A lot of it.
“Not haute art, perhaps, but certainly haute cost,” Risa said dryly.
“Of course. The first thing I learned in the army was that there’s no profit in poverty.”
Her laugh was less businesslike this time. She wasn’t sure if she liked Garrison Warrick, but she had to admit he could be amusing. His cheerful capitalism was a refreshing change from the sanctimony of some gallery owners who sold cultural status at inflated prices to the nouveau riche and eternally gullible.
“There might be profit for both of us in an interesting rumor that has come to my attention,” Risa said. “If it wouldn’t take too much of your valuable time . . .”
He took the opening graciously. “I always have time for rumor. It’s the lifeblood of the art industry. What do you have?”
“It’s more like what you have. You know the gold gallery that Mr. Tannahill is creating for his casino?”
“Doesn’t everyone? I was hoping you would need something that Mr. Tannahill’s, er, resources couldn’t supply. If so, the House of Warrick stands ready to provide you with what you need. And, of course, you will have the full weight of our excellent reputation behind any acquisition we make on your behalf. Clean provenance is our specialty.”
Shane’s black eyebrows rose. Although Garrison hadn’t said anything outright, his choice of words and tone of voice certainly implied that some of Shane’s sources for art were dubious.
Which they were. They were also some of his most reliable providers of gold art and artifacts.
“I’m aware of the impeccable reputation of the House of Warrick,” Risa said. “That’s why I called you as soon as I heard the rumor of a twelfth-century Celtic manuscript page that was heavily decorated in gold. While my expertise is in ancient gold jewelry, I believe that gold illumination was rare in Insular Celtic manuscripts?”
“Very rare,” Garrison agreed.
Risa waited.
Listening, watching, Shane “walked” a solid gold pen end over end between the fingers of one hand: back and forth, back and forth, like a golden shuttle weaving hypnotically between his fingers. His eyes never left his curator’s lush, oddly aloof mouth. There was no telltale tightening of the voluptuous lips, no flattening at the corners, nothing to indicate that she was under unusual tension.
Idly he decided once again that although his curator wasn’t beautiful in the usual sense of the word, her face rewarded study. Her body was like her mouth, lush and inviting even though she did nothing in particular to emphasize the curving difference between breasts and waist and hips.
Risa was uncomfortably aware of Shane’s assessing glance and leashed impatience. “Have you heard of such a page?” she asked Garrison bluntly.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The House of Warrick is investigating the possibilities.”
Garrison’s bland voice didn’t fool Risa. “Have you seen the page?” she asked.
“Yes. Briefly.”
“Is it for sale?”
There was a long pause. Then Garrison sighed loudly enough to be caught by the microphone. “It’s a very delicate situation.”
“In what way?”
“We feel the pages should be investigated with great, shall we say, skepticism, before they are accepted into the marketplace. Certainly before the House of Warrick represents them.”
“Does this skeptical ‘we’ include Norman Warrick?”
“Most definitely.”
Risa looked at her boss.
Smoothly Shane flipped the pen into writing position and printed across her desk calendar: GET IT.
“Nonetheless, Mr. Tannahill would like to see the page,” Risa said.
The only hint of her disapproval was in the slight cooling of her smoky voice. Dubious provenance was the kind of red flag that warned off a reputable curator, and Risa Sheridan was determined to be reputable. She hadn’t been born with a solid gold spoon in her mouth as Shane Tannahill had. Although in his case, it was more like a platinum spoon with pavé diamonds.
She was sure there had to be drawbacks to being the offspring of one of the richest computer entrepreneurs ever to walk the earth, but offhand she couldn’t think of any. It beat the hell out of having cockroaches crawl out of your bathroom plumbing.
“Which page, precisely?” Garrison asked.
“It was described to us as a carpet page consisting almost entirely of a major initial or joined initials heavily foiled in gold.”
Garrison made a sound that could have meant anything from agreement to skepticism. “Was the person describing it to you familiar with illuminated manuscripts?”
“We’re satisfied with the person’s credentials.” Wryly Risa thought that Garrison would be, too, if she told him the name. Jane Major was an adviser to the House of Warrick. Her specialty was medieval iconography. “Do you have such a page?”
“At the moment, no.”
“Can we expect that to change?”
“Life is change, Ms. Sheridan. That’s how we know we’re not dead.”
Risa rolled her eyes. “Mr. Tannahill had hoped for a more specific change.”
“What if the page isn’t what it seems?”
Shane’s eyelids half lowered almost lazily as he walked the pen back and forth over his hand; it was a trick used by magicians and cardsharps to keep their fingers flexible. Then, with no warning, the pen vanished, he stood up, and walked out of the room.
But before he left, he tapped the piece of paper that said GET IT.
Risa settled back in her chair, crossed her nylon-clad legs, and went to work finding out just how much Shane’s obsession with owning the best and brightest of all kinds of gold artifacts was going to cost this time.
Chapter 19
LOS ANGELES
THURSDAY AFTERNOON
Thank you for coming in on such short notice,” Dana said as she led several Donovans down the hall toward one of Rarities’s clean rooms.
“No problem,” Kyle Donovan said. “We were meeting with some of our Pacific Rim partners in L.A. when your call was forwarded from Seattle.”
“Speak for yourself,” Archer Donovan cut in with the ease of an older brother. “Hannah’s going to have my head if I’m not home in time to bathe our sweet little monster.”
Lawe Donovan snorted. Like Kyle, he had sun-streaked blond hair. Unlike Kyle, his face had been weathered under too many foreign suns. “Monster? Little Attila? What are you talking about, bro? Your baby son is just like you, right down to the black hair and jugular instinct.”
“Talk about the pot insulting the kettle,” Archer said, raising his eyebrows. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have one of your own.”
“A wife or a kid? Forget it. I’ve got enough trouble as it is.” Lawe looked at the firm flex and sway of Dana’s hips. She was worth the trip across town to see. He had heard about that walk of hers from other Donovan men, but he hadn’t believed it. Nice. Really nice.
Smiling to herself, Dana led the way to the clean room. Some people would have been overwhelmed by being in the presence of three Donovan males, all of whom had lived in some rough places and topped six feet by a margin that would have made Rarities Unlimited’s modestly built helicopter pilot see shades of red. Dana wasn’t in the least intimidated by the Donovans. She liked big men. It was ever so much more satisfactory to put them in their place. The first time she did it, they always had such an endearing look of surprise on their face.
Not that she expected to be putting any Donovans down. The whole tribe was known to be smart, honest, and tough enough to get the job done. That was all Dana asked of anyone, and a hell of a lot more than she usually got.
Except with Niall.
He was the exception to too damn many of her rules. Someday she would have to do something about it.
“I checked the list of Susa’s works with her gallery in Manhattan,” Dana said. “Julian said he’d never heard of Sidewalk Sunset. The sign
ature is a little off, too, but nothing that really rings bells. Artists often change their signature throughout a career. Artistic styles, too.”
“What did Julian think of the painting itself?” Archer asked.
“He waffled. Said he would have to see it in person.” Dana shrugged and opened the door. “Knowing Julian, he would waffle after he got here, too. He’s really testy about any of the Donovan matriarch’s—er, Susa’s—work that doesn’t come through him.”
“Understandable,” Archer said dryly. “He’s had her exclusively for twenty years.”
“But,” Lawe said, staring at the painting on the easel in the center of the room, “she’s been painting since she was six.”
There was silence for a few minutes while everyone looked at Sidewalk Sunset. Though the Donovans had been raised in the presence of their mother’s talent and therefore took it for granted, the older they grew the more they realized how unique she really was.
One after another, the Donovan brothers nodded.
“Is that a yes-this-is-hers or a yes-this-is-a-fraud kind of nod?” Dana asked.
“It’s hers,” Lawe said. He stepped forward and stopped just short of touching the painting. There was an odd, remembering kind of smile on his lips. “She did this for Justin and me on our eighth birthday. We were whining about wanting to go to the mountains or the coast or some other wild, beautiful place they couldn’t afford back then, and Mom—Susa—said there was beauty everywhere if we knew how to look. To prove it she painted the sunset reflected in puddles of rain on the sidewalk.” He touched the frame of the painting with gentle fingertips. “Lord, that was a long time ago.”
“Stop,” Archer said. “I’m older than you are.”
“I’m not,” Kyle said smugly.
“Up yours,” Archer and Lawe said as one.
Lawe looked at the painting for a moment longer, remembering a time when the world was much simpler, but he had been too innocent to appreciate it.
“Is the painting for sale?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dana said dryly, “but you just raised the price considerably by attributing it to one of the foremost living artists on the North American continent.”
He looked over his shoulder and gave her the kind of quick, uncalculated smile that had made more than one woman decide it would be worth the effort to round off a few of his rough edges. “I’m good for it.”
“If he isn’t,” Archer said, looking at Lawe intently, “I am.” It had been a long time since he had seen Lawe truly smile. If it took one of Susa’s pictures to keep that smile within reach, then Sidewalk Sunset was about to have a new owner.
Smiling back, Dana shook her head at the unexpected flash of Lawe’s smile. The man could melt glaciers with it. “No wonder the Donovans get away with murder.”
“Not literally,” Archer said easily.
But the look they passed among themselves said Not recently.
“Is one of your clean rooms available within the next four days?” Archer asked.
Dana knew when a subject was being changed. She also knew when not to point it out. “For the Donovans, of course.”
Archer’s smile was like Lawe’s, surprising in a man who otherwise looked like a hard piece of business. “Lawe has some emeralds and several dealers we’ve never heard of want to look at them.”
“Would Tuesday be all right?”
“Fine. You can bill it to Donovan Gems and Minerals.”
Dana waved her hand in dismissal and turned to Lawe. “We could work out an exchange. My West Coast emerald expert just went to work for the Smithsonian. His wife likes Washington, D.C. Go figure. Anyway, if you would be willing to be listed as a consultant on faceted gems for Rarities Unlimited, we’d be willing to let you use the clean rooms for your own business.”
“Take it,” Archer said. “It’s a good deal.”
Dana smiled like a cat. Gotcha.
Chapter 20
PALM SPRINGS
THURSDAY AFTERNOON
As the automatic gate to Erik North’s property rolled shut behind Serena’s car, she wondered if she had done the right thing. She couldn’t hear the gate lock behind her. Not really. It was more like something she felt. When all was said and done, no matter how much she needed to know about her inheritance, and no matter how deeply Erik intrigued her, she really didn’t know the man.
I didn’t know Warrick, either, but I went to his house alone at night, she reminded herself. And I got insulted for my trouble.
At least she could be certain that Erik hadn’t come out to the desert to kill her. If he had, she would be dead. Then she wondered if maybe he had held back because he was looking for more than just a few pages from the Book of the Learned. Maybe he thought she had more treasures.
The feeling of playing blindman’s buff with her own life was frightening. She was accustomed to taking care of herself, to needing no one else, to living with the rest of humanity at arm’s length. She didn’t take it to her grandmother’s extreme of becoming a desert hermit, but trust still came very hard to her, if at all.
She glanced at the sleek electronic unit on the seat beside her and sighed. It was hard to keep on being afraid of a man who left his personal communications unit with you just so that you could call the cops if you panicked.
Hold that good thought, she told herself.
Stroking her scarf for luck and comfort, she followed Erik’s silver vehicle up the curving driveway. From the layout of the land, she guessed that the lot was about two acres, perhaps more. Like the Warrick estate, Erik’s property was bounded by a high, solid wall. Unlike the Warrick estate, she guessed that the rocks in this wall had come from a very old building. Except for the reddish color, the stones reminded her of London Bridge, which had been imported piece by numbered piece from England and plunked down in the middle of the Arizona desert.
Indeed, there was a distinctly medieval feel to the layout and design of Erik’s home. Unlike the Warrick estate, Erik’s didn’t have any Old World trees pruned into unusual shapes along the driveway. Instead, there were random plantings of jacaranda trees whose lacy, fernlike leaves made fragile shadow patterns over the cement. Beyond the jacarandas there were mature citrus trees heavy with fruit, various kinds of palm trees, and bougainvillea vines, along with lavender, honeysuckle, and other plants she couldn’t identify.
Rather wistfully Serena looked back at the shadows beneath the jacaranda trees. Several times a year she tried to reproduce or at least suggest the grace of a jacaranda in her weaving. So far, none of her efforts had lived up to nature.
When Serena saw Erik’s house up close, she forgot about her failed weaving designs. The roof was slate, like an old country house in England. The walls were blocks of reddish stone of a kind she hadn’t seen outside of the red castles of Caerlaverock and Carlisle in the Scottish borderlands. Medallions and occasional panels of colorful glazed tiles balanced the unrelieved stone. Instead of the griffins, lions, stags, or other heraldic figures she expected, the tiles contained stylized Celtic designs that could have graced anything from illuminated manuscripts to ancient weavings. Blue, gold, violet, red, yellow; the colors were as brilliant as the designs were surprising.
Belatedly Serena realized that Erik was standing by her van door, waiting for her. She grabbed her big purse and got out, handing over his phone/computer as she did. With a swift glance, he checked the readout window. Nothing urgent. At least, nothing as urgent as his impatience to see Serena’s pages.
Factoid still hadn’t checked in. Neither had Erik. He didn’t want to talk to Rarities about Ellis Weaver Charters in front of Serena. Mentally cursing the restrictions of distrust, he shoved the unit back in its case at the small of his back.
Automatically Serena locked the van before she turned to face her host. He had just finished stowing the expensive electronic unit in a holder behind his back. His quick, economical movements told her that it was a familiar action to him, rather like picking up a weaving shu
ttle was to her.
“The illuminated manuscript business must be good,” she said, looking at the spacious yard and big house. Then she heard her own words and winced. “Sorry. Some people have to work at putting their foot in their mouth. It comes naturally to me.”
He smiled. “No problem. I’m the fourth generation to own North Castle. Granddad knew my father well enough to tie up all the loose cash in a trust to maintain the family home, so I can’t take credit for any of it.”
“Smart man.”
“Me or Granddad?”
“Yes. Where on earth did you get those fabulous Celtic tiles?”
“My mother made them.”
Serena’s left eyebrow rose in a graceful arc of surprise and reappraisal. “The designs are quite incredible, both ancient and somehow modern. All the spirals and intensity of the ancient Celts but none of the claustrophobic feeling.” She stared past him at the tiles set into a walk leading to the front door. These weren’t glazed in vibrant colors. The tantalizing design came from subtle shadings in each tile and careful placement of every tile. “Extraordinary. Some of the most elegant design work I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Why? Your mother did it.”
“Didn’t I mention that I created the designs?”
She threw up her hands. “Right. Be flattered.”
“Is this where I compliment you on your fine eye? No one else has realized that the designs were a modern take on ancient themes.”
She shot him a sideways look. “Why do I not believe you?”
“Beats me. I’m telling the truth. No one else has noticed. Oh, they like the designs and all, but they don’t understand them. You do. Want to see my attack cuckoo?”
Serena’s jaw dropped. “One of us is crazy.”
“I’m looking forward to finding out which one.” He held out his hand. “Come on. He should be on the back wall gathering courage for his afternoon drink. If we’re real quiet, he won’t see us.”
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