Chapter Five:
The Right Question
Isabelle came out of the back office with her phone tucked in her pocket and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Sorry. Shipping. It never ends.”
“Portland, Maine,” Julian said.
The smile stayed exactly where it was, which told him more than if it had fallen. “I’m sorry?”
“Your courier log. October ninth. A personal parcel, hand delivery, signature required. To Nora Whitcomb.” He nodded toward the desk. “You don’t ship personal parcels, Izzy. You have Theo do it, and Theo doesn’t write ‘I. Thorne’ in the ledger. You do that when you don’t want anyone to say you weren’t careful.”
She looked at the ledger, then at him. For a moment he thought she would keep going with it, the easy lie, the shrug. Then her shoulders dropped an inch.
“Theo,” she called, without turning her head. “Take an early lunch.”
Her assistant, who had just come back through the door with a paper bag, turned around and left.
Isabelle locked the gallery door and flipped the sign. She stayed there a moment with her back to him, one hand flat on the glass.
“She made me promise,” she said.
“Who?”
“Don’t.” She turned. “You know who.”
“When?”
“Tuesday night. The eighth. She called from a number I didn’t recognize. She said she needed a favor and couldn’t explain it, and I had to say yes before she told me what it was.” Isabelle laughed, without humor. “I said yes. Obviously.”
“And the favor?”
“A package. Sealed, about the size of a shoebox. It came here by messenger Wednesday afternoon. She told me to put it on a plane the next morning and hand it to Nora personally, no couriers, no tracking. I flew to Portland and back in one day.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know what was in it, Jules. It was taped shut. I didn’t open it.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“Of course I asked. She said, ‘It’s just paper. But please don’t lose it.'” Isabelle’s voice thinned. “She sounded so calm. That’s what frightened me.”
Julian stood very still. “Wednesday. She sent it Wednesday. She left on Thursday.”
“Yes.”
“So she planned it. She knew a full day ahead.”
“I think she knew a lot longer than that.” Isabelle wrapped her arms around herself. “That’s the other thing. She didn’t ask me to hide anything from you exactly. She asked me not to volunteer anything. She said, ‘If Julian comes to you, let him find his own way there.'”
“Find his own way where?”
“She didn’t say.”
The words sat between them. Julian felt an old, familiar irritation rise, the impulse to demand and push, and then he remembered the pencil on the back of the badge. Do not tell J. Pushing was what Elena had been protecting herself from.
He made himself breathe.
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.” Isabelle met his eyes, and this time her thumb stayed still. “I swear on Mom. I don’t know. She never told me, and I never asked her to. I thought I’d rather not know.”
“Why?”
She hesitated. Her gaze went past him, toward the enormous grey painting, and her face did something complicated.
“Because there are people in this family,” she said slowly, “who are very good at finding out what you know.”
“Izzy.”
“I’m not saying anything.” She raised her hand. “I’m not. I don’t have anything to say. It’s just a feeling I’ve had for a long time, and it got worse after Mom died, and I never had a word for it. Elena did something that made me feel it again. That’s all.”
“What did she do?”
“She asked me one question, on the phone. Just one, at the end.” Isabelle swallowed. “She asked whether Mom had ever seemed afraid of Victor.”
Julian actually laughed, a short, incredulous breath. “Victor?”
“I know.”
“Victor Crane. Who taught us both to ride a bike.”
“Who taught you to ride a bike? I was scared of them.” She said it lightly, and neither of them believed the lightness. “I told her no. I told her Mom trusted Victor completely. Everyone did. Mom made him godfather to half the family.”
“So why did she ask?”
“I have no idea. But she sounded like she’d been sitting on it for a long time.”
Julian walked to the window. Outside, a delivery truck idled. A woman in a red scarf hurried past with a dog. The world was being ordinary, and he resented it.
Victor Crane had been at his mother’s funeral, standing at the graveside with one hand on Richard’s shoulder. Victor had walked Isabelle down the aisle at her friend’s wedding when their father was in Singapore. He had sat with Julian in the hospital corridor the night Catherine died and said nothing for two hours, just stayed. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for him.
The idea that Elena had been circling that man in secret was so absurd that he nearly dismissed it.
But she had asked Isabelle. Not him. She had gone around him, and around his father, and toward the one person in the family he would never suspect.
“Did she say why she’d left the Milan coat?” he asked suddenly.
Isabelle blinked. “What?”
“Never mind.” He rubbed his forehead. “Izzy, I need Nora’s number.”
“I don’t have it. I mean, I have her address, I delivered it, but Elena told me to give her the package and go. I didn’t stay.” She hesitated. “Nora doesn’t like us much, you know. Not since the wedding.”
“What happened at the wedding?”
“You don’t remember? She and Dad had words in the garden. Something about Elena’s father.” Isabelle frowned, reaching. “It was brief. Dad apologized and it was over. I always assumed he’d said something tactless.”
The room seemed to tilt very slightly.
“Elena’s father died when she was a child,” Julian said. “In an industrial accident. She never talks about it.”
“That’s what I thought too.”
“What did Dad say to her sister?”
“I didn’t hear. I only caught the end. Nora said…” Isabelle pressed her fingers to her temple. “She said, ‘You don’t get to be sorry now.'”
Julian’s phone buzzed in his jacket.
He almost ignored it. Then he saw the name on the screen and stopped.
Victor Crane.
He opened the message.
Julian. Richard told me about Elena. I am so sorry. Come to my office at two. We should talk before you do anything you can’t undo. V.
Julian read it once. Then he turned and looked at his sister, who was watching his face.
“What?” she said.
“I haven’t told anyone about Elena,” he said slowly. “Not Victor. Not the board. Marcus is the only person I’ve spoken to, and I told him to keep it quiet.”
“Richard must have—”
“Dad said he called Victor after I phoned him. That was at one in the morning.” He held up the phone. “Victor says ‘before you do anything you can’t undo.’ Why does he think I’m going to do anything?”
Isabelle went pale.
“Because,” Julian said, and stopped, and looked at the message again, at the second line, at the timestamp. It had been sent at 11:41 that morning, four minutes ago, while he stood in a locked gallery on the other side of the city.
Victor had known exactly where Julian would need to be told to stay put.
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