“What are you talking about? Who’s going to call Dorrie looking for me?”
“Gladstone will call her,” Croft said with absolute certainty. “It’s the only contact point he has.”
“But why would he try to reach me?”
“Us,” Croft corrected absently. “He’ll be trying to reach us and he’ll figure we’re waiting to hear from him.”
“But why, damn it?”
“Because he wants the book back, of course. By now he’ll have realized it’s gone again. He went through too much, risked too much, took too many chances to get that copy of Burleigh’s Valley. He’ll want it back.”
“He’s a collector. Collectors will do a lot to get an item for their collection.”
“Not Gladstone. He wouldn’t risk exposing his new identity. None of the other books in that vault are duplicates of the ones he collected when he was known as Egan Graves. He’s not trying to rebuild his old collection. In fact, judging from what you saw in the vault, he’s deliberately avoided picking up the kind of books he wanted when he was Graves. He’s smart enough to know he shouldn’t do anything that might make someone suspect his old identity. Trying to duplicate his old collection of rare books would be too big a risk. If someone were watching and waiting for him to reappear—”
“Okay, I get the point. He’s not trying to duplicate his old collection, but he went through a lot of trouble to get Valley.”
“Valley’s an expensive book, but it’s not exactly priceless. It’s valuable, but not a true treasure—not to a man like Gladstone. It’s not special enough to go into his collection.”
“Yet he tried to kill us because of it?”
Croft nodded. “That book is the key. He’s going to keep trying to get it back.”
“I wonder why?”
“I wish I knew” Croft ran a hand through his hair. “I looked through it again this morning while you were sleeping. I didn’t see any signs of altered pages, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a code of some kind embedded in the text.”
“A code!” Mercy was struck by the possibility.
“Don’t look so thrilled. I’m grasping at straws, believe me. I’m just trying to come up with a reason why Gladstone wants that book so badly.” He came away from the window again, finishing his tea. “Let’s go get something to eat. You can call your shop and alert Dorrie that someone might be trying to reach you. But whatever you do, don’t tell Dorrie where you are, understand? She might accidentally mention our location to Gladstone and that could be awkward.”
“When you’re not indulging your streak of melodrama, you have a nasty way with the classic understatement. Tell me something. What will Gladstone hope to accomplish by contacting us about the book?”
“By now he’ll be fairly certain we’re not representing the forces of law and order. That means we’re just small-time opportunists who’ve stumbled into the biggest deal of our lives and are trying to take advantage of it. He’ll probably assume we’re holding Valley for ransom now that we know how important it is to him. I imagine he’ll offer us a real deal.”
Mercy eyed him warily. “But we’re going to refuse it, right?”
“No,” said Croft. “We’re going to accept. On our own terms.”
Chapter 17
I don’t like it, Croft. I don’t like it one damn bit.” Mercy paced up and down in front of him, her brows drawn into a straight line. This was not the first time she had made her impassioned plea for common sense. She had been arguing with Croft off and on all afternoon. It was nearly time for dinner and she still hadn’t made any headway. He was stubbornly determined to handle the Gladstone situation on his own.
“You don’t have to like it, Mercy. I’m the one who will handle things from here on in.” He was reclining on the bed, his back propped against a stack of pillows, his arms folded behind his head.
There was the same note of abiding patience in his voice as they went through the argument for the umpteenth time as there had been when they went through it the first time. Mercy was convinced that his endless patience was beginning to bug her as much as his endless stubbornness. “This is stupid. This is crazy. We should be running to the cops.”
“No.”
“What have you got against the cops? We pay taxes so they can handle this kind of thing.”
“They can’t handle Gladstone. They couldn’t touch him when he was Egan Graves and they can’t touch him now. He’s too well protected. Too careful. It’s obvious he’s involved in something as dirty as his guru scam down in the Caribbean, but it’s going to take some doing to prove it.”
“But he has acted illegally. He sent Dallas and Lance to run us off the road,” Mercy pointed out.
“Prove it. Dallas and Lance were a couple of hired, two-bit hoods who snuck around during their leisure time and robbed motel guests. The cops will be lucky to make that much stick. There’s no chance of making attempted murder stick.”
Mercy swung around and confronted him with her hands on her hips. “Do you have this lack of trust in all authority or is it just the law you don’t trust?”
“I told you, I don’t—”
“Deal well with authority figures. I know. You want to know why?” She pointed a finger at him.
He smiled at her, his eyes strangely curious. “Why?”
“Because you are one, yourself. People who tend to dominate don’t take to being dominated. Somewhere along the line you never learned to relax occasionally and let someone else take charge.”
“That’s an interesting theory. Were you giving me a lesson in how to let someone else take charge this morning when you assaulted me on this bed?”
“Forget this morning. I’m not finished with my observations on your behavioral eccentricities. There’s more,” Mercy said threateningly.
“Yes?”
“Yes,” she muttered, resuming her pacing. “It isn’t just that you’re a dominant personality, it’s that you’re so isolated, so self-controlled. You operate in your own universe—which just happens to collide once in a while with the real world. Occasionally, probably only when absolutely necessary, you try to cross over into this world, the one where people like me live.”
He gave her an odd look. Is that why you call me a ghost? Because you think I don’t belong in your world?”
She sighed and flopped down on the foot of the bed. “Maybe. Except that you’re not a ghost, Croft. You’re as real and as human as anyone else. But you’ve found a separate place for yourself, haven’t you? How did you manage that?”
To her utter shock, he answered her wistful question. “I had to find that place very early in my life.”
Mercy looked at him, willing him to explain. “What happened, Croft?”
He shrugged. “Nothing that hasn’t happened to a lot of other kids. But it changed things for me.”
“What was it?”
He hesitated, clearly sorting through old memories and emotions. “My father drank. Heavily.”
“Oh, Croft.”
“I told you, it’s not an uncommon problem. He tried, I think. He worked at whatever job he could get, factory work, day laborer, crop picker, you name it. He married my mother when she was eighteen and pregnant. But after a few years of living hand-to-mouth, my mother decided she couldn’t take the life and left for the bright lights of Los Angeles. I was five or six. We never saw her again. I think that’s when Dad started drinking. It got worse as I got older. He used to go on some real binges and when he was lost in the booze he was . . . violent. Dangerous. It was as if the liquor released all his inner rage. I finally got smart and learned to hide until it was all over. I think I hated him.”
Mercy swallowed at the calm way Croft said that. “It must have been terrible.”
“When he was sober it was okay. We could both tolerate each other. But when he was drinki
ng, yeah, it was rough. I think he knew he was dangerous when he was drunk but he couldn’t control himself. I think he was afraid that one day he’d really do some damage.”
“To you?”
Croft nodded. “Either that or he realized that I was getting bigger and that one day I might stop disappearing when he started drinking. I might start fighting back. Whatever his reasoning, he began going into town on the weekends to do his boozing. I was glad to see him go. I had signed up for self-defense classes at the Υ. I told myself at first I just wanted to be able to protect myself from my father when he was drunk. But I guess I became fascinated with the world of martial arts and the underlying philosophy of mind and body control. I found a refuge in my classes at the gym, a place where I could go and be strong.”
“Another world.”
“In a way. The instructor at the Υ was good, but he had his limitations and he knew them. He told me I needed to travel, to find other teachers who could help me get the most out of myself. He gave me some names of men who might be persuaded to take me on as a pupil. I didn’t have the money for that kind of travel and tuition. I felt trapped. Then I decided I couldn’t hang around any longer. I would have left earlier but I had some crazy idea my father might die if I weren’t there to look after him. But on the day I turned eighteen and packed my bags, he went into town and didn’t come back.”
“What happened?”
“He got himself killed in a stupid, meaningless back alley brawl. Somebody rolled him for the few bucks that were in his wallet and a bottle of cheap wine.”
Mercy closed her eyes and a premonition of what was about to come took hold of her. “Did they ever find out who killed him?”
“The cops didn’t spend a lot of time on the case.” Croft’s voice had shifted into that dangerously neutral tone. “My father was just another drunk who got himself killed in an alley. Happens all the time. The authorities have better things to do than try to solve that kind of crime.”
Mercy realized dimly that she was digging her nails into her palms. “So you decided to go looking for the killer, didn’t you?”
“No one else was going to do it. I thought I hated my father, but after he was killed I couldn’t walk away from the fact that he was my father. He’d done his best by me.”
“So you did your best by him. You decided to see that justice was done. You went looking for the killer?”
“I found him. It wasn’t hard. I just went to the section of town where my father used to hang out and started asking questions. For some reason people talked to me.
“I’ll just bet they did.”
Croft shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t have to beat the answers out of anyone. There were people on those streets who wanted someone to find the killer. My father wasn’t his first victim. They were all potential victims and they knew it. They would have been frightened of cooperating with the cops, but they weren’t afraid of a young kid who wanted to know what had happened to his old man. I got the help I needed. And I found the man who had stuck a knife in Dad.”
“What happened to the killer?” Mercy wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Croft gave her a cool, level look. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Almost but not quite?”
“Not quite. I left him unconscious on the front steps of the police station. I also left enough incriminating evidence in his pockets to tie him to my father’s murder and the murders of a couple of other transients.”
“Where did you get the evidence?”
Croft shrugged. “He was still carrying around some of the things he’d taken off his victims’ bodies. And he had the knife that had been used to kill my father. Not the brightest killer in the world. The cops were more than happy to have three murder cases cleared up without any real effort on their part. They didn’t try to look a gift horse in the mouth. They even managed to get a confession out of the guy. Justice, after a fashion, got done.”
Mercy didn’t flinch from his direct gaze. “A closed Circle.”
Croft’s mouth twisted slightly. “Yes.”
“What happened next, Croft?” Mercy kept her voice steady even though her stomach was tying itself into a knot.
“I learned something about myself during the process of tracking down the bastard who killed my father. Something that I might have been better off not knowing. It scared me.”
“Let me guess,” Mercy said softly. “I think you found out two things. The first was that you could do it. You actually found the killer and took your vengeance. You were able to do on your own what society couldn’t do. The second thing you learned was that you found your new line of work…interesting? Is that the right word?”
His eyes never left her face. “Fascinating is the word. And I had an aptitude for it. After I found the man who murdered Dad, I knew that in a sense I had found myself. I had to know more. But there was still the money problem. So I joined the Army, and that’s when I realized I really didn’t deal well with authority, especially blind, bureaucratic, senseless authority that operates most of the time without reason or logic. But the military gave me training, the kind of training I hungered for.”
“And after that?”
“My aptitude didn’t go unnoticed,” Croft said dryly. “I was invited to go to work for a special unit, but it wasn’t long before I knew I wasn’t going to make a very good team player. So I left when my hitch was up, took the money I had saved and went looking for some of the names on the list my old instructor had given me. I found a few. I traveled and studied and learned and everything I learned was dangerous in some way, either mentally or emotionally or physically. So I had to learn how to control the things I learned. And I didn’t stop there. I put what I learned into practice. There was a market for my skills. An insatiable market.”
Mercy smiled in spite of herself. “Don’t waste your time trying to frighten me with veiled hints of how dangerous you are, Croft. It won’t work. I know you too well.”
“You aren’t scared of me, are you?” he asked quietly. “Not on any level. I wonder why. You’re such a soft, gentle little thing.”
“Just because I’m smaller than you and maybe a bit softer in certain areas—although certainly not in the head— that doesn’t make me a ‘soft, gentle little thing.’ I’m not afraid of you because even though you seem to be interested in violence and physically adept at it, you’re not crazy. You’re not out of control. You’ve come to terms with yourself and your nature. In some ways you’re one of the most civilized men I’ve ever met. All of us have a streak of wildness in us. Few of us have had to learn to control it and integrate it into our day-to-day lives. But you have. Maybe that’s the true definition of being a civilized human being.”
Croft closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall behind the bed. “Don’t romanticize what I am, Mercy.”
“I’m not romanticizing you. I’m trying to understand you.”
His lashes lifted, revealing a betraying hunger. “Why?”
“I’ve already given you the answer to that question. I love you.”
He sat up in a smooth rush, his expression stark. “Mercy, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
The phone rang shrilly. Mercy reached to answer it. “Of course I know what I’m saying. I’m not a complete idiot.”
“Mercy.”
She ignored him as she listened to the familiar voice on the other end of the line. “Hi, Dorrie, how’s everything going? Any messages yet?”
“Just got one,” Dorrie said easily. “Wait a second until I find my note. Here it is. A Mr. Glad called. Is that the person you were expecting to hear from?”
Mr. Glad. Mercy’s gaze swung to collide with Croft’s. It had to be Gladstone. At that point Mercy realized she hadn’t really expected Gladstone to contact them. Obviously an example of wishful thinking. “That’
s him, Dorrie. What’s the message?”
Croft was hovering over the phone as if he wanted to snatch the receiver out of her hand. He gave Mercy a pen and a pad of motel paper. “Get everything down.”
Mercy nodded, listening intently.
“Just a short note,” Dorrie said. “You’re to call him at this number.” She rattled it off. “Got it?”
“Got it. Thanks, Dorrie.”
“Hey, what’s going on? I thought this deal was all settled.”
“So did I,” Mercy said with a sigh.
“I guess this is what it’s like in the big time world of rare book negotiation, huh? Offer and counteroffer and all kinds of maneuvering. It’s exciting, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Mercy said softly, “it’s exciting.” She hung up the phone and sat staring at Croft, the note pad clutched in her hand. “He wants us to call.”
Croft snapped the note from her hand. “He’s still at the estate.”
“How can you tell?”
“I checked the number on the phones while we were there. This is it. It’s unlisted, naturally, but even people who worry about their numbers getting out still make the mistake of putting them on the phones where any visitor can see them.”
“Perhaps Gladstone wasn’t all that concerned about his number getting into the wrong hands,” Mercy said.
Croft nodded abruptly. “He’s been fairly safe tucked away up there in the mountains with only a few hand picked people around him. Probably learned his lesson about the risks of trusting a multitude of not-necessarily-devoted followers. I wonder what kind of games he’s been playing with that artist colony he runs.”
“You think it’s a front for something illegal?”
“I think it’s a front for something very profitable and very illegal and very rough. Gladstone is still Graves inside. He needs power and money. Lots of it. And he’s learned how to get it. He’s using those artists for something. The setup is too similar to what he had going down in the Caribbean. The moneymaking end of things probably includes drugs this time around, too, just as it did last time. It’s the field Gladstone knows best. At least we know for certain where he is now. And we’ve forced him to make the first move. That makes him a little more vulnerable.” Croft studied the number in his hand. “So he wants us to call, does he?”
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