OK, I admit it. I’m surprised, I told Kristoff as I wandered around the large open room, stopping to admire a huge stone fireplace. Beige suede furnishings and cream-colored accents just weren’t what I pictured his house looking like.
“Green marble in the kitchen,” Magda said, emerging from that room. “Ooh, Jacuzzi on the deck.”
“OK, MacGyver, now what?” I asked Kristoff.
He frowned. “My surname is von Hannelore, not MacGyver.”
“It was a TV reference, and yes, I’m aware we watch too much of it. Moving on, what now?”
“Now we search.”
“Search for what?” Magda asked, coming in from the deck with Raymond. “I’m ready and willing to be put to work.”
“Look for anything that has to do with reapers,” Kristoff told her as he picked up the phone, punching in two numbers. “Or any travel documents. Anything that could give a hint as to where Alec was last. You two do the ground floor. Pia and I will do upstairs. We’ll meet back here to search this floor together.”
Magda saluted. She and Raymond headed to the lower floor while I watched Kristoff.
“Anything?”
He listened for a moment, then hung up the phone, shaking his head. “Nothing useful. The last call he made from here was to the Moravian Council, assumedly before we went to Iceland.”
“He still has his cell phone, yes?”
“Yes.” He held out his hand for me.
I took it, allowing the little skitter of happiness that never failed to follow such a gesture to fill me with warmth. “Now that Raymond and Magda are out of the way, what is it you really hope to find here?”
He shot me a faux-irritated glance. “I should have known better than to try to deceive you.”
“Amen. What do you think we’ll find?”
“I am hoping that he left behind his reaper journal. Normally, he did not take it with him when he traveled.”
“What’s in it?” We paused outside of a room. Night was starting to settle in, so Kristoff switched on a penlight and flicked it around the room. It was an unused bedroom. He moved on to the next.
“His notes on reapers. If he has betrayed us to them, there might be some evidence in the journal. Likewise, if not, there may be evidence to that effect, as well. This is his study.”
The light was so dim that I couldn’t see much of the room.
“And if he’s acting as a double agent, pretending to work with Frederic in order to ingratiate himself?”
Kristoff crossed the room to close the blinds on three windows, followed by some heavy gold-and-cream drapes. “There may be some indication of that, too, although he has never mentioned anything like that to me. We should be safe to turn on the light now.”
I flipped on the light and breathed in the air rich with masculinity, an intriguing blend of leather, furniture polish, and a faint, lingering citrusy note that I remembered as something inherently Alec.
“You take the desk,” Kristoff said, gesturing toward it. “I’ll see if there is anything helpful on his computer.”
He moved over to sit at a small computer table that butted up against one window.
I touched the corner of the large mahogany desk that dominated the room, running my fingers along its satiny top. It was an antique desk, not terribly old, probably made around the turn of the twentieth century, but meant to impress with its size and ornate decorations. I could easily see some railroad magnate or lumber baron seated behind it, barking out orders with a cigar clenched between his teeth.
“My grandfather used to have a desk like this. I loved curling up underneath it, pretending it was a castle. When he was in a good mood, he’d let me sit at it and cut up papers. I’d arrange books along one side, and have my brother check out books. I loved that desk,” I said meditatively, memories swamping me.
“I will buy you one like it later, but you must search now,” Kristoff answered, his attention wholly on the computer screen in front of him as his hands flew over the keyboard.
I sat slowly in the chair behind the desk, my fingers caressing the rolled wood that edged the desk, wondering why I felt so oddly reluctant to open the drawers.
“I do not like prying any more than you do,” Kristoff said, addressing my unspoken thoughts. “But if he is in danger, there might be something here that will permit us to rescue him. And if not . . .”
He stopped speaking, but his thoughts were readily apparent.
“If not, we’ll find that, too. I know.” I tried my best to release my feeling of guilt at invading Alec’s privacy as I opened the first drawer.
Kristoff swore. “He’s password-protected most of the documents. I can’t get into them.”
“Rats. You don’t know his password?”
He shook his head, turning off the computer. “No, and it’s useless to try to break the encryption. It would take far too long.” He thought for a moment or two. “You keep searching the desk. I will go through his bedroom and the other rooms.”
“There’re only the three floors?” I asked, a handful of bank and credit card statements in my hands. I glanced through them quickly, but didn’t see anything that was out of the ordinary.
“There’s an attic, but it’s not used. There is a small guesthouse, however. I’ll check that when I’m through with his bedroom. It, too, should be empty, but it is better to check. Go through his papers carefully, Pia. There could be something in there that will give us a hint as to his state of mind or plans.”
The ticking of the thin marble clock hanging on the wall opposite kept me company for the next forty minutes. Kristoff popped in briefly to say he’d searched all the rooms on this floor, and was going to check the guesthouse before starting on the main floor.
Magda arrived not long after that.
“I’ll say this for Alec,” she said from where she stood in the doorway, watching me sort through several file folders. “The man has a damned fine wine cellar. I’m afraid we gave in to temptation and opened a bottle of Gaja Costa Russi that’s absolute heaven. We saved you guys some.”
I looked up from a stock portfolio statement, somewhat surprised by the figures it detailed. Kristoff might disclaim having any wealth, but Alec certainly couldn’t deny that he had holdings worth a significant amount of money, even by today’s standards. “Thanks, but I don’t think Kristoff drinks, and I’m not a big fan of red wines. Did you find anything else?”
She hiccuped and came into the room to plop down in the chair next to the computer. “Nothing that said what happened to him. Everything is shipshape, as far as we could tell. Nothing out of place, no giant map of the world with a big arrow pointing to his destination, nothing but a home theater, pool table, video arcade machines, and the wine cellar. Whatcha got there?”
I tidied the papers and put them back in their file folder, tucking it back in the appropriate drawer. “Just financial stuff. Nothing interesting, unless you want to be amazed at Alec’s financial genius, which I have to admit is pretty darned awesome.”
“Loaded, is he?” she asked, looking around the room.
“Very. That’s the last drawer.” I closed it and sat looking at the desk, my hands stroking the polished, cool surface.
“So the trip here has been for nothing.” Her voice reflected her unhappy expression.
“Probably.” I was oddly reluctant to leave the dusty hallways of my memory. “I was telling Kristoff earlier about how I used to play at a similar desk my grandfather had.”
“Oh, really?” She sat up. “Ooh! Don’t tell me your grandpa’s desk had a hidden drawer!”
“No,” I said, frowning down at my hands on the desk. “I used to beg him to show me the hidden drawer, but he said it didn’t have one.”
“Damn.” She thought for a moment, brightening up to add, “That doesn’t mean this one can’t have one.”
“You’re welcome to look. I already did, but two pairs of eyes are better than one, and all that.”
Magda hurried over to the desk and, one by one, pulled out the drawers. We checked them for false bottoms and false backs, looked underneath for anything taped to the underside, and more or less gutted the desk. By the time the marble clock chimed the hour, I realized we’d been searching for more than twenty minutes.