CHAPTER 12
It was just after ten o’clock when Tony and Libby pulled up the narrow gravel road that led to Jasper Higgens’s wooded retreat. The two-hour drive had been accomplished mostly in silence, but it had been a companionable one. They’d had to stop and ask for directions three times, and both were intensely aware that at any moment the powerful sports car could roar up behind them and shatter the tenuous peace.
Jasper Higgens’s lab was nothing like what Libby had expected. She’d anticipated something white, large and clinical looking. Instead they found a two-story wood-shingled rustic house that nearly blended into the heavy woods surrounding it. What neither of them had expected to find was the house tightly boarded up and deserted.
At the sight of the heavy boards on the doors and windows, Tony closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Apparently the agency handling this case has already been here and closed and locked everything up. Damn, we’ve come so far…endured so much, and for what?” His dark eyes blazed with his frustration. He banged his fist on the steering wheel.
Libby reached over and touched his arm lightly, feeling an echoing despair as she looked at the house. “I feel like Dorothy inThe Wizard Of Oz,” she said dispiritedly. “We’ve followed the yellow brick road and fought off witches and goblins, and now the gates to Oz are locked and we’ll never get back to Kansas.” She looked at Tony expectantly. Strange, how in just a couple of days she had come to trust his judgment, depend on his initiative. “So, what do we do now?”
Tony sighed and gazed once again at the house, then turned and looked at the surrounding grounds. “Why don’t we take a look around? Maybe we can find something or somebody who can help us. We need to figure out how to find Jonathon Maxwell,” he explained. “If this Maxwell fellow worked closely with Higgens, then he must live someplace nearby.”
Libby nodded and together they got out of the car and approached the silent, abandoned house. As she walked up the wooden steps that led to a large veranda, she felt strange and a little sad. Jasper Higgens’s death suddenly seemed much more real as she realized this place was where the little old man had lived and worked.
Her heart constricted tightly as she saw a wicker rocking chair sitting by the boarded front door. The seat of the chair was broken in, as if it had been used many times.
She ran her hand lightly over the back of the chair, wondering how many times the scientist had sat in this very spot and viewed the beauty of the surrounding woodland. How many times had he sat here and contemplated his future, never knowing his fate was to be the victim of murder in an alley in Kansas City?
“He seems so real to me right now,” she said softly, her hand lingering on the back of the wooden chair. “This is where he lived, where he worked and loved. Being here, it brings his death so close—” She broke off and looked at Tony.
Tony offered her a sympathetic smile and placed an arm around her shoulders. “I know how you feel. I used to feel the same way whenever I had to examine a victim’s home, search through their personal belongings for clues to their murder.” He paused a moment, remembering those days as a homicide detective on the force. “I always fought to gain an emotional detachment, to view the bodies as just bodies. Yet, touching their things, prying into their lives, I could never quite forget that they were real people, with people who loved them and people they loved.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I could never quite get the emotional detachment I needed.”
“Which probably made you a better cop than nine-tenths of the men on the force,” Libby observed. She looked at him for a long moment. “You should go back to it, you know.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because you’re too good to be wasting your time spying on ex-wives and chasing down lost dogs. You’re one of the good guys, and you should be chasing down bad guys for a living.” She leaned against the arm that encircled her and smiled up at him fully. She knew her love for him was there on her face for him to see, but she didn’t try to mask or hide it. She wasn’t sure she could even if she wanted to.
While she had been running through the woods earlier that morning, fearing death at any moment, and later while driving in silent solitude, she had reached a decision concerning Tony. She loved him, and although she didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, she meant to reach out and embrace every moment she shared with him. Life was much too short to worry about tomorrows and forevers.
When she and Tony got back to Kansas City and if they went their separate ways, it would hurt, but it would be a hurt that reminded her that she lived, that she loved. Until that happened, until he turned his back on her and walked away, she intended to hold nothing back. She would love him completely and with all her being. It was the only way she knew how to love.
“Come on, let’s check around back,” she said, grabbing hold of his arm. She saw the bewilderment in his dark eyes, a bewilderment tinged with fear and she knew he’d recognized the emotion on her face. “Come on,” she said, smiling up at him. “Let’s see if we can find any clues in the area.”
Tony sighed with relief as she broke her gaze and tugged him around the side of the house. For a moment her eyes had spoken to him, telling him things he didn’t want to hear, he couldn’t accept. He didn’t want her to love him. He didn’t want the responsibility of her loving him.
She’d surprised him with her talk about how he belonged back on the force. Her words had echoed a sentiment he only allowed himself to think about late at night when he was discouraged about the slow growth of his private eye business. Perhaps when he got back to the city, it was a suggestion he should consider. He’d been less than happy since leaving the force.
As they followed the veranda to the side of the house, Libby gasped with pleasure. “Oh, Tony, imagine having a view like this every day of your life,” she breathed. He nodded, awed for a moment by the panoramic scenery before them.
Tangled woods and bushy trees formed most of a yard, and beyond that, a huge, glittering lake seemed to catch the sun’s rays and reflect it back upward to the sky.
“It is beautiful,” he agreed, his gaze spying a small clearing to the left that looked to be a helicopter landing pad. He frowned thoughtfully. Why had Higgens come to Kansas City? Why had he sold the necklace? It seemed a fairly good bet that he had known his life was in danger. What in the hell was the deal with the damned necklace? What could possibly be worth his very life?
He squinted, suddenly seeing a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. “Hey!” he yelled, vaulting over the railing of the veranda and dropping the four feet to the ground below, where he took off at a run.
“Tony?”
He was vaguely aware of her following his lead, catching up with him just as he caught up with a man in blue coveralls. The man held a lawn rake defensively before him.
“We don’t mean you any harm,” Tony said softly to the middle-aged, bald man, who didn’t relinquish his hold on the rake. Rather, he tightened his grip, ready to use it as a weapon.
“You’re trespassing,” he said, his eyes sweeping over them both. Wary and suspicious, he slowly lowered the rake a fraction of an inch. “What do you want?”
“Do you work here?” Tony asked.
“I’m the gardener and handyman,” he answered. “The man who lives here is dead. Some policemen came and boarded up the house. I don’t know nothing else.”
“Do you know where we could find Jonathon Maxwell?” Tony asked, noticing the way the man’s brown eyes flared slightly at the mention of the name. “He worked here as some sort of an assistant.”
