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“You feel that certain,” Je
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come.”
“You just can’t keep away from this house.”
“Hey, it’s better than staying in a hotel.”
“Is it? What kind of hold does Packard have on you?”
2
EVEN WITH SUNLIGHT STREAMING THROUGH THE WINDOWS, they managed to sleep until almost eleven.
Je
Coltrane knew what she meant – from sleeping on the hardwood floor, his neck felt as if he’d been karate-chopped.
“You really know how to show a girl a good time,” Je
“Don’t forget the doughnuts I bought.”
“If I weren’t so hungry, I would. Really, this would be paradise if only we had clean underwear.”
Her sarcasm made him chuckle.
“Some towels wouldn’t hurt,” she added.
“Let’s make a supply run down to Hollywood Boulevard. First things first, though. I’d better speak to the neighbors.”
“In that case, you’re going to need this.” Je
By early afternoon, they returned with a fresh change of clothes, a coffeemaker, a few dishes and pans, and enough food to last them a couple of days. They sca
Only then did they carry in their purchases. Coltrane had never been much for Christmas decorations, but saying that he might as well make the house a home, he had bought a two-foot-tall artificial Christmas tree that had ornaments attached to it. He placed it in the middle of the living room and spread out two sleeping bags.
“All the comforts,” he said.
They showered and put on jeans and pullovers they had bought. Then they made coffee and munched on bagels topped with smoked salmon, sliced tomato, cream cheese, and capers.
“I’m begi
“Don’t move.”
“What’s wrong?”
“That pose is too good to…” Coltrane had kept his Nikon and his photographs when he abandoned his Blazer at the airport. He snapped her picture. “Beautiful.”
“I hate to say this.”
“Then you’d better not.”
“No, you’ll want to hear it. This house is begi
“The light.”
Je
“That would have been the style when this place was built.”
“I wonder what it looked like when… Were you serious about wanting to rip out the vault and restore the house to its original design?”
“Top of my list.”
“Then maybe…”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’ll be right back,” Je
“Where are you going?”
“The garage. When we carried the groceries in, I noticed something.”
Coltrane raised his eyebrows with interest when she came back with a long cardboard tube.
“This was on a shelf,” Je
“You’re thinking it might not be junk?”
“When my parents bought an old Victorian five years ago over on Carroll Avenue” – Je
Coltrane didn’t understand what she was getting at.
“The tube contained the house’s original blueprints,” Je
“You’re not suggesting…”
“It’s a logical place to leave them for a new owner.” She opened the tube and upended it, gently pulling out its contents.
Coltrane stared at a set of tightly rolled sheets of thick blue-tinted paper. They were faded and smelled musty with age. Helping her spread them out on a clean section of the counter, he marveled that the detail of the diagrams and notations was still visible.
“By God.” He ran his finger down the top sheet, stopping at a matted-off section on the lower right side that indicated the name of the architect and the year the house had been built. “Lloyd Wright – 1931.”
3
“AS MUCH AS I CAN TELL” – Je
“That’s what Packard’s assistant said.”
“Its dimensions were the same as the garage above it.”
“No, that doesn’t sound right,” Coltrane said.
“How come?”
“The garage has room for only one car – typical of the thirties. But the vault seems bigger, almost the size of a double garage.”
“So the renovation was more like an addition,” Je
“I could be wrong. I felt a little queasy in there.”
“Well, I felt the same, and I’ve never been claustrophobic. The vault can’t be that much bigger than the garage if we both felt hemmed in.” Je
As cool air cascaded out, the darkness made Coltrane shiver. “Ah, if you don’t mind, I’ll wait out here.”
“Since when have you been claustrophobic?”
“Only when I’m in that vault.”
Reaching to the left, Je
“One, two…” Je
“Definitely bigger,” she said when she came back. “The garage is fifteen feet wide, but this is twenty-five.”
“Closer to thirty,” Coltrane said.
“What do you mean?”
He gestured toward a corridor next to the vault. “I paced it from the outside.”
“Thirty? Are you sure? We must have paced it differently.”
“Probably we did. But since my feet are longer than yours, I’m the one who should have the lower number. You should have needed more paces and have had the higher number.”
“We’re doing something wrong. Let’s try it again. This time, you go in.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’ve never seen you so timid.”
She’s right, Coltrane thought. What’s the matter with me? I have to get over this. Ignoring pressure in his chest, he braced himself. The glare became harsher, the temperature cooler, the air thicker as he forced himself to enter the vault. “One, two…”
He restrained himself from walking fast. It’s only a windowless room, he told himself. He breathed easier when he returned to Je
“Then we’re still doing something wrong.” Je