What good were facts and logic in a situation such as this, anyway? After all, Mercy reminded herself grimly, she had had plenty of facts about her ex-fiancé. She had known everything about him from the schools he had attended to the stores in which he preferred to shop for his designer running shoes. She had discussed his career goals with him and his tennis scores. She knew his taste in films and his taste in cars. She had known everything important about Aaron Sanders except the most important thing of all: he couldn’t be trusted with a woman’s love or with her valuables.
Mercy was willing to stake her entire investment in Pennington’s Second Chance on the bet that Aaron Sanders had never spent more than two seconds in his entire life contemplating his own sense of honor or integrity, let alone building a philosophical base on which to ground himself.
That wasn’t entirely Aaron’s fault, Mercy decided. A person couldn’t spend much time contemplating something that didn’t exist.
Restlessly she moved across the room and opened her suitcase to take out the copy of Valley. It was nerve-wracking to know that Croft was going to risk his life because of the stupid book. He had almost gotten himself killed the previous night because of it. They had both nearly been killed.
What was it about the book that made it so important to Erasmus Gladstone?
Mercy took the volume over to the small table by the window and sat down to study it. She had read a great deal of the thing already, and although it certainly made interesting reading, she had a hunch it wasn’t Gladstone’s kind of erotica. She was convinced now that it wasn’t written for men at all. There was too much romance in Valley, too much genuine passion, too much emotion to be a man’s kind of erotica. It was more sensual than sexual. When all was said and done, Burleigh’s Valley of Secret Jewels was a love story, not a mechanical treatise on exotic sex. And while it was valuable, it certainly wasn’t rare enough or unusual enough to warrant such interest on Gladstone’s part.
On the surface, Valley simply wasn’t worth attempted murder.
The conclusion was obvious. There was something else about the book that made it valuable to Gladstone.
Mercy turned the book over in her hands, examining the worn leather binding. If there was a secret code embedded in the text, there was no point in her looking for it. She had trouble getting through the crossword puzzle in the daily paper.
But she did know a few things about old books.
Mercy turned the thick pages slowly, letting her mind toy with possibilities. The beautiful, high quality paper used in the eighteenth century still felt good to the touch and it was still in excellent condition. The scattered handwritten notes that appeared in some of the margins were clearly very old. The ink was faded and the handwriting itself was in a two-hundred-year-old style that was extremely difficult to read. Mercy didn’t see any margin notes that looked recent. New margin notes would have lowered the value of the book, but notes that dated from the time the volume was published were another matter altogether. They added an element of interest as far as many collectors were concerned, especially if the notes had been made by an important historical figure.
Outside the motel room window the afternoon was fading rapidly. Mercy wondered where Croft was. He was undoubtedly making excellent time. Without her in the car he would probably be driving the mountain road at a much swifter pace than he had the first time. His excellent reflexes and eyesight would make it easy for him to take chances on the curves that would have sent chills down Mercy’s spine. The only limitations would be those of the car itself. Croft would respect those mechanical limits, but he would probably push the Toyota to the edge of its abilities.
Mercy stared thoughtfully out the window for a while, worrying about Croft and resenting her own helplessness. Then she glanced down at Valley again. The long rays of afternoon light caught the binding in a particularly revealing way. It was possible to see every crack in the leather, every nuance of detail left by the binder’s tools. Whoever had purchased Valley had gone to great expense to have the book bound by an expert.
Most books of Valley’s era were issued by the publisher in paper-covered boards. The purchaser was the one who sent it out to a skilled craftsman to have it bound in leather. Collectors loved to find volumes from the period that were still in their original boards, but the next best find was a book that was in a binding contemporary with the time period in which it was published. Valley was such a book. Since it had been privately printed in an extremely limited quantity, it was possible the printer had seen to it that it was bound before it was sold.
Mercy fingered the spine of the book, examining it in the full glare of the afternoon light. It was slightly loose. Perhaps the book had been dropped at some point during its lively past. There was something slightly uneven about the inside edge of the spine, too, as if the leather had been torn or cut and then carefully repaired. The faint mark was a thin line that was only visible in strong light, but it was definitely there. That new extra sense of awareness she seemed to have developed lately told her the mark was not a simple scratch.
Mercy sat very still for a long time, weighing her options. She could assume her imagination was functioning on overtime and forget her wild fancies. Or she could pry apart the leather at the point where it appeared to have once been cut and risk lowering the value of the book by deliberately damaging the already worn binding.
She thought of Croft on his way to Gladstone’s and she thought about how convinced he was that Valley was crucially important to his quarry. There was something about this book that made it worth a murder or two.
Mercy didn’t hesitate any longer. She went to her suitcase and dug out her cosmetic bag. There wasn’t much in it, just toothpaste, toothbrush, a comb and brush, a few assorted cosmetics that she usually forgot to use and a small mending kit. She removed the tiny scissors from the mending kit.
It took nerve to insert the point of the scissors into the almost invisible seam in the leather. The book she was assaulting was two hundred years old and worth a great deal of money. One didn’t attack such a thing lightly one did it with unsteady fingers and a lot of ambivalence. The line in the leather might not be a new seam. It might simply be an old mark or a binder’s error.
It was a shock when the leather began to separate under the probing of the scissors to reveal that the repair in the leather had been done with glue and was a very modern addition to the old binding. Whoever had attempted to reattach the leather to the spine of the book had done a neat but far from inaccessible job.
Or just perhaps, Mercy thought, whoever had done this had intended to be able to undo his work at some point in the future.
It took long minutes of painstaking work, but eventually the seam separated completely and Mercy found herself looking into a narrow opening between the spine of the book and the binding. She put down the scissors and angled the spine to catch more afternoon light.
There was a piece of paper imprisoned inside the leather.
She had been nervous when she had first cut into the valuable book, but Mercy was trembling with excitement when she withdrew the slip of paper.
It was a very ordinary slip of paper, very modern. It was a piece of writing paper from a common tablet. It had been cut and folded to form a narrow envelope.
When Mercy turned the makeshift envelope upside down and shook it a strip of microfilm fell out onto the table. She sat staring at it for a long time. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that this was what made Valley of Secret Jewels so valuable to Erasmus Gladstone. Whatever was on this microfilm probably dated from the days when Gladstone had been known as Egan Graves. It was important enough to Gladstone that he had risked his new identity to reclaim the film.
The phone rang shrilly just as Mercy picked up the strip of film and held it to the light. She jumped a good two inches and promptly dropped the film back onto the table. She nearly tipped over her c
hair as she grabbed for the phone.
“Hello?”
“Mercy? It’s Dorrie. Are you all right? You sound kind of strange.”
“I’m all right.” Mercy took a breath. This whole mess was getting frighteningly out of hand. Croft would be furious if she called the authorities, but there were times when even Croft had to have help. She suspected this was one of those times. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to someone levelheaded like Dorrie. “Dorrie, I’m glad you called. I want to talk to you about something that’s happened. I need some help.”
“Okay; but first I’ve got a message for you,” Dorrie said easily. “Mr. Glad called again.”
Mercy’s fingers clenched around the phone. “When?”
“Just a few minutes ago. That’s why I’m calling you. He asked me to give you another message.”
“Oh, hell.”
“What?” Dorrie sounded concerned.
“Never mind. You’d better give me the message.” This was going to be awful, Mercy was sure of it. Something was going terribly, terribly wrong. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach.
“Hang on a second while I get my notes. He was very particular that I get the message straight. How’s the deal going with him, anyway? He sounds so nice on the phone. I never thought you’d have the nerve to haggle like this with your first big client.”
“I’ve had a lot of inspiration lately. What’s the message, Dorrie?”
“Calm down, I’ve got it right here. He says to tell you that there’s been a slight change in plans. Mr. Falconer has arrived early and the two of them have agreed to terms. You’re to call him at home as soon as possible.”
Mercy went cold. The chills that crawled along her spine were reminiscent of the ones she had experienced the previous night in Drifter’s Creek. She sat staring blindly out into the early evening sunlight. It would be dark in another couple of hours. “I’m to call him at home,” she repeated.
“That’s right. Do you need the number?”
“No,” said Mercy. “I’ve got it. Thanks, Dorrie.” “Mercy, are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
Everything was wrong. “I’m sure. Thanks again, Dorrie. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“I hope you get that deal settled quickly. At this rate you won’t have any time for a vacation. Your whole trip will be spent on business.”
“It’s beginning to look that way. Good-bye, Dorrie.”
“Take care and have a good time.” Dorrie hung up with a cheery farewell.
Mercy put the receiver back in its cradle and sat staring at it as if it were a snake. Then she glanced at the strip of microfilm.
Mr. Falconer had arrived and he and Mr. Glad had agreed to terms.
It wasn’t possible.
Unless one considered the helicopter.
It was possible, just barely, that somehow Gladstone and Isobel had intercepted Croft at some point on the road leading up to the estate. The small helicopter was no doubt highly maneuverable. A skilled pilot might be able to set it down on a straight stretch of mountain road.
Isobel was a skilled pilot. Croft had said so himself, and he didn’t give praise lightly.
Α surprise landing by the helicopter coupled with Gladstone and a gun could have ruined all Croft’s carefully set plans. He might even now be a prisoner. Gladstone might be holding him hostage for the microfilm.
It all made a terrifying kind of sense.
There was no point putting off the inevitable. Mercy picked up the phone again and carefully dialed Gladstone’s number. Isobel came on the line after the first ring. Her low, throaty voice held smooth satisfaction. It also held a certain degree of strain.
“Miss Pennington. We’ve been expecting your call.”
“Let me speak to Gladstone.”
“You will speak to me. I am authorized to deal with this on Erasmus’s behalf. Now then, I assume you got our message from your friend, Dorrie?”
“I got it.”
“Excellent. Then you know that Mr. Falconer is once again a guest of ours.”
Mercy hunched over the phone. “Let me speak to him.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment.”
“I’m not doing anything until I speak to him.”
“You have my word your lover is alive and well, if not particularly happy.”
“Your word isn’t worth much.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Isobel said. “But my word is all you have right now”
“What exactly do you want from me?” Mercy asked cautiously, staring at the strip of film in front of her.
“We want you to join us, of course. Our house party came to a somewhat abrupt end and Erasmus is afraid that we might have made you and Mr. Falconer feel unwelcome. We’d like to make up for that.”
“You want me to come back to the estate?”
“I assumed you’d want to under the circumstances. You and Mr. Falconer being so close and all.”
They were threatening to kill Croft unless she came back. “It will take me several hours to get there.”
“We wouldn’t think of asking you to drive all that way,” Isobel assured her. “I’ll meet you en route. Give me a point where you can be within an hour. That will still give us an hour of daylight to get back here. Choose an isolated place and don’t bring anyone along, is that clear? I won’t land if I see that you’re not alone or if I think you’re being followed.”
Isobel was going to meet her with the helicopter. Mercy cringed at the thought. Reluctantly she reached out to pull a map toward her. “There’s a resort area a few miles from the motel Croft and I stayed in the first night.”
“I know it. A little too busy. But there’s a meadow five miles east of the motel. Be there within an hour.”
“It will take me longer than that. Probably an hour and a half.”
“Then you’d better get moving.”
“Damn it, it’s not that simple. I don’t have a car.” Mercy realized she was getting angry. It had the therapeutic effect of driving off some of the fear.
“Then you’ll have to rent one. You’d better get going, hadn’t you? When you reach the meadow park the car out of sight. There’s a stand of fir behind a bend in the road. You should be able to conceal the car there.”
“I suppose you want me to bring the book with me?” Mercy asked grimly
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Most definitely,” Isobel finally said with a new note of urgency. “You are to bring us the book. That’s the whole point of this little exercise, isn’t it?” She hung up the phone in Mercy’s ear.
Mercy frowned at the receiver. She could have sworn Isobel sounded almost surprised, as if she hadn’t known Mercy had the book. But if Isobel and Gladstone had Croft, they would know by now that he hadn’t taken the book with him.
A new horror washed over her as Mercy forced herself to consider the possibilities. If there had been a fight when Isobel and Gladstone had tried to intercept Croft, it was possible Croft had been hurt, or even, God help her, killed. Or they might have assumed he had hidden the book before he was taken prisoner.
In which case Isobel and Gladstone might not know what had happened to the book. That would account for Isobel’s surprise at hearing Mercy offer to bring Valley with her.
Mercy reached out and picked up Valley. Experimentally she closed the book. In that position the fine crack inside the spine was sealed shut again and hidden from view. Isobel and Gladstone had no reason to believe that their secret had been discovered.
The microfilm was the only real bargaining chip in this dangerous game.
If Croft were alive— and for her own sanity Mercy had to believe he was— then all he would need would be an opportunity. It was up to Mercy to provide that opportunity. Once she turned the microfilm over to Gladstone she would
have nothing left with which to negotiate.
Somehow she was certain Croft was still alive. She would know if he were dead. The new sense that seemed to have been awakened by his presence in her life would also be dead.
Her mind made up, Mercy set the book down on the table and picked up the film. She needed a hiding place for the dangerous strip of microfilm.
After a few minutes of thought during which she considered and discarded most of the obvious places in the small room, Mercy took a motel envelope out of the desk drawer and addressed it to herself in Ignatius Cove. If she didn’t return to Ignatius Cove within a few days, Dorrie would check Mercy’s mailbox and see the envelope. Eventually the envelope would be opened by someone, hopefully someone in authority who would know what to do about such a bizarre situation.
Following a few more minutes of consideration, Mercy wrote a carefully worded note listing everything she knew or suspected about Gladstone. If she were making a mistake by going into the lion’s den, then this note and the film might conceivably still be used to expand the options for her survival as well as Croft’s.
When she was finished, she took it down to the motel lobby, bought a stamp and dropped the envelope into a mailbox. One could only hope that the U.S. mail was still relatively sacrosanct. Then she inquired about renting a car.
After filling out the paperwork on the car, Mercy bought a small bottle of glue at an old-fashioned general store a few blocks from the motel. She spent several precious minutes regluing the tear in the leather spine of Valley. When she was done she looked at it critically and decided the quick fix would probably pass inspection as long as someone wasn’t looking too thoroughly. The glue dried quickly.
Α few minutes later she was on her way to meet Isobel Ascanius in an isolated mountain meadow.
It was unfortunate, Mercy thought, that she really disliked small aircraft. But she was learning that one terror could counter another. Her fears about what might be planned for Croft were more than enough to control her fears about flying in the helicopter.
Midnight Jewels Page 31