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How else would they know Arthur had, moments earlier, given Regan a very special “pearl necklace” of his very own?
Arthur scooped up the book. It was heavy. Too heavy to simply flutter off a shelf. He closed the book and handed it to Regan.
“Call hotel security,” he said. “I’ll look around.”
* * *
Heart racing,Arthur left her in the office and began a sweep of the penthouse. Regan had money, jewelry, expensive artworks. And hotels weren’t known for their air-tight security, what with half the staff having keys to get into every room. But if someone had broken in while they’d been upstairs, why taunt them? Unless it was personal…
His first stop was the galley kitchen, where he picked up a knife. No one in the kitchen or the butler’s pantry. No one in the bathroom downstairs. No one in the sitting room or dining room. He returned to her bedroom, where he snagged his clothes—no one there either.
What if they were overreacting? Books fell off shelves all the time, of course. Not by themselves, but he could have bumped it when he was talking to Charlie. He’d had a little wine by then. But for the book to land open to a painting of a woman in a pearl necklace? It couldn’t be a coincidence.
Arthur started for the French doors to the garden terrace, determined to search every corner of the penthouse.
“No,” Regan said. She’d come into the sitting room. “Don’t go out there. Security’s on their way up.”
He hesitated. He was certain if someone was still here, they would be on the darkened terrace, where there were plenty of hiding places behind the plants and trees.
“I need to check—”
“No,” she said, her tone stern. “Stay with me. That’s an order.” Then desperately, she said, “Please. Please stay.”
Regan still had the Cassatt book clutched to her chest. He sat on the arm of the club chair and took her by the hips, pulling her close to him. “Could it have been Zoot?”
“She left,” Regan said, shaking her head. Not so much to say no, but to show she was baffled. “I was in the office with you when I sent her home, remember?”
“I heard the door close, but that doesn’t mean—”
“She follows orders. If I tell her to go, she goes. And she doesn’t have a key.”
A knock sounded on the door, strong and steady. “Ma’am? Security.”
“I’ll get it,” Arthur said. He went and opened the door. Two large male security officers in blue uniforms, one white and in his forties, one Black and in his twenties, entered the penthouse.
“Lady Ferry?” the young Black man said. His name tag readDavid J. “Someone was in here, you say?”
Arthur watched as Regan quickly transformed herself from a frightened young woman and back into the boss lady. Her spine straightened and she dropped her arms to her side. Her voice was calm as she explained the situation, leaving out a few salient points about exactly what they’d been doing upstairs—although in their state of dishevelment, it wasn’t much of a mystery.
As the guards searched the suite and the garden terrace, Arthur poured a drink for Regan, two fingers of whisky neat, and sat with her on the chaise in front of the fireplace.
She took a sip of her drink and stared at him over top the rim of the glass. “You were alone in my office when I went out to feed Gloom.”
“For about thirty seconds, texting with Charlie. Not reading…” He glanced at the book’s cover. “Not readingThe School of Paris—A Survey of Nineteenth Century Female Painters. I couldn’t even tell you where it came from on your shelves.”
“You were texting with Charlie?”
“Yes. I wasn’t flipping through that book, planning to…” He lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned closer. “…violateyou with your own pearl necklace and then—”
“Give me one?”
He saw a flash of light on the terrace, the guard David out there with his torch.
“Show me your phone,” she said.
“Regan, I would never—”
“Just show me.”
