Unraveled Page 37
“Here goes nothing,” he said, opening the door and stepping through to the other side.
The suite was massive, even larger than Deirdre’s penthouse at the Peach Blossom apartment building back in Ashland. We moved through the foyer and stepped down into a sunken living room that featured white leather couches and chairs, glass-and-chrome tables, and black-and-white Persian rugs. No cowboy or Western decor was in sight, although a ten-foot-tall white Christmas tree stood in the corner, with a couple of open plastic boxes filled with decorations scattered around it. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the back wall of the suite, showing off a lovely view of the surrounding trees and ridges and Bullet Pointe Lake in the distance.
A large kitchen lay off to one side of the main space, although it was immaculate, and all the white marble countertops and chrome appliances gleamed, as though no one had ever cooked anything in there. Deirdre certainly hadn’t. When I’d been spying on her in Ashland, she’d ordered room service for every single meal. I hadn’t seen her make so much as a sandwich in all the time I’d watched her.
“I never thought that I would admire Deirdre’s decorating style, but I gotta say that I’m glad there are no boots or lassos in here,” Bria said.
“It looks exactly like her other apartment.” Finn paced from one side of the living room to the other and back again, looking over everything. “There’s nothing here. Nothing. I don’t even see a magazine.”
Bria looked at me, and I shrugged back at her. My sister stepped in front of Finn, cutting off his rapid pacing. “You don’t know that yet. Let’s take a look around. Maybe you know something or will see something that Tucker and the others missed. Okay?”
“Okay,” Finn muttered.
So the four of us went through the suite, opening and closing the coffee-table drawers, looking under the couch cushions, and even rifling through the empty pots and pans in the kitchen cabinets. I also kept an eye out for any hidden cameras, listening devices, and rune traps, but there was nothing in the front two rooms, so we walked down a hallway to the master bedroom and bathroom in the back, where things finally got a little more interesting.
Apparently, Deirdre had spent far more time here than she’d led Finn to believe because the bedroom was brimming with her stuff. Pantsuits, cocktail dresses, and ball gowns filled one side of the enormous walk-in closet, all neatly hung on racks and organized according to color, from lightest to darkest. The other side of the closet featured shelves full of hats, purses, and stilettos—more stiletto heels, pumps, and boots than any one woman could possibly wear in a lifetime.
But I was most interested in the closet’s back wall, since all the shelves there were lined with white velvet, making that area its own freestanding jewelry box. Deirdre had had a lot of jewelry. Necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, watches, hairpins, tiaras—dozens and dozens of each of those perched prettily on the white velvet shelves, once again organized according to color, from light to dark stones. Black velvet bags and boxes were also lined up on the shelves, so she could transport her baubles from place to place. It looked as though Deirdre had had a different piece of bling for every single day of the year—and then some.
I moved from one side of the wall to the other and back again, carefully examining each shelf and all the jewelry on it in turn, wondering if perhaps Deirdre had stashed Sweet Sally Sue’s jewels in here with her own. I also reached out with my Stone magic, listening to all the gems. Whether it was a diamond, sapphire, or ruby, the more expensive a gemstone was, the louder it would sing about its sparkling beauty.
But no loose stones were lying around, and the gems only murmured softly—if they even murmured at all. Some of the pieces were completely quiet, telling me that they were made of glass instead of precious stones. I snorted. Of course Deirdre’s jewelry would be as fake as she was. She had made everyone in Ashland think that she was rolling in dough, even though she was completely broke. This was yet another of her many smoke screens.
Still, even with the few genuine pieces of jewelry that I spotted, the gemstones didn’t sing all that loudly. Oh, they were nice enough bling, but not in the same league as Sweet Sally Sue’s jewels. Not even close. All these shelves full of rings and necklaces, and you’d be lucky to get ten grand if you hocked everything.
So I moved on to the bathroom, which contained a variety of expensive soaps, shampoos, lotions, face creams, makeup, and perfumes, along with a whole rack of champagne bottles. Deirdre must have used those to mix her extravagant bubble baths, just like she had back in Ashland.
Looking through all her stuff in the closet and bathroom was interesting, but it was still just stuff. There were no computers, phones, tablets, or flash drives lying around that would tell us anything more about Deirdre Shaw than what we already knew.
“Nothing,” Finn growled, throwing down another empty beaded clutch. “There’s nothing here. Not one bloody thing about her, the Circle, or anything else.”
He looked around at the mess we’d made pulling Deirdre’s clothes, shoes, hats, and purses out of her closet and dumping them in the middle of the bedroom floor. Disgust filled his face, and he whipped around on his heel and stalked back to the living room.
“I’ll go after him,” Bria said.
She walked out of the bedroom, leaving Owen and me standing in a sea of sparkling sequined dresses and stiletto shoes. Owen glanced over the piles of clothes to check if we’d left anything untouched, while I went back into the closet, knocking softly on the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling, in case we’d missed a hidden panel.
But there was nothing, just like Finn had said. No loose panels, no hidden cubbyholes, no secret wall safes, nothing but clothes and shoes and fake jewelry. Frustration surged through me, along with sadness and disappointment for Finn. He’d come here hoping for answers, and it didn’t look like he was going to get a single one.
And neither was I.
“Roxy and Brody really cleaned this place out, didn’t they?” Owen called out.