“Ease off,” Paul warned levelly. Anthony was his right-hand man, invaluable as a political tactician as long as he stayed on the sidelines. When he stepped onto the field, he lost his perspective. As it was, Paul had had some doubts about including Anthony in this meeting, since Anthony and Savannah were like oil and water. In the end, it had been the gravity of the situation and its political potential that had led him to override his doubts.
Knees pressed together, Savannah propped her forearms on her thighs. The ransom letter dropped to the floor where she could see it. Freed of that burdensome weight, she locked her fingers tightly together and said quietly, “Go on, Will.”
Will looked at Anthony and said in a burst of indignation, “I know what my wife does at night because I ask. Or Megan offers. We’re very close.” He shifted his gaze to Savannah. As his anger faded, he looked pained. “I’d guess that she was in the library when whoever it was broke in.”
“How could you tell?”
“That’s where the mess was.”
“What mess?”
“Broken glass. Someone had bashed his way through the French doors.”
Savannah swallowed hard. She knew just which doors he meant. She and Megan has passed many a Sunday evening in the library. It was a comfortable room, lined with bookshelves that were filled to overflowing with generations of Vandermeers’ books. The French doors led to a patio that, in summer, was surrounded by waves of colorful flowers. In winter, the doors kept out the chill. They were heavy, solid.
“I thought they were wired,” she said.
Will shifted one of his legs. “The alarm wasn’t set.”
“Why not?” Anthony asked.
Shooting him a tight look, Will said simply, “Because it wasn’t.”
Savannah straightened the fingers of one hand. “Forget the alarm. Let’s go back and take things step by step.” She was having trouble grasping what had happened, and couldn’t begin to think of where Megan was and in what condition. The friend in her was stunned; the lawyer plodded on. “When did you first know that something was wrong?”
“When I woke up and Megan wasn’t there. I went downstairs looking for her. That was when I saw the library.”
“What time was this?”
He shifted the same leg again. “Eight, eight-thirty.”
Anthony coughed. “You were just waking up on a Tuesday morning at eight-thirty?”
“Anthony,” Paul growled, “for God’s sake.”
“There are some people,” Savannah felt called upon to instruct him, “who don’t work the same hours we do. Look, Anthony, I know you have little patience for those who have more money than you do, but I think some open-mindedness is called for here. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, it hurts when you’re mugged.”
“Kidnapped,” Anthony corrected. He’d made a fist and was lightly rapping his knuckles on the wood.
She refused to respond. Instead, she turned again to Will. “You said that you think Meg was in the library when the break-in occurred. Even if she had fallen asleep on the sofa, she would have woken up when the door shattered. Was there anything besides the broken glass? Any sign of a struggle? Meggie was a fighter. She wouldn’t have calmly and quietly gone along.”
“Not Megan,” Will acknowledged, more appalled than proud. “Part of a row of books had been knocked from one of the shelves, like she might have tried to grab at something to hold on to. The cushions on the sofa were disturbed. The umbrella stand by the hall door was overturned. One of the walking sticks I kept there was broken.”
Savannah’s stomach was feeling hollow and it had nothing to do with hunger. Will was painting a picture in her mind of the scene of the crime, but she didn’t know how vividly to color it. After a brief hesitation, she asked as quickly as she could, “Was there any blood?”
Will recoiled. “No. Thank God, no. So help me, if those bastards do anything—”
“Bastards—plural?” Anthony interrupted with a loud knock. “How do you know there were more than one?”
Will drew himself straighter in his chair, looking for a minute like his usual aristocratic self. “Because I’m not stupid, Mr. Alt. Kidnappers don’t operate alone. Technically, it won’t work. They need one person to stay with the hostage while the other drops notes or makes calls or picks up the money.”
Savannah agreed. “At least if there wasn’t any blood, we can hope they haven’t hurt her.” She was beginning to feel the reality of the situation. It brought a new urgency to her voice. “Was there anything else? Did you see anything else, find anything else that might tell us more about what happened?”
He shook his head and ran a shaky hand through his hair. That, in itself, was a telling gesture, Savannah mused. Will was always particular about appearances. His clothes were never wrinkled, his tie never crooked, his hair never mussed. He might have put the handkerchief in his pocket out of sheer habit that morning, but, right now, he was deeply upset.
Anthony didn’t seem to notice. With several more loud raps of his knuckles, he asked, “What about a maid? You have one, don’t you?”
“Not at the moment. We’re between maids.”
