“I believe that’s a piece of amethyst, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah?” She glanced up at Roarke. “Expert consultant IDs said rock as amethyst, lab to confirm. Said piece, situated on the floor by the right side of the desk, has blood and gray matter on the head.”

  She took out her Identi-pad, pressed the victim’s finger to it. “Victim is identified as Nathan Barrister, age fifty, of this address. No visible defensive wounds. Victim wears a gold ring on the third finger of his left hand and a gold chain with…” She tipped the medallion up with a sealed finger. “Yeah, a Saint Christopher medal.”

  She turned the head, huffed out a breath at the severity of the wound on the back of the victim’s head. “No wonder they pronounced so quickly. With this? If he wasn’t dead when they got here, he sure as hell was by the time they tried working on him.”

  She sat back on her heels. “Close to one in the morning. He’s dressed for bed or lounging around. Maybe he’s working late, or came down to work.

  “The way this looks? He’s bashed from behind as he’s walking back from that door over there. Check that out, will you? Probably office storage. You sealed?”

  “I am, yes.”

  As she continued her examination, Roarke, avoiding splatters and pools of blood, moved to the door.

  “Not office storage, no, it’s not that.” He had to put his back into it to fully open the door. “It’s a vault.”

  “A vault?” She looked up from her gauges that told her TOD was about ten, maybe eleven minutes before the MTs arrived.

  “And it holds some very interesting treasures.”

  She stood, walked over. It changed things, she thought. Changed everything.

  She saw paintings that even her novice eye recognized as important. Jewelry sparkling behind individual glass displays. Sculptures, statues, what she assumed were artifacts, and more.

  “What you have here, Lieutenant, is a small, exclusive, private, and ill-gotten collection.”

  “I get the first three. How do you conclude the ill-gotten?”

  “For one? That exquisite Renoir? Stolen from the Smithsonian about, oh, maybe twenty-five years ago. The ruby necklace there? Stolen again, from—if I recall correctly—a countess, from her manor house in … it might’ve been Sussex.”

  He caught the look she slanted him, shook his head.

  “There’s an empty display there.”

  “There is indeed. And also a tablet on the built-in desk. I’d wager you might find the inventory.”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” She looked back at the victim. “He maybe hears something, comes down to check. Bam, bash. Killer grabs one thing? That’s a question. Maybe only has time for it. I’m going to want that tablet checked, but I need you to check the house security first. I’m going to tag the morgue, the sweepers, then start interviews.”

  She turned back to the closet. “It doesn’t look like whatever was in that display would’ve been the handiest to grab if you were in a hurry. If somebody found the vic like this? Look at the timing. It had to be practically on top of TOD.

  “Security,” she said again. “Security feed. Any sign of a break-in.”

  “I know the drill well enough.”

  “Peabody should be here soon. If she brings McNab along, put him to work.”

  She made her way through the house, taking her time, as she wanted a sense of the whole. That sense turned a one-eighty when she saw the kitchen/lounge area.

  She wouldn’t have called it casual, but the entire area read warm, welcoming, comfortable. Not stark white, no I’m-crazy-rich gold. Instead, the soft green walls—with an entire one taken down to what might’ve been the original brick—added a kind of calm.

  In a nook with padded benches, a trio—two women, one man—sat with their faces shocked, their eyes damp.

  A pot of what smelled like tea sat on the table along with cups and saucers. Wide windows let in the wash of security lights that shined over a garden area going into its fall fade.

  The appliances gleamed, the acres of counters spread in slate gray while the cabinets, glass fronted and lit, had frames of dark forest green.

  In the lounge area, two women sat, huddled together on a long, L-shaped couch in that same forest green. The wide entertainment screen showed a painting of a dreamy landscape in its off mode.

  People lived in this room, Eve thought as the female officer got to her feet. Some lines fanned out over the light brown skin at her eyes. The eyes themselves were a deep brown and sharp.

  “Officer Lawrence.”

  “Yes, sir.” She head-gestured and walked Eve back a few feet. “Ms. Carville, the victim’s wife, found the body. The MTs gave her a light sedative, as she was hysterical. She states she came down looking for him, and found him. Ms. Barrister, the victim’s sister, heard her screaming, rushed downstairs. She made the nine-one-one. At the table there, we have Uma Acker, the housekeeper, live-in, who also heard the commotion, came out of her room in the staff quarters downstairs. She woke the butler, John Tyler, and he woke the cook, Divine Fortigue, also live-in staff.

  “Ms. Carville compromised the scene, as she tried to lift the victim, had him cradled in her lap when the MTs arrived. My partner and I did what we could to preserve the scene when we arrived, and moved all residents into this area.”

  She cleared her throat, glanced back toward the couch. “Carville has his blood all over her, Lieutenant. The sister has some, too.”

  “Understood. I’ll take the wife first. My consultant is checking security. Did you notice a door on the left side of the crime scene?”

  “Yes, sir. Slightly open. We didn’t touch it or go any farther into the room than necessary so as to not further compromise the scene.”

  “Okay. I expect my partner shortly. Any assistance you can give to the consultant is appreciated.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Eve walked over to the trio at the nook. “I’m Lieutenant Dallas with the NYPSD. Either I or my partner when she arrives will be with you shortly to take your statements. In the meantime, I’d like a chair so I can speak with Ms. Carville and Ms. Barrister.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant.” John Tyler rose immediately. Average height, on the beefy side, he moved with as much dignity as possible in a navy robe over pale blue pajama bottoms. Eve pegged him as late forties with his low crown of salted black hair over a square, dark-complected face.

  His eyes, darker still, showed signs of recent weeping.

  He carried a ladder-back chair from the dining room, through the kitchen, and into the lounge.

  “Ms. Carville.” He spoke quietly, gently. “Lieutenant Dallas is going to speak with you now. May I refresh your tea?”

  “What? I don’t know.” She looked blankly from Tyler to Eve. “I don’t know what to do.”

  He picked up the tea that had obviously gone cold, then lifted the second cup as well. “I’ll just bring you fresh. Lieutenant, may I offer you tea or coffee?”

  “Coffee, thanks. Just black.”

  Taking her seat, Eve faced Aileen Carville.

  “Ms. Carville, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Nate” was all she said. She looked down at her hands, hands still smeared with blood, as were her arms. The cotton top and pants she wore were soaked with it.

  “I know this is a difficult time.”

  “Do you?” Joy Barrister snapped out the words as her eyes welled.

  “Yes, ma’am, I do. We’re going to do everything possible to find out what happened and who’s responsible. Ms. Carville, I need to ask you some questions.”

  “Can’t you see the state she’s in?”

  “Ms. Barrister, I need to speak with Ms. Carville. I’ll also have questions for you. The sooner I begin, the sooner we’ll have some answers. Ms. Carville, can you tell me what happened?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Tears slid out of liquid eyes the color of faded denim, down cheeks more gray than the dusted gold caramel in the ID photo Eve had studied.

  “Mr. Barrister was downstairs,” Eve prompted. “Where were you?”

  “You won’t treat Aileen like a suspect!” Joy Barrister gripped her sister-in-law’s hand. “You come in here, wearing an evening gown, for God’s sake, and interrogate her when someone’s just murdered her husband. My brother!”

  “Ms. Barrister, I’m sure Ms. Carville would like your comfort at this time, but if you continue to interrupt, I’ll have you taken to another room.”

  “Of all the—” Joy broke off when Eve shot her a single, hard warning look.

  “I apologize for the dress.” Eve addressed it to Aileen. “I was at an event.”

  “It’s a lovely dress. You look lovely.” Aileen glanced up as the cook, with a wavering smile and teary green eyes, brought the tea and coffee on a tray.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Eve, and handed Eve her coffee. “Now, you drink some of this tea this time, missus. You, too, Ms. Barrister. Won’t you let me clean her up?” she asked Eve.

  “No.” Aileen hugged herself. “No. It’s Nate’s. It’s Nate’s blood. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t wake him up.”

  “Do you know why he was in his office?”

  Aileen turned, finally focused on Eve. “Are you a policewoman?”

  “I’m Lieutenant Dallas, yes. I’m in charge of finding out what happened to your husband.”

  “He wasn’t feeling well. A headache, a little wheezy, a little cough. He had a fever, too. Just ninety-nine-point-one, but he didn’t feel well. He said he’d sleep in one of the guest rooms, go to bed early, but I said no, he should sleep in our room, in our bed. You always feel better in your own. I’d take a guest room.”

  She rubbed bloody fingers on her temple. “We always go around like that when one of us isn’t feeling well.”

  “Can you tell me what time he went to bed?”

  “It was not long after eight. Divine made him chicken soup for dinner, and tea for bedtime. He took some cold medicine, and I told him if he wasn’t feeling better, I’d call our doctor tomorrow and cancel my trip.”

  “Your trip?”

  Once again, she looked around with eyes dazed and blank.

  “Oh. I was going for the weekend with some friends to a spa resort in, ah.” She rubbed fingers on her temple again.

  “Rhode Island,” Joy said, gently now.

  “Yes, that’s right.” She smiled. “Nate said not to worry. Divine’s chicken soup would do the trick. I took the guest room. I had a new book, so I read awhile. There was a show I wanted to see, so I watched … I can’t remember.”

  She put a hand to her brow, then brushed it through her hair. “Funny, I wanted to see it … I checked on Nate a couple of times. He sounded a little raspy, but he was sound asleep. Then … I’m not sure what time it was. I’d gone back to my book, but I couldn’t read any more. It was late, I think. Late. I got up to check on Nate one more time before I went to sleep, but he wasn’t in bed. The bathroom door was open, and he wasn’t in there.”

  When she seemed to go blank again, Eve picked up the tea, handed it to her.

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Then? Oh, I thought he may have gone downstairs to the kitchen for more tea, or fresh water, or … something. I thought I heard something. Um, I thought I heard something as I came downstairs.”

  “Something like?”

  “Like something had fallen, and I thought, oh, for God’s sake, that’s Nate walking around in the dark when he’s not feeling well, bumping into things, knocking something over. I thought that, and I called out to him, but he didn’t answer me.”

  She set the tea down, let out a long breath. “He didn’t answer when I called out to him. I went back to the kitchen, and turned on the lights, but he wasn’t there. I called out again, and walked to his office. It would be like him to wake up and think of work.

  “I saw him. I saw him, and he was on the floor. Blood, and he was lying there, in the blood.”

  She looked at her hands.

  “I was screaming. I can hear myself screaming as I ran over to him. I tried to stop the bleeding, to wake him up, but I couldn’t stop screaming. And—and Joy came.”

  “She had his head in her lap, if you want to know.” Joy swiped a tear off her cheek. “I could see—I called nine-one-one, for an ambulance, for the police. When Uma rushed in, I told her to let them in the gate, in the house. I couldn’t help Nate. I tried to pull Aileen away, but she wouldn’t—” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together.

  “Where were you, Ms. Barrister, before you entered the office?”

  “In bed. Sleeping. It was around one in the morning, I think.”

  “You’re living here?”

  “No. I’m having some updating done on my condo. I’m staying here while that’s going on.” She lifted her fingers to her eyes, inhaled long and slow. “I apologize for being rude. This is … this doesn’t seem real.”

  Eve saw Peabody coming. “No apology necessary. Excuse me one minute.”

  “Max-ex dress,” Peabody said, and spoke again quickly to avoid the snarl. “Roarke filled us in. McNab’s with me, and now with Roarke. I can tell you right off, the security jammed from zero hours, seventeen, blipped for a few seconds at zero hours, forty-two, then fully off again until zero hours, fifty-nine.”

  Eve’s brows drew together at the timeline. “Okay, that’s tight. I’ve got TOD at zero hundred, fifty-five hours, nine-one-one logged at zero-one-oh-two hundred. That’s damn tight. Nook there. Butler, housekeeper, cook. All live-in. Start with them while I finish with the wife and the sister. Get us as accurate a timeline as possible.”

  Peabody, her red-streaked black hair in a high, bouncy tail, and wearing what looked like comfortable and professional brown trousers and a navy jacket Eve currently envied, walked to the nook and introduced herself.

  Eve went back to the lounge. “I’m sorry. I needed to update my partner. Ms. Carville, are you aware there’s a vault in your husband’s office?”

  “Henry’s vault? Nate’s father. Yes. We—Nate—the painters—stumbled over it during some remodeling.”

  “Stumbled over it?”

  Aileen looked helplessly at her sister-in-law.

  “Nate had the office painted,” Joy said. “During the process, as Nate told me, the painters tripped a mechanism, and the panel over the vault slid open.”

  “You were unaware it existed?”

  “Henry never told us.” Aileen spoke again. “I don’t know if we’d have ever found it ourselves. When we decided, after Nate inherited the house, to live here … We considered selling at first. It’s such a big house, and our girls are already in college, but it’s where Nate and Joy grew up, and such an historic building.

  “Once we decided to stay, we wanted to make it more ours. It’s a big job. We started back here, where we all spend so much time. The kitchen, lounge, dining room, the powder room. The staff wing needed some updating, too. Then we did our suite, and a couple of guest rooms. Nate wanted to make the office more his. He works very hard. We had my office done at the same time.”

  “So you found the vault when?”

  “Last month. No, no, I’m sorry. It was in July. The girls were back for the summer.”

  “And you opened the vault.”

  “Not right away—we didn’t know how. We thought we’d have to hire someone to open it, but Nate finally found the combination in his father’s files.”

  “I don’t know why you’re wasting time over something like this when my brother’s been murdered in his own home. Anyone with eyes could see he didn’t suffer that terrible injury from a stumble or fall, so…”

  Joy trailed off. Her mouth opened slowly; her eyes, a deep blue, widened. She set down the teacup she’d lifted with a rattle.

  “The vault,” she murmured. “Oh my God.”

  Chapter Three

  “Did you leave the vault unlocked?”

  Even as Joy shook her head, Aileen answered. Between the shock and the sedative, she’d gone into a dreamy state.

  “Oh, no. Never. When we opened it, we were just stunned. It’s like Aladdin’s cave. Nate said none of what was in there was on the estate inventory. He was sure of it. We were going to call the lawyer about it all, then I told him to let me do a little research first. It’s what I do. I’m a freelance researcher. Honestly, all I did to start was take a picture of the Renoir. Neither Nate nor I believed it was real, but as it turned out, it was! And it had been stolen…”

  She rubbed a hand on her temple again. “I can’t remember where or when now. It’s in the file—actually, there’s a tablet in the vault that has everything listed. It took some time for us to get through the passcode. Anya finally did. Our youngest.”

  “Everything in there was stolen goods,” Joy continued, then pressed her lips together. “My father kept excellent records on the tablet in the vault. When and where acquired, how much he paid, the worth of the piece—obviously he updated that regularly. It was shocking, and mortifying.”

  “And yet those stolen items remain in the vault.”

  “I know it’s taken more time than it should,” Aileen admitted. “We were so dumbfounded and, well, horrified. We weren’t sure whether to go to the lawyer. We didn’t want to involve the police.”

  “Because?”

  “My father’s reputation.” Sitting stiffly now, Joy locked her fingers together. “Our company’s reputation, and the public trust. Call us selfish, but we didn’t want the company, our employees, and certainly not our family to suffer for something Henry Barrister had done. We wanted to plan out a way to return all of it, somehow, and anonymously if at all possible.”

  For the first time she picked up the tea, drank as if to soothe her throat.

  “Alternatively, we tried working on a statement—but what could we say? Our father, the founder of Zip Global, was a thief, a man who paid to have paintings, jewels, objets d’art stolen, then hoarded it for his own personal, private enjoyment.”

  “Our poor girls,” Aileen mumbled. “They’d be smeared by this. They’d rise above it, but they’d bear the weight. I asked Nate to let me research every piece—some had been stolen from individuals. We could find out the heirs. Maybe it would be possible to contact each one, separately, work out a return, explain we hadn’t known, but now we did, and wanted to do what’s right. We could ask to have our names kept out of it.”