Read Online Smoke in Mirrors by Jayne Ann Krentz - Free Book Online

With his bushy beard, long, uncombed hair and rumpled clothes, Deke looked a little like a troll sitting there in the sickly glow of the computer.
    There was a general air of gloom in the shadowy house. The fact that all of the blinds were pulled shut gave her the creeps.
    Easy to see why local opinion held that Deke had gone off the deep end.
    It was Wrench’s casual acceptance of the situation that reassured her the most. The dog lay sprawled on the floor, nose between his big paws, and radiated a complete lack of concern for his surroundings.
    She glanced at Thomas, seated beside her. He appearedaccustomed to the morbid atmosphere, she thought. But unlike Wrench, he was worried. Maybe with very good reason, she thought. Deke Walker did not look like a prime candidate for National Mental Health Month poster boy.
    “I have a good feeling about you being here, Leonora,” Deke said earnestly. “It’s like you’re a catalyst or something. I’m hoping that you might be able to help us stir things up a bit. Get us looking at the problem from a fresh angle.”
    “Show Deke the book and the clippings,” Thomas said.
    “Right.” Leonora rummaged around in her satchel, found the book and the photocopies and put them on Deke’s desk. “Meredith made it clear in her note that she wanted you and Thomas to see these.”
    Deke shoved his glasses higher on his nose and pulled the book and the clippings closer. He studied the envelope with Bethany’s name and address on it for a long moment.
    “Bethany must have made these photocopies and put them in this envelope,” he said. “I don’t think anyone else would have had access to her stationery, let alone used it.”
    “The question is why?” Thomas stretched out his legs and lounged deep in his chair. “She couldn’t have had any reason to be concerned about a murder that took place thirty years ago.”
    “Maybe it aroused her professional curiosity,” Leonora said. “The victim was a mathematician, after all.”
    “But hardly an eminent figure in the field.” Deke shook his shaggy head. “He was just a junior member of the faculty who probably got the job because he was Eubanks’s son and heir.”
    Leonora frowned. “Heir? I hadn’t thought about the financial angle. Was there a lot of money involved? Did someone get rich after Sebastian Eubanks died?”
    “Eubanks left no heirs,” Thomas said. “His money went to the college endowment. That’s a well-known bit of local history. I suppose it’s just barely conceivable that one of the upstanding trustees murdered him in order to hurry things along, but I think that’s a bit of a reach.”
    “And even if that did happen, why would it have interested Bethany?” Deke asked softly. “All she cared about was her work. I can’t see her bothering to investigate the details of that old murder case, even if she had some suspicions.”
    “Say for the sake of argument that she had uncovered some new information on that old case,” Thomas said. He steepled his fingers. “I’m sure she would have mentioned the facts to you, Deke.”
    “Sure.” Deke scowled. “No logical reason why she wouldn’t have said something.”
    Leonora looked at Deke. “I went through that catalog of the antique mirrors in the Mirror House collection but I didn’t see any notes. The only odd thing is someone circled one of the illustrations in blue ink. Whoever did it must have been very old or very young or drunk. The line is quite uneven.”
    Deke opened the book. “What page?”
    “Eighty-one.”
    He flipped pages to a point near the end of the catalog and paused. He stared at the picture for a long time, as though trying to read runes.
    “The ink hasn’t faded,” he finally said. “The catalog was put together some forty years ago, but this picture must have been circled at some point in the recent past.”
    “Do you recognize the mirror?” Leonora asked.
    She knew exactly what it looked like in the illustration. She