Reap the Wind

by Iris Johansen

  “Does everything have to be logical to you?”

  “No, but I have to understand it. All kinds of actions and emotions cause us to act the way we do, but there has to be a cause and effect.” He pushed the sheet aside and rose naked to his feet. “We have the effect. What’s the cause?”

  “Lord, you’re tenacious,” she said in exasperation as she moved toward the door. “You went to all the trouble of cleaning up this cottage to assure me of privacy and now you—”

  “Want to know why,” he finished, his brow furrowing as he began to dress. “It just occurred to me that it was odd. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other that you want me to be your backstreet man. I’m curious.”

  “About everything on the planet.”

  “Almost.” His narrowed gaze searched her face. “It’s your father, isn’t it?”

  She stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The cause.” He nodded. “That’s it. He came to Vasaro, became involved with your mother, and, when he left, Vasaro was almost in ruins. You’re seeing some correlation.”

  She tried to laugh. “That’s not true. What we do together couldn’t hurt Vasaro.”

  “Your mind knows that, but—”

  “Mother of God, are you trying to dissect me for one of your books?”

  “I write mysteries, not psychological thrillers.” He suddenly smiled. “Sorry. You posed a puzzle and I have a passion for puzzles. No more questions.”

  “Because you think you have the answer.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “There was never a possibility of my not giving you what you want, Caitlin. I merely have to understand why you wanted it.” He opened the door for her and brushed a kiss on her cheek. “Ten minutes. Will I see you at supper?”

  She shook her head. “I have to go to the perfumery.”

  “Why?”

  “The Wind Dancer. I haven’t had a chance to go there more than twice since the first night you came.”

  “I’m glad I’m such potent competition. Why are you studying it? What are you doing with—”

  “It’s none of your business.” Her tone was suddenly fierce. “Stay out of my head, Alex.”

  There it was again. Every time he mentioned the Wind Dancer, she shut him out, guarding her attachment as if she were a priestess tending a sacred temple fire. “As long as you don’t tell me to stay out of your body.” He affectionately patted her bottom. “Did I ever tell you what a magnificent derriere you have?”

  She laughed and he could see some of the tension ebb from her taut muscles. “Good-bye, Alex.”

  His smile gradually faded as he watched her walk briskly away from the cottage and up the hill. He had almost blown it. Caitlin obviously had some king-size hang-ups regarding her father and didn’t take kindly to probing, and her passion for the Wind Dancer was also clearly out of bounds. Why the hell hadn’t he been able to leave either subject alone? The last week that they had been meeting at the cottage had probably been the most erotic and fulfilling he had ever known. He had expected their lust for each other to dim within a few days, but they still came together with the urgency they had the first night in the jasmine field. Caitlin was a natural voluptuary, a stimulating companion.

  He wanted more.

  The realization surprised him. He wanted to know her. At first he had thought Caitlin was exactly what she appeared to be—an earthy, direct woman whose strength lay in her love for Vasaro and the people it sheltered. Yet soon he had become aware that she was also a creature of intense passions and impulses she tried to hold tight beneath a cool exterior. She displayed lightning flashes of humor that surprised him, and she was clearly more mother than daughter to Katrine. With Jacques there existed a deep bond, but there was nothing fatherly about it; they were equals and partners. She was one of the workers and yet was often forced to stand apart from them. Every time he studied her he saw a new facet that intrigued and drew him to uncover more.

  She was coming too close.

  The knowledge sent a chill down his spine. He had deliberately brought her to this point to give him something to challenge himself. But something had gone wrong.

  He left the cottage and closed the door behind him. As he started up the hill he tried to think of a solution.

  Vasaro.

  He was too near Caitlin at Vasaro. They worked together in the fields, sometimes saw each other at meals, and now they were involved in physical intimacy. He had nothing else to think about but Caitlin, so naturally she was assuming too much importance in his life. Anywhere else but Vasaro he would be able to control his emotional response.

  When he got back to the house he would call Goldbaum. It had been almost two weeks since he had talked to the investigator, and the man had to have discovered some new information that would give Alex reason to leave.

  He hoped to God Goldbaum had found out something.

  “I’m not sure,” Goldbaum cautioned Alex. “Andreas is canny. There’s no evidence. Just . . . an impression.”

  “I don’t have anything else. I’ll use it and see what happens.”

  “Probably zilch.”

  “Maybe. Anything on Ledford?”

  “I’ve been retracing his steps for the last two years. Nothing’s sending out any red flags.”

  “Keep working on it in case I don’t hit pay dirt with Andreas.”

  Goldbaum sighed. “I do have other clients.”

  “Not ones who let you gouge them the way I do.”

  “That does help me to put up with you,” Goldbaum agreed more cheerfully. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “No, I’ll call you. I’ll probably be on the move.”

  Alex hung up the phone, adrenaline zinging through his veins.

  A hook. Maybe not a good hook but a hook nonetheless.

  He stood up and strode across the bedroom toward the door. After these weeks of sitting at Vasaro with his hands tied, he could move.

  He hurried down the hall, taking the steps two at a time as he went to the perfumery in search of Caitlin.

  Caitlin was kneeling on the floor directly in front of the pedestal on which the hologram appeared. He could see her shadowy form in the darkness and the gleam of light from the projector burnishing her tan curls as she tilted her head back to look up at it.

  He experienced a twinge of uneasiness as he remembered the comparison he had made only hours before between Caitlin and a priestess at a shrine. “What the devil are you doing?”

  Caitlin jumped and lowered the binoculars she had been holding to her eyes. “Merde, you startled me. Go away. I told you I couldn’t see you tonight.”

  “So you can worship before the altar?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Her tone was impatient. “If you won’t go away, come here and kneel down beside me.”

  He moved slowly across the room and dropped down beside her before the pedestal. “So?”

  She handed him the binoculars. “Look at the base of the statue. Is the base seamless and of the same kind of gold as the statue?”

  He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused them on the base of the hologram. “If it’s not, it’s pretty close.”

  “But is it the same?”

  “You’re the expert on antiquities.”

  “I don’t know.” Caitlin’s voice was sharp with frustration. “I need more. All I have is Catherine’s journal and that book Lily Andreas wrote in the twenties. The Andreas family have two journals that go much further back, and a good deal of that information has never been published.” She flung out her hand at the hologram. “Just look at me. I’m staring at a damn hologram with a pair of high-powered binoculars. I need equipment. I need to see the statue itself.”

  Alex smiled. “Perhaps I can make a suggestion?”

  Caitlin looked at him. A reflection of the Wind Dancer shimmered in her eyes in the diffused light from the projector. It was strange to see that inhuman power and beauty shining boldly out at him from such an earthy huma
n being as Caitlin. She could probably see the same reflection in his own eyes. It was as if, for a brief instant, they had both been caught, possessed, by the statue.

  “I’m not in a mood for jokes, Alex.” Her tone was edged with impatience. “This is important to me.”

  “Obviously.” He reached out and took the remote from her. “If you need to see it, let’s go see it.”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  He clicked off the projectors and the Wind Dancer disappeared from Caitlin’s eyes. He felt a totally unreasonable flicker of relief as he rose to his feet, crossed the room, and switched on the light. “Pack a suitcase. Enough for a five-day stay. I don’t know how long it will take, but we can always buy more if—”

  “Pack? Where am I supposed to be going?”

  “The United States. Is your passport in order?”

  “I think so. I’ll have to check.”

  “We can take care of it in Nice if there’s a problem. Will you call Air France and book our reservations? I’ll have to make a few calls and have some additional information delivered to me at the airport so I’ll be ready for the presentation.”

  “What presentation?” Caitlin asked. “And I just can’t run off to America. I have responsibilities here at Vasaro.”

  “And one of those responsibilities is marketing your perfume.”

  “Is that what this is all about?”

  He nodded. “We have to have a hook to launch the perfume in a big way.”

  She slowly rose to her feet. “And this hook is in the United States?”

  “South Carolina, to be exact.” He smiled. “The Wind Dancer.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise as she realized what he was planning. “You’re trying to get the Andreas family to let you use the Wind Dancer in a publicity campaign?”

  “Can you think of a more evocative or romantic symbol?”

  “No.” She added flatly, “But it will never happen.”

  “Why not? You’re distantly related to the Andreas family, which will give us an entree. I’ll do the rest.”

  “What can we offer them? They don’t need money.” Caitlin nibbled worriedly at her lower lip. “And they’ve never permitted the statue to leave the U.S. since they lost it to Hitler at the beginning of World War Two.” She met his gaze. “You’d want a world tour?”

  “At least a European tour, starting in Paris.”

  She made a face. “If you expect familial feelings to soften any Andreas heart, you’re going to be disappointed. Why do you think I’ve never approached them before about studying the Wind Dancer at close quarters? It was my grandmother who talked Jonathan’s father into lending the Wind Dancer to the Louvre. When the Wind Dancer was stolen by the Nazis, the Andreas family was furious and blamed Vasaro for not protecting it.”

  “That was fifty years ago.”

  “I’ve heard the Andreas clan have long memories.”

  “We’ll have to see.” He took her hand and pulled her toward the door. “It’s worth the gamble.”

  “You’re really going to do it?”

  He stopped and looked down at her. “Do you know how much it will cost to launch a major campaign to sell your perfume?”

  “I was afraid to check into it. A small fortune, I suppose?”

  “Try a bigger fortune. Between ten and fifteen million dollars.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Do you have that much money?”

  “I have it. But with any luck we won’t have to spend that much. The Wind Dancer would generate its own publicity. We wouldn’t have to create a mystique for it.”

  “A mystique?” She smiled. “You seem to know the buzzwords.”

  “Courtesy of your library and those bundles of information I’ve been receiving in the mail every day.” He stepped aside to let her precede him through the door. “And I guarantee I’ll know a hell of a lot more before we reach Charleston.”

  Her smile faded. “If the campaign will cost this much money, will we be able to make a profit?”

  “How much does it cost to make an ounce of Vasaro?”

  “About twenty dollars. We use the best oils and ingredients.”

  He grinned. “Then we’ll make a profit. We’ll charge two hundred dollars an ounce.”

  “That’s too much,” she said, shocked. “That’s more than Passion or Opium or—”

  “Not for bottled mystique. Is your perfume good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful?”

  “It’s Vasaro,” she said simply.

  He chuckled. “Which means it could become a classic. A classic perfume can easily earn fifty million dollars a year.”

  “I’ve never seen you like this,” she said, bemused.

  “That’s because you’ve only seen me spinning my wheels. I’m basically a problem solver, and now I have a problem to solve.” He muttered, “At long last.”

  “And you love it, don’t you? It makes you come alive.”

  He shrugged. “At least it makes me feel I’m alive.” He grasped her elbow. “If there’s nothing direct to Charleston, ask Air France if there’s a night flight to New York. And you’ll want to give instructions to Jacques and say good-bye to your mother.”

  “I think I can handle that by myself,” she said dryly.

  “Sorry. I get carried away when—why are you laughing?”

  “Because I remember saying that to you when I was talking about Vasaro. Perhaps we have more in common than I thought.”

  Her face was alight with laughter and he found himself caught and held. He wanted to reach out and touch her lips, gently trace the smile with his finger.

  Tenderness.

  He turned away without touching her. “Besides bringing along a copy of your paper on the Wind Dancer, you might look up any family history in case Andreas is a history buff. We’ll need every advantage we can get if we’re going to pry the Wind Dancer loose from him.”

  “What are those?” Caitlin glanced curiously at the clippings Alex had spread on the tray in front of him. “Is that what was in the envelope that man gave you at the departure gate?”

  He nodded. “They’re clippings from the U.S. papers for the last six months. I wanted to see how much space they’d given to the art thefts in Europe. Andreas isn’t going to be overjoyed about lending the Wind Dancer if the newspapers have been on a feeding frenzy.” Alex shoved the clippings back in the manila envelope as the attendant paused beside him, offering a smile and a cup of coffee. He returned the smile and accepted the cup. “Unfortunately, from what I can see they gave them plenty of coverage.”

  “Naturally, a theft like the ‘Mona Lisa’ would get world coverage.” She shook her head. “It’s incredible that they haven’t been able to recover it after all this time. Those people at Interpol must be bumbling idiots.”

  He sipped his coffee. “Is that your opinion of Interpol?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have these thefts made you lose faith in the police?”

  She thought about it. “I suppose . . . I don’t know.”

  “And these terrorist attacks by the Black Medina frighten you?”

  “They don’t make me feel very secure.”

  “Interesting. You’re probably more insulated at Vasaro than nine tenths of the population of Europe, and you’re beginning to be angry and afraid. I wonder how those people who don’t live in a sheltered garden are reacting?”

  “I have no idea. Why are you so interested in all this?”

  “I’m just—”

  “Curious,” Caitlin finished with a chuckle. “I’ve never seen anyone so curious. Remind me to tell you about the sad demise of a pussycat with that very failing.”

  His expression became shuttered. “I’ve heard it before.”

  Her smile faded as she looked at him. She had hurt him in some way. Behind that expressionless mask she could sense his pain and felt an answering ache deep within her. She glanced out the window into the darkness, trying to think of som
ething to distract him. “I’m glad they didn’t think ‘Boy in the Field’ was worth taking when they stole the ‘Mona Lisa.’ It’s in the same section in the Louvre.”

  “‘Boy in the Field’? I’ve never heard of it. Who painted it?”

  “It’s unsigned.” She paused. “But it was painted by Juliette Andreas, Jonathan Andreas’s, great-great-grandmother.” She frowned. “Maybe I should have thrown another great in there. I always get confused when it comes to the greats.”

  “If it’s unsigned, how do you know that Juliette Andreas painted it?”

  “It’s in Catherine’s journal. Juliette left a painting of Michel at Vasaro when she immigrated to the United States. Juliette was a fine artist, but there was a terrible prejudice against women painters at that time and there was no way she would have been accepted by the Louvre.” She leaned back in her chair. “So Catherine decided to take matters in her own hands. Most of the great paintings from Versailles had been brought to the Louvre by 1793, but with so much confusion during the Terror, Catherine decided it wouldn’t be illogical that a hidden cache of art treasures would have been overlooked.”

  A slow smile lit Alex’s face. “I can’t believe this.”

  “It’s true. Somehow she and François managed to smuggle Juliette’s paintings together with a Fragonard and a Del Sarto into one of the queen’s apartments at Versailles. Then François arranged for the hidden masterpieces to be ‘discovered’ by the National Guard and they were immediately whisked to the Louvre with the others. Since the unsigned painting was in such prestigious company, it was immediately assumed to be painted by someone of immense stature.”

  “And so Juliette Andreas’s painting hangs in the Louvre with the masters.” Alex looked thoughtfully down into his coffee. “Does the Andreas family know this story?”

  “I’m sure they do. Catherine said she wrote to Juliette to tell her.”

  “They must have been great friends for Catherine to go to so much trouble.”

  “Read the journal.”

  “Perhaps I will.” His gaze lifted. “In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt for you to mention the incident to Andreas if the occasion presents itself.”