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safe and was surprised to see a velvet bag already sitting there. She opened the velvet sack she had brought with her and dumped the contents into her hand. The beam of her light immediately shot out in glowing green ribbons going in a dozen directions.
    She reached into the safe and pulled out the second velvet sack and opened it, only to find an exact duplicate set of emeralds.
    Well, hell. What did this mean?
    They were obviously forgeries. Thadd must have had copies made of the original emeralds. But what were they doing here, in this safe? Surely the lawyers had inventoried this vault shortly after Thadd’s death and would have found them.
    And they would have known they were stolen, wouldn’t they? Wasn’t there a database somewhere that listed stolen and unrecovered art? Surely these emeralds would have been on it.
    Unless the appraisers had realized these were fakes. It wasn’t a crime, was it, to possess copies of stolen jewelry?
    Rachel shrugged. She would just leave the real ones with the fakes, and they, too, would become Keenan Oakes’s problem.
    She used the velvet bag to wipe off any fingerprints on Willow’s emeralds, put them back in their bag, and was just placing them in the small safe when every overhead light in the vault suddenly snapped on.
    Rachel dropped the other velvet pouch and watched, dismayed, as the fake emeralds tumbled out. She tried but failed to catch them, banging her forehead into the small safe door, slamming it shut with a resounding click. Everything clattered to the floor, including her flashlight and the cane that had been hooked over her arm.
    Rachel whirled toward the vault door and saw that several lights in the library had also come on. The raised voice of a woman echoed from somewhere below, carrying up the grand staircase and along the marble hall toward her.
    Rachel bent to her good knee and searched for the fallen fake emeralds, scooping them up and hastily stuffing them into the remaining velvet sack.
    She stopped then and glared at the closed safe door.
    Dammit. She had to get out of here.
    The voice of the woman grew louder, along with the tap of heels on the marble floor. Whoever she was railing at was upstairs now and coming toward the library.
    Rachel shoved the pouch of forgeries in her pocket, quickly deciding that one set of emeralds was enough to leave behind. She would get rid of the fakes later, and pray it would be years before anyone noticed the emeralds in safe number sixteen were actually real.
    She grabbed her pack, cane, and flashlight, and ran limping from the vault, stopping only long enough to close the huge door and spin the lock. She pushed the bookcase closed, concealing the vault.
    Rachel looked toward the hearth on the far side of the room and decided it was out of reach of her crippled knee. She ducked into the storage closet instead, just as the library door swung open.
    â€œI don’t care, Kee,” the woman shrilled on the other side of the closet door. “You promised we would go to the Renoir party. Then you suddenly decide you just have to come to this godforsaken monstrosity instead. It’s freezing in here.”
    â€œJason found the electrical box,” the man said softly.
    Rachel scrunched herself against the back wall of the closet, unable to suppress a shiver. The man’s voice had been low, curt, and thin on patience. But the shrew didn’t seem to hear what Rachel could: the quiet building of tension, the ominous calm before the storm.
    No, the fool continued railing at the man who could be none other than Mr. Keenan Oakes. Dammit. He wasn’t supposed to arrive until Friday.
    â€œI don’t know what all the hurry was for,” the woman continued. “There’s nobody here. You said this place has been empty for three years. Another week wouldn’t have mattered.”
    Rachel silently nodded agreement.
    â€œThis might be some grand mansion you’ve inherited, but