Authors: Traci Tyne Hilton
Alonzo pulled his pickup truck into the driveway of the Victorian but not all the way to the front. In one upstairs window he saw a spot of light, like a small flashlight.
What on earth does she think she is doing?
He had seen Mitzy’s Miata in the driveway next door.
Didn’t that burned up house scare her at all?
He turned off his engine shaking his head. It was beyond him how a woman like her could make it in the world. The more he thought about her the more she seemed like a child. An incredibly lucky (and pretty) child.
He had a Realtor’s lockbox code as well as she did. So he opened the house and slipped inside.
He was torn between calling out her name so he could get her out of this place fast and sneaking up on her.
He would love to see her jump.
He chuckled, but decided against it.
Knowing a little about the house he stopped to admire the once famous compass. It was set at an odd angle and seemed to point to the stairs, or maybe the parlor, or maybe even to the narrow wall between the two.
The little wall wasn’t about two feet wide, not large enough for a closet. He ran his hand over the wall paper and felt something odd, like a panel or a door. He looked up to the mezzanine. There was a straight line of boxed-in space, the whole way up.
His first thought was disused dumbwaiter, but there was no door at the top, unless it had been papered over as well.
They were on the wrong side of the house for a kitchen dumbwaiter. Perhaps this one led to the laundry. He crossed the foyer and checked the other wall. This wall didn’t seem to have anything hiding behind the paper, but it was the same size as the opposite wall and adjacent to the kitchen.
Mitzy was probably safe upstairs for a few more minutes. And anyway, if someone wanted to join the party, he’d hear them come in.
He entered the kitchen and found the door for the right hand dumbwaiter. He figured it probably led from the kitchen up to the ballroom floor just under the servants’ hall.
There was no mystery to Alonzo about the destroyed kitchen. A desperate man would do anything he could when everything he owned was on the line. Of course he had sold off the kitchen improvements.
Alonzo walked through the kitchen and into the butler’s pantry where things were a little more interesting.
The doors were off of the built-in cabinets and the shelves were stacked against the walls. There was shattered glass on the floor, likely from damage to the glass fronted doors.
There was a large square hole cut in the ceiling above him. He tipped his Maglite up to the ceiling but it didn’t help. He hoisted himself up onto the counter and leaned towards the hole. He could almost reach inside of it and could see fairly clearly. The empty space between the upstairs sub floor and the ceiling had been used for hiding something.
Mitzy fished a hairpin out of her handbag. The lock was a hundred years old; surely a hairpin could open it. She fiddled with it for quite sometime, until it finally clicked and she pushed the door open.
The room was packed with antique furniture, full from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
She stroked the nearest piece. The wood had texture, and history. She wondered if any of it was original to the Romanov Princess.
She flashed her little light all around the room. The light flashed on glass and a pair of bright blue eyes stared out at her. Her heart caught in her throat; it was a moment before she realized it was her own face in a mirror.
The light bounced around from gilded frames to brass drawer knobs, and more small mirrors.
She inched into the room and tried a drawer. With the puppy strapped to her chest there was barely enough room for her to stand between the wall and the furniture.
The drawer she tried slid opened. It was empty.
She would need daylight and a team of strong men to sort through all of this. She inched her way out of the room again and shut the door.
It was full dark in the house now. Her Indiglo watch said it was
.
All of her nerves were on edge. She tapped a fast staccato with her foot and tried to gather her thoughts. Were the missing Romanov jewels hidden in this house? Jewels that left the old country long before the Romanovs lost their lives? Or had they been given out as gifts by an otherwise impoverished old woman who relied on the kindness of relatives for her living?
Or had that rumor been invented by someone who wanted to keep the jewels a secret?
And what did she know about the house that people who had lived here for generations would not have known? She had to have some advantage or there was no point in being here.
Someone had handled all of the furniture that was locked away. If jewels were hidden in any of the pieces of furniture, it was likely it had been done in the day of the person who lived with the furniture.
Perhaps
, she thought,
this was where the things that had already been searched were being stored.
She had only seen one piece of furniture not in that room—the bar.
She pulled open the drawers and ran her long slender hands over their bottoms. She turned them over and felt their backs, looking for any irregularities. She shined her light into the cavities that held the drawers. She searched every inch of the shelves as well.
Then she ran her hands under the bottom of the piece of furniture.
A long, thin piece of metal was taped to the bottom. She peeled the crinkly tape off, her hands shaking and her breath coming fast.
The metal rod had a circle at one end and was bent a bit at the other. It reminded her of something you’d use to turn the water on in the yard. Like a key. But you wouldn’t tape a sprinkler system key to the bottom of a bar.
She needed to get into the basement.
Alonzo found three empty boxes inside the ceiling crawl space. They were fairly old and mouse gnawed. A stack of mouse-chewed papers had spilled across the interior of the plaster ceiling as well.
Alonzo scooped them out and shoved them into his jacket.
He reached as far as he could into the ceiling, and then thought it might be a good idea to get a ladder.
He heard Mitzy running down the stairs. He drummed his fingers on the ceiling. If he could just get the last of this out of the hole before she ran off, he’d call it good.
He hopped to the floor.
Glass shattered at his feet, slicing his shin. Warm blood dripped down his leg.
He had landed on one of the unbroken glass doors, crushing it and slicing his leg in the process. He slipped off his jacket, the papers fluttered to the floor.
He leaned against the cupboard and picked bits of glass out of his leg. He bit his tongue to keep from cursing. He’d find Mitzy in a minute.
Mitzy made her way through the parlor into a sunroom at the back of the house. A door led from there to the cellar. She was on the second step when she heard a crash on the kitchen side of the house.
She gripped the stair rail. And paused, mid step.
Then she ran down the rest of the stairs, her hand hovering over Gilbert’s head.
Alonzo had caught up with her.
At the bottom of the stairs she illuminated the room in small circles.
Dirt floor.
Shelves.
Some stainless steel something or other—oh yes, that was the missing stove.
Pipes.
Bricks.
Legs, in work boots.
“Hello, Mitzy Neuhaus. I see you’ve made your way to the basement at last.”
Alonzo had picked the glass shards from his leg and wrapped the wounds with the lining from his jacket. Forgetting the papers, he limped into the foyer.
Mitzy was long gone.
He hadn’t heard the front door open, so he headed to the parlor. But it was empty too, so he went through to the sunroom.
As he looked around he heard the distinctive whine of a small puppy.
A puppy?
Why could he hear a puppy?
He flashed his heavy light back into the parlor.
He wasn’t sure where the puppy noises were coming from but it gnawed at him. The house had been closed for a long time, in puppy years. If there was a puppy in here it had to be starving to death.
“It could use a coat of paint. And some new lighting.” Mitzy was rigid with fear, dripping with sweat, and seconds from panic.
“What?”
In the moment of pause she had her long, thin metal rod pointed out and up.
She moved her small light around trying to see the whole man. Mid height.
Sandy
brown, to brownish hair. Round, sort of square face. A low, heavy brow.
“You’re not Alonzo.” She took a step backwards, towards the stairs. Gilbert was whining. A warm spot developed on her silk blouse.
“Indeed. And you are not where a good girl should be.” He lunged forward.
Mitzy jabbed the rod into his chest.
“Ouch!” Even his holler of pain had an accent.
“Are there jewels down here, or just appliances?” Mitzy took another small step backwards, her heels hitting the bottom step.
“Now why would there be jewels in an old dump like this?” he asked with a sneer.
“It depends, I suppose, on if Aunty Irene really gave them all away as gifts or not, doesn’t it?” She leveled her key at him. He put his hand to his chest, instinctively.
“Our Great Aunt Irene left it all to her nephew.”
“Your Great Aunt Irene?” Mitzy leaned forward to get a better look at him.
He lunged forward, his hands on the puppy sling and dragged her to him and to the ground.
“He’s just a puppy!” Mitzy shouted. She kicked but couldn’t find him with her feet in the dark.
The nondescript man kicked Mitzy in the stomach.
Tears sprung to her eyes, and bile filled her throat.
She wrapped her arms around the puppy and whispered the prayer of the desperate. “Oh, Lord, please help!”
Alonzo was at the door to the basement in less than a second. He had heard Mitzy cry out.
She had the puppy and someone had her.
He couldn’t believe he had missed the door to the basement. Couldn’t believe he hadn’t gone straight to the cellar to see where the dumbwaiter’s shaft ended.
Couldn’t believe that someone could actually hurt his Mitzy.
No, not his Mitzy. Just Mitzy.