Double Take - Catherine Coulter [123]
The penthouse occupied the entire sixth floor, and covered at least four thousand square feet, on two levels. Dix started on the second level. He found the master bedroom and immediately went to Charlotte Pallack’s jewelry box, an antique French affair large enough to hold Liechtenstein’s crown jewels. He carefully searched through the various pouches and boxes. Lots of expensive stuff, but not what he was looking for.
Either Charlotte was wearing the bracelet tonight, or, since Dix had nailed her with it, maybe Thomas Pallack hadn’t let her out of the house again with the bracelet on her wrist. Maybe Pallack had destroyed it. Or maybe it was in a safe.
Dix methodically searched the large bedroom with its extravagant furnishings, the space completely dark except for his flashlight, the incredible views hidden behind the heavy closed drapes. He didn’t find a safe even after lifting each of the six modern paintings off the walls, carefully searching the large walk-in closet, even tapping the walls behind Pallack’s shirts. He opened the drapes before he left the bedroom and looked back. It looked the same as it had before he’d come in.
He didn’t bother searching the remaining rooms on the second level, but went immediately downstairs to Pallack’s office. It probably looked somber and dark even in daylight with its burgundy leather furniture and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining three walls. It was his last hope, his best hope, really. Dix moved behind the big mahogany desk that smelled faintly of expensive cigars, and tried the top drawer. It was locked. It took him only a few seconds to pick it.
Dix was pleased to see it was a master lock and all the other desk drawers opened with it. He searched all the drawers thoroughly. He was hoping to find bank statements, a checkbook, records of any kind that might link Pallack to Makepeace, or to David Caldicott, or Christie, but there were only invoices in ordered piles, newspaper clippings on Pallack and his fundraising, some correspondence with various bigwigs, and the usual odds and ends in desk drawers. He said a silent prayer and powered up Pallack’s computer.
It was passworded, something he’d expected, and so he’d made up a list of likely words and numbers. He typed each one in, tried variations and additions, but none of them worked. He simply wasn’t good enough to hack in. He could have used Savich for that.
He found the safe behind an original Picasso line drawing featuring weird forms that resembled no human he’d ever seen. It was a tumbler safe and there was no way he could get into it without the combination, or a blowtorch. He went back to Pallack’s desk, got down on his knees, and pulled out each drawer, looking at the undersides. There was no combination underneath any of them. Then he lifted the keyboard and there, taped under the g and h, was a set of three double numbers. For the first time since he’d left the Sherlock house, Dix smiled.
A moment later, he pulled the safe handle open. It was about half full—mostly papers, separated with rubber bands, a big accordion-pleated folder, a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, probably totaling five thousand, and underneath them, several velvet pouches. His heartbeat picked up as he pulled open the drawstrings of a dark burgundy velvet pouch and upended it. A magnificent diamond necklace and earrings filled his palm. He opened a dark blue velvet pouch—more diamonds, an emerald the size of his thumbnail, and a half dozen loose blood-red rubies, maybe ten carats each. Nothing else. No bracelet. He put the jewels back in their pouches and carefully replaced them by the pile of hundred-dollar bills. He pulled out a stack of papers, remembering how they were arranged, and methodically went through them. Pallack’s will, Charlotte’s will, half a dozen sets of partnership agreements, deeds to homes spread throughout the world, documents in French and Greek,