by Nora Roberts
“Honey.” He gathered her close, tried to soothe. “I’m sorry.”
“It was an accident. It happened very fast. A drunk driver, crossed the center line. Hit her head on. That was it.” Grief was fresh again, raw and fresh. “Charles was devastated. He never really recovered. He was older than she by about fifteen years, and when she died, he lost interest in everything. He retired, went into seclusion. He died less than a year later.”
“And you were all alone?”
“I had my brothers.” She shuddered, gripped Cade’s hands. “Timothy and Thomas. Charles’s sons. My stepbrothers.” She let out a broken sob. “Twins.” Her hands jerked in his. “I want to go now. I want to leave here.”
“Tell me about your brothers,” he said calmly. “They’re older than you.”
“I want to go. I have to get out.”
“They worked here,” Cade continued. “They took over the business from your stepfather. You worked here with them.”
“Yes, yes. They took over the business. I came to work here when I graduated from Radcliffe. We’re family. They’re my brothers. They were twenty when their father married my mother. We lived in the same house, we’re family.”
“One of them tried to kill you.”
“No. No.” She covered her face again, refused to see it. “It’s a mistake. I told you, they’re my brothers. My family. We lived together. We work together. Our parents are dead, and we’re all that’s left. They’re impatient or brusque sometimes, but they’d never hurt me. They’d never hurt one another. They couldn’t.”
“They have offices here? In this building, on this floor?” She shook her head, but her gaze shifted to the left. “I want you to sit right here. Stay right here, Bailey.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to look.” He cupped her face, kept his eyes level with hers. “You know I have to look. Stay here.”
She let her head fall back against the cushion, closed her eyes. She would stay. There was nothing she needed to see. Nothing she needed to know. She knew her name now, her family. Wasn’t that enough?
But it played back in her head, with an echoing crack of lightning that made her moan.
She hadn’t moved when Cade came back into the room, but she opened her eyes. And when she did, she saw it on his face.
“It’s Thomas,” she said hollowly. “It’s Thomas who’s dead in his office down the hall.”
He didn’t wonder that she had blocked out what she’d seen. The attack had been vicious and violent. To witness the cause of the effect in the room he’d just left would have been horrifying. But to watch, from a few feet away, knowing it was one brother savagely slaying another, would have been unspeakable.
“Thomas,” she repeated, and let tears fall. “Poor Thomas. He wanted to be the best in everything. He often was. They were never unkind to me. They ignored me a great deal of the time, as older brothers would, I suppose. I know they resented that Charles left me a part of the business, but they tolerated it. And me.”
She paused, looked down at her hands. “There’s nothing we can do for him, is there?”
“No. I’ll get you out of here.” He took her hand, helped her to her feet. “We’ll call this in.”
“They planned to steal the Three Stars of Mithra.”
She stood her ground. She could bear it, she promised herself, and she needed to say it all. “We’d been commissioned to verify and assess the three diamonds. Or I had, actually, since that’s my field. I often do consults with the Smithsonian. The stars were going to be part of their gem display. They’re originally from Persia. They’re very old and were once set in a triangle of gold, held in the open hands of a statue of Mithra.”
She cleared her throat, spoke calmly now, focused practical. “He was the ancient Persian god of light and wisdom. Mithraism became one of the major religions of the Roman Empire. He was supposed to have slain the divine bull, and from the bull’s dying body sprang all the plants and animals.”
“You can tell me in the car.”
He urged her to the door, but she simply couldn’t move until she’d said it all. “The religion wasn’t brought to Rome until 68 B.C., and it spread rapidly. It’s similar to Christianity in many respects. The ideals of brotherly love.” Her voice broke, forced her to swallow. “The Three Stars were thought to be a myth, a legend spawned by the Trinity, though some scholars believed firmly in their existence, and described them as symbols of love, knowledge and generosity. It’s said if one possesses all three, the combination of these elements will bring power and immortality.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I believe they’re powerful enough to bring about great love, great hate, great greed. I found out what my brothers were doing. I realized Timothy was creating duplicates in the lab.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “Maybe he could have hidden something like that from me if he’d been more methodical, more careful, but he was always the more impatient of the two, the more reckless.” Now her shoulders slumped as she remembered. “He’s been in trouble a few times, for assault. His temper is very quick.”
“He never hurt you?”
“No, never. He may have hurt my feelings from time to time.” She tried a smile, but it faded quickly. “He seemed to feel that my mother had only married his father so that the two of us could be taken care of. It was partially true, I suppose. So it was always important to me to prove myself.”
“You proved yourself here,” Cade said.
“Not to him. Timothy was never one to praise. But he was never overly harsh, not really. And I never thought he or Thomas would be dishonest. Until we were commissioned to assess the Stars.”
“And that was more than they could resist.”
“Apparently. The fakes wouldn’t fool anyone for very long, but by the time the stones were found out, my brothers would have the money and be gone. I don’t know who was paying them, but they were working for someone.”
She stopped on the stairs, stared down. “He chased me down here. I was running. It was pitch-dark. I nearly fell down these stairs. I could hear him coming after me. And I knew he’d kill me. We’d shared Christmas dinner every year of my life since I was fourteen. And he would kill me, the same horrible way he’d killed Thomas. For money.”
She clutched the railing as she slowly walked down to the lower level. “I loved him, Cade. I loved both of them.” At the base of the steps, she turned, gestured to a narrow door. “There’s a basement down there. It’s very small and cramped. There’s where I ran. There’s a little nook under the steps, with a lattice door. I used to explore the building when I was young, and I liked sitting in that nook, where it was quiet. I’d study the gem books Charles gave me. I don’t suppose Timothy knew it was there. If he’d known, I’d be dead.”
She walked into the sunlight.
“I honestly don’t remember how long I stayed in there, in the dark, waiting for him to find me and kill me. I don’t know how I got to the hotel. I must have walked part of the way, at least. I don’t drive to work. I live only a few blocks from here.”
He wanted to tell her it was done now, but it wasn’t. He wanted to let her rest her head on his shoulder and put it behind her. But he couldn’t. Instead, he took her hands, turned her to face him.
“Bailey. Where are the other two stars?”
“The—” She went dead pale, so quickly he grabbed her certain she would faint. But her eyes stayed open, wide and shocked.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Cade, what have I done? He knows where they live. He knows.”
“You gave them to M.J. and Grace.” Moving fast, he wrenched open the car door. The cops would have to wait. “Tell me where.”
“I was so angry,” she told him as they sped through afternoon traffic. “I realized they were using me, my name, my knowledge, my reputation, to authenticate the gems. Then they would switch them and leave me—leave the business my stepfather had built—holding the bag. Salvini would have bee
n ruined, after all Charles had done to build it. I owed him loyalty. And, damn it, so did they.”
“So you beat them to it.”
“It was impulse. I was going to face them down with it, but I wanted the Stars out of reach. At least I thought they shouldn’t all be in one place. As long as they were, they could be taken. So I sent one to M.J. and one to Grace, by different overnight couriers.”
“Dear Lord, Bailey, you put priceless diamonds in the mail?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “We use special couriers regularly for delivering gems.” Her voice was prim, vaguely insulted. She’d already told herself she’d been unbelievably rash. “All I could think was that there were two people in the world I could trust with anything. I didn’t consider they’d be put in danger. I never realized how far it could go. I was certain that when I confronted my brothers, told them I’d separated the diamonds for safe-keeping and would be making arrangements to have the diamonds delivered to the museum, that would have to be the end of it.”
She hung onto the door as his tires spun around a corner. “It’s this building. We’re on the third floor. M.J. and I have apartments across from each other.”
She was out of the car before he’d fully stopped, and racing toward the entrance. Cursing, he snatched his keys out of the ignition and sprinted after her. He caught her on the stairs. “Stay behind me,” he ordered. “I mean it.”
Both the lock and the jamb on apartment 324 were broken. Police tape was slashed across it. “M.J.” was all she could manage as she pushed at Cade and reached for the knob to M.J.’s apartment.
“There you are, dearie.” A woman in pink stretch pants and fluffy slippers scuffed down the hall. “I was getting worried about you.”
“Mrs. Weathers.” Bailey’s knuckles turned white on the knob as she turned. “M.J. What’s happened to M.J?”
“Such a hullabaloo.” Mrs. Weathers fluffed her helmet of blond hair and gave Cade a measuring smile. “You don’t expect such things in a nice neighborhood like this. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, I swear.”
“Where’s M.J.?”
“Last I saw, she was running off with some man. Clattering down the steps, swearing at each other. That was after all the commotion. Glass breaking, furniture smashing. Gunshots.” She nodded briskly several times, like a bird bobbing for juicy worms.
“Shot? Was M.J. shot?”
“Didn’t look shot to me. Mad as a wet hen, and fired up.”
“My brother. Was she with my brother?”
“No, indeed. Hadn’t even seen this young man before. I’da remembered, I can tell you. He was one tall drink of water, had his hair back in one of those cute little ponytails, and had eyes like steel. Dent in his chin, just like a movie star. I got a good look at him, seeing as he nearly knocked me over.”
“When did this happen, Mrs. Weathers?”
She fastened her gaze on Cade’s face at the question, beamed and offered a hand. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“I’m Cade, a friend of Bailey’s.” He flashed a grin back at her while impatience twisted his stomach. “We’ve been away for a few days and wanted to catch up with M.J.”
“Well, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since Saturday, when she went running out. Left the door of her apartment wide open—or I thought she had till I saw it was broken. So I peeked in. Her place was a wreck. I know she’s not the housekeeper you are, Bailey, but it was upside down and sideways, and…” She paused dramatically. “There was a man laid out cold on the floor. Big bruiser of a man, too. So I skedaddled back to my apartment and called the police. What else could I do? I guess he’d come to and cleared out by the time they got here. Lord knows I didn’t put a toe out the door until the cops came knocking, and they said he was gone.”
Cade slipped an arm around Bailey’s waist. She was starting to tremble. “Mrs. Weathers, I wonder if you might have an extra key to Bailey’s apartment. She left it back at my place, and we need to pick up a few things.”
“Oh, is that the way of it?” She smiled slyly, fluffed her hair again and admonished Bailey. “And high time, too. Holing yourself up here, night after night. Now, let’s see. I just watered Mr. Hollister’s begonias, so I’ve got my keys right here. Here you are.”
“I don’t remember giving you my key.”
“Of course you did, dearie, last year when you and the girls went off to Arizona. I made a copy, just in case.” Humming to herself, she unlocked Bailey’s door. Before she could push it open and scoot in, Cade outmaneuvered her.
“Thanks a lot.”
“No trouble. Can’t imagine where that girl got off to,” she said, craning her neck to see through the crack in the door of Bailey’s apartment. “I told the police how she was running off on her own steam. Oh, and now that I think about it, Bailey, I did see your brother.”
“Timothy,” Bailey whispered.
“Can’t say which one for sure. They look like clones to me. He came by, let’s see.” She tapped a finger on her front teeth, as if to jiggle the thought free. “Must have been Saturday night. I told him I hadn’t seen you, that I thought you might have taken a holiday. He looked a little perturbed. Let himself right in, then closed the door in my face.”
“I didn’t realize he had a key, either,” Bailey murmured, then realized she’d left her purse behind when she ran. She wondered how foolishly useless it would be to change her locks. “Thank you, Mrs. Weathers. If I miss M.J. again, will you tell her I’m looking for her?”
“Of course, dearie. Now, if you—” She frowned as Cade gave her a quick wink, slid Bailey inside and shut the door in her face.
It was just as well he had. One glance around told him his tidy Bailey didn’t usually leave her apartment with cushions ripped open and drawers spilled out.
Apparently Salvini hadn’t been content to search the place, he’d wanted to destroy it. “Messy amateur,” Cade murmured, running a hand up and down her back.
It was the same madness, she realized. The same violent loss of control she’d seen when he grabbed the antique knife Thomas used for a letter opener off the desk. When he used it.
These were only things, she reminded herself. No matter how dear and cherished, they were only things.
She’d seen for herself just what Timothy could do to people. “I have to call Grace. She’d have gone to Grace if she could.”
“Did you recognize who M.J. was with from the description?”
“No. I don’t know anyone like that, and I know most of M.J.’s friends.” She waded through the destruction of her living room and reached the phone. Her message light was blinking, but she ignored it and hastily punched in numbers. “It’s her machine,” Bailey murmured, and strained while the throaty voice recited the announcement. Then: “Grace, if you’re there, pick up. It’s urgent. I’m in trouble. M.J.’s in trouble. I don’t know where she is. I want you to go to the police, give them the package I sent you. Call me right away.”
“Give her my number,” Cade instructed.
“I don’t know it.”
He took the phone himself, recited it, then handed the receiver back to Bailey.
It was a calculated risk, revealing Bailey’s whereabouts, but the diamond was going into safekeeping and he didn’t want to put up any impediments to Grace being able to reach them. “It’s life-and-death, Grace. Don’t stay in the house alone. Get to the police. Don’t talk to my brother, whatever you do. Don’t let him in the house. Call me, please, please, call me.”
“Where does she live?”
“In Potomac.” Bailey told him when he gently took the receiver away and hung it up. “She may not be there at all. She has a place up in the country, western Maryland. That’s where I sent the package. There’s no phone there, and only a few people know she goes there. Other times she just gets in the car and drives until she sees someplace that suits her. She could be anywhere.”
“How long does she usually stay out of touch?�
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“No more than a few days. She’d call me, or M.J.” With an oath, she pounced on the message machine. The first voice to flow out was Grace’s.
“Bailey, what are you up to? Is this thing real? Are we giving smuggling a try? Look, you know how I hate these machines. I’ll be in touch.”
“Four o’clock on Saturday.” Bailey hung on to that. “She was all right at four o’clock on Saturday, according to the machine.”
“We don’t know where she called from.”
“No, but she was all right on Saturday.” She punched to get the next message. This time it was M.J.
“Bailey, listen up. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but we’re in trouble. Don’t stay there, he might come back. I’m in a phone booth outside some dive near—” There was swearing, a rattle. “Hands off, you son of a—” And a dial tone.
“Sunday, two a.m. What have I done, Cade?”
Saying nothing, he punched in the next message. It was a man’s voice this time. “Little bitch, if you hear this, I’ll find you. I want what’s mine.” There was a sob, choked off. “He cut my face. He had them slice up my face because of what you did. I’m going to do the same to you.”
“It’s Timothy,” she murmured.
“I figured as much.”
“He’s lost his mind, Cade. I could see it that night. Something snapped in him.”
He didn’t doubt it, not after what he’d seen in Thomas Salvini’s office. “Is there anything you need from here?” When she only looked around blankly, he took her hand. “We’ll worry about that later. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“A quiet spot where you can sit down and tell me everything else. Then we’ll make a call.”
The park was shady and green. Somehow, the little bench under the spreading trees seemed to block out the punch of the oppressive July heat. It hadn’t rained in days, and humidity hung like a cloud of wasps in the air.
“You need to have yourself under control when we go to the cops,” Cade told her. “You have to have your mind clear.”