Her throat raw from the residual effects of the smoke, Piper stared down at her desk. Her mind had gone numb. Clate was checking the rest of the house, just to make sure she hadn't put them somewhere else and, in all the hoopla of the day, forgotten. But she hadn't forgotten. She'd brought everything into her office and left it on her rolltop desk, and now it was gone.
"Why not take the letters, too?" She was musing out loud, trying to force herself into clear, logical thinking. One step at a time. That was all she needed to manage.
But Clate was there, in the doorway. "Because he wanted to know how much you knew. You said yourself the stuff in the shoebox doesn't prove there's any treasure or give any clues where it might be." He was silent a moment; Piper, who hadn't turned around, could sense his concentration. He went on, "I'm wondering if he already knows where it is."
She spun around. "The treasure, you mean? Then it exists."
"Maybe. Or maybe this guy knows it doesn't exist, and there's another reason he doesn't want you on this mission, only we don't see it yet."
The quick movement, the tension, had blood rushing to her head, pounding in her ears. She sank onto her chair. Even here, a thin, gray film of soot covered virtually everything. Water from upstairs had seeped through the ceiling. She couldn't imagine what her bedroom looked like. "I should tell Ernie."
"The police chief?"
She nodded, even her eyeballs throbbing. "I've been robbed. I've been threatened. Someone tried to burn down my house. Someone poisoned my great-aunt. She didn't just fall asleep at the wheel. Two water jugs are missing from her house. I think she's right and she was poisoned. Then there's the unexplained digging in your yard, the poisonous plants that were cut down. I know I don't have any evidence, any clue as to who's responsible, but I— well, if I don't tell Ernie, my father and brothers will once they learn about my missing notes and stuff here."
"What about Hannah? You've kept quiet this long for her sake. Suppose Ernie decides this whole thing's goofy and she's probably responsible for everything, all of it?"
"She can't be."
"But suppose this Ernie decides nothing that's happened is beyond what an eighty-seven-year-old woman who's losing touch with reality could do."
She stared at him. "Is that what you think?"
"No, it's not. I think Hannah's an eccentric, relatively harmless old lady. I think she has moments of great wisdom. I also think she's weird as hell wearing those old dresses, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, your buddy Ernie could have heard enough about her in recent weeks to make him wonder."
"Are you suggesting I not tell him?"
Clate shook his head. "I'm suggesting you prepare yourself for the authorities wanting to take a good, long, hard look at your aunt's mental state."
Ignoring her headache, Piper hurled herself to her feet. Pain shot through her head, and she staggered backward. Clate steadied her. She smiled weakly. His iron grip on her arm felt good, comforting, welcome, not at all confining. "Thanks. I'm okay. I want to have a look upstairs before I call Ernie."
"It's a mess."
"I need to see it."
A mess it was. Water still trickled down her steep stairs. Soot blackened everything, her rosy bathroom a dreary, cheerless place. But her bedroom was worse. It looked like the stuff of the eleven o'clock local news. The water from the fire hoses had turned the soot into black puddles that formed in the low spots of her floor and sopped into her hand-hooked throw rugs. The awful smell was enough to keep her in the doorway. Her cross-stitched sampler lay in the middle of the muck in front of her shattered fireplace. The fire fighters had taken axes and sledgehammers to a good part of it in their efforts to make sure they got all the fire. She could still feel some of its heat.
The bed where she'd made love to Clate only a short time ago was a wreck, the linens, mattress, and box springs a total loss. She could possibly clean and refinish the four-poster frame. Possibly. Right now, nothing was certain.
She took in the rest with a quick scan that didn't penetrate her mind and heart too deeply. So, she had her work cut out. She'd have to invest in a new wardrobe, new furniture, new artwork. New walls. The chimney would have to be repaired.
"My brothers'll insist on authenticity when I repair the chimney," she said numbly.
Clate had remained on the stair landing behind her. "And you wouldn't?"
She turned. "I would. It's part of the fun in having an antique house."
He smiled, understanding. "Sure. If you say so. Ready?"
"I should call my insurance agent." She started past him to the stairs. "Well, after I call Ernie. Think my family will have saved me a bowl of chowder?"