Hidden Riches

York.”
    “But how did you . . . Damn.” Sulking, she shoved the receipt back in her pocket. “You could have at least pretended to be impressed with my skills as a detective.”
    “You’re a real Nancy Drew, Conroy.” He went to the kitchen, took a jug of Gatorade from the fridge and gulped it straight from the bottle. When he lowered it, she was standing in the doorway with a dangerous glint in her eye. “You did okay. The cops just work faster. Did you call it in?”
    “No.” Her lip poked out. “I wanted to tell you.”
    “Brent’s in charge of the investigation,” Jed reminded her. He reached out and flicked a finger over her bottom lip. “Stop pouting.”
    “I’m not. I never pout.”
    “With that mouth, baby, you’re the world champ. What did Terri say about DiCarlo?”
    “Brent’s in charge of the case,” she said, primly. “I’ll go back to my own apartment and call him. He might appreciate it.”
    Jed caught her face in his hand, gave it a little squeeze. “Spill it, Nancy.”
    “Well, since you put it that way. She said he was very smooth, very polite.” Moving around Jed, she opened the fridge herself, gave an involuntary and very feminine sound of disgust. “God, Skimmerhorn, what is that thing in the bowl?”
    “Dinner. What else did she say?”
    “You can’t eat this. I’ll fix dinner.”
    “DiCarlo,” Jed said flatly, and took her by the shoulders before she could poke into his cupboards.
    “He said he had this aunt he wanted to buy a special gift for. Terri said she showed him the Foo dog—which I’m now sure he helped himself to when he broke in.” She scowled over that a minute. “She said he was a snappy dresser and drove a Porsche.”
    He wanted more than that. “Is she downstairs?”
    “No, she’s gone for the day. We’re closed.”
    “I want to talk to her.”
    “Now?”
    “Now.”
    “Well, sorry, I don’t know where she is now. She had an early dinner date with some new guy she’s seeing.” Dora let out a huff when Jed walked out of the kitchen. “If it’s important, you could catch her at the theater later. Curtain’s at eight. We can grab her for a few minutes backstage between scenes.”
    “Fine.”
    “But I don’t see what good it would do.” Dora followed him toward the bedroom. “I’ve already talked to her, and we have the name and address.”
    “You don’t know the questions to ask.” After stripping off his T-shirt, Jed tossed it into a corner. “He might have said something. The more we know, the easier it’ll be tobreak him down in interrogation. We’ve got a couple hours if you really want to cook . . .”
    But she wasn’t listening. When he turned back, she was standing very still, a hand pressed against her heart and a look of utter shock on her face.
    “What?” Instinct had him spinning around, scanning the room through narrowed eyes.
    “The bed,” she managed. “Oh . . .”
    His tensed muscles relaxed. The quick flutter of embarrassment annoyed the hell out of him. First she criticized his cooking, now his housekeeping. “It’s the maid’s year off.” He frowned at the rumpled sheets and blankets. “I don’t see the point in making it when I’m just going to mess it up again.”
    “The bed,” she repeated, reverently. “French Art Nouveau, about nineteen hundred. Oh, look at the inlay.” She knelt by the footboard to run her fingertips gently over the image of a slender woman in a flowing gown holding a pitcher. The sound that came from her throat was one a woman makes in the heat of passion. “It’s rosewood,” she said, and sighed.
    Amused, Jed watched her climb onto the bed and examine the headboard on her hands and knees. “Oh, the workmanship here,” she murmured. “Look at this carving.” Lovingly, she caressed the curves. “The delicacy.”
    “I think I’ve got a magnifying glass around here,” Jed told her when she all but pressed her nose to the wood.
    “You don’t even know what you have here, do you?”
    “I know it was one of the few pieces in that mausoleum I grew up in that I liked. Most of the rest’s in storage.”
    “Storage.” She closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought. “You have to let me go through what you have.” She sat back on her heels, all but clasped her hands in prayer. “I’ll give you fair market value for whatever I can afford. Just promise me, swear that you won’t go to another dealer until I can make an offer.”
    “Pull