Her Passionate Protector

by Laurey Bright

  Only Camille's cool voice restrained him.

  "What?" he said, forcing himself to turn away from the tableau in the booth. "Sorry, Camille."

  She glanced toward where Sienna was, and when she looked back at him, sympathetic amusement lurked in her green eyes. "I said, is your steak all right? I've never known you to not finish a meal before."

  He looked down at his plate, half his carpetbag steak and an untouched baked potato lying neglected in the middle. Camille's was empty. He picked up his knife and attacked the meat. "It's fine," he grunted.

  Camille said, "Aidan's married."

  "Is that so?" Brodie didn't lift his eyes from his plate. The smarmy sod wasn't acting married. Shoving a piece of steak into his mouth, he chewed it viciously, unable to resist another quick look at the couple in the booth. Their heads were close together, but he was relieved to see they were no longer holding hands. Both their meals were practically untouched, though. Irritably he swallowed, and sawed off another piece of steak. It was thick and juicy and the oysters inside were fat and luscious-looking. But his taste buds for some reason had gone on strike. Everything seemed dry and bitter.

  He got through it all and shoved away his plate. "Do you want dessert?" he asked Camille.

  "Not for me. You have some."

  He shook his head, and when the waitress came back ordered coffee for two. A quick look showed him Sienna's plate being taken away still half-full. Soon afterward she and Aidan were served coffee too. They were still talking. With a lift of his heart he thought they were arguing—Sienna looked quite fierce and the bloke wasn't too happy. "Maybe it's a big breakup scene. He's going back to the wife who doesn't understand him."

  He scarcely realized he'd spoken the thought aloud until Camille said, "Sienna wouldn't have anything to do with a married man."

  It was some comfort. If she'd never forgiven her father, she'd hardly be likely to follow his example.

  Brodie wasn't married. So that theory didn't explain why she was so determined to keep him at arm's length.

  When he saw Sienna slide from her seat he put down his coffee cup and said, "You ready to go?"

  Camille nodded and got up. They were outside the door by the time Sienna joined them.

  Back at the house Camille said good-night, but Sienna hesitated, slowly removing the jacket she wore over a short-sleeved shirt and dress jeans. Brodie took her arm and drew her into the living room. "A nightcap?" he suggested.

  Her upward glance told him she remembered the last time they'd shared one. "No," she said. "Thanks."

  He went to the kitchen and poured one for himself while she stood in the middle of the room, seeming undecided about something. With the counter still between them he took a sip of whiskey. "That was a pretty intense conversation you were having with whatsisname," he said.

  She looked up, appearing to have difficulty focusing on him. "Aidan has … problems."

  "Yeah?" Brodie wasn't really interested in Aidan's problems unless they affected Sienna. "You were lending a sympathetic ear." He winced inwardly at the unintended sneer in his tone.

  Sienna didn't seem to have noticed. "Brodie…" She turned to face him properly. "Could you get me that mourning ring?"

  For a moment he didn't connect, the change of subject was so complete. Then it clicked. "Drummond's ring? What the hell for?"

  She threw her jacket down on the sofa and walked over to stand at the other side of the low counter. "I need it," she said tensely. "It's important."

  "It's evidence. Once Rogan gets here with Joe—which should be in a day or two—"

  "I know." She looked down at the counter, clasped her hands tightly together. "It's … it may be a matter of life and death."

  Brodie's brain went into overdrive. This had come out of her date with Aidan. What the hell did her department head, with whom she seemed to be on intimate terms, have to do with Drummond's murder?

  Gradually a series of unrelated facts started to coalesce, making some kind of pattern. The artifacts stolen from the laboratory at Rusden, where Aidan had necessarily been let in on the secret of their origin by Sienna. Drummond's antiquities-smuggling trade, his connection with the mystery man who had hired Joe—and murdered Drummond. And now Aidan turning up out of the blue and Sienna demanding the ring that would identify the killer's victim.

  The pattern was incomplete—pieces missing, the shape amorphous—but it was there. "A matter of life and death?" he repeated, putting down the glass in his hand with a small thud. "Yours or your precious Aidan's?"

  Sienna blinked at him. "He's not my precious Aidan."

  "Then why the hell are you trying to save his skin?" Brodie demanded ferociously. He came round the counter and gripped her shoulders, giving her a furious, unblinking stare, ignoring her efforts to free herself. "That's what this is about, isn't it? Is he our Mr. X?"

  "What?" She stopped struggling to gape at him in obvious, unfeigned astonishment. "No! Aidan's not a murderer! He's just—"

  "Just what?" Brodie said between his teeth.

  "He's caught up in something that's gone beyond his control. I can't tell you everything—I promised. But I made him promise to go to the police when—when it's safe."

  "Safe?" His scowl was petrifying. "What's going to make him safe?"

  "Brodie, please! Just give me the ring."

  "And no questions asked? I don't think so, hon. My guess is it will conveniently disappear, and then the killer—presumably the same guy who was trying to wipe us out with a submachine gun, or his boss—will be free to kill again."

  Sienna bit her lip. "I tried telling Aidan all that, but—"

  "Then why," Brodie grated, giving her a small shake out of sheer frustration and anger, "are you protecting him?"

  "Not him," Sienna cried. "His daughter!"

  "His … daughter?" Brodie's hold slackened and Sienna wrenched herself free.

  "He has a little girl," she said. "Six years old. They told Aidan that if he doesn't get the ring … he'd wish she'd never been born."

  Brodie stared at her, his stomach churning, his anger turning to cold fury and disgust. "My God! They really are the scum of the earth."

  "He's terrified that if he goes to the police they'll carry out their threat."

  "How the hell did he get into this in the first place?"

  "I promised—"

  "You might as well tell me the rest."

  Sienna looked at his implacable expression and reluctantly said, "Aidan was being blackmailed. Years ago, before he got his present appointment at the university, he took some Maori adzes and ornaments from an archaeological site he was working on and sold them to a dealer. At the time he was very short of money, with a new baby and his wife to support—she's a rather … well, demanding sort of woman, his wife."

  "So he's a crook." Brodie's lips curled.

  "He thought he'd get away with it once. Then the dealer insisted on more. Of course if anyone had found out Aidan would have lost his job and never got another in his field. And probably his wife would have left him, taking Pixie with her."

  "Pixie?"

  "That's what he calls his daughter. He adores her."

  "This dealer was Drummond?" Brodie guessed.

  "No. But you know how small this country is. Everyone knows someone who knows someone… I suppose James Drummond sniffed around his contacts in the illegal trade and found out that Aidan was vulnerable to pressure, so he or someone working for him—apparently it was done by phone—persuaded Aidan to make sure I was out of the way while they burgled the laboratory."

  Brodie's eyebrows drew together. "Out of the way?"

  "I was spending too much time there, working on the wreck artifacts. He put something in my coffee at work."

  Brodie swore violently. "Camille said you'd had food poisoning."

  Sienna recoiled slightly, and gave a faint, twisted smile. "It wasn't meant to kill me, just keep me home for a night or two." With a flash of anger she added, "He seems to thin
k he did me a favor, maybe saved me from being knocked on the head. The thieves got the goods, but their principal wanted the notes too."

  "Proof, if you had any, that the source of the artifacts was the Maiden's Prayer—the gold-ship. I suppose access to the treasure was his price for helping Drummond skip the country. But once Drummond had taken his friend to the wreck site he was dispensable. So Mr. X killed Drummond and threw him overboard." Brodie took a breath. "And your Aidan was aiding and abetting those bastards."

  "While I was in hospital Aidan tried to find the notes. Only they were on a disk and I'd asked Camille to keep it safe until I was better. I thought when he visited so often he was being a good friend." She paused there. "It must have been frustrating for him—if he ever got the chance to look in my bag he didn't find anything."

  "So then they went after you."

  "He didn't know about any of that. Or what happened on the way here. He's not one of them, Brodie. He broke the law and he's been very stupid, but none of that is Pixie's fault."

  "It's the ring Mr. X is after now," Brodie said. "Because it identifies his victim. And he thought you had it, or could get it? Joe must have told him I'd handed it over to you when I found it. That's why Mr. X sent Aidan." He snapped his fingers. "Aidan—he must know who this guy is!"

  Sienna shook her head. "Aidan swears it was all done by phone."

  Something teased at Brodie. He recalled Rogan looking down at a business card in his hand. "That guy who wanted to invest, he was in shipping. Fraser … Cooper? Con … Conran!"

  "Aren't you jumping to conclusions?"

  "He arrived just as you were showing me your dive fitness certificate. I wonder…"

  "What?"

  "If he thought it was notes about the Maiden's Prayer?"

  "That's a bit of a leap of logic."

  "It's possible. They'd drawn a blank with your luggage, and why wouldn't you have been sharing your findings with us once you got to the Sea-Rogue?"

  "Camille and I put them on the computer."

  "There was no way he could know that."

  "The thing is," Sienna reminded him impatiently, "what are we going to do about Pixie?"

  "I'm not letting you give that ring to Aidan."

  "Brodie! She's a child. A child in danger—you can't let them hurt her!"

  "I won't. And I won't let them hurt you, either," he said forcefully. "She's not the only one in danger. Does Aidan know where the ring is?"

  Sienna shook her head. "He knows it's not with the other things in my workroom." She bit her lip. "I … suppose I sort of let slip that it's not with the things we stored in Auckland, cither."

  Brodie didn't comment on that, though his eyes briefly flared. "So … he'd probably guess that we've got it somewhere here—or that we've handed it to the police. That'd make him sweat a bit."

  "I should have told Aidan that's what we'd done!" Sienna exclaimed. "That would have let him off the hook."

  "Not necessarily. There's no guarantee Mr. X would believe it. Okay, let's see if we can persuade this scumbag to come out of the woodwork and show his stinkin' face."

  Chapter 14

  « ^ »

  On Friday morning Brodie took the mourning ring from the safe at the shop and looked at it closely—the coiled snake around the enameled center, the exquisitely pictured urn.

  He tried it on the middle finger of his right hand. It wouldn't fit, and instead he slipped it on the third finger, pushing it down past the knuckle until it was firm.

  Then he went to the hotel and asked that Aidan Rutherford be told he had a visitor.

  The desk clerk put down the phone and said, "Mr. Rutherford will be right down, sir."

  It was a few minutes before Aidan appeared, looking apprehensive, then surprised, then worried. "What are you doing here?" he blurted out.

  "Were you expecting someone else?" Brodie asked.

  Aidan shook his head uncertainly. "Is Sienna … is she all right?"

  "What the hell do you care?" Brodie snarled. He couldn't help it, despite an earlier resolution that he'd conduct himself civilly with this pathetic excuse for a man. The guy had poisoned Sienna, lied to her, put her in danger, and now expected her to pull him out of the hole he'd dug for himself and his family by handing over vital evidence—making herself, Brodie supposed, an accessory to murder.

  Aidan blinked, paled, and a nerve twitched under one eye. "I care very much for Sienna," he said, drawing himself up in an attempt at dignity. "I … would hate any harm to come to her."

  But he'd sacrifice her in an instant for his daughter. Brodie supposed grudgingly that he couldn't be blamed for that—but he was completely culpable for all that had gone before, leading up to this point. "Can we talk in your room?" he suggested grimly.

  Aidan seemed to measure his size, and not be reassured by it. He cast a nervous look around them, and Brodie lifted his right hand briefly to rub at his chin.

  Aidan's eyes became riveted on Brodie's fingers and he went an even whiter shade of pale. Almost inaudibly, he said, "You'd better come upstairs."

  When Brodie returned to the house he still wore the ring. Sienna, having coffee with Camille, noticed it immediately and threw him an accusing glance.

  He helped himself to coffee and sat down opposite them. Camille exclaimed, "Brodie! What are you doing with that ring?"

  "Showing to whom it may concern that Sienna doesn't have it," he replied.

  Sienna slowly put her cup down, a simmering anger building.

  Brodie continued calmly, "I hope it will bring our Mr. X out in the open."

  Sienna's heart plunged in fear. Trying not to screech at him, she said with ominous calm, "You're setting yourself up as a target—to protect me?"

  Brodie shrugged. He looked infuriatingly relaxed and confident, a man in charge of his own fate—and hers.

  Sienna pushed back her chair and stood up. "How dare you!" she said, her voice shaking with rage.

  "What?" She had the satisfaction of seeing his smug self-confidence waver into wary surprise.

  "You walked out this morning without telling me a thing except that I was to stay put and trust you! And now you're turning yourself into a walking target. What are you going to do, wave that ring around until someone jumps you like they did Joe and beats you to a pulp—or worse?"

  "I won't let them do that."

  "Oh, no, of course not!" Sienna tossed at him. "You're the big, tough, macho hero who's going to grind the baddies into the dust! I thought you'd given up on being invincible. Have you forgotten how you got that scar on your arm?"

  He looked at her reproachfully. "I wish you'd stop harping on that. This time I'm prepared."

  "And I wish you would stop treating like me like a child!" Reminded, she added, "How is this supposed to help. Pixie?"

  Camille, who'd been interestedly looking from one to the other of them, said, "Pixie? Who's—you mean Aidan's little girl?"

  "Yes," Sienna confirmed, and quickly explained.

  Camille's expression changed from bewilderment to horror. "Surely they wouldn't really—"

  "They might," Sienna said. "And it's too big a risk to take. Aidan certainly believes them." She turned to Brodie again. "For God's sake—for Pixie's sake—cut out the heroics and just let Aidan hand over the damned ring!"

  "That would nix the chance of nailing this guy for murder," Brodie pointed out. "And then he'd be free to kill again—maybe some other innocent child."

  But this child was in clear and present danger. Before she could point that out he said, "It's okay, Sienna. The kid and her mother are safe. There's a plainclothes policewoman in the house posing as a visiting friend, and the cops have it under surveillance. At the first sign of trouble they'll be in there."

  Sienna digested that. "You contacted the police? Does Aidan know that?"

  "No. There's a chance he might do something stupid and tip off the crooks. He's told the guy I've got the ring."

  Her fear and anger rising again,
Sienna said, "I suppose that was your idea? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

  He slanted her a grin. "Nice to know you worry about me."

  She was torn between a desire to slap the self-satisfied smirk from his face and a contradictory one to fling herself on him with a mad idea of protecting him from the harm he was inviting. "Someone has to," she retorted. "You've been so gung ho about looking after my safety, it might as well be me."

  He grinned wider at her bitter tone, then unexpectedly reached across the counter between them and grasped her shoulders, giving her a quick, hard kiss on her mouth. "Thank you, hon."

  Annoyed to find she was blushing under Camille's delighted stare, she scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. "I'm not your hon! I've got a name."

  His eyebrows rose at that. "Sien-na," he crooned. "It's a beautiful name. Like its owner. Even when she's cross with me."

  "Oh, shut up! You patronizing, male chauvinist … idiot!"

  He laughed as she stuttered into frustrated silence and simply glared at him.

  The laughter died and he looked at his watch. "I have to go."

  "Where?" she demanded. "Are you planning to stand in the middle of town and wave the ring until Mr. X notices?"

  "I'm going to the shop. In my four-wheel drive so no one can jump me on the way. And when I get there my new assistant will be waiting for me."

  "What new assistant?"

  "A detective from Whangarei. The Mokohina cop got on to them early this morning. Don't you worry your purty li'l head, Miz Scarlett—everything's taken care of. You just sit tight, don't let anyone in, and wait until it's all over."

  Torn between relief, annoyance at his deliberate provocation and continuing anxiety, Sienna made an inarticulate sound of frustration.

  She tried to work, to blot out what Brodie was up to. He had left the house in his big vehicle with an ostentatious roar of the engine and a couple of toots of the horn. Making sure, she supposed, that anyone who might happen to be watching knew he'd gone. He even waved his right hand out of the driver's window, .so that the sun glinted momentarily on the ring. Did he know she was standing in the living area, watching his departure and praying? Or was the gesture meant to reinforce to any hidden watcher the fact that the damning ring was no longer in the house—and ensure Sienna's and Camille's safety?