Page 49 of Part of Your World

"I have the key to Father's office and the replacement journal you gave me." Zane patted his coat pocket. "Are you sure you can pick the lock on his desk?"

"No, but I've been practicin'. What about yer da? Should we be worried about him?"

Zane turned his attention toward the back of the music room. "He's focused on Mrs. Underhill. That's the only reason he came tonight. He doesn't trust her and is determined to keep her under surveillance. As long as she stays in the music room, he will too."

"She has some sort of distraction planned to give us a chance to slip away unnoticed. We just have to wait for the—"

A screech rent the air. Then another, followed by a dreadful banging on the piano.

"Rats!"

"No, they're squirrels."

"Horace, do something!"

Zane gaped as a pair of weasel-like creatures raced through the parlor causing havoc with every twist and turn. Muriel grabbed his arm and dragged him out into the hall.

"No time to watch. We've got to go."

"Right." He took the lead, jogging along the corridor, turning left, then left again. Muriel kept pace, thankful for the carpet runner that silenced the heels of her shoes.

Zane pulled a key from his coat pocket and pressed it into the lock on the paneled hardwood door. It turned with ease. Zane pushed the door inward and stepped inside. Muriel's heart hammered worse than it had when she'd first stepped in front of the crowd, but she followed Zane inside and closed the door quietly behind her.

Please don't let us get caught, Lord.

It was probably sacrilegious to ask God to help them break one of the commandments, but this was more of a retrieval than a theft. At least that's what Muriel told herself. God knew all the circumstances as well as their motives. Surely he would deem their cause worthy. She hoped.

"Here." Zane rounded the large desk that dominated the room and moved the chair out of the way. "This is the drawer I couldn't open." He tapped the handle on a large drawer on the left side of the desk.

Muriel reached into the pocket of her skirt and extracted a pair of bent hairpins, one with a hooked flat end to serve as the pick and the other with its U-shaped end bent into a lever. She dropped to her knees in front of the drawer and slipped the lever piece in first like Vanessa'd shown her. She slid the pick in next and tried to feel for the tumblers, but the flimsy brass of her hairpin made the task nigh impossible. She varied her angle, the pressure, her grip, anything she could think of, but time ticked by with no success.

"Please, God," she whispered.

Then all at once, something clicked. Only it wasn't the lock. It was the office door latch.

Muriel gasped as the door swung inward.

Zane's father stepped inside, a familiar leather-bound journal in his upraised hand. "Looking for this?"

Chapter 22

"Father, I can explain." Zane straightened as he turned to face his sire. His throat tightened like it used to when he'd been caught doing something naughty as a boy.

His father's scowl darkened as he strode into the office and closed the door behind him. "Explain what, Zane? Your betrayal of this family?" He crossed to the desk, his eyes blazing with barely contained fury. "I expected Octavia to try something, either on her own or with her little Irish protégée's help." He tossed a disdainful glare in Muriel's direction. "But I never considered my own flesh and blood would turn on me."

"You don't understand." Zane positioned himself in front of Muriel as he edged around the side of the desk to face his father. "Mrs. Underhill threatened to destroy Muriel's family."

"Of course she did. She's an unscrupulous blackmailer."

One with access to a secret his father apparently deemed damaging enough that he'd not been content to let Mother make the monthly payments. He'd stolen the journal to hide whatever incriminating evidence existed.

"Please." Zane extended his hand. "Give us the journal. If we return it, Muriel's family will be safe. That's what is most important."

Father's brows arched. "The well-being of her family is most important? What about your family?" He scrunched the journal into a cylindrical shape in his fist as he scoffed. "Wake up, son. She's using you. Batting her lashes and drawing you into her snare with this damsel-in-distress act. She's been working with that Underhill woman the entire time. Lying to you for weeks. Gaining your trust so she can manipulate you into retrieving this journal." He waved the curled edges of the slim leather notebook under Zane's nose. "The whole sob story about her family is probably a lie, too. Use your head, boy." He smacked the rolled-up journal against the side of Zane's skull. "Don't fall for her wiles."

Zane's jaw clenched. Was insulting his intelligence not enough? Did he have to swat him as if he were a disobedient puppy?

"Why'd you steal it?" Zane nodded toward the journal, his gaze challenging his father. He'd not be baited. He knew Muriel's heart. Knew she could be trusted. She'd revealed all her secrets. Unlike the man glowering at him. "What secret did you so fear getting out that you committed theft to protect it?"