Three wide brick steps led to a huge porch with maybe a dozen flowering plants in glazed ceramic pots, standing like sentries. I rang the bell next to the double oak doors. Moments later a middle-aged woman with a freckled face and half-glasses perched on her pointy nose appeared. She wore a white nurse’s uniform and rubber- soled shoes. Over her left breast was an ID tag that saidPEGGY.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Hi, Peggy. I’m looking for . . . I don’t know, a patient?”
“We don’t think of people as patients here,” she said politely. “This is a hospice. Mister . . . ?”
“Reb Barnett,” I said.
“People come here to finish their lives in a tranquil atmosphere, Mr. Barnett.”
“I’m looking for Harvey Grant. Is he here?”
“Mr. Grant. Yes. He’s here.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “What do you know about him?”
Peggy covered her nose and mouth, and sneezed. She asked if I’d excuse her for a second. Before I could answer she stepped around adesk and returned holding a Kleenex to her nose. “Allergies. Happens to me every year.”
I stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind me. It was a large, cheery room that must have looked more austere at the turn of the century, when rich men in dark coats and derbies crossed its threshold. I repeated my question about Harvey Grant.
Peggy dabbed at her nose. “I’m not allowed to discuss our guests,” she said. “Sorry. It’s against policy. I’ll take you to his room.”
I accompanied Peggy up a wide wood staircase with lush gray carpet-and an ornately carved baluster. At the end of a long hall, she stopped in front of a room with a partially opened door, knocked, and walked in. Her white nurse shoes squeaked on the wood floor until she hit the Oriental carpet. The shoes looked brand-new. I stepped in behind her.
The curtains were drawn, the room dimly lit. Fresh-cut flowers stood carelessly in a vase on a table next to an old man lying in a brass double bed in the corner.
He was mostly bald save for a few scattered tufts of silver hair; pallid-skin covered the fragile bones of his face and shoulders like the membrane of a bat’s wing. His eyes were closed and still. I thought he was dead until his rib cage moved and a wheeze issued from his open mouth.
“Mr. Grant?” Peggy said, lightly touching the man’s shoulder. “Harvey?” The dying man’s eyelids lifted like garage doors on rusty hinges, and he looked at her with a milky gaze. She said, “Your visitor is here.”
Harvey Grant slowly turned his head till his eyes met mine. “Please go now, miss,” he rasped.
She withdrew without looking at me, but I was grateful for the faint scent of her perfume. I moved closer to the man.
“I’m Henry Greer,” he said. “The courier.”
I shook my head as if a bug had flown in my ear, then swallowed hard. My throat was dry and there wasn’t enough air in the room.
“You remember,” he said.
“But . . . your plane crashed. You were . . .”
Greer drew a deep breath, summoning energy. Then he raised a hairless arm from under the covers and laid it on his chest. A thick scar sliced diagonally across his forearm. He pointed a long-nailed finger toward a chair. “Please sit down. I have some things to tell you.”
I reached behind me, felt for the chair, and sat. Greer scanned me for almost a full minute.
I began to fidget. “I’m waiting.”
“Have you ever heard the name Werner Krell?”
“German billionaire. Munitions manufacturer.”
“Nolo Tecci?”
“No. You’re supposed to be dead, Greer. I was there when my father got the call from the Coast Guard.”
“Tecci worked for Krell,” Greer said. “Still does.”
I pulled the curtain back a little. A foot-wide band of sunlight cut across the bed. Greer squinted. His skin looked almost powdery in the light. I let go of the drape and it swished back in place.
“The day your father sent me to collect the Leonardo notes from France, Tecci approached me,” Greer said. “Krell wanted those notes, was obsessed with them. Had been for years. Was convinced that the Dagger was out there, just like your old man. Tecci offered me a great deal of money for the notes.
“You staged the crash?” My mind flashed back to my dad on the phone getting the news. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry. The last time, too.
“I met up with them on a train,” Greer continued, licking his parched lips.“Krell had his own Pullman at the back. I was standing on the platform waiting for him to come out, but he didn’t. Instead, Nolo Tecci was there. Black hair, cut like Caesar’s. Tattoo of a cobra wrapped around his neck. He had the briefcase with the money. We were crossing a bridge—a high bridge in the Alps—through the St. RoddardPass. I was nervous. It didn’t feel right.
