The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,40

the time she went back to bed a few moments later, even the footprints had all but disappeared.

As the grandfather clock in the Hartwicks’ entry hall struck the first note of the Westminster chime, the four people in the smallest of the downstairs rooms fell silent. The big, encased timepiece in the entry hall was only the first of a dozen clocks in the house that would strike one after the other, filling the house with the sounds of gongs and chimes of every imaginable pitch. Now, as the clocks Jules had collected from every corner of the world began marking the midnight hour, Madeline slipped her hand into her husband’s, and Celeste, on the sofa opposite her parents, snuggled closer against Andrew. None of them spoke again until the last chime had finally died away.

“I always thought the clocks would drive me crazy,” Madeline mused. “But now I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“Well, you’ll never have to,” Jules assured her. “Actually, I’ve got a line on an old German cuckoo that I think might go nicely on the landing.”

“A cuckoo?” Celeste echoed. “Dad, they’re so corny!”

“I think a cuckoo would be fun,” Jules said. Then, sensing that not only was Madeline going to take Celeste’s side, but Andrew was too, he relented. “All right, suppose I put it in my den?” he offered in compromise. “They’re not that bad, you know!”

“They are too, and you know it,” Madeline replied. Rising from the sofa with, a brisk movement that conveyed to Andrew that the evening was at an end, she picked up Jules’s port glass, despite the fact that half an inch of the ruby fluid remained in it.

“I guess I’m done with that,” Jules observed.

“I guess you are,” Madeline agreed. She leaned down to give him an affectionate kiss on his forehead.

“I hope Celeste takes as good care of me as Mrs. Hartwick does of you, sir,” Andrew Sterling said a few minutes later as he and Jules stepped out into the snowy night.

“I’m sure she will,” Jules replied, throwing an arm around his prospective son-in-law’s shoulders. “Or at least she’ll come close. Nobody could take as good care of a man as Madeline takes of me.” His voice took on what seemed to Andrew an oddly wistful note. “I’ve been a very lucky man. I suppose I should count my blessings.”

They were at Andrew’s car now, and as Andrew brushed the snow off its windshield, he glanced quizzically at the older man. “Is something wrong, sir?”

For a moment Jules was tempted to mention the audit, then decided against it. He’d managed to get through the entire evening without talking at all about his worries at the Bank, and he certainly had no intention of burdening Andrew with them now. None of it, after all, was this young man’s fault. If there was blame to be borne, Jules thought, he would certainly bear it himself. “Nothing at all,” he assured Andrew. “It’s just been a wonderful evening, and I am, indeed, a very lucky man. I have Madeline, and Celeste, and I couldn’t ask for a better son-in-law. Get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

As Andrew drove away, Jules swung the big wrought-iron gate across the driveway, then started back toward the house. But coming abreast of Madeline’s car, still free of snow under the porte cochere, he noticed that the driver’s door was slightly ajar. As he pulled it open in preparation for closing it all the way, the interior light flashed on, revealing a small package, neatly wrapped, sitting on the front seat. Frowning, he picked it up, closed the car door tight, and continued back into the house. Pausing in the entry hall, he turned the package over, looking for some clue as to where it had come from.

There was nothing.

It was simply a small box, wrapped in pink paper and tied with a silver ribbon.

Had Madeline bought it as a gift for him?

The pink paper was enough to put that idea out of his mind. Nor was his wife the kind of woman to leave a gift sitting in her car, not even concealed in a bag.

As he stood at the foot of the stairs, Jules realized that Madeline had not bought the gift at all.

No, she was the intended recipient of the gift, not the giver.

But who was it from? And why had it been left in Madeline’s car?

Without thinking, Jules found himself pulling the ribbon from