Thief of Hearts (46 page)

The lawyer's face was harder to read. Fear was there too, but masking it were anger and wounded dignity. His hair, usually so neat, looked wild; the skin under his day-old beard was gray and pasty. "John has been making some interesting accusations, my dear." His voice was a failed attempt at humorous acceptance. "I suppose you may as well hear them."

"I want you
out
," snarled Brodie.

"What accusations?"

Aiden affected a laugh. "He seems to think I'm the one who murdered poor Martin, and he's giving me an opportunity to turn myself in. Evidently I'm supposed to feel thankful for this act of kindness, but somehow I can't summon up any gratitude. Churlish of me, I know, but—"

"Get out of here, God damn it," Brodie said, leaving the desk and moving in her direction.

"Will you stop saying that? I'm not going anywhere!" She planted her feet and folded her arms. Brodie halted in front of her, with a look that would have withered a less determined adversary.

"But you haven't heard the best part," Aiden went on before he could speak. "He also thinks I killed Nicholas." He laughed falsely a second time and shook his head at Anna, who had gone as pale as a ghost.  "Of course he can't tell me
why
I murdered one of my best friends, a man I've known since—"

Brodie whirled on him. "Maybe for the same reason you killed Dougherty, because he knew too much about you."

Anna's confusion finally overcame her shock. "Explain this to me, John," she said weakly. "What are you talking about?"

"Why should I? You wouldn't believe me anyway. The best thing for you to do, Mrs.
Balfour
, is to get the bloody hell out of here. Go home!"

She tried not to flinch, but his anger was too potent. She swallowed and said again, as calmly as she could, "Explain it to me. I'm going nowhere."

He watched her for a long, tense moment, funneling all the antipathy and bitterness he felt into a malicious stare, but it didn't work. She wouldn't go. If he wanted her out, he would have to throw her out, bodily. That held no small appeal, but maybe, for now, it was better if she heard what he had to say. It concerned her as much as it did him, after all.

"All right," he agreed shortly. He went back to the desk and sat on the edge, a position from which he could watch both of them. "I had a conversation with Dougherty yesterday. About an hour before he died. He came to me wanting to know where his share of the money was. 'What money?' I asked. That made him mad. 'O'Dunne's got his by now, I'll bet,' he said. 'Where's mine? You said a month after Naples.' What do you think he meant by that, Aiden?"

O'Dunne looked scornful, but Anna noticed the perspiration on his forehead.

"Dougherty must have gone to you right after that," Brodie continued, not expecting an answer. "You didn't know he was in on it with Nick until then, did you? Must've come as quite a shock. Nick was good at keeping his crooked associates ignorant of each other. How did you get Dougherty into my office while I was out of it? That was a bright move. It made everybody think I killed him. Right, Annie?"

"Never," she whispered, shaking her head, her wide-eyed stare intent on him. "I never thought that." She went whiter when his lips curled cynically.

"This is absolute nonsense," O'Dunne scoffed.

"What I can't figure out is why you killed my brother," Brodie continued after a few seconds.

"Oh, for—"

"You needed him. You needed each other."

"I didn't kill him!"

"Was it just for his share of the money? Or was it to shut him up so he couldn't tell anyone who his partner was? That's why you killed Dougherty, but you were about an hour too late."

"You're completely wrong." Aiden was sweating profusely now. He mopped his face, then stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket. "You don't believe any of this, do you, Anna?"

She couldn't answer.

"It was you who hired the two thugs on the docks in Naples, wasn't it?" Brodie pressed. "What were they supposed to do, keep me from finding the
Morning Star
? They bungled that. You hired a pair of incompetents, my friend. They killed Billy instead of me, and they almost killed you."

"It's a lie, I haven't killed anyone! Anna!"

"What will Mr. Dougherty's records show, Aiden?" she asked suddenly, fearfully. "About the Dutch company that supposedly bought the
Morning Star
? Martin visited it in April. Did he really go there, or did it only exist on paper?"

"How did Dougherty account for the absence of any money from the sale?" Brodie pursued. "Must've been some pretty fancy bookkeeping. Dietz will be interested in looking at it, don't you think? Up to now he's only had your word that everything's on the level."

"It's preposterous!"

Then Anna remembered. "The telegram, Aiden, the one I sent after yours. I told them John had given the money up and saved your life. But what did yours say?"

O'Dunne couldn't seem to speak.

Brodie answered for him. "His said I tried to escape and he caught me. He advised them to send me back to Bristol immediately."

Anna sagged. "Oh, Aiden."

"Dietz has known about you ever since. He's been waiting for you to lead him to the third man. What he didn't reckon on was that you'd kill him."

O'Dunne looked back and forth between their bleak, suspicious faces. He reached again for his handkerchief. Instead he jerked out a pistol.

"Son of a bitch." Brodie stood up quickly and moved between Anna and Aiden.

"It's all true," Anna breathed, twisting her hands, appalled but not afraid. "My God, Aiden, how could you have done this?"

"Listen to me." The lawyer leveled the gun at Brodie's midsection with a hand that shook badly. "I had no choice, I swear it. It started a year ago when Nick sold the
Ariel
to the Confederates."

She put her hands to her face. "The
Ariel
," she echoed hopelessly. She'd wanted so much to believe Nicholas innocent at least of that.

"I learned of it, and he offered me money to keep quiet."

"How much?" Brodie snapped.

Color began to stain the dead gray pallor of O'Dunne's cheeks. "Twenty thousand pounds. I took it. Greeley's superiors wanted more ships, but Nick decided the
Morning Star
would be the last." He faced Anna, pity mingling with the panic in his mild brown eyes. "You see, when T.J. died and Nick realized you'd inherit everything, he saw a better way to make his fortune. I'm sorry, Anna, but—"

"I know it. I've known it for a long time." It didn't even hurt now; it only made her sad.

"And you didn't know Dougherty was in on it, too?" asked Brodie, measuring the distance between himself and the gun. As long as it was pointed at him, not Anna, he could keep his own panic under control.

"I suspected, but I wasn't sure. Until yesterday."

"And then you killed him."

Aiden closed his eyes for a split second, and then he nodded. "I didn't want to, but I had to shut him up. The paperweight was lying there on the desk. He turned his back. I picked it up and… " He seemed to run out of breath.

"Smashed his skull in," Brodie finished, without a trace of sympathy. "What now? Kill us, too? Then what?"

The lawyer shook his head as if to clear it. "No one's going to be killed. Move away from the door, both of you."

Brodie grabbed Anna's arm and pulled her out of the way. Keeping his gun on them, O'Dunne went toward the door and opened it. He backed through and Brodie followed, step for step.

"Stop, John, I mean what I say. Stay here and you won't get hurt." Brodie kept moving. They were in the hall, O'Dunne backing toward the stairs, his pistol in both hands now to steady it. "I'm warning you! Stay where you are."

"You'll have to kill me to get out of here," Brodie told him, quite calmly. Anna cried out and tried to catch hold of his arm. He caught hers instead and shoved her away violently, not even looking at her.

"I'll shoot!"

"Shoot, then. Do you think I give a damn?"

Doors opened. People started out of their offices, then stopped and stared.

Aiden had almost reached the steps. Brodie was three feet away and closing. "God damn you, I'll kill you!"

"Stop!" Anna begged, distraught, blinded by terror. She made a grab for Brodie's sleeve, but he pushed her off again and shoved her against the wall.

"Shoot me," he taunted, reaching for the gun.

Aiden took a last step back, into thin air. Without making a sound, without firing a shot, he fell backward across six steps before his head hit the seventh. His body struck all the eight remaining. But it was the seventh that had killed him, by breaking his neck.

Anna pushed black soil around the roots of one half of the bamboo plant she was dividing, turning the pot slowly, pressing with gentle thumbs. The springy, three-leaved fronds were ever so slightly off-color, the tiniest bit more yellow-green than green; she made a mental note to allow more time between waterings in the future. When the pot was finished, she set it next to its fellow on the ledge in front of the wide, brass-framed windows and wiped her damp forehead with the back of one hand. The house was quiet; she could hear nothing except the restless, ceaseless fluttering of the finches in a cage hanging in a corner of the conservatory. She went to the glass doors that led to the dining room and pushed them farther apart. Still silence. No distant voices, no bustle of housekeeping. But that was not so strange: except for herself, Brodie, and a handful of servants, no one was home.

Aiden had been dead for three days. On the second day, to escape the awkward and undiminishing repercussions of the scandal, Anna's aunt had departed on an impromptu excursion to Brighton, taking Sir Thomas and his nurse with her; at the last minute, Stephen had decided to go with them. Anna had urged him to go. He needed time away from Jourdaine Shipbuilding, she'd told him, to sort out what he wanted to do. If he chose to stay, she wanted his complete support for the new partnership venture with Horace Carter. Stephen had been cool and abrupt, but he'd agreed to think it over.

That was yesterday. Ironically, a day later the worst seemed to be over: journalists no longer pressed for interviews, neighbors and friends had stopped dropping in to console or to gape, and police and Ministry officials were finally gone from the drawing room where they'd carried on their endless interrogations. Here in the sleepy late-afternoon stillness there were no more reminders, at least not visible ones, of the catastrophe that had rocked her family, her company, and the city's shipping community.

The sun was setting in the west window, reflecting splinters of yellow light against the tall glass. The humid air curled and frizzed the ends of Anna's hair, turning it into a reddish-amber halo. She went back to the potting bench and began to prune the pointed leaves of a palm in a claw-footed terra cotta jardinière. She heard a timid mew and looked down to see Jenny's kitten sharpening its claws on the ruched hem of her skirt. Not really a kitten any longer, she saw; Ambrose was more of an adolescent now. And probably lonely, with no mistress to pay attention to him. She bent, put a hand under his chest, and brought him up on her lap. He curled in a ball and began to purr, and Anna thought for the first time in months of Domenico, the cat who had followed her everywhere at Casa di Fiori. He'd liked women better than men, she remembered with a smile; he'd ignored Brodie, and barely put up with Billy Flowers's clumsy, gentle-handed attentions. He hadn't let Aiden come near him.