“Used to be,” Lock said from the doorway, startling her. “Before rheumatoid arthritis took that away from me. Can’t even play a scale now. It pains me to even try. I keep that piano around to torture myself with what could have been.” Lock was smiling, but there was a pained look in his eyes. “Your father and I used to joke about how our bodies betrayed us.”
Brooke hadn’t known her father had shared the deeply personal struggle with his own disease, a syndrome called FXTAS, with anyone except immediate family. While she struggled to think of something to say, he handed her a hard hat and another to Victor.
“The access point we’ll be using is in the basement of the women’s dorm. It’s empty right now in preparation for the remodel, so we shouldn’t have any interruptions.”
They followed the dean out into the chilly air, and Victor sent a text as they walked. Brooke was struck again at how lovely the campus was, a series of stately buildings sprinkled over the hills, shrouded in fog that rolled in off the San Francisco Bay. From the highest building, she imagined, a person would have a panoramic view of the entire bay and across the water to the cities of Hayward, Oakland and the infamous hippie town of Berkeley.
“The students have been relocated to our satellite campuses.” Lock gestured to the tall building in the distance. “Really there are only a few professors left here, tidying up, and a security detail to keep people out.”
“When do the renovations begin?” Victor asked.
“Officially in two weeks.” The dean shot a look at the red brick building, rising in a series of peaked gables partially hidden by a cluster of trees. “That’s the girls’—” he shook his head “—sorry, women’s dormitory. Empty now, and next to it is the library.”
She followed him past the graceful columns. The Gage Library. Victor’s family really did live in a different stratosphere. Her skin prickled with goose bumps. It was so empty, so silent. The grassy area that should have been sprinkled with students nursing coffees and cramming for tests was deserted and eerily still. She felt a deep longing for the college life that she’d given up after only one semester. After losing her dance career to a knee injury, she’d tried for years to rehab before finally admitting defeat. It seemed like a lifetime before she’d returned to college, but the decision to leave had been easy. There had been no choice with her father being investigated by the police, the press shadowing his every move.
And Tuney.
The man had broken into her hotel room.
He would not stop until her father was disgraced.
She shot a look at Victor, who would also not let go until the truth was revealed.
He must have felt her gaze on him because he turned to look at her, eyes dark in the gloomy morning. He looked completely calm, handsome, self-assured as if he might be a professor strolling the campus on his way to teach a physics class. Hard to fathom that the day before he’d been wire taut, impassioned as he worked to bring the dark-haired lady back to life.
The memory of her lying there, dying, stabbed at Brooke.
She shivered, and Victor took off his jacket and draped it over her, fingers caressing her shoulders as he did. The gesture startled her.
She started to decline but he did not give her the chance, merely strolled forward to ask the dean a question. The jacket smelled of leather and a subtle musky aftershave. In spite of herself she snuggled deeper into the supple material.
Removing a heavy key ring from his pocket, Lock unlocked the front door and they entered an empty room with windows that looked out on the grassy hill and a small patio. Again she fought a feeling of unease. So empty, as if the building was a mother who had lost all of her children to some terrible accident.
Stop it, Brooke. No time for your ridiculous imagination.
“Sad, really,” Lock said, his voice loud in the hushed space. “This building has stood largely untouched since the thirties.”
The clusters of worn, upholstered chairs were pulled into odd groups and the wooden floor was nicked and scarred by the countless students who had paraded through over the years. A fireplace, blackened inside, crowded one wall.
A few minutes later they were entering a narrow stairwell and descended three flights until they emerged in a cavernous space, dark and smelling of mold. The dean flipped on a light that flickered to life, revealing an empty basement with a set of metal doors at the far end.
He ignored a tiny panel near the door.
“Alarm?” Victor said.
“It’s not activated now so the workmen can have free access, but usually the administration takes great pains to ensure no one has access to the tunnel system. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble college kids can get into,” Lock said.
Victor chuckled. “Yes, I would.”
Lock gave him an amused glance. “Your father was amazed that you made it through medical school. He couldn’t figure out how someone with a genius IQ could get into so many scrapes.”
“My father was kicked out of three colleges before he struck out on his own, so he has little room to talk,” Victor said.
Brooke heard the warmth in Victor’s voice when he spoke of his father, a sharp contrast to his coolness and efficiency. They had that in common anyway. The doors groaned open, exhaling a waft of cold air.
“Pipes here are disconnected?” Victor said.
“Yes. Otherwise we’d be walking into a sauna right now.” Lock put on his hard hat, and Brooke and Victor followed suit.
Brooke tried to give Victor back his jacket, but he refused.
“I’ve got more body mass to keep me warm,” he murmured in her ear, sending tickles up and down her spine as they moved forward.
If it weren’t for the meager light provided by a rickety setup of overhead lightbulbs, the darkness would have swallowed them up completely. The tunnel was damp, the walls clammy with moisture. Along either side of the tunnel were long webs of jointed pipes, heavy with rust. The space was so narrow the three of them had to crowd together, and Victor’s height left a scant few inches between his head and the light fixtures. Grit scraped under their feet as they shuffled along.
“You see what I mean?” Lock said. “This is the last place anyone would come to hide a painting, especially a valuable one. The conditions in here would destroy a piece immediately.”
Brooke felt her heart sink. He was right. Colda would never have risked concealing a Tarkenton in the tunnel. Humidity? Rodents? Water? Any one of them would ruin an oil painting. No one who knew the Tarkenton’s value would risk those dangers. It was inconceivable, like throwing the crown jewels into the ocean.
Victor looked around, keeping his head bent to avoid cracking into the pipes around him. He glanced at Brooke as if trying to read her thoughts. She wondered what was going through his mind. If her search ended, he might lose the chance to find out if there was any connection between the missing painting and his wife’s death. There wasn’t, she was sure, but for some reason having him there was comforting in spite of his distrust of her father.
“Does this tunnel lead to any others?” Victor asked.
The dean pushed on. “You’ll have your answer in a few minutes.”
They pressed on, and the chill seemed to leach out from the pipes into Brooke’s spine. Her hands were cold, skin goose-pimpled. Unless the conditions changed significantly, there was no possibility that the painting was housed in the damp tunnels.
Her hard hat clanked against an elbow of pipe that jutted into the space. The farther they pressed into the chilled darkness, the more on edge she became. “How much farther?” she asked.
Lock stopped. “This is what I wanted you to see.” He pointed a gnarled finger ahead and eased back