“Aunt Jesula?” He knocked again.
“Dat big bird gone?”
He jerked around to find her standing at the top of the steps, the tails of her head scarf fluttering but otherwise so still she might have been a statue. How did she manage such stealth?
Glancing past her, he saw the two guards stop a safe distance away, far enough that Jesula couldn’t accuse them of eavesdropping, near enough that if there was trouble, they could deal with it. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that their presence gave him comfort.
“Yes, it’s gone. Are you okay?”
She sat in the nearest rocker. “No big bird in da sky gonna hurt me.”
“Probably not, but to be safe, Simon would like you to stay in the village tonight. Will you do that?”
She tilted her head to one side. “If Simon want, why he send you?”
“You know why.”
After a moment, she gave a great laugh that shook her entire body. “He learned to be a-feared of me over da years, but not you, eh?”
He laughed, too. “I know what a sweetheart you really are.”
Her mirth subsided, but enough remained to give him a smile. “Maybe for you I do it.” Then, before he could respond, she asked, “Dem come because of her, didn’ dey?”
“Her? You mean Lisette?”
“Lissette.” Jesula made the s’s hiss, then shook her head slowly. “Dat girl always had a way of attractin’ attention. Dem men. Da spirits. Dey watchin’ her, you know.”
He sat in the second rocker, leaning toward the old woman. “Aunt Jesula, maybe Lisette reminds you of someone else, but this is her first visit to the island. She has no ties to Deux Saints.”
Stubbornly she shook her head again. “I know her. Da spirit ’round here—” she swirled her hand in a circle above her head “—him know her. Him know she come for da shiny girl, just like dem said she would. Him want her to have it, to take it far, far from here.”
A shadow fell over the clearing, fleeting but cold, as if the lone bit of sunshine that cleared the maze of branches had turned to ice. It raised gooseflesh on his arms and along his neck, and it stirred in him an irrational need to take flight.
The island was haunted, he’d told Lisette, but it wasn’t just the spirits. There were secrets and sorrows and surprises, and they were everywhere: part of every building, every tree, the rocks, the beach, the people.
“The shiny girl?” he repeated. “What shiny girl, Aunt Jesula?”
One strong push put her chair in motion, the rockers creaking with every backward stroke. “What live in da tower. I seen her in da village a long time ago, when dere wasn’t no Lissette. She lived wit’ da Blues, all pretty and sparkly. Lord, she sparkle. Like fine glass. Dey said she was carved from stone, but I ain’t never seen no stone sparkly like glass.”
Jack’s system shut down. His heart quit beating, his lungs stopped processing air, his ears just buzzed instead of picking out sounds. All that worked was his eyes, and what they saw wasn’t the scene before him but earlier: the second-floor gallery, sun streaming through the windows, Lisette holding Le Mystère so carefully in her hands. Her stunned look, her quavery voice, her fingers tenderly touching the statue’s gown, the hair, the perfectly rendered feet. Then her retreat, both physical and emotional. Her flight to the beach.
Shiny girl. Oh, yes, the description fit perfectly. The purity of the stone’s color, along with the hundreds of facets, made it look sometimes as if the sun lived inside it.
She come for da shiny girl, just like dem said she would.
Lisette? Come to steal Le Mystère? Jack’s first response was to scoff at the idea, and his second and third, too. But each time the thought repeated in his mind, the words got a little stronger, his certainty a little weaker.
She was a thief, and a damn good one. It took a lot of practice to get that good, and as far as her claim that she only returned stolen property to return to its rightful owners, he had no proof of that. Who took the word of a thief as gospel?
Like any art lover, she’d been dazzled by the pieces on display in the first and second galleries this morning, but her response to Le Mystère had been so much more, almost a religious experience rather than mere appreciation.
She’d known that the only way to get close to the statue was through an invitation from Simon, who’d never been suckered in his entire life, or Jack, who apparently had the word tattooed all over him. She’d intrigued him from his first glimpse in the ballroom, and he’d officially hit besotted on the balcony outside David’s suite, when he’d caught her in the middle of the job.
No one had ever caught Bella Donna.
He’d even rescued her.
No one had ever rescued her. She’d never needed it.
Until she met him.
A few essentially harmless incidents over the next few days were all it had taken for him to sweep her onto the plane and off to the island. She’d cleared the first hurdle to taking Le Mystère as easily as the helicopter had set down in the side yard.
Oh, God, he felt sick. Pressing his hands to his face, he rubbed the throb in his forehead, forced the tension from his jaw and swallowed the bitterness that filled his mouth.
“She’s come to steal the statue.” The words were little more than a whisper. He repeated them, stronger this time, and knew it was true. Knew it in his bones and his blood and his heart.
Jesula shrugged. “Steal. Reclaim. Da same t’ing, dependin’ whether you owns it now or you owned it afore.”
“But Le Mystère has been in the family forever. She can’t reclaim what was never hers.”
Sympathy softened Jesula’s features. “You know da problem wit’ people, Jack? We too trustin’. People say what dey want us to believe, and until someone else comes along with proof to da contrary, we believe it. Da shiny girl ain’t always belonged to the Toussaints. One of dem bought it, and another one give it away. Simon’s great-great-great give it to Lissette’s great-great-great for savin’ his life time and again. Den when dat gen’leman died, his son, him wanted it back. Killed her great-great-great but never found out where da shiny girl was hid.”
There it was again, that sense in his bones and his blood and his heart that what she said was true. Le Mystère wasn’t the legitimate-legally-acquired-honest-and-aboveboard treasure of a lifetime. It was just one more thing the family had spilled blood for.
Lisette’s family blood.
He leaned back in the rocker, unsure whether the creak accompanying his movement came from the chair, the floor or somewhere deep inside him. His stomach heaved, but he clenched his jaw. Sweat dotted his forehead, and he shoved his hand across it, trying to breathe in nothing but pure air.
Short, shallow breaths fed his need for oxygen and calmed his stomach for the moment. He still felt sick, still felt tightness and anger and hurt in every pore, but he wasn’t going to break yet.
“You said you saw the girl in the village. If Simon’s great-great didn’t find it when they killed the man it had been given to, when did they get it back?”
Jesula stared off into the distance, slowly rocking. After exhaling a long breath, she fixed her solemn gaze on his. “When dey kill Levi Blue. Her cursed ’em. Said she wouldn’t rest until da shiny girl was back where she belong. Marley Blue... Lord, she love dat man. Woulda died wit’ him if not for dat baby.”
Jack had heard the name before, while cleaning the broken china in Lisette and Padma’s dining room: Marley bought all these dishes. And just a while ago on the beach: I’ve seen her sit for hours, entranced by some of the stuff she and Marley recovered.
Marley Malone. Marley Blue. The original Bella Donna. Lisette’s mother.
Dear God above, what was he going to do?
Chapter 12
After lunch, with guards on watch, Lis
ette and Padma dragged chaises onto the emerald green grass and stretched out in the sun. No sooner had they settled than the stone building that housed the island’s administrative offices caught Lisette’s attention. She took a deep, apprehensive breath, swung her feet to the ground, then said in a hopefully casual tone, “Hey, Padma, I need to talk to Simon. Do you mind?”
Instantly Padma’s gaze sharpened on her. “About what?”
“Candalaria.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, please. It won’t take long. Just stay there.”
Padma stared at her a long time. There was mostly curiosity in her expression, but also a little bit of suspicion. Doubt. The fact that she’d earned them hurt.
But Padma covered the emotions by putting on dark glasses and tilting her face up to the sun. “Okay. Sure. I’ll be around.”
Lisette told the nearest guard what she wanted. He spoke into the mic attached to the shoulder of his shirt, then gestured to the trail leading north through the gardens. It wasn’t a bad commute to work—all of two minutes if one dallied, which she very much wanted to do.
But then they were there, and an earnest young man showed her to the boss’s office. An earnest young woman offered her coffee, water or tea before closing the door behind her as she left.
“Interns,” Simon said from behind the desk. “We have six kids in college this year. They come home when they can and work, and if they want a job when they graduate, they get it. It’s fall break for those two.”
She eased a few feet closer. “Does the island pay for their education?”
“Yes.”
“Live in paradise, learn a trade, find a career. Is the next question they face, ‘Should I stay or should I go?’”
“For some of them. Some careers demand more than we can offer. No police department, military, hospital, law firm and so on.” Simon pushed a pile of papers to the side, then settled back. “Have a seat.”
Lisette didn’t want to. Didn’t want to talk to him at all. But she stepped around the oversize armchair and sat. He didn’t offer small talk, and she didn’t want it. She just wanted to say what she needed and get out, hopefully with his promise of help.
Simon shifted, obviously impatient for her to get to the reason she’d interrupted his day. Wishing she’d taken time to rehearse her proposal, she took a breath, opened her mouth...and entirely the wrong words came out.
“My family was among the original settlers of Île des Deux Saints. One of your ancestors rewarded one of my ancestors for his allegiance with the gift of a statue. Unfortunately, another of your ancestors killed mine in a failed attempt to take it back. Twenty-eight years ago your father regained possession of it. Unfortunately for my mother and for me, my father was killed in the process.”
Simon stared at her, his eyes gone flat, his jaw dropped open. She was equally stunned. Only the worst fool gave her target advance notice of her plans. She’d be lucky if she didn’t wind up locked in a closet with armed guards until the first opportunity to banish her from the island. What the hell was she thinking?
Lisette believed he was an honorable man. True, she didn’t know him well, but Jack did, and he loved and respected him. But this outrageous declaration...
It was live or die. Either Simon acknowledged her claim on the statue, or its security became impenetrable. There’d be no second chance to fulfill Marley’s lifelong goal, to protect Levi’s legacy. She would have failed at the most important task she’d ever been given and disappointed her parents completely.
Lisette tried to take another deep breath, but her lungs were too tight. “That statue was Le Mystère.” Her voice quivered, then grew strong as she straightened her spine, lifted her chin and steadied her gaze. “I’m Levi Blue’s daughter, and I’ve come to take it back.”
Silence settled, sharp and edgy. Simon continued to stare at her, his expression dark with disbelief. Whether it was for her story, she didn’t know. No one wanted to hear that his father was a murderer, no matter how strained their relationship had been, and certainly no one would ever expect an apparently sane individual to walk into his office and demand a statue that truly was priceless.
“What the hell are you doing?”
The emotion-slashed voice came from behind Lisette, startling her. She swiveled around to see Jack, his face flushed bronze, his eyes stormy, his jaw clenched so tight it must hurt. Pain throbbed in her chest, so real she pressed one hand to her heart, as she realized that he knew. He knew who she was. Why she was here. That she had used him.
Dear God, this was going to kill her.
* * *
On the trek from Jesula’s cabin to Simon’s office, Jack had prayed to the gods, the angels and saints and spirits, for this day to end. He would have said all the same prayers and given half his fortune for it not to have begun at all, but then he walked down the hall to Simon’s office and heard Lisette’s sweet, sexy, lying voice, and he’d added his whole fortune to the deal. Just please, someone, make it stop.
He stalked into the room, seeing Simon first. He looked the way he had when his mother died in an earthquake in some remote Peruvian valley. Jack wanted Lisette to feel the same pain as he turned in a menacing circle around her.
“God, you’re a good liar. I believed damn near everything you said to me. Hell, I believed everything you didn’t say. But that’s what you do, isn’t it? Be whoever your target wants you to be, lie and deceive and pretend. What’s your game this time? What’s the point of telling him you came to steal ‘da shiny girl’?”
Looking surprised and hurt—damned liar—she got to her feet. She took a step toward him and flinched when he backed away. Before she could say anything, though, Simon did, distantly, numbly.
“Da shiny girl. I remember hearing stories... Da shiny girl ran away from home and was placed in a tower where her parents couldn’t see her. Or she ducked out of school and was taken by a monster who locked her away, or she disobeyed and the spirits flew off with her and broke her parents’ hearts. She always broke her parents’ hearts.” His smile was thin and bitter. “I thought it was some kind of cautionary tale. I didn’t know... I never connected it to Le Mys...”
He let the word trail off. His gaze shifted from Jack to Lisette, then back again. “Is what she said true? That my father...killed her father?”
Sorrow competed with the pain inside Jack. He’d never liked Simon Senior, had always distrusted and feared him, but he’d never imagined having to answer a question like that. “I—Jesula says... Yes. Not himself, of course. He had someone do it.”
Simon’s shock wavered into something sad and painful to see, then into a grimace. “Of course. He never liked doing dirty work himself.” He pushed away from the chair and walked to the window. “I feel like I should be angry. Insisting you’re wrong, Jesula’s wrong, Lisette’s lying. He was my father, after all. But...he was my father. It feels...”
Right. Jack laid his hand on Simon’s shoulder. There wasn’t much he could say. Simon wouldn’t find comfort in hearing that had been Jack’s reaction, too, that he’d known immediately Senior was guilty. Senior had just been that way: power colored by wealth, corrupted by superiority and wearing the ugly tinge of just plain meanness.
“Is there any proof?”
Jack shrugged.
“Toinette!”
Simon’s shout made Lisette cringe. She’d never heard him raise his voice, Jack realized, and had never heard that much emotion in it. The petty place inside him was glad it startled her and hoped it stirred some serious fear. Simon could be fierce, and she damn well deserved to see it for herself.
Toinette hustled into the room, gaze skimming, curiosity piquing, before settling on Simon.
“When did Le Mystère show up in our collection?”
Toinette tapped the screen of her tablet. “
Just because I digitized all those old records does not make me the Deux Saints art historian, now does it?” Without pausing for breath, she went on. “It was first listed 239 years ago when Raphael Toussaint acquired it. It shows up in the inventories for forty-five years, and then it doesn’t. According to my notes, two pages of the original records from the time it dropped off had been torn from the ledger. It reappeared in the inventories twenty-eight years ago.”
Jack and Simon exchanged looks, then Simon said, “If you’re trying to regain a valuable that your father had given away...”
“First you destroy the evidence he’d given it away. You claim it was stolen. Turn the victim into the villain. But Jesula says the statue was hidden so well, no one outside the family could find it. What about the name Blue, Toinette? What do your records say about that?” Jack’s gaze locked with Lisette’s as micro-expressions flitted across her face, so natural, so real, she probably wasn’t even aware of them. Sadness. Heartbreak. Guilt.
Toinette’s fingers tapped again. “There’s a long list of Blues on the island census. The first was on the original crew, and the last was Levi, son of Elijah and Sarah, husband of Marley Malone Blue. Hey—” She smiled at Lisette. “Is that—”
“Go on,” Jack said curtly.
After another look around the room, Toinette returned her attention to the tablet. “Both Levi and Marley Blue died on the water twenty-eight years ago. They went out at night, presumably to fish, and their boat sank. Their bodies—” she gave Lisette a cautious look “—were never found. Just bits of belongings.”
The statue disappearing from the inventory, the pages that would have told why ripped out, the diamond reappearing at the same time Levi Blue died...it was proof enough for him, probably enough for Simon.
It was impossible to tell how much Toinette had gleaned from the discussion so far, but he figured it was enough when she spoke quietly. “We have a fair number of residents who were alive when—when Levi and Marley Blue died. Do you want me to ask them to share their accounts?”
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