Serena heard an echo of laughter in her head and sensed the satisfaction of a weaver whose uncanny skills had lasted into a time when such things were neither known nor thought possible.
“A lure and a weapon,” Erik murmured, remembering. He touched the cloth with new appreciation. “Nifty painkiller, too.”
Ian Lapstrake stepped—or staggered—into the light of the lantern. One side of his head was bleeding freely. So were several cuts on his fingers.
“What happened to you two?” Serena asked, looking from Niall to Lapstrake.
“We had a meeting of the minds,” Lapstrake said roughly.
“Bastard came up behind us when we were still blind and deaf from the helicopter taking off,” Niall explained. “Rang us like bells. Then he taped us up and left us behind a pile of rocks.”
“We’d still be there, if it wasn’t for Niall’s shoelaces,” Lapstrake added, looking at his bloody fingers ruefully. “I was working behind my back, so it took me a little while to figure out where the razor strip began and ended.” He glanced up, pinning Erik with dark eyes that weren’t smiling at all. “Anything else need doing before we call 911?”
Erik understood the real question: Anything you want to hide before the cops get here? “I don’t think we need any stage dressing. It was ambush and self-defense all the way. I’d like to keep Serena out of it, though.”
“Which gun?” Lapstrake asked, looking around.
“Mine, behind us,” Erik said. “Wipe it down and hand it to me, okay?”
“But—” she began.
“You’d be doing me a favor,” Niall said quickly. “Dana is Satan in spiked heels when a client ends up doing our job.”
“I’ll hold on to this,” Erik said as he eased her hand away from the cloth pressed against his ribs. “Go get the Book of the Learned. See if a Learned pattern master can tell us what all the killing was about.”
“Maybe they believed that crap about the secret to eternal life,” Niall offered.
“Wallace might have,” Erik said. “Paul? No way. His kind doesn’t believe in anything.”
“What kind is that?” Niall asked.
“Psychopath.”
Slowly Serena went to the ancient book that had cost so many lives. She wiped her hands on her jeans and frowned at the imperfect results. Then she saw that some of Erik’s blood was already on the cover, darkening the luster of gold. She decided there was nothing she could do to the Book of the Learned that time and man hadn’t already done many times over. With a final swipe of her hands over her jeans, she carefully opened the book.
She couldn’t read the writing on the first loose vellum pages, but she could recognize that it wasn’t the work of Erik the Learned. The calligraphy was less perfect, less patient, somehow more feminine. It wasn’t simple text that met her eyes but what appeared to be a list of names linked to other lists.
Gradually she realized that she was looking at a genealogy. One word appeared again and again, and from it came the next generation to be listed.
She turned the page over. The list continued on the other side. The writing varied in style, individual despite the strict rules of calligraphy. The lines were small, almost cramped in an obvious attempt to use as little of the precious vellum as possible. But still there were pages.
The appearance of the list changed through time as the shape of the letters and the words themselves changed, becoming more recognizable. Fascinated, she watched the language evolve into more modern spelling, a more modern alphabet, Arabic numerals, cursive writing. Then she turned another page and saw a name leap up from it in endless combination.
Serena.
Each woman’s maiden name changed into a married name or simply descended unchanged to the first female child of the next generation. The marriages, births, and deaths of each Serena’s relatives weren’t recorded unless there were no girls born and a collateral line was designated. But one thing didn’t vary: only the firstborn female of any given generation carried Serena as some part of her name.
Ignoring the surnames, Serena whispered the first and middle names of her female ancestors, reading faster and faster until the names blurred into a kind of litany.
Cassandra Serena. Serena Elspeth. Kenna Serena. Serena Elen. Beatrice Serena. Elisabeth Serena. Mary Serena. Serena Margaret. Serena Victoria. Lisbeth Serena. Marilyn Serena. Serena Lyn.
Abruptly she realized that she had read her own name aloud and that of her mother, her grandmother. For the first time she focused on the surnames, her mother’s maiden name, her grandmother’s married name.
Shocked, Serena made a sound that could have been disbelief or pain or both combined.
“Serena?”
She looked up and found Erik watching her with his vivid bird-of-prey eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
She tried to speak, couldn’t, and tried again. “Norman Warrick is my grandfather.”
Chapter 72
PALM DESERT
TWO DAYS LATER
The doorbell chime’s melodious fifteenth-century harmonies blended oddly with the stark rise of desert mountains beyond the Warrick estate’s high walls. Mentally bracing himself, Garrison Montclair opened the front door.
A single glance catalogued what waited for him: Dana, Niall, Erik, and Serena stood on the imposing front porch. Niall and Erik looked like they had tangled with a train—all bruises and bandages. Dana was a rapier sheathed in black, ready to slice. Serena’s fiery hair was unbraided and tied at her nape with a black ribbon. Her eyes were uncomfortable to look into, the kind of violet that slid off into a midnight that wasn’t in any hurry for dawn. She was carrying what appeared to be a large package wrapped in a shapeless black cloth bag.
“Thank you for coming here rather than insisting that we go to Los Angeles,” Garrison said. “This has been a shock for everyone. While we’re all eager to help clear up this mess in any way we can, Cleary really shouldn’t be traveling until she feels better.”
If she ever did. Watching her wail for her dead lover had been one of the most disturbing experiences of Garrison’s life. Warrick’s contempt for his daughter’s condition hadn’t helped.
“Come in,” Garrison said, stepping back. “I don’t know what we can tell you that we didn’t tell the police, but . . .” He shrugged. “Frankly, I’m hoping you can tell us something.”
Erik looked at the clean-shaven young son of wealth and said, “I’m sure you are.”
“It’s hard to believe you can know someone for ten years and not know he’s crazy,” Garrison said.
“That’s why you think Carson did it?” Niall asked casually. “He was a nutcase?”
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense to me.”
“Perhaps your grandfather will have the insights that are supposed to come with age,” Dana said smoothly. Her smile was like a knife sliding out of a sheath. “I take it he’s home?”
“He’s in the throne room.” Garrison smiled sourly. “But if you call it that to his face, he’ll throw you out. Follow me.”
When Serena hesitated, Erik ran the back of his fingers softly down her cheek. “You don’t have to come.”
“He’s my grandfather,” she said in a low voice.
Erik started to say something, then simply touched her cheek again. Together they followed Garrison into the huge room. Serena gave the sumptuous rugs and wall hangings no more than a swift glance. Her fingers were locked around the Book of the Learned. It was the ancient manuscript’s designs and colors that filled her mind, the genealogy that led through time to herself and a grandfather she had never known.
And wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Norman Warrick was sitting in the intricately carved ebony chair that gave “the throne room” its nickname. Against his dark clothes, his face was pale, almost translucent. So was his hair. But his eyes were the same clear, cold hazel Serena remembered. They watched her unblinkingly.
Not until Cleary moved did Serena see her
. Instead of her usual fluffed and curled hairstyle, Cleary had skinned her hair back into a bun that made her look every one of her fifty-odd years. The brown tailored pantsuit she wore added neither color to her face nor grace to her starkly thin body. The only thing truly alive in her was her eyes. They bored into Erik with naked hatred.
“What is this nonsense?” Warrick demanded in a surprisingly strong voice. “I’m looking for provenance as fast as I can and still run a business. Without Paul, it’s going to be a lot slower. He was my right hand as well as my head of security, and the staff knew it.”
Cleary flinched. Color flared on her cheekbones, then faded. “I handle the staff,” she said dully.
“Bullshit. Paul kept things running. He was just smart enough to let you think you were doing it.” Warrick turned away from his daughter and focused on Serena. “Well, I suppose you’ve come to your senses and decided to sell me those tarted-up pages. You should have done it when I first offered. The price now is a hundred thousand, and that includes all of it.”
“All of what?” Serena asked carefully.
“Don’t be as stupid as you look.” Warrick turned impatiently to Dana. “If Rarities says those pages are good, you’ll regret it.”
“Not as much as you will,” Erik said. “They’re better than anything you got out of the Rubin estate.”
For a moment Warrick went still, then he turned his whole body and stared at Erik. “I’ve bought and sold hundreds of estates in my lifetime,” Warrick said. “Hell, thousands. Who’s Rubin?”
Garrison’s mouth thinned and his eyes closed. He glanced toward Cleary. She was still glaring at Erik as though he was reptilian rather than human.
“A man whose estate you bought in 1940,” Erik said.
“Did I? Then there will be a record of the estate’s contents somewhere.”
“There was no inventory.”
Warrick smiled. His teeth were unnaturally white. “Then you have a problem, don’t you?”
“No,” Dana said distinctly. “You do. The police are still looking for a motive in the Carson-Wallace case. When we tell them that your employee—your right-hand man, I believe you called him—started murdering people a year ago because they—”
“That’s a lie!” Cleary shot to her feet and stood, swaying with a combination of sedatives and an emotion too violent to be chained. “Paul wouldn’t kill anyone!”
“Really?” Dana turned and looked speculatively at Garrison. “Your grandfather is mean enough to murder a kitten, but not spry enough in the time period that concerns us. You, however, are.”
“Ridiculous!” Cleary’s voice climbed into an unpleasant screech. “Garrison would never—”
“That leaves you,” Dana cut in smoothly, turning to Cleary. “Shall we start discussing dates and alibis?”
Cleary’s mouth opened. Nothing came out but a high, thin sound.
“Sit down and shut up,” Warrick snapped at his daughter. “God deliver me, why are all females so useless?”
“Try having a baby without one,” Serena suggested.
He glared at her and his silence said that her comment was beneath an answer.
“What did you do to my grandmother that she spent her life hiding from you?” Serena asked.
“What is she blathering about?” Warrick asked Dana.
“Your first wife, Lisbeth Serena Warrick, maiden name Charters,” Serena said. “She married you during World War Two. Then she left you in Manhattan, took her baby, and went alone across the continent. She started over in the desert not fifty miles from here. She changed her last name to Weaver, her first name to Ellis. She lived in stark poverty for the rest of her life in order to hide her real identity. Why? What did you do to her?”
Cleary put her head in her hands and started to cry quietly. Garrison went and put his hand on his mother’s shoulder, but his eyes were on his grandfather.
“She was a tiresome, rude country girl,” Warrick said, dismissing Lisbeth’s life with a wave of his hand, “but she had a good eye for art. She stole some very valuable manuscripts from me. That’s why she hid all her life. She knew what I would do if I found her.”
“Burn her to death?” Dana suggested mildly.
Warrick shot her a cold glance. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“She isn’t,” Serena said in a biting voice. “But you are.” She stripped off the black cloth and let the Book of the Learned gleam in the room’s genteel light. “You expect me to believe that my grandmother stole this from you.”
In the sudden silence, Cleary’s whispering sobs sounded like shouts.
Warrick leaned forward. “That’s mine. Bring it here.”
“It’s my inheritance from my grandmother.”
“Which she stole from me!” Warrick bellowed.
He pointed with a shaking finger toward the rich glow of gems and gold. “How else would a poor, unlettered hill girl get a piece of art like that?”
“From her mother,” Erik said, “who got it from her mother, who got it from her mother, all the way back to the early twelfth century, when Erik, called Glendruid or the Learned, created the book and gave it to Alana Serena, the firstborn daughter of the last survivor of the Silverfells clan, Serena, called the sorceress.”
“Fairy tales for children,” Warrick said, but he never looked away from the Book of the Learned gleaming almost within reach. “Lisbeth’s people were dirt farmers who came from dirt farmers who came from crofters who were so useless the Scots lairds cleared them from the land and replaced them with sheep. Are you asking anyone to believe that a manuscript worth millions was passed down through generation after generation of miserable poverty?”
Dana looked at Erik with new respect. “You were right. He must have been up all night with his lawyers.”
“Or his killers,” Niall said.
“What bullshit are you slinging now?” Warrick demanded. “You want lawyers? I have a building full of them in Manhattan and more in Chicago. You want to fight me over this?” His clear, burning eyes focused on Serena. “Take the hundred thousand as a reward, leave the book, and get out.”
“Go to hell,” she said through her teeth.
Warrick leaned back and looked at Dana. “Which side are you on?”
“The same one as always: the art’s,” Dana said crisply. “It stays with Serena, who got it from her grandmother, who ran from you to prevent you from butchering any more of the book in order to keep the House of Warrick afloat after the Depression and World War Two.”
“So you admit she stole it,” Garrison said swiftly. He didn’t trust his grandfather to keep his temper much longer. Once he lost it, the situation would head for the toilet even faster than it was going now.
“The ownership of the manuscript is clear,” Erik said. “It’s written in a genealogy in front of the book. It is Serena’s.”
Garrison shrugged, unimpressed. “One of America’s foremost duplicators of old manuscripts happens to be fucking the woman who’s claiming the Book of the Learned on the basis of some line of descent conveniently written in the book itself. Pretty thin, when millions are at stake.”
Niall put a cautionary hand on Erik as he stepped forward.
Garrison ignored both of them, focusing only on Dana. “I assume you can prove Grandfather actually was married to that woman, whatever her name was.”
“Lisbeth Serena Charters,” Dana said. “Yes. We have a copy of the marriage certificate.”
“Good. That proves a marriage took place,” Garrison said calmly. He turned to Serena. “Since they were married, the book is at least half Grandfather’s in any case. Under the circumstances, he is being generous to give you a finder’s fee. If you insist on fighting him, you’ll spend more on lawyers than any part of the book is worth.”
Erik clapped his hands mockingly. “Very good, Garrison. Harvard wasn’t wasted on you. You can sell snake oil with the best of them. I can’t wait to hear your explanation of your grandfather’s forger
ies of Renaissance illuminations over pages cut from the Book of the Learned and sold to people who trusted the House of Warrick’s reputation.”
“Prove it.”
Erik’s smile was as cold as his eyes. He turned to Warrick. “You almost got away with it. All those years, selling and reselling what you knew were forgeries. Almost fifty pages chopped up into pieces you could sell into the market as real. How many forgeries in all, Warrick? Three hundred? Five hundred? And that was just from the Book of the Learned alone. I’m sure other manuscripts underwent ‘improvement’ by your hand. A lot of money, no matter how you add it up. Or did you do it just to prove how good you were and how stupid everyone else was? Greed and arrogance are the most common motives for forgery.”
Cleary looked at her father with drenched, wounded eyes. He didn’t even glance her way. He was riveted on the young man whose eyes were as metallic and as ancient as the cover of the Book of the Learned.
“Just in case someone saw through the fraud,” Erik said, “you illuminated in the style of the Spanish Forger, a forger who worked before you were old enough to draw a straight line. Clever, but that goes without saying. You were always a clever, clever man. What a shock it must have been when Lisbeth got in touch with you and demanded that you return all the pages of the Book of the Learned that you had stolen. But she had to take a risk. She had to give you a point of contact. She chose a post-office box. You sent something there, she picked it up, and Paul Carson followed her to her home. She was murdered there that same night.”
Warrick shoved to his feet and bent forward, braced on an ebony cane. “Murder? What are you blathering about? Lisbeth ran away, that’s all.”
“Someone burned Lisbeth to death a year ago,” Erik said distinctly. “Shortly after that, a man was murdered in Sedona and a woman was murdered in Florida, both by fire. A few days ago, Bert Lars was murdered by fire. The connection between all the murders is simple. Each person knew where the forgeries ultimately came from: the House of Warrick. Once those people were dead, the provenance was simply lost in time or assumed to have come from the estates of dead men who kept no inventories. Convenient and perfectly acceptable in all but the most exacting art market.”
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