PSYCHIC TO THE STARS PREDICTS HER OWN DEATH
Early this morning a local tearoom waitress and a visiting businessman from Los Angeles discovered the body of Madam Zolanda, the famous Psychic to the Stars. Your correspondent arrived in time to view the shocking scene and interview the witnesses, who were clearly shaken. Readers will recall that Madam Zolanda predicted blood and death at the end of what proved to be her final performance . . .
Adelaide tossed the paper aside, grimly resigned to the inevitable. “This story is going to go national.”
“As we speak,” Raina said.
“Will you take our case?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” Raina said, “but I have to warn you again, you may be wasting your money.”
“I doubt that the Burning Cove police have what you would call extensive resources outside of this town,” Jake said. “Adelaide tells me that you, on the other hand, have some connections with investigation agencies around the country. She said you were able to call someone in L.A. to confirm my identity.”
Raina switched her attention to Adelaide. “You told him?”
“Yes. Raina, I think an intruder entered my cottage while we were at the theater. I was nervous. Mr. Truett kindly offered to stay with me until morning.”
Raina frowned. “What’s this about an intruder?”
“We don’t know anything about him except that he watched the house for a considerable portion of the night and smoked a few cigarettes,” Jake said. “Found the butts this morning. Evidently he was waiting for me to leave.”
Raina turned back to Adelaide, clearly troubled. “Did you notify the police?”
“I mentioned it to Detective Brandon this morning,” Adelaide said. “He promised to increase the night patrols that go by my cottage.”
“Meanwhile, Miss Brockton has been kind enough to allow me to board at her place until the police find out who was watching her house last night,” Jake added.
“I’ve got an extra bedroom,” Adelaide said quickly. “And I could use the money.”
Raina looked both amused and satisfied. “That sounds like an excellent plan.” She reached for a leather-bound notebook. “I’ll start looking for Thelma Leggett.”
Chapter 23
Conrad Massey put down the phone, stunned. If the woman who had just called him long-distance was telling the truth, it meant that Gill had been lying to him from the start.
He stared at the phone while he struggled to control the acid-hot rage that was threatening to take control of his senses.
“How stupid do you think I am, you double-crossing son of a bitch?” he said.
But there was no one to hear him. He was alone in his study. He shoved himself to his feet and stalked to the window. On a clear day he had a view of San Francisco Bay and the spectacular new bridge they had named for the strait that it spanned—the Golden Gate. But today the scene was locked in fog.
The weather suited his mood.
The woman who had just telephoned him wanted cash in exchange for the location of Adelaide Blake. Fine. He was happy to pay. The question was, why had Gill lied? They had made a deal.
It was possible that Gill simply didn’t want him to interfere, but that didn’t make any sense. Gill needed the cash that he was receiving for keeping Adelaide locked up at Rushbrook.
Conrad clenched one hand into a fist. He had to get control of the situation. He had worked too hard and sacrificed too much to watch his carefully planned future go up in flames. He was trying to rebuild an empire and he needed Adelaide Blake’s inheritance to do it.
His grandfather had come to San Francisco along with the other great men who had made their fortunes in railroads. The old man had stayed to found the shipping business that had established the Masseys as one of the most respected families in the city.
The first Massey mansion had been built on Nob Hill, sharing the elegant neighborhood with the houses of the other tycoons of the day—Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker. The original Massey mansion had been destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and the fire that followed. But like his wealthy neighbors, his grandfather had rebuilt, albeit in a different area of town.
In due course the shipping business and the new mansion had passed into the hands of Conrad’s father, Emmett. That transition had proven disastrous. The empire that had managed to survive the devastating impact of the earthquake and the fire, the empire that should have prospered during the Great War, could not survive inept management at the top.
Conrad had known, even as a child, that his father was weak. Emmett Massey had cared more about the details of his busy social life—his clubs and his mistresses—than he had about the business. Not wanting to be bothered with the day-to-day decision making and the long-range planning required to keep the firm going strong, he had dumped the responsibilities onto the shoulders of his managers, bankers, and lawyers. The finely tuned machine that was Massey Shipping had faltered. The crash had finished the job. The company plummeted into bankruptcy. Six months later, Emmett suffered a stroke and died.
Conrad was eighteen when he inherited the ruins of what had once been a powerful financial empire. He had been determined to rebuild, but the dark clouds of the depression that had settled on the country had blocked him at every turn.
No bank would touch him because of the bankruptcy, so in the end he had made the mistake of borrowing money at outrageous interest rates from a very dangerous tycoon. He had used the cash to relaunch Massey Shipping. There was hope on the horizon, especially given the fact that the world was surely falling into yet another worldwide conflict.
There were fortunes to be made when great nations went to war. The government would need ships and the crews that knew how to man them. It would require the expertise of captains who had sailed the treacherous seas of the Pacific Ocean and were well acquainted with far-flung ports of call. Massey Shipping would be ideally positioned to reap enormous profits when war was declared. The company would do its duty for the nation—for a price.
The future had at last begun to come into focus, Conrad thought. But now the man who had loaned him the money was demanding that the entire amount plus interest be paid by the end of the year. They both knew that was impossible.
Conrad had finally understood that his generous benefactor had intended that outcome from the beginning. The bastard planned to take over Massey Shipping and rake in the enormous profits generated by the war effort.
Conrad had been so desperate that he had contemplated murder. The only thing that had stopped him from making the attempt was knowing that the tycoon’s equally ruthless sons would step into their father’s shoes.
It had all seemed hopeless. The only thing that had kept him going was the fire of rage and ambition that burned within him. He was willing to sacrifice anything and anyone. Dr. Ethan Gill had offered up Miss Adelaide Blake, a sheltered, na?ve librarian who had found herself alone in the world and in possession of a valuable inheritance. Gill had assured him that Adelaide was mentally unbalanced and that she was better off in the asylum.
The sacrifice had been performed, Conrad thought, but things had gone wrong. In the end it was necessary to tell some lies and forge some papers, but Adelaide had finally vanished into the Rushbrook Sanitarium. He did not know exactly why Gill had been so anxious to get hold of Adelaide, and Conrad had not asked. The truth was that he did not want to know.
But Adelaide had stunned them all by escaping the locked ward at Rushbrook. And now Gill was lying about her whereabouts.