I guess I’ll need to let Detective Hinkle and Captain Longbow know about this. It might help them identify the body.” She shivered suddenly. Could Valente have known about the woman all this time? Could he have put her there?
Had he killed her?
She stopped the thought and refocused her attention on Carl. “What did you say?”
He glanced at his watch. “Gideon should be here pretty soon, hmm?”
Fiona started to reply in the affirmative, but stopped to glare at him. “Why would you think that?” she asked, starting to feel uneasy. She knew exactly why he thought that.
“Because ever since you spent the night with him, he’s come by here every evening—all the way from Grand Rapids—just like clockwork, to take you home.” His face crinkled into a warm smile. “I’m glad you two are getting along so well. Although he is a little tight-assed at times, he seems like a good guy.”
Then Fiona’s lips firmed. Carl was right—she and Gideon had spent just about every evening together for the last week, either at Ethan’s cabin (if her brother was back in Chicago) or Gideon’s condo; sometimes spending the night together, other times not.
She smiled at the memory of last evening, when he’d shown up with an outrageous bouquet of Birds of Paradise for her. In the last week, she’d hardly thought of him as stuffy or anal-retentive at all. She’d thought of him as the most romantic, tender of lovers.
She didn’t understand why irritation—and something like alarm—flitted through her, then, at the soft look on Carl’s face. “Yes, well, he’s been kind enough to make sure I don’t have to leave by myself. He’s just making sure I get home all right.”
And making sure I get a very good night’s sleep.
A smug grin tickled the corners of her mouth at the thought. Yes, Gideon definitely knew how to put her in the most relaxed, lazy, satisfied moods.
