Daniels entered the pantry and stuck her head into the room. Small and without windows, it had walls reinforced with sheets of steel. The door was also made of steel and several inches thick, with a deadbolt and a dozen hinge screws to resist battering. Her father had never mentioned any burglaries in the neighborhood, and she wondered why he hadn’t installed a security system if he was afraid of a break-in.
Nicki tugged on her sleeve. “Jon’s calling you.”
Daniels returned to the front of the house and stood at the bottom of the stairwell. Jon stood at the top, holding his weapon at his side. He looked worried, which was not like him. She started upstairs, and her niece followed.
“Nicki, don’t come up,” Lancaster said.
“Why not?” the teenager replied.
“Because it’s a crime scene, and I don’t want you disturbing anything.”
“A crime scene? What did you find?”
“Do as Jon says, honey. It’s for the best,” Daniels told her.
“I won’t touch anything, I promise,” her niece said.
“Please, Nicki.”
“Come on, I’m a part of this, too, aren’t I?”
“You most certainly are. The police should be arriving any minute. Here’s what I want you to do. Go to the living room window and wait for them. When they arrive, go to the front door, and bring them inside. They will need to take a statement from you, and your parents. Okay?”
Nicki mumbled disapprovingly and headed downstairs. Daniels watched her depart, then joined Lancaster at the top of the stairs.
“The study was ransacked,” he said. “They left a memento.”
“What kind of memento?”
“See for yourself.”
She followed him into her father’s study. Some men escaped the real world in their workshops or garages. Her father’s lair was his study, where he spent countless hours reading books and poring over newspapers. He had spent more time here than anywhere else, and had often referred to it as his haven.
She let out a gasp. The desk had been pulled apart, its files lying in a heap on the floor. The bookshelves had been pulled off the walls and toppled over, her father’s treasured books covering the floor. Many of the books had been ripped apart, and she suspected the burglars had been looking for something hidden within their pages.
As she walked around the room, she was careful not to touch anything. Her father had loved his books, and seeing them so mutilated filled her with anger. An open copy of Peter Robinson’s In a Dry Season lay at her feet, the title page autographed. She’d gone to the author’s book signing and gotten a copy for her father as a present. Dad had been thrilled, and said the book was one of his all-time favorites.
Her eyes were drawn to the wall safe. Like the panic room, she hadn’t been aware of its existence. Her father had been keeping secrets from her, and she could not fathom why. She glanced at Jon, who hadn’t made a sound.
“They were looking for the combination to the safe, weren’t they?” she said. “That’s why they tore apart his desk, and opened all his books.”
He nodded.
“Doesn’t look like they found it,” she said. “I wonder if my dad wrote the combination down, or if he just kept it in his head.”
“I have it in my wallet,” he said. “When you and Melanie were poring over your father’s financial records, I came upstairs, and had a look around the study. The combination was in a hidden compartment in his desk.”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “He was acting like a spy. Did you stumble across anything that would indicate why?”
“No, but there must be a good explanation. That safe would have been expensive to have installed, same for the panic room. He must have felt threatened.”
“And scared. You said they left a memento. Where is it?”
She followed him across the study. In the corner was a tarnished brass bucket that contained her father’s carved walking sticks. Propped up against the bucket was a mummified hand wrapped in cloth. Its fingers were long and bony, the skin the color of ash. It looked like a Halloween prop, and she picked it up for closer inspection. The skin was cold to the touch, and she felt an icy finger run down her back. It was real.
“This is sick,” she said.
“I feel the same way.”
She held it up to the light and studied it. At the FBI academy she’d studied forensics and knew that a mummified body was a result of accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, or lack of air, and that the body would not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. The hand was in good condition, leading her to believe that it probably had come from a museum. The Russians had brought the hand here intending to leave it behind. They were trying to send a message.
“What does this mean?” she said aloud.
“It wasn’t meant for us,” he said.
Holding the hand was making her uncomfortable, and she placed it on her father’s desk. “Then for who?”
“The police.”
“You think they’ll understand what this means?”
“I think so. Detective Sykes erased the apps on your father’s cell phone. My guess is, Sykes isn’t the only one on the force who knows what’s going on.”
“The police are involved.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what?”
“The police know what’s going on, and don’t want it getting out. They’re conducting damage control, just like any other Florida police department.”
Daniels shook her head. She didn’t have a clue as to what Jon was saying.
“Florida’s economy is driven by tourism,” he said. “It’s the state’s economic engine, and drives everything from beer consumption to real estate sales. Local police departments are trained to suppress negative stories if they think it will hurt tourism. Saint Augustine is a tourist town, and will get hurt by a bad story in the newspapers.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“Yes, I am. When I was a cop, we suppressed negative press all the time. That didn’t mean that we didn’t prosecute people who broke the law. We did. We just did our damnedest to keep the story out of the newspapers.”
“Because bad press hurts tourism.”
“That’s right.”
Daniels was getting a clearer picture of how things worked in Saint Augustine. She heard her niece calling and walked out of the study and went to the head of the stairwell.
She looked down to see Nicki standing below.
“What’s up?”
“The police are here,” her niece said.
“Keep them busy. I’ll be right down.”
“You got it, Aunt Beth.”
She returned to the study. She was wrestling with how much information she should share with the local cops, if any at all. She decided that they were not her friends, and would only suppress any negative information she shared about her father’s passing.
“The police have arrived,” she said. “We need to tell them about the Russians breaking into the house, and get them to file a report, but that’s all we should tell them. I don’t want to answer their questions, or share any other information. Okay?”
“My lips are sealed,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “I agree with you — the police are hiding something. Until I find out what it is, I won’t tell them any more than I have to. Please do the same.”
“I’ll do whatever you want, Beth.”
She took a deep breath. Losing her father had been hard, but what was happening now was harder. The anxiety must have shown on her face, because Jon put his arms around her for a hug. She shut her eyes, soaking in his strength.
“You’re the best,” she said.
Chapter 8