A bad penny, p.4
A Bad Penny, page 4
“Tease,” she said through the keyhole.
The sound of his laughter rang out as she went to her bedroom, worked up, agitated, and wanting Fred Quartermaine more than ever.
Chapter 4 - Unsatisfactory
Dr. Penelope Dobson, by all accounts, was a certified badass. She had easily become one of the fastest-rising stars in the antiquities and archival world, being inducted into the Society of the Golden Orb as a Detective, bypassing the steps of a novice and trainee. Men who were in the treasure-hunting game for decades called on Dr. Dobbs for her discerning eye when it came to antiquities. She even patented a method of carbon dating materials without the long wait and damage to the item.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Penelope held an undergrad degree in archival and preservation as well as a Master’s in Library Science and a Doctorate in Information Science with a focus in digital librarianship. She was the go-to person for answers and validation on collections.
However, she went bad, the kind of bad where museums no longer wanted her inside their buildings. The men who sought her expertise became more worried about her stealing their findings and replacing them with forgeries. People like Philoneus Mason kept her on retainer like a well-trained blood hound to seek, collect, and return public pieces, which they wanted to make private.
It concerned Fred that she was here. She had worked with Philoneus for many years either as a cat burglar or simply as a thief. Either way, she was bad news and had earned the nickname, A Bad Penny. As much as he was concerned about her being here, he was more concerned about himself. She was a woman accustomed to getting what she wanted. He was a man who played by the rules even if it was to his detriment. In his mind, Penelope Dobbs was detrimental to a long, healthy life with two kids and a dog with the shits every time it got scared. He saw such things in his future. In that future, there was no Penelope Dobbs in any shape form, or fashion.
He took out his notebook. Planning was his thing, and on the paper, he drew a line down the middle of the page. On the left side, he listed the ways she would want the next three days to play out. On the right side, he made a list of ways to react to all the stunts she would pull. Finally satisfied, he rose for the morning to start breakfast.
Today, he made lemon ricotta pancakes with powdered sugar topping and fresh berries. Lunch today would be soup and sandwiches, and the soup would also be served as dinner. The library would get done today if it killed him, and he wanted more than anything to be out of Philoneus’ house by the end of the month. No way in Hell was he planning to stay here with a stray cat in heat with him being nearly as feral as the lady.
Fred plated the pancakes for Lana as she arrived and took a seat. She mumbled her morning greeting and reached for coffee like a toddler wanting her morning bottle of nutrition. The pancakes, she leaned forward, inhaled, and smiled, then she nodded and ate. Midway through the tri-stack, she looked up at him.
“Where’s she at?” Lana wanted to know.
“Strategizing, I assume,” he said softly.
“Huh?”
“Today or tomorrow, she will find what she came here to get. Then, she has to figure out how to get out of this house with it and leave me with no bad feelings,” he said to Lana.
“Oh, she’s going to give you some of that monkey,” Lana said.
His eyebrows arched at the term, “Or at least try.”
“Your plan, should you choose to accept the monkey, will be what?”
“Counteract her desire to use her body as a solution,” he said. “She has three choices; one, come at me hard and heavy, or two, play the sweet ingenue who is caught in the middle of something she can’t get out of. The third is to make me come for her by ignoring me, forcing me to seek her out.”
“Is that what this is, her not coming to breakfast?”
“Yep,” she said. “This afternoon, she will more than likely head into town for lunch and be gone most of the day. Tonight, she’s going to make a move, which I shall countermand, and in the morning, she’ll be gone with whatever she came to get.”
Lana pushed her plate away. All of it soured her stomach. Grown women shouldn’t play such miserable games, especially not with a nice guy like her boss. Secretly, she always wondered what type of women he preferred, and Penny Dobbs wasn’t one. At least, not as far as she could tell.
“You must get this kind of stuff often,” she said, realizing his calmness in the discussion.
“You have no idea. First, women see the physicality of me and think I’m a dumb jock,” he explained. “After learning I am a learned man, but not rich, they don’t hang around for very long.”
“But aren’t you wealthy?”
“Extremely,” he said, “but they don’t know that. My home is modest, my vehicle is modest, and so is my taste in clothing. I have selected, quality pieces, but I’m not a guy who spends half a check on a pair of loafers.”
“May I ask why,” she said, “you know she’s here to take something, and you’re okay with it? She may be looking for sheets of papyrus from the Dead Sea Scrolls for all we know. I can’t understand why you’ll just let her walk away with whatever she’d here to get.”
“Easy,” he said smiling. “Philoneus wasn’t his real name.”
“What?”
“Philoneus Mason is a made-up name, and this dude was running a game on Sellers to get in his good graces. My thoughts, based on some of the items I’ve run across, are the two of them became more, to Philoneus’ surprise,” he said. “After Sellers’ death, Philoneus hid in this house, collecting, bargaining, and double-crossing people. If what she is after is indeed here, it will only be a small part. The other pieces of it will be somewhere else.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“My father, grandfather, and my grandfather’s father, were all treasure hunters,” he said. “Our dinner conversations would be filled with adventures with sexy women sent to seduce them into submission. Whoever sent Penny Dobbs knows, or knew, the Quartermaine men.”
“Okay, but to simply let her leave with the item, seems, I dunno, wrong. Why does one person get to enjoy it and no one else?” she asked.
“My dear, that is a million-dollar question,” he replied. “Much of the world’s art and collectibles are owned by a handful of people. The paintings and books said to be burned by Hitler were never really burned. People hid them and moved many of them to South America when the Nazis fled Germany. Art is constantly being rediscovered when people die.”
“True, but why are you letting her get away with taking whatever she’s looking for instead of blocking her path?”
“Because I have no idea who she is working for or what she is after, and I will not and cannot risk your life for something we don’t even know exists,” he said. “As much as I hate to say this, it is easier to just let her do her thing and be gone from our lives. What is right in the long run may not always be the best bet. I am calculating for the better outcome.”
He said nothing else as he washed the plates they’d eaten from and headed to the library to work. Fred worked through lunch, coming out for a cup of soup that he ate as he continued to work, wanting to finish off the library and move to the family room. A deep sigh bellowed from his lungs as he thought about the tiny walk path in the room filled with boxes and clutter. Tomorrow, a dumpster would arrive as well as a shipping container. Items of value could be secured in the container, and boxes of nonsense could be thrown into the trash heap.
“There has to be another way of making a living,” he said to himself.
EVERYTHING PENELOPE had been told about Frederick Hamilton Quartermaine was only half accurate. He wasn’t an unbending asshole with mommy issues and alpha male tendencies. Fred Quartermaine, it turned out, was a thoughtful, caring man who cooked breakfast every morning for his assistant, who was not, at all, a morning person.
Initially, she had believed the two to be in a relationship because she came on to him so strongly, hoping to ruffle the young woman’s feathers and throw Fred off his game. She found out that what she’d been told about him and his relationship with his assistant was a lie. He was not having sex with the young woman and was not even romantically involved past or present, which was a conundrum to her.
Penny had also been informed the man was going through a dry spell and that the horn dog inside of him would come out in full force once she showed a bit of interest in him sexually. That also was not true. The sources who had provided her with the information also stated his assistant Lana was an idiot, a lost cause with no value to anyone but Fred as his personal fuck toy.
“Just lies,” she said, frustrated to the point of wanting to simply leave. However, she owed a debt that had to be paid, and this assignment would clear her books so she could finally be free again. “Who am I kidding? These types of people never let you go. They never take their hooks out of you unless you or they die.”
She sat on the side of the bed, not having an appetite and not wanting to eat. Philoneus Mason was a felonious man who had lied all of his life to rob Peter so he could lie to Paul while stealing from Matthew. Each box she tried with the key failed to open. Fake walls were all over the house, and she even tried a few keys in the porthole and that didn’t work. There were statues with keyholes. Vases from various centuries had keyholes in them facing away from the openings where they rested collecting dust. All of it was making her nauseous, plus she was horny as hell.
Fred Quartermaine had to be at least six feet tall. He was loaded with muscles, large thighs, and a smooth chest. All she could think about was being under him as he pressed what she hoped was a very large tube of meat into her and she would explode upon entry.
“Good Lord, get a grip on yourself,” she said, remembering the feel of his powerful arms around her. “He’s so solid. Damn it!”
Having reached her limit, she grabbed her purse and keys and headed for the front door. She needed some time out of this damned house and away from Fred Quartermaine. A thought hit her.
“You’re so dumb,” she said to herself, heading to the second floor where Philoneus had his office off the master bedroom.
She let herself inside the space and went straight for his desk. Penny clicked on the desk lamp, careful not to disturb the layers of dust on the desktop. She slipped the key into the desk drawer and turned, and it opened.
“Penny, you wonderful creature,” she said, rifling through the papers and finding a small button inside the drawer. She pressed it and heard a click but saw nothing. Anxious hands opened the three other desk drawers and she peered inside each. The first one held a few velvet boxes, which she pushed aside. The second drawer held boxes in various sizes, overlaid in mother of pearl yet she saw nothing out of the way. Closing those two drawers, she glanced inside the third drawer, which had a false bottom opening. She reached inside to find an envelope.
A sly smile crossed her face as she opened the package to find exactly what she had come to collect. She placed it inside her waistband under her blouse. Now she could head out of the house for a little while.
Penny hit the bottom stair, thinking she could simply collect her suitcase and let this be it. She could leave, never come back, and be done with Fred Quartermaine, but she listened to him having breakfast with Lana. Her forehead crinkled while she eavesdropped, listening to him pick her plans apart as if he were inside of her head, knowing everything she would do next, and it pissed her the hell off.
She was coming back once she got a bit of fresh air. Listening to the smugness of his voice as he laid out what she was going to do angered her, but he was right. He was right about all of it and smart not to get in the way. However, curiosity was making her cat hot, and Fred Quartermaine was her tin roof.
“Let’s just see what you do with my next move,” she said, thinking she’d gotten the better of him. “We will see.”
THE DAY ENDED WITH no histrionics or fanfare. As he’d expected, Penny Dobbs was MIA for most of the day. He fully expected when he came from the bathroom after taking his shower that she would be butt naked, or at least scantily clad, waiting for him in his bed. In some ways, he hoped it was true. His body reacted to the thought, also hoping it was true.
He stepped from the bathroom, wearing a tee and a loose pair of PJ bottoms, and went to his room. The bedroom door was closed, and he’d left it open. He braced himself as he opened it to find Penny on his bed. She wasn’t naked or wearing a peek-a-boo negligee but was in a pair of regular sleep clothing.
“You look disappointed,” she told him.
“I was expecting you to be either completely nude or at least wearing a hot red number,” he said.
“Should I go change?”
“No need; too tired,” he said. “There were over 4,000 books in that library. I bet that man didn’t read a single one.”
He said it coming around the bed and turning down the covers. He scratched his head and slid in between the sheets. The bedroom door remained wide open as she looked at the door and then at him.
“This is not where I thought this was going to go,” she told him.
“Yeah, men like Philoneus are a dime a dozen. They find out, purely by happenstance, yes, I used that word in a sentence, that people value books. One day, while in an old bookstore, he overhears a person talking about collecting a book that costs a thousand dollars. He doesn’t know anything about the book but knows this man is willing to pay that amount. Now he has a purpose. Find the book. Marry the book to the man, but men like Philoneus, aren’t satisfied with a thousand dollars. He’s going to sell that same book ten times over, screwing everyone he comes in contact with, and suddenly, he has ten grand. Now he’s a book collector and dealer, never once reading any of them.”
“Oh, so you knew Philoneus?” she asked, laughing, climbing into the bed with him, and sliding between the sheets.
“I met him once,” he replied, followed by a yawn. “I met him and sixteen other carbon copies of the collector he believed himself to be. Once they get their hooks into you, the debt is never paid. There is always one more thing. One little favor. One last job. People who work angles never get to see the point.”
“Is that a geometry reference?”
“Yes, I am a man with a very big dictionary, and I know how to use it,” he said, offering her a smile.
His hand went under the pillow as he looked at her. What she thought would happen tonight would not. In the morning, she’d be gone, and this would be the last moments they would share. It was better this way.
“You’re not going to ask me to leave or close the door?”
“The only thing I’m doing tonight in this bed is sleeping, Dr. Dobbs, don’t forget to say goodbye to Lana or at least leave her a note before you go,” he said and closed his eyes.
Penny lay there still for a solid fifteen minutes. She knew it was fifteen because she watched the clock. He went to sleep. All of that sexiness was lying next to him and he didn’t even bother to kiss her goodnight.
Slowly she rose from the bed. Penny looked back at him and he hadn’t moved one iota. In her own room, she sat on the side of the bed. Emotions covered her and before she knew it, she’d begun to cry.
“He thinks I’m ugly and unfuckable,” she wailed softly, curling into a ball and hugging herself to sleep.
In the morning, she’d leave. As easily as she’d arrived, she would leave and he’d be sorry that he’d missed out on her. Suddenly, the tears stopped. In her mind, she replayed everything he’d said to her before closing his eyes. People who work angles never get to see the point.
“He said he knew Philoneus and sixteen carbon copies of him,” she said, clutching at her chest. “Dear God! Does he know who sent me here and that’s why he’s not trying to stop me?”
If that was the case, then she needed to seriously reevaluate her line of work.
Chapter 5- Adverse
Breakfast was unusually quiet, even for Lana. The morning’s serving of oatmeal with raisins and walnuts felt as lumpy as the start of the day. The energy in the room was off, and she couldn’t put her finger on all the small pieces which made the puzzle appear to be uneven. She looked up at the same time her boss raised his head from the notes he was making for the day.
“Something feels off,” Lana said.
“Yeah, I feel it too,” he replied, closing his traveler’s notebook. There were things he wanted to say and issues he wanted to discuss, but there were times in life when ignorance, in totality, could be blissful. “I’m thinking, please call HQ. Let’s get a cargo van here within the hour to load up the high valuables and have them driven to Boston. No shipping on this.”
“Do you think a bad thing is coming?”
“A bad thing left, but there is always rot at the roots of large plants,” he said, hoping she picked up on the subtle, yet caustic warning.
“The question is, who is the gardener that planted her?”
“So, you do understand,” he said, feeling optimistic.
“What I am gathering is that there is a bigger player in the game Dr. Dobbs was sent to get started,” Lana said, arching an eyebrow.
“How so?” he inquired praying that she’d learned more from him than simply cataloging and dating materials for historical references. The words spoken in front of her to Dr. Dobbs had been carefully chosen. A selection of responses to his assistant in the presence of Dr. Dobbs was also carefully selected. Lana was a sharp cookie and he silently closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts before she spoke.
Lana pushed the oatmeal bowl away, sitting quietly in her thoughts. One, she didn’t want her boss to think she was second-guessing him. Two, what she had discovered changed the game entirely. Lana simply wasn’t sure about who in the hell was playing and what was the end goal.
