Carla Neggers - Keeper's Reach

Well, why not?

She noted the jam was from the nearby farm owned by Oliver York, a wealthy Brit and, very possibly, an incomparable art thief.

Not coincidentally, he knew the Irish painter Aoife O’Byrne, whose uncle had been a victim of an art thief, and he also owned an apartment on St. James’s Park in London.

What did Ted Kavanagh want with York?

The York farm was at least a brisk twenty-minute walk from the inn. Naomi figured she could burn off her breakfast and, at the same time, consider what Kavanagh’s interest was in both her and Oliver York. She had her suspicions, but she put them aside as she opened the jar of the York farm’s gooseberry jam.

5

The few rays of sunshine at breakfast seemed to be it for the day. Naomi didn’t mind. She set off through the village, past a row of attached houses, a post office, a small school and a few cottages, then onto a lane that wound through well-marked fields, patches of woods and farmhouses. The York farm should be out the lane to her left, with Stow-on-the-Wold to the northwest, Chipping Norton to the northeast and Burford to the south. Cotswolds villages had sprung up during the Middle Ages, when the area had prospered around the sheep industry. With its proximity to London, the graceful landscape of rolling hills, pastures and quaint honey-colored stone houses drew tourists and wealthy second-home owners alike. The ubiquitous yellow limestone—Oolitic Jurassic limestone, technically—occurred naturally in the region and had been quarried there for centuries.

Naomi smiled, remembering when she thought something built in 1900 was old. Other than wishing she had brought a hat and gloves, she enjoyed the walk and tried to take in her surroundings without letting her thoughts intrude.

She crossed a bridge over a shallow stream, feeling the cold of the water below her, its trickle the only sound in the still, gray late morning. On the other side of the bridge, a sloping, tree-dotted lawn rose to an elegant house. The scene reminded her of a Jane Austen novel. According to her research, however, this was the York farm. Its owner would make an interesting Regency hero. Naomi couldn’t picture the heroine for him. A prideful Elizabeth Bennett, or a trustworthy Anne Elliot?

A low stone wall hugged a curve. She followed it about thirty yards to an open gate on a dirt track. She noticed tire marks, footprints, horseshoe prints and a small sign indicating the track was public, although not part of the Oxfordshire Way. If her map and the guest information in her room were correct, the track would take her along the southern edge of the York property to an historic dovecote.

It would also take her through mud, she noted with a grimace. She would have to clean her boots before she ventured to Heathrow, given the rules about trekking through farms before boarding flights. Or she could just toss them in the trash. They weren’t expensive. She could wear her flats on the flight.

She didn’t want to think about the long flight later today.

She went through the gate. Within a few yards, she saw the dovecote up ahead, on the left side of the track. Pleased with herself, she picked up her pace. What a change the Cotswolds were from London, she thought. Despite her misgivings about her reasons for being here, it was a welcome break from the intensity of the past week.

Flat stones set into a dirt path created a rudimentary walkway to the dovecote entrance. Naomi stepped onto the path for a closer look. She supposed leaving the track meant she was trespassing, but no one seemed to be around. A quick peek and she would be off. From her cursory research, she had learned that dovecotes were once widespread throughout the area, typically on wealthy manor or ecclesiastic properties. As their name suggested, they housed pigeons, in past times considered a delicacy. Only a fraction of the thousands of dovecotes built between the Middle Ages and the eighteenth century, when they fell out of favor, remained.

Naomi could see holes just below the steeply gabled roof that the pigeons must have used.

“Quaint.”

Clay and ceramic pots were stacked by the entrance, as if awaiting spring and plantings. An ancient—by her standards—wheelbarrow was leaned up against the stone front of the building. She stepped into the soft ground in front of a window and peered inside. Two clay pots that looked as if they were planted with some kind of large bulb sat atop a thick wood worktable. Tools were lined up on hooks and nails on the wall above it. Shears, clippers, diggers, scratchers. She had never been much of a gardener but could guess the dovecote was now a potting shed.

At least the front half. At the far end of the workbench was an interior door.

Padlocked.

Wouldn’t one padlock the main entrance and not bother with an interior door?

Naomi continued from the window along the soft ground—a mix of wet grass, sodden moss and dead leaves—to the back of the dovecote. She could hear water babbling in the stream down a tree-covered hillside.

There were no windows on the back of the dovecote. Too bad, she thought, ready to turn back and resume her walk on the track. She didn’t know if Oliver York was at the farm. What if he caught her snooping? Nothing in what she’d learned about him so far indicated he was violent. Weird, maybe. Troubled. Haunted. Smart. All that, yes—and ultra-fit. He had to be to pull off at least a half-dozen brazen art heists over the past decade.

She heard a sound behind her and nearly jumped out of her damn skin. Her knees buckled under her, and she clutched her jacket at her chest, even as she scanned the hillside, saw nothing amiss and told herself to calm down.

Woods, a stream, a farm. There would be animals about. Farmers had dogs, didn’t they?

She liked dogs.

She couldn’t let her imagination get carried away.

Perspiration sprang up at the back of her neck, never mind the chilly air. She lowered her hand from her chest. Small white flowers spread across the ground below a gnarled oak tree right out of Tolkien. She smiled, her heart rate slowing.

She wondered if she would ever not startle easily.

She did a few deep, calming breaths. She promised herself she would come back here one day in the spring. Maybe not to the York farm. The Cotswolds, though.

A groan came from the woods down toward the stream.

Distinct. Human. Probably male.

This time Naomi wasn’t startled. Someone was in clear distress.

“Bloody hell.”

The voice was definitely male, and almost certainly British.

She stood by a thin tree and looked down the hill. About ten yards below her, a gray-haired man was on all fours, struggling to get to his feet. He reached for a tree trunk, missed, fell and cursed again.

“Are you all right?” Naomi called to him. “Do you need help?”

He looked up at her, squinted as if he couldn’t focus or wasn’t sure if he had conjured her up. He started to speak, then slumped facedown into the ground.

Naomi ran down the hill, deceptively steep. She slipped in the wet leaves and grass but managed not to fall. When she reached the man, she squatted next to him but didn’t touch him. He was already pushing himself back up onto his hands and knees, grunting, clearly disoriented and in pain.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“I just need to get on my feet.”

It wasn’t a clear yes or no, but he didn’t protest when she hooked an arm around his middle. He was at least in his sixties, with only a bit of extra weight on him. He was a few inches taller than she was—nothing she wasn’t used to—and cold and muddy, shivering and shuddering as she anchored herself and helped him to his feet. He slung one arm over her shoulder, then with his other hand grabbed onto the tree trunk he had missed on the first try. He was able to hold on this time.