Read Online Trophies by J. Gunnar Grey - Free Book Online

grief, horror,
aggression, attraction — all tried to erupt from me at once. My
grip on the granite hearthstone nearly embedded fingerprints, and I
wielded the physical pain to defeat the emotional assault. The
battle for self-control was getting harder to win with every
skirmish but I refused to lose.
    Caren stared, then laid a hand on my arm.
"Charles?"
    The emotions died hard. But it was the only
possible answer and the solution to this mystery could be as close
as the hidden staircase. Never mind that plague was preferable.
    I carried both toolkits upstairs, Caren at my
side.
    "You seem uncomfortable about this," she said
halfway up.
    On the upper landing I paused and peered
through the two high windows into the cloudless summer sky. Opening
Aunt Edith's safe hadn't bothered me, because in our unusual
relationship, money wasn't important. I knew all about her
finances, her arrangements, and had helped draft her will, and she
knew all about mine, too. Besides, she'd given me the safe's
combination herself years ago.
    But breaking into her garret was beyond wrong
and it pounded at my conscience. It was an invasion of her privacy
on a massive scale. It was a breach of trust, a violation of the
treaty she and I had formed in my childhood, and even reminding
myself she was dead and would never know made no difference to the
looming, horrific guilt I already felt.
    "I can say without exaggeration that, of all
the nightmares I've had since I was thirteen, every one of them
centered about the garret, even though I've never been inside
it."
    Caren rocked on her heels. "Goodness."
    Aunt Edith's suite was through the double
doors at the rear corner of the house, and I had to still my
conscience again before pushing them open. The master bath was
directly ahead, bracketed by tall ceramic vases holding dried red
roses and sprigs of lavender, still breathing their heady scents
into the air. To the left opened the bedroom proper, the king bed
draped with a lovely green canopy that matched the swags over the
two windows. The bench on the linen chest at the bed's foot and the
seat of the chair before her dressing table were the same shade,
and the carving in the doors of the big armoire were picked out
with the maroon, lavender, and dark green of the flowers in the
vases. Double closets with mirrored doors stretched along the far
wall.
    I refused to back out, no matter how
shameless this invasion felt, and led Caren between the furniture.
My reflection in the mirrors was accusing and I ignored it, too.
Once we'd twisted past the armoire's camouflage, the hidden nook
opened before us, and she gasped. We ducked around the u-turn and
there, just as I recalled it, was an unlit staircase climbing over
the closets to a plain, unvarnished wooden door. There was no knob;
the lock — oh, how I remembered that beast — was installed flush
with the door's surface.
    On my knees before it, I used the penlight
for a close examination, then felt its innards with my favorite
half-deep hook. "Damn."
    Caren knelt beside me. "I suppose this isn't
an easy one?"
    "Pick-resistant top pins. And six of them, at
that."
    "What does that mean? Should I start looking
for a key?"
    I sighed and sat back on my haunches, letting
the challenge of the problem drown out my nagging conscience. "I
don't have my pick gun with me and that would be the easiest way to
get past this lock. I've already glanced through her bedroom today,
looking for her kit, and didn't see a loose key hanging about that
might fit this thing. Perhaps I can rake it."
    Another quick examination of the lock with
light and hook, then I selected a large rake, one with deep curves.
I inserted my strongest tension tool into the bottom of the keyway.
The rake followed until it nudged the back of the plug. I turned
the tension tool left, and lifted and dragged the rake against the
top pins, increasing the turning pressure as I did. A little
jiggling, and three of the pins picked into place.
    "Might not be