Page 81 of The Lady Has a Past

“You want optimism? Here’s what I’ve got—Mrs. Merryweather’s description of the house where she was held. It’s called a lead, Lyra. We run it down.”

“Right.” Lyra straightened in her chair. She had a job to do. “How do we set about looking for it? There are private homes scattered around Labyrinth Springs. Most are miles apart. It could take days to locate them all and try to figure out which one the kidnappers are using.”

“Not if you call in an expert,” Simon said.

“Who in the world—?”

“An ambitious real estate agent who knows the local market well.”

“That,” Lyra said slowly, “is a brilliant idea.”

“Thank you. As I believe I’ve mentioned, I’ve been doing this sort of work for a while now.”

“I have so much to learn.”

“You’re getting a crash course in the investigation business.” Simon tossed his napkin down on the table and got to his feet. “Let’s move. Pell’s on his way here. We’re going to meet him on the outskirts of town in about two hours. That gives us time to wake up a local real estate agent and see if we can pinpoint the property.”

She shot to her feet. “I’ll get dressed.” She rushed toward the bedroom doorway, pausing at the entrance to look back. “It occurs to me that we may know more about the house than we think.”

“What’s that?”

“We know the kidnappers are linked to the hotel and the spa. The new owner purchased the resort about two years ago and opened it a year later, the same time that Guppy moved her spa here. The kidnappings started soon afterward. I’ll bet the house where the captives are held was probably acquired at about the same time. Every real estate agent remembers sales, especially in a small community like Labyrinth Springs.”

Simon’s brows rose. “You’re a fast learner.”

His praise sent a little burst of pleasure through her. She hurried into the bedroom and pulled on a pair of rust-brown trousers and a long-sleeved, cream-colored blouse. She was tying the laces on her sport shoes when Simon appeared in the doorway. He had his briefcase in one hand. He looked at the bed.

“What is the housekeeper going to think?” he asked.

Lyra glanced at the tumbled bedding and the telltale stains on the once-pristine white sheets.

“The housekeeper will assume the obvious,” she said, pulling a scarf out of the drawer. “We’re a couple of honeymooners who couldn’tfigure it out the first night but managed to get it right on the second night.”

Simon shook his head. Reluctant amusement lit his eyes. “You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t, but that’s okay. It’s the stuff I don’t know that keeps life interesting.”

Chapter 36

The sound of a heavy bolt being slid aside brought her out of the restless, nightmare-laced sleep that had finally overtaken her. Raina sat up on the edge of the four-poster bed. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was six fifteen. There was no way to know if it was morning or night; no way to know how much time she had lost.

The door opened. A man in a violet-colored rubber mask entered, a tray in his hands. He was silhouetted against a murky daylight emanating from windows elsewhere in the house.

That answered one question: It was morning.

“What day is it?” she said. She was startled by how thick the words sounded.

The man in the rubber mask did not answer. He set the tray down and left. She caught a glimpse of the heavy bolt on the other side of the door. Despair threatened to overwhelm her. With luck and the proper tool she might be able to pick the lock on the manacle, but she didn’t stand a chance against the bolt. It could be unlocked only from outside the room.

She pushed herself to her feet and looked at the tray. More hotel breakfast rolls and another pitcher of tea. This was the third food delivery so it was most likely the third morning of her captivity. It was hard to keep track of time because the drugs had left her confused and disoriented. She was hungry because yesterday, in addition to dumping the tea down the sink, she had crumbled the poisoned rolls and flushed them down the toilet. But the drug had exacted a heavy toll. It had been difficult to think clearly, and in the end she had slept for most of the day and night. The result was that she had not been able to put together a coherent escape plan.

This morning she was a little light-headed from lack of food but she could finally focus. She disposed of the food and the tea, drank a couple of glasses of water, and tried to take stock of her situation.

She was still properly dressed, although her clothes were badly rumpled. Her hair had been in a chignon when she had collapsed in the hotel room. Now it hung in tendrils. There were, however, a few pins left. She removed them carefully and gripped them as if they were more precious than gold.

She went back into the bedroom and studied it carefully, noting details and filing each piece of furniture, every architectural feature, and every object under one of two categories—useful or not useful.

The furniture was expensive, heavy, traditional. The patterns on the faded wallpaper and curtains were at least a decade out of date. There were a couple of elaborately framed but decidedly insipid paintings featuring bowls of flowers. A handful of items was scattered on the small dressing table. An empty perfume bottle—not Violet—and an old hairbrush.

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