Catherine Coulter - Split Second

She studied the steamer trunk, a huge light brown leather affair with black leather bands, banged up but still as solid-looking as the day it was rolled aboard its first luxury liner. It was covered with travel stickers from how many years ago? Maybe ninety? The largest was an Art Deco drawing of three huge passenger ships steaming toward you. There was a globe showing the western hemisphere, the proportions way off, for effect, and decals showing a dozen faraway destinations, no doubt status symbols in their day. She lightly laid her hand on a sticker that had PARIS printed on it and let herself be drawn back for a moment. She could easily picture rich Americans who traveled from New York to London or Paris or Cairo on opulent ships before the war, uniformed porters hefting their trunks onto big wheeled trolleys. They evoked an image of full moons shimmering on the bare shoulders of women in satin gowns, of men with pencil mustaches, of attar-of-rose perfume and magnificent jewels. She slowly worked the largest steamer trunk away from the wall. It was very heavy. She managed to tilt a corner of it away from the wall, and used her legs to push it farther askew, enough to open the lid. It smelled musty, old. She unclicked the four sets of latches, but the top wouldn’t open. She dragged the trunk out onto the open floor. Had someone not bothered to unpack, or forgotten to, just had the trunk dragged up here?

She saw a padlock tucked discreetly beneath a flap of leather at the very center of the trunk. Locked. She shook the padlock, but it was solid, didn’t come free. Lucy looked at it more closely. The padlock certainly didn’t date from the twenties; it was sturdy and pretty modern-looking. No way would she get that sucker open without the key.

She was suddenly aware that the fluorescent overheads were all the light there was, the windows completely dark. Full-on night had fallen, and she hadn’t noticed. She’d been up here much longer than she’d intended, her allotted twenty minutes long past. As she stared at the dark windows, she was suddenly frightened. But of what exactly? She didn’t understand it, but she was remembering something, something muffled and confused in her mind.

She saw herself, small, very small, crouched beside an ancient bureau, and there were voices. She couldn’t see who was speaking, but somehow she knew who the voices were— she knew— and her heart was pounding loud and her mouth felt dry and she was afraid, just as she was now.

Lucy shook her head. What was happening? Her heart was pounding, and that was stupid, she told herself over and over, but it didn’t stop her heart from galloping and her ears from listening to every creak and groan. She felt as if she were in a strange hollow of time where the past had superimposed itself over the present and brought her fear with it. She shook her head again. It’s simply dark, stupid. You are being ridiculous, remembering something out of context from when you were a really little girl. Get hold of yourself.

She kicked the steamer trunk, which did precisely nothing at all, and that pissed her off because she was afraid simply because it was dark outside, and yes, there were these odd memories, no, not memories, something inexplicable that her brain had suddenly dredged up to scare the crap out of her. She pulled her SIG from the clip on her jeans, and just as she’d opened the lock on the attic door, she struck the padlock, once, twice. The third time, she really whacked it. The padlock flew apart.

She heard something, a small scratching sound, and turned into Lot’s wife. Silence. She’d simply heard the house settle, maybe a mouse in the wall.

Stop being a wuss; open the blasted trunk. There aren’t any bogeymen to leap out and cut off your head. Besides, you’d shoot them. You’re frightened of a memory, but that was then, and everything here is now.

She looked away from the dark windows and the shadowed corners of the attic, drew a deep breath, and pushed the steamer trunk’s lid back. It hit with a sharp clunk against the trunk behind it.

An old musty smell welled out to hit her in the face. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it was thick enough with a smell she recognized, something dead, and she sneezed as she lurched back. She sneezed again, wiped her nose, and leaned forward over the trunk, her hand over her nose. A thick white towel was spread over the top, and on top of the towel were at least a dozen room deodorizers, solid, giving off nothing now. She felt her heart began to hammer hard again.

Stop it; get it together. You’re an investigator—investigate. But why the deodorizers?

She shoved the hard deodorant cakes away and lifted the edge of the white towel. Something caught on it, then broke free with a loud crack. She stared down at a hand, but there wasn’t any flesh on it. It was a skeleton’s hand, still attached, except the one finger that had snapped off when the towel caught it. She scuttled madly back on her hands, and barely managed to swallow the scream poised to burst from her throat. She sucked in her breath, swallowed a couple of times, trying to control her sudden terror.

You’re FBI; you’ve seen bodies. Stop it.

She reached down, ripped the towel away, and looked at the skeleton that filled up the trunk. She couldn’t recognize him, not anymore—

Lucy got to her feet, picked up her SIG, which was ridiculous, and forced herself to stand over the open trunk. She stared down at the skeleton of a man dressed in casual clothes nearly rotted through. She looked at the skull, at the empty eyeball sockets, at the rictus of shock on the skeleton’s wide-open mouth.

The skeleton didn’t date back to the twenties.

The skeleton dated back exactly twenty-two years.

Lucy backed away from the trunk as she pulled her cell from her shirt pocket and punched in Savich’s number.

One ring, two, then, “Savich.”

“Dillon, it’s me, Lucy. I found a skeleton in a steamer trunk.”

There was a beat of silence, then, “Where?”

“In my grandmother’s attic.”

“You okay?”

“No, but I’m able to function.”

“Good. I want you to go downstairs immediately. I’m going to call a homicide detective I know in the Chevy Chase Police Department. I’ll meet him and his people there at your grandmother’s house. Go slug down a shot of brandy, Lucy. Everything will be all right.”

“Well, actually, it won’t be all right, Dillon. You see, I know it’s my grandfather. Since I know his wife murdered him, we don’t really need the police, do we?”

She could feel his surprise, though he tried not to let it sound in his voice. He calmly repeated, “Go downstairs. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

Without thought, Lucy called Coop, said only, “Coop, please come right now to my grandmother’s house. I need you.”

“I’m close. I’ll be there in a minute, Lucy.”

Lucy didn’t look back at the trunk; she simply hightailed it down the attic steps, flipped off the lights, closed the door, and stood there a moment in the carpeted corridor, still holding the knob, waiting for her heart to begin to slow. Of course it was her grandfather. Of course he hadn’t gone walkabout as everyone had claimed. Nope, he’d been murdered by his own wife, just as her father had shouted before he’d died, his body laid to rest in a steamer trunk and covered with a white towel and cake deodorizers to mask the smell. Of course they’d locked the attic door. Of course they’d made the attic off limits to her. Of course.

A white towel—that was obscene. Her grandmother and her father hadn’t buried him, they’d carried him up here to the attic. Is that why she’d been so afraid? Had some part of her known her grandfather was in one of those steamer trunks?