The Unquiet Dead Read online

  The number was unfamiliar. Three rings later, she registered it as Zach’s. When she answered the phone, the first thing she said was, “Zach, I love you. Not for a moment have I stopped. Whatever this is with Mum, we’ll figure it out together, I promise. You won’t have to choose. Just—don’t stay missing from my life.”

  Her brother made the awkward humming noise that substituted for tears with him. He mumbled under his breath.

  “What was that?”

  He said it again, this time more clearly. Rachel heard him out: his confession of love, his apology in turn, his promise not to disappear again. She told him about the missing and the dead, what it did to your heart and your sanity never to know. The emptiness, the terrible black hole of the pain and dread that consumed you. He whispered and cried and apologized all at the same time.

  Then he gave her the information she’d asked him to check and as she listened, her breath blew out in a blasphemous whistle. “Holy saints of Heaven and Hell.”

  Everything she’d feared had come true.

  35.

  The dead are not alone.

  When Khattak still didn’t answer, she called Nate.

  “I can’t find Esa.” His name slipped past her lips of its own accord. “Is he with you?”

  “No, I’m sorry, but he isn’t. You sound worried.”

  Instead of using her earpiece, she was cradling her phone against her shoulder while the hard rain drilled her windshield.

  “It’s not like him not to answer his phone. He doesn’t do that.”

  “Unless he’s at Ringsong,” Nate concluded. “Shall I find him?”

  A rush of gratitude for his offer swelled up in Rachel’s heart. It wasn’t just the book he’d written; the roots of his friendship, once offered, ran deep.

  “Yes. And get him out of there, if you can.”

  “I think you might be blowing things out of proportion.”

  “Trust me, I’m not. Please, Nate, go now.”

  She let the phone fall into her lap and turned on her siren.

  * * *

  Nate found them in the flex room between the portico and forecourt. Mink was wearing a white smock over jeans and a T-shirt, a carpet vacuum beside her on the floor, a duster tucked into the pocket of her smock. A large clear jug filled with water suggested she’d been watering the plants. She’d been chatting with Esa but her smile for Nate was unambiguous.

  “How lovely to see you. It’s been much too long.”

  From the look on his face, Esa didn’t agree.

  “You’ve had my books to keep you company,” Nate said.

  Many of the books on Moorish history were from the collection at Winterglass.

  “They were a donation, please don’t forget.” Mink’s delight in the words was obvious, just as it was obvious that her reaction brought Esa no pleasure. Nate frowned. He was unsettled by the tension Esa’s body language communicated. Surely Esa didn’t think that he was interested in Mink when he’d paid such unequivocal attention to Rachel.

  “You’ve made wonderful progress since my last visit,” he said to Mink.

  She grasped him by the elbow. “This is nothing. Esa knows, he’s seen the great room. We’ve taken a more amateur approach to things, though I doubt anyone would judge Hadley’s efforts as less than superb. I like the idea that we’ve done things with our own hands, like the craftspeople who bound books and built mosques of such immaculate beauty.”

  “Still living in the past, I see,” Nate said.

  She smiled, though for a moment her fingers bit into his elbow. “A historian’s natural provenance, I’m afraid. Esa, are you coming?”

  He followed them to a great room ablaze with light.

  “I’ve just refurbished the lanterns,” she said. “I wanted to see what the effect would be on the exhibits.”

  Her worktable was gone. In its place, she’d added numerous display cases and pedestals, some with modulated lights arranged above them to illuminate well-chosen treasures. Previously, where there had been photographs and manuscript pages, Mink had added woven carpet fragments, an ivory casket and a game box, stone capitals inscribed with Arabic calligraphy, a geometric panel from the Alhambra, glazed earthenware bowls, and swords beside their scabbards: artefacts that ranged from the tenth century to the fifteenth.

  The pride of the collection was six folios from a blue and gold Qur’anic manuscript dated to the late fourteenth century. She hovered over the display.

  “It’s on loan,” she said. “Just for the opening. They’ve installed their own alarm system, so don’t get too close.”

  “It’s breathtaking.”

  On a single manuscript page on vellum, Esa painstakingly identified the Verse of the Throne. The majesty of it made him swallow. Nate read his emotion and tried to distract Mink with his passable recollection of Rachel’s questions.

  “I can’t believe you pulled all this together in two years.”

  “I had to call in a lot of favors.”

  “Those regular meetings must have helped as well. Directors, donors. They need constant assuaging.”

  Mink laughed, arresting Esa’s attention. “An excellent description. It will be worth it in the end.”

  “I hope Chris’s death hasn’t cast a cloud.”

  Her eyes widened. “Does he know?” she asked Esa.

  He nodded in response.

  “It did at first. Chris was—if not a friend, at least someone I could interest in Ringsong. But now that I’ve learned who he was, although it sounds callous, I’ve no reason to miss him.”

  “It isn’t callous,” Esa reassured her. Nate watched his friend take Mink’s hand in his own. The luminous warmth of her smile encouraged the gesture. No wonder Rachel was worried.

  “Was there a meeting on the night that Chris fell? I think David mentioned it to me.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, without looking away from Esa. “We did meet. David and I and some of the other directors. They wanted a progress report. We hadn’t gotten this far then, so I missed my chance to impress them. However, we do have another meeting at the end of the week. It should put everyone’s fears to rest.”

  Nate pounced on the word. “Fears?”

  “The usual, I’m sure,” Esa answered for her. “Deadlines, budget—will the museum open at the time and on the scale promised.”

  “You’ve either been reading my mind or my literature,” Mink teased.

  “How long have you known David?” Nate could see his questions were unwelcome, at least by Esa, but he kept them up.

  “Two years? A little more? Ever since we began work on the project.”

  He ambled through the room, trying to think of ways to attract Esa’s attention, distracted by the exhibits. He enjoyed the great room in Ringsong nearly as much as the same space in his own house. The dark timber, the white stonework, the clerestory windows: they were a concert of loveliness.

  Mink had kept personal touches away from the house’s main floor. Presumably, she kept her personal effects and furniture in her own rooms. As he drifted from manuscript to manuscript, he realized he knew little of her beyond their shared passion for the finer things in life—music, art, books. She had appeared in his life at the moment he’d lost Esa, filling in the space Esa had occupied with their common history and interests. With Mink, he’d found a link to Esa through Andalusia. He’d known from the first what the museum would mean, the resonances Esa would find within it.

  A place where pluralism thrived, where languages and lives intermingled.

  He’d known Esa thought of Bosnia as a second Andalusia, with its Ottoman mosques and the library that housed the histories of its peoples. What he hadn’t guessed was how largely Mink figured in Esa’s thoughts. He’d assumed his friend would find a woman like Samina in time, a woman of his own faith and culture, whose view of the world harmonized with his friend’s.

  There was nothing to fear from the gentle entanglement of Mink Norman, and yet Nate was uneasy. Commun
ity policing was the most unforgiving of mandates: Esa needed his objectivity. If there was a connection between the museum and Drayton’s death, he needed to isolate it. He wandered back to them, well aware that his presence was an intrusion. Their heads were bent over the Qur’anic folio, dark and gold together.

  “Do you know Albinoni’s Adagio?” he asked idly.

  Mink didn’t look up. Her hand rested on Esa’s. “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s a piece of music. Esa knows it. Perhaps if you don’t, Sable might?”

  “If it’s well known, I’m sure she does. She may even have played it. It’s been kind of you to loan her your music.”

  “I’m looking forward to hearing her play. After I meet her, of course.”

  “You’ll have to throw one of your parties.”

  He gazed about the room, a thought striking him. “Where do you keep the piano?”

  “In our private quarters. The board didn’t want responsibility for it.”

  “The sound would be lovely down here, drifting out to the courtyard, vanishing over the water.”

  “You have the writer’s gift of evoking a mood.” Her laughter encompassed both men. “It would be exquisite, I agree, but one can’t have everything. I’ve been fortunate enough to realize a dream—I’m more than content.”

  “You’ve a lot to be proud of here. I doubt anyone else could have accomplished as much in just two years.”

  “As I said, my friends have been good to me.” She looked from one man to the other. “Is anything the matter? Is this something other than a friendly visit?”

  Nate waited for Esa to say something, anything. When he didn’t, Nate sighed heavily and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “I should get back. I’m sorry if I intruded.” To Esa he said, “Walk me out, would you? I’ve a message for you.”

  They had developed their own code of silent signals during their misspent youth. Esa couldn’t miss what he was asking.

  “I’ll just be a moment,” he said to Mink.

  Uneasy, Nate felt the weight of Mink’s stare on the back of his neck

  He waited until they had reached the terra-cotta steps to grab Esa’s arm. “Come with me,” he said. “You shouldn’t stay here alone.”

  “What are you accusing me of?” Esa’s eyes were hard green stones.

  “Nothing, you fool. Rachel called me. She said to get you out of here. You need to take a step back.”

  “I need to step back?” He shook off Nate’s hand. “You’ve been involved with the museum for two years—”

  “Yes, two years!”

  “—and it’s taken you until my arrival to realize that Mink’s a captivating woman.”

  “I’m not interested in her!”

  “The hell you aren’t. You’ve been hanging all over her.”

  “I was asking Rachel’s questions, questions you were supposed to ask. Did you listen to her answers?” He lowered his voice with an effort. Even now she might be standing by the portico.

  “I saw the way she smiled at you.”

  “She doesn’t give a damn about me. It’s you she’s interested in, and either way it doesn’t matter. There’s something wrong with the museum, something about the meetings or David Newhall—I don’t know what it is, just something. Can’t you feel it?”

  “I deal in facts, not suppositions.”

  “Well, what do the facts tell you?” Nate asked desperately. “Chris moved here two years ago. David came two years ago. And the first I heard of the museum was two years ago.”

  He faced Esa’s wrath without flinching.

  “What in God’s name are you talking about? The museum has nothing to do with Drayton. Newhall told us he was at the museum on the night of Drayton’s fall and he was. Along with other members of the board.”

  “Which members? Ask her to tell you.” He could handle Esa’s contempt, if he could just get him to look at the truth.

  “What’s your theory, then?” Esa challenged. “That Mink is covering for David Newhall? Why would she? You asked a question, she answered it. You wanted to know about the music, she told you.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “Are you saying you don’t? You used to have more faith in the women you claimed to love.”

  And there it was. The indictment he had waited for all this time.

  Brutal, bitter, the words hung in the air between them. Then Esa thought better of it. “Nate—”

  “No. I’m glad you finally said that. I was a fool over Laine, I admit it. Everything I believed about her was wrong. Everything I did was wrong. But if you’re angry, it shouldn’t be over this. Mink is a friend, that’s all. It’s not me who stands in your way, it’s Rachel.”

  Nate blinked rapidly as he descended the steps. “There was a time when you didn’t assume the worst about me, Esa. I was your friend. That’s all I’m trying to be.”

  36.

  I cannot find words for what happened there.

  Rachel found Nate pacing the gardens behind his house. He looked wet and cold and very much alone.

  “Where is he?” she demanded. “Wasn’t he at Ringsong?”

  “He’s still there now. He wanted me gone.”

  “Christ. We need to get over there right away.”

  They had raised their voices over the wind, a wind so fierce and sudden that it picked apart Rachel’s ponytail, sending dark strands whipping about her face.

  Nate shrugged. “Not me. I’ve told you, he doesn’t want me around.” He shivered as the wind began to howl.

  Rachel was too full of urgency to feel the cold. “Grab your jacket, you’re coming with me.”

  She had the unique ability to override his better judgment, her voice sounding in his ear all the way to the cloakroom and back again to the drive. He shouldered his way into the jacket he reserved for walks along the escarpment. A steely rain slanted against the horizon, the lake beyond arranged in little thrusts of chaos against the shadowy outline of the shore, the white bone of the Bluffs at a treacherous distance.

  As her voice carried on, his pace sped up. He came to an abrupt halt at the museum. “That’s Aldo’s van, the one they use for landscaping. It wasn’t here earlier.”

  “I’ve seen it before. Last night outside David Newhall’s house.”

  She sprinted up the terra-cotta stairs and jammed her finger on the doorbell. When there was no answer, she moved through the portico and forecourt to the great room. The only person in it was Hadley Blessant. She was taking photographs of the exhibits through the powerful lens of a camera.

  “Where’s Inspector Khattak?”

  “He’s not here,” said Hadley, a slight frown sketched between her brows. “Is something the matter?”

  “Do you know where he is?” Rachel couldn’t conceal the anxiety in her voice. Hadley lowered the lens of her camera.

  “They went for a walk on the Bluffs.”

  “In this weather?”

  “I told them. It’s not a good idea to walk the Bluffs in the dark. Mink said she needed the air and your inspector wouldn’t let her go alone.”

  “Damn chivalrous fool,” Nate muttered under his breath.

  “Does this have anything to do with my father?”

  Rachel spared a moment from her own worries to address the girl’s concern. “No, Hadley, nothing at all. Don’t worry about your dad, he’ll be fine.”

  She didn’t thank Rachel, but as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, Hadley offered, “Do you want me to come help you look? There’s a flashlight in the flex room.”

  “I’ll find it, thanks.” Rachel’s gaze searched the room and the courtyard beyond, the windows lashed by rain. “Why is Aldo’s van parked out front?”

  “They were here. Mink called them a little while ago but she decided not to wait for them, so I told them she took the path along the Bluffs. If the van’s still there, they probably went after her.”

  Rachel’s voice climbed an octave. “His brother was
with him?”

  “And their friend. Mr. Newhall. They meet about the museum every now and again. The Osmonds come to look in on the gardens.”

  “Thanks.” She grabbed Nate by the elbow. “Let’s go.”

  They made their way outside, the rain driving against their faces in little spikes. Rachel began to run, Nate at her heels. Within five minutes, she’d turned her ankle.

  “This is crazy,” Nate said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. What you’ve told me simply doesn’t make sense.”

  “You needed to read more as a kid” was her answer. She hobbled along behind him, blinded by rain, the flashlight skipping ahead down the muddy, rain-soaked path. Lightning pulsed against the sky, the Bluffs outlined like the hollows of a skull. The tumbling waves of the lake roared into the silence.

  “There!” Nate pointed ahead in the distance, where shadows were grouped against an outcropping of white clay. Three men stood huddled together, shouting against the wind. A man and a woman were balanced in each other’s arms at the very edge of the cliff.

  Rachel tried to resolve the picture in her mind, dashing water from her eyes. Once she understood what it was, she raced past Nate down the path, her ankle forgotten. Nate tracked her, his feet slipping in the mud.

  “Esa,” he called. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  The group at the edge froze in position. Rachel skidded to a halt in front of Mink Norman.

  “Come back,” she heard Esa say. “We’ll walk here another time.”

  The three shadows against the rock loomed larger as Nate joined his friends.

  Mink turned to Rachel defiantly, her blue eyes blazing, her gold hair a sodden tangle against her face.

  “So you’ve come at last, armed with your weapons.”

  Khattak glared at her. “What are you doing here, Rachel?”

  “It’s what you’re doing that concerns me, sir. I don’t have any weapons,” she said to Mink. “Were you expecting that I would? Did you expect me to arrest you?”

  Harry Osmond jerked in his brother’s hold.

  “Rachel, I’m warning you—”

  “I’m sorry, sir. You have to know the truth about her. You have to realize why it matters so much that Drayton was Dražen Krstić, the butcher of Srebrenica.” A palpable shudder ran through the men behind her. “You knew this, didn’t you? Not just you, Mr. Newhall, but the others as well. Avdo and Hakija Osmanović, the survivors of Srebrenica. You recognized Krstić from the base at Potočari. That’s why you moved here.”