“How’s Gretchen?”
“Hot, man. Hot.”
“Tie it in a knot. Dana’s in the number two clean room. She needs you.”
“I’m there.”
Niall watched Dana touch her left ear lightly and knew that McCoy had gotten through on her ear bug. He heard her request the Buyer Beware database, reference stolen gold jewelry, around fourth-century B.C., Asia Minor or more probably Greece, quite possibly the site known as Patikapaion. While she spelled out the last for McCoy, Niall switched his attention back to Risa.
She was closing in for the kill.
“. . . the silk cord holding the gold beads is almost certainly more recent than my tentative date of fourth century B.C.,” Risa’s low voice continued. “The terminals on the necklace, what you call the fastenings, are a later addition. Though some attempt was made to match gold alloys, it wasn’t entirely successful. If you doubt me, we’ll test the fastenings and the beads, and tell you where the gold for each likely originated. It won’t be the same place.”
The man gave her a look that suggested he wasn’t interested in testing anything.
“The beads,” she said, “aren’t modern but are, except for the fourth from the left, all of the same age and origin. If you’ll look at the screen to your left again, I’ll show you how I reached this conclusion. Under magnification”—she zoomed in on the piece with the computer-cum-camera that was part of the clean room’s services—“you can see the wear pattern quite clearly, especially on the alternating decorated beads. The filigree is almost smooth. These beads are made of a soft, nearly pure gold and have rubbed against each other for a long, long time.”
He grunted.
“Whoever added that one bead was probably the same person who added the fastenings,” she continued. “The gold alloy looks quite similar. Again, there are tests to determine if the gold came from the same mine as the rest of the beads. We don’t have a way to determine the age of gold, as I explained earlier. At this point, I’m confident that you have valid beads, except for one, and terminals—fastenings—of frankly dubious quality.”
The man said something unpleasant under his breath. “For as much as you’re charging for the appraisal, I’d expected something more, uh . . .”
“Sympathetic?” she supplied in a smoky drawl.
He shrugged and tucked his tie into his charcoal wool suit coat with the automatic gesture of a man who has spent a lot of time dressed for success. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Rarities sets the fees,” Risa said. “I’m merely an outside consultant. I have no financial interest whatsoever in anything but the truth.”
“Yeah, well, you get a fucking gold star in your file for this one, and I get hosed.”
“That’s the nature of flea markets.” Risa’s smile told him that she no more believed the flea market story than he did. “People get hosed regularly in those places. I’m sorry you were one of them.”
Neither one of them believed that, either.
“Ah, there we are,” Dana said, pointing to another of the flat screens that circled the room. “This is Rarities Unlimited’s own compilation of all stolen art and artifacts, both private and public.”
The picture changed dizzyingly as it cycled through a series of necklaces made up only of gold beads. Each photo was numbered in the lower right-hand corner. Risa watched closely.
“Seventeen,” she said.
“Zoom in,” Dana said softly. “Split screen to show Mr. Morrison’s necklace as well.”
As McCoy manipulated the electronics, a picture of a string of golden beads filled half the screen. When Morrison’s necklace was added to the other side, it was nearly a mirror image.
Even in the security room, Niall’s untrained eye could see that the beads in the necklace in the clean room and the necklace in the database matched. Well, almost matched. One bead was a clinker.
“Startling similarity, wouldn’t you say?” Dana asked mildly.
“That necklace doesn’t have fastenings,” Morrison pointed out.
“And it’s missing a bead,” Risa said. “Remove the later additions from your necklace and you have identity, not similarity.”
“Data,” Dana said into her mike.
Factoid talked into her ear.
“The necklace on the left used to be in the Hermitage,” Dana said, listening as she talked. “When they were updating their catalogues recently, they discovered it was missing.”
“Are you suggesting I stole it?” Morrison asked angrily.
“No. I am suggesting that you are in possession of a piece of stolen art whose rightful owner is one of Russia’s foremost national museums.” Dana’s voice was an even alto that could be soothing or acid, whichever she thought would get the job done. Right now she was going for soothing. “If you would like Rarities to broker the return of the necklace, we will waive our appraisal fee. You will owe us nothing. In return, you will undoubtedly get a letter of appreciation from several international art organizations. A gold star, as you put it.”
“No thanks.” He reached for the necklace. “I’ll try my luck somewhere else.”
Risa smiled cynically. She had expected his reaction. Once you got beyond the ivory towers of universities, the art market was just that: a market.
“Your privilege,” Dana said. “Naturally, it is our obligation to report to the proper authorities the presence of what we believe to be a stolen cultural treasure in the United States.”
“Wait just a fucking minute!” he snarled. “You promised me confidentiality. I paid a fucking fortune to get you to—”
Niall didn’t wait to hear any more. He was out of his office and opening the door to the clean room in twenty seconds.
“. . . unless we discovered that the goods were listed as stolen, yes,” Dana was saying when Niall opened the door. She wasn’t surprised at his sudden appearance. Niall’s rule of thumb was “Three fucks and you’re out.” Morrison had used up his quota, and a few more before Niall walked in. Dana had no objection to the language itself, but it was a good indicator of a frayed temper. “The policy of Rarities Unlimited was spelled out quite clearly in the contract you signed before we agreed to appraise your piece. If you need to refresh your memory, we’ll give you another copy on your way out.”
“But it’s just a fucking necklace!”
“You’re confusing this with the golden bells and jade rings the ancient Chinese used,” Risa said blandly. “As an aid to sexual intercourse, they were quite valued.”
“What are you talking about?” Morrison yelped.
“Jewelry used to enhance a man’s erectile function,” Dana said in an acid tone. “Fucking jewelry, as you described it.”
Niall bit the inside of his cheeks so that he wouldn’t laugh out loud. “Do we have a problem here, Ms. Gaynor?” he asked.
“I don’t believe so. Mr. Morrison was just leaving with his necklace.”
“I’ll stop payment on my check!”
Dana shrugged. “Whatever you wish. We have lawyers on retainer. They might as well do something to earn their money.” She looked at Niall. “Did the Louis XIV cabinet arrive?”
“We’re uncrating it in the number four clean room right now.”
“Excellent.” She turned to Risa. “As always, a pleasure. I’d appreciate having your written appraisal as soon as possible. Whenever you want to review the tapes and select individual frames to include as photos in your report, let—”
“Tapes? Photos?” Morrison asked loudly. “What the hell are—”
“It’s in the contract you signed,” Niall cut in. “No images taken by Rarities will be used for publication without your written permission. The appraisal isn’t for publication. It’s for our files and yours. It will be a four-color beauty worthy of framing.”
Morrison looked at the necklace like it was a snake. He held a losing hand and knew it. He might possibly sell the necklace before bureaucratic wheels turned him into roadkill, but he doubted
it. Time to cut his losses and find another game.
“Fuck it,” he said. “Keep the necklace. You want the name of the guy that sold it to me?”
“We’re always interested in provenance,” Dana said, her voice creamy again.
“Yeah, I’ll just bet you are. Any chance of a finder’s fee for me on this one?”
“We’ll do our best to secure one. My office is free at the moment. Would you care for coffee or something stronger?”
With a muttered curse, Morrison followed Dana out of the clean room. His voice floated back, telling about a high-stakes poker game where cash, gems, and fancy jewelry were all part of the pot. The words flea market and wife weren’t part of the conversation.
Risa watched Morrison stalk out of sight, enjoying every bit of it. Dana was one of the few people on earth Risa really respected. Niall was another.
Niall saw her X-rated lips turn up in a small smile. “What?” he said. “You’ve seen Dana in action before.”
“Always a pleasure, but that’s not why I’m smiling.”
“Oh?”
“I thought I recognized Morrison. He’s a regular at the Golden Fleece’s version of your clean rooms.”
Niall thought of Shane Tannahill’s very private, very secure rooms on the top floor of the Golden Fleece. The rooms were rented out to people who didn’t want to gamble in the noisy fishbowl of the casino’s public rooms. “High roller?”
“Yes. Shane even plays poker with him occasionally.”
“Morrison sure wasn’t wearing his poker face today.”
“He didn’t know Dana was playing.”
Niall’s smile flashed wolfishly. “Live and learn.”
Chapter 35
PALM SPRINGS
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
Serena stood in a guest room on the second floor of Erik North’s bemusing castle. The view of the street was partially blocked by a blazing riot of bougainvillea, but she could see enough. Too much, actually.
“He’s still out there,” she said unhappily.
Erik didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know what she was talking about. The green baby pickup had indeed followed them off the freeway, up the sand-scoured four-lane highway to the edge of the city, through the illogical maze of residential streets in old Palm Springs, and right up to the gate of his home.
“You want a different room?” he asked.
“One without a view of the street?”
“Yeah.”
“If you wouldn’t mind . . .”
He grabbed her bag off the bed. “Follow me.”
She walked behind him, trying not to admire the flexed strength of his bare forearm holding her bag, his easy stride, and the fit of his faded jeans. Something about him made her palms tingle, and that made her feel like rubbing something—or biting it. It wasn’t a feeling she liked or knew how to handle, because she had never had it before she met Erik.
When Picky began to wind around her feet, more than a little edgy and demanding in his new surroundings, she was glad of the excuse to pick him up. He allowed her seventeen seconds of adoration, then leaped out of her arms to continue exploring the house.
“How about this one?” Erik asked.
She looked at the open, sunny room with its baronial furnishings, high ceiling, and brass ceiling fan. The bedspread on the huge, raised bed was a machine-made tapestry that had once been jewel-toned but had faded over the years to a quiet kind of radiance. The rug was an old kilim with its hallmark slit-weave technique, which resulted in designs shaped like diamonds or triangles and diagonal stair steps marching across the center. The rug’s yellow, red, green, and blue-black colors were also faded, yet still vibrant.
“Perfect,” she said simply.
“How do you know? You haven’t even looked out the windows.”
Guiltily her head snapped up from studying the beautiful old handwoven rug. “I’m sure the view will be—“ Her words stopped when she looked out the windows that took up most of the west wall. “Oh, the mountains! That’s Dry Falls, isn’t it?”
He smiled. “Especially this winter. We’ve hardly had enough rain to make a drool line down the stone cliff.”
After a few moments Serena looked away from the view of her favorite mountains. The subtle signs of habitation that she had missed on her first survey of the room now came out clearly: sketches tacked on a big bulletin board near the closet door, several electronic charging cradles plugged in near the dresser, a portable computer humming quietly to itself on a bedside table that was also a desk, and a book detailing medieval designs open on a second bedside table.
“This is your room,” she realized. “I can’t take it.”
“Don’t worry, I had the housekeeper come in for a fast lick this morning after I left. Everything’s clean, including the sheets.”
“That’s not what I meant. I can’t move you out of your own room.”
“You aren’t. I am.”
“But—”
“It will save me sneaking through your bedroom while you’re asleep—”
“Sneaking—“ she began hotly.
“—to check on our tail,” Erik continued, ignoring her interruption. “The guest room has the best view of the street in the whole house. Besides, my bedroom is big enough to set up your loom. Little Betty would be a real squeeze in the other room.”
She took a breath to argue, but the thought of having some stranger peering through her bedroom window made her skin crawl. “Let’s go back to Plan A.”
“The one where you stay at a motel?”
“Yes.”
“Even with adjoining rooms, we’ll be a lot more crowded there than we are here.”
“Adjoining rooms. We. What are you talking about?”
“Watching your back while you watch mine. We’re sticking together, Serena. Two have a better chance playing this game than one, and the best chance of all is to stay here. I have a good security system, a high wall, and an attack cuckoo.”
She started to argue and found herself laughing instead. “Attack cuckoo. My God. We’d be better off whacking the guy over his head with my loom.”
Erik grinned. “Good idea. Like I said, we’ll have a better chance if we stay together.”
She didn’t look convinced.
He put his hands on his hips. “Look. If I was going to hurt you or jump on you, I’d have done it already. Can you say the same for the guy out there?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem here?”
The problem was that Serena was beginning to want to jump on Erik, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. She didn’t even like thinking it. Yet there it was, as plain as the tingling in her palms and the heat growing in the pit of her stomach.
“No problem,” she said through her teeth. “Let’s get the loom tightened before the threads go completely wonky. I’ll settle down once I have something to do with my hands.”
He had a suggestion or two about that, but kept his mouth shut. Until her loom was set up, she could still change her mind and bolt, taking the pages with her. He didn’t want that. He was dying to really examine them.
When he heard his own thought, he winced. Dying to wasn’t a happy description at the moment, especially with some thug parked on the street just outside the gate.
Factoid, where the hell are those police reports on Ellis Weaver’s murder?
Chapter 36
PALM SPRINGS
FRIDAY NIGHT
As soon as Serena began weaving, Erik took his computer to the guest room, plugged it in again, and started hunting for new additions. Even though McCoy hadn’t called, he might have left something in the file.
He had.
“Thank you, O gods of geekdom,” Erik muttered.
He called up the Book of the Learned file, turned the audio down to zilch—Factoid’s running commentary tended to be loud and often obscene—and started reading about the night Ellis Weaver died.
The police wor
k was about what he would expect of county cops whose major duties consisted of rousting prostitutes, scraping up human roadkill, and handcuffing mouthy drunks. Even if the cop work had been of the highest order, by the time the county fire truck emptied its tank and hosed down the smoking ruins of the cabin, there wasn’t much evidence left to collect.
What they had found was gruesome. Enough remained of Serena’s grandmother to prove in living color that a human being had burned to death. It was all there in the video file, the spine arched backward in death, the odd shreds of flesh or clothing that had escaped complete annihilation, the feeling of terrible screams echoing from the charred, open jaw.
Erik took a few deep breaths and let them out. He had seen autopsy reports and crime-scene photos before, but the grisly ones still turned his stomach. He forced himself to focus on the pages of written reports detailing evidence collected at the crime scene.
There wasn’t much real evidence. Tire tracks leading in and out on the dirt road and footprints around the cabin . . . yeah, there were lots and lots of them. Every county cop with a set of wheels and an hour to kill had driven up the road to offer his professional opinion on what had happened. The fire crew had left tracks and puddles all over the place. The arson investigation team had been more delicate, but only after they finished cussing out everyone who had messed up the scene in the first place.
The closest thing to a neighbor was Jolly Barnes, a hermit who lived a half mile down the road. He hadn’t heard or seen anything, because he had spent the night the way he always did—stinking drunk. Ellis Weaver didn’t have any friends to question. There wasn’t a lover, husband, ex-husband, or Peeping Tom. There was nothing worth stealing inside the cabin. No TV, no computer, no fancy electronics of any kind because there was no electricity. Ellis Weaver’s idea of cash on hand had been a dish of small change and a few crumpled dollar bills. The truck she drove was older than most high school graduates.
The cops had tried. The investigator assigned to the case had made the rounds of all the grungy bars, sun-hammered trailer parks, hobo campgrounds, and biker hangouts. A handful of people had heard about the death. No one looked guilty. No one gave a damn. No one had any idea why anyone would want to fry some old lady who lived alone. She hadn’t bothered anyone. They hadn’t bothered her. End of interview.
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