Moving Target

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Serena took a deep breath. The air smelled of dawn and desert and man. “What makes you say that?”

  “Early this morning—”

  “Correction,” she cut in dryly, “late last night. This is early morning.”

  He smiled. “Whatever. I got the bright idea of checking gather marks and marginalia on the duplicates I have, and on your pages. I think Erik used the red dots in the seal on every fourth page as a counter. If I’m right, your grandmother gave you pages from the front, middle, and end of the book. At least I’m guessing it was the end.”

  “How many pages?”

  “Close to six hundred originally.”

  Her head jerked up so quickly she almost knocked against his chin. “But where’s the rest? Why didn’t she give it to me?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t sure it would get to you.”

  “Morton Hingham wouldn’t have—damn, she really was paranoid, wasn’t she?”

  “From the way she died, she had reason to be.”

  Serena flinched. She didn’t like thinking about her grandmother’s death by fire. “Then the rest of it is lost.”

  “No. Not if you do what your grandmother told you to do: Think like her. Think hard, Serena. Think fast. Think as though your life depended on it.”

  Without waiting for her to say anything, Erik turned and began striding up the final seventy yards to the top of the ridge. Hands on her hips, Serena stared at him. His ease with the steep, rough land both pleased and irritated her.

  “Big guy, you don’t want to know what my grandmother would think of me climbing around a mountain with a macho man at dawn,” she muttered. As for last night . . . well, her grandmother had had a child, so maybe she had known all about the compelling heat and an ecstasy that was like the phoenix, death and resurrection in one.

  But that was something Serena wasn’t going to think about. Not with some high-tech Peeping Tom following them. She shifted the canteen that was poking a hole in her hip and set off up the slope. By the time she got to the top, she was breathing deeply and pulling herself along on every bit of shrubbery she could trust. They hadn’t hiked up to the tree line yet, but some of the shrubs were taller than a basketball player.

  “Watch the top,” Erik called back softly. “It’s covered with loose rocks. Go to the right.”

  The last twenty feet of the scramble was a nearly vertical cliff. She saw where Erik had wedged his boots into cracks or pockets, taking a diagonal route to the top instead of the easier-looking, more natural route up the center. She took a deep breath and followed him, angling off to the right as he had. She didn’t have the skill or upper body strength to pull herself up using only her fingers or clenched fists, but she was agile enough to find other ways to climb than brute strength.

  As she pulled herself up and over, she saw why he hadn’t gone straight up. At the center of the cliff, just back from the lip and invisible from below, there was a hump of rubble that featured rocks of every size from grapes to cantaloupes. If she had tried to climb out at that spot, she would have grabbed loose stones and probably tumbled right back down the rocks.

  “Nice going,” Erik said approvingly as she slid down the other side and into his arms. Reluctantly he released her, but he let his hands caress her every bit of the way. “See that pile of boulders down there?”

  Serena told herself that she was breathless after the scramble up the slope. It was true as far as it went; it just didn’t include having her heart turn over when she felt the lingering touch of his hands.

  “Boulders,” she said, forcing herself to concentrate on something other than the smell of heat and man. She licked her dry lips and told herself that she didn’t want to taste him. Not at all. She knew what sweaty skin tasted like. Salt. Big deal. So why was her mouth watering? “Those big rocks about twenty yards away,” she asked, “the ones that look like they were assembled by a drunken giant?”

  “Yes.” His nostrils flared as he drank her scent. He wanted to drink more, and he wanted it with a force that shocked him. “There’s a hollow with enough room to hide in there.”

  She looked doubtfully at the boulders. “For a rabbit, maybe.”

  “I hid there during a thunderstorm once. The opening is on the far side. Watch for snakes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Wait for Bad Billy to reach that last ten feet.”

  “And then?”

  “I’ll think of something.” Erik’s eyes narrowed. “Have you ever used a gun?”

  “Does a rabbit gun count?”

  “Did you hit anything?”

  She raised one eyebrow. “I rarely missed. G’mom made a really tasty rabbit stew. It was a break from pinto beans and jalapeño peppers.”

  “Okay.” He reached behind his back, under his lightweight jacket, and drew the nine-millimeter gun from its holster. “Safety’s on,” he said, pointing. “The first shot requires a double pull. After that a single pull gets it done.”

  She accepted the gun, taking care to keep the muzzle pointed away from both of them. That alone reassured him. He watched while she took the safety off and put it back on a few times, getting used to the feel of the mechanism. Then he clipped his communications unit on the belt he had loaned her—after he had cut a row of new holes for her much smaller waist.

  “I’ve already put in Niall’s private number,” Erik said. “If something goes wrong, hit TALK, take off the safety on the gun, and stay hidden. If Bad Billy is dumb enough to come looking for you, shoot him and keep on shooting until he gives up or you run out of bullets. Don’t be girly or coy about it, either. You’ll be fighting for your life against a murderer.”

  Her eyes widened, then narrowed as she realized what he hadn’t said: if someone came after her, it would be over Erik’s dead body. “Keep the gun,” she said starkly.

  “I’ve got a much better weapon.”

  “What?”

  “The land.”

  Her eyelids flickered. She wanted to ask a hundred questions and make a thousand objections, but none of them would change Erik’s mind or their circumstances, and she knew it.

  “Don’t look so worried,” he said, smiling. “I plan to keep the upper hand all the way with Bad Billy. But if I don’t . . .” His mouth flattened. No matter what, he would see that she wasn’t hurt. “Niall will tell you what to do.”

  Before she could say anything, both of them heard the rattle of rocks from the other side of the ridge. Wallace was on the move up toward them. From the sliding, grating sounds he made, he wasn’t having an easy time of it.

  Erik jerked his chin toward the boulders.

  Serena’s mouth tightened into an unhappy line, but she didn’t argue. There was no time and she knew it. She headed for the boulders, found the opening, and tossed a handful of pebbles into the gloom beyond. No snake rattled a warning. She went in headfirst and began mentally revising Erik’s plans.

  For openers, she wasn’t going to sit and suck her thumb while he risked his life.

  Chapter 44

  LOS ANGELES

  SATURDAY MORNING

  Risa Sheridan stared at the ringing phone like it was a rat. Outside her modest hotel room, L.A. was up and moving, but not very fast. Saturday morning wasn’t a big hustle-bustle time in the city. Most folks were still sleeping off Friday night.

  Resentfully she looked at the clock. Nobody should be calling her before 7 A.M. on a Saturday morning, which meant that somebody in another time zone had forgotten about the three-hour difference between East and West coasts, or someone didn’t care, or was awake in the same time zone and thought she should be awake, too.

  She was betting on the latter.

  “Yes, Mr. Tannahill,” she said to the dark, empty room as she reached for the phone. “Whatever you say, Mr. Tannahill. And have I mentioned lately what a dear, sweet, kind, relentlessly demanding bastard you are?”

  She picked up the phone. “I didn’t ask for a wake-up call.”

  Sh
ane ignored her. “You didn’t mention that the International Antiquarian Book Exposition was in L.A. this weekend, either.”

  “Mr. Tannahill. What a surprise.”

  In Las Vegas, high above the twenty-four-hour hustle of the Golden Fleece, Shane smiled thinly at the complete lack of inflection in his curator’s voice. The gold pen in his left hand began turning over lazily, walking across the back of his fingers like an acrobat doing slow flips.

  “Have you been to the exposition yet?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He waited.

  So did she.

  “Go,” he said.

  “Everything that you might be interested in was shown to one or all of the major museums before the festival opened,” Risa said. “Unless you’re telling me to sift the dregs, I can’t think of a reason to go there.”

  “I can.”

  “I await enlightenment.”

  Shane wished he could see Risa’s lush mouth form the biting words. He had never touched her, because he didn’t fool around with employees. That didn’t mean he was blind. He was just too smart to get tangled up with a female tiger like Risa Sheridan. Yanking her chain, however, was always entertaining.

  “Because I told you to,” he said.

  “Brilliant.”

  “And because the Huntington Library, which would be a logical choice for what I’m talking about, is rumored to be having financial difficulties.”

  “It’s a library. Of course it’s short of money.”

  “It’s a scholarly kind of library. No sex appeal, which means no big exhibits to bring in cash. The grounds are huge. Takes an army to keep it up. Very expensive, so the administration probably has been cutting corners, saving on basic maintenance, selling off some of the stuff in the basement, that sort of thing.”

  Risa saw where the explanation was going. “So they’re not acquiring right now.”

  “It’s nice to work with a smart woman.”

  “Try hiring your casino girls by their IQ rather than their bra size.”

  “Same problem the Huntington has—no sex appeal.”

  “Some men have gotten past the tits-and-snicker stage.”

  “Not enough of them to fill my casinos.”

  Risa gave up the losing end of that argument. “Are you after anything in particular at the antiquarian garage sale, or do you just want me to look around?”

  “Look all you want, but listen even harder. If anyone wants to talk about the Book of the Learned, I’ll be happy to make them rich.”

  She straightened as the last of the I-need-coffee haze disappeared from her mind. “Is it here?”

  “That’s your job. Find out. And Risa?”

  “Yes?”

  “At the first hint of danger, get out.”

  “Danger?” She frowned. She had had her share of obsessed collectors screaming and threatening her. She had met dubious dealers in back alleys at night. Unpleasant, but part of the business, especially for an aggressive, ambitious curator like her. Shane knew that as well as she did. In fact, he positively encouraged it. “What have you heard?” she asked sharply.

  “Nothing. That’s why I’m nervous. It makes me think that whoever has the Book of the Learned is keeping folks quiet the old-fashioned way.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Killing them.”

  Chapter 45

  NEAR PALM SPRINGS

  SATURDAY MORNING

  Wallace, aka Bad Billy, eyed the last twenty feet between himself and the top of the ridge. He was cursing steadily, monotonously, and very quietly. Although he always went to work with an overnight kit in hand, nobody had bothered to tell him that the slack-wristed Palm Springs scholar whose house he was watching was actually a fucking mountain goat. If the woman hadn’t slowed Erik North, Wallace knew he would have been lost after the first mile.

  Not that it had been a picnic so far. If he hadn’t been in shape, he would have been on his hands and knees, panting. Just as soon as he could, he was going to get a pair of really expensive hiking boots and put them on the client’s bill.

  But for now he was stuck trying to climb a cliff wearing old running shoes. It could have been worse, he supposed. He could have been in a tux and leather shoes like the last job.

  He looked at the cliff one more time, listened carefully, and heard nothing. His orders hadn’t said anything about beating the crap out of North, but they hadn’t said anything about not doing it, either. North wouldn’t be so hard to keep track of if he had a busted ankle. Or neck.

  Wallace took the cliff where the route looked easiest—straight up the middle. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. He had run out of places to put his hands, much less his feet. He would have to climb down and try a different route. Swearing under his breath, he felt around with his toe for the foothold he had just abandoned. His shoe grated over rock and slid off.

  “I’d offer a hand, but we haven’t been introduced,” said a voice from over his head and to the right.

  The P.I. was too shrewd to lose his balance by looking up suddenly, especially when the voice was between him and the rising sun. He looked up slowly. Very slowly. He saw a man crouching on his heels, silhouetted at the edge of the cliff, and very much at ease with heights and tricky footing. For all the tension he showed, the guy might have been standing on a pitcher’s mound.

  But it wasn’t until Wallace focused on Erik’s eyes, pale against the shadows of his face, that he knew he had made a big mistake. The guy might make his living by drawing pictures in books, but he wasn’t anybody’s Tinkerbell. The only good news was that North’s hands were empty. All Wallace had to do was support himself on one foot and one hand while reaching across his chest and into his shoulder harness for his pistol.

  Yeah. Right. He would just have to wait until he climbed down for that little pleasure.

  “You want a name?” Wallace asked.

  “I have one. What about you?”

  “David Farmer.”

  Erik looked at the man who was clinging to the rocks with both hands and one foot. Wallace wasn’t sweating much or panting, which spoke well for his physical condition. He hadn’t even paused before lying, which spoke well for his wits if not for his morals.

  Not looking away from his quarry, Erik selected a baseball-size rock from the rubble at the top of the cliff and wrapped his hand around the cold stone. “All right, David Farmer. What are you doing out here?”

  “Walking. Then I got lost. You know the way out?”

  “There are several ways, but unless you start telling me the truth, you won’t need any of them.”

  “Great,” Wallace said sarcastically. “First I get lost and then I get found by a paranoid survivalist.”

  “Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?” Erik’s smile was even less comforting than his eyes. “Want to start all over again?”

  “Look, I’m sorry you don’t believe me. I’ll just climb back down and—”

  “You make one move,” Erik cut in calmly, “and I’m going to start dropping rocks on you. By the time Search and Rescue finds you—if they ever find you—they’ll assume you’re just one more dumb tourist who thought Mother Nature was a sweet old lady and cougars really would rather eat carrots than kids. You with me so far?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Third chance. Who are you?”

  Wallace thought about sticking with David Farmer. Then he thought about how he had underestimated Erik North so far. But no longer. There was no doubt that the man above him was cold enough to stone him off the cliff.

  And smart enough to get away with it.

  “William Wallace,” he hissed through his teeth, trying to force a smile.

  “Why are you walking around in the wilderness at dawn?”

  “You tell me,” he retorted. He had been wondering about just that thing for the last two miles. Surely there were better places to hide the portfolio.

  Thoughtfully, Erik balanced the rock at his own eye level on h
is flattened palm, as though testing the missile’s weight and balance. Some internal equilibrium shifted. The rock started to fall, heading straight for Bad Billy’s face.

  “All right! All right! I’ll talk,” Wallace said quickly, cringing against the cliff.

  Erik caught the rock with a movement that was so fast it made Wallace blink. Then Erik went back to balancing the rock on his palm.

  “I’m watching the leather case,” Wallace said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m being paid.”

  “Who hired you?” Erik asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  The stone rolled off Erik’s hand and over the edge of the cliff. It missed Wallace, but not by much. Both men listened while the rock bounced, grated, bounced again, then rolled off down the steep slope at the bottom of the cliff. The stone rolled for a long time, caroming off anything bigger than itself with unhappy crunching sounds.

  “How far do you think you’ll roll?” Erik asked, picking up another rock. This time there was nothing casual about the way he handled it. He looked like the baseball pitcher he once had been.

  Wallace began to get nervous. “I told you the truth. I don’t know who hired me.”

  The next rock smacked into his shoulder. It could just as easily have been his nose. Both men knew it. Only one of them sweated over it.

  “I don’t know!” Wallace said, his voice rising.

  Rocks rained down one after another, thrown so swiftly that he couldn’t have ducked even if he had been on the flats. A cut opened up high on his cheek. The back of his head throbbed. He tried to crawl into the cracks on the cliff, but there wasn’t nearly enough room.

  He had been pummeled before, but never while clinging to a cliff. It terrified him almost as much as the certainty that Erik North was playing with him like a cat idly toying with a mouse before he moved in for the kill.

  “Please,” Wallace said hoarsely. “You gotta believe me. I don’t know!”

  “I don’t believe you.”