“Sure.” The woman’s hands went to the base of her throat and ran back and forth between her collarbones over the blouse’s high neck. “You know, I haven’t been down there since…”
As her voice dried out and her fingertips probed at something under her shirt, Erika had a feeling the woman was wearing that diamond necklace again, the one she’d had on when she’d viewed the footage from that trailer, the one Erika had remarked on just before the alarm had been triggered and she’d gone to investigate and—
With a groan, she rubbed her head. “Would you prefer I go in there alone?”
“No, I think it’s time. And I’m glad you’re here when I finally go… into that room. You give me courage.”
Keri took the lead, her high heels clipping delicately on the parquet flooring, the blunt cut ends of her hair swinging back and forth over her narrow waist. After passing through an arch, she led the way into a rabbit warren of rooms that were like drawers in a dresser, each separate and discrete space holding a curated subsection of Mr. Cambourg’s collection.
“I’m selling all of this crap,” Keri said, her hand lifting in a dismissive wave as they passed by taxidermied rats, possums, and raccoons. “I’ve always hated it. I don’t get why he was into such gruesome, ugly things.”
The next room was full of antique clamps and probes and other kinds of medical equipment—and Erika totally agreed. Herbie had been into some weird stuff, for sure.
Ah, yes, here were all the bat skeletons.
Keri slowed down as she came to the entrance of a room full of old, leather-bound books. “Here… it is. You can go all the way in, if you’d like. I think this is as far as I’m going to get.”
As the woman took a step back, Erika gave her shoulder a little squeeze, and then went inside. Immediately, she caught a whiff of bleach, and the fact the swimming pool smell didn’t carry suggested that, as in museums, each space had its own system to control temperature and humidity. And you’d want to watch both in here. All around the walls, shelves filled with Lucite stands supported ancient texts, medieval manuscripts, and first editions of God only knew what.
She didn’t have to be able to translate the titles to guess that they all covered dark subject matters. It wasn’t like Herb was going to deviate from his Wes Craven theme just for this part of his hoarding.
Although he certainly wasn’t buying anything anymore.
Across the way, the rigid order of the displays was not just disturbed but destroyed, a whole section of shelves broken off from the wall, their bracket supports bent if they were still screwed in, the polished wood planes gone. In the center of the crash zone, there was a dent in the Sheetrock—as if a grown man had been thrown against it all—and beneath that impact, there was a stain on the parquet floor and chips out of its high-polish varnish.
“I had the professional cleaners in,” Keri said in a remote way, as if she were holding herself together. “The company you suggested. They got rid of everything, and they were super nice, too.”
“They’re very good in a difficult situation.”
Between one blink and the next, Erika saw the body sprawled there, the blood everywhere, the torso split from the juncture of the thighs all the way up to the base of the throat, as if Herbert Cambourg had had his ankles pulled apart with violent force—
Hissing at a renewed hit of pain across her forehead, she turned to an empty floor-mounted display unit.
“Keri, what was here again?” she groaned. “I’m sorry, I feel like I’ve asked that before.”
“Oh, God. I hated that thing. It smelled like rotten meat and gave me the creeps. I’m glad it was stolen.”
“What kind of book was it?” Erika rubbed one temple. “And I could swear we’ve already been through this.”
“We have, but it’s okay.” The woman took a cell phone out of her back pocket and started going through images on the screen. “I don’t know what the title was, but he sent me pictures of the thing when he bought it. He was so proud of the acquisition. I remember, he came home with it acting drunk, except he hadn’t been drinking. He was literally that excited—oh. Here it is.”
With a sound of disgust, Keri turned the cell around.
Erika went over. “May I?”
With a nod, Keri gave the phone up, and Erika’s breath stopped in her throat as she expanded the photograph. The lighting wasn’t great, and there was a faint blur to the thing, as if the hand of the person who’d snapped the image had been shaking a little. It was impossible to get a sense of scale, and she couldn’t read any printing on the mottled leather cover.