Hidden Riches

You’ll say not to worry, that it was just one of those freak things that happen. But I have to ask anyway. Do you think he’ll be back?”
    Jed studied her face. There was a strain in her eyes she’d done a good job of hiding up until now. There was little he could, or would, do to alleviate it.
    “I don’t know,” he said flatly.
    “Great.” Dora closed her eyes, drew a deep breath. “I should have known better than to ask. If you can’t figure out what he was doing here in the first place, how can you tell if he’ll be back or not?”
    “Something like that.” He could have lied, Jed told himself, uneasy that her cheeks were pale again. It wouldn’t have been so hard to offer a phony reassurance to give her a peaceful night. Her eyes, when she opened them, were very dark, very tired.
    “Look.” He rose, and surprised them both by reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear before snatching his hand back and stuffing it in his pocket. “Look,” he said again. “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about tonight. What you need to do is go to bed, tune out. Let the cops do their job.”
    “Yeah.” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to stay, and only part of the reason was fear of being alone. She shook her head, rubbed her hands up and down her arms to warm them. “I’ll be out most of tomorrow—at my sister’s. I’ll leave you the number in case . . . just in case,” she finished.
    “Fine. Lock up behind me. Okay?”
    “You bet.” She had her hand on the knob when he stepped into the hall. “You too. Lock up, I mean.”
    “Sure.” He waited until she’d closed the door, turned the bolts. His lips quirked when he heard the unmistakable sound of a chair scraping across the floor, the rattle of the knob as it was wedged under it. Good thinking, Conroy, he decided, then went down to take another look at the storeroom.
     
    In a pretty Federal townhouse shaded by stately oaks, a well-to-do matron was enjoying a glass of sherry and a showing of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas on her big-screen TV.
    At the sound of a quiet footstep behind her, Mrs. Lyle smiled and held up a hand. “Come watch, Muriel,” she invited, addressing her longtime housekeeper. “This is my favorite number.”
    She didn’t cry out when the blow came. The delicate crystal shattered against the edge of the coffee table, splattering the Aubusson rug with blood-red sherry.
    Somewhere through the haze of pain that left her paralyzed, she heard the crashing of glass and a furious male voice demanding over and over, “Where is the dog? Where is the fucking dog?”
    Then she heard nothing at all.
     
    It was midnight when DiCarlo rode the elevator up to his apartment in Manhattan. His arms were laden with boxes he’d copped from the back of a liquor store.
    He’d been lucky to find the receipt for the stupid dog, he told himself, and wondered idly if the bullets he’d sprayed up the stairs of the antique shop had hit anything. Or anyone.
    Not to worry, he thought. The gun was untraceable. And he was making progress.
    He hefted the boxes more comfortably as he walked out of the elevator into the hallway. He had the bronze eagle,the plaster Statue of Liberty, the china dog.
    And a partridge in a pear tree, he thought, and chuckled to himself.
     
    “So . . .” Dora snacked on a raw carrot while Lea checked the Christmas goose. “Jed goes racing out after the guy, waving this big gun while I stand there like your typical Hollywood heroine, with my hands clutched at my breasts. You got any dip for these veggies?”
    “In the fridge. Thank God you weren’t hurt.” Harassed by the number of pots simmering on the stove, the sound of her children wreaking havoc in the family room and the very real fear that her mother would invade the kitchen at any moment, Lea shuddered. “I’ve been worried for years about your shop being burglarized. I’m the one who convinced you to put in that security system, remember?”
    “A lot of good it did me, too.” Dora dunked a spear of broccoli into sour-cream-and-chive dip, then leaned on Lea’s cheery breakfast bar as she nibbled. “Jed said it was Mickey Mouse.”
    “Well, really.” Lea paused in her stirring to be indignant. “John’s cousin Ned said it was state-of-the-art.”
    “John’s cousin Ned is a jerk. Great dip.” She tried it with cauliflower. “Anyway, the cops came and did all this cop stuff—Dad would have loved the