“From your story, I agree that the first wife, the beautiful one, married the ugly man for the jewels. But then he probably married her for her beauty, so they had a bargain. I think what probably sent ol’ Minton into a rage was that his wife broke their agreement. He knew she was having an affair. He was lord and master of the place, so he’d know what was going on. I think what sent him over the edge was that she thought she could leave him and take the jewels. That was a total breaking of their agreement. I think he strangled his adulterous wife, then killed her lover in a clever way, and wisely told the people the jewels had been stolen. With the jewels gone, a lot of the anger in the family was taken away, and he’d never again have to risk some woman marrying him for the sapphires. As for his bad luck, if he had a wife who hated him and was diddling the gardener, he was probably so stressed out that he couldn’t make a decent decision. He took that accursed necklace out of the public’s eye, found himself a faithful wife, had some kids, and he could think again, so his luck changed. That he committed two murders probably never bothered him any more than walking out of a bad land deal.”
“Oh,” Eden said, blinking. “Have you ever thought of writing? I think you could come up with some great plots.”
“I’ve seen too much,” he said. “I tend to think only the worst of people. They—” He broke off as he reached for his cell phone, which was vibrating. Opening the phone, he smiled. “Bill, where—” Jared paused. “Tell me that again slowly,” he said, looking away from Eden. After a couple of minutes, Jared said, “Then who the hell are the men upstairs if they aren’t ours?” As he said that, he glanced at Eden quickly. “Yeah, she’s down here with me. Yeah, send some men. I think the guys upstairs are gone, but they knew this house well enough to know where the cellar door is, and they’ve locked us in. No, don’t worry about it. I can shoot the lock off and get out.” Again, he looked at Eden briefly. “Yeah, but go ahead and send them. Plain-clothes. This town gossips about everything.”
Closing the telephone, he looked at Eden as though preparing himself for a lecture.
She was calm. “Let me get this straight. I want my facts to be very clear. You staged all this just to get me alone so you could ask me what I know? But then you’ve already asked me that and know that I know nothing. But still, you thought maybe I was lying, so you dragged me out of bed in my nightgown, and put on an elaborate charade about bad men being in the house. All the while you thought they were your own men—who you had arranged to be here—but now you’ve found out that the men up there really are bad guys. And, oh, yes, all along you’ve had a concealed weapon that you could have used to get us out of here.”
Jared seemed to consider what she’d said. “You’re pretty much right. But I hate to use firearms around civilians. Too often they panic and get in the way and get themselves shot.”
“How considerate of you,” Eden said nicely. “May I ask what the man on the telephone said?”
Jared ducked his head for a moment. “His son was hit in the head by a golf ball last night, so he’s been in the hospital with his kid, and he forgot to send the men I requested. His son’s doing fine, though.”
“How nice. So who are the men who were tearing up my house?”
“I have no idea. You want to get out of here? It’s getting a bit chilly. Besides, I’m hungry.”
If there had been an instrument of destruction nearby, Eden would have used it on Jared McBride. As it was, all she could do was try to control her anger enough to keep herself from throwing jars of pickled beets at him. She took a deep, calming breath. “Mr. McBride, I would like for you to get me out of here this minute. I too am cold and hungry, and I have an appointment”—she looked at her watch—“in one hour and forty-six and a half minutes. I plan to make that appointment in spite of all that you’re trying to do to stop me.”
“You’re still planning to meet with Granville?” he asked, but she didn’t answer him.
Bending, Jared lifted his trouser leg and pulled a small pistol out of a holster strapped to his ankle. “Get in the corner and cover your ears,” he said, and Eden did what he told her to. In the next minute, Jared shot the lock on the door in the ceiling, then pushed the door up
. Eden shoved past him and into the pantry. She was so angry that she couldn’t look at him.
Once she was in the kitchen, she blinked in the bright daylight and glanced around the room. The kitchen looked much worse in the daylight than it had at night. Someone had dumped out the freshly filled flour bin onto the floor, then walked in it. Flour was everywhere, including the countertops. It looked as though someone had climbed onto the counter and walked around. Eden looked up and saw that someone had cut a three-foot-square hole in the ceiling. So they could see into that part of the attic? she wondered.
Behind her she felt rather than saw or heard McBride. “Your agency is going to pay for this,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Good luck on getting that,” Jared said amiably, seeming to be unperturbed by what he saw. “Stay here,” he said, then, with his gun drawn, headed toward the dining room.
Eden stormed past him, into the main hall, and nearly burst into tears. The big secretary was on its face, and the top ornamentation had broken off. She stood there for a few moments, fighting back tears, then she took off running to look at what had been done to the rest of the house. The living room was the biggest mess. The furniture had been overturned and the cushions on the couch cut. The pictures on the walls, painted by a Farrington ancestor who had no talent whatever, were in a heap by the fireplace. Had they been about to burn them? Why? To save their delicate sensibilities?
Jared came up behind her and put his gun away. There were no other people in the house and he knew it. When he put his hand on her shoulder, she jerked away from him and turned to go back into the hall. There was a powder room behind the main stairs. It had once been part of the master bedroom, but the big pecan tree outside had taken over the space. Rather than cut down the glorious tree, a Farrington had reduced the size of the bedroom so much that when the house had been plumbed, the room was made into a half bath. It was a smallish bedroom but an enormous powder room. In here, too, the ceiling had been cut and there were footprints on the counter of the sink.
“I’ll get forensics in here,” Jared said from behind her.
She whirled on him. “And what will they tell you? That some criminals did this to my house? That will be news, won’t it?”
“I don’t know why you’re angry at me,” he said as he followed her out of the room. “These weren’t my men.”
“Not through any intent of yours!”
“That’s true, I did try to…” He straightened his shoulders. “To keep you from throwing me out, I tried to make you see the seriousness of this situation. I didn’t tell you this, but an agent was murdered here in Arundel just before you arrived.”
At that she turned and looked back at him, her hands into fists, her eyes narrow with anger. “Now that’s news! An FBI agent got killed. Isn’t that what happens to you guys? Isn’t the whole idea that you’re supposed to fight trouble? So one of them was down here, in a small town, snooping around, no doubt asking a lot of questions about people’s private business and he—”
“She.”
“Oh,” Eden said. “A woman.”
“Go on. What were you going to say?”
“How did it happen?”
“Hit-and-run.”