Randy White - Black Widow

We were standing in a closet so cramped that my lips were next to her ear. Candlelight bounced shadows around the adjoining room, showing a stone floor and Beryl’s bed, where the pillow, the mattress, were still imprinted with her weight.

I whispered, “Dead?”

“I know… unbelievable. When she was in intensive care, they think one of the procedures maybe caused a blood clot. She was fine, sitting up, talking… then she said something about a pain in her head, and closed her eyes. That was it. She never woke up. I’m still in shock. Damn it, I won’t let them get away with it.”

Beryl didn’t sound in shock. She sounded cold, in control-a woman who was experienced at concealing rage. But she didn’t bother hiding her impatience with me.

“The party boys are responsible-and whoever took the video. From your phone message, I expected to find them working here. So where are they?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure. I’ve seen them, but it wasn’t here.”

“Then where? Why come to this freaky place if it wasn’t to deal with those three? I think you’re wasting my time.”

This was the same woman who’d come into the lab wearing a towel, eyes smoky as the candlelight that now illuminated her nose and eyes in a flickering triangle. Cold voice, cold eyes. Finally, I was meeting the Ice Queen.

I said, “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Damn right it’s more complicated-as of Sunday morning. They killed Corey the same as using a gun. And she didn’t do anything-not compared to the rest of us. But they blackmailed her anyway, and she’s dead. If we don’t pay up by Friday, they’ll try to destroy my life, too. And Liz’s life. Shay’s already such an emotional wreck, I’m worried she might be next.”

The first thing Beryl had told me was that Shay’s wedding had been postponed for two weeks, then gave me the bad news about Corey, when I asked, “Why?”

The funeral was on Friday-the day of the rehearsal dinner. It had to be the all-time worst week in Shay’s life.

I put my hands on Beryl’s shoulders and squeezed, trying to reassure her. Trapezius muscles, beneath pale skin, felt like rope left too long in the sun. When my fingers began exploring for knots, she shrugged my hands away, and said, “Those bastards. We have to find them. I’m going to find them.”

I said, “Take it easy. I’m working on it.”

“You’ve had three days to work on it. We’re running out of time.”

In more ways than Beryl realized. It was nearly midnight.

An hour earlier, for the benefit of the hidden camera, I’d made a show of getting ready for bed. The only thing I’d brought to read was the article Sir James had given me on the Knights Templar. I took it from my bag, adjusted the reading lamp, and lay on the bed.

The Knights Templar was a fraternity of warrior monks founded in 1118 by Andre de Montbard and Hugh de Payen. These two knights, along with seven companions, presented themselves to Godfroi de Bouillon, ruler of Jerusalem…

I paused to clean my glasses. Andre de Montbard? If James Montbard was a descendant, how many generations separated the two men? Twenty-five? Thirty? In the U.S., the time span was incomprehensible. In Great Britain, ancestral records and properties might date back even farther.

It was their intention, they told the monarch, to organize an order of able monks to protect pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem-the Knights Templar. Because the Templars took sacred oaths of honesty, chastity, and loyalty, they soon became the trusted guardians of travelers to the Holy Land, and also the world’s first international bankers. They accumulated enormous wealth during the Crusades.

By the 1300s, the Templars controlled more wealth and land than most kingdoms, and they had the largest sailing fleet in the world. There is evidence the Templars were already doing trade in the Americas.

When the Templars began to exceed the Vatican’s power, Pope Clement V ordered all members arrested. Some were burned at the stake, but most escaped, preserving their order, and their secrets, by founding a new secret fraternity, the Freemasons.

The Templar sailing fleet disappeared, as did their vast treasure holdings, which included artifacts from the Holy Land taken as spoils of war.

Some historians believe they loaded their vessels and sailed west toward the land they had discovered two hundred years before Columbus

…

No wonder Sir James Montbard, the Freemason and amateur archaeologist, wanted to have a look around the monastery. Lots of linkage. But it had the fantasy flavor of a conspiracy theory. If I ever meet more than three people who can keep a secret, I’ll give conspiracy theories serious consideration.

Interesting, but I had things to do.

Before turning out the reading lamp, I took a sleepy look around my room, then tossed a shirt over the clock radio, covering the miniature lens. I spent the next twenty minutes in the dark, expecting spa employees to arrive with an excuse to check the room.

Nothing.

I got dressed, poked my head outside, then took a few things from the pack I’d hidden overhead in the gallery bay. Among them was the little Uniden handheld VHF, which I clipped to my belt. Montbard said he would attempt radio contact at 6 p.m., 9 p.m., and midnight, but I hadn’t been able to risk retrieving the VHF until now.

By 11:30, I was working my way through shadows to the opposite cloister, jumpy as hell, spooking at every sound. It was supposed to be safe inside the monastery walls. Even so, I expected dogs to come tumbling out of the darkness.

The three fingers Beryl had flashed earlier-the meaning had popped into my head as I suffered through a sauna treatment, sweating imaginary toxins I hadn’t allowed Norma to purge.

“The guest rooms are numbered,” Norma had told me. “It’s one-two-three simple.”

Three.

I was in Room 36, Senegal was in 7. Beryl was telling me her room number-3. Obvious, in hindsight, as most puzzles are.

Now Beryl and I were huddled in her closet, out of the range of the lens hidden in the smoke alarm-a useless precaution if someone had been monitoring the place when Beryl opened the door wide, saying, “Doc?” and I stepped into room.

Any second, I expected to hear pounding at the door.

Yes, nearly midnight, and we were running out of time.

I touched my cheek to Beryl’s cheek, and whispered, “You’re obsessing on the three guys, but it’s more complicated than you think. Trust me, I’ll do something if there’s an opportunity. I’m more concerned about you. We have to get you off this mountain. Soon. They’re already suspicious.”

"Who?”

“Everyone, including the woman who owns the place. She’s the blackmailer. You don’t think she knows who she’s blackmailing, for Christ’s sake? The staff’s scared shitless of her. Think about that.”

Beryl was too angry to think about it. “The woman with the bizarre robes, the hood, all the makeup? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No. I’m convinced.”

“Isabelle? I’ve met her four or five times-at least twice at the trade show in Paris. There’s nothing scary about Isabelle-unless you’re afraid of dyke nuns. Maybe that’s your problem.”

“Afraid of nuns?”

“You tell me. Afraid of the party boys, I can understand. If you don’t have the balls for confrontation, okay. But afraid of a middle-aged woman who dresses like Madonna? I think Shay chose the wrong man for the job. The three who came to the beach cottage that night, they’re the blackmailers. If you’re afraid of them, just admit it.”

I took a breath and released it slowly, letting Beryl know that my patience had its limits. Some people strike out at anyone and everything when they’re angry. Beryl was in attack mode.