The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 2

by Nora Roberts

  She’d also alphabetized the names, he noted. God love her. “Your family pays well.” He’d noted that before.

  “Quality staff demands appropriate financial reward. On the next list I worked up a probability ratio. You’ll note my name remains, but the probability is low. I know I didn’t steal the originals. I’ve taken Giovanni off as he couldn’t have been involved.”

  “Why?”

  She blinked up at him. His blood’s on your hands. “Because he was murdered. He’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry, Miranda, that only makes him dead. It’s still possible he was involved, and killed for any number of reasons.”

  “But he was testing the bronzes when he was killed.”

  “He’d have needed to, to be sure. Maybe he was panicking, demanding a bigger cut, or just pissed off one of his associates. His name stays on.”

  “It wasn’t Giovanni.”

  “That’s emotion, not logic, Dr. Jones.”

  “Very well.” Jaw stiff, she added Giovanni’s name. “You may disagree, but I’ve rated my family low. In my opinion they don’t apply here. They’ve no reason to steal from themselves.” He only looked at her, and after a long moment, she pushed the sheet aside.

  “We’ll table the probability list for now. Here I’ve made a time line, from the date the David came into our hands, the length of time it remained in the lab. Without my notes and records, I can only guess at the times and dates of the individual tests, but I believe this is fairly close.”

  “You made graphs and everything.” He leaned closer, admiring the work. “What a woman.”

  “I don’t see the need for sarcasm.”

  “I’m not being sarcastic. This is great. Nice color,” he added. “You put it at two weeks. But you wouldn’t have worked on it seven days at a stretch or twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Here.” She referred him to another chart and felt only a little foolish. “These are approximated times the David was locked in the lab vault. Getting to it would have required a key card, security clearance, a combination, and a second key. Or,” she added, tilting her head, “a very good burglar.”

  His gaze slid over to hers, dark gold and mocking. “I was in Paris during this time.”

  “Were you really?”

  “I have no idea, but in your probability ratio I don’t compute because there would have been no reason for me to steal a copy and get sucked into this mess if I’d already taken the original.”

  Head angled, she smiled sweetly. “Maybe you did it just to get me in bed.”

  He glanced up, grinned. “Now, there’s a thought.”

  “That,” she said primly, “was sarcasm. This is a time line of the work period on The Dark Lady. We have the records on this, and it’s very fresh in my mind, so this is completely accurate. In this case, the search for documentation was still ongoing, and the authentication not yet official.”

  “Project terminated,” Ryan read, and glanced at her. “That was the day you got the ax.”

  “If you prefer to simplify, yes.” It still stung both pride and heart. “The following day, the bronze was transferred to Rome. The switch had to be made in that small window of time, as I’d run tests on it just that afternoon.”

  “Unless it was switched in Rome,” he murmured.

  “How could it have been switched in Rome?”

  “Did anyone from Standjo go along for the transfer?”

  “I don’t know. Someone from security, perhaps my mother. There would have been papers to sign on both ends.”

  “Well, it’s a possibility, but only gives them a few extra hours in any case. They had to be ready, the copy fully prepared. The plumber had it for a week—or so he said. Then the government took it over, another week for them to fiddle with the paperwork and contract Standjo. Your mother contacts you and offers you the job.”

  “She didn’t offer me the job, she ordered me to come to Florence.”

  “Mmm.” He studied her chart. “Why did it take you six days between the phone call and the flight? Your description doesn’t lead me to believe she’s a patient woman.”

  “I was told—and had planned—to leave the following day, two at the most. I was delayed.”

  “How?”

  “I was mugged.”

  “What?”

  “This very large man in a mask came out of nowhere, put a knife to my throat.” Her hand fluttered there as if to see if the thin trickle of blood was indeed only a bad memory.

  Ryan took her fingers to draw them away and look for himself, though he knew there was no mark. Still, he could imagine it. And his eyes went flat.

  “What happened?”

  “I was just coming back from a trip. Got out of the car in front of the house, and there he was. He took my briefcase, my purse. I thought he was going to rape me, and I wondered if I had a chance to fight him off, against that knife. I have a bit of a phobia about knives.”

  When her fingers trembled lightly, he tightened his grip. “Did he cut you?”

  “A little, just. . . just enough to scare me. Then he knocked me down, slashed my tires, and took off.”

  “He knocked you down?”

  She blinked at the cold steel in his voice, at the unbearable tenderness of his fingers as they stroked over her cheek. “Yes.”

  He was blind with fury at the thought of someone holding a knife to her throat, terrorizing her. “How bad were you hurt?”

  “Nothing, just bruises and scrapes.” Because her eyes began to sting, she lowered her gaze. She was afraid that the emotions flooding through her were showing—the wonder and bafflement of her feelings for him. No one but Andrew had ever looked at her with that kind of concern, that kind of care.

  “It was nothing,” she said again, then stared helplessly as he tipped up her chin and touched his lips to each of her cheeks.

  “Don’t be kind to me.” A tear spilled over before she could blink it away. “I don’t handle it well.”

  “Learn.” He kissed her again, lightly, then brushed the tear away with his thumb. “Have you ever had trouble like that before around here?”

  “No, never.” She managed one hitching breath, then a steadier one. “That’s why I was so shocked, I guess, so unprepared. It’s a very low-crime area. The fact is this was such an aberration it played on the local news for days.”

  “They never caught him?”

  “No. I couldn’t give them a very detailed description. He wore a mask, so I could only give them his build.”

  “Give it to me.”

  She didn’t want to recall the incident, but knew he would push her until she relented. “White male, six four or five, two-fifty, two-sixty, brown eyes. Muddy brown. Long arms, big hands, left-handed, wide shoulders, short neck. No distinguishing scars or marks—that I could see.”

  “Seems like you gave them quite a bit, considering.”

  “Not enough. He never spoke, not a word. That was another thing that frightened me. He went about everything so quickly, so silently. And he took my passport, driver’s license. All my ID. It took me several days, even pulling strings, to arrange for new ones.”

  A pro, Ryan concluded. With an agenda.

  “Andrew was furious,” she remembered with a ghost of a smile. “He walked around the house every night for a week with a golf club—a nine iron, I think—hoping the man would come back so he could beat him to a pulp.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “That’s a man’s reaction. I’d have preferred to handle it myself. It was humiliating to know that I hadn’t fought back, I just froze.”

  “Someone holds a knife to your throat, freezing is the intelligent choice.”

  “I was more frightened than hurt,” she murmured, and stared hard at the surface of the table.

  “I’m sorry you were either. He didn’t go for the house?”

  “No, just grabbed my purse, my briefcase, slugged me, and ran.”

  “Jewelry?”

  “
No.”

  “Were you wearing any?”

  “Yes, I was wearing a gold chain and watch—the police wondered about that too. But I had my coat on. I don’t suppose he saw them.”

  “This watch?” He held up her wrist, examining the slim eighteen-karat Cartier. An idiot could fence it for a grand, minimum, he mused. “A hit and grab like that doesn’t sound like an amateur who’d miss this sort of easily liquidated asset. And he doesn’t force you into the house, steal any number of excellent and portable items.”

  “The police figured he was someone passing through, short of cash.”

  “He might figure you had a couple hundred on you if he was lucky. Not worth armed robbery.”

  “People kill for designer tennis shoes.”

  “Not this kind of deal. He was after your ID, darling, because someone didn’t want you to get to Florence too soon. They needed time to get to work on the copy, and couldn’t afford you underfoot until they had it under way. So they hired a pro. Someone who wouldn’t be messy or make stupid mistakes. And they paid him enough so he wouldn’t be greedy.”

  The explanation was so simple, so perfect, she only stared, wondering why she hadn’t made the connection herself. “But the police never suggested that.”

  “The cops didn’t have all the data. We do.”

  Slowly, she nodded, and slowly the anger began to inch up into her chest, into her throat. “He held a knife to my throat for my passport. It was all to delay me. To give them more time.”

  “I’d say the probability ratio is very high. Run through it again for me, step by step. It’s a long shot, but maybe some of my connections can tag your man.”

  “If they can,” she said soberly, “I don’t want to meet your connections.”

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Jones.” He turned her hand over and kissed her palm. “You won’t.”

  • • •

  There was no place to buy a bottle on Easter Sunday. When he caught himself driving around and around, looking for one, Andrew began to shake. It wasn’t that he needed one, he told himself. He wanted one, and that was different. He just wanted a couple of drinks to smooth out the edges.

  Damn it, everybody was on his back. Everything rested on him. He was sick to death of it. So fuck them, he decided, tapping his fist on the wheel. Fuck them all.

  He’d just keep driving. He’d head south and he wouldn’t stop until he was damn good and ready. He had plenty of money, what he didn’t have was any fucking peace.

  He wouldn’t stop until he could breathe again, until he found a goddamn liquor store that was open on a goddamn Sunday.

  He glanced down, stared at the fist that was ramming over and over into the steering wheel. The fist that was bloody and torn and seemed to belong to someone else. Someone that scared the hell out of him.

  Oh God, oh God. He was in trouble. With his hands trembling, he jerked the car to the curb, and leaving the engine running, rested his head on the wheel and prayed for help.

  The quick knuckle rap on the window had him jolting up and staring through the glass at Annie’s face. Head cocked, she made a circling motion with her finger, telling him to roll down the window. It wasn’t until he saw her that he realized he’d headed for her house.

  “What are you doing, Andrew?”

  “Just sitting here.”

  She shifted the small bag she carried and studied his face. It was a mess, she noted, bruised, sick in color, worn out. “You piss somebody off?”

  “My sister.”

  Her eyebrows rose high. “Miranda punched you in the eye?”

  “What? No. No.” Embarrassed, he probed around the ache with his fingertips. “I slipped on the stairs.”

  “Really?” Her eyes were narrowed now, focused on the fresh cuts and seeping blood on his knuckles. “Did you punch the stairs?”

  “I . . .” He held up his hand, his mouth going dry as he stared at it. He hadn’t even felt the pain. What was a man capable of when he stopped feeling pain? “Can I come in? I haven’t been drinking,” he said quickly, when he saw the rejection in her eyes. “I want to, but I haven’t been.”

  “You won’t get a drink in my place.”

  “I know.” He kept his gaze steady. “That’s why I want to come up.”

  She studied him another moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

  She unlocked her door and walked in to set her bag on a table covered with papers and forms and files, some of which were anchored with an adding machine.

  “I’m doing my taxes,” she explained. “That’s why I went out to get this.” She took an economy-sized bottle of extra-strength Excedrin out of the bag. “You got a Schedule C, you got a headache.”

  “I’ve already got the headache.”

  “Figured. Let’s do some drugs.” With a half-smile, she turned to pour two glasses of water. She opened the bottle and shook out two tablets for each of them. Solemnly, they swallowed.

  She moved back, took a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer. “Put that on your hand for now. We’ll clean it up in a bit.”

  “Thanks.” He might not have felt the pain when he’d pounded the steering wheel, but he was feeling it now. From wrist to fingertip his hand was one obscene scream. But he bit back the wince as he laid the cold bag over it. He’d done enough to damage both ego and manhood in front of Annie McLean.

  “Now, what did you do to piss off your sister?”

  He very nearly lied, made up some idiotic sibling spat. Ego and manhood aside, he couldn’t manage to lie to those quiet, assessing eyes. “It might have been getting stinking drunk and humiliating her in front of her new boyfriend.”

  “Miranda’s got a guy?”

  “Yeah, sort of sudden. Nice enough. I entertained him by falling down the stairs, then throwing up part of my stomach lining.”

  Sympathy fluttered in her stomach, but she only cocked her head. “You’ve been a busy boy, Andrew.”

  “Oh yeah.” He tossed the bag of peas into the sink so he could pace. He had jitters tangled around his jitters. Couldn’t keep still. His fingers patted at his thighs, at his face, at each other as he prowled. “Then this morning, I decided to round things out by jumping all over her about work, family problems, her sex life.” He traced his fingers over his cheek, remembering the jolt of shock when she’d slapped him.

  Because she caught herself taking a step toward him, Annie turned and rooted out antiseptic from a cabinet behind her. “It was probably the sex life crack that did it. Women don’t like their brothers poking into that area.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right. But we’ve got a lot of trouble at the Institute. I’m under a lot of stress right now.”

  She pursed her lips, glanced down at the piles of papers and forms, the envelopes of receipts, the worn-down stubs of pencils, and the reams of adding machine tape. “If you’re breathing, you have stress. You drink yourself blind, the stress is right there when your vision clears up.”

  “Look, maybe I’ve got a little problem. I’m going to deal with it. I just need to take a little time, give my system a rest. I—” He pressed his fingers to his eyes, swayed.

  “You’ve got a big problem, and you can deal with it.” She crossed to him, took his wrists and tugged his hands down so he would look at her. “You need a day, because it’s only today that has to count.”

  “So far today sucks.”

  She smiled, rose on her toes to kiss his cheek. “It’s probably going to get worse. Sit down. I’ll doctor those knuckles, tough guy.”

  “Thanks.” Then he sighed, said it again. “Thanks, Annie.”

  He kissed her cheek in turn, then rested his head against hers just for the comfort of it. She still held his wrists, lightly, and her fingers felt so competent, so strong, her hair smelled so fresh and simple. He pressed his lips to it, then to her temple.

  Then somehow his mouth was on hers, and the taste of her was flooding his ragged system like sunlight. When her fingers flexed in his, he released them, but onl
y to frame her face with his hands, to draw her into him, hold her there while the sheer warmth of her soothed like balm on a wound.

  So many contrasts, was all he could think. The tough little body, the soft sweep of hair, the clipped voice and generous mouth.

  The strength and the softness of her, so endearing, so familiar. And so necessary to him.

  She’d always been there. He’d always known she’d be there.

  It wasn’t easy to break free. Not from his hold—she could have easily stepped away. His hands were gentle as bird wings on her face. The mouth both needy and tender.

  She’d wondered, had let herself wonder once, if it would be the same. The feel of him, the taste. But that was long ago, before she’d convinced herself that friendship was enough. Now it wasn’t easy to break free of what that one long quiet kiss stirred, what it asked, what it took out of her.

  She needed all of her strength of will to step back from the slowly kindling need he’d brought back to life. A need, she told herself, that wouldn’t help either of them.

  He nearly pulled her back, was already reaching out blindly when she held up her hands, palms out, in warning. He jerked back as if he’d been slapped a second time.

  “Oh Christ. I’m sorry. Annie, I’m sorry.” What had he done? How could he have ruined the single friendship he didn’t think he could live without? “I didn’t mean to do that. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

  She let him wind down, let the miserable guilt settle on his face. “I bounced a two-hundred-pound man out of my bar last night because he thought he could buy me along with a beer and a bump.” She clamped her hand around Andrew’s left thumb and gave it a quick twist. His eyes widened, his breath hissed as she held it. “I could have you on your knees, pal, whimpering if I gave this one little digit a good yank back. We’re not seventeen anymore, not quite so stupid and a hell of a lot less innocent. If I hadn’t wanted your hands on me, you’d have been flat on your back, checking out the cracks in my ceiling plaster.”

  Sweat began to pearl on his forehead. “Ah, could you let go?”

  “Sure.” Obligingly, she released his thumb, and kept her eyebrows arrogantly cocked. “Want a Coke? You look a little sweaty.” She turned and stepped to the refrigerator.