Cloche and Dagger Read online

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘I was in Florida with my personal life imploding, so no, it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘How do we know you were in Florida?’ he asked. ‘How do we know that whole video thing you did wasn’t just a part of your ploy to cover your tracks when you got rid of your cousin?’

  ‘Stop it!’ I cried. ‘Just stop it. It’s not true.’

  ‘Fine. My work here is finished,’ he said and he wiped his hands together. He strode to the front door without looking back. ‘Lock up behind me!’

  I heard the door slam behind him and I was left alone in the kitchen with a rapidly cooling pot of tea that seemed like a perfect metaphor for the tentative friendship I had begun with Harry, er, Harrison.

  I cleaned up the kitchen, feeling equal parts confused, angry and sad. Was Harrison right? Was I the most likely suspect in my cousin’s disappearance? Is that why he didn’t like me? Did he suspect deep down that I had whacked my cousin to get my clutches on the family business?

  I swung from hurt to some serious rage. I’d had enough hurt to last me awhile, so I settled in on a nice slow-burning rage. I reheated my cup of tea in the small microwave and called my mom.

  It was a five-hour time change from London to New Haven, where my parents were currently living as my dad, who had retired from lab work, was now teaching chemistry at Yale University. My mom had retired from teaching literature and now worked as a freelance editor. It was early evening so I hoped she’d be home.

  The phone rang three times before she picked up. I hadn’t checked in since the morning after I arrived and they hadn’t answered then so I’d only left a voice mail.

  ‘Hello?’ she answered. Her accent wasn’t as thick as it once was, but it still had her lovely English lilt that always soothed me.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said. My voice wobbled and I cursed myself. What was it about calling my mother that reduced me to a three-year-old with a case of the sniffles?

  ‘Oh, love,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  The dam burst and I let loose. I had tried to spare my parents the news of the nasty breakup, the video gone viral and getting sacked from my job. Instead, I had told them I was just hopping over to London to see Viv for a long-overdue vacation. God love them, my parents hadn’t questioned me.

  Once I finished whining and crying and wound down and ended the story with Viv being missing and no one taking it seriously, not even Aunt Grace, my mother’s sister, my mother waited for a beat as if absorbing all that I had told her.

  ‘Now, Scarlett,’ she said. ‘I know you were trying to spare Dad and me, but the truth is we already knew about the video.’

  ‘You did?’ I blew my nose.

  ‘One of your father’s colleagues showed it to him,’ she said.

  Oh, poor Dad!

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I asked.

  ‘We knew you’d tell us when you were ready,’ she said. ‘Although I did have to hide your father’s license and credit card; the day after we saw the video, he was planning to fly to Tampa and give that rat bastard a good thrashing.’

  ‘So, you’re not disappointed in me?’ I asked.

  ‘In you? Never. In the choice you made? A little bit,’ she said. Like Mim, my mother seldom candy-coated it. ‘Dearest, I know that deep down, you probably knew that this man was hiding something, otherwise, he would have wanted to meet your family and you never brought him home to meet us, did you?’

  ‘No, he was always busy,’ I said.

  We were both silent for a moment as I realized how truly stupid I had been, because that’s always fun, isn’t it?

  ‘Do you realize that this is the first time since you turned sixteen that you haven’t had a boyfriend?’ she asked.

  ‘No, that can’t be,’ I said. ‘I’ve been single before.’

  ‘Two weeks between boyfriends doesn’t count,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve gone longer than that,’ I protested.

  ‘No, pet, you haven’t,’ she said.

  She sounded so sure that I didn’t press it and instead changed the subject.

  ‘But, Mum, what should I do about Vivian?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you find it peculiar that she wasn’t here when I arrived, considering that she sent me the ticket and all?’

  ‘If it were anyone but Viv, I would,’ she said. ‘But you know how she is.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Remember the time she came to Florida to visit and then vanished for three days because she found out that a woman on Key West had a collection of rare wooden hat forms and she wanted to see them?’

  My mother had been in a panic that Viv had been kidnapped or crashed her car by driving on the wrong side of the road. Then as now, Viv had left no note or anything, but simply returned a few days later and with several hat forms she’d managed to charm out of the woman for a decent price.

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ I said.

  ‘And then there was the time she was in Italy with your Aunt Grace and discovered that there was a Borosilicate glass bead auction in Murano and she just went, leaving Grace to fend for herself in Venice.’

  I heaved a sigh. All of this was true and just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Viv and her artistic whims.

  ‘I really think Viv will turn up when she catches whatever she is chasing.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Of course, I’m right,’ she said. ‘Now enjoy your time in London, and you might consider taking a time-out from men and relationships, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose,’ I said. I knew I sounded cranky and I couldn’t help it.

  We chatted for a few more minutes, and I paced about the shop, checking that the windows and doors were locked, while we talked. When we hung up, I felt better about Viv, but not much else. I was still mad at Harrison, and I still thought he knew more than he was telling.

  Before I left the kitchen, I decided to go through Viv’s desk. Maybe she kept a calendar on her computer that would tell me where she was or if I was really lucky maybe she had an automatic sign-in on her e-mail and I could snoop through it. No, I had no qualms about doing this. If she didn’t want me to snoop, she should have left me more information before she up and abandoned the ship.

  Sadly, Viv’s desk was a lot like her personality, seemingly neat with a whole lot of clutter going on underneath. Just because all of the stacks are tidy does not mean there is any order to them. Receipts and bills were stacked together along with fashion catalogs and a few greeting cards.

  Her computer was not much better. I could not break into her e-mail no matter how hard I tried, and her file system was not a system so much as everything was saved on her desktop and therefore covered the main screen with documents and photos with nothing filed in any sort of order. I had no doubt that she could find anything on here, but it gave me the feeling of looking for a pearl in a pile of oysters with nothing to show for my effort but a whole lot of shucking.

  I quit. I switched off the lights and said good night to the carved bird. Per usual, he did not respond. He was going to have to be named if we were going to keep having these late-night chats, even as one-sided as they were.

  ‘What do you think of Ferd?’ I asked him. Nothing. ‘Come on, you can be Ferd the bird. It can be short for Ferdinand, if you prefer?’ Still, nothing. ‘Fine, think on it and get back to me.’

  I dragged myself upstairs. I debated searching Viv’s room, but it was already well past midnight and I figured if her room was anything like her computer or her desk it would give me a scorching headache. It could wait until tomorrow, then.

  With face washed and teeth brushed, I climbed in between my cold sheets. I pretended to run in place to warm the sheets up and when they were not so icy, I lay still and listened to the rain beat on the glass window as if looking for a tiny crack or crevice to sneak its way into the warm house.

  I was more hurt and angry at Harrison’s insinuation that I had something to do with Viv’s disappear
ance than I liked. It shouldn’t have bothered me that he thought so lowly of me. Then again, didn’t I think the same thing about him? I wondered if it bothered him.

  There had to be a way to track where Viv had gone: receipts, billing statements, something. Fine, maybe she was out of cell phone range and with spotty access to her e-mail. Still, I wanted to see evidence that she had bought plane tickets or made a hotel reservation somewhere.

  Then again, as her business manager, did Harrison do that for her? If he did, why didn’t he tell me? Because he had something to hide. It was the only explanation.

  Well, tomorrow he could just explain it to the police. I didn’t care what my mother or Aunt Grace said. I had a funny feeling about Viv being missing that I couldn’t shake, and I was going to report her missing tomorrow. We’d just see how Mr. Harrison Wentworth felt about that. Ha!

  The last thought that flitted through my head before I conked out was that for the first time in days, I felt as if I was getting a little of myself back. I was making decisions and taking action. It felt good.

  * * *

  I was still irritated with Harrison when I woke up in the morning. I frowned when I thought of him. I couldn’t believe that he had, oh so nicely, pointed out that I might be the cause of my cousin’s disappearance. Jerk! I was still hopping mad at him, and if I did see him, I thought it likely that I might not be able to squash the urge to kick him, in the shin, of course.

  The shop opened at ten, so I waited until Fee arrived for work and then I decided to take an early morning stroll in the neighborhood. I picked up a hot cup of coffee from the Starbucks on Portobello and then made my way over to Ladbroke Road, where the local police station sat on the corner.

  When I had decided upon this course of action this morning, it occurred to me that popping in to talk to someone about the situation with Viv might be the best, as in the least hysterical, way to handle the situation.

  I glanced up at the large stone building that housed the Notting Hill police station. It was intimidating, and for the first time I wondered if I should go ahead with my plan. It wasn’t as if Aunt Grace or my mother or Harrison seemed overly concerned about Viv, but still I felt like I should tell someone just in case something was wrong.

  I leaned against the stone rail that jutted out from the building while I pondered my motives. Was I doing this just to get even with Harrison for accusing me of having a vested interest in Viv’s absence? If I was honest, that was a part of it. The innocent side of me shouted that if I was guilty I would never go to the police, so this would prove it.

  But the part of me that had a funny feeling about Viv being missing didn’t care. I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling since I arrived that there was something wrong with Viv’s not being here.

  That decided it. I pushed off the rail and strode toward the station. A constable passed me on his way out and tipped his rounded hat at me. I smiled in return and lifted my coffee cup to take a long, bracing swallow.

  When I glanced up and saw who was coming out of the station, I choked on my inhale. Harrison Wentworth, looking annoyingly impeccable in a charcoal-gray suit, was walking with another man dressed in brown slacks, a dress shirt with a tie and a buff-colored jacket. They were walking out of the station together and appeared to be having an intense conversation. It was almost as if he sensed me standing there, and before I could dash away or hide, Harrison glanced up and met my stare.

  Chapter 16

  He stopped in his tracks and the man beside him stopped, too, and followed the line of his gaze. He was older than Harrison, with a thatch of light brown hair that was going gray and a thick mustache that was doing the same.

  ‘You!’ I cried. I pointed my finger in Harrison’s direction to remove any doubt as to who I was shouting at.

  ‘How did you know I was coming here today? And what are you trying to do—accuse me?’

  ‘Calm down, Ginger,’ he said. His hands were raised in the international palms-out sign for ‘I have no weapon,’ ‘stop right there’ or ‘I surrender.’ It was hard to say which one it was or if it was a combo of all three. Frankly, I didn’t care.

  ‘What did he tell you?’ I asked the other man as they stopped in front of me.

  The man reached up and stroked his mustache as if it was something he did to give himself a minute to ponder the situation before him.

  ‘Detective Inspector Franks, this is Ms. Scarlett Parker,’ Harrison said. ‘She is the cousin of the woman I was telling you about, Vivian Tremont.’

  ‘What did you say?’ I snapped at Harrison.

  This was unbelievable. How could he? I glowered at him. I was absolutely convinced that he had something to do with Viv’s disappearance now. He was no doubt trying to take the suspicion off himself and dump it on me.

  ‘Inspector Franks,’ I said, addressing him in what I hoped was my most earnest tone. ‘I don’t know what Harrison has told you, but my cousin was supposed to meet me two days ago, but when I arrived he was there, and I think he knows more than he’s saying.’

  Inspector Franks considered me from under some spectacularly bushy eyebrows. I wondered if he’d let them run wild to balance out his mustache. Despite the facial hair, his deep-set, brown eyes were sharp with intelligence. I got the feeling he didn’t miss much.

  ‘You’re American?’ he asked.

  ‘Half,’ I said. ‘My mother is British.’

  ‘Where’d you live in the States?’

  ‘Florida,’ I said.

  ‘The South?’ he asked. ‘The homeland of country music.’

  ‘Technically, I think that’s Nashville, Tennessee,’ I said. ‘A bit further north.’

  He didn’t appear to hear me. ‘I’ve got the pipes of Alan Jackson.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ I asked.

  Harrison was watching our exchange with interest, which turned into amusement when Inspector Franks broke into a barrel-deep baritone and starting singing about the Chattahoochee. No, I’m not kidding.

  I had to give it to him. He certainly sounded as if he could be the six foot four Georgian. Still, I felt the need to get this situation back on track.

  ‘You really are wonderful, Inspector Franks,’ I said. He looked pleased at the compliment and Harrison gave me a look with one eyebrow raised that said he knew what I was trying to do. ‘But back to my cousin Vivian…’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I suppose I should save the singing for the pub.’

  He gave a good-natured chuckle, and I had to admit that I liked him. He seemed so reassuringly unflappable.

  ‘Upon Mr. Wentworth’s report, I did some checking,’ he said.

  He preened his mustache again and glanced at Harrison as if still assessing him. I liked that. Inspector Franks was no pushover.

  ‘It seems your cousin is somewhere in Africa buying supplies for her hat shop,’ Inspector Franks said. ‘I had a nice chat with your aunt this morning, who got an e-mail from Vivian last night, and I called one of our liaisons over there and he is going to check on her.’

  ‘Why isn’t she e-mailing me?’ I asked.

  ‘Sounds like she doesn’t have great Web access,’ Inspector Franks said. ‘Maybe one e-mail was all she could get out.’

  That seemed an awfully convenient answer. I frowned.

  ‘Look, as soon as I get a line on her from our people I’ll call you,’ he said. ‘Her mother isn’t worried. There’s no reason you should be.’

  He sounded so pragmatic. What could I say? That I had a feeling? That the man next to him was not to be trusted?

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I sensed it would be bad form to push it.

  Inspector Franks wished us both a good day and went back into the imposing police station, singing as he went.

  ‘So, Harry, how did you manage that?’ I asked.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t know what you mean and it’s Harrison.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ I growled. ‘Harry.’

  I turned on my hee
l and stomped back down Ladbroke Road, which would take me to Kensington Park Road, which ran parallel with Portobello Road. I was so mad I was surprised the sidewalk beneath my feet wasn’t crumbling under the force of each step I took.

  ‘Ging—uh—Scarlett,’ he called after me.

  I ignored him, mostly because I was afraid that if he got within my reach, I would chuck my coffee at him and that would be a sad waste of a good cup of java.

  He was undeterred, however, as he caught up to me and matched his longer stride to my shorter one. I ducked around a mother pushing a stroller and he met me on the other side.

  ‘Scarlett, just listen to me,’ he said. ‘It’s not what you think.’

  ‘Huh,’ I scoffed. I picked up my pace.

  ‘You think I went to the police first to try and shift suspicion away from myself and onto you, don’t you?’

  I drew up short. Okay, I hadn’t expected him to admit it. I turned to face him and almost collided with a businesswoman in spiky heels and a pretty plum-colored suit.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said as I scooted to the side.

  Harrison followed me and we found ourselves pressed up against a short wrought-iron fence.

  ‘That’s exactly what I think,’ I said. ‘Now I know that I haven’t been the best cousin or business partner, but I’m going to find out where Viv is and what’s going on with her and you can’t stop me.’

  ‘Do you really think I would try?’ he asked. ‘I came to the police station because I think you’re right.’

  It was the genuine tone of worry in his voice that caught my attention and held it. I studied his face. His green eyes looked concerned, but there was something else there. He knew something that he wasn’t telling me.

  It was then that I noticed he looked pale, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well, and his thick, dark hair had tracks in it as if he’d run his fingers through it repeatedly.

  What did he know? And more importantly, how could I get him to tell me?

  Insulting him was obviously not the best plan. I wasn’t sure why Harrison caused my stellar people skills to evaporate, but if I wanted to know what exactly was going on then I had to make my next move carefully.