by Nora Roberts
“You love the Institute.”
“A happy coincidence. If they’d told me to go to Borneo and study native habits . . . I bet I’d have a hell of a tan by now. Elise says, It’s time we got married; I say, Set the date. She says, I want a divorce; I say, Gee, honey, do you want me to pay for the lawyer?”
I tell you I’m pregnant, Annie thought, and you ask if I want to get married.
He studied the liquor in his glass, watched the way the light from her floor lamp slipped through the amber. “I never bucked the system, because it never seemed to matter enough to make the effort. And that doesn’t say much for Andrew Jones.”
“So you drink because it’s easier than seeing if it matters?”
“Maybe.” But he set the glass down to see if he could, to see how it felt to say what else was on his mind without the crutch. “I didn’t do the right thing by you, Annie, didn’t really stand by you the way I should have all those years ago, because I was terrified of what they’d do.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“We never have, mostly because I didn’t think you wanted to. But you brought it up the other day.”
“I shouldn’t have.” A little finger of panic curled in her stomach at the thought of it. “It’s old business.”
“It’s our business, Annie.” He said it gently because he heard a trace of that panic.
“Let it alone.” She drew away from him, folded her arms defensively.
“All right.” Why scratch at old wounds, he decided, when you had fresh juicy ones? “We’ll just move along through the life and times of Andrew Jones. At this point in it I’m waiting patiently for the cops to tell me I don’t have to go to prison.”
This time when he reached for the bottle, she grabbed it, stood up, and walking into the kitchen, poured the contents down the sink.
“Goddamn it, Annie.”
“You don’t need whiskey to make yourself miserable, Andrew. You do fine all on your own. Your parents didn’t love you enough. That’s rough.” Temper she hadn’t known crouched inside her sprang free. “Mine loved me plenty, but I’m still sitting alone at night with memories and regrets that rip at my heart. Your wife didn’t love you enough either. Tough break. My husband would get himself oiled up on a couple of six-packs and love me whether I wanted him to or not.”
“Annie. Christ.” He hadn’t known that, hadn’t imagined that. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” she fired back. “I got through. I got through you and I got through him by realizing I’d made a mistake and fixing it.”
“Don’t do that.” Out of nowhere his own anger spurted up. A dangerous light glinted in his eyes, hardening them as he got to his feet. “Don’t compare what we had with what you had with him.”
“Then don’t you use what we had the same way you use what you had with Elise.”
“I wasn’t. It’s not the same.”
“Damn right, because she was beautiful, and she was brilliant.” Annie jabbed a finger into his chest hard enough to make him take a step back. “And maybe you didn’t love her enough. If you had you’d still have her. Because I’ve never known you to go without what you really want. You may not pick up a stone and go to war for it, but you get it.”
“She wanted out.” He shouted it. “You can’t make someone love you.”
She leaned on the tiny counter, closed her eyes, and to his surprise, began to laugh. “You sure as hell can’t.” She wiped at the tears the fit of laughter had brought to her eyes. “You may have a Ph.D., Dr. Jones, but you’re stupid. You’re a stupid man, and I’m tired. I’m going to bed. You can let yourself out.”
She stormed by him, half hoping she’d made him angry enough to grab her. But he didn’t, and she walked into the bedroom alone. When she heard him go out, heard the door click behind him, she curled onto the bed and indulged herself in a good, hard cry.
ten
T echnology never failed to delight and amaze Cook. When he started out as a beat cop twenty-three years before, he’d seen that a detective’s job involved hours of phone calls, paperwork, and door-to-doors. Not as exciting as Hollywood liked, nor as he—young and eager—had intended to settle for once he joined the ranks.
He’d planned to spend this particular Sunday afternoon doing some fishing in Miracle Bay, as the weather had turned calm and the temperatures had crept into the sixties. But he’d detoured by the station house on a whim. He believed in following whims, which he considered a short step down from hunches.
There on his desk, stacked among the files cluttering his in box, was the computer-generated report from pretty young officer Mary Chaney.
For himself, Cook approached the computer with the caution and respect of a street cop approaching a junkie in a dark alley. You had to deal with it, you had to do the job, but you knew damn well anything could go wrong if you missed a step.
The Jones case was a priority because the Joneses were rich and the governor knew them personally. As the case was on his mind, he’d asked Mary to run a computer check, searching for like crimes.
Such information as he had in his hands would have taken weeks, if he’d ever been able to gather it, in his early days at this desk. Now he had a pattern in front of him that made his fishing plans slide out of his mind as he tipped back in his chair and studied it.
He had six likes over a period of ten years, and twice that many other hits similar enough to warrant a mention.
New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Kansas City, Atlanta. A museum or gallery in each of those cities had reported a break-in and the loss of one item in the past decade. The value of each item ranged from a hundred thousand to just over a cool million. No damage to the property, no mess, no alarm sounded. Each piece had been covered by insurance, and no arrest had been made.
Slick, he thought. The guy was slick.
In the dozen that followed, there were some variations. Two or more pieces had been taken, and in one case a guard’s coffee had been drugged and the security system was simply shut off for a period of thirty minutes. In another an arrest had been made. A guard had attempted to pawn a fifteenth-century cameo. He was arrested and confessed, but claimed that he’d taken the cameo after the break-in. The Renoir landscape and the Manet portrait that had also been stolen were never recovered.
Interesting, Cook thought again. The profile that was forming in his mind of his quarry didn’t include sloppy trips to pawnshops. Could be he enlisted a guard as an inside source. It was something to check out.
And it wouldn’t hurt to see where the Joneses had been during the dates of the other thefts. It was, after all, just another kind of fishing.
The first thing on Miranda’s mind when she opened her eyes on Sunday morning was The Dark Lady. She had to see it again, examine it again. How else would she know how she had been so completely mistaken?
For as the days passed, she had come to the painful conclusion that she’d been wrong. What other explanation was there? She knew her mother too well. To save Standjo’s reputation, Elizabeth would have questioned every detail of the second testing. She would have insisted on, and received, absolute proof of its accuracy.
She would never have settled for less.
The practical thing to do was to accept it, to salvage her pride by saying nothing more on the matter until the situation cooled. Stirring the pot could accomplish nothing positive because the damage had already been done.
Deciding she could make better use of her time than brooding, she changed into sweats. A couple hours at the health club might sweat some of the depression out of her.
Two hours later, she returned to the house to find Andrew stumbling around nursing a hangover. She was just about to go upstairs when the doorbell chimed.
“Let me take your jacket, Detective Cook,” she heard Andrew say.
Cook? On a Sunday afternoon? Miranda pushed her hands at her hair, cleared her throat, and sat down.
As Andr
ew led Cook in, Miranda offered him a polite smile. “Do you have news for us?”
“Nothing solid, Dr. Jones. Just a loose end or two.”
“Please sit down.”
“Great house.” Cop’s eyes below their bushy gray brows scanned the room as he walked to a chair. “Really makes a statement up here on the cliffs.” Old money, he thought, it had its own smell, its own look. Here it was beeswax and lemon oil. It was heirloom furniture and faded wallpaper and floor-to-ceiling windows framed in a burgundy waterfall of what was probably silk.
Class and privilege, and just enough clutter to make it a home.
“What can we do for you, Detective?”
“I’ve got a little angle I’m working on. I wonder if you could tell me where you were, where both of you were, last November. First week.”
“Last November.” It was such an odd question. Andrew scratched his head over it. “I was here in Jones Point. I didn’t do any traveling last fall. Did I?” he asked Miranda.
“Not that I recall. Why is that important, Detective?”
“Just clearing up some details. Were you here as well, Dr. Jones?”
“I was in D.C. for a few days in early November. Some consult work at the Smithsonian. I’d have to get my desk calendar to be sure.”
“Would you mind?” He smiled apologetically. “Just so I can tidy this up.”
“All right.” She couldn’t see the point, but she couldn’t see the harm either. “It’s up in my office.”
“Yes, sir,” Cook continued when she left the room. “This is quite a place. Must be a bear to heat.”
“We go through a lot of firewood,” Andrew muttered.
“You do much traveling, Dr. Jones?”
“The Institute keeps me pretty close to home. Miranda’s the frequent flier. She does a lot of consulting, the occasional lecture.” He tapped his fingers on his knee, and noted that Cook’s gaze had shifted to linger on the bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the table beside the sofa. His shoulders hunched defensively. “What does last November have to do with our break-in?”
“I’m not sure it does, just tugging on a line. You do any fishing?”
“No, I get seasick.”
“Too bad.”
“According to my records,” Miranda said as she came back in, “I was in Washington from November third through the seventh.”
And the burglary in San Francisco had occurred in the early hours of the fifth, Cook recalled. “I guess you flew down there.”
“Yes, into National.” She checked her book. “USAir flight four-one-oh-eight, departing Jones Point at ten-fifty, arriving National at twelve fifty-nine. I stayed at The Four Seasons. Is that specific enough for you?”
“Sure is. Being a scientist, you’d keep good records.”
“Yes, I do.” She walked over to Andrew’s chair, sat on the arm beside him. They became a unit. “What’s this about?”
“Just getting things ordered in my head. Would you have where you were in June in that book? Say the third week.”
“Of course.” Steadied by Andrew’s hand on her knee, she flipped back to June. “I was at the Institute the entire month of June. Lab work, some summer classes. You taught a couple yourself, didn’t you, Andrew, when Jack Gold-bloom’s allergies kicked up and he took a few days off?”
“Yeah.” He closed his eyes to help him think back. “That was toward the end of June. Oriental Art of the Twelfth Century.” He opened his eyes again and grinned at her. “You wouldn’t touch it, and I had to cram. We can easily get the exact dates for you, Detective,” he continued. “We keep excellent records at the Institute as well.”
“Fine. Appreciate it.”
“We’ll cooperate.” Miranda’s voice was brisk and stern. “And we expect you to do the same. It was our property taken, Detective. I think we have the right to know what avenues you’re investigating.”
“No problem.” He rested his hands on his knees. “I’m checking out a series of burglaries that match the profile of yours. Maybe you heard something, seeing as you’re in the same line, about a theft up in Boston last June.”
“The Harvard University art museum.” A shudder climbed up Miranda’s spine. “The kuang. Chinese tomb piece, thought to be late thirteenth to early twelfth century B.C. Another bronze.”
“You’ve got a good memory for detail.”
“Yes, I do. It was a huge loss. It’s one of the most beautifully preserved pieces of Chinese bronze ever recovered, and worth a great deal more than our David.”
“November it was San Francisco, a painting that time.”
Not a bronze, she thought, and for some reason all but trembled with relief. “It was the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum.”
“That’s right.”
“American art,” Andrew put in. “Colonial period. Where’s the connection?”
“I didn’t say there was, but I think there is.” Cook rose. “Could be we’ve got a thief with what you could call an eclectic taste in art. Me, I like that Georgia O’Keeffe stuff. It’s bright, looks like what it is. I appreciate your time.” He turned away, turned back. “I wonder if I could borrow that datebook of yours, Dr. Jones. And if the two of you would have written records of the year before. Just to help me put it all in order.”
Miranda hesitated, again thought of lawyers. But pride had her standing and holding the slim leather book out to him. “You’re welcome to it, and I have calendars for the last three years stored at my office at the Institute.”
“Appreciate it. I’ll just give you a receipt for this.” He tucked her book away and took out his own to scrawl the information and his signature.
Andrew rose as well. “I’ll have mine messengered over to you.”
“That would be a big help.”
“It’s difficult not to be insulted by this, Detective.”
Cook raised his eyebrows at Miranda. “I’m sorry about that, Dr. Jones. I’m just trying to do my job.”
“I imagine you are, and once you put my brother and me off your list of suspects, you’ll be able to do it with more speed and efficiency. Which is why we’re willing to tolerate this sort of treatment. I’ll show you out.”
Cook nodded at Andrew and followed her into the foyer. “Didn’t mean to put your back up, Dr. Jones.”
“Oh yes you did, Detective.” She wrenched open the door. “Good afternoon.”
“Ma’am.” A quarter-century on the force hadn’t made him immune to the sharp tongue of an angry woman. He ducked his head and grimaced a bit when the door shut loudly at his back.
“The man thinks we’re thieves.” Fuming, she stalked back into the parlor. It annoyed her, but didn’t surprise her, to see Andrew pouring himself a drink. “He thinks we’re bouncing around the country breaking into museums.”
“Would be kind of fun, wouldn’t it?”
“What?”
“Just trying to relieve the tension.” He lifted his glass. “One way or the other.”
“This isn’t a game, Andrew, and I don’t care to be smeared on a slide under a police microscope.”
“There’s nothing for him to find but the truth.”
“It’s not the end that worries me, it’s the means. We’re under investigation. The press is bound to get ahold of some of this.”
“Miranda.” He spoke softly and added an affectionate smile. “You’re sounding dangerously close to Mother.”
“There’s no reason to insult me.”
“I’m sorry—you’re right.”
“I’m going to make a pot roast,” Miranda announced as she walked toward the kitchen.
“A pot roast.” His mood lifted dramatically. “With the little potatoes and carrots?”
“You peel the potatoes. Keep me company, Andrew.” She asked as much for herself as to get him away from the bottle. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Sure.” He set the glass down. It was empty anyway. And slipped an arm over her shoulders.
The meal he
lped, as did the preparation of it. She enjoyed cooking, and considered it another science. It was Mrs. Patch who had taught her, pleased that the young girl had shown an interest in kitchen work. It had been the warmth of that kitchen, and the company, that drew Miranda. The rest of the house had been so cold, so regimented. But Mrs. Patch had ruled in the kitchen. Even Elizabeth hadn’t dared to intrude.
More likely she hadn’t cared to, Miranda thought as she prepared for bed. She’d never known her mother to fix a meal, and that simple fact made learning how herself more appealing.
She would not be a mirror of Elizabeth.
The pot roast had done its work, she thought now. Good solid meat and potatoes, drop biscuits she’d made from scratch, conversation with Andrew. Maybe he’d had more wine with dinner than she liked, but at least he hadn’t been alone.
It had been almost a happy time. They’d tactically agreed not to discuss the Institute, or the trouble in Florence. It was much more relaxing to argue over their diverse views on music and books.
They’d always argued about them, she remembered as she tugged on her pajamas. They’d always shared views and thoughts and hopes. She doubted she would have survived childhood intact without him. They’d been each other’s anchor in a chilly sea for as long as she could remember.
She only wished she could do more to steady him now and convince him to seek help. But whenever she touched on the subject of his drinking, he only closed up. And drank more. All she could do was watch, and stand with him until he fell off the edge of the cliff he was so tenuously poised on. Then she would do what she could to help him pick up the pieces.
She climbed into bed, arranging her pillows to support her back, then picked up her volume of bedtime reading. Some might say rereading Homer wasn’t a particularly relaxing occupation. But it worked for her.
By midnight, her mind was full of Greek battles and betrayals and clear of worries. She marked her place, set the book aside, and turned off her light. In moments she was dreamlessly asleep.
Deeply enough that she didn’t hear the door open, close again. She didn’t hear the lock click smoothly into place, or the footsteps cross the room toward the bed.