“How do I get in touch with you?”
“I am currently staying in Miss Dewhurst’s home on Sunset Lane. I’m looking after the house and gardens while she’s gone. She’s not in the phone book. I’ll give you the number.” She jotted down the information on a card and handed it to him. “Will there be anything else?”
“That will do for now.” He got to his feet and dropped the card into the pocket of his coat. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I have any information.”
“Thank you.” She rose and glanced at the note on his desk. “What about the letter?”
“Mind if I hang on to it until I finish making the phone calls?”
“It’s the only evidence I’ve got of the blackmail threat. I don’t want to lose it.”
“You don’t trust me to keep it safe?”
“No offense, but I’ve only just met you.”
He refolded the letter, slipped it into the envelope, and handed it to her. “Take the extortion note, Miss Lodge.”
She snapped it out of his fingers and dropped it into her handbag. “Call as soon as you have news, night or day.”
“I’ll do that. Out of curiosity, are you always this prickly?”
She gave him a razor-sharp smile. “I believe so, especially when I’m the one writing the checks. If you have a problem with that, be sure to let me know.”
She turned on one stacked heel and marched toward the door.
Sam moved out from behind his desk, crossed the small space in a few long strides, and managed to get to the glass-paned door ahead of her. He opened it.
She tightened her grip on her handbag. She had done what she could. She had hoped to experience some relief after hiring a professional investigator, but the sense of impending disaster was as strong as ever.
She looked at the brass coatrack as she crossed the office—she couldn’t not look at it. Even from several feet away she sensed the whispers of rage and violence.
Keep your mouth shut, Maggie. You don’t want to give him the impression you’re one of those people who believes in paranormal energy and psychic visions.
But she couldn’t help herself.
“May I ask where you purchased that coatrack, Mr. Sage?” she said.
Sam glanced at it. “Brought it with me from L.A. It was one of the few things left after the divorce.”
So he was divorced. So what? She wasn’t here to marry the man. She had no intention of marrying anyone. She had already abandoned one groom almost at the altar, and every night when she crawled into bed alone, she vowed never to repeat the near-disastrous mistake. She had come within inches of ending up in an asylum for the second time in her life. She still had nightmares about the very close call.
Nope. Sam Sage’s divorce, like the story behind the coatrack, was none of her business. Still, for some reason, it was nice to know he didn’t have a wife. Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a woman in his life.
Keep walking. Do not stop. Just keep going.
With a sigh, she paused in the doorway.
“Would you like some advice?” she asked.
“Depends,” Sam said. “What’s the advice?”
“Get rid of that coatrack. The sooner, the better.”
He eyed the coatrack. “Why?”
She had been afraid he would ask that question.
“It doesn’t look right in here,” she mumbled.
“What?”
Why had she bothered? Sam was obviously impervious to the disturbing shadows cast by the coatrack. She was the one with the problem. Her family and the psychiatrists and therapists they had insisted she consult had made that perfectly clear to her.
“Never mind,” she said, trying for a breezy smile. “It’s between you and your decorator.”
“Does this office look like I had it furnished by a decorator?”
“I’m sorry I mentioned the damned coatrack.” She went out into the hall. “Call me as soon as you have any news, night or day.”
“I will,” he said. But he was looking at the coatrack, not at her.
She walked briskly toward the stairs. When she went past the door of the secretarial firm she heard the quick, steady clicking of keys that indicated that an expert typist was at work. On the other side of the door there was probably another single woman trying to make her way in the world.
She reached the top of the stairs and hesitated. A tingle of awareness made her glance over her shoulder. Sam was lounging in the doorway, his arms folded. He was watching her now, not the coatrack.
When they locked eyes, he nodded once, moved back into the shadow of the coatrack, and closed the door. She knew then she should not have said anything about the coatrack. The best she could hope for was that he would label her eccentric.
He almost certainly would not get rid of the coatrack. People rarely took good advice. She was the one who would be stuck with the effects of the shadows cast by the thing. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 3
Sam went to the window and looked down at the street through the slats of the venetian blinds. He watched Margaret Lodge slip into the front seat of a sunset-yellow four-door Packard convertible studded with a lot of sparkling chrome and sharp-looking whitewall tires.
She took off the snappy little high-crowned hat and replaced it with a scarf knotted under her chin. She added a pair of sunglasses and leather driving gloves, put the powerful car in gear, pulled away from the curb, and drove off with a self-confident flair.
Maybe a little too much flair. He got the feeling that on the open road she would have a heavy foot.
He turned away from the window. There was no way she could know the history of the coatrack. She was currently writing a newspaper advice column. Shrewd detective logic told him that meant she had a vivid imagination.
Maybe the problem was his imagination, not hers. He knew exactly what had happened to the coatrack, and the memories were deeply unpleasant. It was conceivable he had misinterpreted her advice. It was possible she had simply given him a decorating tip. A lot of people were passionate about interior design. He was not one of those people, but she looked like the type who cared about that sort of thing—a woman who had been raised in a house that had been furnished by a professional interior designer. He knew about houses like that. He and Elizabeth had lived in one, courtesy of his father-in-law, for a few months.
It was just a coatrack. It was functional. That was the only thing that mattered.
Forget the coatrack.
He had more important things to deal with. He had an actual client and an actual case, his first since he had opened for business a week earlier.
He stripped off his coat, draped it over the back of his chair, and loosened his tie. He sat down, opened a drawer, and took out his notebook.
There was more good news—evidently the client could afford him. Or, rather, she had access to the account of her employer, who could afford him. That worked just as well.
He glanced at the card Margaret Lodge had given him. There wasn’t much information on it, just a phone number and the address of her employer’s house. Sunset Lane was a quietly expensive neighborhood on the bluffs overlooking the bay. He uncapped the fountain pen and jotted down the details on the card. Then he sat back to consider his impressions.
He had been a good cop because he had good intuition. He could usually get a fast read on people—the living and the dead—but not always. His failed marriage was proof of that.
Lodge was a problem. She did not fit neatly into any of the standard categories. He had, in fact, been blindsided when she walked through the door. Stunned, maybe. Whatever he had expected in the way of his first client, she wasn’t it.