Moving Target

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “What about the auction houses? Sooner or later, I’ll bet that quite a few of the leaves go back to them.”

  “Dana’s working on that now. Christie’s was slow until she pointed out that it was to their benefit to demonstrate how thorough their research was. Sotheby’s took some of our expert opinion on various stuff as quid pro quo for checking their databases.”

  Erik grunted, unimpressed. “What about Warrick?”

  “They’ve had their people on it since the request went in yesterday. Or was it the day before? Or—“ He yawned so hard he nearly broke his jaw. “Damn, I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  Erik knew how he felt. His own sleep had been restless and unsatisfying, filled with images of himself wrapped around Serena like hot around fire. Except it wasn’t quite him. His hands were more scarred, marked by sword and crossbow and his peregrine’s talons, which sometimes pierced even his leather gauntlet. Nor was the sorceress quite Serena. The eyes and hair were the same, but the mouth was different, thinner, and she smelled of cloves, tasted of dark wine, wore a medieval dress whose fabric caressed him as though alive.

  “You still there?” Shel asked.

  Impatiently Erik forced his mind back to tracing provenance rather than the feel of a woman’s body beneath unearthly, loving cloth. “I’m here. If you reach a wall on the provenance on any single piece, let me know where. Immediately.”

  “Yeah.” Yawn. “Sure. I’ve got Takeo and Suelynn on it. They’re fresh. They’ll wake me if they stall out.”

  “Thanks, Shel.”

  “I should thank you. Dana promised me three weeks off after this is wrapped up.”

  “Don’t take your Rarities communications unit with you,” Erik warned.

  “Oh, I’ll take it, just like my employment contract says. But it don’t say nothin’ about batteries.”

  Driven by the impatience that rode him with razor talons, Erik disconnected, printed out the list of what he had so far, cursed savagely, and headed for the shower. Enough was enough. He was going to have a look at Serena’s inheritance, and to hell with her lack of trust.

  He didn’t know why time was closing in like an enemy. He just knew that it was.

  Chapter 27

  LEUCADIA

  FRIDAY MORNING

  Promptly at nine o’clock, Serena’s front doorbell chimed. Then it squawked long and loud. Something had happened a few months ago to its melodious electronics. Something expensive. So she had been forced to choose between buying yarn for weaving and new tires for the van or fixing the doorbell. No choice, really. She couldn’t weave with musical notes, no matter how pretty they were. Nor could she deliver her smaller textiles to southern California outlets without tires on her van. So as soon as the next check came in, her van would get new shoes.

  And the doorbell would just get worse.

  “What the hell was that?” Erik asked the instant the front door opened.

  Serena didn’t say anything. She felt like slamming the door in his clean-shaved, handsome face. Wearing jeans, hiking boots, hunter-green shirt, and a soft leather jacket the color of night, he looked like he had just stepped out of an advertisement for the outdoor life.

  She looked like the before photo in a You Can Do It spa ad. She was showing every one of the long hours she hadn’t slept because she was too stubborn—and too uneasy—to stay in the guest room Erik had offered her, complete with a telephone and an inside dead bolt to ensure her privacy. Instead of being sensible and staying behind the bolted guest room door, she had driven all the way home.

  It hadn’t been her smartest moment. She had arrived after midnight, spent more than an hour trying to fall asleep, and then awakened to a nightmare of cold sweat and fiery death.

  She told herself that her ragged emotions were understandable. The last few days had been exhausting: the lawyer, her grandmother’s estate, the Warricks, the pages that might or might not be real, the note warning of danger, and most of all the unnerving sense of déj `a vu that had increased the longer she stayed with Erik North. So she had driven back to her own familiar home as though pursued by a demon.

  And here the demon was, standing at her front door.

  “The doorbell electronics are skippy,” she said.

  “They’re more than skippy. They’re twisted.”

  His voice was almost curt. He had been in a bad mood since Serena had gotten in her old beater and driven off into the night, leaving him behind. His mood had gone from bad to dangerous a few minutes ago; that was when he spotted the guy parked down Serena’s street wearing a tiny high-tech headphone and driving a drab Japanese car.

  Without seeming to, Erik watched Serena closely. If she was aware of the watcher down the street, she didn’t show it. She never once so much as glanced in that direction. Even so, she looked plenty nervous. He wondered if she had changed her mind during the night, if she would back out of showing him the pages in the clean light of day.

  “I’m glad you made it home safely,” he said, giving the van in her driveway a narrow look. “Your tires have about the same amount of tread on them as the average egg.”

  “They’re not that bad.”

  “Have you checked them lately?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get your eyes examined and look again. You need new tires.”

  “They’re at the top of my list, right after cat food.”

  “If I go out and get some, will you let me in?”

  “Cat food?”

  “Or tires. Take your pick.”

  Startled, she looked directly at his eyes for the first time. They were as clear as sunlight and almost as golden. They were also serious. He meant just what he said: cat food or tires, whichever she wanted, he would supply.

  She stepped out of the doorway and motioned him in. “I don’t require guests to bring hostess gifts.”

  The fact that he had invited himself—in fact, he had nearly shouted at her that he would see her tomorrow, early—was something she decided not to bring up. Despite his crisp appearance, he was looking determined around the eyes and mouth. She knew that he really hadn’t wanted her to leave last night.

  And she really hadn’t wanted to stay. It had been too unnerving.

  Every time she looked at him, it was as though there was another Erik there, too, shimmering just beyond reach, a presence that was both darkness and light, the air smelling of cloves and wine. When she looked down, she saw herself shimmering, too, wearing a dress of an unspeakably clever weave, a dress just like her scarf; and an ancient ruby ring she had never seen before was on her right hand.

  She had panicked.

  I’m not crazy, Serena told herself for the thousandth time. Crazy people don’t worry about being crazy. They just are.

  A black cat the size of a dog slid up and looked at Erik with unblinking fire-colored eyes.

  “What about the cat?” Erik asked. “He looks like he demands tribute.”

  Briskly Serena cleared her mind of weird dreams and even more startling waking moments. “Mr. Picky? Nah. He’s love with four feet and black fur.”

  “Don’t forget the claws and teeth.”

  “I take it you don’t like cats.”

  Erik gave her an amused look. Then he sat on his heels and began talking to Mr. Picky. The rumbling, purring noises and the soft yeowings Erik made sounded remarkably like they came from a cat’s throat—a very large cat.

  Mr. Picky thought so, too. He leaped up into what there was of Erik’s lap and burrowed in as though he had been born there. Smiling, Erik sat cross-legged on the floor and settled in for some serious cat petting. He missed having cats around, but he was gone often enough that he didn’t want anything less wild than a chaparral cock depending on him.

  As Serena watched her cat quite literally drool over the strange man, she was divided between jealousy and fascination. Picky didn’t dislike other people, but he usually ignored them, especially if they paid attention to him.

  Not this time
. The cat’s glazed eyes were half closed. He was ecstatic.

  Erik made feline sounds.

  “What are you saying to him?” she demanded.

  “Damned if I know. He seems to like it, though.”

  Picky butted his big head against Erik’s chin and purred like a tiger. Pay attention to me, not her.

  Holding the cat, Erik came to his feet in a lithe movement. Picky shifted, clung less than delicately with sharp claws, and generally made it known that he wasn’t giving up his long-lost, very new friend.

  “You’d think I never petted the ungrateful rat,” Serena said.

  “Cat.”

  “Rat. See if I share any more fresh shrimp with him.”

  Picky turned up the volume on his purring as though to drown out her complaints.

  “You want a cat?” she asked.

  “You offering this one?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  The big cat shifted, sprang, and flowed into Serena’s arms. The purring never stopped. She sighed and rubbed her chin against his soft, sleek fur.

  “I’ll keep him,” she said.

  “I never doubted it.”

  “Neither did he, the rat.”

  Picky ignored the insults, butted her chin gently, and leaped down. A few moments later the flap on the cat door in the kitchen slapped softly.

  “Was it something I said?” Erik asked, deadpan.

  She snickered. “All that purring worked up an appetite. He’s gone hunting.”

  “The coyotes better take cover.”

  “That’s what I like about Picky. He’s big enough to give a coyote second thoughts about feline sushi.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I don’t have a cat,” Erik said. “I haven’t found one that can outrun, outwit, or outfight a coyote. Palm Springs is full of them.”

  “So far, so good here. Want some coffee or food before you look at the sheets?”

  Sheets. Bed. Serena in it with me.

  Then reality hit Erik. She was talking about the leaves from the Book of the Learned. The fact that he hadn’t thought of that immediately told him just how deeply she had gotten to him.

  “Coffee would be good,” he said.

  An ice cube shower would be more to the point, but he wasn’t going to say it aloud.

  “Cream? Sugar?” she asked, turning and heading for the kitchen.

  “Black.”

  As soon as she was out of sight, he turned and looked through the etched glass panel in the front door. The dull Japanese car hadn’t moved. The man had. He was looking at Erik’s license plate with discreet, high-tech binoculars.

  Damn!

  Automatically Erik’s hand went to the communications unit at the back of his belt. All that kept him from using it was the certainty that his reluctant hostess wouldn’t understand why he was chatting on a snoop-proof cell phone with Rarities about whether or not they had put a tail on Serena Charters and told the tail to keep a license plate log of visitors.

  Usually Rarities would tell Erik if they had arranged for backup. Usually.

  Niall was nothing if not unpredictable. It kept everyone on their toes, especially the folks trying to penetrate the security at Rarities Unlimited.

  Erik settled for second best: E-mail. He had already memorized the license plate and make of the tail’s car. As for the tail himself, he was the type of middle-aged generic white male that had given the FBI a look all its own. But the FBI was still stuck with American cars. This guy had the perfect West Coast undercover car: foreign.

  Composing a brief message in his mind, Erik grabbed a stylus out of the communications unit, which was designed for just those embarrassing moments when even a soft voice would be too loud. He sent his message the old-fashioned way, writing quickly on the small electronic pad, “original” to Dana, copy to Factoid. Then he replaced the unit in its carrying case at the small of his back.

  A lot of men carried guns in the same place. Erik hoped he never would have to again.

  Despite the quick E-mail, he planned to call Rarities as soon as he knew Serena couldn’t overhear the conversation. Shorthand was no substitute for real words, real impressions, real dialogue.

  He followed Serena’s steps past a series of fabric screens that walled off the great room from the front door, creating an entryway. Under normal circumstances he would have noticed and appreciated the quality of textile in the screens, but at the moment he was thinking about something more urgent than artistry.

  He was wondering what would be the most tactful way to ask Serena if she had noticed anyone following her home the night before.

  As soon as he reached the kitchen doorway, he froze. It might have been his divided attention. It might have been his lack of sleep. It might have been a lot of things. Whatever it was, the sense of déjà vu he got when he saw her pouring a steaming mug of coffee stopped him like a stone wall.

  For a few staggering moments he was certain he had seen her do that for him before. Not coffee, but something that had steamed and promised warmth on a cold day. And it hadn’t been a mug. It had been a bowl incised with ancient runic symbols.

  He could see it.

  He shook his head sharply, ending the overwhelming moment. Now was no time to let the medieval part of his soul get fanciful. There were more pressing things at hand than the impossible sense of familiarity that came every time he saw the curve of her cheek or candlelight reflected in her violet eyes and red-gold hair.

  “Did you have much traffic last night?” he asked.

  With disbelief in the arc of her left eyebrow, she looked over her shoulder at him. “It was after midnight. Even in southern California, sooner or later rush hour ends.”

  He shrugged. “I just wondered. Sometimes a woman driving alone late at night, some guy thinks it’s cute to follow her. . . .” His voice trailed off invitingly.

  She put down the coffeepot. “Like the coyotes, so far so good.”

  “No one followed you?”

  “If they did, I didn’t notice.” She looked at him closely. “Do you worry about this a lot?”

  “I have two younger sisters.” It was lame, but it was something.

  “Were they ever followed?”

  “Once.”

  “What happened?”

  “They called me.”

  Serena waited.

  Erik kept his mouth shut. He didn’t think she would feel any better knowing that he had taken the guy’s license number, traced it to his cheap apartment, and had a little talk with him. Then he had given the license number to the cops so that they could tell the jerk how much they loved him. He had heard later that one of the female deputies gave the guy some curbside therapy when she found him tailgating a frightened woman at 2 A.M.

  “What happened?” Serena asked.

  “They kept their heads and got home safe and sound. Is that coffee for me?”

  She looked at the mug in her hand. “Er, yes. Sorry. Black, right?”

  “Thanks.” He took the cup, swallowed, and made a sound of surprised pleasure. “This is good.”

  She smiled crookedly. “I rarely poison guests on the first visit.”

  “Second?”

  “I try to wait until the third.”

  He smiled, drained half the mug, and licked his lips. “After the way you nuked the coffee at my house, I thought yours would be terrible.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “I’m not.”

  He finished the cup, washed his hands, dried them thoroughly on the towel she handed him, and looked at her expectantly.

  Despite her possessive, protective reluctance to share the beautiful leaves with anyone, she couldn’t help smiling back at him. “And here I thought you made that long drive just to see me.”

  He winced. “No matter how I answer that one, I lose.”

  Laughing, she washed her own hands, wiped them on her jeans, and headed for the second exit in the odd kitchen. “Follow me.”

  He lo
oked at the smooth swing of her hips and said huskily, “My pleasure.”

  Her head swung around in surprise, but he had expected that. His expression was innocent and his eyes were on her face.

  “What?” he asked.

  She started to say something, saw the trap, and jumped back. “Now I know how you felt. There’s no answer I can make that doesn’t put both feet in my mouth.”

  “At least yours look tasty.”

  She blinked, looked at her bare feet, and then back at him. “Before we go any further, maybe you should eat breakfast.”

  “Why?”

  “If my feet look tasty, you’ll devour the pages in one gulp.”

  Erik’s slow smile was a mixture of humor and male sensuality that stopped Serena’s breath.

  “When it comes to the good stuff, I’m a slow and very thorough kind of man,” he assured her.

  “I’m not touching that one.”

  His lips quirked. “You sure?”

  “My grandmother raised only one dumb child. It wasn’t me.”

  Erik thought about the man with the nearly invisible headphones and a relief tube no doubt tucked away in a handy place. He hoped Serena was right about her intelligence, but he wasn’t betting her life on it. All her grandmother’s secrecy and shrewdness hadn’t kept her from a violent death.

  He wondered if Factoid or one of his minions had cracked the county sheriff’s computer yet. It would be nice to know what the guys with badges really thought about Ellis Weaver’s murder. Or was it Ellis Charters? Given the information that he had sent last night to the Rarities computer, Factoid should have discovered something useful by now.

  For once, Erik was looking forward to having his pager vibrate against his belt.