The Bax estate was comprised of a Colonial-style mansion sitting majestically on thirty acres of manicured grounds with three pools and several fountains, gardens, and courtyards. Tennis courts, a solarium, a greenhouse, the list went on and on. All of it was surrounded by shiny black wrought-iron fencing that was shrouded by tall, lush foliage.
The house itself was more like a hotel. Or the Louvre. The marbled corridors were wide and stretched endlessly in various directions, depending on to which wing you were headed. I needed a compass to navigate it all, though I’d still get lost.
I didn’t exactly grasp the need for three formal dining rooms and four casual ones. Thirteen bedrooms and nineteen bathrooms. More living rooms, studies, and sitting areas than I could process as we passed them. A ballroom. A conservatory with a grand piano and various other instruments. That wasn’t the only grand piano. I counted six others as we made our way to one of the back staircases that curved both upward and downward from the main floor.
As we went downstairs, I asked Dane, “You seriously grew up here?”
“You get used to it after a while.”
“I can’t see how. I’d have to leave bread crumbs to find my way to the bathroom. God forbid I should attempt to find one of the kitchens. You’d have to send a search and rescue team for me.”
He chuckled, though it was a bit strained. The dark thoughts lingered—or likely intensified when it came to what we might discover in his father’s vault.
I followed along as Dane headed into a mammoth library with floor-to-ceiling shelves, similar to what we had in our great room in Oak Creek Canyon, but this room was nearly the size of our entire home and the shelves spanned about twenty feet in height.
There were numerous metal railings with ladders attached for retrieving books. I figured there had to be a computer system that kept track of all the titles and their locations—or one just randomly climbed a ladder and scanned the novels until they found something of interest.
The room was also filled with sofas and chairs, end and coffee tables, lamps of varying sizes and heights, interesting artifacts and knickknacks. A bookworm could move in and never be heard from again.
And not mind the solitude.
Dane crossed to the far wall and selected a novel that he pulled out of its slot. Then he hooked his fingers in the side of the unit and gave a swift yank so that a narrow portion of the shelves opened like a door.
“Oh, no way.” I scurried across the hardwood floor, instantly intrigued. “A secret passage?”
“The vault.”
I joined him and stared at the massive metal door with a keypad along the side. Dane plugged in a series of numbers, got a green light and a beep, then repeated the process. The lock sprang free and he slid the metal pocket door to the side. We entered the vault, which probably could have doubled as a panic room or a fallout shelter. It was bigger than my first apartment. And obviously fully secure.
As I took in all the drawers and titanium-looking containers, Dane sought out a series of cabinets and entered another code. Then he started sifting through drawers.
Exhilaration pumped through me. “Can I help? I’m really good at discovering stuff I didn’t even know I was looking for.”
“Yes, you are.” He opened another cabinet and said, “We’re searching for anything related to the NOS, Ethan and the others, or even the summits my father might have attended.”
“What about anything on Yale, in the event Ethan made visits there—or, for all we know, taught or even guest-lectured there?”
“Sure.”
We dug in. Thankfully, we’d eaten on the plane with fresh catering or I’d get a little worried about the afternoon ahead of us. As it was, four or five hours slipped by with us finding absolutely nothing of value related to our quest.
There were some pretty interesting theories and documentaries Dane’s father had drafted, and he kept just about everything related to primaries and elections on-hand—for decades. Not just locally and nationally, but worldwide. He had correspondence from some of the most famous leaders of the twentieth century and even had a healthy stack of information on Nixon and the Watergate scandal, which I would have devoured if Dane and I weren’t on a more specific, imperative mission.
A TV or movie producer would have a field day in this room, with infinite possibilities screaming at them.
Unfortunately, we didn’t find much benefit to our trip.
And I was starving.
“Can we take a break?” I asked.
He left his chair at one of the small tables and joined me on the other side of the vault. He kissed me, then said, “Of course. Let’s eat.”
While we had lunch on one of the many patios I did a little Web research, even though I knew that was likely pointless. But there had to be something we were missing—there had to be a clue somewhere that would give us a direction in which to go.
I considered some of Dane’s investments—the ones that actually were linked to a few Wall Street Journal and the like articles he hadn’t felt inclined to remove. That made me say, “Your father didn’t necessarily have to be connected to Ethan via the society, though that would make sense, since Ethan later recruited you. But very simply, they could have been involved in joint ventures together. Business opportunities. No secret-society ties necessary.”
“Most of his holdings are under his corporation, not joint ventures.” Dane gave this more thought as I went back to surfing.